Update: Soe is now offering a refund, probably due to the massive complaints they received and/or to avoid bad presss.
I played SWG for a few months on the European Infinity server. Especially in the 1st 2 months or so, I had a lot of fun. (Thanks to OneHungLow, Cara, Azul, Skevans, Cami, Zaknafein and others I might have forgotten). But the constant changing of the game, horrible lag and especially the huge bugs, made me quit and pick up WoW and now City of Villains. Also their price of $30,- for yet another expansion (trials of Obi Wan) with little content pissed me off. But I still read the forums and listen to the Galaxy Report podcast to see what’s up.
Much to my surprise, there was a LOT up on the forums today when I checked them out, read about the new combat upgrade (though they call it new and exciting changes this time around) :
Star War Galaxies revamp announced, ONE DAY after expension goes live. SOE deceived their customers into buying a $30,- expansion, knowing most of the stuff you can get in that expansion will be useless once this revamp goes live on Nov. 15th.
So what about the EULA ? As someone posted on the forums (on screen name Daker-Naritus):
The EULA means nothing…. (a) Purposefully and knowingly concealing information about the revamp to encourage and ensure that players buy the expansion (and announcing it one day after you charge them) is fraud any way you slice it. No EULA can protect SOE from their overt acts; and (b) clickthrough agreements aren’t even enforcable in many states.
If this isnt bad business practice, I dont know what is…
They have been hiding this upgrade even for some of their own communication employees, that they didnt quit yet is totally beyond me (well they might have a morgage to pay) ! They have been answering questions, announcing upcoming changes to professions, knowing fully well, they will never ever happen, because they have this new CU coming ! Well I’ll stop here, might update this post every now and then when things become more clear, but it’s obvious I am pissed off at the kind of crap these big companies can pull.
For anyone interested what this CU entails, there is info on the gamespot site. Not only does SOE not even bother by informing their customers, they leave that up to a gamer’s info site.
