To be fair, nearly two weeks had passed between the time Blackman answered the questions and they ran on GameSpy. But when Galaxies players read the interview, they went into an uproar. For many, this was the last straw. In their minds, not only was LucasArts refusing to discuss the problems with the Jedi, but now they felt LucasArts was misleading the public and putting words in the mouth of the Jedi community. As a result of this interview, GameSpy.com's feedback address was flooded with strong e-mails from extremely outraged Jedi demanding to be heard:

"I and every other Jedi will tell you that that is a lie. Absolutely nowhere on the forums will you see positive feedback from the Jedi."
- Andrew W, Jedi, Ahazi
"That is just a bold-faced lie plain and simple…. Jedi, regardless of level, are one of the weakest classes in the game due to lack of defenses and offensive damage types. Where is the payoff Haden spoke of?
- Marty F. Jedi, Radiant
"I feel that some Jedi may be happy with the system, but the majority (at least the ones I know and talk to regularly) find it lacking. There was much fuming about Haden's statements on the internal Jedi forum."
- Darron S., Jedi, Ahazi
GameSpy's mail was so flooded with reports from the Galaxies community that we started researching this feature to present both sides of the story. The problem is, as with any MMOG, the story keeps changing! Realizing that dissatisfaction with the Jedi had reached the boiling point, the developers took action.

Always in Motion the Future is

Just as our research for this feature was underway, Sony posted the following in their forums:

Always in motion is the future: Changes to the Jedi System I would like to start this post by saying thanks to everyone for the long and heartfelt conversations about this hot topic over the past few months. It is an issue that is very passionate to everyone involved. We have been reading the boards, reading e-mail, listening to people who spoke with us and have had many discussions internally.

It has been agreed that the development team should revamp the Jedi system.

This process is going to take some time, so it will happen in several phases. The first phase is to make some changes (where possible) to alleviate some short-term discomfort with gameplay. The second phase will be to rebuild the Jedi system to be quest-oriented; and to include the familiar elements of Force Sensitivity, Jedi-oriented quests, as well as many other elements the developers and the community feel should make up the process of becoming a Jedi. (It should also be noted that players who have put in work towards becoming a Jedi will not lose their effort. Some sort of recognition of players' efforts will be included in the new system.)
The key change? The removal of the "permadeath" system. Game designers were doing everything they could to listen to players and rebalance the system:
"(T)he revision was based largely on feedback from the community. After working so hard to become a Jedi, the permadeath was way too painful."
- Haden Blackman
"To be blunt, most players didn't like the system. During development, we thought we had a pretty clever system that met our stated design goals. At the end of the day, though, we need to answer to the players. In this case, a majority of players told us very clearly what they did and didn't like and we listened."
- Kevin O'Hara "Q-3PO"
Other aspects of the game that are being added include more elaborate dungeons and intricate missions with large "boss creatures." There will also be more storyline-oriented events that should work to increase the Star Wars feeling of the game. "Imperial Crackdown" will enhance the Empire's presence in the game and drive Rebel recruiters to backrooms and make life tougher for Rebel players. It's not so much a change in the game direction as a realization of the original goal:

"Our adding new dungeons is not indicative of a shift in the design philosophy of the game from being open-ended and role-player friendly to a more structured, quest-oriented system. I think we made an awesome open-ended game with a wide variety of role-playing activities for the players to take part in. But we took note of some of the criticisms we got for lack of static content and are concentrating on upping the level of dungeons and theme parks as a way of making the game even better. "
- Kevin O'Hara "Q-3PO"
"I'd add that it was never a philosophy of the game design to avoid having static content. We did launch with a fair amount of static content. Moving forward, our plan is replete with more of this type of content, including new dungeons, city revisions, and lots of static quests to complement the open-ended content that already exists. Both open-ended and "structured" content will continue to be role-player friendly."
- Haden Blackman