It sounds like some of you guys dont get the point of the article lol.
Did you even read the last one he wrote on the same subject? This is a continuation, a series of articles about a single subject. he made the actual point clear in article number one, this is just another dimension of it. Nobody has misunderstood what he is writing about, but if you only read this one, then you wont understand the discussion, so you will misunderstand the answers and.. with that.. the whole discussion. So laugh if you want, you dont even know what you laugh about.
And to the smartypants above that:
If you write somehting, or someone else write something you agree with, then its "Freedom of speech" If someone diasagree with you, or someone you agree with, and frankly think they are full of manure, then its "Against freedom of speech" or as you say "Its them darn foreigners again!!" Now put on your white little robe and hood if you want, I still think you need to read up on that "freedom of speech" thingy again. Disagreeing is kinda a big part of that too. If people have to agree to be valid, then its neither a democracy or freedom of speech. But then what do I know.... I am just a damn foreigner from a country with a democracy for more years than your country has existed... Looking at our history, you are just a bunch of european tourists that were too stupid to find your way back to the boats. A genepool built on the people that could not grow a potato or get enough crops to make a loaf of bread in the greenest, most fertile damn countries in the world. So yeah... Start blaming it on the foreigners will ya.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
SWG was a very good and fun to play game until they changed it to an actual "leveling" game, i feel they tried to copy off of WoW. Plus the fact that everyone could be a jedi was dumb imo. Remake it to the way it used to be.
Here is were the SWG fanbois just miss the mark. The issue with SWG wasn't the crafting system, or the entertainers or anything else implemented, it was that it didn't belong in SWG. SWG was never about SW it was a generic Sci-Fi crafting/dancing/grindfest. Was the crafting good, sure the best ever done. Should it have been in a SW game. Heck no. That's not to say what they have replaced it with has hit the mark either, it sucks too.
It sounds like some of you guys dont get the point of the article lol.
Did you even read the last one he wrote on the same subject? This is a continuation, a series of articles about a single subject. he made the actual point clear in article number one, this is just another dimension of it. Nobody has misunderstood what he is writing about, but if you only read this one, then you wont understand the discussion, so you will misunderstand the answers and.. with that.. the whole discussion. So laugh if you want, you dont even know what you laugh about.
And to the smartypants above that:
If you write somehting, or someone else write something you agree with, then its "Freedom of speech" If someone diasagree with you, or someone you agree with, and frankly think they are full of manure, then its "Against freedom of speech" or as you say "Its them darn foreigners again!!" Now put on your white little robe and hood if you want, I still think you need to read up on that "freedom of speech" thingy again. Disagreeing is kinda a big part of that too. If people have to agree to be valid, then its neither a democracy or freedom of speech. But then what do I know.... I am just a damn foreigner from a country with a democracy for more years than your country has existed... Looking at our history, you are just a bunch of european tourists that were too stupid to find your way back to the boats. A genepool built on the people that could not grow a potato or get enough crops to make a loaf of bread in the greenest, most fertile damn countries in the world. So yeah... Start blaming it on the foreigners will ya.
You seem a little uptight there bud.
Anyhow... no the first article i did not read your right, but i did read the title of this one and the accompanying article below it
So rather then get upset at everyone for having thier own opinions and snapping at everyone for posting them, maybe you should loosen up? maybe a quote from the stated article to help your points along would help or even a link as i didnt expect to have to read anymore when the statements say "read the whole column here" lol.
I think that SW was big enough IP to get a ton of players to try a game which basically was poorly designed for the mass market (as the editorial points out). A small percentage of those actually liked the total sandbox "content is a crutch for the weak" style of the game and hung around, making SWG a modest success. It may have only had a few hundred thousand players, but that is far more than is needed to be profitable, and made it the second or third most successful MMORPG of it's day.
Honestly, by making the game so deep and non-linear, the devs did sort of shoot themselves in the foot in terms of true mass market appeal. I'm not saying it was a bad idea, but that's just not how Joe Bagodonuts likes to roll. But then, they shot themselves in the head. Instead of being happy with modest success, they decided to set their existing fanbase on fire and hastilly convert the game into something that might have mass market appeal. This pissed off their existing players enough that they screamed bloody murder, quite in droves, and generated enourmous negative word of mouth and press hype for the game.
They also ended up with something that had little appeal to new players. It takes years of development to craft a balanced and enjoyable RPG of any sort, linear or sandbox. You don't spend years developing a sandbox style game and then spend 6 months trying to slap together a different style of game and just patch it in. What you end up with is a buggy mess and scripted quests that seem amateurish. Joe Bagaodonuts may like his games simple, but he also like them polished. He doesn't have the patience to wade through a shitload of bugs, and he sure as hell isn't going to do it in a game that has an extremely dated graphics engine. The only players that will put up with dated graphics are lyak long term fans. Of course SWG currently doesn't have any of those becuase they basically told them all "f-off, we don't care about you."
If there is any point to this wall of text, it's that I believe the editorial was correct as far as it went. But what the devs should have done a year in was say "Whoops...oh well, lets make damn sure that we keep the 400 K or so players that like this style of game, and polish it up until we can start slowly growing from that base of core players." What they did instead was abysmally stupid.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
This is my own overall verdit of why SWG has not been the success wanted:
SWG has never at any version (Pre-CU, CU, NGE) been polished, bug free, complete or stable to the general acceptance of the MMORPG market.
This is why they lost Japan and continue to loose subs today. Changing philosphies only compounded the troubles that existed with implimenting an incomplete new system.
JYCowboy, despite the psychedelic font sizing, has basically hit the nail on the head on why SWG failed.
I was prepared to write a big long speech on why, but it basically boils down to this...
SOE thought they had a license to make money with the Star Wars IP, so they treated it like they could do anything and the Star Wars nerds would still come.
It did not prove the failure of "Sandbox", it simply reinforced that to underestimate (and abuse) your customer is financial suicide.
Under more sane and capable hands, I am sure SWG would today be seen in a much more positive light. Even as a sandbox.
BTW, I find two things funny about your article...
1. Like someone mentioned above, you never mention that they tried to make the game like you say they should have and it was an even worse failure.
2. You never mention by name the actual culprits behind this disaster, SOE. Intentional or not? I was kind of getting the impression as I read your article that you were wanting us to believe that SWG from the beginning was terrible, hence the utter stupidity that was the NGE implementation may have not been so stupid???
I'm sorry if I'm totally wrong about this, but I'm enjoying this site a lot less since I started getting impressions that SOE is placing some kind of leverage on you guys to not call them out on their fuckups. Like I said maybe I'm totally wrong, but that's the vibe I'm getting.
I think SWG would have been better off being a sci-fi mmo. I'm not sure you can make a good mmo based on SW, mostly because of Jedi. If you have Jedi as npcs people will whine to play one and will loose people because they can't be one. Having an alpha class in a game doesn't work and the lore doesn't support it anyway. You could make Jedi playable, but you need to move the time line, which will lose people because they want Luke and Han, etc. You could keep the time line and have Jedi, but then you lose people because they hate seeing so many Jedi around. SWG can be a nitch. It can be solid, but it can't have mass appeal, because of Jedi. Jedi will always be a catch 22, if you are shooting for Wow numbers.
SWG failed cause of bugs, lack of vision on the dev's part, lack of content, SOE, LA, constant grind, nerf's, bad customer service, listening to crybaby customers, Jedi, basically one of the worst teams to put a game together in MMO history. Played it for 3 years and have to say the only reason i log in is I have a couple of friends there. Fact is most players of SWG could've made a better game
Although I agree that SWG lacked content, using lack of content to explain SWG's failure is incredibly simplistic. There were TONS of problems in SWG, nearly every class had multiple broken abilities, combat was unbalanced, the game was incredibly buggy, continued nerf cycles, JEDI, etc. To top it all off SOE is a horrible company. All that and it still had 300k subscribers at it's peak.
What the editorial does not adequately address, however, is that his own premise has proven to be false. After the SWG genius developers reached the same conclusion in 2005 as the OP, that players needed pre-packaged content to make the game more "casual friendly", they ripped out 90% of the skill system, and replaced it directly with a quest-driven tutorial, a quest-driven game, levels, WOW-style buttons, etc. And you know what happened? The lost all the old players, and gained hardly any new ones.
I don’t think the premise is false. Yeebo’s post above really spells out exactly why.
The only people that didn’t need content in the beginning were the players that were already fans of MMOs. Just making a game multiplayer doesn’t negate the need to have some handholding for those that don’t get it. And since Star Wars had a much broader appeal than EQ it was absolutely foolhardy not to take into consideration that many new players wouldn’t quite get the sandbox concept.
Like television shows MMOs really only get one shot to impress their audience, typically that's at launch. Once players have tested the waters and found them not to their liking they're probably never coming back. If 24 were to suddenly have sappy romantic interludes on every show it wouldn't suddenly change its demographic to include Lifetime channel watchers, it would only alienate the existing loyal fan base. And that exactly what SWG did by forcing content onto a player base that had stuck it out in the sandbox they liked for several years.
While hearty MMO fans will go on at length about what a great game Star Wars was at launch in regards to the open skills system, experimental crafting, and player housing, they almost never say that the theme of the game is what kept them there. KOTOR on the other hand captured that essence. Galaxies could have been a great game, if only it had a compelling story to it from the beginning, which incidentally WoW did six times over at each starting zone.
Steve Wilson Staff Writer www.mmorpg.com
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
First the vast majority of players of World of Warcraft are from asia... over 6million of the 8 million or so. And with the popularity of mmo's in general in asia I doubt very many of those 6+ million are new to mmos... What was it Richard Garriott said, 1 in 10 people in korea have a lineage account?
Secondly, when SWG was at its most popular there were no jedi, there were random events across the servers hosted by GM's that provided players with a good amount of content. What killed swg wasn't so much the lack of "quest driven things to do" but first the bugs that went ignored, followed closely with the lack of a focus on the dev team to provide players with new challenges.
Let's be honest here, you can talk about the "game" in these mmo's all you want however, it is nothing more than a grind. Whether you go to some static npc with a freaking symbol over his head or you go to a terminal you get one of two types of quests: Go kill x amount of mob a, or go deliver this doodad to that person over there somewhere.
Actually the only first gen game to really provide a game I think was SWG... after they removed permadeath and saber TEF from jedi they were an unstoppable character. Like what just about every rpg gamer develops thier single player characters to be. Whether it be BG, Morrowind, Oblivion, Icewind Dale, any of the gold box games, whatever. You become near to god like in your power and you walk around killing anything and everything. Precisely what a fully templated and exceptionally geared jedi could do.
I played SWG for 1 hour and deleted. I came to it late after the make over which, as many have pointed out, dumbed down the game for the WoW generation. Luckily my first mmorpg was Project Entropia, skills based (not levels!) balancing a game is for newbs, great crafting system (make things and make "real" money on a planet wide auction), free to play (in theory) and a first person shooter too. What made it better than SWG was there was no IP - always a tricky concept...when has an IP game ever done well?...and therefor there are no pre conceptions...just a challanging USP.. the whole game is based on a real currency...which is as intense as a game should get. Sounds like I am plugging this game but I am not. Thr most important thing about a game is having fun on line with a load of like minded people. D&D stormreach does this best in my mind! Don't play entropia unless you are old skool hardcore....
Originally posted by JYCowboy This is my own overall verdit of why SWG has not been the success wanted: SWG has never at any version (Pre-CU, CU, NGE) been polished, bug free, complete or stable to the general acceptance of the MMORPG market. This is why they lost Japan and continue to loose subs today. Changing philosphies only compounded the troubles that existed with implimenting an incomplete new system.
I have to agree here. I quit 3 months after the CU was released. Not because of the changes it brought (but I have I think combat was much more fun pre CU, at least it was unique and not a bland copy of everything else on the market). But because of bugs.
I became an armorsmith shortly before the CU, I did my homework and spent a lot on the test server checking out the new system, what new materials was needed etc and I took a chance and bought all those on the live server. The chance was successful, nothing changed from test to live and I became very successful. 1-2 months after the CU 90% of all rebel faction armor on that server was made by me.
So why did I quit? Well making all these suits where very taxing, each suit had 9 parts, 7 of which needed experimenting on. And because of a combination of bugs and bad design very single part of every single suit needed to be made by hand. Making 1 part consisted of as many as 30 mouse clicks and I made in the area of 300 suits times 9 parts times 30 clicks. You do the math... I basically burned out.
There was an option to make these things in a factory instead but because of a combination bugs and design that was not possible. Faction armor used special limited run schematics that could not be used in a factory and with normal armor they introduced a bug in the first bug fixing patch that reseted armor color to default if made in a factory. The default armor colors where so ugly that none would ever buy a suit with them so they all had to be made by hand.
The interesting thing here is that 2 months after the CU they had released 2 bug fix patches and both ADDED bugs to armor making while fixing none. I tried to keep updated with swg for a few months after I quit, I might have missed something but as far as I know this game braking color bug which where introduced in a bug fix patch (it happened because they messed with palettes because they wanted new colors on the new land speeders they released at the same time) had not been fixed by the time NGE was released.
To introduce a bug in a bugfixing patch and then wait several months to fix it (if it was ever fixed) was standard procedure at SOE and that's what killed the game. Features where always more important than bugs and balance.
"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
"GS: Last question, John. What's the one lesson from your two years of seeing Star Wars Galaxies being played, that you wish you knew sooner?
JS: That straight sandbox games don't work. And that we needed to focus much more on the Star Wars experience. I think in the past, what we probably made was the Uncle Owen experience as opposed to the Luke experience. We needed to deliver more of the Star Wars heroic and epic feeling to the game. I think we missed there. That's what I think we really brought to the game [with the update]. "
The author obviously agrees with Smed, I dont, I do think a sandbox game can work but really should be its own IP. Star Wars Galaxies probably should never have been a sandbox to begin with, I probably wouldnt have loved it as much as I did but Im sure a lot of other people would have.
I think it's amusing and kind of astonishing as well as for what the "failures" of SWG been according to some or many posters and the column writer.
Then people claim there was nothing Star Warsy about it and no content to chew on, I say we made it Star Wars. Through organized faction wars, alliances, events, roleplay and more. That is and stays the main difference. We made our game. Others broke their game.
Something along the lines of... Here we are, entertain us. A game is what you make out of it. What the community makes out of it.
I'm sorry but if you fail there, there is only you to blame.
You dont like advanced skill trees, complex character systems, and player freedom.. Ok, we have lots of kids in MMOs nowadays, I guess you are their spokesperson. But for those that created the MMO market, those that made it big and gave it such a buzz that every company in the world wanted to make an MMO to cash in on it, the things you hate is why we loved it.
Brother, I wish I could shake your hand and buy you a beer.
Truth be told however, gamers like us may not even be worth a "niche" anymore. There's too much money involved. No corporate bean counter would ever look our way, and nobody respects the MMO "underground".
Just let those dreams go, bro. The sooner we move on the better. The real world always needs more thinkers.
I think it's amusing and kind of astonishing as well as for what the "failures" of SWG been according to some or many posters and the column writer.
Then people claim there was nothing Star Warsy about it and no content to chew on, I say we made it Star Wars. Through organized faction wars, alliances, events, roleplay and more. That is and stays the main difference. We made our game. Others broke their game.
Something along the lines of... Here we are, entertain us. A game is what you make out of it. What the community makes out of it.
I'm sorry but if you fail there, there is only you to blame.
There is much truth to that. The "guild" wars, role-playing events, the alliances that were forged on certain planets. Even the cantinas full of life and lag . The impromptu(usually squill) hunting trips out of Anchorhead. Actual people and activities going on around you. Player cities were being founded, designed and so on. That is how it was when I first began, about 6 months into SWG going Live. I enjoyed the free-form aspect of it all, having 7 professions in various degrees. Mainly as a crafter I would craft my houses, search for good mining, and explore the lay of the land. Sometimes going for a hunt when crafting became boring.
Alot has changed since then, maybe it was the changes to the whole system. Many people left as a result, emptying out a vibrant World. Its an okay game as it is now, but it has lost the luster of what was once a great game for Star Wars fans.
Ultimately the main problem besides the bugs/balance was the inability for those playing to take the roleplaying quests to another level. They didnt have to "make" new content ALL the time. Just give us more freedom to advance the story on our own. Have events happen that were not announced. A "living" world is what was missing. Honestly everybody wanted Luke, Han, Darth, etc for the characters.... and seriously how they were implemented even to this day is rather LAME.
All in all, I think they should take a break from SWG and work on a new incarnation maybe 5 years from now so that new tech/ideas will be implemented properly.
Something along the lines of... Here we are, entertain us. A game is what you make out of it. What the community makes out of it.
This brings us to an important point. My objections to the OP, among other things, are that he is conflating people who say, "We are here, entertain us," with "casual players" -- as if all casual players want to have the game just handed to them. I simply don't agree. A casual player is just someone who doesn't have the time to invest in playing for hours and hours a day. That doesn't mean that in the 3 hours a week he does play, he is going to want or need everything handed to him. I knew lots of people in SWG, old pre-CU SWG, who only played a few hours a week but still managed to keep a business going and be happy at it. No, they were not the top armorsmith on the server but so the hell what? Only the really hardcore players even wanted that. Casual crafters (as an example) were plenty happy with just enough business to keep themselves in the black.
I just don't hold with the OP's basic premise, which is that casual players want content handed to them, and only hardcore players want to do things like craft or image design.
Looking at our history, you are just a bunch of european tourists that were too stupid to find your way back to the boats. A genepool built on the people that could not grow a potato or get enough crops to make a loaf of bread in the greenest, most fertile damn countries in the world. So yeah... Start blaming it on the foreigners will ya.
Wow....did you really mean to come off looking this ignorant? If so, you really did a fine job....
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Something along the lines of... Here we are, entertain us. A game is what you make out of it. What the community makes out of it.
This brings us to an important point. My objections to the OP, among other things, are that he is conflating people who say, "We are here, entertain us," with "casual players" -- as if all casual players want to have the game just handed to them. I simply don't agree. A casual player is just someone who doesn't have the time to invest in playing for hours and hours a day. That doesn't mean that in the 3 hours a week he does play, he is going to want or need everything handed to him. I knew lots of people in SWG, old pre-CU SWG, who only played a few hours a week but still managed to keep a business going and be happy at it. No, they were not the top armorsmith on the server but so the hell what? Only the really hardcore players even wanted that. Casual crafters (as an example) were plenty happy with just enough business to keep themselves in the black.
I just don't hold with the OP's basic premise, which is that casual players want content handed to them, and only hardcore players want to do things like craft or image design.
C
Yeah, there is quite a important difference. I agree with you.
For those new to the genre the mistakes seemed obvious, there was nothing for new players to do. Actually there were things to do but only for those players that had already played MMOs previously. The true newbie to the genre was simply dumped at a city of their choosing and left to fend for themselves.
Are you for real?! Did you ever play the game at all? I mean, swg introduced me to mmos, and Today I still looking for a game to come even close to what it was, SWG had the best crafting of any game! The reason swg failed, Was because instead of fixing the bugs, the devs changed the game every time in every way possible! The reason WOW is so popular, is because it's the most polished mmo out there, it feels like a single player game, bug-free , still swg in it's early days, was a success, and sure it would still be 2nd in subscriptions, if they would have stayed with the original plan for it.
Why always some people blame against the sandbox or the crafting/enterteiners/Creature Handlers professions when talk about the SWG "failure"?
The problem is NOT the sandbox, the non-combat professions, the player driven economy or the world vs. game stupid debate, the OP points accurately to the lack of content (quest, Galactic Civil War, best dungeons), a game needs situations that providing some action and fun to all professions, but the OP fail when insists in make guilty the sandbox system for the SWG failures.
A MMORPG must be a world and must be a game.
Some sandbox + game content, is a good trade-off, not changue the whole game three times.
Comments
Did you even read the last one he wrote on the same subject? This is a continuation, a series of articles about a single subject. he made the actual point clear in article number one, this is just another dimension of it. Nobody has misunderstood what he is writing about, but if you only read this one, then you wont understand the discussion, so you will misunderstand the answers and.. with that.. the whole discussion. So laugh if you want, you dont even know what you laugh about.
And to the smartypants above that:
If you write somehting, or someone else write something you agree with, then its "Freedom of speech" If someone diasagree with you, or someone you agree with, and frankly think they are full of manure, then its "Against freedom of speech" or as you say "Its them darn foreigners again!!" Now put on your white little robe and hood if you want, I still think you need to read up on that "freedom of speech" thingy again. Disagreeing is kinda a big part of that too. If people have to agree to be valid, then its neither a democracy or freedom of speech. But then what do I know.... I am just a damn foreigner from a country with a democracy for more years than your country has existed... Looking at our history, you are just a bunch of european tourists that were too stupid to find your way back to the boats. A genepool built on the people that could not grow a potato or get enough crops to make a loaf of bread in the greenest, most fertile damn countries in the world. So yeah... Start blaming it on the foreigners will ya.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
budman
trees
product
Did you even read the last one he wrote on the same subject? This is a continuation, a series of articles about a single subject. he made the actual point clear in article number one, this is just another dimension of it. Nobody has misunderstood what he is writing about, but if you only read this one, then you wont understand the discussion, so you will misunderstand the answers and.. with that.. the whole discussion. So laugh if you want, you dont even know what you laugh about.
And to the smartypants above that:
If you write somehting, or someone else write something you agree with, then its "Freedom of speech" If someone diasagree with you, or someone you agree with, and frankly think they are full of manure, then its "Against freedom of speech" or as you say "Its them darn foreigners again!!" Now put on your white little robe and hood if you want, I still think you need to read up on that "freedom of speech" thingy again. Disagreeing is kinda a big part of that too. If people have to agree to be valid, then its neither a democracy or freedom of speech. But then what do I know.... I am just a damn foreigner from a country with a democracy for more years than your country has existed... Looking at our history, you are just a bunch of european tourists that were too stupid to find your way back to the boats. A genepool built on the people that could not grow a potato or get enough crops to make a loaf of bread in the greenest, most fertile damn countries in the world. So yeah... Start blaming it on the foreigners will ya.
You seem a little uptight there bud.
Anyhow... no the first article i did not read your right, but i did read the title of this one and the accompanying article below it
So rather then get upset at everyone for having thier own opinions and snapping at everyone for posting them, maybe you should loosen up?
maybe a quote from the stated article to help your points along would help or even a link as i didnt expect to have to read anymore when the statements say "read the whole column here" lol.
Honestly, by making the game so deep and non-linear, the devs did sort of shoot themselves in the foot in terms of true mass market appeal. I'm not saying it was a bad idea, but that's just not how Joe Bagodonuts likes to roll. But then, they shot themselves in the head. Instead of being happy with modest success, they decided to set their existing fanbase on fire and hastilly convert the game into something that might have mass market appeal. This pissed off their existing players enough that they screamed bloody murder, quite in droves, and generated enourmous negative word of mouth and press hype for the game.
They also ended up with something that had little appeal to new players. It takes years of development to craft a balanced and enjoyable RPG of any sort, linear or sandbox. You don't spend years developing a sandbox style game and then spend 6 months trying to slap together a different style of game and just patch it in. What you end up with is a buggy mess and scripted quests that seem amateurish. Joe Bagaodonuts may like his games simple, but he also like them polished. He doesn't have the patience to wade through a shitload of bugs, and he sure as hell isn't going to do it in a game that has an extremely dated graphics engine. The only players that will put up with dated graphics are lyak long term fans. Of course SWG currently doesn't have any of those becuase they basically told them all "f-off, we don't care about you."
If there is any point to this wall of text, it's that I believe the editorial was correct as far as it went. But what the devs should have done a year in was say "Whoops...oh well, lets make damn sure that we keep the 400 K or so players that like this style of game, and polish it up until we can start slowly growing from that base of core players." What they did instead was abysmally stupid.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
This is my own overall verdit of why SWG has not been the success wanted:
SWG has never at any version (Pre-CU, CU, NGE) been polished, bug free, complete or stable to the general acceptance of the MMORPG market.
This is why they lost Japan and continue to loose subs today. Changing philosphies only compounded the troubles that existed with implimenting an incomplete new system.
I was prepared to write a big long speech on why, but it basically boils down to this...
SOE thought they had a license to make money with the Star Wars IP, so they treated it like they could do anything and the Star Wars nerds would still come.
It did not prove the failure of "Sandbox", it simply reinforced that to underestimate (and abuse) your customer is financial suicide.
Under more sane and capable hands, I am sure SWG would today be seen in a much more positive light. Even as a sandbox.
BTW, I find two things funny about your article...
1. Like someone mentioned above, you never mention that they tried to make the game like you say they should have and it was an even worse failure.
2. You never mention by name the actual culprits behind this disaster, SOE. Intentional or not? I was kind of getting the impression as I read your article that you were wanting us to believe that SWG from the beginning was terrible, hence the utter stupidity that was the NGE implementation may have not been so stupid???
I'm sorry if I'm totally wrong about this, but I'm enjoying this site a lot less since I started getting impressions that SOE is placing some kind of leverage on you guys to not call them out on their fuckups. Like I said maybe I'm totally wrong, but that's the vibe I'm getting.
I don’t think the premise is false. Yeebo’s post above really spells out exactly why.
The only people that didn’t need content in the beginning were the players that were already fans of MMOs. Just making a game multiplayer doesn’t negate the need to have some handholding for those that don’t get it. And since Star Wars had a much broader appeal than EQ it was absolutely foolhardy not to take into consideration that many new players wouldn’t quite get the sandbox concept.
Like television shows MMOs really only get one shot to impress their audience, typically that's at launch. Once players have tested the waters and found them not to their liking they're probably never coming back. If 24 were to suddenly have sappy romantic interludes on every show it wouldn't suddenly change its demographic to include Lifetime channel watchers, it would only alienate the existing loyal fan base. And that exactly what SWG did by forcing content onto a player base that had stuck it out in the sandbox they liked for several years.
While hearty MMO fans will go on at length about what a great game Star Wars was at launch in regards to the open skills system, experimental crafting, and player housing, they almost never say that the theme of the game is what kept them there. KOTOR on the other hand captured that essence. Galaxies could have been a great game, if only it had a compelling story to it from the beginning, which incidentally WoW did six times over at each starting zone.
Steve Wilson
Staff Writer
www.mmorpg.com
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
First the vast majority of players of World of Warcraft are from asia... over 6million of the 8 million or so. And with the popularity of mmo's in general in asia I doubt very many of those 6+ million are new to mmos... What was it Richard Garriott said, 1 in 10 people in korea have a lineage account?
Secondly, when SWG was at its most popular there were no jedi, there were random events across the servers hosted by GM's that provided players with a good amount of content. What killed swg wasn't so much the lack of "quest driven things to do" but first the bugs that went ignored, followed closely with the lack of a focus on the dev team to provide players with new challenges.
Let's be honest here, you can talk about the "game" in these mmo's all you want however, it is nothing more than a grind. Whether you go to some static npc with a freaking symbol over his head or you go to a terminal you get one of two types of quests: Go kill x amount of mob a, or go deliver this doodad to that person over there somewhere.
Actually the only first gen game to really provide a game I think was SWG... after they removed permadeath and saber TEF from jedi they were an unstoppable character. Like what just about every rpg gamer develops thier single player characters to be. Whether it be BG, Morrowind, Oblivion, Icewind Dale, any of the gold box games, whatever. You become near to god like in your power and you walk around killing anything and everything. Precisely what a fully templated and exceptionally geared jedi could do.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I became an armorsmith shortly before the CU, I did my homework and spent a lot on the test server checking out the new system, what new materials was needed etc and I took a chance and bought all those on the live server. The chance was successful, nothing changed from test to live and I became very successful. 1-2 months after the CU 90% of all rebel faction armor on that server was made by me.
So why did I quit? Well making all these suits where very taxing, each suit had 9 parts, 7 of which needed experimenting on. And because of a combination of bugs and bad design very single part of every single suit needed to be made by hand. Making 1 part consisted of as many as 30 mouse clicks and I made in the area of 300 suits times 9 parts times 30 clicks. You do the math... I basically burned out.
There was an option to make these things in a factory instead but because of a combination bugs and design that was not possible. Faction armor used special limited run schematics that could not be used in a factory and with normal armor they introduced a bug in the first bug fixing patch that reseted armor color to default if made in a factory. The default armor colors where so ugly that none would ever buy a suit with them so they all had to be made by hand.
The interesting thing here is that 2 months after the CU they had released 2 bug fix patches and both ADDED bugs to armor making while fixing none. I tried to keep updated with swg for a few months after I quit, I might have missed something but as far as I know this game braking color bug which where introduced in a bug fix patch (it happened because they messed with palettes because they wanted new colors on the new land speeders they released at the same time) had not been fixed by the time NGE was released.
To introduce a bug in a bugfixing patch and then wait several months to fix it (if it was ever fixed) was standard procedure at SOE and that's what killed the game. Features where always more important than bugs and balance.
"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
His point is that SWG failed because they concentrated on the world instead of the game, thats it.
His point was basically a more verbal exposition of what John Smedly stated in an interview with Gamespot shortly after the NGE fiasco.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141213.html?print=1
"GS: Last question, John. What's the one lesson from your two years of seeing Star Wars Galaxies being played, that you wish you knew sooner?
JS: That straight sandbox games don't work. And that we needed to focus much more on the Star Wars experience. I think in the past, what we probably made was the Uncle Owen experience as opposed to the Luke experience. We needed to deliver more of the Star Wars heroic and epic feeling to the game. I think we missed there. That's what I think we really brought to the game [with the update]. "
The author obviously agrees with Smed, I dont, I do think a sandbox game can work but really should be its own IP. Star Wars Galaxies probably should never have been a sandbox to begin with, I probably wouldnt have loved it as much as I did but Im sure a lot of other people would have.
-Gooney
Then people claim there was nothing Star Warsy about it and no content to chew on, I say we made it Star Wars. Through organized faction wars, alliances, events, roleplay and more. That is and stays the main difference. We made our game. Others broke their game.
Something along the lines of... Here we are, entertain us. A game is what you make out of it. What the community makes out of it.
I'm sorry but if you fail there, there is only you to blame.
Truth be told however, gamers like us may not even be worth a "niche" anymore. There's too much money involved. No corporate bean counter would ever look our way, and nobody respects the MMO "underground".
Just let those dreams go, bro. The sooner we move on the better. The real world always needs more thinkers.
Alot has changed since then, maybe it was the changes to the whole system. Many people left as a result, emptying out a vibrant World. Its an okay game as it is now, but it has lost the luster of what was once a great game for Star Wars fans.
Ultimately the main problem besides the bugs/balance was the inability for those playing to take the roleplaying quests to another level. They didnt have to "make" new content ALL the time. Just give us more freedom to advance the story on our own. Have events happen that were not announced. A "living" world is what was missing. Honestly everybody wanted Luke, Han, Darth, etc for the characters.... and seriously how they were implemented even to this day is rather LAME.
All in all, I think they should take a break from SWG and work on a new incarnation maybe 5 years from now so that new tech/ideas will be implemented properly.
I just don't hold with the OP's basic premise, which is that casual players want content handed to them, and only hardcore players want to do things like craft or image design.
C
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I just don't hold with the OP's basic premise, which is that casual players want content handed to them, and only hardcore players want to do things like craft or image design.
C
Yeah, there is quite a important difference. I agree with you.
For those new to the genre the mistakes seemed obvious, there was nothing for new players to do. Actually there were things to do but only for those players that had already played MMOs previously. The true newbie to the genre was simply dumped at a city of their choosing and left to fend for themselves.
Are you for real?! Did you ever play the game at all? I mean, swg introduced me to mmos, and Today I still looking for a game to come even close to what it was, SWG had the best crafting of any game! The reason swg failed, Was because instead of fixing the bugs, the devs changed the game every time in every way possible! The reason WOW is so popular, is because it's the most polished mmo out there, it feels like a single player game, bug-free , still swg in it's early days, was a success, and sure it would still be 2nd in subscriptions, if they would have stayed with the original plan for it.
Why always some people blame against the sandbox or the crafting/enterteiners/Creature Handlers professions when talk about the SWG "failure"?
The problem is NOT the sandbox, the non-combat professions, the player driven economy or the world vs. game stupid debate, the OP points accurately to the lack of content (quest, Galactic Civil War, best dungeons), a game needs situations that providing some action and fun to all professions, but the OP fail when insists in make guilty the sandbox system for the SWG failures.
A MMORPG must be a world and must be a game.
Some sandbox + game content, is a good trade-off, not changue the whole game three times.