Originally posted by RansomDenton I thought SOE was greedy? If they are so greedy why are they letting it tank? If they know what worked and now what does NOT WORK then why continue?
That's the million dollar question. Nobody knows for sure why they are being so stupid.
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C
They spent the last year trying to turn it around, without success, and finally gave up at the beginning of this year. Last year was spent focusing on PvP related changes, because that is what the folks at SOE enjoy. They continued the focus on PvP even after they polled the players and found 80% didn't PvP. They then asked them what they could do to make them want to PvP, and 70% responded 'nothing', they just don't enjoy PvP.
They have scaled back the dev team to around 20 people at the beginning of the year, and moved the folks SOE management has confidence in over to the DCU game, to replace the seemingly constant stream of folks who are quitting due to management's micro-managing of the project. SOE is no longer willing to invest in the SWG project anything more than the bare minimum their contract allows. That leaves mostly recycled content and systems as the primary direction of development.
More effort was put into salvaging the NGE than was put into developing the game since launch. There was far too much pride at stake to do anything else. Had SOE not gone on an all out offensive against the pissed off playerbase (both players who quit and the ones that stayed), I think a rollback or a couple pre-NGE servers would have been viable early on. Sadly, the folks at SOE thought they were right and spent a year trying to prove it. It turns out they were wrong, and it is now too late for a rollback, and too late for classic servers to be financially viable. Several thousand pre-NGE players warned them, several times, but the folks at SOE were convinced they were right. Everyone lost in the end.
Originally posted by RansomDenton I thought SOE was greedy? If they are so greedy why are they letting it tank? If they know what worked and now what does NOT WORK then why continue?
That's the million dollar question. Nobody knows for sure why they are being so stupid.
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C I don't think even they are that deluded. Most likely it's just not worth the headache and cost. I think people claiming half a million "veterans" will come flocking back for pre-CU are wildly optimistic. Most likely all they'd get in returning subs would amount to chump change. And they'd have to support it (and they would indeed have to allocate additional resources to support classic servers ,no matter what we say here ), contend with morale issues of the SWG team having been given yet another about-face order , worry about another possible media shit-storm, probably have to either pay Oracle or port the game off that solution, and lastly -LA might just not want them to do it, preferring to go after those lost customers in a different way (new Jedi game, or new MMO etc).
I can see how they'd have to go through a lot potentially. All for chump change, and the warm, fuzzy feeling you get inside when you do the right thing. No Dice.
Originally posted by RansomDenton I thought SOE was greedy? If they are so greedy why are they letting it tank? If they know what worked and now what does NOT WORK then why continue?
That's the million dollar question. Nobody knows for sure why they are being so stupid.
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C
They spent the last year trying to turn it around, without success, and finally gave up at the beginning of this year. Last year was spent focusing on PvP related changes, because that is what the folks at SOE enjoy. They continued the focus on PvP even after they polled the players and found 80% didn't PvP. They then asked them what they could do to make them want to PvP, and 70% responded 'nothing', they just don't enjoy PvP.
They have scaled back the dev team to around 20 people at the beginning of the year, and moved the folks SOE management has confidence in over to the DCU game, to replace the seemingly constant stream of folks who are quitting due to management's micro-managing of the project. SOE is no longer willing to invest in the SWG project anything more than the bare minimum their contract allows. That leaves mostly recycled content and systems as the primary direction of development.
More effort was put into salvaging the NGE than was put into developing the game since launch. There was far too much pride at stake to do anything else. Had SOE not gone on an all out offensive against the pissed off playerbase (both players who quit and the ones that stayed), I think a rollback or a couple pre-NGE servers would have been viable early on. Sadly, the folks at SOE thought they were right and spent a year trying to prove it. It turns out they were wrong, and it is now too late for a rollback, and too late for classic servers to be financially viable. Several thousand pre-NGE players warned them, several times, but the folks at SOE were convinced they were right. Everyone lost in the end.
Lorin Jameson (SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies, forum name "DeadMeat") has specifically refuted the latest figure: "I think I am safe in saying the 50K number is vastly wrong."[
and I think ya right! it's vastly lower than that.. more like 20k lol
Agreed. And if the person who made that chart is claiming to have any idea of SWG's (or any othe SOE game) subscriber numbers, he's quite frankly full of excremant.
Why do you say that? While the guy who created this chart admits he doesn't have any hard figures to work from, he is an acknowledged industry specialist in this area and he has a good record of deriving market share and subscriber numbers from secondary data. Aside from the fact that you like the NGE and you think his figures threaten the NGE, do you have any status at all in industry analysis?
What they need to do is a mass tv commerical spike then get G4 to do a special on swg, and get maybe a show for swg....
I absolutely agree with you. I always thought that one of the reasons for the declining sub figuires prior to the CU - a decline that was used as a rationale ultimately for the NGE - was that SOE's marketing of the SWG game experience was appalling. If they had invested the capital ploughed into the dire, linear Kasshyyyk expansion into TV/magazine advertising in both the US and Europe, I genuinely believe sub figures would have been refreshed and even risen.
SOE doesn't have the money to pull back the game to pre-CU. Torres doesn't want to anyways. He wants a star wars version of WoW. He's even an avid player of World of Warcraft.. so why'd they trust him at the helm again?
Lucas Arts has pretty much told them to fix the problem or be discontinued with their Star Wars license. SOE has yet to do this and follow up on their word to fix the problem and slowly bring back the old content. All they have done is apologize.. and even that was under Lucas Arts's Sue knife,
SOE has lost alot under this game and unless they really focused on it.. they can't bring it back up.. they waited too long and Torres just wants it to hit the fan so he can make the next World of Warcraft with Blizzard... the 12 year old..
I don't think even they are that deluded. Most likely it's just not worth the headache and cost. I think people claiming half a million "veterans" will come flocking back for pre-CU are wildly optimistic. Most likely all they'd get in returning subs would amount to chump change. And they'd have to support it (and they would indeed have to allocate additional resources to support classic servers ,no matter what we say here ), contend with morale issues of the SWG team having been given yet another about-face order , worry about another possible media shit-storm, probably have to either pay Oracle or port the game off that solution, and lastly -LA might just not want them to do it, preferring to go after those lost customers in a different way (new Jedi game, or new MMO etc).
I can see how they'd have to go through a lot potentially. All for chump change, and the warm, fuzzy feeling you get inside when you do the right thing. No Dice.
I diagree with you. Let's say that only 50k vets returned to play a few pre-CU servers, that's less than 20% of the estimated 300k subscribers SWG had at its height - and they all paid $15 a month. That;s nine million dollars a year. If you think that's 'chump change' then you must be Leona Helmsley.
nobody ever stated it will be half a million vets.. more like 200k plus new ppl and plus those who play NGE but don't really like it or wanna check out preCU because they never played it and just might like it more... my bet would be at least 100k first month or so on classic servers.
SOE doesn't have the money to pull back the game to pre-CU. Torres doesn't want to anyways. He wants a star wars version of WoW. He's even an avid player of World of Warcraft.. so why'd they trust him at the helm again?
Lucas Arts has pretty much told them to fix the problem or be discontinued with their Star Wars license. SOE has yet to do this and follow up on their word to fix the problem and slowly bring back the old content. All they have done is apologize.. and even that was under Lucas Arts's Sue knife,
SOE has lost alot under this game and unless they really focused on it.. they can't bring it back up.. they waited too long and Torres just wants it to hit the fan so he can make the next World of Warcraft with Blizzard... the 12 year old..
At least LA supports the Emulator now..
What do you mean by that last comment?
What he means.. is SUPPOSINGLY what came out of the EMU v.s. LA Lawyers meeting was.
1. The EMU makes no profit
2. The EMU will be available for distribution on LA's fan mod site.
3. The EMU will not pul LA in a bad light or bash them in their site/game.
SUPPOSINGLY... if they follow those (and maybe more unnamed) terms, LA and $OE won't sue.
If that's true or not is left to be seen since nobody's officially talking, except Smed wished them good luck. If that's not a deathwish I don't know what is.
Shayde - SWG (dead) Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled - Some deluded SWG fanboi who pities me. I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too. 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Comments
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C
They spent the last year trying to turn it around, without success, and finally gave up at the beginning of this year. Last year was spent focusing on PvP related changes, because that is what the folks at SOE enjoy. They continued the focus on PvP even after they polled the players and found 80% didn't PvP. They then asked them what they could do to make them want to PvP, and 70% responded 'nothing', they just don't enjoy PvP.
They have scaled back the dev team to around 20 people at the beginning of the year, and moved the folks SOE management has confidence in over to the DCU game, to replace the seemingly constant stream of folks who are quitting due to management's micro-managing of the project. SOE is no longer willing to invest in the SWG project anything more than the bare minimum their contract allows. That leaves mostly recycled content and systems as the primary direction of development.
More effort was put into salvaging the NGE than was put into developing the game since launch. There was far too much pride at stake to do anything else. Had SOE not gone on an all out offensive against the pissed off playerbase (both players who quit and the ones that stayed), I think a rollback or a couple pre-NGE servers would have been viable early on. Sadly, the folks at SOE thought they were right and spent a year trying to prove it. It turns out they were wrong, and it is now too late for a rollback, and too late for classic servers to be financially viable. Several thousand pre-NGE players warned them, several times, but the folks at SOE were convinced they were right. Everyone lost in the end.
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C I don't think even they are that deluded. Most likely it's just not worth the headache and cost. I think people claiming half a million "veterans" will come flocking back for pre-CU are wildly optimistic. Most likely all they'd get in returning subs would amount to chump change. And they'd have to support it (and they would indeed have to allocate additional resources to support classic servers ,no matter what we say here ), contend with morale issues of the SWG team having been given yet another about-face order , worry about another possible media shit-storm, probably have to either pay Oracle or port the game off that solution, and lastly -LA might just not want them to do it, preferring to go after those lost customers in a different way (new Jedi game, or new MMO etc).
I can see how they'd have to go through a lot potentially. All for chump change, and the warm, fuzzy feeling you get inside when you do the right thing. No Dice.
SWG Team Mtg.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Quite probably, given their incessant and very large WOW-envy, they are hoping that if they just tweak this WOW-ized version of SWG enough, it will finally be a WOW-sized hit. That's never going to happen but their ability to delude themselves into thinking bigger subs are just around the corner is without peer in the industry, from all appearances.
C
They spent the last year trying to turn it around, without success, and finally gave up at the beginning of this year. Last year was spent focusing on PvP related changes, because that is what the folks at SOE enjoy. They continued the focus on PvP even after they polled the players and found 80% didn't PvP. They then asked them what they could do to make them want to PvP, and 70% responded 'nothing', they just don't enjoy PvP.
They have scaled back the dev team to around 20 people at the beginning of the year, and moved the folks SOE management has confidence in over to the DCU game, to replace the seemingly constant stream of folks who are quitting due to management's micro-managing of the project. SOE is no longer willing to invest in the SWG project anything more than the bare minimum their contract allows. That leaves mostly recycled content and systems as the primary direction of development.
More effort was put into salvaging the NGE than was put into developing the game since launch. There was far too much pride at stake to do anything else. Had SOE not gone on an all out offensive against the pissed off playerbase (both players who quit and the ones that stayed), I think a rollback or a couple pre-NGE servers would have been viable early on. Sadly, the folks at SOE thought they were right and spent a year trying to prove it. It turns out they were wrong, and it is now too late for a rollback, and too late for classic servers to be financially viable. Several thousand pre-NGE players warned them, several times, but the folks at SOE were convinced they were right. Everyone lost in the end.
Very well said.
Lorin Jameson (SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies, forum name "DeadMeat") has specifically refuted the latest figure: "I think I am safe in saying the 50K number is vastly wrong."[
and I think ya right! it's vastly lower than that.. more like 20k lol
Why do you say that? While the guy who created this chart admits he doesn't have any hard figures to work from, he is an acknowledged industry specialist in this area and he has a good record of deriving market share and subscriber numbers from secondary data. Aside from the fact that you like the NGE and you think his figures threaten the NGE, do you have any status at all in industry analysis?
Yes, that's what they said about Classic Coke, Sherlock Holmes and Obi Wan. Got any more predictgions for us, Kreskin?
I absolutely agree with you. I always thought that one of the reasons for the declining sub figuires prior to the CU - a decline that was used as a rationale ultimately for the NGE - was that SOE's marketing of the SWG game experience was appalling. If they had invested the capital ploughed into the dire, linear Kasshyyyk expansion into TV/magazine advertising in both the US and Europe, I genuinely believe sub figures would have been refreshed and even risen.
What do you mean by that last comment?
I diagree with you. Let's say that only 50k vets returned to play a few pre-CU servers, that's less than 20% of the estimated 300k subscribers SWG had at its height - and they all paid $15 a month. That;s nine million dollars a year. If you think that's 'chump change' then you must be Leona Helmsley.
nobody ever stated it will be half a million vets.. more like 200k plus new ppl and plus those who play NGE but don't really like it or wanna check out preCU because they never played it and just might like it more... my bet would be at least 100k first month or so on classic servers.
What do you mean by that last comment?
What he means.. is SUPPOSINGLY what came out of the EMU v.s. LA Lawyers meeting was.
1. The EMU makes no profit
2. The EMU will be available for distribution on LA's fan mod site.
3. The EMU will not pul LA in a bad light or bash them in their site/game.
SUPPOSINGLY... if they follow those (and maybe more unnamed) terms, LA and $OE won't sue.
If that's true or not is left to be seen since nobody's officially talking, except Smed wished them good luck. If that's not a deathwish I don't know what is.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0