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SWG Disaster is Lucas Arts fault
ste2000
Member EpicPosts: 6,194
Ok this one is going to be a bit controversial.
But what is life without a bit of healthy debate?
But please be polite and constructive in your replies.
It is not my intention to defend SoE nor to put Lucas Arts in a bad light.
But I think it is time people stop just blindly accusing SoE for something they have been forced to do (fully or partially).
Veterans should aim their anger towards Lucas Arts instead and for very good reasons.
I will try to analyse the whole situation on a business point of view, sharing some personal knowlede about how business relationships work and some basic laws in economy, and let's see if we can shed some light on this SWG saga.
Firstly, SoE has its faults, as any big corporation it's greedy, most of the times don't listen to what customers want, unless obviously the customers stop paying for their product.
All of this is true but you can say that about any big corporation anywhere in the world.
What SoE is not, certainly it's being stupid.
SoE is a big corporation, corporations are meant to make profit for their investors, lots of profit.........
Customers are just numbers, Corporations don't really care about customers, what they care about is how much money they will bring to their bank, that's what Corporations are all about and SoE is not exception.
So starting from this point I would like to explain why the SWG debacle could not possibly have been a SoE decision (or just a SoE decision), and I would like to do so by covering the following points:
1) Definition of Franchise, how does it work.
2) Lost business and why a big corporation like SoE failed to react
3) Giving customers choice and why SoE refuses to make Classic Servers
4) Conclusion
1) DEFINITION OF FRANCHISE : "A privilege granted or sold, such as to use a name or to sell products or services. In its simplest terms, a franchise is a license from the owner of a trademark or trade name permitting another to sell a product or service under that name or mark. More broadly stated, a franchise has evolved into an elaborate agreement under which the franchisee undertakes to conduct a business or sell a product or service in accordance with methods and procedures prescribed by the franchisor, and the franchisor undertakes to assist the franchisee through advertising, promotion, and other advisory services."
I just want to higlight the text in red and elaborate a little bit more on this.
LA is the Franchisor, whilst SoE is the Franchisee.
SoE as a Franchisee has to sell a service in accordance with methods and procedures prescribed by the Franchisor (LA).
What does it means in terms of Trademark License?
It means that if LA decides that if the game doesn't feel too much like the Star Wars movie Trilogy, SoE is obbliged to made modification to the game in order to make the Franchisor happy (or more "Starwarsy").
Failing to do so, it will mean that the Franchisor (LA) can terminate the contract with the Franchisee.
The Franchisee (SoE) on the other hand CANNOT make any modification of the franchised product without the Franchisor authorisation (LA).
From this small explanation of how a franchise works you can well understand why SoE could not possibly make a radical decision such the CU or NGE by itself without at least LA authorization.
But from a business point of view it make more sense that the decision of changing the game was actually made entirely by LA rather than SoE, because LA has more interest in keeping the Star Wars Franchise consistent with films and collateral businesses.
SoE would not have any interest in basically deleting the fairly succesful old SWG and making a new one all together, economically doesn't make sense, one important law of business is to improve a succesful product not redesigning it from zero (ever heard of "don't fix it if is not broken?"), and that's what basically happened to SWG.
2) LOST BUSINESS
SoE has obviously lost business after CU and NGE, Smedley is not denying it and actually is pledging to the customers that they learnt from that mistake and they will listen the customers more in the future.
So if SoE (a money making corporation remember) acknowledge they lost customers due to the game changes, why aren't they doing anothing to change this?
Again on a business point of view this doesn't make sense, when a company lose customers and sales, you see any kind of marketing initiatives and product modification in order to get customer back.
Did you remember when Coca Cola rebranded itself Coke? Customers boycotted it and they reverted to Coca Cola.
Here in UK we had recently the makers of Mars ( a confectionary product) introducing animal ingreadients instead of the original vegetarian ones. The customers complained and they revert it to completely vegetarian ingredient, with the CEO buying a full page in every UK newspaper to apologise to customers (costing millions).
So what SoE does to get it's customers back as any corporation will do?
Well..............nothing
Their answer is they won't revert to pre-cu and they won't even make some classic server.
Now you should realise from the example I made above that it's a curious way to behave for a big company, this behaviour goes against any law of economy.
The truth is that SoE have no say in what SWG should look and play, because they are not the owners of the Trademark, and they have to do what the Franchisor tells them to do, hence the completely lack of actions from SoE.
3) Customer satisfaction
It is the basic of economy.
Customer like what they see = They pay money for it
Customer don't like what they see = They won't pay a penny
Now, SoE knows that customers are unhappy, they know that the subscriptions went down so why they are not doing anything to get those customers back?
It is not a case of stubborness, SoE already admitted they got it wrong and since "sorry is the hardest word" and basically they already did the hardest thing which is to say sorry, what stops them now to give customers what they want?
They say that it is not possible to technically revert it to pre-CU...........excuses
If it was possible to make CU it is possible not only to recover the pre-CU code but even in the case it went lost, it is possible to make a new expansion with the old pre-CU rules and gameplay.
But taking into consideration that now there are new SWG customers who would not like the pre-CU gameplay, there is another option which is to introduce Classic servers.
Again SoE said they won't do it, but they don't give any explanation of the reason.
You have to consider that SoE alreade made few Classic servers for EQ, a game which doesn't have subscription problem as much as SWG has.
So why EQ has classic servers and SWG not?
Again, if you think about it is pretty simple, EQ is their Trademark, Stars Wars is not.
They can decide anything they like regarding EQ, whilst for SWG they need LA approval.
It is all about brand consistency, Lucas Arts won't allow to have a classic server because that will break the standards they set for every Star Wars product, and creating Classic servers will make redundant the decision to upgrade the game to CU and NGE.
4) CONCLUSION
If you stop and think on a business point of view the whole SWG saga reveal a different truth from the one you can see on the surface.
SoE as Franchisee cannot admit that the Franchisor forced to make those changes to the games in order to make it more in line with the Star Wars standards (the word "more starwarsy" sprung to my mind), they cannot shift the blame on Lucas Art because that would be bad business practise, SoE doesn't want to be in a situation to upset big movie companies like Lucas Art because that will mean geopardise future collaborations with other media companies.
SoE is taking all the blame but if you analize the situation on a business point of view you will understand that SoE has not say on how SWG should look and play like. Of course they do design the game but ultimately if the Franchisor is not happy with the product, they HAVE to change it.
That's how Franchise works.
Lastily, we all know that SoE means $oE, we all know that SoE is a big money machine, there is no reason in this word that would stop SoE making more money, the only reason why they are forbid doing so is because legal restrictions.
Remeber that out of this mess, SoE is the one on the losing side.
They are losing money because of development costs and lost revenues in subscriptions, but strangely enough they haven't done anything to address this problem which is unlikely behaviour for a profit corporation.
Lucas Arts on the other hand won't lose anything since they will get the royalties from SoE for the use of the Star Wars logo and didn't put any money into developement, unlikely SoE who spent millions on it.
What Lucas Arts really care is that the Star Wars products are consistent throughout all platforms, movie, books, comics, merchandise and in this case games.
If you understand this concept you will understand that sometimes thruth is a bit more complicated than "SoE suxx because they don't understand they got it wrong".
Unfortunatley they understood, but what's worst for them, they cannot do anything about it.
I bet Smedley is dieing to open 10 Classic servers and see his revenues going to the roof, unfortunately for him and most importantly for you, that won't be possible and now you know why.
Conclusion.
SoE is not Angel, but certainly is not the only Evil.
Peace
EDIT: If you want a proof of what i mean read the following (I didn't know about this interview when I originally wrote this thread):
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base," said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts. "There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves."
OPEN YOUR EYES GUYS
But what is life without a bit of healthy debate?
But please be polite and constructive in your replies.
It is not my intention to defend SoE nor to put Lucas Arts in a bad light.
But I think it is time people stop just blindly accusing SoE for something they have been forced to do (fully or partially).
Veterans should aim their anger towards Lucas Arts instead and for very good reasons.
I will try to analyse the whole situation on a business point of view, sharing some personal knowlede about how business relationships work and some basic laws in economy, and let's see if we can shed some light on this SWG saga.
Firstly, SoE has its faults, as any big corporation it's greedy, most of the times don't listen to what customers want, unless obviously the customers stop paying for their product.
All of this is true but you can say that about any big corporation anywhere in the world.
What SoE is not, certainly it's being stupid.
SoE is a big corporation, corporations are meant to make profit for their investors, lots of profit.........
Customers are just numbers, Corporations don't really care about customers, what they care about is how much money they will bring to their bank, that's what Corporations are all about and SoE is not exception.
So starting from this point I would like to explain why the SWG debacle could not possibly have been a SoE decision (or just a SoE decision), and I would like to do so by covering the following points:
1) Definition of Franchise, how does it work.
2) Lost business and why a big corporation like SoE failed to react
3) Giving customers choice and why SoE refuses to make Classic Servers
4) Conclusion
1) DEFINITION OF FRANCHISE : "A privilege granted or sold, such as to use a name or to sell products or services. In its simplest terms, a franchise is a license from the owner of a trademark or trade name permitting another to sell a product or service under that name or mark. More broadly stated, a franchise has evolved into an elaborate agreement under which the franchisee undertakes to conduct a business or sell a product or service in accordance with methods and procedures prescribed by the franchisor, and the franchisor undertakes to assist the franchisee through advertising, promotion, and other advisory services."
I just want to higlight the text in red and elaborate a little bit more on this.
LA is the Franchisor, whilst SoE is the Franchisee.
SoE as a Franchisee has to sell a service in accordance with methods and procedures prescribed by the Franchisor (LA).
What does it means in terms of Trademark License?
It means that if LA decides that if the game doesn't feel too much like the Star Wars movie Trilogy, SoE is obbliged to made modification to the game in order to make the Franchisor happy (or more "Starwarsy").
Failing to do so, it will mean that the Franchisor (LA) can terminate the contract with the Franchisee.
The Franchisee (SoE) on the other hand CANNOT make any modification of the franchised product without the Franchisor authorisation (LA).
From this small explanation of how a franchise works you can well understand why SoE could not possibly make a radical decision such the CU or NGE by itself without at least LA authorization.
But from a business point of view it make more sense that the decision of changing the game was actually made entirely by LA rather than SoE, because LA has more interest in keeping the Star Wars Franchise consistent with films and collateral businesses.
SoE would not have any interest in basically deleting the fairly succesful old SWG and making a new one all together, economically doesn't make sense, one important law of business is to improve a succesful product not redesigning it from zero (ever heard of "don't fix it if is not broken?"), and that's what basically happened to SWG.
2) LOST BUSINESS
SoE has obviously lost business after CU and NGE, Smedley is not denying it and actually is pledging to the customers that they learnt from that mistake and they will listen the customers more in the future.
So if SoE (a money making corporation remember) acknowledge they lost customers due to the game changes, why aren't they doing anothing to change this?
Again on a business point of view this doesn't make sense, when a company lose customers and sales, you see any kind of marketing initiatives and product modification in order to get customer back.
Did you remember when Coca Cola rebranded itself Coke? Customers boycotted it and they reverted to Coca Cola.
Here in UK we had recently the makers of Mars ( a confectionary product) introducing animal ingreadients instead of the original vegetarian ones. The customers complained and they revert it to completely vegetarian ingredient, with the CEO buying a full page in every UK newspaper to apologise to customers (costing millions).
So what SoE does to get it's customers back as any corporation will do?
Well..............nothing
Their answer is they won't revert to pre-cu and they won't even make some classic server.
Now you should realise from the example I made above that it's a curious way to behave for a big company, this behaviour goes against any law of economy.
The truth is that SoE have no say in what SWG should look and play, because they are not the owners of the Trademark, and they have to do what the Franchisor tells them to do, hence the completely lack of actions from SoE.
3) Customer satisfaction
It is the basic of economy.
Customer like what they see = They pay money for it
Customer don't like what they see = They won't pay a penny
Now, SoE knows that customers are unhappy, they know that the subscriptions went down so why they are not doing anything to get those customers back?
It is not a case of stubborness, SoE already admitted they got it wrong and since "sorry is the hardest word" and basically they already did the hardest thing which is to say sorry, what stops them now to give customers what they want?
They say that it is not possible to technically revert it to pre-CU...........excuses
If it was possible to make CU it is possible not only to recover the pre-CU code but even in the case it went lost, it is possible to make a new expansion with the old pre-CU rules and gameplay.
But taking into consideration that now there are new SWG customers who would not like the pre-CU gameplay, there is another option which is to introduce Classic servers.
Again SoE said they won't do it, but they don't give any explanation of the reason.
You have to consider that SoE alreade made few Classic servers for EQ, a game which doesn't have subscription problem as much as SWG has.
So why EQ has classic servers and SWG not?
Again, if you think about it is pretty simple, EQ is their Trademark, Stars Wars is not.
They can decide anything they like regarding EQ, whilst for SWG they need LA approval.
It is all about brand consistency, Lucas Arts won't allow to have a classic server because that will break the standards they set for every Star Wars product, and creating Classic servers will make redundant the decision to upgrade the game to CU and NGE.
4) CONCLUSION
If you stop and think on a business point of view the whole SWG saga reveal a different truth from the one you can see on the surface.
SoE as Franchisee cannot admit that the Franchisor forced to make those changes to the games in order to make it more in line with the Star Wars standards (the word "more starwarsy" sprung to my mind), they cannot shift the blame on Lucas Art because that would be bad business practise, SoE doesn't want to be in a situation to upset big movie companies like Lucas Art because that will mean geopardise future collaborations with other media companies.
SoE is taking all the blame but if you analize the situation on a business point of view you will understand that SoE has not say on how SWG should look and play like. Of course they do design the game but ultimately if the Franchisor is not happy with the product, they HAVE to change it.
That's how Franchise works.
Lastily, we all know that SoE means $oE, we all know that SoE is a big money machine, there is no reason in this word that would stop SoE making more money, the only reason why they are forbid doing so is because legal restrictions.
Remeber that out of this mess, SoE is the one on the losing side.
They are losing money because of development costs and lost revenues in subscriptions, but strangely enough they haven't done anything to address this problem which is unlikely behaviour for a profit corporation.
Lucas Arts on the other hand won't lose anything since they will get the royalties from SoE for the use of the Star Wars logo and didn't put any money into developement, unlikely SoE who spent millions on it.
What Lucas Arts really care is that the Star Wars products are consistent throughout all platforms, movie, books, comics, merchandise and in this case games.
If you understand this concept you will understand that sometimes thruth is a bit more complicated than "SoE suxx because they don't understand they got it wrong".
Unfortunatley they understood, but what's worst for them, they cannot do anything about it.
I bet Smedley is dieing to open 10 Classic servers and see his revenues going to the roof, unfortunately for him and most importantly for you, that won't be possible and now you know why.
Conclusion.
SoE is not Angel, but certainly is not the only Evil.
Peace
EDIT: If you want a proof of what i mean read the following (I didn't know about this interview when I originally wrote this thread):
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base," said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts. "There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves."
OPEN YOUR EYES GUYS
Comments
SOE WILL BE BURIED
WORD LIFE LAWL SAUCE
Raven
Exactly, I totally agree!
Just whinding ya up!
I would agree that $OE and LA can both take blame for the cluster f*ck that is SWG. But it was $OE who planned, developed and implemented the NGE, not LA.
$oe spun some crap about how they would take millions of WOW players with this new system and LA went cha ching, do it.
Freeman and smed even said $oe was the only ones involved. You could be right about the franchise thing and $OE can't change it back without LA agreeing but we'll never know until $oe shed some light on why they continue to be retarded.
LA though are doing a fine job churning out crappy Star Wars games, Battlefront is crap but sells well so it just gonna continue.
Bring out Star Wars Supremecy 2 I say. (Star Wars Rebellion maybe it was called for americans?)
The failure is the same failure that was commited by coca cola.
They (soe and or LA) saw how newer games were attracting more casual players.
The grind was an inhibitor to the cassual player. The near impossibility of becoming a jedi was a detractor for many Star Wars fans.
Lucas Arts Chose a poor time period for SWG limiting its ability to make interesting story content. If it were placed before the original trillogy or after it would have given more story opportunity and no story restricting jedi to near extiction.
The coca cola analogy.
Coke: lets change are product so we can get all those pepsi lovers.
SWG: lets change are product so we can get all those cassual gamers.
FAILURE
That is the simple truth. They change thier product in hopes of getting another customer base they failed.
The real question in all this is wht they never reverted back to the original product.
It is now ofcourse to late to get back original customers as most have moved on and would not go back due to not trusting SOE or who ever they chose to blame.
Star wars Galaxies is the NEW COKE of MMOs.
some people like the clasic players mostly hate it.
LIVE or Die its in the past.
not very constructive sorry about that.
Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft.Waiting for SWTOR
-Currently looking forward to FFXIV
-Currently playing EvE and Global Agenda
I believe it was more on LA.
Having played SOE games now for 6 yrs, I believe they truly are interested in money heh.
I willl never understand why they used the SW franchise to make a sand box game. Can argue till your blue in the face, but the bottom line is not very many folks played even pre cu. 350...maybe 400k accounts in its heyday held by folks(many of whom had multiple accounts) is not very impressive IMO for a game with an IP that basically prints money.
I understand how a persons first MMO jades you towards others, as I still play EQ. To a lot of the vets, nothing will ever top pre-cu... as silly as some may feel it is(myself included). I will always believe had they done EQ in space for SWG, this game would of been a monster. Instead it was a monster disappointment to many folks. Those like me who couldnt stand how they decided to implement the game, and those who did enjoy but had the rug yanked out on em several times.
I have never agreed with how the move to NGE was made, but will always feel a game more of its nature(done correctly) would of been the proper vision for SWG.
Anyways a shout out to my fav anti SOE poster Fishermagi, and a "keep up the insane crusade" to Shayde....you make me laugh...and not with ya. For someone as articulate as you are, I would think you could donate your writing talents to truly worthwhile projects. I will give ya one to consider as it strikes home....Crohns Disease and the multitude of folks that cant afford to get what is basically a life changing medication. *EDIT* Remicade*EDIT*
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Raven
Lol Raven, the same thought jumped into my head .....
I will skip giving dictionary definitions of what companies are and what a franchise is. Instead I will use specifics that SOE has done in the past instead of trying to make SOE fit some text book definitition to make a point.
SOE:
Launched SWG way to early.
Launched EQ and EQ2 way to early.
Rushed unfinished buggy expansions to SWG
Rushed unfinished buggy expansions to EQ, and EQ2 to the point they had boycotts in EQ and had to make public statements that they would slow down production in EQ2.
Pushed one combat revamp and one NGE revamp on SWG
Pushed a combat revamp on The Matrix Online and EQ2
What happened in SWG wasn't something new to SOE, it is their basic formula for pushing out MMO's. Jeff Freeman admitted in his blog that he came up with the concept for the first person shooter style game play. Yes SOE has to answer to lucas arts and beg for approval. In the end it is the SOE developers creating the game, marketing the game, handling customer service. So unless you contend that lucas arts is making SOE repeat the same mistakes in all their titles, then you have to acknowledge that this is how SOE does things. Remember, they were the undisputed MMO kings before blizzard entered the market.
Like I have pointed out before, people credit bioware for the success of KOTOR I and not lucas arts. Why should lucas arts get the blame for SWG when SOE is doing the exact same thing the bioware was contracted to do. (EDIT: by that I mean performing the same set of tasks, not achieving the same level of success)
Just a couple of comments if I may. I think you have the facts a bit messed up on the contract. LA contracted SOE to make SWG, it is not a franchise as you describe it like Subway or McDonalds. It is more like me hiring a contractor to build a garage for my house. It has been stated here and on other forums as well that the concept for the CU/NGE came from SOE and was presented to LA for approval which they gave.
The rest of your points don't make sense because you have not explained how LA benefits from SOE taking the blame. The corporate goals for LA should be the same as SOE, yet you argue that they have forced SOE and hence themselves into unwise business practices. On top of that, no corporation in the world would let another cause damage to it and not sue to break the contract, it just doesn't work like that in the real world.
SOE's % of blame: 50%
LEC's % of blame: 50%
For everyone else, economics is the study of behavior based upon three main questions: What do we make, how do we make it, and who gets it. In a capitalistic society, these questions are answered through the free market, in that we make what people want to (and can afford to) buy. This system of economics is based on an assumption that everyone is a rational actor, always acting in his or her own best interests. But we know that people do not always act this way (take smoking for example).
Ste2000, your arguments would be entirely correct if this basic assumption were true, yet examinations of SOE and LA behavior do not necessarily lend themselves to rational actions. Even if SOE and LA are rational actors, then they have access to information we do not, therefore it becomes (for the most part) impossible to ascertain rational actions from what they do.
WE can only see the results of their actions, and from what we see, they do not make sense unless it was to try to get a piece of the WoW action. When that failed, I surmise that SOE refused to put any more investment into a failing project, other than keeping a minimal staff to do work on the current incarnation until SWG2 comes out.
While I agree that this could not have been done without LA approval (and maybe quite a bit of pushing by them as well), I see that SOE is just a culpable through implementation of a seriously degraded product, lying to their customers, and bait and switch tactics.
The NGE clearly was irrational. I can't think of one example of a SERVICE company giving the big F-U to their paying customers in a seeming deliberate act to alienate them that has ever gone on to greater success as a result.
The NGE was a calculated risk based on a conclusion of pure fantasy, that the "target audience" of casual Star Wars fans was vast, wanted simple game play, and would flock to SWG if they could get a Jedi on character creation.
Had anyone bothered to step back and look at the situation as a whole would have known the NGE was doomed from the moment they decided to do it.
First off, the "target audience" was as much vaporware as is Duke Nukem Forever.
Secondly, what chance do you have of reaching new customers anyway when you've just started a war with 200,000+ people?
As I've said many times, not only did the NGE doom SWG to certain failure (only Vanguard has lost a comparable number of subs faster than the NGE did) but it's likely also doomed SOE to certain failure in ALL future endeavors.
They know it.
Why else does Smed HAVE to start off EVERY discussion about something SOE is doing with, "we realize our mistake with the NGE and won't repeat it"?
Too bad he's never bothered to apologize to those whom he wronged. It might do him and his company some good. Not much, but some.
does it matter who's fault it was to break the game?
what seems important to me is there is no one able or even wants to fix it.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
One thing you have to understand about Lucas Arts, is that they have a long history of pasting "Star Wars" on a box and seeing it sell, regardless of the contents in the box.
When it doesn't sell at a level that meets their expectations, they start getting twitchy.
The other thing that happened was WoW, which got Smedley's attention, as he was rudely tossed off the top of the hill by an upstart, and his partner started asking him why.
The solution at the time seemed to be quick, copy those guys from Blizzard without stopping to understand what Blizz brought to the table; a much more complete, polished, and simpler game than SWG was. Let's face it, WoW leads you by the hand through the first 30 or so levels of the game. Just look at the Northshire-Alwynn-Westfall-Duskwood progression. I mean, even in the zones, the quests walk you up the levels with the layout of the mobs. SWG had none of that. They hand you a blaster, a melon, a set of clothes, and you're on your own, kid.
SWG had a very steep learning curve, and no means to mitigate it. If they had the tutorial of the NGE from the getgo, it might have helped, but SWG was very deep and required a lot of time to master both combat and crafting sides. The only thing that was fairly straightforward was entertainer, and even it had subtleties that took time to learn.
Add to this that, unlike WoW, it wasn't even close to complete or polished at launch, and you've got potential disaster right there on your doorstep.
Then, add SOE's (insert sarcasm tags here) incredibly helpful customer support to a complex, high learning curve product, and you've completed your perfect storm turning off the casual gamer who isn't in this for your virtual reality, princess, I'm here to get gratified right away.
Enough blame to go around.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Lucas Arts made more money from the franchise and merchandise than it did with the film trylogy, that's how a well organized money machine LA is.
And what about Soe? Milking subscribers with an unecessary expansion every six months in both EQ and EQ2, classic servers and station exchange?
They would do anything in order to maximise profits, they don't do "irrational".
There is nothing irrational in what LA and SoE did.
Lucas Art did it for a very good reason, SoE had to follow unfortunately for them.
LA just had a look at KOTOR and then looked back at SWG and asked itself why SWG cannot be more like KOTOR? (which sold millions of copies unlike SWG).
The mistake was from SoE in doing a sand box game when in fact they should have done a SWG-CU since the beginning.
LA understood too late that SWG wasn't the friendly, easy to learn, average blockbuster game which they usually sell.
And when they understood that, they summoned Smedley and told him to make it more "marketable" for the masses (or "Starwarsy" for us all).
Star Wars franchise is a product for the masses not a niche and LA didn't like that one of its product was a niche product (AKA "a sand box").
Yes SoE designed a poor CU/NGE but it is not easy to nerf a game to that level without basically fucking it, that's a challenge too big even for SoE, the king of nerf.
I really belive that the blame is mostly on LA, SoE went along hoping that the gamble would work.
But knowing SoE and the way they milk their customers (EQ classic servers, station exchange servers, 6 month expansions), do you really think that if SoE could, it won't make those bloody Classic Servers which most probably would bring back at least 100K if not 200K people?
The only thing that stops SoE in doing so it's LA which object that the classic servers will not be "Starwarsy" enough.
Now you can believe anything you like, but if you believe that SoE would deliberately turn down a chance to make more money from Classic servers, because they hate so much veterans, then you are kidding yourself.
This is not the way business works.
A truly good game is worth the wait. Koster needed AT LEAST 6 more months to get the game into launch state. I remember the day it came out me and about 200,000 other people logged on and couldn't connect to a working server for nearly 24 hours.
I am happy to hear that companies like Bioware are setting launch dates for 2009 when they began working on the game in 2006, that's good news. Take the time to have everything ready, working, and directed before pushing the game to the public in beta state.
We didn't even have mounts for weeks after launch in SWG. I remember running to my harvestors by foot, for 20 REAL TIME minutes only to have ncp's spawn near me and slice me apart, then it would take another 20 minutes to return to my corpse. Things like that just aren't acceptable if you want to compete against polished products.
If I see one more post about how this game failed and/or whose fault it is, I'm going to kill myself. Hm... I guess I might as well go buy a burial plot at the local cemetary.
Kidding of course, but in all seriousness move on and leave it be. It's a dead horse that has long since decomposed into the earth and thus is long gone. It's over, dead, gone... leave it be already!
Lucas Arts made more money from the franchise and merchandise than it did with the film trylogy, that's how a well organized money machine LA is.
And what about Soe? Milking subscribers with an unecessary expansion every six months in both EQ and EQ2, classic servers and station exchange?
They would do anything in order to maximise profits, they don't do "irrational".
There is nothing irrational in what LA and SoE did.
Lucas Art did it for a very good reason, SoE had to follow unfortunately for them.
LA just had a look at KOTOR and then looked back at SWG and asked itself why SWG cannot be more like KOTOR? (which sold millions of copies unlike SWG).
The mistake was from SoE in doing a sand box game when in fact they should have done a SWG-CU since the beginning.
LA understood too late that SWG wasn't the friendly, easy to learn, average blockbuster game which they usually sell.
And when they understood that, they summoned Smedley and told him to make it more "marketable" for the masses (or "Starwarsy" for us all).
Star Wars franchise is a product for the masses not a niche and LA didn't like that one of its product was a niche product (AKA "a sand box").
Yes SoE designed a poor CU/NGE but it is not easy to nerf a game to that level without basically fucking it, that's a challenge too big even for SoE, the king of nerf.
I really belive that the blame is mostly on LA, SoE went along hoping that the gamble would work.
But knowing SoE and the way they milk their customers (EQ classic servers, station exchange servers, 6 month expansions), do you really think that if SoE could, it won't make those bloody Classic Servers which most probably would bring back at least 100K if not 200K people?
The only thing that stops SoE in doing so it's LA which object that the classic servers will not be "Starwarsy" enough.
Now you can believe anything you like, but if you believe that SoE would deliberately turn down a chance to make more money from Classic servers, because they hate so much veterans, then you are kidding yourself.
This is not the way business works.
Was with you until here for the most part. The problem wasn't the original design. The problem was Sony not willing to stick to any design, constantly changing the mechanics of the game to attempt to draw in the mythical "silent majority" who were playing WoW but were secretly itching to play SWG.
The fact is Lucasarts had no problem with SWG until WoW came along. (At least so the story goes.) Then we started seeing the massive changes. They failed to understand the reason for success in WoW. They just thought a simply copy, and turning the game towards linear is what would make the game popular. A lot of people in the MMO world were believing this. Yet not only did they not compete with WoW, WoW obliterated them and became the king of mmo's. All they had to say was 'Everyone is trying to copy our style. Why go for the cheap imitation when you can have the original?"
I also dispute that SWG was a "niche game." If that were so, there wouldn't be much else to goto. Instead, a huge chunk went to WoW, the polar opposite of SWG. Same with EQ2. only Eve had some comparison. Just about every MMO received an influx of players during the debacle of the CU, and again with the NGE. So this was not some "limited appeal" game. The game had quite a strong amount of appeal when one looks at numbers REALISTICALLY. Neither Smedley nor LA were willing to do this though.
Furthermore, classic servers would be a costly business move. Pre-CU SWG and CUSWG (to say nothing of the NGE!) is more than a simple Everquest and Classic EQ distinction. The former really are two different games. The entire engine and mechanics and rules of the game was not fundamentally altered with one fell swoop. The changes were not as rapid nor as expansive as what happened with SWG. That requires a lot of logistics in going back to those, and from the looks of it, would require two seperate devleopment staffs. Also, those playing SWG classic would not accept the game unfinished as it was in the Pre-CU for long. They played because of the community, but also because they expected changes.
100% agree with your post. Good way of looking at it also, the part I have highlighted in red.
$oe continue their usual dodgy practises that you point out in your post yet all of a sudden a few folk are trying to shift blame LA's way.