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SWG, Ralph Koster and Team: Were they way ahead of their time?
Flipvert
Member Posts: 28
I need to post...
I read through the Prima guide today... there is an introduction to what MMO's are...
It talks about the Economy and the language interaction and respecting other players.
ALL items are made ingame or something similar. No levels (you have hybrid and Elite classes)
Why is it that SWG is (it seems) one of the only MMO's to have this player based economy, community sandbox of wonders... and all the other MMO's (well most of them) are all old ideas and WoW clones.
I mean, surely by now, someone somewhere has thought... hmmm I know, there seems to be at least a few thousand players wanting a sandbox sci fi, multi-class based, player driven economy type MMO
lets make one... and not make it too star warsy...
SWG was the best game I have ever played in my 33 years of Life... I will quite happily pay treble the normal subscription costs per month to the first person who makes a game like SWG was Pre CU... call it what you want... I'm quite happy logging in at the moment to the TC and chatting to people from way back about the old days... I'd even pay for that if necessary... and that is what makes a game... if so many people can keep the faith and hold on and speak out... then I think: Yes they were ahead of their time, and if they had been supported and not tried to copy WoW... then SWG would be the biggest MMO to date... WoW would be trying to copy its class system and grab some of that community player driven economy...
In an alternative Universe SWG has 10 million subscribers and Smed is working on WoW - Super Gaming Enhancements...
Thank you Ralph, thank you for such joy... an old school gamer from 1975
Comments
Yes, they were ahead of the market. 'Nuff said.
SWG Veteran and Refugee, Intrepid server
NGE free as of Nov. 22, 2005
Now Playing: World of Warcrack
Forum Terrorist
Before it was messed up, the game had the best of everything, and i'm suprised that no other company has thought of "copying" it. SWG had everything you could of wanted, and didnt have to ask for much more. until...
It had the worst of a lot of stuff too, in some regards it was complete and utter shit. I'd like to see what Raph could do now with lots of backing and a big IP but I don't think that's ever going to happen.
...The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.
I'm shocked no one yet has copied the entire resource/crafting system of SWG. That IMO has been one of the really outstanding aspects of SWG.
honestly i wonder if such a game could be made in todays market. sure us swg vets would love it but could it
live in a world where fantasy theme parks are all the rage? would a company even get the backing needed to
get it out the door? if/when the flightless bird takes off it will be very telling imho.
Seriously...
PRE CU was ambitioning work and you could see that on it. Much was invested in the game design. However it was rushed out to the market thanks $OE and not all designed elements were implemented properly.
As we experienced crafting and economy part was a masterpiece and NO game can compete with that.
The point is $$, yes the almighty dollar. Seems you can make a lot of cash nowadays if you just ignore complexity , game quality and ambitious goals.
So you just offer simpler games in which you don't have to invest very much of time and money and there is still someone who plays it and pay you for your laziness and dumbness.This goes for the big game companies.
Another assertion could be that nowadays no one has patience. If you work in smaller team it takes more time for you to release a complex and feature heavy masterpiece. Publisher and investors demand quick gains and often even player who you want to give the best game you can start to hate you because you don't deliver a ready work quick and ASAP. This goes for the small companies.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Seriously...
lmao are you kidding?
Take off those rose tinted specs and think back, it's not hard.
...The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.
Seriously...
lmao are you kidding?
Take off those rose tinted specs and think back, it's not hard.
No I'm not kidding, it was your statement...
I don't think SWG had the WORST of anything...
It had bugs, it had problems, but that was part of it being SWG... I loved the sandbox, the UNbalanced professions... people who wanted to power level could... people who wanted to kill worrts and loot hide could, people who wanted to make weapons could, people who wanted to just Rez people at the graveyard could, people who wanted to Buff at Theed, could...
It was about a Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game in which you were immersed and living out a life as ana vatar in a generated game world, where you could live a life you chose... your actions, crafting, and decisions had effects and outcomes on the game world... the whole point was to LIVE in a star wars universe as you saw fit...
MMO's these days seem to be about leveling, grinding, questing, looting, raiding and MAXXING out your character...
When can we go back to logging into a world and just sitting at a ranger camp shooting the breeze and living there and doing what we wanted... soon I hope... SWGe**.com
Is ahead of there time a nicer way of saying it sucks really bad now? Pre-cu was a mess in many ways, balance suckes, there was nothing to really do pre-cu, ''sandbox''= a nicer way to say no content, and since there was no content pre-cu lets try pvp, pvp was very unbalanced, so many damn bugs and exploits in pre-cu, I was liking the way swg was heading when rage of the wookies expansion came out, I was like yayyy quests, stories, lore awesome, then obi wan came out i liked this as well, and at first i was bitter with the cu but after giving it a real try i realized something, it fixed the game, the classes are balanced, did away with that stupid tier system that everyone cookie cut for each profession, or incorporated each tier with the greatest exploit of each profession, come on you people, how can pre cu be the good old days of swg it was crap, I dont think all the complaining vets could here could truly compare cu and pre cu in honesty because apparently they never gave cu a real college try, play the new swg for 2 months and then compare it to the bug ridden grind crapfest contentless that was pre cu.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Horses for courses right... well, SWG will always be in my heart as a near perfect gaming experience...
I know I am not the only one and I am enjoying replaying that experience...
So its all balanced now , so i assume you a trader and pawn Jedis and Bounty Hunters now, right ?
Or should trader being removed for not to beeing balanced with Bounty Hunter?
I know you need to adhere to your NGE to judge to yourself why you still pay to play such an crapware and waste so much time on it.
Because you need a hand like an 3 years old kid whom being told to what to do next, doenst mean that people actualy took advantage of the sandbox nature of PRE CU and filled the space with enjoyning themselvs in 1000 more amazing activities then hanging out in Restuss PvP ing and/or load in instances for repeatadly doing the same mindless thing over and over for crap collection and calling this "Content" .
Content as quests had be easily put into PRE CU too without having to ruin the game btw. And while you mentioning bugs , the most annoying bugs are still in current game and with CU/NGE more massive bugs introduced in addition to these.
We vets may look back and put more shine in the memories of what we had in PRE CU but thats becuaseof the very crap and sad state of the current crapware some call a "game".
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
For the next several years we are going to see big development houses riding Blizzard's coattails with level based games where you level up with soloable quests. I believe that most of these games will fail.
After the failure of the WoW clones somebody *might* take a chance at a sandbox type game but it's not going to happen any time soon.
So its all balanced now , so i assume you a trader and pawn Jedis and Bounty hunters now, right ?
I know you need to adhere to your NGE to judge to yourself why you still pay to play such an crapware and waste so much time on it.
Because you need a hand like an 3 years old kid it doenst mean that people actualy took advantage of the sandbox nature of PRE CU and filled the space with enjoyning themselfs in 1000 more amazing activities then hanging out in Restuss PvP ing and/or load in instances for repeatadly doing the same mindless thing over and over for crap collection and calling this "Content" .
Content as quests had be easily put into PRE CU too without having to ruin the game btw. And why you mentioning bugs , the most annoying bugs are still in current game and with CU/NGE more massive bugs introduced in addition to them.
We vets may look back and put more shine in the memories of what we had in PRE CU but thats becuaseof the very crap and sad state of the current crapware some call a "game".
Alot of people bang on about the shine we put on our memories as vets, or the rose tinted glasses... but listen, and listen well, speaking as a vet from SWG and a 33 year old game player from pre Spectrum16k days all the way through everysystem to now... I played SWG*** today and just logging in and chatting to people without having to go do anything in particular was a great feeling... That is what I loved about SWG, I have played EVE, LOTRO, WoW, Vanguard and none of them AT ALL come close to that experience in SWG... that is the game I wanted to play and want to play... and the SWG*** is the only place I can play it, so that is what I play...
It is great and if they had stuck at it... WoW raiders would have been filling up Bria nad the other servers by now... I'm sure of it...
Yes that is the strongest part an MMO can have . You login to a place like visiting a place you never was before. You being not forced to anything and have the choices to explore and investigate that place interacting with people and enviroment to find out how you can add to that place and how the place influences you. With time you discover the complex mechanics and BUILD you own ties to people and environment. You could use the term simulation for to give sandbox another attribute. A simulation will always be more complying the aspect of gaming within the human nature then any other type of a game.
You could just play a single player game if you just wanted to level a class let say Jedi to 90. Because you need someone to pawn for you to feel uber you could attach a multiplayer map calling it Restuss to your singleplayer game and you are good to go. But sorry thats not a MMO in my opinion.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
I hear what you're saying, but 3 years ago there were over 200K people that were playing a game that offered something different. Today I'd bet there are many more that are hungry for an aternative to the WoW model. People that are looking for that next step beyond the limitatitions of levels and loot.
Unfortunely "The bird" is facing the limitations of popular exposure thru mainstream media. It will do well within those who know of it, but has little to know chance beyond those numbers IMO - sadly.
I think Raph and his colleagues had a brilliant vision. The whole online community feel of SWG at release was truly amazing. The sense of endless possibilities for personal and community development really caught my interest.
I still remember my rl band-mates asking me when they found out I played SWG, "dude are you a jedi?" I said, "no I play in a band in the cantina." They thought that was priceless. Every time we got together for practice sessions, they wanted to hear stories about my online adventures.
I see a few main issues that seemed to get in the way of this vision being realized. The first is the fact that the game was pushed live in a horribly bug-ridden state. It simply wasn't ready to play. I see SOE's philosophy of using subscription revenues to fix a broken live game as a real contributing factor to this problem. They simply should have taken the time, and financial investment necessay, to ensure the smooth release of a polished product. They just didn't do what needed to be done. They were impatient for the cash to start flowing in, so they rushed things and got the result you would expect.
Another issue I think I see, is that some people simply aren't customers for a virtual community that gives you a lot of options and tools to create your own adventure. They want a more directed gaming experience; something simpler and more linear. I believe components like this could have been added to the original game system without nuking it. SOE and LEC seemed to see these playstyles as mutually exclusive. I would disagree. The excellent games that I have played offer elements to people with many different play styles all at the same time.
SOE and LEC's all or nothing thinking (either open or directed gameplay, either crafting or looting, either grouping or soloing, etc. etc.) also helped to kill Raph's vision in my opinion. So, in addition to things being slapped together and rushed out to try to make a fast buck, faulty all or nothing thinking really tanked this game and negatively impacted everyone connected to it, whether they were on the business or customer side of the deal.
I love when people claim Pre-CU had "balance issues"...
Name me 1 single game that doesn't require adjustments to class balances... They ALL do. And isn't that part of the game anyway? People find the best possible mix of abilities to maximize their in-game ability?
My only problem with Pre-CU SWG was the combat. I thought the combat was too dull. I didn't like the idea of queing up hotkeys to "outskill" someone in PvP. I would rather I actually aim and shoot. I want it to be my skill that does that.
Other than the combat, which is a problem in most MMO games, Pre-CU was pretty golden. No game can touch the crafting, the 32 professions, the community, and the sandbox feel the virtual world had...
Tecmo Bowl.
These approach to combat has a very long tradition in RPG. The idea to collect/acquire spells and just use it on a target.
It is maybe the disquingishing feature between RPG and other genre and bases on the idea that you put effort in other aspects of the game like quests , lore and use these for combat.
Your ability to "outskill" someone is earned while you progress and advance through the world, it is "your skill" that gave you this ability just another then that required for "aim and shoot".
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
For the next several years we are going to see big development houses riding Blizzard's coattails with level based games where you level up with soloable quests. I believe that most of these games will fail.
After the failure of the WoW clones somebody *might* take a chance at a sandbox type game but it's not going to happen any time soon.
I think Darkfall is the next big sandbox game and a recent article I read on some of its features were very impressive indeed. One of the questions asked was something like, 'Are you worried about new players getting ganked by veteran high level players?' The senior dev. said 'no' because you have no idea how senior the other person is. No levels no crazy titles. That is very cool in my book.
I agree with the OP. Original SWG was the best MMO I've played (and I'm also 33).
Sadly, there is one reason why developers are making WoW clones. MONEY.
Also, not to be nitpicky, but its Raph, not Ralph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raph_Koster
PreCU SWG had it's problems, but it was and still is my favorite mmo and probably favorite game every. I'd love to play it again.
I have the vet trial now but I'm busy with the AOC beta and GTA4. I hope I get around to it...
They were visionaries and pioneers...
Koster is part philosopher part sociologist he understands what a virtual world is supposed to be about. SWG was the chance these guys had to really do something outstanding, but they ran out of time, not money, time. Someone became impatient and pushed the game out too soon. If they were able to do what they wanted to do the game would of been brilliant. It was released before it was finished and they spent the rest of their time not developing new content but digging themselves out of a hole.
Even as it was it was the greatest game i have ever played.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
Indeed it was...