Everyone wants to blame SOE for the changes and down fall of Star War Galaxies. I say it is Lucas Arts. I bet that LA was involved in every aspect of the development in SWG and had the final say on what could or couldn't be put in the game. The fickle temperment of Geroge Lucas and other executives, I believe caused the Cu and Nge. In the end LA has found a bigger cash cow with the developers of KOTOR. I'm sure Bioware doesn't want any Star Wars competition from anyone. The first paragraph of my contract as a Bioware executive would have LA pull any license and forbid any new license to be given for at least 10 years. If you were spending over 100 million to license and develop a game would you want any competition?
NGE was ALL SOE, not Lucas Arts.
Smed said it was HIM, not LA, that decided to go ahead with the NGE. For all the bashing you guys do of Lucas Arts, everything I've heard runs contradictory to that. Lucas Arts ok'd the goofiest of crap because SOE wanted to add it - everything from the NGE (SOE's idea) to flying pink Ewoks with purple hearts (SOE's idea).
Just like the NGE, closing the game down is SOEs decission, not Lucas Arts. BioWare doesn't care about a handful of SWG players - heck, 90% of them would have gone to TOR anyway - SWG was a non factor.
And to the topic...
The engine needs to be scrapped. The flaws and bugs with it were numerous. Some of the better ideas from the engine should be duplicated...but not by using the same engine...that would be a mistake.
Are you aware of the wast amount of work, or money, needed to get a new modern engine suitable for an MMO?
I think the OP was going after the idea of reusing stuff, and thus cut the development time and cost.
sorry but it cannot be done,like other mentionned there were lot of flaw ,and i sure hope they kept a note of all the issue cause if they didnt they will repeat the same error without remembering why it was a flaw.soe doesnt have error margin now a days !why!they had eq1,eq2,swg,etc etc to learn their mistake if they havent learned by now they never will so their next move will be scrutinised for good reason!
Everyone wants to blame SOE for the changes and down fall of Star War Galaxies. I say it is Lucas Arts. I bet that LA was involved in every aspect of the development in SWG and had the final say on what could or couldn't be put in the game. The fickle temperment of Geroge Lucas and other executives, I believe caused the Cu and Nge. In the end LA has found a bigger cash cow with the developers of KOTOR. I'm sure Bioware doesn't want any Star Wars competition from anyone. The first paragraph of my contract as a Bioware executive would have LA pull any license and forbid any new license to be given for at least 10 years. If you were spending over 100 million to license and develop a game would you want any competition?
NGE was ALL SOE, not Lucas Arts.
Smed said it was HIM, not LA, that decided to go ahead with the NGE. For all the bashing you guys do of Lucas Arts, everything I've heard runs contradictory to that. Lucas Arts ok'd the goofiest of crap because SOE wanted to add it - everything from the NGE (SOE's idea) to flying pink Ewoks with purple hearts (SOE's idea).
Just like the NGE, closing the game down is SOEs decission, not Lucas Arts. BioWare doesn't care about a handful of SWG players - heck, 90% of them would have gone to TOR anyway - SWG was a non factor.
And to the topic...
The engine needs to be scrapped. The flaws and bugs with it were numerous. Some of the better ideas from the engine should be duplicated...but not by using the same engine...that would be a mistake.
Are you aware of the wast amount of work, or money, needed to get a new modern engine suitable for an MMO?
I think the OP was going after the idea of reusing stuff, and thus cut the development time and cost.
I am.
I am also saying there are better engines to begin with. This is arguably the WORST one imaginable.
Are you aware of the wast amount of work, or money, needed to get a new modern engine suitable for an MMO?
I think the OP was going after the idea of reusing stuff, and thus cut the development time and cost.
I agree that it would be cheaper to retool SWG into another mmo without the star wars license, but the result would be awful. The SWG engine is running a game that it was not designed to work with and the results are a terrible game.
Cutting cost and time is fine, but the end result has to be something worth the investment and the SWG engine isn't worth it. The concepts in SWG are worth reusing, but not on the game engine running it.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
SOE likely owns the engine, but they own absolutely nothing that relates to "Star Wars" - you know...like...everything.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
So yeah... LucasArt owns it all.. they funded the project and gave the licens to Verant (the developers) who worked with SOE (the publisher). SOE later bought the game as Verant did not do all that well.
Edit: My bad seems lik they bough the entire company not only the game. Any way all was not good at the launch of the game if my memory servs me right.
The SWG engine as you put it is the same one used in Everquest 2. Both games play pretty much the same. If you like SWG then you should love Everquest 2. Just my opinion
I'm pretty sure they are not the same engine. Although I have thought from time to time that each of them lacked some features that the other had. I would have liked to see what a combined engine could do.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
SOE likely owns the engine, but they own absolutely nothing that relates to "Star Wars" - you know...like...everything.
Everything ---> Story Diolog, Art Assets, Sound Effects, Names, Music (yes even Entertainer band music)
Items assumed by Lucas that may be defined as owned(but I am not sure) ---> Ent Dances, Motion Capture Catalog, The 3 patents mentioned by Raph Koster on his blog, Tools made to work with the said engine.
In short everything that was enjoyed just short of the actual game engine.
All they would have to do is reskin some things and change some names. How much in SWG was so deeply star wars that it couldnt be easily changed? Get rid of Jedi and the rest of the classes were pretty generic. I don't remember seeing or reading about chuba's or gnorts in any star wars movie or book.
I started thinking about this when I read that Smed is excited about the future of sandbox gaming. The only thing that excites Smed is money. If SOE did not have to pay for the SW license this would be a minimal amount of work for some easy money.
To SOE's credit they have done a lot of work to SWG since the NGE. It was actually a pretty solid game (with horrible combat). Upgrade the graphics a tad, change the races and you are pretty much off and running.
Just a thought.
Its an in house engine. EQ II used it and went further with it. Then Vanguard is the UT 2 engine. And DC Universe online is the UT 3 Engine.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
So yeah... LucasArt owns it all.. they funded the project and gave the licens to Verant (the developers) who worked with SOE (the publisher). SOE later bought the game as Verant did not do all that well.
Edit: My bad seems lik they bough the entire company not only the game. Any way all was not good at the launch of the game if my memory servs me right.
Just a little side note to Verant. They were sony employees who broke off and made the company, Verant or I think it was 989 studios at the time, to create eq1. later on sony bought them and brought everything back in house, basically.
Greenhell is right that it would be significantly easier to rework an existing mmo than it would be to create one from the ground up. SOE could slap a new coat of paint on all the models, rip out the references to Star Wars and rework some things and make it into a new game.
I don't think it would work or that SOE would do it, but SOE seems to be the one company that defies logic when creating and running mmos.
This game only survived, because it was a Star Wars game. The "engine" and all of the game systems forcable bolted on top of it are fucking awful. There are almost no redeeming qualities of the game engine. Trying to revive this game without the Star Wars IP to power it would most likely be one of the dumbest ideas ever attempted.
Starting from scratch would be so much better, because it could attempt to address all of the problems that heavily contributed to the downfall of the game in its current shape. Take the concepts that work and put them in a game engine that can support it.
I have to agree with this as well, and hopefully someone "gets it" and realizes that concepts of SWG features that did work well and were praised will eventually make it into a new MMO for us down the road and hopefully improve upon those systems as well.
I don't think it'd be worth the time that it'd take to reskin everything. Every single gun and weapon probably has canonical ties somewhere down the line.
I don't think it'd be worth the time that it'd take to reskin everything. Every single gun and weapon probably has canonical ties somewhere down the line.
Yeah I agree with you
Playing: Single player games |
Awaiting: Wild Star |Blade & Soul | The Repopulation | The Elder Scrolls online | ArcheAge | Firefall | Survarium | Bless | Black Desert |
Played: Guild Wars | Diablo 3 |The War Z | Runescape |World of Warcraft |Combat Arms |Perfect World | Rift | Fiesta | DC universe online | Aion | Age of Conan |Allods | Vindictus | The Secret World | Forge | Battle of the Immortals | Global Agenda| Cabal Online | Tera |
(And i am very happy bcs the engine is broken fundamentally)
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
It would've been called "Space Wars" with weird races and planet names if they had created the game without the Star Wars license & IP, SOE did most of the game while using the Star Wars content (characters, planets, cities, weapons, story arcs, etc). If it wasn't Star Wars, we wouldn't be visiting Han and Chewie in the back of the cantina on Lok. LA likely controls the content while SOE controls the game's destination, LA surely didn't force SOE to make the NGE- Smed said himself that he did it to try and draw back the WoW crowd after Nov 2004's big sub loss.
But since it's a Star Wars game, once the license is up and they kept it online, you'd be violating patent rights to the IP.
First off, anything Smedly said in this regard or to hint at this is just more BS PR from a executive with a long history of lies.
Second, I personally would not be willing to tolerate all the shortcomings of the current game if it is not Star Wars.
Thirdly, there are rumor reports that LA actually made several offers to SOE in an attempt to keep the game up and SOE refused them all.
Bottom line for me is that both SOE and LA are nolonger gaming companies and just big corporate pigs looking to cash in before making good games and providing good customer service and support. If anything they would perfer to never have to interface with customers as it costs money.
The MMO industry in general has become saturated by the console mentality of shallow game making and short term money making. MMOs as we think of them are dead in the current market conditions.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
So yeah... LucasArt owns it all.. they funded the project and gave the licens to Verant (the developers) who worked with SOE (the publisher). SOE later bought the game as Verant did not do all that well.
Edit: My bad seems lik they bough the entire company not only the game. Any way all was not good at the launch of the game if my memory servs me right.
Just to clarify a point, LucasArts is the publisher of SWG.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
So yeah... LucasArt owns it all.. they funded the project and gave the licens to Verant (the developers) who worked with SOE (the publisher). SOE later bought the game as Verant did not do all that well.
Edit: My bad seems lik they bough the entire company not only the game. Any way all was not good at the launch of the game if my memory servs me right.
Just a little side note to Verant. They were sony employees who broke off and made the company, Verant or I think it was 989 studios at the time, to create eq1. later on sony bought them and brought everything back in house, basically.
Verant was part of 989 Studios, but split off when 989 began to focus on console games. Sony was always part owner of Verant.
Wow I don't see anything like this happening. Why do you think the agency bit the dust and was never released.
The Agency had a lot against it. First, spy genera is way to niche to be a grand success. Lead developers jump ship and ran to make social games instead have faith in the project. The largest reason to drop this game was what happen with DCUO. Both would have multi-plaform and use a non-standard combat system. The failings of DCUO fated the Agency from its very launch.
With everything else that has happen with Sony this few months, it was a doomed project. It has pretty awsome previews at SOE Fan Faire but I just didn't see it really performing well in the market.
Will SOE make a Sandbox MMO? To me, they are running out of ideas and have less resources to gamble. They will return to the basics (or in this case complex) and try it old school. It wil probably fail again as they just never meet launch with a quality product. They got a real bad corporate attitude with customers that remains toxic to them.
Comments
sorry but it cannot be done,like other mentionned there were lot of flaw ,and i sure hope they kept a note of all the issue cause if they didnt they will repeat the same error without remembering why it was a flaw.soe doesnt have error margin now a days !why!they had eq1,eq2,swg,etc etc to learn their mistake if they havent learned by now they never will so their next move will be scrutinised for good reason!
I am.
I am also saying there are better engines to begin with. This is arguably the WORST one imaginable.
I agree that it would be cheaper to retool SWG into another mmo without the star wars license, but the result would be awful. The SWG engine is running a game that it was not designed to work with and the results are a terrible game.
Cutting cost and time is fine, but the end result has to be something worth the investment and the SWG engine isn't worth it. The concepts in SWG are worth reusing, but not on the game engine running it.
So let me see if I have this straight... SOE created and designed SWG. They pay LA for using their IP and on top of that LA owns everything that SOE created even if it had nothing to do with the IP before the game. Who paid the development cost?
SOE likely owns the engine, but they own absolutely nothing that relates to "Star Wars" - you know...like...everything.
Unless there was something crazy in the contract, SOE owns everything that is not a direct reference to Star Wars material.
Almost all of the art assets would need to be reskinned or at least redesigned to some extent. All the text would have to be scrubbed.
The more I think about it, the less I think it would be very cost effective to try to remove an IP from a game this old.
On 16 March 2000, LucasArts Entertainment announced a partnership with Verant Interactive Inc. and Sony Online Entertainment to create the first massively multiplayer Star Wars online role-playing game
So yeah... LucasArt owns it all.. they funded the project and gave the licens to Verant (the developers) who worked with SOE (the publisher). SOE later bought the game as Verant did not do all that well.
Edit: My bad seems lik they bough the entire company not only the game. Any way all was not good at the launch of the game if my memory servs me right.
This have been a good conversation
I'm pretty sure they are not the same engine. Although I have thought from time to time that each of them lacked some features that the other had. I would have liked to see what a combined engine could do.
Everything ---> Story Diolog, Art Assets, Sound Effects, Names, Music (yes even Entertainer band music)
Items assumed by Lucas that may be defined as owned(but I am not sure) ---> Ent Dances, Motion Capture Catalog, The 3 patents mentioned by Raph Koster on his blog, Tools made to work with the said engine.
In short everything that was enjoyed just short of the actual game engine.
Its an in house engine. EQ II used it and went further with it. Then Vanguard is the UT 2 engine. And DC Universe online is the UT 3 Engine.
Just a little side note to Verant. They were sony employees who broke off and made the company, Verant or I think it was 989 studios at the time, to create eq1. later on sony bought them and brought everything back in house, basically.
I have to agree with this as well, and hopefully someone "gets it" and realizes that concepts of SWG features that did work well and were praised will eventually make it into a new MMO for us down the road and hopefully improve upon those systems as well.
If they did this and charged a lower fee like $5-7 a month, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.
I don't think it'd be worth the time that it'd take to reskin everything. Every single gun and weapon probably has canonical ties somewhere down the line.
Yeah I agree with you
Playing: Single player games |
Awaiting: Wild Star |Blade & Soul | The Repopulation | The Elder Scrolls online | ArcheAge | Firefall | Survarium | Bless | Black Desert |
Played: Guild Wars | Diablo 3 |The War Z | Runescape |World of Warcraft |Combat Arms |Perfect World | Rift | Fiesta | DC universe online | Aion | Age of Conan |Allods | Vindictus | The Secret World | Forge | Battle of the Immortals | Global Agenda| Cabal Online | Tera |
For sure - No!
(And i am very happy bcs the engine is broken fundamentally)
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
It would've been called "Space Wars" with weird races and planet names if they had created the game without the Star Wars license & IP, SOE did most of the game while using the Star Wars content (characters, planets, cities, weapons, story arcs, etc). If it wasn't Star Wars, we wouldn't be visiting Han and Chewie in the back of the cantina on Lok. LA likely controls the content while SOE controls the game's destination, LA surely didn't force SOE to make the NGE- Smed said himself that he did it to try and draw back the WoW crowd after Nov 2004's big sub loss.
But since it's a Star Wars game, once the license is up and they kept it online, you'd be violating patent rights to the IP.
First off, anything Smedly said in this regard or to hint at this is just more BS PR from a executive with a long history of lies.
Second, I personally would not be willing to tolerate all the shortcomings of the current game if it is not Star Wars.
Thirdly, there are rumor reports that LA actually made several offers to SOE in an attempt to keep the game up and SOE refused them all.
Bottom line for me is that both SOE and LA are nolonger gaming companies and just big corporate pigs looking to cash in before making good games and providing good customer service and support. If anything they would perfer to never have to interface with customers as it costs money.
The MMO industry in general has become saturated by the console mentality of shallow game making and short term money making. MMOs as we think of them are dead in the current market conditions.
IMHO
It's over, time to move on.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Wow I don't see anything like this happening. Why do you think the agency bit the dust and was never released.
I would like to point out that LucasArt have always been about the money... Why the heck do you think they made a Star Wars MMO from the start.
This have been a good conversation
Just to clarify a point, LucasArts is the publisher of SWG.
Every company is about making money. The companies that aren't generally go out of business.
Verant was part of 989 Studios, but split off when 989 began to focus on console games. Sony was always part owner of Verant.
The Agency had a lot against it. First, spy genera is way to niche to be a grand success. Lead developers jump ship and ran to make social games instead have faith in the project. The largest reason to drop this game was what happen with DCUO. Both would have multi-plaform and use a non-standard combat system. The failings of DCUO fated the Agency from its very launch.
With everything else that has happen with Sony this few months, it was a doomed project. It has pretty awsome previews at SOE Fan Faire but I just didn't see it really performing well in the market.
Will SOE make a Sandbox MMO? To me, they are running out of ideas and have less resources to gamble. They will return to the basics (or in this case complex) and try it old school. It wil probably fail again as they just never meet launch with a quality product. They got a real bad corporate attitude with customers that remains toxic to them.