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So where did SWG go wrong?
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
And will TOR eventually go the same road..
Just read this blog : http://blog.tp.org/chip/archives/002076.html
I think every serious MMO player should have read it, so they know what went wrong.
How much of this could fire back to SW:TOR in the end?
BEcause Lucas Arts is still very much involved with this game.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
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SWG went wrong the moment Lucas Arts signed over the license to SOE for development.
TOR may be under the shadow of EA. But at least it isn't SOE.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
It seems clear that the main reasons there was such a backlash against SOE/SWG was that they failed to engage with their core player base (the 'bread and butter' of the business) and thumbed their collective noses at the players. They changed the game from something people joined to play into a completely different game, this alienated most (all?) of the original players who had joined for different reasons and who were generally enjoying what they were doing.
Instead of concentrating on fixing the bugs and stabilising the game they tried to reinvent it as something completely different, without seeking the input of the people who ultimately paid their wages. Mistake.
I hope EA/BioWare/LucasArts heed the lessons and don't make the same mistakes - only time will tell.
WoW came out, SOE panicked, wanted to attracted more casual players because pre-NGE was a complex game if you were into crafting, NGE happened and game died.
Currently Playing: SSFIV AE, SFxTekken, SWTOR, WoW. Waiting for: GW2, Resident Evil 6.
SOE. /thread
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Looking back, I believe that the corporate asshats got greedy. They saw the explosion of subs WOW was generating and decided to DUMB down the swg concept. Thus creating the motives for the NGE.
It was ultimately Smedley choking on Lucas Arts shlong that caused the irreversible effects of the downfall.
SOE alienated the players and the rest is history.
They never seemed to have a definitive roadmap for the game, or had any real clue as to where they wanted the game to go in the future, even before WoW came out. Once WoW came out they saw the potential sub base they could get, but their game was completely different and so they tried to change it.
SWG had problems from day 1, and although it was a fun game before it went to hell, it still never felt like it was on a specific long term course.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
You didn't even read the blog i posted.
As it was as much Lucas Arts (maybe even more then SOE) that went wrong. And Lucas Art is as much part of SWTOR then it was of SWG.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
blogs are just an opinion...so meh.
play it till you stop likeing it
The bigger problems started long before the change. They would have had a bigger player base in the beginning if they had focused more on the gameplay at the start. They ended up with a niche player base, which is still OK, but then you need to put more focus on what that niche wants, and give it to them. Instead they apparently focused on what other (new)players might want, and alienated a good chunk of their player base.
You can't really compare SWG to SWTOR. Different games, different focus. Plus, Bioware has had a working relationship with Lucas Arts, for years. They specifically created and used the Old Republic to give them the freedom that they needed to create a universe that is far less restrictive than what SWG had to deal with (SWG was set during the canon years).
Honestly I think longevity + sony is the main reason. I didn't actually play SWG, but just as a general opinion, wow is declining as well. It's been 8+ years .. maybe not long enough, but I think most mmos from that age are just not going to last anymore. And then there is the Sony thing and the major change in mechanics (which I know little to nothing about admittedly, but it seems to be a big topic whenever that game is brought up).
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
You are correct sir. LA is just as at fault as SoE, and in my defence i did try but wow thats really hard to read. (maby its the white on grey?)
The following statement is false
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Where did SWG go wrong huh?
Put it this way: You buy yourself a nice new and shiney rolls royce, you drive that car and love it for three or four years and at the next service the garage takes it away and gives you a mini.
It went wrong when they released it about a year too soon.
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
That's interesting. So it was an MMO based on a story, instead of TOR which is a story based on an MMO concent (many many jedi / sith).
Wasn't it something like before "the change", which again I know little about, jedi were "demigods" or something?
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
The game itself had so many good ideas that were amazing like the Profession system and seamless player housing. However SOE launched it a broken game and never fixed the problems, they just created more problems every patch and then ruined it with the CU and NGE.
What is funny is back then everyone moaned about no space and how could they launch Star Wars without space. SWTOR is launching without space too and no one is complaining....
I don't count that linear mini game as space, I mean space you can travel and PVP in.
With Swg Lucas and Sony took a complex type game and attempted to dumb it down to be more wow like. Completly disregarding there niche market base they had built up.
Now swtor was built from the ground up to be the game lucas wanted soe to deliver with the nge patch there is no reason to think that lucas is suddenly gonna say after launch hey lets make this a sandbox game now.
SWG was pretty much a sandbox game, complex and absorbing with the players given the usual sandbox tools to do with as they pleased. This was in the days before WoW when 150k subs was considered good. Along came WoW and smashed all records for an MMO. The suits at SoE & Lucasarts wanted some WoW pie so they completely revamped SWG from a sandbox into a themepark. To become a jedi in the original SWG took years of work to achieve and that was wiped out overnight, players could simply choose to create one at the start. I had a 50/50 CH/BE ( thats creature handler / bio-engineer level 50 in each ), those two classes ceased to exist, again overnight. One industry heavyweight called it the biggest shaft of a playerbase ever in MMO history; that was the NGE or new game experience.
What SoE and LA didn't count on was 90% of their players vanishing overnight as the subscription numbers fell to about 12k from the original 150k.
Hehe, I beg to differ. You should have seen this board when Space-On-Rails got announced and first shown. It wasn't pretty.
It's still a major let down for many people. But most sane folks can understand that the amount of land based content they had to develop for launch was so staggering that they didn't have the time, money and manpower to give us anything more than a minigame "placeholder spaceholder" ... yet.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Does the blog give evidence to this? Maybe I'm missing it but I only see the statement, 'LucasArts apparently pushed for it...' I'm not suggesting LA wasn't heavily involved in decision making for NGE changes, but I'd like to see a reliable source for the claim.
Its to early to tell yet, but I have a feeling the current space is what we get. Unless they have a large part done there not sharing with us it would be ultimately like building another game in a game. Me I'm happy with the direction they went if I want space combat I'll go play eve. Game that try to do both fail hard (I'm looking at you STO whose 'away missions' made me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a spork).
If Bioware has to constantly use all there development pools at creating new endgame content for their current game model ie raids and hopefully more storyline archs I think its a bit unrealistic to expect them to keep up with that along with creating a whole new game. And if the game is successful in its current state long enough to warrant an expac based on space when the majority of the playerbase may just want more content for the game in its current state.
Actually if you click the first newslink on the blog I believe its title revenge of the fans you'll see in that article there basicly only talking to Lucas Arts reps who are basicly saying we wanted to make the game more accessible to a larger player base. While its not really proof I do find it funny LA is the one making those claims for the article and not SOE as I have yet to se LA answer the press on biowares behalf.
That's interesting. So it was an MMO based on a story, instead of TOR which is a story based on an MMO concent (many many jedi / sith).
Wasn't it something like before "the change", which again I know little about, jedi were "demigods" or something?
Well, SWG was set around the time of the movies. That put a lot of restrictions on them. One big one, of course, was that Jedi were rare.
TOR isn't based on an MMO, it is based on Bioware's "Knights of the Old Republic" timeline. When Bioware first talked to Lucas Arts about doing a Star Wars based RPG, they were given the choice of doing it during the Official Story line, or doing it in the far distant past. Bioware chose the past so they could be more creative with the story line. The two KOTOR games were set about 4000 years before the movies, and the history goes back to 5000 years prior to them. TOR is set in that universe, using the lore that was created for it.
I'm not sure what the "the change" was. The were several major wars that either divided the Jedi, or made them nearly extinct. The Sith did have a major change, where they moved from a time of many Sith to a system of one master and one apprentice, "the rule of two". That happens near the end of the old republic era.
Aww, SWG. It was my first MMO, my greatest "MMO-love" ever, and the many good and wonderful years I had with the community and the game will always be the best MMO years I will remember.
I am sure a lot of people will cite the famous NGE as reason, for the failure, but it was only the syptom for a deeper flaw. As many SOE developers in hindsight reported and I, as one who played the game in that time saw as well was, SWG was bleedings subs. NGE was a reaction to a failure, it just greatly accelerated what would have happend anyway. Back then WOW was on the rise and tons of gamers went to WOW and away from SWG, way before the NGE.
One of the "flaws" if you might call it that, certainly was, SOE bit off more than they could chew. SWG was a giant game with a ton of gameplay spheres and bringing them together coherently was just too much. It was a game under constant rework. The so called CU to this day divides the fans. I count to those who welcomed the CU as a great step in the right direction, because pre-CU combat was just horribly clums, and you were awfully dependent on a plethora of "ifs". Essentially you could do NOTHING alone. All people I knew in my large guild welcomed the CU change, but also others had preferred a more hardcore approach. Since SWG was constantly "under construction" even way before the NGE, there were always some fundamentals changing, so the game kinda never rested. I for one was NOT surprised when the NGE came (a) because SOE had always worked with fundamentals, and (b) it was clear to every players that SWG was loosing subs FAST and substantially!
Second, I think the sandbox purist idea of just tossing people into the world never was for more than a very few. I mean, I loved to have sandbox on top of things, or as bachground, but just giving people a world and let them hunt is never enough save for a handful few. So after a time, people just were out of stuff to do, and that only began to change when Kashyykk was added with the first world really with quests all over, and later Mustafar also with quests. Those worlds were VERY popular, because finally you had a constant line of quests to do. I think that just is what by and large the VAST majority of people wants and wanted back then. The "quest haters" were, as I saw it, even back then only a tiny group.
Finally, the Jedi issue. I know it was much debated over the years. These days it seems only those who disliked the addition of Jedi are speaking. But the truth is, MANY people I spoke to before NGE wanted to play Jedi. It is just a logical thing when people enter a Star Wars world. Not allowing them to play Jedi was a big mistake and most of the 150+ people I knew back then saw it the same. I wrote SOE many times they needed to add it. When Jedi was finally added as unlockable, it was in the WORST possible way. It was a horribly boring grind, it had almost no story and NOTHING to do with being a Jedi at all. It was just "kill 50,000 creatures". And then Jedi could have permadeath. These two features made Jedi only playable to people with essentially no "real life" and I know a lot people who back then quit SWG out of protest against SOE for allowing casual gamers not being allowed to be Jedi.
SWG did a lot of things right: player cities, large worlds which are not just "quest themeparks" but like REAL worlds, many non combat additions like entertainers, open space, real good housing, much stuff to wear or put into your house and of course the chance to really mix all kind of skills and abilities you wanted and not being confined to one class. For me, SWG will always remain a great vision, a WORLD not just a game, and it's friendly people, the great community and wonderful years is something I never even remotely experienced since then. But games moved on, and SWG was too vast, too complex and too "not completed" to compete. I hope that at least some of it's legacy, like real open worlds, entertainers and player cities will not be entirely lost. Maybe we see it in Arch Age again. Even if SWTOR will be great in it's own way, and I think it can be, it will never be like my first MMO love, Star Wars Galaxies!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert