"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
When this next wave of sandbox SWG homages launch and fall flat after their obligatory 6 month hypercoaster ride from AWESOME to meh, I wonder if anyone that remembers SWG fondly will even make an effort at re-evaluating why they remember it so reverently.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I would not agree with SWG being on the list .. it was perfect for what it was. Yes there were bugs and issues ... and yes it lacked a bit of direction .. but really what mmo at that time knew what is known now about the industry. I think if SWG were released today .. with the right team and the right direction .. you may see something truly the best out there.
Something also to remember is that SWG was a sandbox ... not a theme park (which it became after NGE)
I think the potential of the game was never fully tapped and for that I blame SOE.
Originally posted by maxcancer SWG PRE SOE was the BEST MMORPG EVER... after Uo obviously, i don't want to see him in the same articles of lego universe lol
Did you even...?
THIS... THIS is why SWG is remembered so fondly.
(for those who don't get my point... If he thinks there was EVER a 'Pre-SOE' SWG then he never played it, and yet here he is talking about how GREAT it was. Come on folks, that SWG band wagon is about to split its axle from the weight of all the wannabe, 'me too', 'come-latelys'.)
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
It's perfectly fine for SWG to be your favorite game, but don't whitewash the many issues and problems that it had. I didn't jump in on it, despite being a Star Wars fan, as I had friends working on the project, and they warned me away from it. Middle and upper management was rife with trouble. The game was released nearly a year too early, and huge chunks of it just didn't work. I suspect that at the times they revamped things, they couldn't actually fix the broken parts, but felt they had to do something.....
Some of the things it did were great, groundbreaking even. But launching early with tremendous problems is a bad way to go in the online games industry. That's something that you see replicated through a bunch of games' troubled releases, including a number of these titles here.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I lump SWG and SWTOR together because I really just wanted one good Star Wars MMO and both of these games failed at that. Age of Conan was another disappointment. So was Lord of the Rings Online. So was Warhammer. In fact, every MMO that's ever been based on an established IP has disappointed me. Well, with the exception of Elder Scrolls Online which really sucked at first but is getting much better.
I was dissapointed with Vanguard because it was a Quest hub wow clone; which is sad considering if you took away that quest hub bullshit, the game world was amazing all by itself. To me it would be like setting up a mcdonalds hamburger tent inside an amazing restaurant.
Also disapointed with Pirates of the Burning Sea. World was too facade, small (thanks to the global map) and instanced; and quest hub-like behavior became dull quickly. I learned this in a few weeks; surprised the mindless masses have fed at the easy-gameplay-trough for years.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Wow SWG is still the best MMO I have ever played....by far. And it was/is even better pre-cu. I am glad it did not cater to the contemporaries and their bad tastes in just about everything. ...they ruined MMOs.
No, SWG never had a chance to beat Blizzard - to understand the success of WoW you need to understand that WoW did NOT beat SWG or any of the other games -> IT WAS BLIZZARD BEATING EVERY OTHER FUCKING DEV !!!
Why?
The perfect time to release a MMOrpg cause the Internet was exploding in growth that time.
Millions of Fans with an extremely high brand loyality bcs of Warcraft and Diablo eager to jump the MMO Train as soon as their favourite Brand offered the ride.
The accumulated momentum that came from this.
And since no one ever understood that you do not fight WoW - you fight Blizzard - the gods of action-rpg/rts online gaming.
Bethesda and Rockstar too build up such a brand loyality but do not qualify for online gaming in the way Blizzard did at the time and this special time to release an MMOrpg for an forseeable future will not come back as even Blizzard acknowledged when they cancelled Titan.
Bcs Titan would ignite the Blizzard Civil War...#
That is the whole secret!
PS: Sony is a laughable shadow in Brand Loyality compared to Blizzard, not even an Underdog, its a fucking Brand Loyality Alien (and alienating many in the past).
PPS: WoW is sort of an Acronym for Blizzard (and Activision never was taken seriously).
"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!"
The author says of SWG, "Had it been less hardcore, I'm convinced it could have been the first MMOG to crack the million subscriber level." This could not be more wrong. SOE's brand recognition is tiny compared to Blizzard. And SOE doesn't market their products for shit; whereas Blizzard marketed WoW extensively (and expensively). It was this marketing, moreso than anything else, that brought those millions of people to the MMORPG genre.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
SWG on this list made me LOL. That is flamebait, especially putting it first.
LOL yes and leaving SWTOR off the list doubles the effect. Everyone pretty much agreed SWTOR sucked when it launched. Upon going F2P, and pouring more money into advertising (kudos for that), the game has made good money from cash shop sales.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Definitely agree with SWG and AoC, but for me I'd choose SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, and Lotro/ESO (close tie, Lotro started better and got worse. ESO started bad and is getting better).
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
FFXIV 1.0 was simply unfinished. In terms of game direction, I preferred it much, much more than what we have now. If it had been given another two years of development, I think it could have been really fantastic. As it stands, we'll never know; we're stuck with a horribly generic MMORPG with a Final Fantasy skin, instead.
SWG had barriers to entry, namely a subscription. No surprises there coming from the resident champion of all things free to play. Here's a hint, we didn't want a load of freeloading bastards ruining our games back then, and we still don't today. F2P is killing the quality of the genre. People talk about how we have so many MMO's to choose from today. Yeah, they're all F2P shit.
Pre-CU SWG is still the best MMO experience I have ever had, and I've played pretty much every major MMO ever released. I'll tell you what ruined SWG, the fucking holo-grind and losing jedi permadeath. And the CU of course followed by the NGE but even before those the writing was on the walls.
I agree with this list for the most part, but SWG was a great MMORPG. Its the one I do not agree with you on. Especially Pre-WOW, SWG was incredibly innovative and the crafting system has still to be bested by another MMORPG to-date.
Wrap a turd in brushed aluminum, slap an Apple logo on it, and they will buy it.
Wrap a crappy MMO with SW lore, slap a Star Wars logo on it, and they will play it and claim it's the BEST EVAR,
Some people have an additional distortion filter installed on their rose-colored glasses. :-/
While I agree with the SWG example, it has nothing to do with Apple. I have a mixed house, both apple and Intel based Microsoft garbage and I find it funny how Apple haters always claim Apple products suck. If that were true then please explain to me to how every Apple product in my house including a 24" iMac bought in early 2009 has outlasted 3 different laptops and is used every single day without a single part failing and still to this day is more than capable of playing games in Windows and never once had an OS issue? I have never had a PC last 5 years going on 6 that remained usable for anything other than word processing or surfing news channels and don't even think about comparing a Zune to an iPod when it comes to MP3 players.
But Apple products suck. They only suck because you can't afford them, and truth be said, I can't either with 3 girls, two of which are teenagers and the third is about to be.
Back to the topic.
1. Vanguard- Coulda, woulda, shoulda been soo much more. It could have been the EQ2 many wanted. I knew from closed beta it was a disaster, but hoped they could fix it in the first few months. Boy was I wrong.
2. EQ2- SOE totally missed the bus with the game engine. It was a much better game than WoW to me because I had fun playing it, but SOE wanted a casual gamers game and copied WoW for too long. Now it is boring and even though I can still find a challenge in the game, they screwed with the mechanic too much to ever have me trust them again.
3. SWG- I never could get into it. Too buggy and bored me to death.
4. GW2- Finally a game that breaks the Holy trinity mold! No more tanks yelling insults in heavy armor and badass weapons but can't kill a mosquito before it sucks them dry BS! Oh wait... now its a zerg fest. Not to mention there is nothing dynamic about dynamic events. They simply moved the quest hubs out in the zone. Follow those not so dynamic events around until you are back at the beginning. What a sham. I played it less than WoW.
5. WoW- Childish humor, an art style fit for an early teenager and game play so simple that a brain dead chimp could be the best in class by just pressing buttons on the keyboard in any random order blind folded. I hated it but I saw what Blizzard did that made it successful. Clone EQ but dumbed down until there was no challenge left, convince beginners and EQ castoffs that it was hard they really were leet, pick an art style that ran great on existing computers because the graphics was outdated when it launched, and market it like there was no tomorrow. Good going Blizzard!
Companies have been dumbing the genre down more and more every year since trying to repeat that success. That's not your fault though; just stupid suits trying to make a fast buck before moving on to the next money grab and gamers that aren't any smarter because we keep shelling cash out for the same old crap over and over again.
Wrap a turd in brushed aluminum, slap an Apple logo on it, and they will buy it.
Wrap a crappy MMO with SW lore, slap a Star Wars logo on it, and they will play it and claim it's the BEST EVAR,
Some people have an additional distortion filter installed on their rose-colored glasses. :-/
While I agree with the SWG example, it has nothing to do with Apple. I have a mixed house, both apple and Intel based Microsoft garbage and I find it funny how Apple haters always claim Apple products suck. If that were true then please explain to me to how every Apple product in my house including a 24" iMac bought in early 2009 has outlasted 3 different laptops and is used every single day without a single part failing and still to this day is more than capable of playing games in Windows and never once had an OS issue? I have never had a PC last 5 years going on 6 that remained usable for anything other than word processing or surfing news channels and don't even think about comparing a Zune to an iPod when it comes to MP3 players.
But Apple products suck. They only suck because you can't afford them, and truth be said, I can't either with 3 girls, two of which are teenagers and the third is about to be.
Back to the topic.
A little off-topic, but I do put myself in the Apple fan camp. I buy every product Apple puts out. I don't care how much they cost, I'm buying them.
The only downside is that I love to game...and that means I need at least one Windows-based computer. If Apple ever catches up, then it's bye-bye to Microsoft.
WoW - eye cancer grafics, community of crying childs with average gameplay
GW2 - great start, good game but a crappy dev team which only cares for its shop
SWTOR - great stories, bad design. A game that shows, copying WoW just isn't enough
EvE - great game, but devs do nothing to stop griefing and scamming. No lasting content for PvE
Lotro - great atmosphere, nice ideas but endless grinding of the same stuff and tedious virtues etc. could be renamed in wolves and wargs online, they are everywhere for every level.
All pretty personal views from the time I tested the games. Might have changed, but I would not go back for any reason. Perhaps I might revisit GW2 with a great expansion or EvE with cool new PvE content.
Really how did SWG make it in to this article?.. When SWG first came out the game was bloody amazing everything about it was enjoyable.. sure after LA decided to turn it into a wow game then it got bad but there we go. But on release there was nothing like it on the market and sure there was some bugs but there are always bugs with mmorpgs even today mmorpgs release with tons of bugs.
I also really enjoyed Age of Conan even if it did not have half of the features they wanted, was still noe of the best themepark MMORPGs on the market.
this is my five.
Not in any order
1. Elder Scrolls Online - This game could have been so much more.
2. GW2 - Turned out to be yet another generic themepark mmorpg.
3. Archeage - I guess I was hopnig for something a bit less asian and a bit more enjoyable haha
4. Warhammer Online - Again another game that could have been so much better.
5. Darkfall:UW - Well what AV did was take Darkfall a very enjoyable game if you like that knid of mmorpg and rip out everything that was good about it. Then they made humans mate with dwarfs to make off looking humans with less beard optinos than the real humans. I will stop there as I could go on for a long time haha.
If you only played the first 20 or so levels, AoC was actually a lot of fun. (I started playing the game pretty late though). Unfortunately, everything changed once you left the starting city at around level 20. It was like they put all of this creativity into creating entertaining quests and locations to explore, and then just realized how much work it was making something actually fun, and everything after was done in a last-minute all-nighter.
Purchased the CE of FF XIV, and it was uninstalled within about two weeks.
While the game worked as designed, the design itself was so broken that it made the game essentially unplayable. Multiple menu-clicks to open your inventory, no keyboard shortcuts for anything, etc. Every single action you wished to take involved multiple steps.
To this day I cannot wrap my head around why it was designed the way it was.
Consoles my friend... The menus ect all designed for controlers
On topic - Archeage is my biggest disappointment. I am thoroughly enjoying playing but the sheer lack of measures against bots and hackers has astounded me.
Also the inability of Trion to twist XL's arm to get anything at all changed in the game for the better.
Comments
"Had it been less hardcore..."
SWG hardcore? Wut lol?
Good lord. No wonder the industry sucks now.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I would not agree with SWG being on the list .. it was perfect for what it was. Yes there were bugs and issues ... and yes it lacked a bit of direction .. but really what mmo at that time knew what is known now about the industry. I think if SWG were released today .. with the right team and the right direction .. you may see something truly the best out there.
Something also to remember is that SWG was a sandbox ... not a theme park (which it became after NGE)
I think the potential of the game was never fully tapped and for that I blame SOE.
Did you even...?
THIS... THIS is why SWG is remembered so fondly.
(for those who don't get my point... If he thinks there was EVER a 'Pre-SOE' SWG then he never played it, and yet here he is talking about how GREAT it was. Come on folks, that SWG band wagon is about to split its axle from the weight of all the wannabe, 'me too', 'come-latelys'.)
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Warhammer Online, Screwed up the expansion
Wildstar Online, came out with terrible boring combat and a ton of content
FFXIV, came out 1/10 finished
Rift, came out with 2 of wows bgs and worse combat than wow while being the same game with events
GW2, came out
Fixed
It's perfectly fine for SWG to be your favorite game, but don't whitewash the many issues and problems that it had. I didn't jump in on it, despite being a Star Wars fan, as I had friends working on the project, and they warned me away from it. Middle and upper management was rife with trouble. The game was released nearly a year too early, and huge chunks of it just didn't work. I suspect that at the times they revamped things, they couldn't actually fix the broken parts, but felt they had to do something.....
Some of the things it did were great, groundbreaking even. But launching early with tremendous problems is a bad way to go in the online games industry. That's something that you see replicated through a bunch of games' troubled releases, including a number of these titles here.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I was dissapointed with Vanguard because it was a Quest hub wow clone; which is sad considering if you took away that quest hub bullshit, the game world was amazing all by itself. To me it would be like setting up a mcdonalds hamburger tent inside an amazing restaurant.
Also disapointed with Pirates of the Burning Sea. World was too facade, small (thanks to the global map) and instanced; and quest hub-like behavior became dull quickly. I learned this in a few weeks; surprised the mindless masses have fed at the easy-gameplay-trough for years.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
No, SWG never had a chance to beat Blizzard - to understand the success of WoW you need to understand that WoW did NOT beat SWG or any of the other games -> IT WAS BLIZZARD BEATING EVERY OTHER FUCKING DEV !!!
Why?
The perfect time to release a MMOrpg cause the Internet was exploding in growth that time.
Millions of Fans with an extremely high brand loyality bcs of Warcraft and Diablo eager to jump the MMO Train as soon as their favourite Brand offered the ride.
The accumulated momentum that came from this.
And since no one ever understood that you do not fight WoW - you fight Blizzard - the gods of action-rpg/rts online gaming.
Bethesda and Rockstar too build up such a brand loyality but do not qualify for online gaming in the way Blizzard did at the time and this special time to release an MMOrpg for an forseeable future will not come back as even Blizzard acknowledged when they cancelled Titan.
Bcs Titan would ignite the Blizzard Civil War...#
That is the whole secret!
PS: Sony is a laughable shadow in Brand Loyality compared to Blizzard, not even an Underdog, its a fucking Brand Loyality Alien (and alienating many in the past).
PPS: WoW is sort of an Acronym for Blizzard (and Activision never was taken seriously).
"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
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
LOL yes and leaving SWTOR off the list doubles the effect. Everyone pretty much agreed SWTOR sucked when it launched. Upon going F2P, and pouring more money into advertising (kudos for that), the game has made good money from cash shop sales.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
SWG had barriers to entry, namely a subscription. No surprises there coming from the resident champion of all things free to play. Here's a hint, we didn't want a load of freeloading bastards ruining our games back then, and we still don't today. F2P is killing the quality of the genre. People talk about how we have so many MMO's to choose from today. Yeah, they're all F2P shit.
Pre-CU SWG is still the best MMO experience I have ever had, and I've played pretty much every major MMO ever released. I'll tell you what ruined SWG, the fucking holo-grind and losing jedi permadeath. And the CU of course followed by the NGE but even before those the writing was on the walls.
Tabula Rasa omg what a disappointment that was possibly top 10 fails of all time.
While I agree with the SWG example, it has nothing to do with Apple. I have a mixed house, both apple and Intel based Microsoft garbage and I find it funny how Apple haters always claim Apple products suck. If that were true then please explain to me to how every Apple product in my house including a 24" iMac bought in early 2009 has outlasted 3 different laptops and is used every single day without a single part failing and still to this day is more than capable of playing games in Windows and never once had an OS issue? I have never had a PC last 5 years going on 6 that remained usable for anything other than word processing or surfing news channels and don't even think about comparing a Zune to an iPod when it comes to MP3 players.
But Apple products suck. They only suck because you can't afford them, and truth be said, I can't either with 3 girls, two of which are teenagers and the third is about to be.
Back to the topic.
1. Vanguard- Coulda, woulda, shoulda been soo much more. It could have been the EQ2 many wanted. I knew from closed beta it was a disaster, but hoped they could fix it in the first few months. Boy was I wrong.
2. EQ2- SOE totally missed the bus with the game engine. It was a much better game than WoW to me because I had fun playing it, but SOE wanted a casual gamers game and copied WoW for too long. Now it is boring and even though I can still find a challenge in the game, they screwed with the mechanic too much to ever have me trust them again.
3. SWG- I never could get into it. Too buggy and bored me to death.
4. GW2- Finally a game that breaks the Holy trinity mold! No more tanks yelling insults in heavy armor and badass weapons but can't kill a mosquito before it sucks them dry BS! Oh wait... now its a zerg fest. Not to mention there is nothing dynamic about dynamic events. They simply moved the quest hubs out in the zone. Follow those not so dynamic events around until you are back at the beginning. What a sham. I played it less than WoW.
5. WoW- Childish humor, an art style fit for an early teenager and game play so simple that a brain dead chimp could be the best in class by just pressing buttons on the keyboard in any random order blind folded. I hated it but I saw what Blizzard did that made it successful. Clone EQ but dumbed down until there was no challenge left, convince beginners and EQ castoffs that it was hard they really were leet, pick an art style that ran great on existing computers because the graphics was outdated when it launched, and market it like there was no tomorrow. Good going Blizzard!
Companies have been dumbing the genre down more and more every year since trying to repeat that success. That's not your fault though; just stupid suits trying to make a fast buck before moving on to the next money grab and gamers that aren't any smarter because we keep shelling cash out for the same old crap over and over again.
A little off-topic, but I do put myself in the Apple fan camp. I buy every product Apple puts out. I don't care how much they cost, I'm buying them.
The only downside is that I love to game...and that means I need at least one Windows-based computer. If Apple ever catches up, then it's bye-bye to Microsoft.
I'll have to dream for now...
WoW - eye cancer grafics, community of crying childs with average gameplay
GW2 - great start, good game but a crappy dev team which only cares for its shop
SWTOR - great stories, bad design. A game that shows, copying WoW just isn't enough
EvE - great game, but devs do nothing to stop griefing and scamming. No lasting content for PvE
Lotro - great atmosphere, nice ideas but endless grinding of the same stuff and tedious virtues etc. could be renamed in wolves and wargs online, they are everywhere for every level.
All pretty personal views from the time I tested the games. Might have changed, but I would not go back for any reason. Perhaps I might revisit GW2 with a great expansion or EvE with cool new PvE content.
Vanguard online - no bug fixes no updates
Final Fantasy 14 Pre ARR - WTF? can they steal from people?
Swtor - When will the story end!!. same lines and repeats a lot. (waste of money voice acting everything)
Wurm Online - 7+ years in beta? is it out yet?
Wildstar - graphics give me a headache, too much crap everywhere to look at.
Really how did SWG make it in to this article?.. When SWG first came out the game was bloody amazing everything about it was enjoyable.. sure after LA decided to turn it into a wow game then it got bad but there we go. But on release there was nothing like it on the market and sure there was some bugs but there are always bugs with mmorpgs even today mmorpgs release with tons of bugs.
I also really enjoyed Age of Conan even if it did not have half of the features they wanted, was still noe of the best themepark MMORPGs on the market.
this is my five.
Not in any order
1. Elder Scrolls Online - This game could have been so much more.
2. GW2 - Turned out to be yet another generic themepark mmorpg.
3. Archeage - I guess I was hopnig for something a bit less asian and a bit more enjoyable haha
4. Warhammer Online - Again another game that could have been so much better.
5. Darkfall:UW - Well what AV did was take Darkfall a very enjoyable game if you like that knid of mmorpg and rip out everything that was good about it. Then they made humans mate with dwarfs to make off looking humans with less beard optinos than the real humans. I will stop there as I could go on for a long time haha.
Consoles my friend... The menus ect all designed for controlers
On topic - Archeage is my biggest disappointment. I am thoroughly enjoying playing but the sheer lack of measures against bots and hackers has astounded me.
Also the inability of Trion to twist XL's arm to get anything at all changed in the game for the better.