Originally posted by Horusra Why would the opinion of the current players matter? It was pretty much stated Lucasarts was not happy with the numbers and might have pulled the license. If you need new blood in you have to take risks...they tried to minimize risk by copying and failed. But the current people would want little change and that was not generating enough.
That was never stated and Lucas Arts couldn't just pull the license.
SWG didn't NEED new blood. They WANTED more players.
You make it sound like the players were at fault.
He just stated it ...
"After the Jump to Lightspeed expansion launched (Oct 2004), it was clear that our audience size was clearly <300k and that was not acceptable to SOE (or to LucasArts)."
Sure they could have pulled the license. Or, since this was the only game in town at the moment and there was already a full fledged Star Wars game, maybe they pressed the matter. Maybe they threatened to pull the license if the numbers didn't come up?
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LucasArts' one threat is the license. Why would they not use it to get them to try to increase the player base/ You mean they asked nicely . Somehow the threat would have hung over their heads in any case whether it was verbalized or not.
Originally posted by Horusra Why would the opinion of the current players matter? It was pretty much stated Lucasarts was not happy with the numbers and might have pulled the license. If you need new blood in you have to take risks...they tried to minimize risk by copying and failed. But the current people would want little change and that was not generating enough.
That was never stated and Lucas Arts couldn't just pull the license.
SWG didn't NEED new blood. They WANTED more players.
You make it sound like the players were at fault.
He just stated it ...
"After the Jump to Lightspeed expansion launched (Oct 2004), it was clear that our audience size was clearly <300k and that was not acceptable to SOE (or to LucasArts)."
Sure they could have pulled the license. Or, since this was the only game in town at the moment and there was already a full fledged Star Wars game, maybe they pressed the matter. Maybe they threatened to pull the license if the numbers didn't come up?
No where does he say that Lucas Arts would or even could pull the license. This unsubstantiated rumor keeps getting repeated in an attempt to make Lucas Arts look responsible... which is exactly the opposite of what developers of the NGE have been saying for years. Each has said how SOE came up with the idea and then campaigned for it to happen.
Box sales of SWG alone recouped the development costs. Even at 250k subscribers the monthly revenue was almost 4 million dollars. Under what grounds could Lucas Arts threaten to pull the license?
Both companies were more than willing to do the things that were done, because they really thought they could replace the current players with a larger player base. SOE did similar combat upgrades in The Matrix, EQ2, Free Realms and other games. Lucas Arts didn't force those changes. It is just how SOE operates.
Gordon Walton may have been in the chair when the NGE came up, and Jeff Freeman may have been in the seat when it was built, but from Raph's posts I think it seems inevitable that it would have happened and there isn't very much that any one developer, producer or other team member could have done.
Frankly, to me, it seems like the moment Raph mishandled the Jedi system (detailed in the second post of the series) SWG's fate was written and everything else was a domino effect that simply couldn't be stopped. In other words, the NGE wasn't even close to the death of SWG, it was just the final death throes of a product with too many built-in flaws to continue existing. Brilliant in parts, but deeply and tragically flawed.
Gordon Walton may have been in the chair when the NGE came up, and Jeff Freeman may have been in the seat when it was built, but from Raph's posts I think it seems inevitable that it would have happened and there isn't very much that any one developer, producer or other team member could have done.
Frankly, to me, it seems like the moment Raph mishandled the Jedi system (detailed in the second post of the series) SWG's fate was written and everything else was a domino effect that simply couldn't be stopped. In other words, the NGE wasn't even close to the death of SWG, it was just the final death throes of a product with too many built-in flaws to continue existing. Brilliant in parts, but deeply and tragically flawed.
I have to agree with you. The NGE might have been the final nail in the coffin, but the coffin itself was built long before that final nail was struck. In many ways, everyone at SOE who was involved couldn't see the forest for the trees. They had a game that had a decent sized fanbase, who was/is loyal to the game itself. So much of this just seems like a "grass is greener" scenario in terms of the development team involved with the NGE.
Ironically, games like SWG and even Asheron's Call before it, were sandbox games in the grand scheme of things and were obviously way ahead of their time. Looking at the direction online gaming is going, especially in terms of the rise of the sandbox, you gotta wonder where we would be if games like AC and SWG had been better supported.
He does have an interesting quote when he first starts talking "The Holicron addition and hints on how to get a Jedi ended up slowing net growth of the game and undermined the in-game community as people tried to macro their way to Jedi" . Myself and many others had always suspected this was the beginning of the end. It's good to see a developer step up and say it.
Originally posted by kitarad LucasArts' one threat is the license. Why would they not use it to get them to try to increase the player base/ You mean they asked nicely . Somehow the threat would have hung over their heads in any case whether it was verbalized or not.
What makes you think that SOE needed to be threatened to do anything?
It isn't like this was is out of character for SOE.
NGE was nothing more than a mercy kill. But everyone focuses on it because it was the last thing to happen. Publish 9 destroyed that game waaay before even the CU. Nobody wants to admit that though because they all wanted their shiny Jedi all alpha class. Then when it finally died, they all blamed NGE. Sad.
You guys love to rehash old info. Raph has already admittedly clarified on numerous occasions that the Jedi Holocron mess was the beginning of the end for SWG. It makes all the sense in the world why it went all downhill from there. This is not to say that the NGE did not accelarate SWG's downfall, because it was crap and it certainly did, but It was probably also a desperation move furthered as a result of the Jedi Holocron mess.
You guys love to rehash old info. Raph has already admittedly clarified on numerous occasions that the Jedi Holocron mess was the beginning of the end for SWG. It makes all the sense in the world why it went all downhill from there. This is not to say that the NGE did not accelarate SWG's downfall, because it was crap and it certainly did, but It was probably also a desperation move furthered as a result of the Jedi Holocron mess.
You are spot on. In fact, according to Raph, SWG's player population was actually increasing until the Jedi holocron mess. Raph's postmortem series about SWG is worth reading if you haven't. The NGE was like pushing the SWG playerbase off a cliff. Players started fleeing the game even before the formal launch of the NGE when they learned what was actually coming. It was tragic seeing bustling player cities turn into ghost towns seemingly overnight. Mismanagement from the very beginning determined SWG's ultimate fate.
Comments
He just stated it ...
"After the Jump to Lightspeed expansion launched (Oct 2004), it was clear that our audience size was clearly <300k and that was not acceptable to SOE (or to LucasArts)."
Sure they could have pulled the license. Or, since this was the only game in town at the moment and there was already a full fledged Star Wars game, maybe they pressed the matter. Maybe they threatened to pull the license if the numbers didn't come up?
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No where does he say that Lucas Arts would or even could pull the license. This unsubstantiated rumor keeps getting repeated in an attempt to make Lucas Arts look responsible... which is exactly the opposite of what developers of the NGE have been saying for years. Each has said how SOE came up with the idea and then campaigned for it to happen.
Box sales of SWG alone recouped the development costs. Even at 250k subscribers the monthly revenue was almost 4 million dollars. Under what grounds could Lucas Arts threaten to pull the license?
Both companies were more than willing to do the things that were done, because they really thought they could replace the current players with a larger player base. SOE did similar combat upgrades in The Matrix, EQ2, Free Realms and other games. Lucas Arts didn't force those changes. It is just how SOE operates.
If the insider view interests you, Raph Koster's just finished a series on SWG on his site.
Link to the final post in the series
Gordon Walton may have been in the chair when the NGE came up, and Jeff Freeman may have been in the seat when it was built, but from Raph's posts I think it seems inevitable that it would have happened and there isn't very much that any one developer, producer or other team member could have done.
Frankly, to me, it seems like the moment Raph mishandled the Jedi system (detailed in the second post of the series) SWG's fate was written and everything else was a domino effect that simply couldn't be stopped. In other words, the NGE wasn't even close to the death of SWG, it was just the final death throes of a product with too many built-in flaws to continue existing. Brilliant in parts, but deeply and tragically flawed.
I have to agree with you. The NGE might have been the final nail in the coffin, but the coffin itself was built long before that final nail was struck. In many ways, everyone at SOE who was involved couldn't see the forest for the trees. They had a game that had a decent sized fanbase, who was/is loyal to the game itself. So much of this just seems like a "grass is greener" scenario in terms of the development team involved with the NGE.
Ironically, games like SWG and even Asheron's Call before it, were sandbox games in the grand scheme of things and were obviously way ahead of their time. Looking at the direction online gaming is going, especially in terms of the rise of the sandbox, you gotta wonder where we would be if games like AC and SWG had been better supported.
What makes you think that SOE needed to be threatened to do anything?
It isn't like this was is out of character for SOE.
NGE was nothing more than a mercy kill. But everyone focuses on it because it was the last thing to happen. Publish 9 destroyed that game waaay before even the CU. Nobody wants to admit that though because they all wanted their shiny Jedi all alpha class. Then when it finally died, they all blamed NGE. Sad.
You guys love to rehash old info. Raph has already admittedly clarified on numerous occasions that the Jedi Holocron mess was the beginning of the end for SWG. It makes all the sense in the world why it went all downhill from there. This is not to say that the NGE did not accelarate SWG's downfall, because it was crap and it certainly did, but It was probably also a desperation move furthered as a result of the Jedi Holocron mess.
You are spot on. In fact, according to Raph, SWG's player population was actually increasing until the Jedi holocron mess. Raph's postmortem series about SWG is worth reading if you haven't. The NGE was like pushing the SWG playerbase off a cliff. Players started fleeing the game even before the formal launch of the NGE when they learned what was actually coming. It was tragic seeing bustling player cities turn into ghost towns seemingly overnight. Mismanagement from the very beginning determined SWG's ultimate fate.