Short history of SWG, from an outsider's perspective

MMORPDEATH

I HAVE played SWG, but only for a month after tje NGE came out and the lack of quests just killed the game for me. Even with all the new quests the game cant compete with other games, and with even less quests in the Original game I'm surprised vets are as rabid as they are. Anyway, here goes:

SWG born- attracted 3 kinds of people, Non-mmo gamers, MMO-gamers, and hardcore nerds. Bad reviews, bugs were rampant. Non-mmo crowd got hooked to the game because they didnt know better(I'm not bashing SWG but it WAS a disaster at launch), Uber nerds saw potential, and MMO-gamers started to SLOWLY migrate out.

NEXT BIG EVENT-WOW

SWG was basically in stagnating Limbo untill WOW showed up. When wow came, LARGE migrations of SWG ppl left for it. What kinds of people? Primarily the MMO gamers who had hitched on to SWG. They ran for the overall superior MMO system of WOW, not being in their character to be loyal to any single MMO. These people dragged the name of SOE in the dirt even BEFORE any major changes, because well there WERE no changes to a largely bland system. Uber Nerds still loved SWG because it had the best community system and actually could act as an "escapist" game. Most of the non-MMO crowd stayed, but some did start to leave(not to wow) because of how boring the game could be (limited quests, game built on very realistic system of individuals doing menial tasks to keep economy going). Lets face it, every MMO gets old.

Anyway, instead of riding out the WOW hype bubble and continuing to slowly improve their game, SOE did a very reactionist, knee jerk thing. They radically changed their combat system and nerfed things to high heaven with the Combat upgrage. Uprage, disorder, Chaos. People left.Game got MORE boring and even Uber-nerds started to leave. Basically, they copied what WCW did in 2000 after they lost a lot of ratings ground to Vince Mcmahon. Complete overhall, appeal to the new, and reject the old fanbase that was still paying the bills.

Once the exodus reached ridiculous proportions, SOE decided to do a complete overall. Get rid of the economy -based playstyle, get rid of the deep nerdy virtual world they had created, get rid of the vets and start over.(actually, the paster of my church is kind of doing this in his own way-get rid of the old people and bring in the new. Its SOE to a WHOLE nother level people) Problem is is the this NGE doesnt go far enough to appeal to the Average MMO-gamer for 3 reasons:

#1 they cant get through the spammed hatred of SOE and SWG that began with the first review of SWG and still continues today.
#2 Star wars, at least the non-babyfied original trilogy, is too deep and realistic a system to dumb down like WOW. It was meant to be a niche game, not dominate the industry, and SOE didnt see it. Its lthe equvalent of thinking that some star wars D&D style game could go in and take over the real D&D.

Oh yeah, #3, NGE sucks.

Rekrul

Just a comment. You mention "exodus reached absurd proportions".

The second upgrade was developed and published (The Starter Kit) during the time when many of the big servers had to be locked due to being full, and at least the biggest one was crashing daily. New expansion was announced, expectations were high. Despite some resentment from vets very few actually quit during that time. The changes overall were seen as an improvement towards balance, even if the cost was quite high for some.

The publish date of second CU came shortly after that. The reason for NGE to this day is unknown, but first CU, did not cause the exodus that would warrant the NGE only 7 months later. NGE on the other hand did. This was also demonstrated with population this summer which were several times lower.

The reason for NGE to this day remains a mystery.

MMORPDEATH

makes sense that I would make that mistake seeing how CU got a crapload of negative press and i read probably 3-4,000 posts of ppl leaving the game because of it. So its a fixed thing. But i think that competing with WOW was SOE's goal, and there certainly must have been some sort of exodus followed by stagnation for SOE to not think that they were successfull.

MX13

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Originally posted by MMORPDEATH
makes sense that I would make that mistake seeing how CU got a crapload of negative press and i read probably 3-4,000 posts of ppl leaving the game because of it. So its a fixed thing. But i think that competing with WOW was SOE's goal, and there certainly must have been some sort of exodus followed by stagnation for SOE to not think that they were successfull.

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There were actually 2 CU's, a fact most don't know (I believe Rek was refering to that). The first CU was developed with the community and was greatly anticipated. For reasons only known to LA & SOE, the original CU was scraped for the one we got, the one that drove away so many players (although not as many as the NGE), IT's believe that both LA & SOE believed they needed to WoW up SWG, and that's why the second CU was done.

The sad thing is that a VAST majority of the players were looking forward to the scraped, original CU. But instead of taking the game to a new level, they started it's decline... so sad...