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And people wonder why SWG copies WoW...lol
iskareot
Member Posts: 2,143
Unreal...
In my lifetime I would have never thought a EXPANSION on a polished product could do this:
"Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™ has broken the day-one sales record to become the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America and Europe, with a worldwide total of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in the first 24 hours of availability. The Burning Crusade, the first expansion set for World of Warcraft, was simultaneously released in North America, Europe, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia on January 16, and on January 17 in Australia and New Zealand."
You can say all you want, hate elves, hate the game... BUT they are doing somthing right without a doubt.
This is what making a polished product and treating your consumer base with some respect can get you, let alone a boat load of money to start your next project.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Comments
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Yeah right........
Its like this Mcdonalds has served over 8 million people but that doesnt mean their food isnt shitty. Its fast cheap and easy and in the end it will most likely kill you (watch super size me)
I think WOW and mcds have a lot in common.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
But see this does prove that a working (Like it or not) product does vs a broken one.
Do you think there is over 2.5 million Star Wars fans all around the world?
Do you think that they are all old enough to play a game online?
Do you think they would love to immerse themselves into a product that allowed them to be part of that universe?
Do you think that there would be more then 10000 people in that game.????
I sure as fuck do...
But see, here is the kicker... someone is doing things right, someone is doing things wrong.
Figure it out? What makes WoW more fun, have better success, have better ratings, have one Hell of a success and income to use to develop new content?
Ask yourself How do they do this? Is a elf more popular then a Jedi? Ask yourself is a Storm Trooper not cool enough for even 500,000 people to be in the world?????
See you have to figure out what or where it starts to get this kind of success and product review.
No matter what SWG is (or was) a business.... You have to think from the core first.
Here is what I think:
1. POLISH -- plain and simple -- period end of story, a working core game and program.
SWG -- STRIKES OUT
2. SEE number one and start there until you get it right.
Then on top of that changing the games core while knowing you will lose people trying to fix it or make it easy for them to work on it.
We can all say what we want, you can bad mouth the Blizz guys for making a less complex game as old SWG but bottom line is they won... they succeeded and not only that... they proved it.
Does it suck SOE and SWG failed so bad?? Yep... but this is why... it has to start somewhere...
When your stuck in aggro for 10 mins, or your toon twitches like a Crack addict... THAT DOES NOT HELP your "polish" level of sale.
Looks like that is true though, thats for sure.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Polished product, yes, but they do not show us respect. Showing your customers respect includes enforcing the very rules they outlined for their customer base. Aside from that, I am sure you could find plenty of disatisfied customers, who are that way because of the customer service.
I didn't like WoW until TBC came out. TBC added the little more flare that I needed to make me a happy gamer. However, nothing aside from the old DAoC can amount to SWG pre-NGE. What I was most interested in with that article is that it said the U.S. has 2 million subscribers. That is the number that counts in my opinion. I don't play with the other 6 million subscribers in the world. That really put in perspective of what kind of game we are dealing with here.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I agree. The amount of polish is what won me over with WoW. I don't like the simplistic gameplay, the majority of the community, the mostly solo oreinted content, the greed the game mechanis generate, or the lack of the simulation world feel. But Blizzard has put a lot of effort into this game. The music score alone, if you've really listened to it had to of cost them millions. So many people were bashing WoW for not releasing their expansion sooner, but Blizzard kept saying it wasn't ready. They atoned for not releasing the expansion earlier by releasing it well polished.
I haven't played one MMORPG that released its product with the amount of polish this game has. So, yes, Blizzard has won me over temporarily with their high polished game, and a large enough community I can count on to be there when I need them. But Lord knows if a Star Wars game was released with this kind of polish and effort put into it, I would be gone, preordered and a fanboi in a heartbeat.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Yes, if I ate nothing but boxed CDs and game time cards for 30 days, I would get fat and die.
Seriously though, if McDs managed to sell 2.4 million anything (especially at $40 each) in a single day I'm sure we'd hear about it. Just because YOU didn't buy it, doesn't mean that the real accomplishment isn't impressive.
WoW:
- 2 new races
- 1 moderatly sized world
- 25-man instances (instead of 40)
- Removal of rank (don't know exactly how)
- 1.5 years in development
SWG:
- 2 complete game revamps
- At least 4 complete combat mechanics revamps (CU and NGE both had a mid-release revamp)
- Um, Mustafar and Kashyyyk (1/15th of game world each)
- Complete revamp of every other mechanic
- Complete change of every single value and goal in game
- 1.5 years in development
Now, ironically, both took the same time to develop. But when people ask why NGE failed, it's because in order to implement such changes, you'd need upwards of 500 engineers and designers working full-time in triple shifts to pull that off. SOE had what, 2?
Blizzard didn't spend time and money. They simply added value. They only added value. Not some mythical revamps that do something nobody cares about.
Now imagine what if pre-cu concept got that much attention. It may seem that 35 professions were too much, but did they ever even invest into anything?
All that WoW did, was provide 1 new map, 2 new character arts, a bunch of new item arts, and tweaked some parameters. And that's it. And it has taken them 1.5 years to come up with that. And they aren't incompetent. Oh god, no. But extrapolate that to the changes done to SWG and it's right there why it's inferior product.
Things take time. And if you reinvet everything from scratch every 6 months, you're screwed.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that with first expansion, sales patterns will change. Sales will drop off quickly (selling only 500k second week is quick drop-off), and it will start segregating players who don't buy them. These are then also more likely to quit, etc. Expansion is a sort of turning point, just like it has been with all non-episodic games. Expansions generally turn towards hard-core and long term players (another lesson for SOE to learn from), since they will fuel the future. The 2.4 mil is existing customers, they didn't get told to GTFO, but were welcomed with open arms.
Step 1) Get 100 million dollars
Step 2) Spend all of 100 million dollars to copy WoW
Step 3) Loss
I respect Blizzard for taking it's time on the Burning crusade and releasing it later than expected. Yes SWG made all their deadlines. Was that a good thing? What if SWG took the time necessary to make sure that one of their projects wasn't released too early? How many times did you go to test center, participate in Beta of an expansion, file a bug ticket, only to find the same bug in game when you log in on release day? I know I fell through the front door of the starport on Mustafar for at least 2-3 months after it was released. I also know I filed a bug report about it in Beta.
How many times did you have your character rolled back on Patch day? Remember when they put in a patch and Jabba's palace disappeared? I had a friend who's toon was trapped inside Jabba's when it went missing. Do any of you remember when it was discovered that Melee defense was your defense rating when you were holding a melee weapon, thereby negating an entire tree in Defender for Jedi? You may have missed that because it was discovered by some testers, and talked about on the Jedi forums, about a month or 2 before NGE was announced. The bugs remained persistent as well as the exploits. I find it funny that the SWG team can't even make simple actions, like jumping, into more than just an Emote. I can jump from roof to roof in Booty bay and I can't jump over a 1 foot wall outside the mos eisley cantina.
The point is there is so much detail put into the Burning Crusades and most everything in SWG felt like an afterthought. If SWG really wanted to copy WOW, they should have started with quality control first.
ok but would a show make fun of a game if there wasnt something wrong with it (south park to world of warcraft), no show made fun of swg and i would never play a game where its pretty much saying if u own an account u have no life.
Does that mean canadians should move out of Canada?*
*Disclaimer: reference to The South Park Movie....I got nothing against Canada.
Yes, if I ate nothing but boxed CDs and game time cards for 30 days, I would get fat and die.
Seriously though, if McDs managed to sell 2.4 million anything (especially at $40 each) in a single day I'm sure we'd hear about it. Just because YOU didn't buy it, doesn't mean that the real accomplishment isn't impressive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonalds54 Million people daily... It just goes to prove that if it's easy and fast, people will by anything you give them.
yes they are good at makeing sure the product works. that's something that swg never did. rather then just saying ok we need to fine toon this game we have. lets scrap everything and make another broken game that's more like this one. the problem never was the game was too hard. it was that too many things just didn't work.
i remember the first server war on bloodfin. with just over 70 players we crashed naboo. i remember more then one fight that caused the server to lag so much that dots wouldn't tick. the bugs that i remember off the top of my head:
-krayt couldn't attack up hill.
-the AI couldn't even find it's way around a house.
-jedi running around with up too 50 crystals in LS.
-you could stack the same poison on a player if his heal didn't cure 100% of you're dot.
-start a fight with a 1.0 speed VK, then click and drag a heavy lighting cannon to you're portrait you could then attack at cap speed and unlimited charges even if you didn't have the skill for either weapon.
-100% damage armor from double slices most of the double slicers did not get banned.
- befor death watch came out you could enter by unpluging you're internet walking in and plugging back in.
- so many ways to dup credits it wasn't even funny, one easy way being go to you're own vendor (everyone had one) buy something off it while it was processing unplug from the internet. after you get dumped and come back you're credits have been doubled.
give credit to blizzard they have a great product. from the stand point that everything works and they ban people who cheat. i miss alot of things about swg but it was never the game that people like to remember it as. standing in line for 10-20 min to get buffs that you needed. people running around with area mind poisons that ticked for 1k. 770 health fire bowcasters. -1 mind fire lances.
the heals where so over powered that only classes that could attack the mind bar could pvp. everyone had 70% armor so you had also find a class that could use stun damage. because the heals had become so overpowered you needed to be doc/cm to pvp. i was master rifleman 4004 cm 4003 doc (or what ever the min was to cure fire). so all those classes you could be didn't leave you much in the way of specing if you had to spec healing.
the best times i've ever had in mmo's are all from swg. but it was from from the game that some people claim it once was.
But Atari ran circles around the Intellevision in the sales department and sold far more 2600s, because it had been out longer, people's "friends had one", and more vendors catered to it (because of the huge numbers sold). Like it or hate it, you have to give credit where credit is due. Blizzard really knows how to keep their flagship product virile, vigorous, and potent. I congradulate them on their success.
Personally I dislike WoW. But only because I consider it a Noob's introductory game to MMORPGs and I expect something a little more complex and less populated with the antics of 13 year olds. And so should every other person whose managed to rack up more than 3 level 60s in that game.
I think the major problem with SWG is one we've all seen at one time or another. Some genius thought that if they made a product and put the name "Star Wars" on it, it would sell like hot cakes based on name sake alone. George Lucas having sold out to Hollywood morals (or is it immorals?), feverishly penned his approval to it, and the end result (like many similar cases) was a horrible product that showed a major lack of forethought on the part of the developers, and over-hype by the people in the marketing department. How many here remember Steven Speilberg and the whole Atari / ET fiasco? I've come to the conclusion that on the whole, good Video Games will usually make bad movies, and Good movies will usually make bad video games..
It's just my opinion.. I could be wrong.
Mesron
the heals where so over powered that only classes that could attack the mind bar could pvp. everyone had 70% armor so you had also find a class that could use stun damage. because the heals had become so overpowered you needed to be doc/cm to pvp. i was master rifleman 4004 cm 4003 doc (or what ever the min was to cure fire). so all those classes you could be didn't leave you much in the way of specing if you had to spec healing.
the best times i've ever had in mmo's are all from swg. but it was from from the game that some people claim it once was.
The funniest thing is, all of that didn't matter. You kept playing.
In WoW, if one class had insta-kill dots, it's over. But in SWG, it didn't matter, at least not enough. I was never rifleman or CM for example, not even a swordsman.
the heals where so over powered that only classes that could attack the mind bar could pvp. everyone had 70% armor so you had also find a class that could use stun damage. because the heals had become so overpowered you needed to be doc/cm to pvp. i was master rifleman 4004 cm 4003 doc (or what ever the min was to cure fire). so all those classes you could be didn't leave you much in the way of specing if you had to spec healing.
the best times i've ever had in mmo's are all from swg. but it was from from the game that some people claim it once was.
The funniest thing is, all of that didn't matter. You kept playing.
In WoW, if one class had insta-kill dots, it's over. But in SWG, it didn't matter, at least not enough. I was never rifleman or CM for example, not even a swordsman.
The thing about SWG is that you had choices... YOU DID NOT HAVE TO FIGHT... you could craft only or do countless other things. You could just sit in a camp with friends it did not matter.
You were in the Star Wars world.... You did not have to be Jedi Knight, it was hard for alot of people, some of us liked the challenge.. BUT IT WAS A CHOICE... diversity and the ability to be anything you wanted was the key.
Everyone could be a Jedi , everyone could be a crafter, everyone could be a melee tank... IT WAS CHOICE.. but see on top of that was a better working, looking game with promise. The NGE took 90% of the game away... and then it was still bugged.
I guess if anything SWG is somthing that companies look at and make sure they NEVER MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THEY DID>.....
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
The sales figure is a bit misleading.
The 2.4 million sold included all the years worth of pre-orders that happened before it went live/published.
That's not to diminish what it did (sell 2.4 million copies), because that in and of itself is a phenomenal accomplishment. Selling an expansion to more than 1/4 of your subscribers up to the day it goes live is an amazing feat. Everyday from here on out will have more and more sales.
But BC went on sale in pre-order close to a year ago. And that 2.4 million sold figure includes all those sales.
I played SWG till the NGE then switched to WoW - I was one of the 2.4 million. There are over 8 million people now playing WoW and most of them are at end game.
When my job ended I headed over to one of those stores that was open for the midnight launch. I saw about 200 people lined up in the bitter cold just to get a copy and that was at 1:30 am.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"