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General: Casual Play: World vs. Game Part 2
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Steve Wilson continues his short series on the world vs. game debate by taking a look at his second game, Star Wars Galaxies.
Following in the footsteps of Ultima Online the second big 'world over game' MMO was Star Wars Galaxies. Like its spiritual predecessor it had a vast empty landscape with little hand crafted content and nothing more than hopes and dreams that its player base would generate enough content to keep each other entertained. While it didn't fail miserably it performed well below expectations in converting new players into the MMO fold. Which was shocking at the time considering the huge audience that the Star Wars license held. No game had broken a million US subscriptions and it was hoped this would be the one. In the end after 3 years of development, endless cycles of hype and fan hysteria it would only manage to barely increase the number of subscribers that UO had once commanded.
Most of the problems with Star Wars Galaxies from an outsider's perspective can be summed up on one sentence; It's the content stupid.
You can read the whole column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Its obvious you never played SWG as a crafter. Any crafter who has played SWG crafting vs any other MMORPG on the market where crafting is a after thought I am sure would play SWG instead. In SWG the crafting content wasn't from making 15 swords to turn into a NPC, it was about interacting with your fellow players, finding out what they need, and then selling it to them. In a sense combat and other professions was the same thing.
As for your argument that players were just dumped into a city, I will say the same thing that I said for Ultima onilne, they make the help manual and website for a reason. If you aren't smart enough to read through the help files I really don't think you deserve to be playing on a MMORPG server where you interact with other people. That's my thoughts though, it may be a little elitist but I like my teammates to be those who can read.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but you missed the other reason this game failed - Bugs and Balance.
The game was littered with bugs and the balance of the proffessions was awful. A lot of players would have continued playing the game pre-cu and in the cu if it could have been balanced, even if none of the content was added. If they had tried to first sort this and then add content then this game would still be flourishing however they tried to add in expansions which were strategically released at points when the new movies were hitting the cinemas ( a cynical marketing ploy imho)
Still an idiot.... Can't you just stop the thousands of words and just write down your conclusion:
"Wow rocks, all other games are too damn confusing"
You cant even write about SWG without dragging UO once again in the mud. You dont like advanced skill trees, complex character systems, and player freedom.. Ok, we have lots of kids in MMOs nowadays, I guess you are their spokesperson. But for those that created the MMO market, those that made it big and gave it such a buzz that every company in the world wanted to make an MMO to cash in on it, the things you hate is why we loved it. And so would everyone else but the hype sheep, those that started playing WoW because thier friends do it, those that play WoW because they talk so much about it in school and in magazines. Those that would wear a spraypainted armadillo on their head if a magazine told them it was the new thing. Also the crowd that is slowly killing the MMO market because games has become so dumbed down, so simplified (Somehting you seem to love) that players leave the game within its first three months! To spend 4 years developing a game to live three months is not financially defendable, so...
What the market is NOT having right now.. is a new MMO aimed at the real MMO players. The hundred of thousands that wanted a mature game, a complex game, a challenging game for the intellect, not the patience, a game where the player is in control, and not led by the nose by what the developers have decided. A game where the player choose what his character can and cant do, not being given a predesigned character with predesigned skills moving down a predesigned path of quest on a predesigned road to a predesigned endgame.
The things you speak so highly of, copied straight from the WoW concept book like some newbie developer thinking he has all the answers while just looking over the shoulder on what has most costumers right now, is already covered by WoW. The real MMO players? That started this market and is the reason it is succesful today? Has nothing to play.... Nothing.. All new games has been released for the WoW players. Look at EQ II... Look at Vanguard... You dont decide anything yourself. Its all predesigned. Thats supposed to aim for people that want to feel in control of their own game, to get more freedom and more power, and that is the difference they pay 15 bucks a month for? Or people that just like some brainless running around without taking any real decisions ever?
SWG had lots of problems.. I know, I betad it and I fought like a flipping tiger to get some problems through the wall of a defensive fan base to the developers. Quite alot of the oldtime MMO players that were nto there because it was SWG, but because it was an MMO fought with teeth and claws to point out the flaws in the system. Unfortunatly, the SW fan base won, we were drowned out. Those same problems haunted the game for years later, until the dreaded NGE. They, like you, put the blame in a completly wrong direction. it was not the skills that was the problem, it was not the full control of your character that was the problem, it was not freedom tyhat was the problem, or its similarities to UO, you drunken twat.
No matter... You will write four five more little rants against player freedom and player power until you say "WoW is best, developer control for the win!!" Its flipping disgusting. You are one of the 11 year olds from WoW forum, you are the reason MMO players are leaving MMOs, and the Hype sheep are the only ones left, those that will be gone as soon as they talk about something else on the schoolyard. Just look at the forums here... Its not about discussing MMOs anymore, with its good and bad sides, perfections and flaws. Its all about defendign "your" game and bashing all others. Constructive critisism is not allowed anymore as it should be on a site promoting a market, not a brand, but like a schoolyard, its fighting over what you think is "the latest" and the others think is "the latest hype". Its not a forum anymore, its a kiddie corner.
And these are the players you think people want to pay extra money monthly to spend time with, in games aimed at their extremly limited mental capacity. Today I saw a post that DaoC sucks because they did not get all the skills lvl 1, and he did not understand how to put an icon in the icon bar. He did not have a problem... No, the game SUCKED! Its your kind of player.. its the ones you want more games for and less games for mature people...
World vs Game... Its not that.. Its idiots vs People. And you are the spokesperson of idiots and want them to win. Thank you so much for taking your time to make a dumbed down market even dumber.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
With all due respect, its an amazing that anyone could reach such totally wrong conclusions.
Let's begin with content for crafters, specifically content for chef. Mr. Wilson assumes that creating items for a lifeless and dead NPC would be "fun." Which is all a crafting quest is. Instead chefs got the ability to have an actual business in virtual star wars world. They probably had relationships with rangers, real live players, to provide them with materials harvested from animals. They probably bought additives from bioengineers, again real life players. They created a shop in which they could sell their goods to real live players that needed via a vendor. The could use droids or other players to advertise their goods. They created custom orders for specific players. They got to deterimine pricing schemes to be competivie in the world wide market and with nearby vendors for convenience sales. If they wanted, they could provide better prices to just their guilds or the rebellion. They got to buy harvesters to collect resouces, furniture to decorate their shop from architects that were players.
They had the opportunity to be be an active participant in virtual star wars world. SWG, before it was basterdized, gave people the opportunity not to play a Star Wars game, but live in world of the movies. And he thinks lifeless quests for a NPC are better than that?
The problem with turning a Star Wars MMO into a mere game, is you inevitably end up contradicting the movies. And if the game contradicts the movies, it isn't fun for a true Star Wars fan.
Captain D's sells more fish than the best sushi restraunt in NYC, that doesn't means its better.
The original SWG was by far the greatest MMORPG that has ever been made and likely will remain so for the foreseable future.
I think some of you are missing his point. He is not saying the advanced detail is bad, or to hard. He is saying it had no support system in place. It had nothing to mesh it, into the IP of Star Wars. Crafters did have fun crafting, and selling, and dominating the market and such. That does not mean the game was finished or complete, or star wars like. People blame the CU, the CURB, and the god awful fake FPS that it is now on its failure, but the game was going downhill from lack of fixes and promised updates before the first major overhauls. Instead of finishing the game, and fixing its problems, they rebuilt the game, worse.
To me swag had the same failing as Ryzom, great system in place, with no content. If you really think, player interaction as the only form of content will work, why does nobody play those games? Why not just add crafting to the Sims online?
ruat caelum
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
SWG was my first MMO. I played it almost two years before I quit in disgust. The author has a point, that there was a gross lack of content except for mindless FedEx or Rat missions. He is apparently more of a fighter than a crafter, so he kind of overlooks the more social aspects of entertainers and the satisfying (to me) aspects of crafting, but he's right, as implemented, it was half-assed.
The original idea of singers and dancers, better yet those that could heal Battle Fatigue, was great. Healers in med labs was great. Incomprehensible racial languages was great. But then came macro bots in cantinas, doctor buffs, and every newbie learning all languages in the first 5 minutes in game. Like everything else in SWG, a bunch of good concepts got dragged down by developer incompetence or laziness and a loud minority of fans.
He also has a larger overall point that SWG did not feel 'Star Warsy'. It was great to live in a huge world with so much freedom. It sucked to only have a handful of planets to choose from, where everyone wore Composite Armor and fought with swords or unarmed as Teras Kasi. The wilderness mobs were so stupid. No player housing in cities, no GCW for a long time, shoot, no space-flight for a long time. And Jedi. Don't get me started. How f*ing lame was it for the serene, meditative guardians of law and justice in the galaxy would run around the streets in mobs killing things with light sabers and shouting "N00bs! I pwn u 4tw!"
People crying about the MMO world becoming a bunch of MMO clones need to get away from the mainstream games. Try some of the smaller products, encourage small private developers with your money and support. Anything built for the masses is, by definition, going to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Don't bitch about it, just accept it and look harder for the niche games.
and as someone pointed out - yes, the crafting and the skill tree was interesting and fun, but it didn't really need the SWG universe to work. Why else did everyone say (and still say) that it doesn't feel star warsy enough?
and what is happening atm? it's still nge beta.... no new content since over a year. EQ1 is popping out one expansion after the other, i can barely keep up just reading about them, never mind that i don't even play it.
And if you look at other franchises, I am afraid that lessons just won't be learned . DnD - good idea, great concept, but poorly done and not what the fans wanted.
LOTRO - doesn't want to go the SWG road, afraid of the DnD failure, so it becomes an EQ2/WoW clone with tolkien touch. It's bound to fail the expectations (sure, it will live and survive, but for how long and how big in terms of subscribers???).
I Beta Tested SWG. I played for about 6 months. I quit because the game bored me to tears literally. I have loved Star Wars for longer than I can remember. I'm one of those old farts who has loved the idea of Jedi for 20+ years. I remember Lucas with brown hair
Star Wars Galaxies gave me NOTHING....absolutely NOTHING that was enjoyable other than I could see my own wookie walk around boring landscapes and do the same boring repetitive tasks.
I completely 100% agree with the OP. I play a game for storyline. I'm one of the people who agrees with the idea, if the story is good, the graphics don't matter. My first games were dos based so I really do mean this. I loved the old dungeon crawls with a good story and what you did advanced the story and made you feel like you were doing something.
I also like World of Warcraft. I know all the anti-fanboys out there are waiting to flame me for even stooping to say the name of that MMO but what it boils down to is that Blizzard got it right. Sony got it WRONG. Catering to Hardcore players and grinding gives you the polulation you can find on EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SoH....if you look at these games the population is about the same.
Now go look at the 8 million plus subscribers to WoW. That's something you CANT argue with. You can but you just look stupid by doing so. They got it right. This is not a debate. Anyone using simple logic can see they got it right. When the other game developers realize this they will begin to reap some of the benefits that Blizzard is enjoying right now. I hope they do because WoW gets old after 2 years and I would like to see some new games.
Saga of Heroes was great fun before the mass amounts of patches nerfing characters to the point where it's a Grind past level 5. Grinding is fine as long as you feel like your accomplishing something. You do in WoW. You don't in the others. Game over World FTW.
Do this and you'll get my money. Make an EQ/SWG/SoH clone and you'll get my sympathy because you still don't have the idea.
I will say though that crafting and skills were the best from any game out there, but there was nothing to do. There was no 'Star' nor 'Wars' about the game for at least a year. The game focused on hunting animals and riding animals more than content. Why couldn't they just take KotOR and make that a multiplayer world?
Give a man fire and he''s warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he''s warm the rest of his life.
The lost all the old players, and gained hardly any new ones.
If, as the OP maintains, what SWG needed was content -- if, as he insists, the problem was that the game was not (to borrow an old phrase) "Star Warsy" and "Iconic" -- how does he explain the fact that when the "New Game Experience" came out, making the game full of content, "Star Warsy" and "Iconic" (the latter two, at least, being alleged -- I don't happen to agree), the subscriptions kept going down, rather than taking at least a moderate upturn?
The simple fact of their repeated revamps of the game making things worse, and losing players, rather than gaining them, gives the lie to his entire premise, which is basically "Casual players needed Star Warsy and Iconic content." They were given it with the CU to a degree, and much more so with the NGE, and they apparently wanted nothing to do with it.
This suggests that the problem is far deeper... Mis-management from the top down after the first few months, being one of the main issues. Repeatedly changing the game system being another (it was a detriment rather than a help, in other words). And incessant and long-ignored bugs...
These issues harmed the game for all players, casual and hardcore alike, and have nothing to do with whether there is "Star Warsy and Iconic" content. And ultimately history is the arbiter here -- history has shown that removing all the "hardcore" features and making SWG "Star Warsy, Iconic" and "casual friendly" has done not one thing to improve its situation, but rather, made it far worse.
But yeah, go ahead, keep blaming "Lack of Star Warsy and Iconic Content" for the failures of SWG.... at least Smed will agree.
C
The writer of this article makes some good points, but then misses the mark on some others.
For me, the game failed on a few fronts.
One, lack of balance. Ofcourse, with a skill point system as opposed to level based, it must have been very had to balance things. Also, the dots became stupid. Armor was too strong. Jedi were overpowered.
Second, lack of content. Game developers need to stop making content with hardcore gamers in mind so much. Hardcore gamers are a minority to be sure, and they will burn through all content no matter how time consuming and then complain there is nothing to do.
Third, the holocron grind. I was addicted to this game. I was in love with this game. This game consumed me. Then hologrind comes along dangling the carrot of jedi in my face and so I give up what I love, a master CH, master gunfighter. After all, what can be more star warsy than being a jedi. I sit in my guild hall hour after hour grinding droid engineer. My friends all are grinding their holo's. No one is with anyone else. And I don't like to cheat. I have never cheated in a game so I do not use any third party programs to grind DE. I sit at the crafting console....click click click...hour after hour, day after day for more than a week as I recall. Then I started to hate SWG. I decided, to hell with it....I can not do something I hate. I have a real life and a real job for that. So I take up combat again and start having fun. I start to remember what I love about this game. Then jedi start appearing. At first I'm really excited. Sure I won't be one...but I think it's cool. But the first time I see 20 people go down to a single jedi....my opinion changes. Every battle I go to...a jedi shows up and slaughters us in seconds. Oh....that's so fun. That's so not fun, unless you are the jedi.
Putting an alpha class in game was/is stupid.
Then combat upgrade and NGE happen. Instead of fixing all the bugs and adding things that players want, they do something completely different. They hijacked the direction of the game from the community and what they stated to something completely different. Sure, they own the game, but they betrayed the player base.
And that is probably, fundamentally the biggest failure of SWG, it betrayed its player base. It betrayed us in so many little ways by not listening, doing the opposite of what people wanted, and ultimately of ignoring what the vast majority of players wanted to go with a hunch to make the game more like some other game.
Oh, I forgot to add that the skill based system was one of the things I loved most about SWG, as opposed to a level based type of game. The fact that you could pick up skills or drop them was one of the things I really enjoyed.
I also liked the combat system. It was a lot of fun. Very strategic. It was something to me that didn't need to be changed.
Many people have asked for that.
But if you are going to pick one era that most people associate with Star Wars, especially those in the main demographic for MMORPGs, its the Ep. 4-6 time frame.
I will agree that the game needed more to do, a LOT more to do then grind missions/professions (for combat people).
crafting and social game was great, should go back to how it was on day 1. without the bugs, of course.
The "theme parks" were OK in terms of content but too few and far between
The real problem was that the devs always shot for the bottom mark "just good enough" solution to the bugs/balance issues
adding tons of new quests and a quest driven tutorial and tons of new theme parks and "dungeons" and planets etc would have been a great idea
a GREAT idea if they DIDN'T ruin the rest of the game in the process by destroying 90% of professions, adding stupid level system, combat upgrade BS. etc
fix the problems, add new content, fix the problems, add new content..... rinse and repeat
do NOT pull a 180 and change 90% - 95% of the games core systems
Try this SOE and Lucasarts. Go back to pre-combat upgrade. pre nge. remove jedi from the game, or make them SO hard to play and open to be GANKED by every player and NPC if they even try to show off their saber or powers in public, make them bounty hunter targets if they do.
then spend your time and money adding quests, theme parks, dungeons, group and solo CONTENT, new planets, new missions/mission types... quests quests content content content
leave the systems alone, just fix the bugs, balance the professions, and add content. like every other MMO would
Don't know what really killed SWG but 4 thing that killed it for me:
The last one seem to be the problem in most games even WoW, <- what happen to Hero Classes.
UO-EQ1-SWG-DAOC-WOW-EQ2-WAR-GW2-RIFT
just want to make sure i'm not reading into what you've said/didn't say.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
You do realize that the people who play and enjoy SWG now can't read for very long. At least that is what one of the people who changed the game said. I believe they said something like , There is too much reading in SWG. So I guess your editorial will not reach the people you are trying to impress.
Any way hindsight is 20/20. So I am not impressed by your Editorial.
The game could have worked but greed got in the way.
added: another point... not so much to the person quoted...this wasn't star wars the fps, this was supposed to be, correct me if i'm wrong, an mmoRPG. in the star wars MOVIES, you pretty much had the fps; the books, comics, online community... yeah, not so much "fps"...
so i guess if you went with the original pre-cu swg and expected nothing but fps, well, you didn't get it. but chin up, i hear there's a lot of fps star wars games out there... those disappointed with the original sandbox, will probably find these others to their liking.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Once again, he also invoked the name of the mmo 800 pound gorilla, a game which has ZERO in common with prior SWG. The games, literally, once had nothing in common whatsoever. Comparing WoW to SWG from SWG's prior incarnation has very little comparison other than they are games. WoW is great for what it is, and SWG is great for what it was. Simply because you found the lack of preprogramming a negative, you seem to ignore those of us who found the place crawling with it.
Played (more than a month): SWG, Second Life, Tabula Rasa, Lineage 2, Everquest 2, EvE, MxO, Ryzom.
Tried: WoW, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Everquest, WWII Online, Planetside
Beta: Lotro, Tabula Rasa, WAR.
Gee I wonder why the game wasn't populated enough....? Could it be because SWG sucked great green rocks through a dixie straw even when I was in pre-NGU format? Gosh, I bet so.
I played pre NGU SWG for as long as I could stand the choppy framerate, bugs, and general confusion at what, exactly, there was to do. I enjoyed exploring for as long as I didn't get bumped from the server, and as long as my poor Geforce FX5600 card at the time could handle it before some graphics glitch caused my program to croak.....later, when tne NGU edition came out I tried it on a newer rig where it ran much better, but I was still nonplussed at the gaemplay, although it was a far site better than it had been.
The elitist attitude of some of the posters on this site continues to amaze me. The persistent bitching about how all writers on the site should be canned because they dare to express opinions in what are clearly editorial commentaries never ceases to amaze me. Why I would want to see the author of this article banned when I find those who denigrate his perfectly valid issue with this game more offensive is beyond me. But then, I live in the US and am used to free speech rights, maybe you and these other yokels aren't. As such, I appreciate everyone's opinon on the matter, including my own
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
It sounds like some of you guys dont get the point of the article lol.
He is comparing the worldy dynamics with the gamish dynamics with a bit of pokes at the lack of actional gaming content like epic quests and that which would make it feel more "starwarsy".
In a world you get great and awesome crafting systems and lots of player interaction, the soul dependance of the gameplay is on the players. Its great for roleplay, and imo embodies the mmorpg, but as he said it, doing the game that way lacked the star wars feel some people expected. I have to say as an artisan, architect, engineer then going on to a jedi later in the game, I almost felt like i lived something similar to anakins life through the game and to me that was VERY iconic. The problem was once I got to the action part of the game i didnt get the starwarsy feeling from being a jedi, a task bioware was able to capture with kotor, you know... the part that gives you the chills? People had to grind and were penalized for playing a jedi, and whats worse because of the timeline players agree'd with it, and i guess i cant blame them for it.
I think that( what was missing) had alot to do with yoda being gone, and other great jedi masters to handle a leadership type role for the players due to the timeline. I mean who didnt want to meet c3po,darth vader, r2d2. luke and all the other great characters. But our experience with star wars for most people i say my age, 20-30-40 know starwars by the original movie, thats home and not so much the sequels.
For instance as a jedi, i thought at some point Id have a bowl over my head deflecting blaster bolts, levitating objects with the force and that never happened, i thought at some point i would see and speak with the jedi council for epic jedi and force quests and other cool things you know, battling the darkside of the empire?, the sad part was it just wasnt that way. i was a jedi halfass trained in the force ( flawed) and pit against bounty hunters when even in the movies, the struggle for a jedi was against the dark side and not boba or whoever. That was a flaw in the gaming direction that many people disliked even though the pvp it brought was fun, it just wasnt right somehow.
Maybe they just ran out of room? who knows, I guess to try to put things in you have to take other things out which does mean you take hits in other aspects.
Quik note, I agree with the guy who said you wont find that type crafting in other games, i loved crafting in swg, its the rest that needed work and the devs are going the wrong way about it with the nge.