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Would SWG have been better off...
GreenHell
Member UncommonPosts: 1,323
...not using the SW IP? Someone posted a thread about what they would like to see in the next SW MMO (if there is one) and I had to ask myself this question. At this point Im not sure if the SW IP can really be used to make an out standing MMO. SWG always seemed limited by the universe and to a lesser extent the time line it was set in and of course what LA would let them do. Now Ive been a SW fan for 30 years. I saw the original in the theater back in the day. As much as I love Star Wars and even some of the single player games I dont think it translate well in to a MMO. The more I thought about it the more I came to realize the things I loved about SWG pre cu didnt have a whole lot to do with Star Wars itself. Imagine SWG Pre CU with out any SW content. Its really about the same. The planets ,mobs and NPC's would have different names and the POI's wouldnt exsist other than that I dont think there is a huge difference.
Would it be a SW rip off? Probably a bit of one yes.Then again what isnt these days. There would still have to be good guys and bad guys and some epic struggle but you see that in every game now anyways. I guess you kind of have to ask yourself if the game didnt have anything to do with Star Wars but it was still essentially the same game would you have enjoyed it as much as you did. I can honestly say yes I believe I would have.
Comments
While the timeline SWG was set in serverly limited the potential of the game... the universe did not. The Star Wars Universe has done exceptionaly well in every other medium (Books, Comics, TV and single/multiplayer games). However the best of these are set outside the timeline covered by the two trilogies... where creators arnt as bogged down by continuity limitations. The Star Wars Universe (and most of its fans) is screaming for a well done SW MMO... and there will be a new one in the next few years. Idealy it should be set either during the Legacy or KOTOR time period where continutity pot holes arent as rampant due to fact that not alot has been written these time periods. However while a KOTOR MMO may be possible, I have a feeling that the next SW MMO will be tied into either the SW Live Action Series (between Ep 3 & 4) or the new Clone Wars Computer Animated Series (between Ep 2 & 3). This would probably create much of the same problems SWG faced... but time will tell.
However It wasnt the Universe or time frame that has made SWG suffer... its the fact that the original concept was never fully realised. At release the game was half done... we got a world with nothing to do but grind or gather recouses. There was no space, no smuggling, no quests, no mini games, no GCW... no real content in general... and we were promised that that these things would come to us over time. While we did get some of it however, the budget and desire (of LA or SOE) didnt match up to the original vision... and the game fell short. The NGE was the final push away from the original vision.
Now if we got the Pre-CU without the SW Content... the game would still be half a game and would have died fairly quickly becsue it wouldnt have the IP to give it any substance (most people stuck/stick around mainly becuse it is a SW MMO). So while the timeline did hinder SWG from the getgo... it was the fact that the original vision was bigger than the budget that has caused us the pain we feel today.
Tin Foil hats dont work.. its all a conspiracy
The next good swgish sandbox game we see probably wont be a big IP though. We just have to come to terms with that really... Or maybe we will get very lucky and beg ralph koster to come back for SWG2.
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I count myself as a fan of star wars as well, I saw the first 3 movies and one of the prequels all in the theater. Even was dumb enough to go to the theaters to see the re-release of the original trilogy. As a fan of the movies I can honestly say that the first one was ok... second was phenomenal, third well.... sucked as did all of the prequels. I think the timeline for SWG was perfect for the game at launch, not what the game became.
I say this from my experiences in game. Sure there were a few people that were doing everything they could to become a jedi (before the hologrind) but the vast majority of the people that I met in that game were happy as they could be running around shooting each other and exploring, then going out for a shopping spree and winding down in the cantina's.
Of course there were things that were missing... bounty hunters not being able to take player bounties, the battlefields being turned off rather than fixed (the couple times I ran through em though they were still fun), smuggler's not being able to smuggle etc. Most of what was missing and broken in the game is still that way, however.
I think had galaxies not had the star wars IP it would never have attracted the majority of people that it had had and definately wouldn't have reached the numbers that it had attained. I think, and this is entirely my own opinion, that SWG would have best been served by a different company altogether. It was Koster and the UO team, along with it being star wars, that attracted me; it was SOE that drove the game into the ground and pushed me away.
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Personally, I think MMOs where the story is really really important have a great deal of difficulty. It stems from the basic conflict between a known set story that isn't centered around the player. In a single player game, there is no continuity problem with the main player being Luke or Vader or Han (or Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, etc). But in a MMORPG, where there are lots of players no one can be those characters. Because if more than one player is it contradicts the movies. There was only one Luke, Han etc. The original idea was consistent with the story. There are lots of crafters in the background. Moisture Farmers as the people at SOE/LA like to make fun of, bounty hunters etc. Letting people be one of those background characters and letting them live in the SW universe we saw on the movies is about the best you can do.
The more people like a story, the more constrained the design team is. So in SWG you have the delima of Jedi. Everyone wants to be one, but they have to be the only one or one of the few. There would be other problems if you designed the game in the pre-quels. No one could be a sith. So most likely its going to be a one faction game. Moreover, if you allow, Jedi, they have to be alpha class. At least in SWG, there was the argument that the Jedi that existed that were not formally trained and thus theoritcally, there was some basis for making them on parity with the non-Jedi. In a prequel MMO, non-Jedi are essentially going to be worthless. Move along "this is Jedi business" [you are inferior get out of my way]. So its make every player a Jedi or deal with the problems of most players being one one and the few that aren't are unhappy, because their characters combat power sucks.
WoW's back story works because no one really cares about it. They are vaguley familiar with it, but it Blizzards deviates from it, so what. But you deviate from the movies, and its tantamount to heresy. And we all know what happens to heretics. Again the NGE. The alternative is to ignore the canon and deal with the consquences, but then you have the NGE and no one, or very few are happy. Certainly not the hordes of fans you were trying to use the IP to lure in, in the first place.
So the best IP to make a MMO on is one that people are somewhat familair with and like, but are not too invested in. Ideally is its fairly vague on a number of points.
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Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
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