Should SWG be free?

NGESUCKS · March 2007

This issue might unite us all maybe? Why is there a monthly fee for swg? Both sides can maybe come together on this issue? Does anyone think this game is worth the monthly fee? take the poll u tell me = )

dalevi1 · March 2007

There seems to be a rash of these posts on mmorpg lately, the problem is they are all a stupid suggestion. I am not a fan of the nge by any means, but unless you make your money only from expansion packs, or through the sales of items, there is zero reason to expect any kind of development, or even server administration on a game that makes no revenue. This isn't a defense of SWG, it is the way most mmo company's make money, and no matter how many people were to answer "yes" here or even suggest it on sony's forums, this will not happen.

Rekrul · March 2007

It should be pay-to-play.

SOE pays us to play. There's little chance of going close to that trainwreck without that.

Riho06 · March 2007

Free? The servers should be unplugged and SOE charged with aggravated manslaughter.

ArcAngel3 · March 2007

I always thought it was in very poor taste to charge a monthly fee for the game after the NGE. I say that because it was literally unplayable on release (chat, movement, combat didn't function). In addition to all of these game-breaking bugs, not only progress but content was deleted/removed from the game. When things were slowly brought back to the game in the aftermath of the great exodus and ongoing protests by players, things like profession expertise were in need of beta testing. So in light of all the severe bugs, the removal of progress and content, and the need for expertise to be beta tested, I felt it was outrageous that SOE could convince themselves it was acceptable to charge a fee to play that game. This is far below the industry standard set by other more respected online gaming companies. I've truly never seen or heard of anything like this before, and I hope I never see anything like it again.

Arc

whitedelight · March 2007

What Dale said is 100% correct.

treysmooth · March 2007

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

I always thought it was in very poor taste to charge a monthly fee for the game after the NGE. I say that because it was literally unplayable on release (chat, movement, combat didn't function). In addition to all of these game-breaking bugs, not only progress but content was deleted/removed from the game. When things were slowly brought back to the game in the aftermath of the great exodus and ongoing protests by players, things like profession expertise were in need of beta testing. So in light of all the severe bugs, the removal of progress and content, and the need for expertise to be beta tested, I felt it was outrageous that SOE could convince themselves it was acceptable to charge a fee to play that game. This is far below the industry standard set by other more respected online gaming companies. I've truly never seen or heard of anything like this before, and I hope I never see anything like it again.
Arc

What he said

Trey

ArcAngel3 · March 2007

Originally posted by dalevi1

There seems to be a rash of these posts on mmorpg lately, the problem is they are all a stupid suggestion. I am not a fan of the nge by any means, but unless you make your money only from expansion packs, or through the sales of items, there is zero reason to expect any kind of development, or even server administration on a game that makes no revenue. This isn't a defense of SWG, it is the way most mmo company's make money, and no matter how many people were to answer "yes" here or even suggest it on sony's forums, this will not happen.

I agree that this is the way online gaming companies make their money for the most part. Guild Wars is an exception, and they use a different revenue generating paradigm. Having said that, however, this doesn't mean that SWG is "worth" a monthly fee. I think that is the question being asked. At least that was my interpretation of it.

So regardless of how SOE wants to earn money, I don't think a game (NGE) that was released with game breaking bugs, removed progress, removed content, and profession expertise in need of beta testing should expect anyone to pay for such a product. If they are going to charge money for it, it should be a much better product. It should be past the beta testing stage, thoroughly debugged, and adding, not taking away content as people continue to pay their subsriptions.

Another reason I won't pay SOE for this game is that I refuse to in any way reward or encourage such sub-par service from any online gaming company.

Arc

elvenangel · March 2007

I'm not saying SWG is a good game cause..well its not..they killed it by ...well we all know what they did. Course it was kinda crappy before that expansion in my opinion anyway. But free? SOE you know has to pay Lucas arts for the rights to the game so..it'll never be free. I think everyone forgets too that Lucas Arts is still listed as part of the development cycle which means .. SOE has only partial control over whats happening to the game. I think they want to wash their hands of it as much as many of their past customers do. I can't help but get a laugh at everyone who dooms SOE over one crap game when their past titles are actually quite good.

NGESUCKS · March 2007

Well the difference with other online games is there a finished product most of them id say. SWG is a ongoing beta. Theres no real difference from tc and the regular servers. Thats probably why all the uproar its so close to the regular game u cant tell the difference and they charge people for both to test the regular game and beta test the test center lmao.So thats why i was doing this poll. Its curious the results so far. Im beta testing lotr and thats a good example of how a beta should be run they have a questionaire and they view the results and wala things get fixed. Not lets create our own reality and asume and force the appearance its finished.

Wildcat84 · March 2007

Well, right now it basically IS free if you were a pre-NGE player. A new free trial comes out practically every other month. Add to that the fact that gamecards for 1 cent were all over the place recently, and lots of people already are playing for free.

Mifio · March 2007

I don't think its worth a monthly fee, seeing as Sony Online messed it up, if it would revert to its original phase, yes it would be worth it.

NGESUCKS · March 2007

Lol thats true ive got 6 or 7 of those free trial comeback deals. The last one was really stupid to come back for holobands!! and "NEW" reverse engineering give me a break.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Well, right now it basically IS free if you were a pre-NGE player. A new free trial comes out practically every other month. Add to that the fact that gamecards for 1 cent were all over the place recently, and lots of people already are playing for free.

superkewl · March 2007

they should pay me 2 play swg

Shayde · March 2007

This game is clearly reverted back to beta. Who pays to play a beta game?

Oh, other than Vanguard players.

xxpigxx · March 2007

Originally posted by Shayde

This game is clearly reverted back to beta. Who pays to play a beta game?

Oh, other than Vanguard players.

xacova · March 2007

why do people pay to play, a dull turd of a messed up, hashed up void of a game anyway ?. if you have some spare income please feel free to give it a local charity rather than soe.

metatronic · March 2007

Originally posted by dalevi1

There seems to be a rash of these posts on mmorpg lately, the problem is they are all a stupid suggestion. I am not a fan of the nge by any means, but unless you make your money only from expansion packs, or through the sales of items, there is zero reason to expect any kind of development, or even server administration on a game that makes no revenue. This isn't a defense of SWG, it is the way most mmo company's make money, and no matter how many people were to answer "yes" here or even suggest it on sony's forums, this will not happen.

Im sure they've made their money back 10 fold on this game.. It peaked at like 600k users.. 600k x 40 bucks a CD = 24 million. They only spent probably 10 million on development if that..

600k lets say played for 2 months = 600k x15/month - 9 million or 18 million for 2 months...

I know 600k didn't stay very long and things started to dwindle down to around 300k after 9 months but believe me this company has made money hand over fist with SWG.

JTL was a mod

ROTW was a mod probably done by 3 guys in a month or 2.

They put this game out and went straight to work on eq2... More than half their devs went to eq2, a crew stayed behind on swg which is why very little was fixed and very little was added for content/quests.... When eq2 was out, some came back over to make the CU which was hashed in 6-8 months and woah look at that, 8 months after eq2 was launched...

The expacks that we did get were so poorly done. Rotw was small compared to what they get for expansions in eq2.. DOF, KOS and EOF comes to mind. DOF and KOS were xpacks for eq2 and were about 20x larger and offered abou 90x more content than Rotw. JTL was just empty space with ships flying around and loot tables.. Wow... rather big but small in quantity.

iskareot · March 2007

If it hasn't been said, I will say they should PAY people to play it.

At this point I think it should be a test game for ideas and of what to or not do to a consumer base.

Make it into a "How bad can we do before you stop playing type test"...lol

Asis · March 2007

Originally posted by Riho06

Free? The servers should be unplugged and SOE charged with aggravated manslaughter.

OMG ROFL!

that is awesome!

Netzz · March 2007

Based on the old adage, "You get what you pay for", I'd DEFINTELY say this game should be free, in it's current form it's garbage.

JestorRodo · March 2007

No. but you should be free of SWG!

vingvega · March 2007

The game blows...I would rather play Ragnarock

adders666 · March 2007

ok, i was a pre 8 jedi, had untold money and items and i loved the game to bits, to this day i have not played a game with the scope of pre 8 SWG and belive me i have played quite a few, yes there were bugs and the endgame was all but non existant, but has any of you who did actually play, ever found a game with the same community spirit of the "real SWG", i doubt it very much, in the glory days where on EU chimera there were sprawling cities on every planet and a massive player economy, where you had to wait 10 minutes for a shuttle and had duels in the SP's i would gladly pay £20 a month to play in that environment again, i resubbed a little while ago, and went on my old faithful server and it nearly brought me to tears, it is a shallow pit of despair, seeing all the *NGE RUINED ME* signs on the old player shops i used to go to, i left the game shortly after patch 9 when everyone was grinding the "jedi village" becoming commando to get fast grinding imho that is the mistake SoE made not the NGE, the NGE was an attempt by the company to flog a dead horse, SoE roll back to pre 8 and you would have a ton of people flooding back to play a legend of a game, but as another poster said in this thread they wont do this, they are more then happy to suck the life out of the title until the last person cancels their sub and there is nothing but a ghost of a game, i wouldnt play the NGE now even if they payed me

Eichenkatze · March 2007

In my opinion, i believe the game should just give up the ghost. Let the Master doctor pull the life support plug from the wall. Say a prayer and we'll bury Galaxies when the proper time comes. Erect a magnificent statue and honor its passing for years to come down the road. But seeing as i doubt SOE will do anything of that sort anytime soon, I do believe the game should be free. its just not worth the monthly fee anymore. I feel bad for saying so, but it isn't.