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alkeo
Member UncommonPosts: 24
I've been gone since the NGE. I tried coming back a couple times before but the old game was dead and I just couldn't bring myself to play it. But it's been quite a while now and since they are giving a free month to returning vets, I decided to start a new character and give it a shot again. I made a human commando and started with the tutorial.
First, let me say that I could do without the hokey "escape". It was star warsy but not in a good way. I'm currently on the space station and have mixed feelings. I'm getting used to the combat and I think I can live with it. I hate the interface compared to the old one, but I understand there is a mod that may take care of that. Some of the quests and characters are interesting and you do get drawn in. However, I'm disappointed in the graphical glitches, especially for a tutorial area. Twice I got off the shuttle to a world surrounded by stars with no way to move. Logging out and back in fixed it but it was a pain. Also, I've had my fair share of "targets" warp over to me or get stuck in a wall or rock. I don't like being able to get only 1 quest at a time. I also don't like space. I don't remember it being so disorientating but maybe that's just because I'm trying it with a mouse when a joystick is needed.
All in all, I'm only at level 7 and I'm not feeling the space station love. I think I'll leave the tutorial and see what the ground has to offer. I'm still open minded. Hopefully the main game and the Legacy Quests will make an improvement.
Comments
I am being completely serious when I tell you that the newbie station is the best part of the entire game. Your experience will go downhill quickly once you get down to tattoine.
At least the newbie station bears a passing resemblance to Star Wars because Han Solo is up there with you. The Legacy quests will have you fighting Skaak Tippers and Mummers and for the life of me I can't remember what Star Wars movie they were in.
OP, why start this game now?
The President of EA just confirmed a KOTOR MMO that comes out next year, this game is done, lights out, game over.
I wouldn't bother with the dreadfully boring grind, battling through the numerous bugs and glitches, the slowly added "content" and the neglected customer service...
If you enjoyed Pre-CU SWG like most of us did, Fallen Earth is coming out soon, check out the forums here on this site, it's a sandbox and uses a skill-based system. It should tide us over well until the new Star Wars MMO comes out, and who knows, Fallen Earth may end up being the game that a lot of us choose to stay with. It will be the only ground-based Sandbox out.
AveBethos, I went back because I'm bored with the current mmorpgs (I'm tired of elves and orcs and dragons, oh my), loved preNGE SWG (never played preCU), and Sony gave me a month free. So I thought I would try it again and see if I could get that old feeling back. I was hoping that it could still be somewhat sandboxy, but I'm not sure now. I'm being forced into a template and I'm simply amazed at the graphical problems I'm having for a game this old. Fallen Earth may be the way to go but it still hasn't been released and I don't have much faith in companies these days. Who knows, by the time it comes out it could be a broken, WoW clone instead of a freeform sandbox game. I'm not holding my breath for any SciFi Sandbox MMORPG.
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
any game that looks down upon customers the way you do will fail. That is not what WoW does, and that is why they succeed.
fishermage.blogspot.com
wow did exactly the same thing. They picked a broad market segment - that they already had from previous games- and developed over it. but lets not have ilusions, they had no problem shafting their most hardcore fans (raiders) and make the game extremely casual friendly with TBC. They alienated or canibalized part of raiders, but got the casuals, that outweighted the raiders by a large margin.
I know wow very well. i was a beta tester and have 1 account with more than 10000 hours on it since release- in 3. 5 years of wow has i have 1 character with /played 405 days and several others. Was part of a now defunt a big name raiding guild that most wow players knew. and while I didnt felt alienated with the path wow took, most of the guys i played with (most of them with 2 or 3 accounts) did and they have quited the game. This scenario is common to most "hardcore" players. Ofc when you have the playerbase of wow, losing not even 10% of your customer base is irrelevant.
btw, i'm not looking down on players. I'm a player myself. I'm just associated by familiar connections with the industry and many times have basicly listen to what i wrote coming form the mouth of people that make some decisions.
Liking it or not . that is how producers actually think- and you kid yourself if you think otherwise.
I know how producers actually think -- successful ones -- and they do not look down on their customers, they think like their customers and understand them better than you seem to. The people at Blizzard love their game and theit customers, and develop their game accordingly. They develop a game they could be proud of -- a game that is at the moment, the biggest, most complex game out there, that isn't in a ratty, broken package -- with the possible exception of EVE, which has a very similar strategy and develoment attitude towards customers.
They have a quality from the ground up, as opposed to a design and polish later, development strategy (something no one else does), have at least THREE target markets: the primary one being the "Casual" gamer, the secondary one being the more seasoned, hardcore gamer, and the tertiary one being the heavy hardcore gamer of many years.
They know that no two gamers are identical, because they understand that they are INDIVIDUALS, and as such deliver a big, broad game that has much more than you give credit for.
What they have has been done by not looking down on their customers (which you are in fact doing, you are one type of gamer -- who considers yourself part of a superior class of gamers and thus looking down on most of your fellow gamers).
I regularly deal with people from this industry and others, and I know what breeds success -- it is NOT your attitude, which is precisely the attitude of some of the minds behind the NGE and a good part of the reason why it was such a failure.
It's easy to understand why you would feel as you do -- obviously the people you are dealing with are part of that second tier, and they share your misconceptions and elitism with regards to most people who enjoy MMOs.
fishermage.blogspot.com
We will never have another SWG like the original. I hate to say that, because that is what I loved, and still want. I have went back several times, but end up leaving. The current game is not what I enjoyed.
BUT, the players that play now do enjoy it, and I do not bash them, for they have a different opinion than I.
KOTOR..well this sounds like..."make your own jedi" type game. But, we will see. There is always a good possibility of a great game, but I just don't see one in the near future.
Fallen Earth looks like it could be a hit, as does Warhammer. That is, if the game developers get their monies in line, their people in line, and their research in line. We could see a banner year for MMO'S.
Maybe, I am getting old, 38, and I don't want to look back and say, "you wasted alot of time playing a game, for what??" I have three kids, the youngest being 6, and the oldest being 13. I spend most of my time with them and my wife, but, I play at night when we get home. I dont watch cartoons, Bugs Bunny was my cartoon! I put myself in the bedroom and play my MMO's, that is my escape and release. I look for a game the is immersive, enjoyable, a mature community, fun, and with a great story line. Those are hard to find today. Just my two cents worth, or 4 cents, the way todays economy is going.
Most of the people I play SWG with, most of the people I play WoW with, and most of the people I play CoX with -- are in our demographic. People with jobs (excpt for the stay at home moms that play, but that's a job as much as any other, IMO), people with lives, people with educations.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I know how producers actually think -- successful ones -- and they do not look down on their customers, they think like their customers and understand them better than you seem to. The people at Blizzard love their game and theit customers, and develop their game accordingly. They develop a game they could be proud of -- a game that is at the moment, the biggest, most complex game out there, that isn't in a ratty, broken package -- with the possible exception of EVE, which has a very similar strategy and develoment attitude towards customers.
They have a quality from the ground up, as opposed to a design and polish later, development strategy (something no one else does), have at least THREE target markets: the primary one being the "Casual" gamer, the secondary one being the more seasoned, hardcore gamer, and the tertiary one being the heavy hardcore gamer of many years.
They know that no two gamers are identical, because they understand that they are INDIVIDUALS, and as such deliver a big, broad game that has much more than you give credit for.
What they have has been done by not looking down on their customers (which you are in fact doing, you are one type of gamer -- who considers yourself part of a superior class of gamers and thus looking down on most of your fellow gamers).
I regularly deal with people from this industry and others, and I know what breeds success -- it is NOT your attitude, which is precisely the attitude of some of the minds behind the NGE and a good part of the reason why it was such a failure.
It's easy to understand why you would feel as you do -- obviously the people you are dealing with are part of that second tier, and they share your misconceptions and elitism with regards to most people who enjoy MMOs.
Think you didnt noticed one thing, I am not endorsing what I wrote. you keep pointing at me like i'm responsable for this attitude and business practice but I am not. I am basicly like you, a person that plays games. I am not direclty associated with the game industry- my family is, but I am not.
The fact that i'm cynical or cold about the reality, and look at it without ilusions comes with age and experience interacting with some people on the industry. The fact that my writting appears elitist has more to do with my academic background and professional activity (both not game related). Basicly I'm paid to be always right or appear to be right and take decisions that affect the future of some people (I am not a politician also, just Universitary teacher) Just that. And while I am elitist on my job- I am required to be- I am not out of it. Even more when it comes to games. my subscription value is equal to your subscription, and both of us are equally important or, depending on the perspective you want to look at , not important
If you want to go directly to wow and blizzard, can tell you the following:
My girlfriend worked for blizzard. Not direct employer but as part as a business study, or market acessment if you want to call it, conducted while TBC was in development. The point of that study was to know if the game should remain the way it was or become more casual and the consequences of it.. I actually ended up reading her report.. the bottom line ,since I can' t go in details, was a preview or acessment, that the changes would alienate about 10 to 15% of the current player base over time, mostly 6 to 9 months in TBC, but at the same time about 1/3 of the players that had quited wow due " end game related issues" would probably return if that end game was made "easier or less time consuming".
The end game i'm referring to is raiding and pvp. Now if you follow wow, you know exactly what happened to both (pve raiding and pvp). And while I didnt felt alienated, many that played with me did.
Now I have no problems admiting that what blizzard did there was for the good of the game. But not for the good of all players. I also admit that blizzard is among the best company out there when it comes to delivering a solid, working, fun and polished product. That is the reason why WoW has 8 to 10 m subs and no other game has them.
I underlined that because it is self explanatory. Blizzard is almost unique in that aspect, and most gamer/MMORPGs end up being developed by other companies with different phylosophies.
if you want me to go deeper, most of the times when i'm playing most broad end MMORPG's I do feel like a sheep, because in the end that is what we end up being in a massive player game with subscription fees.
It is not my fault that most recent market studies point that the broad end of MMORPG's players this days are on a demographic setting that is not sensible to "sandbox" types of games- and that is the market segment that most companies are after, since with will cope with lower quality settings and has more free time to use on the product, and while vocal in demands , keeps paying until the next big thing comes.
It is not my fault that over the last 6 years that was a massive MMORPG player boom. That massification come with the expansion of cheaper internet costs and inherent social modifications, where fathers now preffer to have the kids at home playing games than outside, open to a lot of modern day problems. While MMORPG companies were developing products for a customer base of 18 to 30 year old customers, they are now aiming to a market segment that starts at 13-14 years, and has other kind of demands, and orbits around instant gratification and what is now called "e-peen" settings.
Sadly , with 33 years old, I am on a more "mature" market segment. Profession and familiar life does not allow me to dump 5 hours a day in game like it did 5 years ago. Sometimes i suspend subscriptions due to job associated travels, conferences, etc. I would love a pure sandbox mmorpg, like many, but i do knowI am not the kind of customer most companies are after. And many of the SWG vets are also not that kind of customer.
the fact thar WE (notice the we) have problems admitting we are OLD this days and still consider ourselfs the "prime" market segement is a problem we have to deal with. For most companies we are not .
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
Thanks for the lesson in corporate strategy, you somehow forget that some of us are small business owners and part of the business world ourselves.
First of all, the reason LA and Bioware wouldn't want SWG running at the same time KOTOR goes live is because it taps the potential Star Wars playerbase, though a small number of them, it's still competition. That isn't going to fly.
Secondly, SWG isn't making anyone much money. Why would they take away potential money from KOTOR when SWG isn't going to turn anyone a good profit?
Once again, thanks for the lesson.
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
Thanks for the lesson in corporate strategy, you somehow forget that some of us are small business owners and part of the business world ourselves.
First of all, the reason LA and Bioware wouldn't want SWG running at the same time KOTOR goes live is because it taps the potential Star Wars playerbase, though a small number of them, it's still competition. That isn't going to fly.
Secondly, SWG isn't making anyone much money. Why would they take away potential money from KOTOR when SWG isn't going to turn anyone a good profit?
Once again, thanks for the lesson.
thats is what I do for a living. Tho normally i'm paid about 85 euros an hour tho.
I know how producers actually think -- successful ones -- and they do not look down on their customers, they think like their customers and understand them better than you seem to. The people at Blizzard love their game and theit customers, and develop their game accordingly. They develop a game they could be proud of -- a game that is at the moment, the biggest, most complex game out there, that isn't in a ratty, broken package -- with the possible exception of EVE, which has a very similar strategy and develoment attitude towards customers.
They have a quality from the ground up, as opposed to a design and polish later, development strategy (something no one else does), have at least THREE target markets: the primary one being the "Casual" gamer, the secondary one being the more seasoned, hardcore gamer, and the tertiary one being the heavy hardcore gamer of many years.
They know that no two gamers are identical, because they understand that they are INDIVIDUALS, and as such deliver a big, broad game that has much more than you give credit for.
What they have has been done by not looking down on their customers (which you are in fact doing, you are one type of gamer -- who considers yourself part of a superior class of gamers and thus looking down on most of your fellow gamers).
I regularly deal with people from this industry and others, and I know what breeds success -- it is NOT your attitude, which is precisely the attitude of some of the minds behind the NGE and a good part of the reason why it was such a failure.
It's easy to understand why you would feel as you do -- obviously the people you are dealing with are part of that second tier, and they share your misconceptions and elitism with regards to most people who enjoy MMOs.
Think you didnt noticed one thing, I am not endorsing what I wrote. you keep pointing at me like i'm responsable for this attitude and business practice but I am not. I am basicly like you, a person that plays games. I am not direclty associated with the game industry- my family is, but I am not.
The fact that i'm cynical or cold about the reality, and look at it without ilusions comes with age and experience interacting with some people on the industry. The fact that my writting appears elitist has more to do with my academic background and professional activity (both not game related). Basicly I'm paid to be always right or appear to be right and take decisions that affect the future of some people (I am not a politician also, just Universitary teacher) Just that. And while I am elitist on my job- I am required to be- I am not out of it. Even more when it comes to games. my subscription value is equal to your subscription, and both of us are equally important or, depending on the perspective you want to look at , not important
If you want to go directly to wow and blizzard, can tell you the following:
My girlfriend worked for blizzard. Not direct employer but as part as a business study, or market acessment if you want to call it, conducted while TBC was in development. The point of that study was to know if the game should remain the way it was or become more casual and the consequences of it.. I actually ended up reading her report.. the bottom line ,since I can' t go in details, was a preview or acessment, that the changes would alienate about 10 to 15% of the current player base over time, mostly 6 to 9 months in TBC, but at the same time about 1/3 of the players that had quited wow due " end game related issues" would probably return if that end game was made "easier or less time consuming".
The end game i'm referring to is raiding and pvp. Now if you follow wow, you know exactly what happened to both (pve raiding and pvp). And while I didnt felt alienated, many that played with me did.
Now I have no problems admiting that what blizzard did there was for the good of the game. But not for the good of all players. I also admit that blizzard is among the best company out there when it comes to delivering a solid, working, fun and polished product. That is the reason why WoW has 8 to 10 m subs and no other game has them.
I underlined that because it is self explanatory. Blizzard is almost unique in that aspect, and most gamer/MMORPGs end up being developed by other companies with different phylosophies.
if you want me to go deeper, most of the times when i'm playing most broad end MMORPG's I do feel like a sheep, because in the end that is what we end up being in a massive player game with subscription fees.
It is not my fault that most recent market studies point that the broad end of MMORPG's players this days are on a demographic setting that is not sensible to "sandbox" types of games- and that is the market segment that most companies are after, since with will cope with lower quality settings and has more free time to use on the product, and while vocal in demands , keeps paying until the next big thing comes.
It is not my fault that over the last 6 years that was a massive MMORPG player boom. That massification come with the expansion of cheaper internet costs and inherent social modifications, where fathers now preffer to have the kids at home playing games than outside, open to a lot of modern day problems. While MMORPG companies were developing products for a customer base of 18 to 30 year old customers, they are now aiming to a market segment that starts at 13-14 years, and has other kind of demands, and orbits around instant gratification and what is now called "e-peen" settings.
Sadly , with 33 years old, I am on a more "mature" market segment. Profession and familiar life does not allow me to dump 5 hours a day in game like it did 5 years ago. Sometimes i suspend subscriptions due to job associated travels, conferences, etc. I would love a pure sandbox mmorpg, like many, but i do knowI am not the kind of customer most companies are after. And many of the SWG vets are also not that kind of customer.
the fact thar WE (notice the we) have problems admitting we are OLD this days and still consider ourselfs the "prime" market segement is a problem we have to deal with. For most companies we are not .
Sorry, all I see is prejudice and innacuracies here. Wow aims at people in their 20s and 30s, because that's who plays the game.
You are actually right in the market segment. The mean is 27. The money is from people in their 40s, a third of them women, who have whole familes that play these games. Blizzard knows this and that's where they make their money. hardcore players are the young players. The OLDER the player, the more casual, generally.
They know you can't dump hours on a game; neither can most of their customers. that is why they use the concentic ring of targetting. Start with the casual (generally older); then go to the slightly more hardcore (college age and up, again generally); then to the very hardcore (high school on up). Notice I keep saying "on up." That's key here.
Plus, if you were a "raider" as you claim, then you most likely hate sandbox games. Those are two different niches. Sometimes they overlap, to be sure, but they are far from the same types of players (again generally).
Most players want a sandbox with toys. Wow has more toys than sandbox, a game that has more sandbox than toys, but still plenty of toys, just might even beat WoW.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I had simialr feelings when I returned a few weeks ago ,but found it enjoyable enough to stay on for awhile. It gets better once you get to level 14ish I hope it works for you its definatly better than wow imo.
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
Thanks for the lesson in corporate strategy, you somehow forget that some of us are small business owners and part of the business world ourselves.
First of all, the reason LA and Bioware wouldn't want SWG running at the same time KOTOR goes live is because it taps the potential Star Wars playerbase, though a small number of them, it's still competition. That isn't going to fly.
Secondly, SWG isn't making anyone much money. Why would they take away potential money from KOTOR when SWG isn't going to turn anyone a good profit?
Once again, thanks for the lesson.
thats is what I do for a living. Tho normally i'm paid about 85 euros an hour tho.
And I'm a self made investor who has made money over the last 25 years or so correctly assesing which corporate/management strategies will win over the course of years. Retired at 46. Happily living life without being a cynic, and still predicting markets and businesses correctly. I know youngsters like you often look down on everyone, and develop a certain cynicism. Take my advice, you're wrong. Life and the world are beautiful things. Give it time though.
fishermage.blogspot.com
1) you know as much as me or anyone else about what will happen: meaning nothing. The ideas circulating about SOE losing the license etc are just creative thinking at this moment.
I know most of you are somewhat limited when it comes to corporate strategy, so i'll give you a direct tip; There is no logical reason for LA to shut down SWG due to a KOTOR based MMO when the paradigm of business is to milk the source (customers) as much as possible in any way possible.
2) Most of us that enjoyed PRE-CU (i did also) are irrelevant, we are and were a minority insuficient to to sustain any MMORPG by todays standard. When SWg was launched we, the 3xx K that played it, were a considerable player base. After WOW , 300 k become irrelevant.
The target market of any sucessful MMORPG this days is not the old guard that wants "sandbox" games, most of them don't even understand the concept. they want levels , epics, treasure, instant gratification, on the fly crafting, arrows pointing to quest that need to be like "go here kill 10 come back" because anything more complex will force the players to actually read the quests, what most don't even do. bUyt mostly they can't grasp the social complexity that a true sandbox game impose- and they are not interested in it also.
So, hold, on your continual hate and demeanor for and over SWG, and reaçlize that good or bad now, there will not be any other game like "SWG" (being it pre-cu. cu, nge or whatever) because people like you and me are no longer the kind of players mmorpg even consider.
best regards
Thanks for the lesson in corporate strategy, you somehow forget that some of us are small business owners and part of the business world ourselves.
First of all, the reason LA and Bioware wouldn't want SWG running at the same time KOTOR goes live is because it taps the potential Star Wars playerbase, though a small number of them, it's still competition. That isn't going to fly.
Secondly, SWG isn't making anyone much money. Why would they take away potential money from KOTOR when SWG isn't going to turn anyone a good profit?
Once again, thanks for the lesson.
thats is what I do for a living. Tho normally i'm paid about 85 euros an hour tho.
Well I agree with your assessment of sandbox vs level/class target audiences. However, there is no business reason that LA would allow SWG to operate once a new Star Wars MMO hits the market. It just doesn't make any business sense.
I actually loved pre-cu swg in all it's sandbox setting.
And I actually disliked wow raiding, but i loved pvp- and , until tbc, the ones raiding had total advantage over the ones not raiding in pvp. So I raided, but never liked it.Thats why I said i did not felt alienated by the changes. But many that played only for the raid did.
what you consider innacuricies are not. Give yourself the trouble to search on the EU site, and you might find some 2007 studies about online games and their players, some of them made by elements of the team i lead.
as for the prejudice....i dont consider myself better or worst than most. I am just cold. and I guess you would end up being the same or close if at least 2 to 3 times a month you had to endorse on a "sociological basis " (or not) certain decisions that you know will have deleterical effects on the life of many/some.
Sometimes I have to say agree with things that, in a ethical point of view, i'm against, but , liking or not, the world of decision makers is determinated by results not ethical values. The only failsafe on this is that i am not the one making decisions. I just gather the arguments against and/or in favor. But yet while doing it, the value of one single person ends up being depleted of meaning. Including myself.
I think you are damning yourself to a lifetime of unhappiness. I HIGHLY recommend you change paths. I'm not kidding. Trust me I have watched too many people look back at life in their forties and fifties and lament doing that which made them go cold. There is another way, and it works. It also makes a very nice profit margin.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I think you are damning yourself to a lifetime of unhappiness. I HIGHLY recommend you change paths. I'm not kidding. Trust me I have watched too many people look back at life in their forties and fifties and lament doing that which made them go cold. There is another way, and it works. It also makes a very nice profit margin.
Can't really. the work market is not as dynamic as you might think for people with a phd in Military Historiography and master in (military) strategical analysis. My other way would be going back to the military , and yet i do not agree or endorse west current foreign interventionist politic. I also do not like risking people's life in the name of democracy when I know it is more about corporate oil than anything else.
there is also another drawback in your suggestion. the people that were doing what i do now before me were cold and ruthless. I am just cold. I might sign a report that puts 5 or 10 k out of work on friday, but trust me, during the weekend i'll find some holes on it and produce a second report pointing out that if those 5 or 10 k lose their job,there will be several consequences that will affect many more. there is no wins here tho. Most often than not i cant save their jobs for long time but often can delay for some time certain decisions. From what i know, my antecessors just signed the report, collected their pay check and went partying.
on another note, what i said about demographics is, sadly true. We are a segment of the market that most mmorpg companies twist their nose to. People with a certain economical stability may spend more in the "well being industry" but are much more critic on the things they use. We also require a much more "polished" and "conceptually solid" product then most on the 14-30 years market segment.
A true sandbox game requires much more creative thinking than a run the mill, loot and instance driven MMORPG. Even in the aspect of simple, almost non visible details. Even after all this years, i am still overhelmed by koster's concept on swg. the implementation might have failed but the ideias and concepts are there.
one of the things that almost drives me mad on this particular forum is the lack of insight and vision of many posters. If most would take 2 steps back and look at all the picture, they would understand that for a long time there will not be a game like SWG in all it's social complexity. while the game exists there is a chance that other companies might try to mimitise some worthy elements this game has, and in that way, appeal to certain market segments that are normally ignored by mainstream releases.
I personally dont like the crafting system of most recent mmorpgs when compared to what SWG has. SWG system is border like legendary when compared to what we see in WOW.AOC, etc. Since SWG i never saw anything like it.
On a somewhat recent conversation with someone that his in charge of a now antecipated MMO I was able to introduce the subject of SWG crafting system and ask while something similar will not be used on that particular title/expansion (this is a clear hint)
The answer i got was basicly " well. it is a great system but today's players want simpler things that will allow them to jump on the action faster". to what i answered "i'm not sure if people with crafting interests will not preffer something more complex". Conversation terminated with the next comment " you are right, but those are a minority that doesnt hold any interest for us. We are after the action players with ilusions of supremacy. those are the ones that keep paying just to slaughter (...) As long as we keep providing ways for them to do more damage, they will keep coming"
who said this was not a "tier2" producer but someone on the "major league".
I think you are damning yourself to a lifetime of unhappiness. I HIGHLY recommend you change paths. I'm not kidding. Trust me I have watched too many people look back at life in their forties and fifties and lament doing that which made them go cold. There is another way, and it works. It also makes a very nice profit margin.
Can't really. the work market is not as dynamic as you might think for people with a phd in Military Historiography and master in (military) strategical analysis. My other way would be going back to the military , and yet i do not agree or endorse west current foreign interventionist politic. I also do not like risking people's life in the name of democracy when I know it is more about corporate oil than anything else.
there is also another drawback in your suggestion. the people that were doing what i do now before me were cold and ruthless. I am just cold. I might sign a report that puts 5 or 10 k out of work on friday, but trust me, during the weekend i'll find some holes on it and produce a second report pointing out that if those 5 or 10 k lose their job,there will be several consequences that will affect many more. there is no wins here tho. Most often than not i cant save their jobs for long time but often can delay for some time certain decisions. From what i know, my antecessors just signed the report, collected their pay check and went partying.
on another note, what i said about demographics is, sadly true. We are a segment of the market that most mmorpg companies twist their nose to. People with a certain economical stability may spend more in the "well being industry" but are much more critic on the things they use. We also require a much more "polished" and "conceptually solid" product then most on the 14-30 years market segment.
A true sandbox game requires much more creative thinking than a run the mill, loot and instance driven MMORPG. Even in the aspect of simple, almost non visible details. Even after all this years, i am still overhelmed by koster's concept on swg. the implementation might have failed but the ideias and concepts are there.
one of the things that almost drives me mad on this particular forum is the lack of insight and vision of many posters. If most would take 2 steps back and look at all the picture, they would understand that for a long time there will not be a game like SWG in all it's social complexity. while the game exists there is a chance that other companies might try to mimitise some worthy elements this game has, and in that way, appeal to certain market segments that are normally ignored by mainstream releases.
I personally dont like the crafting system of most recent mmorpgs when compared to what SWG has. SWG system is border like legendary when compared to what we see in WOW.AOC, etc. Since SWG i never saw anything like it.
On a somewhat recent conversation with someone that his in charge of a now antecipated MMO I was able to introduce the subject of SWG crafting system and ask while something similar will not be used on that particular title/expansion (this is a clear hint)
The answer i got was basicly " well. it is a great system but today's players want simpler things that will allow them to jump on the action faster". to what i answered "i'm not sure if people with crafting interests will not preffer something more complex". Conversation terminated with the next comment " you are right, but those are a minority that doesnt hold any interest for us. We are after the action players with ilusions of supremacy. those are the ones that keep paying just to slaughter (...) As long as we keep providing ways for them to do more damage, they will keep coming"
who said this was not a "tier2" producer but someone on the "major league".
All I can say about the first part is, you have my sympathies.
All I can say about the last part is -- if it ain't WoW (or Eve, which has exactly the same strategy), it's tier 2. I suppose we are talking about two different things. It's not the type of game that makes a game a success, it's the management of that game.
It seems there are only two companies that understand that. The rest are failing.
Vanguard, which has an equally complex crafting system as SWG, would have been successful had it not been produced by a company that embraces failure. It was released as garbage, like so many SOE games, and predictably had SOE type results.
If your friends work for WoW or Eve (tier 1 -- the only two games that are really growing right now), I'd be surprised. If not, they are a) in tier 2; and b) destined for failure, because they are misreading their customer, something quite common in new industries. Probably they are asking the wrong questions in their marketing tests and thus, getting the wrong results.
fishermage.blogspot.com
it is not eve.
"my friend" is not doing a bad job (it is actually not my friend, it is my gf friends) if we look at raw subscriptions. they just have this market segment they want to get, and he is actually working on some aspects of the game that target that segment and the "e-sports". and i'll stop now on it because i'm not supposed to write more.
I have not tried vanguard. I am a bit burnout from fantasy RPG's at the moment. Yet i was told that while vanguard's launch was bad, it has been getting better?
I think SOE gets a lot of flak due to the NGE on SWG. In all honesty SOE's games are not as bad as we make them (when compared with a lot of really bad products one can find in the "Released games" section of this forum). And yes they have this tendency to make bad game starts- what is aggravating because SOE does have the $ to actually do what blizz does, put the game on the market when it is ready.
But lets be honest most other companies do to same. lets take FC and AOC. I guess AOC launch was better than I expected. Yet truth is it might have been better just because half the game is void. with time we discovered that talent/perks/skills didnt worked, female chars did less dmg, most stats don't work, crafting is non working etc etc... in the end it happens to be as bad or worst than SOE titles.
Now you are speaking of a completely different market than we have been discussing. If it's a sports game it has nothing to do with fantasy of SF MMOs. Different customer base, different goals, different everything. Not even the same industries, broadly speaking.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Please re-read what i wrote. i pointed e-sports (not sports game, but some game that is trying to get in the e-sports arena, raw subs and it is not eve.
Okay, read, reread, and am deciding you are being to cryptic and vague to be worth discussing any further. If you don't wanna say what it is your talking about, it ain't worth discussing.
fishermage.blogspot.com
if you havent noticed WOW has (tried) to put a serious foot on competitive gaming over the last months, making the arena system de facto axis mundi of warcraft. So yes the person i was refering to is or was (that conversation has about 4 months) in fact associate with wow and his trying to cather some game mechanics to a segment of players that take competitive gaming serious. I do know he is still on wow's payroll,