Originally posted by Malickie Originally posted by Wildcat84
The only reason why NGE still has any subscribers at all is because it's the only Star Wars MMO. That will no longer be the case in the next few months. Next to TOR, NGE will look old, obsolete, and it's combat system likely STILL won't work.
I don't disagree with anything except this point, I highly doubt it's simply the Star Wars IP that keeps people playing. I'd look more at the variety in game-play styles, decent crafting (albeit not as important as it once was). Social avenues of advancement (non-combat). As well as flight and pseudo twitch or turned base combat. The sandbox elements are probabaly up there in reasons as well. Of course the IP would stack up too, you can't ignore the lack of variety in most games on the market.
The ironic thing is, is that the reasons you list are things the NGE was designed to eliminate, that remain more or less because they never got around to eliminating them.
I quite agree though that the only redeeming qualities remaining in the game are the last vestiges of Pre-CU that do remain. I hung around for the space game as well for some time. But they've done next to nothing to support that or the other remaining Pre-CU elements since the NGE.
SOE has made it perfectly clear that they do not believe in sandbox games, their Devs that had expertise in them left years ago, so I wouldn't hold my breath expecting SOE to realize that the few remaining sandbox elements is the only thing retaining players and to properly support them.
The only reason why NGE still has any subscribers at all is because it's the only Star Wars MMO. That will no longer be the case in the next few months. Next to TOR, NGE will look old, obsolete, and it's combat system likely STILL won't work.
I don't disagree with anything except this point, I highly doubt it's simply the Star Wars IP that keeps people playing. I'd look more at the variety in game-play styles, decent crafting (albeit not as important as it once was). Social avenues of advancement (non-combat). As well as flight and pseudo twitch or turned base combat. The sandbox elements are probabaly up there in reasons as well. Of course the IP would stack up too, you can't ignore the lack of variety in most games on the market.
Just ask yourself, if this game was based on an unknown ip without jedis and lightsabers, how many people do you think would play it. How many would have stayed when the nge was released.
I guess we will find out the truth when TOR launches.
I am not so sure that SWTOR take every player just becaus its another SW or SCI FI game. Star Wars Galaxies is one of the last games that comes close to be a true MMORPG. All new games are MMOG and even marked as that from developers.
With an MMORPG means that you can basically just sit in your house craft and make a career or go to the cantina and socialice or have a party in your bunker or whatever. You dont have to fight at all to have fun.
Unfortunately lots of todays MMOG players comes from counterstrike and those kinds of game and just want pew pew and balanced PVP and whatever.
SWTOR is going to be storyline driven they say.. But then I wonder: seriously how many of the younger generation players even bother to read a quest text. They don't care about lore, story or RP. They want a highway to end game. And that type of players is the one making the big numbers. Sandbox people, RP people and and storyline people belongs to the minority sadly if we talk the big numbers. And how fun is story lines in the longer perspective? I mean for some its what they have been waiting for but I think that they are a minority group.
So unless SWTOR have a rich and deep crafting system that actually let people choose if they want to be a crafter instead of a combat or healing character,and have entertainers, then many mature players will still stay in SWG because SWTOR will be "almost" WoW in starwars wrapping. (forgive me for saying that.. I love wow, but one wow is enough) And yes! you can be a crafter in SWG without even bother to fight or a entertainer without bother to fight and still have tonns of fun if you are that kind of player. I miss that option in other games.
However. We dont know at this point so we can all hope. But I doubt it.
I played SWG when City of heroes was going to kill it. I played SWG when Dark and Light was going to kill it. I played SWG when Vanguard was going to kill it.
I played wow when guild wars was going to kill it. And when I played wow when Age of conan was going to kill it. I play wow now, when Aion is supposed to kill it.
Only time will tell.. but I would not bet my pants that SWTOR is going to be that holy grail of MMORPG. It is going to be an interesting MMOG for those starwars fans that enjoys storyline.. I DONT KNOW.. but that is my guess.
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter.
As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again.
People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along.
People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks.
That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter. As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again. People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along. People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks. That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
The only reason why NGE still has any subscribers at all is because it's the only Star Wars MMO. That will no longer be the case in the next few months. Next to TOR, NGE will look old, obsolete, and it's combat system likely STILL won't work.
I don't disagree with anything except this point, I highly doubt it's simply the Star Wars IP that keeps people playing. I'd look more at the variety in game-play styles, decent crafting (albeit not as important as it once was). Social avenues of advancement (non-combat). As well as flight and pseudo twitch or turned base combat. The sandbox elements are probabaly up there in reasons as well. Of course the IP would stack up too, you can't ignore the lack of variety in most games on the market.
Just ask yourself, if this game was based on an unknown ip without jedis and lightsabers, how many people do you think would play it. How many would have stayed when the nge was released.
I guess we will find out the truth when TOR launches.
To be honest the only thing I think about when I ask myself that question. Is the fact that the game would probably be the same one that released. It would probably still be in the hands of raph, or atleast a better studio, because SOE would have never wanted it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter. As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again. People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along. People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks. That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Blueshadow, you've accused people here of regarding SWG with blind hate. In response to this, many have provided valid reasons for moving on from this game. I haven't noticed you acknowledging any of these reasons, and your accusation of blind hate persists.
Do you recognize that for many this game has changed into something that they don't enjoy? Do you recognize that the changes contradicted what SOE told people would happen to the game? Do you recognize that people lost a lot of what they enjoyed, and that it hasn't come back, and likely won't ever ? Do you recognize that the game has added an RMT element to a premium subscription fee? Do you recognize that the population has dwindled to the point that many of the games servers are due to close down imminently?
If you can "see" any of these things, I think your "blind-hate" accusation is invalid. If you can't "see" any of these things, I find it ironic that you accuse others of blindness.
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter. As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again. People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along. People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks. That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Yes you love the game, I don't deny that. No I don't find the game less than enjoyable.
However you seem to focus on two aspects to support the longevity of this game. Either your focus on the people posting debate with you instead of what they are actually saying. Or. You talk about what YOU love.
I get it you love some aspects of the game and they are hard to replace in other games. However I don't think you are looking at the whole picture with an open mind. You see what you want and translate that to read as what everyone wants. I don't think you are representative of everyone playing swg.
The gameplay vulnerabilities I posted are realities. They have happened in the industry before so there is little reason you have given that they won't happen again.
As for crafting and houses there are a few games you can try. EQ2/VG/UO, etc. Of course none of those are star wars games, so we are back to the original point at hand.
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter. As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again. People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along. People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks. That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Yes you love the game, I don't deny that. No I don't find the game less than enjoyable.
However you seem to focus on two aspects to support the longevity of this game. Either your focus on the people posting debate with you instead of what they are actually saying. Or. You talk about what YOU love.
I get it you love some aspects of the game and they are hard to replace in other games. However I don't think you are looking at the whole picture with an open mind. You see what you want and translate that to read as what everyone wants. I don't think you are representative of everyone playing swg.
The gameplay vulnerabilities I posted are realities. They have happened in the industry before so there is little reason you have given that they won't happen again.
As for crafting and houses there are a few games you can try. EQ2/VG/UO, etc. Of course none of those are star wars games, so we are back to the original point at hand.
You are right. I can only speak about what I love. But I have one thing in common with the majority of active SWG players. I like the game.
But me and Star Wars..
The game I play don't have to be Star Wars theeme.
It is the mechanics of the game I enjoy. So if the Star Wars theeme in the game was replaced by another SPACE theeme .. or even set back to medival age or fantasy.. It would be okay. Its the freedom that I like and the fact that it suits many types of players and playstyles: those that love to craft, those that love to fight, those that love to be social and entertainers PVPers, PVEers and RPers.
I played EQ2 for about a year and a half. And those instanced houses with all its limitations is nothing near the "plonk a house or building down wherever you want" (almost) that can be found in SWG.
Don't get me wrong. I would absolutely love to see good old SWG back, with all its classes. That would have been like a miracle happening. But it is not. That is why I just realise that SWG is still the most flexible game even if its not the same game as it was. There just is not or will be an alternative for players that are not that much into combat. Most MMOG (MMORPG are almost dead) today focus on combat entirely. Thats the difference betwen SWG and new games. SWG is MMORPG new games are just MMOG.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
Isn't that exactly what happened in November of 2005? Don't you think the people that post here already have a frame of reference for exactly what you just stated? They know exactly what it feels like to have the rug yanked out from under them, so please don't act like they don't. They've been there, done that. They lived through the scenario you just described.
As for using the term evil (which I think is a bit of an exaggeration), just think about the people that made the decisions and brought about those drastic changes in November four years ago. Are they evil for perpetrating those changes? Did they ruin the game and run everyone off? If so, why blame the people that post here for the game's current state regarding population? The people that post here are not the ones responsible for the changes in the game that drove everyone off.
The game itself is the reason many people haven't stuck with it. As someone pointed out on these boards before, if the game was great it would sell itself. No amount of negativity could keep people away from it.
In response to the following comments from Blueshadow:
"You are right. I can only speak about what I love. But I have one thing in common with the majority of active SWG players. I like the game.
But me and Star Wars..
The game I play don't have to be Star Wars theeme.
It is the mechanics of the game I enjoy. So if the Star Wars theeme in the game was replaced by another SPACE theeme .. or even set back to medival age or fantasy.. It would be okay. Its the freedom that I like and the fact that it suits many types of players and playstyles: those that love to craft, those that love to fight, those that love to be social and entertainers PVPers, PVEers and RPers.
I played EQ2 for about a year and a half. And those instanced houses with all its limitations is nothing near the "plonk a house or building down wherever you want" (almost) that can be found in SWG.
Don't get me wrong. I would absolutely love to see good old SWG back, with all its classes. That would have been like a miracle happening. But it is not. That is why I just realise that SWG is still the most flexible game even if its not the same game as it was. There just is not or will be an alternative for players that are not that much into combat. Most MMOG (MMORPG are almost dead) today focus on combat entirely. Thats the difference betwen SWG and new games. SWG is MMORPG new games are just MMOG."
I'm glad you like SWG, truly; and I'm glad that you enjoy some of the variety. I think, from this post, that you can recognize at the same time that it simply doesn't have what many of us really enjoyed any longer. If you like it, that's great. The only reason for disliking it, however, certainly isn't some kind of delusional hatred.
You have reasons for enjoying it. Others have valid reasons for walking away, and not going back.
Regarding variety/complexity, I hear good things about Ryzom and EVE ^_^. Personally, I'm interested to see what the Star Trek game looks like. I've always been a sci-fi fan. I'll probably check out TOR and StarTrek and see what they have to offer.
For me, SWG is just too diminished to be enjoyable (i.e. it feels like a shadow of its former self). Most of the stuff that really made it fun for me was taken out and replaced with things that I don't happen to find fun to play. For example, I enjoyed being a Master TKM/Master Doc and working to enhance my combat skills via the force by completing village quests. I enjoyed the massive pvp battles for player bases with between 50 and 100 people a side. I enjoyed the 20 person groups going on pearl hunts; and I enjoyed the 20 player entertainer groups complete with well organized music and dance flourishes, smoke and light shows etc.. I enjoyed mixing and matching professions and the incredible range of skills available. I enjoyed helping friends hunt down and tame baby creatures. I really enjoyed the new content in the last expansion, and all of the loot rewards that enhanced my combat abilities--most of which were immediately thereafter removed from the game.
I don't happen to like the fast-paced, pseudo-fps game with 9 limited non-interchangeable professions that took its place. I don't really like the idea of an fps game without working collision detection. I think the level system took away a lot of immersion. I don't like all the loot that made my crafters lose a lot of business. I don't like flying ewoks, zombies or other things that don't really fit at all with the StarWars saga. I also strongly dislike an RMT revenue model tacked onto a subscription based game, especially when the RMT involves only a random chance of getting what you want.
If you can enjoy the game in its current form, good on ya; but I don't think it's hard to understand why many others don't.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess. Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back. The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell. Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can. Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting. A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that. I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it. Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like. To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person. If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil. And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too.. Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion.. This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people. I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Guess I'll jump in here too. SWG IS a dead game. Up to the end of today, there are/were 25 servers and there are now 1-2 to support the game in it's entirety with 13 up and playable. I played off and on, mostly on, up till about 4 months ago, altho I have 1 account subbed ATM. My wife and one of her buddies goaded me into subbing just to log on enough time to go to coro and drop them both in a /duel. Since that time, I have not logged back on and we are on Bria. In the last almost 2 yearsthat I've been on Bria (2 years before on Kauri), I watched Bria go the way of Kauri, had to start another account and grind an ent just to find one for my combat toon and what was left of a 200+ person guild, now down to less than 10 players and this is on Bria.
I went thru some of the CHANGES. Expertise, GCW Revamp, C6CD, GU-Whatever, "LS = pve (tank)", etc etc etc. After each and every one of these CHANGES, there were less subs than there was before the CHANGE. I had all 4 traders, and ent, and a LS jedi. PVP was removed for LS jedi in GU-3 (or NJE) with blixtev's "LS =pve (tank)" so 1/2 the end game content was gone for my particular combat toon. When the CHANGES took down Bria's population, and then a large part of the remainder transfered to Starsider, ALL my traders were lucky to do 1 mil a week. So, the traders, were totally unnecessary, just the same as before I used the paid transfer system and paid 200.00 to go to Bria from Kauri. With the jedi, there was only so many times I wanted to run the instances as I had both sets of jewelry that the jedi might need and enough tokens in the box to get another 2 sets. Just how many times do you want to run the same content over and over and over? Due to the fact SOE is down to basicly a management dev team.
You are incorrect that the "sandbox" is being put back into SWG. It is exactly the opposite. All SOE is putting into Galaxies is directed content and that is hardly sandbox. Zombies anyone??? And now I see where Shelby is asking the question on the GP O-Boards if glancing blow is broken, with the zombie patch, or if takeing out glancing blow is working as intended. Same old SOE, I guess. It is a bug or did you develope the player NERF that way?
You are correct that SWG has some systems that are not in many other games, but that too is about to CHANGE. ST:O will not have housing at launch but they have said that it will come shortly thereafter. TOR is still up in the air on if it will include housing at launch or not. So, in the very near future there will be alternatives even for these.
What made SWG was not so much the buggy gameplay in any of it's incarnations, it was the community. And that is basicly gone now. Chased off by CHANGE after CHANGE after CHANGE. No matter how you may want it (I know, I was there myself for awhile), it is NOT comeing back.
You don't have to be a graffiti artist to read the writing on the wall.
With the number of PVP players in GCW under 10k and all of the above , its really just a matter of time. Don't you agree?
Everything is just a matter of time.
When you stretch your timeline out another year or so every time your prediction for SWG proves horribly wrong, eventually you'll be right. Keep plugging, tiger.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
What? I thought SWG was on life support and not making any money. It and all SOE games in fact. So you mean SOE is making money on their games? I mean they must be if people think they will shut one down when it no longer does so. Nice trolling.
As slow as there updates seem to be I wouldn't be surprised if they move around a few devs from game to game. Can't be to expensive paying 3-4 devs to update a game. Kinda like the Hoth update for SWG. To me it looked like a reskinned tatooine. So I'm sure they make money, but I'm also sure it wouldn't take many lost subs to put the game in peril or in a state of never updating the game. Didn't Smed also say something about sunsetting the game if ToR does put a dent in the subcriber base? He should have never said that in my opinion. But then again I seriously think SoE has deliberatly been trying to kill SWG for some time.
This is insane. No game publisher who has designs on working with anyone ever again is going to deliberately torpedo their own project, costing themselves money and reputation.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
You aren't even allowed to discuss SWTOR on the SWG forums anymore, well at least not in the off topic area.People there are really anti SWTOR xD
Yes you are, just not in the Gameplay Discussion forums. TOR threads get moved to the General Star Wars section.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
I'd probably have to agree with Jestor. Not so much that TOR will take the remaining playerbase, even tho it might.
The main problem I see for SWG is the IP and it's "fees". There were several rumor threads going here a year or so ago that LA is forgiving SOE's IP fees, even back then. If that was the case, with even a decreased playerbase, compared to then, it may be impossible for SOE to even make a "token" payment.
2nd, would be the ecomony. No company wants to get into a position where it is competing within itself, unless the market dictates such a measure. Case in point, GM, who is now getting rid of there competing products. I just can not see LA wanting SWG still up while TOR is out there. It does make some sence for SWG to remain while TOR is in development as they just might figure the Playerbase for SWG will be the base subs for TOR. (They figure they'll get every1 of those)
The Star Wars Free Realms rumored game kinda iced the cake for me on this notion. LA awarding SOE a consolation prise for the losing of SWG at the launch of TOR. I doubt if a "tween browser based" game would be considered competion for TOR at all and this would give SOE something that might get a little larger, with the specific playerbase it's after, than SWG. The Free Realms type game might be considered a pre-cursor for TOR. (Start there as a "tween" and graduate to TOR as one would "come of age").
All of the negative publicity that came/comes with SWG. I'm sure LA, at this point in time, would like to just get beyond this.
Smedly using the word "sunset" in connection with SWG. Leads me to believe that this decision was made months back. In hindsight, I would imagine that Lorin Jameson and his CHANGE everything mode again to SWG was an attempt to lure back the vets (as that was pretty much all he talked about while doing it). Might have been that LA gave them a sub number that they had to hit to save the game then. Of corse, SOE used thier "proven" tactics of "we will trade the existing playerbase to get one we do not have" and it all backfired on them, yet, again. Smed knowing that one of his games was coming to an end, with some1 else making that desision for him, tried and got something to replace it with. And even with all the SOE spin, in that interview, he got caught up in the moment and said a little too much.
All of this does not bode too well for SWG.
Very interesting analysis. I'll have this post in the back of my mind as things "play out" over the next few months. Good post.
Esquire and Tux seem to get it.... But for those who automatically jumped to the negative of the possibilities of my open end OP, well that is why for years now that the debate continues.
Hey Jestor, if the above analysis makes the "rodo-report" make sure to have my name in the credits. lol I think I'd take it as a compliment to have an SOE dev walk by me mubbleing.
If you want your name attached to that, be my guest.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
tor is going to fail and fail hard i mean look around no one wants level based games they want sandbox based games like pre-cu swg what will be funny is to see the aftermath of tor as i know we will see tons of sandbox games after
LOL
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess. Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back. The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell. Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can. Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting. A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that. I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it. Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like. To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person. If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil. And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too.. Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion.. This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people. I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Guess I'll jump in here too. SWG IS a dead game. Up to the end of today, there are/were 25 servers and there are now 1-2 to support the game in it's entirety with 13 up and playable. I played off and on, mostly on, up till about 4 months ago, altho I have 1 account subbed ATM. My wife and one of her buddies goaded me into subbing just to log on enough time to go to coro and drop them both in a /duel. Since that time, I have not logged back on and we are on Bria. In the last almost 2 yearsthat I've been on Bria (2 years before on Kauri), I watched Bria go the way of Kauri, had to start another account and grind an ent just to find one for my combat toon and what was left of a 200+ person guild, now down to less than 10 players and this is on Bria.
I went thru some of the CHANGES. Expertise, GCW Revamp, C6CD, GU-Whatever, "LS = pve (tank)", etc etc etc. After each and every one of these CHANGES, there were less subs than there was before the CHANGE. I had all 4 traders, and ent, and a LS jedi. PVP was removed for LS jedi in GU-3 (or NJE) with blixtev's "LS =pve (tank)" so 1/2 the end game content was gone for my particular combat toon. When the CHANGES took down Bria's population, and then a large part of the remainder transfered to Starsider, ALL my traders were lucky to do 1 mil a week. So, the traders, were totally unnecessary, just the same as before I used the paid transfer system and paid 200.00 to go to Bria from Kauri. With the jedi, there was only so many times I wanted to run the instances as I had both sets of jewelry that the jedi might need and enough tokens in the box to get another 2 sets. Just how many times do you want to run the same content over and over and over? Due to the fact SOE is down to basicly a management dev team.
You are incorrect that the "sandbox" is being put back into SWG. It is exactly the opposite. All SOE is putting into Galaxies is directed content and that is hardly sandbox. Zombies anyone??? And now I see where Shelby is asking the question on the GP O-Boards if glancing blow is broken, with the zombie patch, or if takeing out glancing blow is working as intended. Same old SOE, I guess. It is a bug or did you develope the player NERF that way?
You are correct that SWG has some systems that are not in many other games, but that too is about to CHANGE. ST:O will not have housing at launch but they have said that it will come shortly thereafter. TOR is still up in the air on if it will include housing at launch or not. So, in the very near future there will be alternatives even for these.
What made SWG was not so much the buggy gameplay in any of it's incarnations, it was the community. And that is basicly gone now. Chased off by CHANGE after CHANGE after CHANGE. No matter how you may want it (I know, I was there myself for awhile), it is NOT comeing back.
And I'm pretty sure all of the "change after change after changes" listed here occurred after the NGE. Grumpy old men stuck in the past? Hardly. It seems that SOE continues on its self-destructive pattern of alienating one playerbase after another until they have barely anyone left. Closing a dozen servers is a good indication of a severely diminshed population imo. You don't lose that many servers and players by giving them an enjoyable experience.
That is true. Because Lucasarts is also behind TOR as they were behind NGE, and they want to make TOR, like NGE "ICONIC" and Starwarsy.
SWG was a sandbox that Lucasarts wanted to make ICONIC theeme park. They failed but SWG today is still more sandbox than anything out there. TOR is going to be complete ICONIC and Starwarsy game.
But.. still TOR is probably going to be a game that will sell well and have many players because lots of players like the ICONIC and Starwarsy games... Sadly.
tor is going to fail and fail hard i mean look around no one wants level based games they want sandbox based games like pre-cu swg what will be funny is to see the aftermath of tor as i know we will see tons of sandbox games after
Originally posted by kobie173 Originally posted by JestorRodo You don't have to be a graffiti artist to read the writing on the wall. With the number of PVP players in GCW under 10k and all of the above , its really just a matter of time. Don't you agree?
Everything is just a matter of time. When you stretch your timeline out another year or so every time your prediction for SWG proves horribly wrong, eventually you'll be right. Keep plugging, tiger.
Muhahaha Kobie! 13 is now an unlucky number for SWG. You keep plugging away too!
Guess I'll jump in here too. SWG IS a dead game. Up to the end of today, there are/were 25 servers and there are now 1-2 to support the game in it's entirety with 13 up and playable. I played off and on, mostly on, up till about 4 months ago, altho I have 1 account subbed ATM. My wife and one of her buddies goaded me into subbing just to log on enough time to go to coro and drop them both in a /duel. Since that time, I have not logged back on and we are on Bria. In the last almost 2 yearsthat I've been on Bria (2 years before on Kauri), I watched Bria go the way of Kauri, had to start another account and grind an ent just to find one for my combat toon and what was left of a 200+ person guild, now down to less than 10 players and this is on Bria. I went thru some of the CHANGES. Expertise, GCW Revamp, C6CD, GU-Whatever, "LS = pve (tank)", etc etc etc. After each and every one of these CHANGES, there were less subs than there was before the CHANGE. I had all 4 traders, and ent, and a LS jedi. PVP was removed for LS jedi in GU-3 (or NJE) with blixtev's "LS =pve (tank)" so 1/2 the end game content was gone for my particular combat toon. When the CHANGES took down Bria's population, and then a large part of the remainder transfered to Starsider, ALL my traders were lucky to do 1 mil a week. So, the traders, were totally unnecessary, just the same as before I used the paid transfer system and paid 200.00 to go to Bria from Kauri. With the jedi, there was only so many times I wanted to run the instances as I had both sets of jewelry that the jedi might need and enough tokens in the box to get another 2 sets. Just how many times do you want to run the same content over and over and over? Due to the fact SOE is down to basicly a management dev team. You are incorrect that the "sandbox" is being put back into SWG. It is exactly the opposite. All SOE is putting into Galaxies is directed content and that is hardly sandbox. Zombies anyone??? And now I see where Shelby is asking the question on the GP O-Boards if glancing blow is broken, with the zombie patch, or if takeing out glancing blow is working as intended. Same old SOE, I guess. It is a bug or did you develope the player NERF that way? You are correct that SWG has some systems that are not in many other games, but that too is about to CHANGE. ST:O will not have housing at launch but they have said that it will come shortly thereafter. TOR is still up in the air on if it will include housing at launch or not. So, in the very near future there will be alternatives even for these. What made SWG was not so much the buggy gameplay in any of it's incarnations, it was the community. And that is basicly gone now. Chased off by CHANGE after CHANGE after CHANGE. No matter how you may want it (I know, I was there myself for awhile), it is NOT comeing back.
And I'm pretty sure all of the "change after change after changes" listed here occurred after the NGE. Grumpy old men stuck in the past? Hardly. It seems that SOE continues on its self-destructive pattern of alienating one playerbase after another until they have barely anyone left. Closing a dozen servers is a good indication of a severely diminshed population imo. You don't lose that many servers and players by giving them an enjoyable experience.
You, Sir, are exactly correct. My daughter played pre-CU and CU. When NGE came around, she griped, screamed, de-railed on SWG so much I had to get into the game just to find out what she was screaming about. I did, just a few days into the NGE. She quit a day or so into NGE.
It was my 1st MMO, I had no idea, at that time, what was lost with CU/NGE. I had no idea about game CHANGES and how game-breaking they could be but SOE was sure to teach me everything I needed to know.
These were just a few of the larger CHANGES I listed after NGE. There were many more. Your again correct. One would of thought that SOE Austin would have learned it's lesson after CU/NGE but every Producer who came afterwards had their own vision and re-made the game after their own image. Lorin Jameson was probably the largest of these as he thought he would re-make SWG in "some" of the older incarnations to draw every1 back to SOE from here. We all know the outcome of all of his CHANGES and the free vet trials for you all to come back and see his CHANGES in action.
SOE wanted WoW but they never quite figured out what WoW and it's success was all about. While it's true that WoW is probably the largest theme park out there, Blizzard keeps adding to the theme park with new levels, content, worlds, etc etc, at just the right time to keep most of their players interested and going. 11 mil in subs lets a gaming co. have many dev depts. SOE, post NGE, at most had 20 developers and they couldn't keep up with the developing requirements of a directed content theme park. They got what they wanted, according to Rubinfields blog. They CHANGED the game enough to run off most of the older players, got their theme park, had no idea what to do with it so they kept trying to simplify it, and CHANGED their way right out of the game in it's entireity.
Comments
The ironic thing is, is that the reasons you list are things the NGE was designed to eliminate, that remain more or less because they never got around to eliminating them.
I quite agree though that the only redeeming qualities remaining in the game are the last vestiges of Pre-CU that do remain. I hung around for the space game as well for some time. But they've done next to nothing to support that or the other remaining Pre-CU elements since the NGE.
SOE has made it perfectly clear that they do not believe in sandbox games, their Devs that had expertise in them left years ago, so I wouldn't hold my breath expecting SOE to realize that the few remaining sandbox elements is the only thing retaining players and to properly support them.
I don't disagree with anything except this point, I highly doubt it's simply the Star Wars IP that keeps people playing. I'd look more at the variety in game-play styles, decent crafting (albeit not as important as it once was). Social avenues of advancement (non-combat). As well as flight and pseudo twitch or turned base combat. The sandbox elements are probabaly up there in reasons as well. Of course the IP would stack up too, you can't ignore the lack of variety in most games on the market.
Just ask yourself, if this game was based on an unknown ip without jedis and lightsabers, how many people do you think would play it. How many would have stayed when the nge was released.
I guess we will find out the truth when TOR launches.
I am not so sure that SWTOR take every player just becaus its another SW or SCI FI game. Star Wars Galaxies is one of the last games that comes close to be a true MMORPG. All new games are MMOG and even marked as that from developers.
With an MMORPG means that you can basically just sit in your house craft and make a career or go to the cantina and socialice or have a party in your bunker or whatever. You dont have to fight at all to have fun.
Unfortunately lots of todays MMOG players comes from counterstrike and those kinds of game and just want pew pew and balanced PVP and whatever.
SWTOR is going to be storyline driven they say.. But then I wonder: seriously how many of the younger generation players even bother to read a quest text. They don't care about lore, story or RP. They want a highway to end game. And that type of players is the one making the big numbers. Sandbox people, RP people and and storyline people belongs to the minority sadly if we talk the big numbers. And how fun is story lines in the longer perspective? I mean for some its what they have been waiting for but I think that they are a minority group.
So unless SWTOR have a rich and deep crafting system that actually let people choose if they want to be a crafter instead of a combat or healing character,and have entertainers, then many mature players will still stay in SWG because SWTOR will be "almost" WoW in starwars wrapping. (forgive me for saying that.. I love wow, but one wow is enough) And yes! you can be a crafter in SWG without even bother to fight or a entertainer without bother to fight and still have tonns of fun if you are that kind of player. I miss that option in other games.
However. We dont know at this point so we can all hope. But I doubt it.
I played SWG when City of heroes was going to kill it. I played SWG when Dark and Light was going to kill it. I played SWG when Vanguard was going to kill it.
I played wow when guild wars was going to kill it. And when I played wow when Age of conan was going to kill it. I play wow now, when Aion is supposed to kill it.
Only time will tell.. but I would not bet my pants that SWTOR is going to be that holy grail of MMORPG. It is going to be an interesting MMOG for those starwars fans that enjoys storyline.. I DONT KNOW.. but that is my guess.
Blueshadow, lets be clear about something. SWG is a dead game. It has no future and it is only on the decline. The only question remains is when it will embrace the death it is so desperately trying to avoid. At this point it really doesn't matter.
As for it being "true mmorpg", sorry friend. The SWG team cannot remove the old sandbox features fast enough and replace them with levels, isntances, quests, battlegrounds and every other feature in moderm mmos. It is like watching something get murdered over and over again.
People are only going to stick around a game "sitting in a house crafting" as long as there is some reason to. If you lose the entertainers, then you lose your social aspect there. When the game becomes driven by loot cards and dungeons, there is little reason for crafters to sit around a house crafting. When the pvp is broken for years it offers little reason to stay if something better comes along.
People love the star wars IP and star war galaxies is the ONLY option available right now. It doesn't do much particularly well and that makes it vulnerable to a new mmo. Just like EQ/EQ2 lost half of their population to WoW, because they had outdated and disfunctional systems that made their gameplay less enjoyable and a competitior picked up on that and stole their customers.
Ask yourself this, what would it take from biowars star wars game to compete with SWG? I'm just going to assume the classes will be better as will the combat. It would be pretty hard not to accomplish those two things. There might not be player crafting on an equal scale, but player crafting is a non factor in swg right now. It wouldn't take much to have better pvp than swg, so I imagine if they have even remotely functional pvp it will be superior to what swg offers. I have zero doubt that the actual content will be far more engaging than anything soe has created. I doubt you will find zombie wookies and pink cherub ewoks.
That pretty much leaves the community and social aspects of swg. All the old republic needs is something for players to gravitate towards. Something to bond over and it covers everything swg has to offer including the star wars ip.
Honestly all bioware has to do is put out a functional game and respect the customers a little bit and they will win over the hearts of people who have been forced to deal with soe or nothing at all. SWG isn't some iron fortress of player retention. Even the current players have very little good to say about the game and the company running it.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
I don't disagree with anything except this point, I highly doubt it's simply the Star Wars IP that keeps people playing. I'd look more at the variety in game-play styles, decent crafting (albeit not as important as it once was). Social avenues of advancement (non-combat). As well as flight and pseudo twitch or turned base combat. The sandbox elements are probabaly up there in reasons as well. Of course the IP would stack up too, you can't ignore the lack of variety in most games on the market.
Just ask yourself, if this game was based on an unknown ip without jedis and lightsabers, how many people do you think would play it. How many would have stayed when the nge was released.
I guess we will find out the truth when TOR launches.
To be honest the only thing I think about when I ask myself that question. Is the fact that the game would probably be the same one that released. It would probably still be in the hands of raph, or atleast a better studio, because SOE would have never wanted it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Blueshadow, you've accused people here of regarding SWG with blind hate. In response to this, many have provided valid reasons for moving on from this game. I haven't noticed you acknowledging any of these reasons, and your accusation of blind hate persists.
Do you recognize that for many this game has changed into something that they don't enjoy? Do you recognize that the changes contradicted what SOE told people would happen to the game? Do you recognize that people lost a lot of what they enjoyed, and that it hasn't come back, and likely won't ever ? Do you recognize that the game has added an RMT element to a premium subscription fee? Do you recognize that the population has dwindled to the point that many of the games servers are due to close down imminently?
If you can "see" any of these things, I think your "blind-hate" accusation is invalid. If you can't "see" any of these things, I find it ironic that you accuse others of blindness.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Yes you love the game, I don't deny that. No I don't find the game less than enjoyable.
However you seem to focus on two aspects to support the longevity of this game. Either your focus on the people posting debate with you instead of what they are actually saying. Or. You talk about what YOU love.
I get it you love some aspects of the game and they are hard to replace in other games. However I don't think you are looking at the whole picture with an open mind. You see what you want and translate that to read as what everyone wants. I don't think you are representative of everyone playing swg.
The gameplay vulnerabilities I posted are realities. They have happened in the industry before so there is little reason you have given that they won't happen again.
As for crafting and houses there are a few games you can try. EQ2/VG/UO, etc. Of course none of those are star wars games, so we are back to the original point at hand.
The difference between you and me is that I am actually playing SWG I guess.
Second. You are wrong about vets removing sandbox. They are putting more and more back.
The game is 6 years EQ is 11.. none of us knows if this game is going to be 7, 9, 12 or 15 years? only time will tell.
Its not dead for me and my friend. We love it. And its much better to love a game and play and enjoy it than just use as much energy as you can to bash it every possible time you can.
Crafting is ABSOLUTELY NOT a non factor in SWG, that is a lie. I have done nothing than crafter on two different crafting characters the last weeks. One making furniture decorationg a whole player city. Another selling tonns of clothes at the vendors in the galaxies. ANd I get a lot of custom orders. I actually have trouble getting enough raw materials for my crafting.
A game is what the players make it. Some might find SWG boring. I find it awesome and if there is not a crafting anywhere near SWG in its CURRENT state I am not interested. SImple as that.
I am so tired of people calling thing crap of pile and so on. Its very immature. Everyone should be allowed to say that I dont like it..l and its not my cup of tea. But to say that something is dead and pile of crap is very unpolite towards the ones that plays and love it.
Its just like music. The worst thing I hear is when some imature people say that this music is loads of garbage. Its not as long as someone loves it.You may not like it. But thats about it. Its not crap, not garbage. not dead. Its just something you dont like.
To give an expample: To me Aion is pointless. But I played it. I know that I dont like it. But I am not saying that its garbage because I dont find anything interesting at all in it. If only one person liked it.. that person counts and its a good thing for that person.
If SWG died. and thousands of players that love and are addicted to their characters and community would loose their game, a place they stay hours everyday. Would that make you feel good ?.. if so that person is evil.
And please tell me where I can find a game where I can build a house and decorate it so freely as I can in swg turning all items in all directions allowing me to be really creative. I love that feature.. and almost once every week I redecorate one of my houses. And I have friends doing it too..
Its simply about community. Some are addicted to Facebook. Some SWG.. some Aion..
This is not just about SWG. This is about the whole attitude on these forums by lots of people.
I was warned by many of my friends about theese forums and they said the only value of it is entertainment. I am starting to belive them.. but I always belive there is a hope.
Yes you love the game, I don't deny that. No I don't find the game less than enjoyable.
However you seem to focus on two aspects to support the longevity of this game. Either your focus on the people posting debate with you instead of what they are actually saying. Or. You talk about what YOU love.
I get it you love some aspects of the game and they are hard to replace in other games. However I don't think you are looking at the whole picture with an open mind. You see what you want and translate that to read as what everyone wants. I don't think you are representative of everyone playing swg.
The gameplay vulnerabilities I posted are realities. They have happened in the industry before so there is little reason you have given that they won't happen again.
As for crafting and houses there are a few games you can try. EQ2/VG/UO, etc. Of course none of those are star wars games, so we are back to the original point at hand.
You are right. I can only speak about what I love. But I have one thing in common with the majority of active SWG players. I like the game.
But me and Star Wars..
The game I play don't have to be Star Wars theeme.
It is the mechanics of the game I enjoy. So if the Star Wars theeme in the game was replaced by another SPACE theeme .. or even set back to medival age or fantasy.. It would be okay. Its the freedom that I like and the fact that it suits many types of players and playstyles: those that love to craft, those that love to fight, those that love to be social and entertainers PVPers, PVEers and RPers.
I played EQ2 for about a year and a half. And those instanced houses with all its limitations is nothing near the "plonk a house or building down wherever you want" (almost) that can be found in SWG.
Don't get me wrong. I would absolutely love to see good old SWG back, with all its classes. That would have been like a miracle happening. But it is not. That is why I just realise that SWG is still the most flexible game even if its not the same game as it was. There just is not or will be an alternative for players that are not that much into combat. Most MMOG (MMORPG are almost dead) today focus on combat entirely. Thats the difference betwen SWG and new games. SWG is MMORPG new games are just MMOG.
Isn't that exactly what happened in November of 2005? Don't you think the people that post here already have a frame of reference for exactly what you just stated? They know exactly what it feels like to have the rug yanked out from under them, so please don't act like they don't. They've been there, done that. They lived through the scenario you just described.
As for using the term evil (which I think is a bit of an exaggeration), just think about the people that made the decisions and brought about those drastic changes in November four years ago. Are they evil for perpetrating those changes? Did they ruin the game and run everyone off? If so, why blame the people that post here for the game's current state regarding population? The people that post here are not the ones responsible for the changes in the game that drove everyone off.
The game itself is the reason many people haven't stuck with it. As someone pointed out on these boards before, if the game was great it would sell itself. No amount of negativity could keep people away from it.
In response to the following comments from Blueshadow:
"You are right. I can only speak about what I love. But I have one thing in common with the majority of active SWG players. I like the game.
But me and Star Wars..
The game I play don't have to be Star Wars theeme.
It is the mechanics of the game I enjoy. So if the Star Wars theeme in the game was replaced by another SPACE theeme .. or even set back to medival age or fantasy.. It would be okay. Its the freedom that I like and the fact that it suits many types of players and playstyles: those that love to craft, those that love to fight, those that love to be social and entertainers PVPers, PVEers and RPers.
I played EQ2 for about a year and a half. And those instanced houses with all its limitations is nothing near the "plonk a house or building down wherever you want" (almost) that can be found in SWG.
Don't get me wrong. I would absolutely love to see good old SWG back, with all its classes. That would have been like a miracle happening. But it is not. That is why I just realise that SWG is still the most flexible game even if its not the same game as it was. There just is not or will be an alternative for players that are not that much into combat. Most MMOG (MMORPG are almost dead) today focus on combat entirely. Thats the difference betwen SWG and new games. SWG is MMORPG new games are just MMOG."
I'm glad you like SWG, truly; and I'm glad that you enjoy some of the variety. I think, from this post, that you can recognize at the same time that it simply doesn't have what many of us really enjoyed any longer. If you like it, that's great. The only reason for disliking it, however, certainly isn't some kind of delusional hatred.
You have reasons for enjoying it. Others have valid reasons for walking away, and not going back.
Regarding variety/complexity, I hear good things about Ryzom and EVE ^_^. Personally, I'm interested to see what the Star Trek game looks like. I've always been a sci-fi fan. I'll probably check out TOR and StarTrek and see what they have to offer.
For me, SWG is just too diminished to be enjoyable (i.e. it feels like a shadow of its former self). Most of the stuff that really made it fun for me was taken out and replaced with things that I don't happen to find fun to play. For example, I enjoyed being a Master TKM/Master Doc and working to enhance my combat skills via the force by completing village quests. I enjoyed the massive pvp battles for player bases with between 50 and 100 people a side. I enjoyed the 20 person groups going on pearl hunts; and I enjoyed the 20 player entertainer groups complete with well organized music and dance flourishes, smoke and light shows etc.. I enjoyed mixing and matching professions and the incredible range of skills available. I enjoyed helping friends hunt down and tame baby creatures. I really enjoyed the new content in the last expansion, and all of the loot rewards that enhanced my combat abilities--most of which were immediately thereafter removed from the game.
I don't happen to like the fast-paced, pseudo-fps game with 9 limited non-interchangeable professions that took its place. I don't really like the idea of an fps game without working collision detection. I think the level system took away a lot of immersion. I don't like all the loot that made my crafters lose a lot of business. I don't like flying ewoks, zombies or other things that don't really fit at all with the StarWars saga. I also strongly dislike an RMT revenue model tacked onto a subscription based game, especially when the RMT involves only a random chance of getting what you want.
If you can enjoy the game in its current form, good on ya; but I don't think it's hard to understand why many others don't.
Guess I'll jump in here too. SWG IS a dead game. Up to the end of today, there are/were 25 servers and there are now 1-2 to support the game in it's entirety with 13 up and playable. I played off and on, mostly on, up till about 4 months ago, altho I have 1 account subbed ATM. My wife and one of her buddies goaded me into subbing just to log on enough time to go to coro and drop them both in a /duel. Since that time, I have not logged back on and we are on Bria. In the last almost 2 yearsthat I've been on Bria (2 years before on Kauri), I watched Bria go the way of Kauri, had to start another account and grind an ent just to find one for my combat toon and what was left of a 200+ person guild, now down to less than 10 players and this is on Bria.
I went thru some of the CHANGES. Expertise, GCW Revamp, C6CD, GU-Whatever, "LS = pve (tank)", etc etc etc. After each and every one of these CHANGES, there were less subs than there was before the CHANGE. I had all 4 traders, and ent, and a LS jedi. PVP was removed for LS jedi in GU-3 (or NJE) with blixtev's "LS =pve (tank)" so 1/2 the end game content was gone for my particular combat toon. When the CHANGES took down Bria's population, and then a large part of the remainder transfered to Starsider, ALL my traders were lucky to do 1 mil a week. So, the traders, were totally unnecessary, just the same as before I used the paid transfer system and paid 200.00 to go to Bria from Kauri. With the jedi, there was only so many times I wanted to run the instances as I had both sets of jewelry that the jedi might need and enough tokens in the box to get another 2 sets. Just how many times do you want to run the same content over and over and over? Due to the fact SOE is down to basicly a management dev team.
You are incorrect that the "sandbox" is being put back into SWG. It is exactly the opposite. All SOE is putting into Galaxies is directed content and that is hardly sandbox. Zombies anyone??? And now I see where Shelby is asking the question on the GP O-Boards if glancing blow is broken, with the zombie patch, or if takeing out glancing blow is working as intended. Same old SOE, I guess. It is a bug or did you develope the player NERF that way?
You are correct that SWG has some systems that are not in many other games, but that too is about to CHANGE. ST:O will not have housing at launch but they have said that it will come shortly thereafter. TOR is still up in the air on if it will include housing at launch or not. So, in the very near future there will be alternatives even for these.
What made SWG was not so much the buggy gameplay in any of it's incarnations, it was the community. And that is basicly gone now. Chased off by CHANGE after CHANGE after CHANGE. No matter how you may want it (I know, I was there myself for awhile), it is NOT comeing back.
Of course the writing is on the wall...
In a market that is very saturated with new products coming out all the time.... TOR won't be what kills or killed SWG regardless.
Everything is just a matter of time.
When you stretch your timeline out another year or so every time your prediction for SWG proves horribly wrong, eventually you'll be right. Keep plugging, tiger.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
As slow as there updates seem to be I wouldn't be surprised if they move around a few devs from game to game. Can't be to expensive paying 3-4 devs to update a game. Kinda like the Hoth update for SWG. To me it looked like a reskinned tatooine. So I'm sure they make money, but I'm also sure it wouldn't take many lost subs to put the game in peril or in a state of never updating the game. Didn't Smed also say something about sunsetting the game if ToR does put a dent in the subcriber base? He should have never said that in my opinion. But then again I seriously think SoE has deliberatly been trying to kill SWG for some time.
This is insane. No game publisher who has designs on working with anyone ever again is going to deliberately torpedo their own project, costing themselves money and reputation.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Yes you are, just not in the Gameplay Discussion forums. TOR threads get moved to the General Star Wars section.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Very interesting analysis. I'll have this post in the back of my mind as things "play out" over the next few months. Good post.
Esquire and Tux seem to get it.... But for those who automatically jumped to the negative of the possibilities of my open end OP, well that is why for years now that the debate continues.
Hey Jestor, if the above analysis makes the "rodo-report" make sure to have my name in the credits. lol I think I'd take it as a compliment to have an SOE dev walk by me mubbleing.
If you want your name attached to that, be my guest.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
LOL
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Guess I'll jump in here too. SWG IS a dead game. Up to the end of today, there are/were 25 servers and there are now 1-2 to support the game in it's entirety with 13 up and playable. I played off and on, mostly on, up till about 4 months ago, altho I have 1 account subbed ATM. My wife and one of her buddies goaded me into subbing just to log on enough time to go to coro and drop them both in a /duel. Since that time, I have not logged back on and we are on Bria. In the last almost 2 yearsthat I've been on Bria (2 years before on Kauri), I watched Bria go the way of Kauri, had to start another account and grind an ent just to find one for my combat toon and what was left of a 200+ person guild, now down to less than 10 players and this is on Bria.
I went thru some of the CHANGES. Expertise, GCW Revamp, C6CD, GU-Whatever, "LS = pve (tank)", etc etc etc. After each and every one of these CHANGES, there were less subs than there was before the CHANGE. I had all 4 traders, and ent, and a LS jedi. PVP was removed for LS jedi in GU-3 (or NJE) with blixtev's "LS =pve (tank)" so 1/2 the end game content was gone for my particular combat toon. When the CHANGES took down Bria's population, and then a large part of the remainder transfered to Starsider, ALL my traders were lucky to do 1 mil a week. So, the traders, were totally unnecessary, just the same as before I used the paid transfer system and paid 200.00 to go to Bria from Kauri. With the jedi, there was only so many times I wanted to run the instances as I had both sets of jewelry that the jedi might need and enough tokens in the box to get another 2 sets. Just how many times do you want to run the same content over and over and over? Due to the fact SOE is down to basicly a management dev team.
You are incorrect that the "sandbox" is being put back into SWG. It is exactly the opposite. All SOE is putting into Galaxies is directed content and that is hardly sandbox. Zombies anyone??? And now I see where Shelby is asking the question on the GP O-Boards if glancing blow is broken, with the zombie patch, or if takeing out glancing blow is working as intended. Same old SOE, I guess. It is a bug or did you develope the player NERF that way?
You are correct that SWG has some systems that are not in many other games, but that too is about to CHANGE. ST:O will not have housing at launch but they have said that it will come shortly thereafter. TOR is still up in the air on if it will include housing at launch or not. So, in the very near future there will be alternatives even for these.
What made SWG was not so much the buggy gameplay in any of it's incarnations, it was the community. And that is basicly gone now. Chased off by CHANGE after CHANGE after CHANGE. No matter how you may want it (I know, I was there myself for awhile), it is NOT comeing back.
And I'm pretty sure all of the "change after change after changes" listed here occurred after the NGE. Grumpy old men stuck in the past? Hardly. It seems that SOE continues on its self-destructive pattern of alienating one playerbase after another until they have barely anyone left. Closing a dozen servers is a good indication of a severely diminshed population imo. You don't lose that many servers and players by giving them an enjoyable experience.
That is true. Because Lucasarts is also behind TOR as they were behind NGE, and they want to make TOR, like NGE "ICONIC" and Starwarsy.
SWG was a sandbox that Lucasarts wanted to make ICONIC theeme park. They failed but SWG today is still more sandbox than anything out there. TOR is going to be complete ICONIC and Starwarsy game.
But.. still TOR is probably going to be a game that will sell well and have many players because lots of players like the ICONIC and Starwarsy games... Sadly.
Unless something schanged in the last 2 years, SWGs combat system works just fine.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
EQ1 - EQ2 - SWG is what mostly makes up the value of the Station Access Pass.
SWG isn't going anywhere soon. Not even if there are just a 1000 peeps left playing.
They raised the price a while ago, because of the additions of Matrix Online and Vanguard.
Matrix Online is no longer there. So, the removal of SWG would be the end of Station Access.
Cheers
LOL
My sentiments exactly.
Everything is just a matter of time.
When you stretch your timeline out another year or so every time your prediction for SWG proves horribly wrong, eventually you'll be right. Keep plugging, tiger.
Muhahaha Kobie! 13 is now an unlucky number for SWG. You keep plugging away too!
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
And I'm pretty sure all of the "change after change after changes" listed here occurred after the NGE. Grumpy old men stuck in the past? Hardly. It seems that SOE continues on its self-destructive pattern of alienating one playerbase after another until they have barely anyone left. Closing a dozen servers is a good indication of a severely diminshed population imo. You don't lose that many servers and players by giving them an enjoyable experience.
You, Sir, are exactly correct. My daughter played pre-CU and CU. When NGE came around, she griped, screamed, de-railed on SWG so much I had to get into the game just to find out what she was screaming about. I did, just a few days into the NGE. She quit a day or so into NGE.
It was my 1st MMO, I had no idea, at that time, what was lost with CU/NGE. I had no idea about game CHANGES and how game-breaking they could be but SOE was sure to teach me everything I needed to know.
These were just a few of the larger CHANGES I listed after NGE. There were many more. Your again correct. One would of thought that SOE Austin would have learned it's lesson after CU/NGE but every Producer who came afterwards had their own vision and re-made the game after their own image. Lorin Jameson was probably the largest of these as he thought he would re-make SWG in "some" of the older incarnations to draw every1 back to SOE from here. We all know the outcome of all of his CHANGES and the free vet trials for you all to come back and see his CHANGES in action.
SOE wanted WoW but they never quite figured out what WoW and it's success was all about. While it's true that WoW is probably the largest theme park out there, Blizzard keeps adding to the theme park with new levels, content, worlds, etc etc, at just the right time to keep most of their players interested and going. 11 mil in subs lets a gaming co. have many dev depts. SOE, post NGE, at most had 20 developers and they couldn't keep up with the developing requirements of a directed content theme park. They got what they wanted, according to Rubinfields blog. They CHANGED the game enough to run off most of the older players, got their theme park, had no idea what to do with it so they kept trying to simplify it, and CHANGED their way right out of the game in it's entireity.