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How the NGE Saved SWG???
Fishermage
Member Posts: 7,562
An interesting blog post I found that I thought you guys might wish to comment on. Obviously. I disagree with this guy, but in the interest in sharing info I felt it was worth posting:
Comments
Yeah, it saved it alright if you consider having shut down and merge servers due to severe population loss as being saved.
The truth is the game is a hollow shell of what it once was and no matter of "improvement" by SoE will change that or bring it back.
SoE screwed the pooch in an attempt to chase the almighty dollar. The players and the genre lost on that bet, and so did SoE.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Muahahaha Total agreement - You have to ask yourself Why in the hell did SOE LIMIT the free play to NGE vets only this month. They knew that they screwed up and they also know that they can not handle 200k truth tellers back on their servers , fewer that they are.
I was on their forums for about 30 hours this past week. Now I was respectful and honest but my account got a new form of banning .... altering the account password and not allow access to the accounts via password change - without warning or explanation . Now I don't care personally but others are now meeting this new form of account management. Nasty!
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
The article didn't really fit with the title. The NGE destroyed SWG, and anything said contrary to that is disingenuous. There have been several enhancements to SWG since then, no question, and among them the ones he mentioned - Storyteller and Chronicles, minus the damned token-collecting garbage - are the ones I freely admit I'm the most jealous of. But while those are probably being put to fairly good use in the NGE, I must admit I salivate at the thought of what people would have done with them back in the day. The target market for SWG now isn't exactly the free-thinking, creative gamer who craves depth in his/her games. It was pre-NGE though, and the REALLY interesting people played in the first year, up to the launch of JTL.
Love or hate the NGE, though, it did not save SWG by any stretch. Far more people played it then than now. And of the content that has been implemented since the NGE, aside from collections/no-trade items/tokens, virtually all of it would have been better implemented in the pre-CU environment.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
I'm going to agree with the poster above me in 1 respect -- the title does't fit the article. A more appropriate one might be "Even after SOE introduced the NGE to SWG, it didn't give up implementing strong systems further on", or something.
As to whether or not the NGE saved SWG, that could have gone either way and, regardless of how some vets might complain, we'll never know. Yes, an above poster mentioned how people left in droves all at once because of the system. Of course, who is to say that SWG wasn't already bleeding subscribers at a steady although not as aggressive a rate and would have had to shut down had the NGE not be introduced? This dance has been done plenty of times and isn't worth going through again. The point being, bad article title.
Many former devs have spoke about the game bleeding subscribers since release, but I think it was Dan Rubefield that blogged how the Combat Upgrade actually stopped the subscriber loses and swg actually started gaining more subs that it was losing from month to month. It might have also been something Jeff Freeman said, but I can't recall right now.
Given that information I think it is a pretty fair statement to say the game was heading in a positive direction prior to the NGE, which did in fact bring back the subscriber loss and at a level never before seen or recovered from. In a purely acedemic discussion I am sure it could be argued that the NGE might have saved the game, but there is nothing outside of hypothetical situations to support that. To date, nothing have put swg in more danger than the nge did, which would make it the biggest aspect that needed saving.
Good call on the title though.
NGE didn't come close to saving the game.
Sure, SOE was bleeding subs from pre-NGE, but that was because the game was full of bugs and imbalances that were never fixed. Some of them exist still last I checked.
I tried it and didn't like it a while back. Not going to try it again. I'm not fond of losing 100's of hours and millions of credits worth of work.
LOL, kinda like how the "Stimulus Bill(s)" was going to stop the recession?!
Clearly a very biased opinion from a player who seems to be looking for justification.
Simply put the NGE was a huge mistake brought on by ...Wait for it ....GREED!.....OMG Blizzard is maikng more money then us how can that be we are SOE we rule the MMO market we'll show them....hurry change the game so it matches WOW so we can get thier customers ...after all this is Star wars we should be able to conqueor them!...As i say to obama supporters ...How's that working out for you?
They may have made improvement to the game but does that mean i should trust them again...no i dont think so...i trusted them and they betrayed me in the worst possible way for a game company...we dont need you will just get some one else...
Mothelm
It could have gone either way, but it went one way, and one way only....downhill in an unprecedented fashion never before seen in MMO gaming and I would wager we'll be hard pressed to ever see again.
We know this because of a significant number of servers being closed and merged.
This has nothing to do with us vets complaining and everything to do with poor business decisions and greed on SoE's part(and probably and bit on LA's part) that bit them in the ass. One of these days SoE might learn that making a quality world that players want to be and stay in is what will generate consistent revenue for them, and chasing the money doesn't work. They tried chasing the money in SWG and lost a significant portion of their player base. They tried chasing the money in EQ2 with the Station Exchange and lost nearly 1/3 of their player base over that. The problem is, even if they do eventually learn, there are quite a few players that will still have nothing to do with them and I am one of them.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
I played SWG since beta, 2 weeks after NGE was released I went to play WoW. I went back once and there was no one there. I remeber the hay days when there was so much lagg that you could not move. After 5 years of work building cities, killing the empire and unlocking and playing my Jedi then to be able to make 1 5 minutes after i bought the game killed it for me.
Lets hope the new SWG 2.0 (aka SWTOR ) brings it back for me.
The problem with the blogger's argument is that he seems to think all the features added in that he likes, such as the Chronicler or whatever its called, is not really tied to the nge itself. I'd wager that most of the new features and content could have worked just as well with the pre-cu or cu version of the game. The overwhelming reason the nge was dropped on us in the first place was to draw in more players by going with a more "action oriented" game and simplifying the classes to recognizable rpg archetypes, not to make it easier to add new content.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
As an orignal memeber of SWG, part of the CU Testing Team, and post NGE player, I think the point that the blogger missed can be seen in the quote he made below:
"But something funny happened on the way to gaming obscurity. SOE began a series of slow but meaningful advances to the SWG system. Racial differentiation, expertise skill trees, collections, the Storyteller system, loads of new buildings, props, instant transport vehicles, content... In short, SWG has become in its twilight years a damn fine game."
While I agree that the new additions that have come post -NGE are good and much better then even some of the Pre-CU aspects of the game, I do think that the entire "miss" is that it is the changes they made after the NGE and not the NGE that have made the game better.
Imagime the Pre-CU or CU game with this additons?
Concept for SWG 2
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/90081
I played pre-CU, and even POST CU. I quit when the NGE hit and started playing WoW (back in the day, before any of WoW's expansions)
let's just say I tried the 'vets come back free until march 1' ordeal.
I logged in.
saw that they had added a weak version of Wow's talent system.
rode my bike around for 2 minutes..
realized the game I was playing felt and looked like a toddler toy.
some people dont realize that half of what made SWG great was the 32 profession skill distribution system with in-depth classes, along with a harvesting / mineral gathering / experimental crafting system that had unlimited depth.
there are no remnants of any of those things I just mentioned in SWG's current form.
Many of the changes made to swg post NGE suffer the same illness that much of the entire history of swg suffered.
They have potential to be good, but little of that potential is ever realized. The changes sure sound good when listed as bullet points in a forum post, but the actual state of those additions isn't anywhere close to what it might look like on a discussion forum.
Still we are talking about nearly 5 years of development and only a small handful of actual additions to the game while much of the game goes neglected or broken for years between getting even a single glimpse from the developers. Honestly there still isn't even enough content to level from 1 to max without resorting to mob grinding or randomly generated missions from a terminal.
Given that information I think it is a pretty fair statement to say the game was heading in a positive direction prior to the NGE
Honestly...And I'm not saying this to be a smart*** either...all you had to do was be there Playing the Game to know this is the truth...I know My experience, my Guild, my fun...It was ALL positive...Nothing is perfect...Certainly no MMO is...But I was having a blast everyday and things were hopping...I had a TON of friends and My Friends list was lit up with "Online" every night...
I've never bought the "bleeding Subs" excuse...I never will...I was there, saw it with My own two eyes...
I was playing back then and I believe the game truly was bleeding subs. WoW was new and many players were trying it out. Some of the WoW players went back to SWG later, but many of them stayed. SWG needed something to keep players playing it, but instead of fixing the bugs and lag that had been around since beta, they went in the wrong direction. You cannot leave bugs in a game for years and expect people to stick with your game when more polished and smoother running games are releasing. SOE took this approach with Vanguard and look where it sits now, 3 years old, running on a skeleton crew ,with a continuously declining population.
the really absurd part is the claim that the nge has more "character interactivity" than pre-cu due to the chronicle system... he is completely forgetting that in pre-cu characters were encouraged (forced!) to interact! you HAD to visit entertainers, doctors, smugglers, artisans and what not constantly... and they had an event manager back then who organsied live events.[
pre-cu was the mmo pinacle of character interactivity and i loled when i read the nge improved on this front.
The problem with a Sandbox is you make the content and that just doesnt work that well. I read a GM's blogg and she stated that they were constantly encouraging people to interact by giving locations and making battles for players early on in the game. Now the games reversed coarse by trying to go with more player controlled content and is making progress in that area. Looking at GU15 it gives the players control over the map, interactive battles are a great Sandbox addition.
They are making more player generated content which is a good thing, the Chronical system, the new GU15 content and more on the way is going to give players more control over the game. With such a low population you cant keep a events manager on the pay roll, these new systems are a replacement. Rehashing the past is the lowest form of human interaction thier guy so spouting how great the Pre-Cu interaction was is pretty low interaction at best.
The past always looks better, I for one dont miss the lines at the SP and the buff bots in the Canteena. And interaction wasnt as great as you think, ,sure I farmed meat for a Doc to make buff packs. You can still find that kind of interaction today, join a guild they all give and take, one guy is great at making armor, another at making food, and yet another at buffing. The game still has interaction its just differnt now.
The problem with a Sandbox is you make the content and that just doesnt work that well. I read a GM's blogg and she stated that they were constantly encouraging people to interact by giving locations and making battles for players early on in the game. Now the games reversed coarse by trying to go with more player controlled content and is making progress in that area. Looking at GU15 it gives the players control over the map, interactive battles are a great Sandbox addition.
contradicting - content in sandbox doesnt "work that well" but the nge was improved as a result of handing content over to the players?
They are making more player generated content which is a good thing, the Chronical system, the new GU15 content and more on the way is going to give players more control over the game. With such a low population you cant keep a events manager on the pay roll, these new systems are a replacement. Rehashing the past is the lowest form of human interaction thier guy so spouting how great the Pre-Cu interaction was is pretty low interaction at best.
if you at least attempt read my post and the blogger's blog, you will find out that:
1. i never said the chronical and gu15 was bad or reduced content;
2. or that the nge didnt improve on this front. I said it is still not even close to what pre-cu was. the blogger wrote in no uncertain terms that the nge improved on player interaction at the cost of player diversification.
The past always looks better, I for one dont miss the lines at the SP and the buff bots in the Canteena. And interaction wasnt as great as you think, ,sure I farmed meat for a Doc to make buff packs. You can still find that kind of interaction today, join a guild they all give and take, one guy is great at making armor, another at making food, and yet another at buffing. The game still has interaction its just differnt now.
ugh this is exhausting. in pre-cu players sold goods AND services. there were more professions which did one or the other, or in some cases both of these. in NGE, players trade mostly goods (with the notable exception of entertainers) but goods can be sold via NPC vendors or terminals. additionally, characters are nowadays more self sufficient than before examples being crafters who speciallise in two professions (eg domestics, entertainers + image designers, etc.) instead of one. players also now have two characters slots instead of one.
and i am not even going to get into points which you so conviniently ignored such as ITVs, removal of profession apprentiship, player language teaching, long solo "epic quests", removal of decay, etc. which all add to convienence at the cost of player inter-dependancy ie: interaction.
i would be very happy if you provide points to prove the contrary or at least argue your case with anything rather than a cheap philosophy lesson about how people hype the past.
I think that current SWG is a good game. Especially if you consider the high amount and diversity in features. There is no MMO like that. But it would really rock if the class system was replaced with the skillbased progression that they used to have.
Its as if the devs try to bring back some profession diversity with adding the chronicles master tab for all professions and lower respec costs (1 count decay each month). The old skillsystem would be better of course, but they will never be allowed to do that because it would look as if they are admitting that they were wrong.
I tried to play SWG post-NGE, I really did. But having the game I spent more than two and a half years playing removed and replaced with the current travesty still rankles.
Bitter? You betcha. From PB2 to NGE, I was a rather dedicated fanboy - and SWG was the first MMORPG I actually managed to convince my wife to play, as well, because she loved the idea of dedicated crafting and community activity. Smedley destroyed that, all of it, and then had the gall to discount the anger of hundreds of thousands of customers as "a vocal minority." Entire servers collapsed as the exodus of angry customers to other games began almost immediately.
Smedley's Folly still stands as the worst mistake made in the MMORPG world - a warning sign to other game producers that you ignore your community at your peril. Because of Smedley, I'll do my level best to ensure that Sony Online Entertainment doesn't get a dime from me again.
The second SWTOR comes out, you can kiss SWG goodbye.
I also tried the free vet return plea from soe....didnt cut it. It did have some cool things...but the playability that was once SWG was gone, as well as Jedi running rampant...everywhere. I remember seeing a jedi so little in pre-nge, that i was actually thrilled when i did see one. I remember how I thought that 'this guy has put in some real effort'. I still get 'Please come back' emails from SWG-SOE, but delete them as soon as I get them.
Instead, I found SWG-EMU.....which I'm having a shit-ton of fun playing once again. I plan on playing on the darjani.org servers when project is completed enough. Those folks have some awesome ideas on how it should have been, and will be again.
I rarely reply to the pre-neg/post-nge threads anymore, got better things to do, but just happened to see this one pop up while browsing mmorpg, so figured I'd reply. So, I'm glad you that do enjoy the swg how it is now are satisfied, and those who dont, good luck finding a game that works for you.
Current games playing: MechWarrior Online
Games being watched: Project Genom
Favorite played games: SWG, RomaVictor, and Xsyon