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General: Clone Wars: Introductory Interview
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Matthew Higby, the Lead Designer on the recently announced SOE Clone Wars Adventure Project, sits down to answer a few introductory questions from our own Garrett Fuller.
MMORPG.com:
Tell us some history behind the making of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures.
Matthew Higby:
SOE and LucasArts have a long-standing and successful partnership that really helped open the door to CWA getting made. While Free Realms was in development, a group from LucasArts was able to see an early demo and from there folks on both sides began getting really excited about the possibility of bringing together the Star Wars universe and the tech that had been developed for Free Realms.
Clone Wars Adventures really came to fruitionshortly after Free Realms launched and the team began working on our CWA prototype in August of 2009. Since the beginning we've been working really closely with the some great folks at LucasFilm and LucasArts to craft the most authentic and exciting Clone Wars experience possible. The dev team at SOE is made up of some of the most talented and hard-working people I've ever met and they've accomplished more in the last few months than I've seen most games do in years.
Read the Clone Wars: Introductory Interview.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
"Long standing" and "Successful" ... I ROFLed. Given the number of MMOs SOE releases compared to the number that survive with a decent number of player I would say SOE has somewhere in the 60-70% fail rate on MMOs. I am reminded of the Matrix Online, SWG, Planetside, and Pirates of the Burning Sea. I think this is a bone thrown by LucasArts to cool heels after the major Star Wars MMO push has been transfered to BioWare.
It may be a good childrens MMO, but beyond that I don't see it being overly good or overly successful. I do think it will be entertaining, everything a Yoda Stories Online would be. I hope this allows BW to foucs on a more mature MMO as far as combat, story, etc.
That's my rant. May the Force be with You.
Well, they might not be blizzard, however their games are suviving amd making money. That is not to say I agree with anything SOE / LA did with regard to SWG.
The Free Realms game engine is a bandwidth hog to the max. My daughter tried playing it and our entire network would become un-useable when she was in the game. I banned it from the play list quickly. Yes, I know the game is streaming allot of content when u first start playing, however that will never be a good reason or excuse for my entire network being tied up. If SOE intends to use the same proces on CWA, then it will not do well. Certainly not on my network and there aren't that many 6 to 14 year olds that run their network at their house.
What is also funny is this game acutally looks more exciting and fun than SWTOR. Gotta wonder what those guys are spending all their money on if they can't provide a good trailer of real game play that does not look like an arcade game with a SW skin.
Have to also wonder, what about SWG? If SOE / LA can put money into this CWA game, how about putting a little in SWG for hardware upgrades and one expansion? Whatever and SWG has way more to offer than eithe of these games coming out.
I would love to have known what they think there chances are against ToR. The launch date looks to be a few months before the lauch of EAs 150 million dollar creation, aren't they at least a little concerned that while they may get a few players to start off with this will be short lived as ToR rolls over them and crushes them.
With all the time since the clone wars came out it seems poor marketing by LA and SOE to try and go up against ToR with a more childish version of Star Wars. Don't get me wrong ToR isn't exactly a mature interpretation as say the force unleashed and aimed at the teen market. But between the 2 games there is a clear win in what appears to be professionalism and polish and content. As such do SOE not think this will go down as a massive failure after the first few months and then ToR is released and takes the majority of the pople playing it. If they bothered to sign up in the first place and not just wait for ToR.
There is plenty of room for this game, TOR, and what SWG should have been (instead of the monstrosity it's become) in the MMO multiverse. LA has a cash cow on its hands, and it knows that. Too bad it doesn't know how to maximize it. LucasArts, you have completely missed (and subsequently pissed off) your original market. And, incidentally, we typically are the ones controlling the purse strings for the market you ARE trying to get. Nice job missing the boat. Oh, and I see The Force Unleashed II is also skipping PC on its initial run, just like its older brother. Again, kudos for completely misunderstanding anything about the core of your fanbase.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
I'm glad this is being developed for the childrens sake and I'm most likely going to give it a try since it's free to play but I doubt I'll play it any more than I did free realms which I probably logged an entire thirty minutes of (the Star Wars facot may keep me playing for like an hour).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
i also laughed my ass off when i read longstanding and successful on the opening line.
what the fuck drugs are they taking over at SOE headquarters? that game is going to be awful, free realms is a joke, its free unless you want to actually do anything past the first instance. then it costs you actual money.
this star wars clone wars bullshit is a disgrace. and soe honestly shouldnt even be in business anymore
I wish SOE would stop making Star Wars games. They only ruin a good IP.
I read a story about a current or upcoming SOE game
I read four or five idiotic replies from the tards from lunaticfringe.com
And once again I'm embarrassed to tell normal people I'm a gamer.
Mmm... Imagine if Blizzard sold Arthas sword ingame for money...
Make it so...
I loved SWG when it came out. But given the fact it was the first game to charge you for beta participation I was already nervous.
And then the balancing began...while understandable it was quite annoying. Many of the issues and exploits were reported in beta...but the game was launched with those issues intact.
And then came the genius idea of NGE. LA and SOE severely misunderstood their playerbase. And in truth we voted with our pocketbook.
I agree with the comment about Force Unleased. Developed on essentially a multi-platform (and some of the elements were strictly PC) engine...then released exclusively on console?
While I am hopeful that with TOR Bioware has a winner (if someone genius in management doesn't 'perfect it' and ruin it) I am pretty much worried about any attempt by LA and SOE together.
I guess we'll see.
A few thoughts. When I read up on Free Realms, it's described (by SOE) as an overwhelming success. When I read about it here though, SOE seems to think that similar elements in the new game require a revamp. So, is it an overwhelming success, or is it full of issues that SOE plans to correct in the clonewars game?
My next thought is that SOE seemed to change the business model for Free Realms in midstream. With them, I really never know what's going to happen. Interviews aren't always that useful, since they'll say something one month, and then turn around and do something completely unexpected next month.
When I hear that they've made a ton of progress on this game's development in mere months--progress that other companies would take years to make--I simply don't believe them. Sounds to me that this is being rushed. I seem to remember them rushing another StarWars MMO out the door a few years back. That didn't work out too well.
When I hear about the planned business model (for now I guess), it sounds like Free Realms' microtransactions are being lumped together with the Trading Card Scam from SWG. Ya know, that doesn't sound too appealing to me.
I'm glad my kids are enjoying their clone wars adventures on their Nintendo DS. No SOE doublespeak, nothing rushed out the door incomplete and/or broken, no microtransaction scams, no flavour of the month business models. Yup, makes a parent happy.
You people all need to lighten up.
Free Realms has been incredibly popular and financially successful for their target demographic.
It is not hard to imagine that SOE will have similar, if not greater success with a Star Wars Clone Wars game aimed at the same demographic.
Anyone who posts on this website is NOT their target audience, but hopefully some of us who don't have our heads up our own asses too far will maybe give this one a try and have a little bit of honest to God FUN (remember fun?) with this likely interesting and charming Star Wars title.
Bashing this game because of SWG or any other SOE mishap in the past is like playing Lego Star Wars and thinking you are hardcore.
Get over yourselves.
I for one might pick this one up if the space combat mini-games and such are fun and varied / interesting.
This game is pretty much zero competition for The Old Republic. Completely different demographic. And due to the release schedule, I'm betting very little conflict between players who only can/want to play one of them.
I tried the single player FPS version of SW the Clone Wars and uninstalled it after 30 minutes. Game was crappy as hell and cheesy storyline. And now they want to make a MMO based on the same thing. My advice is not to buy the game, boycott it instead. Go play TOR which will be a thousand times better...
FOR YOU
THIS GAME IS MADE FOR 6-14 YEAR OLDS
come on people...
I am a 32 year old and I have been playing free realms since beta. Yes, I am 32. I play it with my kids and it's a great game filled with fun minigames and a pretty solid tcg. It has been hugely successful, and I am very excited to see what the Clone wars game will be like using this technology. A free, fun, easy to play game that requires little installation that I can play with my kids and is set in my favorite world? Yes please!
I hate this game, because there are no Dark Side of the Force T_T
Is it just me or are people really negative and bitter on this site. My son watches Clone Wars on Cartoon Network every week and is in love with the universe (much to my great pleasure). He is the target audience, not the self appointed elitest MMO snobs that like to bash any game that is outside the box of what they think a game should be. And for the people that still bring up SWG......seriously when are we going to stop complaining about it......it's been 7 YEARS.
QFE. Like it or not CWA might turn out as a FUN game.
However things will settle down when we know more than 30% of TOR game play mechanics.
your a noob stop talking
Never heard of lunaticfringe.com , I think there maybe a Copyright problem here.
I reccommend that one plays it for free and then stops right there right before you pull out your wallet.
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
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Well, much as SOE has managed to make a complete mess of its 'games' .... Free Realms is popular and remarkably successful, so much so that i have a hard time believing its actually an SOE product...if they manage to achieve the same kind of thing with the Clone Wars Adventures, then, they might have another winner on their hands, the Cartoony graphics will appeal to the tweenies etc that watch the television program (which i dislike intensely!) but, as has already been stated this game is aimed at the 6-14 age group, its more than likely it will be a 'family' game the same as Free Realms, though it will be interesting to see if SOE can pull it off, and whether Free Realms was just some incredible fluke.... if they do though, its likely that CWA will upset the applecart on TOR... though more mature gamers will probably be uninfluenced.. though a surprising number of them do play Free Realms.. and of course.. the game.. is F2P... another draw for the younger generation who don't have bank accounts/credit cards etc.
I think my reply got messed up.
Anyway, I was trying to reply to ninesling and say I completely agree. I am 34, been playing MMOs since UO came out, and I play Free Realms with my 4 year old nephew who completely adores it. Even though I hate to admit it, SOE did a good job with this one.
As soon as I saw this....I felt all giddy and excited ...and then nauseous all at the same time...giddy and excited that a new star wars mmo was coming out and that it was the clone wars and I absolutely love that show...well i love all star wars i'm a huge star wars nut..you could put a pile of shit on the screen and make it float up and dissappear into the background in yellow script and I would love it...
BUT, then I saw that it was developed by SOE and I had a little throw up in my mouth...I dunno...its free to start so I guess I'll give it a go, I do love star wars...but its SOE and i have been burned once by then ala SWG....and burned badly....
I'll have to wait for the evidence to present itself before I give it the old yea or nay...
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php