Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why doesn't SoE make some financial concessions to keep players around?
So on the official forums, I noticed this post from Smed which was also linked in another post here:
"Let me address your point head on. - SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting. If we asked you all to rank Combat vs. the loss of professions, I'm betting the loss of professions will "win" every time... I don't think the new combat style is the main thing that people are bothered by. It's the broad strokes changes to the rest of the game. What we've done is to get the game to a much more basic level that we can build on. I submit to you that if we achieve our other goals, this style of combat won't be an issue. The fact is the data we have suggest that for the people that DO sign up for the game they like the combat. For the people that don't, combat isn't the main issue we're losing them.
Smed
What truly shocks me is that the President of SOE basically comes out and announces that they have reverted the game back to a beta testing state (at best). The game was never anywhere close to being up to snuff at release and what followed was basically the process they should have gone through in a beta test period; figure out what works for the game... what people want, and then polish that up for a retail product.
So my question is, why not give people 6 months of free play as a gesture of good will? Maybe they don't count on the current or the past player population to really stick around and are banking on new subs? Even so, you would think being they are asking a hell of a lot from the current paying players ("bear with us while we try and salvage this mess"), I find it hard to believe a gesture of good will hasn't been made .. something that goes a little beyond "Sorry, we're trying to make the game fun... really we are!"
Comments
So, something else is going on over there. I think they are intentionally trying to dump the game to pave way for the next SWG MMO eventually.
People are paying. Why, of all things, should they just throw that money away.
Assuming you're an architect. You do an incredibly poor job every single time. Your houses collapse 3 months after they are built. But people still come to you, and they still pay you every single time. Why would you change?
Ethics? Honor? SOE craves not these things.
Because they're evil?
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
People are paying. Why, of all things, should they just throw that money away.
Assuming you're an architect. You do an incredibly poor job every single time. Your houses collapse 3 months after they are built. But people still come to you, and they still pay you every single time. Why would you change?
Ethics? Honor? SOE craves not these things.
First, if an architect did that to you, you wouldnt need to worry because he would be in prison so fast it would make YOUR head spin. But the game industry it wont happen because they get away with a ton of things that, in any other area of production, would get them prison time. Why? Because anytime anyone tries to seek retribution he gets little tards running their mouth off that its useless to try anything because they are a big hulking corporation and your just a tiny little unorganized group of walking ATM sheep ready for plucking. The game companies know this. So they do what they want and we let them do it to us all the time.
But some game companies will give you free time when they know its messed up. I believe it was Anarchy Online that gave everyone 6 months free play time while they worked to fix the game. So there are a few out there with some sort of concience.
Kai
People are paying. Why, of all things, should they just throw that money away.
Assuming you're an architect. You do an incredibly poor job every single time. Your houses collapse 3 months after they are built. But people still come to you, and they still pay you every single time. Why would you change?
Ethics? Honor? SOE craves not these things.
Even if SOE was saintly enough to want to do something like this, it seems like the sort of idea that LA would say, "over our cancelled license agreement you will!!" to.
As great idea to bring people back to the game as this would be, I don't think there's a knight in shining armor within the SWG camp capable of defeating the two-headed dragon that is SOE/LA to push it through.
-d
Waiting on: Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Carribean Online
But they are still paying.
Even if people come back for free period, SOE is not making money off them. So they might as well not. Those that want to come back, will.
In 6 months, you can finish SWG. Why would you then want to pay for a game you got bored with. There are too many people that buy SWG, play one free month, pay for one month, then quit. Giving everyone 6 months free is absurd, especially with the low price they already have. Only about 30% of players play for 1 year. Only about 8% play for 2 years. And 50% of people stop playing after 6 months. These are baseline statistics for MMOs.
its simple really, they have given up on the PC market players. They have practically admitted this when they stated they expected to lose vets over the NGE.
This game is heading to PS3. Any pc vets who stick around is just icing on the cake as far as SOE is concerned
Every time Blizzard has any issue we get a free day. Must be why Bliz is the polar opposite of $OE.
WoW - Bug free and great customer service
SWG - not.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
People cannot find groups easily. There is hardly anyone to buy or sell. Entire cities are ghost towns.
Bringing players back without charge doesn't give SOE money, but that doesn't mean there isn't a reason to do it. It gets the servers populated again at a time when its hard to find players at peak hours, let alone non-peak ones. And that helps the game, because it gives everyone more content opportunities.
I mean, its not like they don't do this with other games. They gave old EQ2 players a whole month. They are giving Planetside away in a limited version to anyone who wants it, no matter if they subscribed before, or not. Funcom is giving away AO for a year free. There are reasons for this.
Probably the only reason I can think of that they won't do it, is because they know what sort of bitter taste they have left in our mouths, and they think nothing good can come of it. But its not like giving vets a few months is going to hurt them financially. The servers are on, we already have the software, and (at this point before purges and merges) we still have reason to go back, and maybe pick things up a bit around there.
Whether or not they do give us access gratis, we aren't paying. So may as well let us log on and make the servers look busy.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
When I read that quote my brain translated it to:
"We know combat sucks. But the loss of professions sucks more and that is why people left"
What they fail to realize is people left because they both suck...had combat been stellar but with reduced professions they wouldn't have lost as many players as they did. I would have had a hard time adjusting to not having my pet Rancors or Kimo but if the combat worked worth a damn I would have stuck it out longer...maybe even to the reintroduction of a pet handler class as they are talking about now.
That's right. They keep saying most peple left because "the combat wasn't fun". Personally, I know NOBODY who left for any other reason than "lack of content". Hell, we were USED to the bugs.
Of course, everyone I know left the nge because of "that f-ed up combat crap"
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
6 months play time? they should give 2 years worth of refunds back because according to them this was a defective product and has been recalled to under go some changes to make the product release worthy. Its in a alpha state now yet some stupid, and sorry but it has to be said, stupid people still continue to pay to alpha test a game. Games in this condition should be free play and its damn obvious to me for them to continue to charge to develope the game means they haven't got enough revenue coming in to push SWG back in to a proper beta and support its development.
Water cooled Intel Corei7 920 D0 Stepping OC'd 4.3GHz - 6GB Corsair Dominator GT RAM 2000Mhz - ASUS RAGE II EXTREME X58 Mobo - 2x HD 5870 in Crossfire X, OC'd 0.9Ghz core 1.3Ghz RAM - Dell 2407WFP Flat Panel LCD 24" 1920x1200
...which leads to:
1. Is there be a !willing! audience left end of the year, when all the other (good?) games went life ?
2. Will people return or rather cut their hands off before ever spending one cent again to SoE ?
3. What "gurantee" is there for a willing subscriber not get betrayed again by the same company "famous" for exectly this behavior ?
I think that SWG has more serious problems PR related then the game quality.
The game was the reason people left - but will be not the reason people returning
Claude
Aildrik,
Hi this is a fellow guildmate from Dreamwalkers I was shocked when I saw your post concerning UO and DW. I am trying to reach you !
Nyia aka Flamedancer