Star Wars Galaxies

Originally posted by Obee

Originally posted by precuorbust

Originally posted by SioBabble

Originally posted by Esquire1980

I really do not believe that SWG took into account ANY of the different playerbases or what they thought.  I think they went after ANOTHER playerbase they didn't have and were more than willing to sacrifice the playerbase(s) they did have to make the attempt.

This does seem to be exactly what they were doing in the NGE.

They wanted to get a different playerbase that they thought would be larger than the one they attracted with the game they had.  They imagined that all those WoW players would come running to them if they just made SWG more like WoW, with a pseudoFPS targeting system and the game sped up to Benny Hill speeds to give at least the illusion of fast moving action.

They violated the classic aphorism of one in the hand is worth two in the bush.

 

Of course, and they actually screwed over LEC's trust when they did it...  If the NGE approach was the way to become a WOW killer (and Smed was actually quoted on Slashdot as stating that he thought the NGE was the game that'd defeat WOW)  WHY did they try it on SWG, a Sci-Fi game, rather than EQ2, a fantasy game like WOW?

 

They did try it on EQ2.  If you compare EQ2 now  to the game it was in 2005, it is much more of a WoW clone than it used to be.  The difference is that the EQ2 devs made the changes over time, which allowed them to make sure the changes were semi-functional, as opposed to the all at once NGE method.  Hell, the most recent changes to EQ2 are still copying WoW (Blizzard reduced the amount of XP needed to level from 20-60 back around May, SOE just reduced the amount of XP needed to level in EQ2 in their last patch).  The EQ2 dev team has made EQ2 as much like tWoW, the WoW the folks in charge of SOE see, as they can without being sued for copywrite infringement, and they still don't understand why EQ2 hasn't been a huge success.

The only reason SWG was totally revamped was because the Star Wars name ensured the NGE wouldn't fail, at least that is what the folks in charge thought.  EQ2 was going to see a similar revamp, but after the NGE failed as big as it did, the idea was dropped and the changes were made in increments, and also weren't a sever as they were intended to be.

The NGE was a grand experiment that was intended to lead the way to SOE revamping all of their underperforming games (everything except EQ).  Its failure caused those plans to be scrapped.

 

 

All of this is nothing more than corporate and investor greed!  $0E, and it would seem LA,  were not happy with the #2 slot for SWG.  So, instead of development of a new game, with another launch (as in Rubenfield's blog), it chose to re-develop an existing one via a rushed and not well thought out gameplan.  Rubenfield's blog also took into consideration that the ENTIRE playerbase would quit, but, they just didn't care, did not take into consideration the BAD word of mouth advertising, and continue on the EXACT same path, even today.  Good enough, is NEVER good enough.  BAD move.

At 300K subs for Pre-CU and CU, that amounts to $54,000,000.00 per year from just ONE game.  And we're going to give that up for the small chance of what?  Why?

I just read an article on the "tanking" of GE via MSN.  GE only made 4.3 BILLION clear profit, last year and paid a dividend of .22 per/share.  ONLY 4.3 BILLION!  And they are tanking?  Why?  Have investors and companies gotten so used to "mega" profits that 4.3 billion CLEAR PROFIT is no longer satisfactory?  What a way to run a firehouse.

Why am I not surprised?  I mean, what can anyone really expect from this game other than the attempt every few months to mess around with the combat metrics?

New clothes?  New models?  Hehe...they don't have the personnel or budget for adding anything new like that.  That's what people buy expansions for, but seeing as how they just can't justify an expansion for this platform, they'll be no new art coming out of Austin.  The best people will get is a reskin or a rehash of something they've already seen.

New content?  New quests?  They'll never be able to make enough of them to satisfy this playerbase's hunger for more directed content.  So how does one make the existing content last longer?

Easy: slant the statistics in the combat engine in favor of the MOBs and against the players.  That will slow down the consumption of quests and story arcs...may even shut down the consumption of some quests entirely.

You see, they can't grow more carrots for these players to consume, so they want to keep the carrots they have on the stick longer...maybe even perpetually.

I mean, there's nothing stopping these people from doing it again...and again...and again.  Fooling around with the damage matrix and loot tables can be done in a week, and is a cheap and easy way to give the impression like they are improving the game.  It's what you do when you don't have the will or budget for real improvements.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Why am I not surprised?  I mean, what can anyone really expect from this game other than the attempt every few months to mess around with the combat metrics?

New clothes?  New models?  Hehe...they don't have the personnel or budget for adding anything new like that.  That's what people buy expansions for, but seeing as how they just can't justify an expansion for this platform, they'll be no new art coming out of Austin.  The best people will get is a reskin or a rehash of something they've already seen.

New content?  New quests?  They'll never be able to make enough of them to satisfy this playerbase's hunger for more directed content.  So how does one make the existing content last longer?

Easy: slant the statistics in the combat engine in favor of the MOBs and against the players.  That will slow down the consumption of quests and story arcs...may even shut down the consumption of some quests entirely.

You see, they can't grow more carrots for these players to consume, so they want to keep the carrots they have on the stick longer...maybe even perpetually.

I mean, there's nothing stopping these people from doing it again...and again...and again.  Fooling around with the damage matrix and loot tables can be done in a week, and is a cheap and easy way to give the impression like they are improving the game.  It's what you do when you don't have the will or budget for real improvements.

That whole carrot thing brings up the card game for me again.  We know that the best vehicle in the game is now only available by getting a loot card.  How do you get one?  Keep subscribing and hope that the vehicle drops randomly for you.  If you don't want to wait, you can buy a pack of random cards that might contain a vehicle, but might not.   Either people continue to subscribe and wait, or they start forking over cash to SOE for a chance to get the loot.

Also regarding changing the metrics, SOE can (and probably will) change the loot metrics however they see fit to maximize their financial gain.  Their EULA still allows for this, and they don't need to inform players about changing odds.  Remember, the game can be changed any time without notice, and so can the EULA, until this system is challenged legally.

How do players really benefit from this strategy?  In my view, they don't.  No new quest content for players to get the vehicle or a schematic for the vehicle as a reward.  In fact, no new content at all.  Just a new lure to keep subscribing, or an enticement to gamble for a chance at ingame loot.

Wouldn't it have been nice to see new content with a vehicle schematic for the podracer, like the old AV-21 schematics in the Corvette missions?  I think so.   Apparently SOE feels otherwise.

it all not gonna matter due to little kids will whine and cry and say its too hard then we will be back to square one again so nothing new.

Originally posted by bedolla3401

it all not gonna matter due to little kids will whine and cry and say its too hard then we will be back to square one again so nothing new.

Actually, I remember playing with a younger player in the first couple of months; his dad later joined our guild.

His complaint was that the game was too easy and therefore boring.  He was a combat only type player, though...had no time or patience for crafting.

Originally posted by SioBabble

Originally posted by bedolla3401

it all not gonna matter due to little kids will whine and cry and say its too hard then we will be back to square one again so nothing new.

 

Actually, I remember playing with a younger player in the first couple of months; his dad later joined our guild.

His complaint was that the game was too easy and therefore boring.  He was a combat only type player, though...had no time or patience for crafting.

There's something to bedolla's post and yours I think Sio.  Bedolla's hits on the SOE pattern of ever changing the game mechanics to try and capture the ever elusive huge population.  This strategy was chosen instead of doing your market research well in the early phase of development, finding your place in the market, and then making your game the best it can be, and sticking with it.  Instead we got a 3/4 baked world-sim; followed by a half-baked, level-based WoW clone; followed by a completely uncooked first person shooter.

Sio's point hits on the idea that the original game had so many elements that it did cater to a very broad audience.  Combat could be very simple if you wanted.  Take your pistol and shoot womp-rats, then buy a better pistol and shoot squill, and so on.  It also had complexity in its crafting, and a very social aspect in the cantina, entertainer culture.  Something for everyone, truly, but it wasn't complete, and it was broken.

It's a shame SOE never seemed to realize that they had something potentially golden, that it needed to be fixed and completed, not abandoned and replaced with something else broken and incomplete. 

I really am hoping that LEC has learned from this, and that their cooperative effort with Bioware will reflect this learning.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  LEC did change its own leadership, and is entrusting its IP with someone other than SOE--specifically Bioware, a company well-known and well-loved by many StarWars fans, myself included.

SOE doesn't seem to have learned as much as they claim.  They have continued to be part of releasing broken games (Vanguard), and they have continued to monkey around with game mechanics (SWG).  They also have the same leadership as ever (Smed), and continue to stand behind policies that are not in the least bit consumer friendly (their EULA, and new RMT loot lotteries in place of actual content).

I'm still of a mind to avoid SOE products as a result.  I'm cautiously optimistic about KOTOR online, and I'm excited about Cryptic's work on Star Trek.  Cryptic has always taken pride in their work.  Quality seems to come first with them.  They also, in my experience, treat their developers and players with respect, which also seems different from SOE.