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Star Wars Galaxies Forums Turn Player-Only

Posted by simoniker on from the can't-peek-over-fence dept.

mwbay writes "A note from the Star Wars Galaxies Forums indicates that starting today, SOE will be hiding the PC MMORPG's forums from the non-paying public. Raph Koster submitted this response [on the now-inaccessible forums]: 'It isn't really that we have anything to hide. We spend a lot of time on the boards here talking to you, and I don't think we have been shy about confronting controversial issues... But yeah, publicity is at the heart of it. The heart of the matter is will a game's Internet forums ever be a source of positive publicity post-launch? And I'd suggest to you that the answer is no... Someone who isn't a player has no idea exactly how widespread a given issue is.' It is certainly well within SOE's rights to do what they want with their boards, but isn't this a bit extreme?"

2 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. It's not so bad by WapoStyle · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have been playing Galaxies since a few days after launch and have had very little problems. Perhaps I am lucky. The forums really do make you want to hate the game though. It's nothing but page after page of whining and screaming funny words like "nerf" and "role-playing"

    If I was on the fence about Galaxies and went to the forums to check things out about it, I would definatly not buy it after reading them. Then again, I'm about to cancel anyway, I don't recommend it. Wait for World of Warcraft.

  2. Bad move by Experiment+626 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    SWG is a pretty expensive proposition for a game. $50 up front, plus $15 a month. So I for one wanted to do a little research before putting down the money. To do that, I went to the boards to see what the game experience sounded like from the people who actually play it.

    I read about EQ-style time sinks, lots of walking. Content like lore and quests sounded rather sparse. Aside from humans and wookies, most of the races sounded like "random guy from the cantina" -- not gungans or jawas or things like that which would at least be recognizable as a Star Wars creature. No spaceships, though supposedly they're coming in a future expansion. Lots of going out to hunt random creatures to build up one's character.

    It sounded like something that a lot of people were enjoying, but not really very "Star Wars"-ish in terms of the roleplay possibilities, and not something for me. By reading over the boards, I was able to determine before having to buy anything that I would be dissatisfied with this title, based on my own tastes and expectations.

    You might look at this and think, "Sony lost a sale because you read the boards, closing them is a good move". But it's not. Sure, if I had bought the game and hated it, they might have made $50 more, but I would have been much more wary of buying anything from them in the future. After being burned, Sony would have a much higher burden of convincing me to buy their product next time around, and in the long run would lose much more money than they made.