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Deep Thoughts On The SWG Revamp
The always thoughtful Terra Nova has a look at the recent Star Wars Galaxies revamp from a group with a long view on the role of Massive games. From the article: "Unfortunately, the live management team seems to have ignored another long-standing criticism of SWG by many observers: that their design and implementation process is a disastrous mess. Never more so than with the NGE: whatever it is conceptually, in practice, it's roughly on par with an alpha build of a MMOG. Or did they ignore it? It's just possible that SWG's latest flaming car wreck resulted from deliberately driving over a cliff. I'm normally deeply suspicious of conspiracy theories. In the case of SWG's NGE, though, there are really only two possibilities: that there is a deeper agenda or that the live management team is well beyond cluelessly self-destructive, out in some outer void of fecklessness. "
Gamers get pissed when things never change, but riot when they do.
Or
people get pissed when things never change, but riot when they do.
Take your pick.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
SWG's development team is composed largely of individuals who worked on Ultima Online at OSI years ago. It is they who created the horrendous messes that were UO patching and, these days, SWG patching. The similarities are striking when one looks at the two games. Both UO and SWG have had duping issues, both have had problems with player structures and guilds, both shift the hot spots for experience, money, etc. every single patch.
These guys have some great ideas, they really do. They have a problem with implementation that needs to be solved if they are to ever create a game that stays fun without having to be completely overhauled every 2 years when subs fall through the floor.
I thought they closed their doors a while back...
One, is that if you play an MMO, you're paying for a consistent (more or less) game world. The experience may change over time, but generally it'll be fairly consistent. Completely gutting everything ... not good.
/. Q&A with Smedley to be interesting - it was very clear that the one hand doesn't know what's going on with the other, and yet, they are still somehow managing to keep this sucker alive.
Two, is that this is pretty interesting from a game design challenge aspect. I played SWG way back when it first launched. I've sampled the Combat Upgrade, and I'm debating sampling the NGE - not because I'm interested in playing the game again, but because I'm interested in the concept of the whole MMO overhaul deal. It's kind of like how people who aren't terribly interested in getting plastic surgery done can still be fascinated by watching the procedure on a Discovery show.
From an entertainment standpoint, I think SWG is a miserable failure. One person I know said that it was a spreadsheet with a 3D interface, and that's about as apt a description as any I could think of.
From a game design standpoint, as a learning experience, as an example of what kinds of things can go right and what kinds of things can go so very, very wrong, as a window into the MMO business world, it's interesting. I found the recent
I think that, at one of those schools that's now offering a degree in game design (or whatever they're calling it) SWG would be a very fine bit of learning material.
Too bad they broke the game, though.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
As I have said here before, I believe NGE is the release of SWG 2. Instead of dividing their player base into 2 games they have to support, they are forcing you to play the new one. They saw what happened to EQ2 at AC2, both of which were assumed to be the successors, and neither of which ever exceeded the original in popularity. This time around, they thought they'd just overwrite the old game so that it's impossible for you to stay.
SOE's biggest problem is that they make very boring, tedious games that are no fun to actually play, but give the player a sense of advancement and accomplishment. When EQ players think about moving to EQ 2, they see their max level character and all they've been through to get him where he is. Doing all that again wouldn't be fun, it would be work.
So this is their new idea. It's just no surprise that it was an utter disregard for the players from the company who teleported a peaceful (and very reasonable) protest into space. Way to go, SOE.
SOE is trying to save the game. The way they are going about it though is risky and, just may kill it off sooner.
My idea is that they could have split up there populations in 2 parts, 'old way' and 'new way' (NGE). This way you retain the subscriptions who don't want major change, and keep those that do want the change (if they like the 'new way'). They may be able to attract new subscriptions if the NGE catches on.
Now the overhead of maintaining 2 server games with 1 client may be a nightmare and redundant, but at least you may keep the subscriptions you already have.
With how popular WoW is I'm suprised SOE is even putting any effort in SWG. They need to get a new game that can compete and get some subscriptions back from WoW.
If the SWG forums are any indication how the upgrade is going, it looks like SWG will be completely dead in 2 months tops:
= swggpdiscussion
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board?board.id
I downloaded the 10-day trial for this game. I found it to be quite a bit of fun, except for the fact that the tutorial wouldn't realize I had done what it asked, until I quit the game and went back in. I walked up to the medical droid, and nothing happened. I entered the Falcon, and nothing happened. I destroyed all the TIE fighters, and nothing happened. All of these things were instructions from the tutorial. How can we be expected to pay a subscription fee for such a broken game?
42.
- You're not paranoid, they really are after you.
Is that those changes should have been there since launch. Of course, it's quite easy to say this at this point. Too many professions was a challenge they weren't able to overcome. The big sandbox concept was a good idea but they left their players hanging with no reward and no impact on the world. The skill system was a good thing but poorly implemented with big balance issues (balance being important since the Galactic Civil War, read PvP here, was supposed to be the end game). Surely others games wanting to use a skill based system will be able to learn from SWG. I played from launch until pre-CU. I'm now looking at SWG as a brand new game. Of course, a brand new game is full of bugs, have balance issues, ... If the game survive, it will probably become a fun experience for those joining in a couple of months or 1 year after NGE. As for me, I'd really like to play in a Star Wars mmorpg but I came to see that this game is NOT a Star Wars game.
yeah! Let's argue on the Internet...
car wreck is not a good analogy, more like a huge train wreck
That is the NGE.
The interface sucks, melee combat (which Jedi is the only melee class now) is horribly unblanced.
You can't even tell which direction you are pointed thanks to the idiotic UI.
Not to mention, mouse movement, which used to be so fluid and a strength of this game, is gone.
And, if you were an existing vet (who respec not full template, CL80 and have to grind 5 million XP to get to CL90), the ONLY place you can get decent XP is on Mustafar, doing THREE quests that are located ONLY there.
Mustafar? Yes, Trials of Obiwan expansion. The expansion they charged us for a day before announcing the NGE changes. If we get our refunds, we CANNOT LEVEL.
Corporatism != Free Market
All the people complain about the NGE, but I actually enjoy it. A lot. I dunno what else to say other then I enjoy it....
Yay, I have a sig.
Not meant to be a troll, but ...
Seriously, why is anyone still playing SWG?
Go out and try a new MMO. Stop running around in the same body, pounding the same keys, fretting because of the same stupid game management that launched the game in a beta state. Free yourself.
It's not that damn hard to get started again in a new game, and you know what... you'll have more fun being a newbie and seeing a fresh new world as a level 1 than you have as an uber jedi running around the same damn planets collecting more crap to put in a building that few people have ever seen.
This whole NGE situation just cracks me up cause I had a jedi in the pre-combat upgrade days. I played since launch and eventually reached the jedi status that was still rare then. It was fun for a bit but the game was old, tired and consistently buggy. I thought SWG was dying a year ago so I sold my jedi, but now I see it is truly dead. When SWG first came out myself and some RL friends had great times just exploring the worlds, trying out different professions, and eventually creating cities and milita's (milita's lasted...oh about a week). I was a Master Creature Handler with 3 rancors under my control at one point, that was sweet! But of course like everything in SWG it got nerfed. That is really the story of SWG, they nerf every cool idea down to nothing and now the people who for some reason stuck around are screwed. Thank you Ebay!!
...is gradual expansion that does not break the existing parts of the game.
;-)
Examples:
-a new continent has been discovered
-new items have been invented
-a new threat appears
And that goes for ALL MMORPGs, not just SWG. Of course, SOE seems to go against this principle with extraordinary energy
C - the footgun of programming languages
I played the game pre-"fix" and switched over to CoH/CoV. I downloaded the 10 day trial, it is okay. It reminds me more of some sort of mod for Quake or something than Star Wars Galaxies.
Is the censorship that took place yesterday, i was watching it for about 3 hours, yes it was that entertaining. People would write something negative about the NGE and 30 seconds - 2 minutes later the thread would get deleted. and guys, if you leased a porsche, even added a few extras to it , go to bed, wake up and suddenly see a mini-cooper in front of your house for the same price, wouldn't you be upset? wouldn't you go to the guy you leased the porsche from to tell him where he could shove it and end the contract? now imagine people who paid a year in advance because they so liked their porsche (old SWG) and are stuck with the mini-cooper (NGE SWG). and when voicing their opinion they get thrown out. wouldn't you go to the police dept or your lawyer? and to the people who said they liked it, yeah i like it too, as a new game , or as a different game, but thats not what i bought, and what i paid months of subscription fees to get developed or bought expansions for. i didn't pay for a shooter but for a mmoRPG. they should've made it a new game and called it star wars battles online.
Seriously, if you don't like SWG, then quit and join some other game. Instead of paying $15/month for the privilege to bitch and moan, pay $15/month to actually HAVE FUN. Take it from me: that's what I did.
Volpone
You know, I play World of Warcraft and read the forums and all that. There is alot of drama, complaining, fighting, whining and so forth...but all-in-all, reading about this just makes me appreciated the Blizzard team even more. No offense to anyone, but seriously, its just lame.
And I don't say this just to be mean or anything. I have played Galaxies. I didn't care for it, mostly just because I felt TOTALLY disconnected from my avatar character. After playing other games too, like Final Fantasy 11, and Anarchy Online, it was just very strange to me that a game so popular as SWG was so....ackward. I have a friend that has played it since launch and until recently his only complaint was that there wasn't any jumping ability, like in WoW, and that was it. But now, he is actually considering dumping SWG altogether and playing WoW. Kinda sad, cause he was really into SWG. Anyway, just wanted to say, anyone who wants a really fun game is welcome in WoW ^_-.
-Nemir, lvl 53 shaman, Silver Hand.
SOE ignores its customers' wishes to an extraordinary degree The CU and the NGE have ruined what once was a very enjoyable MMORPG SOE has deliberately dumbed down and downsized SWG so it will appeal to kiddies and be compatible with XBox If you are thinking of subscribing to SWG -- DON'T Gamers' best hope is that SWG goes under, and a more competent set of developers than the Morondevs at SOE will make a Star Wars MMORPG that is enjoyable and that is not changed out of recognition every few months Thanks, Amphiaraus SWG player since May 2004