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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. "
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.
The Star Wars franchise is just too hot of a commodity to pass up. It's worth billions and has billions of people who know what it is. Blizzard can't hold Star Wars' jock. What Blizzard can do is create a much more stable and playable game.
Maybe Sony should focus on making SWG 2 and leave SWG alone. They need to let it go. Get a good new project manager and a new good software architect and start with a new team from scratch. New graphics, new gameplay, keep what worked, toss what didn't. Two years dev time and SWG 2 could be released just as WoW is getting old and stale. Ready for Christmas '07!
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
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...
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.