Galaxies To Beat World of Warcraft?

We reported previously on an interview with John Smedley being run by Gamespot. They've put up the second part of the interview, and in the closing paragraph John takes the gloves off. From the article: "One thing that I love about our company is that there is no 'quit' in this company. It's about making sure that we have pride in what we do. People within the company feel so much pride in this game that they want it to beat the crap out of World of Warcraft. That's something we feel very passionate about. We know we are capable of making the best stuff out there, and I'm proud to say that with the changes we're making in Galaxies, I think we're headed in the right direction."

Comments

Anti-Sanbox MMO?

[MBraynard]

That straight sandbox games don't work. And that we needed to focus much more on the Star Wars experience. I think in the past, what we probably made was the Uncle Owen experience as opposed to the Luke experience. We needed to deliver more of the Star Wars heroic and epic feeling to the game. I think we missed there. That's what I think we really brought to the game [with the update].

No, that is what makes Battlefront 2 works, what makes JK2 work. No one will pay month after month for that same experience, which is the premise of the MMO revenue model. What people pay month after month for is the sandbox with complicated options and roles to explore. I was playing Eve for a while - which is in a Star Wars-like atmosphere - and I was trying (and failing, that's another story) to become a manufacturer. Not a space pirate or Luke Skywalker - a Manufacturer/Industrialist. I sold the cheapest ammo in several solar systems. I would play a more economic game in SWG if I could have.

Even Battlefield 2 seems to have more depth than SWG does now.

Does anyone still play SWG and if so why?

[SmallFurryCreature]

I quit after the combat upgrade earlier this year as a game that was bugged just turned into a complete and utter farce. It resembled nothing of the original, had that bug were lairs would be swamped with critters, the combat looked stupid and was boring and it just showed to me that SOE was never going to just fix the damn game and let us play.

Either smedley is insane or people out there are still playing it in big enough numbers to make him think that the players actually like the NGE and other stuff.

Are there any SWG players on /. or even more amazing have any of you recently joined the game?

From everything I hear including the other responses here on /. SWG is rapidly being deserted so what gives this smedley the idea that they have they are heading in the right direction? Could it actually be true that wile the hardcore gamers are leaving there is an influx of new gamers?

Wizkids did the same with Mechwarrior

[fujiman]

Watching Sony abandon loyal fans in an effort to get more people in reminds me of a recent fleecing that I (and other Mechwarrior fans) got when they retired the set of miniatures.

For those who don't know, Mechwarrior (MW) was a really cool minatures game put out by WizKids (of MageKnight fame... and yes, I know the FASA MW game before it....) So I bought a crapload of minatures, played the game, loved it, and then the hammer dropped. They basically said "We're changing everything, dear players, but we're doing it FOR YOU!... By the way, you know all those minatures you've collected? Yeah, they're being retired."

So they came out with new rules, new minatures, whatever. I suppose they just expected me to run out and drop another couple hundred on new minis. Needless to say, I boxed it all up in the garage and haven't played since.

Screw you, Wizkids.

and screw you too, SOE

Practice what you preach

[VGPowerlord]

John Smedley needs to do homework on the game that his company produces before he opens his trap.

For instance, there's several things I saw in his responses that bugged me.

Well, first of all I would have to say that in Asia, the subscription model is definitely, by far, the number one model. Revenue wise, it's about 75 percent of the market. Look at World of Warcraft, Legend of Mir, Legend of MU...all are very high-priced subscriptions, by the way.

I don't know about in Asia, but in the US, the subscription prices for Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest II, and World of Warcraft are all about the same. So, why aren't they listed there, too?

With EverQuest 1, we learned an important lesson. We put it out in Korea and it didn't do very well. Why? Because it wasn't a Korean game. And we didn't make any effort whatsoever, beyond basic translation, to make it adaptable to that market.

Take something simple: for example, mouse control. When you're playing in a PC Bang, there are people that want to play with one hand--holding a cigarette in one hand and controlling the mouse in the other. They want to play the entire game that way; touching the keyboard rarely.

Obviously, you haven't learned it as well as you thought. SWG used to be close to one hand playable, but you removed the "hold right mouse button to run" feature from SWG in the NGE upgrade. That means, you can turn and shoot with one hand, but you can't actually move.

WoW, on the other hand, lets me:

1. Turn the camera by holding down the left mouse button.
2. Turn my character by holding down the right mouse button.
3. Move forward by holding down both mouse buttons.
4. Click targets and buttons when no mouse buttons are held down.
5. Click group member portraits to target them.
6. Click the icons in the lower right to open up different parts of the interface.

With the exception of chat and logging in, there's nothing I can't do using just the mouse. That's something I don't remember being able to do in SWG or EQ2, both of which came out after EQ1. SWG's switching cursor modes made this particularly impossible.

Now, having commented on John's comments above, I also have to say this: Word of mouth is a powerful thing. I know 10 people that myself and my brother convinced to buy World of Warcraft, after we played it in Open Beta. These people closed their various Everquest, Everquest 2, and City of Heroes accounts to play WoW.

SWG, on the other hand, is getting disrecommended by people, because, quite frankly, you ruined the experience for them.

While we're on the subject of ruining SWG, Julio Torres, SWG's Producer at LucasArts, said

After receiving feedback from members of the community, conducting extensive focus tests, and evaluating the combat systems of other games in the genre, we are confident this new fast-action combat truly delivers what players, fans, and gamers have come to expect from a Star Wars experience.

This is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Your changes blind-sided everyone, even your own Player Correspondants, who are your main "focus group," and the people who you "officially" asked for opinions on fixing the game. They're the people you should be listening to. They're the people who, the day that the NGE was unveiled, said "we didn't know about this in advance." (I can't find the exact quote, as the NGE boards are hidden on the SWG Forums.)

In fact, you willfully withheld information from them and the community about the changes that you were about to make to the game, until the very day the changes went up on the test servers, the day after you shipped pre-orders for the latest expansion, even advertising things like this:

Will we be getting tamable (creatu

Re:didn't he get the memo?

[adamwright]

Well, this sort of "test" has already happened, albeit not on the scale of SWG. Turbines "Asheron's Call" was one of the first handleful of MMORPGs on the market (and is still my favorite). It didn't do as well as EQ, but at it's peak had plenty of subscribers (over 20,000 playing concurrently).

It was pretty complex, with deep monthly storylines, a difficult research based spell system, non class based (you could choose your skills and XP spend from a list of dozens of "skills" to make your own class) and a *huge* world (bigger than anything I've seen since). Some people loved it, some people didn't.

So, when it came time to make the sequel, what did they do? Entirely dropped the complexity and "difficulty", and made an EQ clone, but not as well as EQ. Replaced the "build your own class" with fixed classes, XP spend replaced by skill points - hell, you couldn't even go inside the buildings, and there were no real NPCs!

Result? It tanked. Virtually noone who liked AC liked AC2, and so they didn't get many players (and indeed, insulted the customers they already had in the franchise). Noone who didn't like AC would look at AC2 because, well, it was AC! The last time I checked, the game was scheduled to be shut down this Christmas, whilst the original is still going (if not really going "strong", due to age).

The moral of the story seems to be - once you have a customer base, you have to listen to them. If you don't like what they're telling you, rather than ignore them and carry on anyway, create *an entirely new franchise and game* and so build a new customer base. Anything else leads to distrust and failure.

Who wouldnt want to be #1?

[BloodyIron]

HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAAHAH.

okay im done for now.

Blizzard worked hard to get to the #1 spot for MMORPG's, in many facets. One could extrapolate that they analyzed the current plethora of MMORPG's in today's and yesterday's market, including UO,EQ,AC, and so forth. Analyzing what made them great, and what didnt.

For example, EQ was really good for PvE, but by today's standards it is a very unrewarding per time game. Blizz sped this up heavily in WoW, the game is more rewarding per time spent by far comparatively to EQ, and thus why I will never play EQ ever again.

Blizzard also has much experience in the realm of "Balancing", making the game even in their quirky rock-paper-scissors fashion. This experience stems from releasing many games before WoW, including the Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo series. Each series having its own signifigant twist to balancing in very advanced aspects.

Comparatively, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE, the developers of Star Wars Galaxies, SWG) have a few MMORPG's under their acquizition belt. Ultima Online, Ever Quest being the biggest. However, they handle these games differently from Blizzard. SOE bought these games, like any business, with the intent to turn major profit. And so they have, but at the cost of entertaining games. I have not experienced this first hand myself, but I know people who have played these games, witnessed changes SOE has made to these games to make them profitable, but not fun.

Blizzard, in stead, communicates heavily with their community formed around the game. The forums being the primary source of communication, as well as in-game GM support/assistance. Blizzard has observed the community, and the players at large, taking down notes and figuring out how to make the game more rewarding, both of current material and future material. At this point in their developed games the complexity of their balancing has reached such an advanced stage that even a single patch revamping a single class takes about 2 or 3 months to release (I am referring to patch 1.9 revamping the Paladin class, which to this date is still in public beta).

Blizzard cares, SOE doesnt, and the customer is wise enough to know what's fun, and what isnt.

These are the primary reasons why I believe that Blizzard will control the majority of the MMORPG market for a long time, if not forever. For this is their first MMORPG game, and they have captivated every major market around the world, with little advertising.

I will not leave WoW for SWG for other reasons (in addition to this). The primary reason I will not leave WoW for ANY OTHER MMORPG is due to the fact that I can customize my UI to an extreme degree. No other game features such functionality as featured in WoW. I have tried other games, such as Guild Wars, and it is by far nowhere near as enjoyable as being able to customize exactly what information you see as well as what functions (additional or originally implimented) are available to you. Blizzard had this system working even during open beta, the only changes since release they have made were to improve functionality or to fix bugs, I do not recall any major changes to the system at large, ever.

SWG will not win, ever, nor will any other MMORPG, unless Blizzard loses their Nack for game design, balancing, and entertainment.

I trust in Blizzard, why dont you?