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SOE Retains Star Wars License
Next Generation confirms that Sony Online Entertainment will retain the Star Wars license for for their Massive title Star Wars Galaxies. From the article: "LucasArts and SOE have no plans to 'sunset' Star Wars Galaxies. The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience. As has been announced several times previously, LucasArts and SOE are 100% committed and determined to continue to support Star Wars Galaxies together, especially with our renewed focus on improving the game for existing players through robust publish and content offerings in 2006."
Anyone else remember when Sony was a respected brand? What the hell happened?
The more you know, the less you understand.
That the game is unfun... mostly becaues it is caught between two (some say 3) diffrent and incompatable designs. Well eather way I'm not coming back.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
People with no lives can breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you Sony. Thank you LucasArts. God bless us every one (and Tiny Tim too).
In other news, SOE is 100% committed to pissing off it's existing playerbases in desperate hope to steal customers from World of Warcraft. Success probability? I give it 5% unless they really, REALLY get things rolling with SWG's NGE, and FAST.
Omeg La. Rofl Leh.
Skywalker Ranch remains open for visitors to pay $15/mo to beat a dead horse.
It's easy to improve the game for existing players. All those who were pissed off left already and won't come back unless the impossible is done. A roll back.
I won't go so far as to say that I will not come back as long as Sony has the license...
However, I will say this, the only way I will ever give this game another shot is if I hear that they have totally abandoned the current version and built a new one from scratch. This entire concept of slapping on change after change is just not working (and no except SONY ever thought it would). The problems run deeper than that - they need to admit defeat and start over. If they do, I'd give the new game a try, but nothing short of that will ever make me come back
Most likely, this "confirmation" by SOE is designed to counter stories like this blog entry:
SOE losing Star Wars: Galaxies license? @ GameSpot
Given the previous statements made by SOE concerning SWG, any comments from their PR department should be cast in a very skeptical light.
Actually, if they kept much of their current game play, but introduced alternate timelines...such as 500 years before Phantom Menace, during the reign of the Old Republic...or even back 1000 years to Knights of the Old Republic. Then I would consider playing.
As it is, all those Jedi running around during the New Hope - Empire Strikes Back timeline just bugs the crap out of me.
"The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience."
It's pretty easy to be the "ultimate online Star Wars experience" when you're the only game in town...
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
I almost thought they were going to finally put this farce to rest. But I guess they figure as long as the train's still running, might as well wreck it a few dozen more times.
Let this game die already, its suffering.
I see a couple of main ways (other than another posters multiple time-line server idea) to get back players they have lost - PRIMARY is to revert back to the original "complex" game idea and (pardon the shouting) FIX WHAT ACTUALLY FUCKING NEEDED TO BE FIXED: armor certification and some balancing (but give crafters decent damn armor so they don't have to hire people to guard them or bug their buddies to help them place harvester on Endor, Yavin, and other extremely hostile worlds), rebalance doctor buffs (not a complete nerf, balance), let the MIND stat be changed like every other stat (thus reducing the Swordmaster and TKAs ability to kill all fast), include GOOD mind buffs to EQUAL what docs could do to Health and Action and their sub-stats (again to balance out swords and TKA), and fix all the other little crap that needed to be fixed (locations that were not all there, elevators that didn't work, mini-missions you could not complete, NPCs you could not reach, etc.). I'm sure I forgot a few things since it has been a long while since I played but that is the major issues that I can remember.
The other main way to bring back their player base is simple: Give up the Star Wars license and let someone else take over the old code base and/OR let the new licensee create an entirely new game (although I would suggest using the first, apparently too complex, version of the game as a basis for any new game). *shrug* Maybe I'm just too optimistic but I enjoyed both sides of the original SWG especially since I didn't feel forced to grind out combat and could craft instead.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Just say it was all a dream...the revamp was a dream and they just revert back to the way it was before. You know, with creature handlers and all. Then from THERE they work WITH the community to FIX the problems.
Nah, screw the people that play it...THIS is how SOE wants the game to be, now pay your fees and play it dammit!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Some of the highlights:
This is, for all intents and purposes, SWG becoming a sci-fi analog to WoW. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it's not the game a lot of the players signed up for. If SOE pulls it off they may get a sizable player base, although I wouldn't pretend they'll match WoW's size.
The developer Helios has really upset the players with his pronouncement that SWG no longer strives to be a world simulator. One of the selling points of the original SWG was the open world where players would find their own things to do instead of being on treadmills. Sure, SWG failed in large ways because of experience grinding and lack of working, interesting content. But the play area was flexible enough and the way things worked pre-NGE managed to keep a lot of people interested.
Another developer, ChrisCao, comes across as an ass. He managed to insult just about everyone with what he said, being particularly dismissive of entertainers. His contention is that entertainers don't belong in the Star Wars universe because the only one in the movie got eaten. Not only is this wrong (cantina in Mos Eisley, partying ewoks, Jabba's personal entertainers), but by his logic they should eliminate bounty hunters because Greedo and both Jengo and Boba Fett were killed.
There was also a developer comment made (I think by ChrisCao) that droid engineers didn't exist in Star Wars, which is also ridiculous. Annakin was a droid engineer who built C-3PO. Luke, too, was a budding droid engineer. It was his tinkering with R2-D2 that unlocked Princess Leia's message. The jawas, as scavengers, also served as droid engineers. Gotta whip them into shape to sell them.
I don't know what kind of Star Wars fans the developers are, but it seems the ones making the decisions only understand the superficial aspects of the story arc. Some of us like playing someone like Oola or Watto or Uncle Owen. Give me an arid planet and some second-hand, rusted moisture extractors and I'll keep myself entertained for as long as there's a market for water.
SWG is turning into a radically different game. That's fine, if that's the business decision that needs to be made. I'm not sure they'll be able to make all of their changes in a short enough time to save the game, but that's just one player's opinion. And thank you, SOE, for finally being forthcoming in your intent so we can make informed decisions about playing. I started playing SWG because it was sci-fi and it had one of the most elaborate crafting systems of any MMOG on the market. Now that crafters are going to shift to glorified loot pimpers maybe I'll look elsewhere. Seed looks intriguing and is scheduled to launch in about a month. A zero-combat MMORPG may be just the antidote to what SWG wants to become.
First of all, they could just be flat out lying. That happens all the time in this industry, like the Nintendo head denying outright that there were any plans to introduce a new, better, Nintendo DS - and then they announce the DS Lite the next month. They can't possibly say they're going to pull the Star Wars license from SOE until they have a replacement.
But even if they're telling the truth, it would make perfect sense for them to make another completely different Star Wars MMO with Bioware (in fact it has to be, because you don't want the SWG stench attached to it) and then 'fully support' SWG while letting it die the slow painful death it deserves.
All Bioware has to do to make a better game is start with 'How can we make this fun?' instead of 'How can we drag this out?'
Why why oh lordy I ask why doesn't Lucas Arts care that this game, SOE and the utter arrogance and apathy they constantly display towards thier players old and new is not doing the Star Wars license any good at all!?
I mean, of all franchises, of all pop-culture icons, how can George Lucas allow this to happen to the one that made him king? The game is not canon, it changes every year, it's currently losing subscribers new and old no matter what the latest spin from SOE's PR department says. All those things sum to one thing, a series of bad decisions and a temporary loss of what the "Ultimate Star Wars Experience" really is. It's not playing yet another game where you are given a lightsabre and led around like a mindless drone through a pre-set path, it's playing whatever it is that was in every fan's head all these years without some hapless market-driven game developer getting in the way.
George, show up at SOE's offices with the can of whoop-ass that only you can carry and make it right.
I'm going to go re-arrange my clone trooper action figures now.
Robust is a funny word. It sounds nice, but it doesn't actually mean anything. Slowly destroying most of the professions then removing them altogether in favor of cookie-cutter character clones hardly qualifies as a game "fix." Part of me wishes they'd just let it die already and move on, while another part wants them to hand the game over to a company that knows what they're doing. I mean, let's be honest, how do you screw up a Star Wars MMO? You have to try. And try SOE did. good job, guys.
IMHO SWG was pretty darned fun for about the first 6 months. Yes there were problems, but SOE ignored those and kept tacking on more and more crap. I am very displeased to hear that Lucas Arts (according to SOE at least) is going to keep the license with SOE.
/.) SOE has bruned so many people with this game. I'm wondering how much SOE is paying Lucas Arts to keep rushing out buggy, unimaginative, bottom line is money based garbage.
I will never go back. And even if they started a new SW MMORPG from scratch I will never give SOE any more of my money or time.
The most interesting thing to me is the fact that I have yet to read a positive comment on this article. Now of course those who are unhapy will speak loudest. But generally you have a couple people who speak up if they ahve differing opinions (especially here at
Ex-player here as well. Nobody seems to be posting their character's history or their play experience, so let me be the first.
I started out as a Twi'lek dancer, on naboo. It was quickly apparent that the Empire ran the planet, and I considered moving to a different one. Left for Tattooine, picked up some pistol skills and some scouting experience.
Then I actually ran into a decent-sized group that was going to go out "hunting." They said they needed some entertainment, so I hopped along. we went to Dantooine. Hunted pikets for a while and someone suggested that we go hunt some critters way off in the distance. everyone else was interested so I followed. That was the first time I actually stood slack-jawed at the game. We were fighting something two... no, three... no, TEN times the size of me. They were huge! I can't for the life of me remember what they were called but I was convinced at that point the game was awesome.
That same character later on would master the dancing profession, and then take up crafting and build landspeeders, speederbikes, and other vehicles to pay for what would be my goal of becoming a Bioengineer.
That day arrived, and I immediately began going out into the wilderness collecting "samples." This was the single most fun thing I'd ever done in the MMO up 'till then. My "sampling" would either instantly kill the target, fail and cause it to one-shot me (I had very little combat skill), or get a sample but not kill the creature. Using mask scent, I could sneak up BEHIND monsters and kill them in this way. I even went and got samples from those gigantic creatures I'd been hunting before.
What did I do with these samples? Why, I made critters, of course! But in my special case, they were small furry cat-like critters that spit acid at 100 yards and had fire resistance. Quite fun, and very lucrative.
Now, after all of this amazing fun that I had:
I can tell you that SOE still ruined it. You can make your judgement calls from there, but I want you to know the extent of their damage.
Oh, and the Bioengineer is no longer a character class in the game. And neither is the creature handler.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
SOE may convince themselves that it is all true but if were not for the fact that SOE has had a long standing history of deceit and lies. SOE it looks like they are kidding themselves in an effort to fool us - again.
Yeah, he also said that SWG was the #4 MMO overall behind WoW, EQ2 and EQ(in that order). Never believe anything that comes from SOE.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.