I bought the box. Amazed it plays on a Toshiba Satellite that is a couple of year old. However, I will say as an avid gamer, this is the worst distribution mechanism I have ever seen.
The thing took me over 3 hours to install, patch and attempt to play. I had not used Steam before, no reason to. Then, insult to injury, I have to be ONLINE(?!) to play the SINGLE PLAYER(?!). WTF?
The game is amazing, they did a fantastic job. But I expect a better experience from my gaming companies than what I found. After all, I BOUGHT THE FRIGGIN GAME, like I buy ALL the games I play.
Valve is pushing the envelope with them, and I cannot blame them for attempting to cut down on piracy, but the inconvenience caused by their distribution or unlocking mechanism is beyond what I had previously thought a gaming company might do. There were literally thousands if not tens of thousands who awaited this game with slobbering anticipation, and then they take one in the poop even if they bought the box version!
If they were going to make it so much better to do a totally online download and install, I wish they would have at least TOLD us the preferred method, and WARNED the general public that their box version would need significantly more patience than doing the online purchase.
Yes I am still pissed about this even though I love the game.
SWG has a VERY sketchy track record. The company that runs it has been at best deceptive about where the game is going and getting bugs fixed, balance issues addressed, give some point to the Galactic Civil War, etc. etc. etc.
Do NOT expect JtL to be ANY better than SWG was at launch. Buggy, laggy, etc. Read up on some of the forum information at it appears that the JtL expansion is more poorly developed than Earth and Beyond was. That speaks volumes.
Frankly, SOE nor LA will ever see another dime from me. And with good reason. HUGE potential squandered. If LA retakes leadership and implementation of this game, it MIGHT get better, but I have little faith of that either.
The new crop of MMORPG's will chew most of the meat out of SWG, and leave it what it deserves to be: an also ran.
Played it very early on for a couple of years when I was still a strictly Mac guy. There is no PC version, nor linux, etc.
The game is 2D with really poor sprite graphics. It is NOT free, but it IS cheap.
People are not interested in levelling because there really are no levels. Skills train offline and online, and generally the folks are nice and will help newer players. Most everyone role plays.
Now for the negatives:
1.) Graphics - Circa 1984 or 1985. Compared to ANYTHING out on the market at this time, it is beyond the pale. Friggin' lame.
2.) Gameplay - In a word: 'boring'. You start out whacking rats. You can be one of three classes, one class of which is almost COMPLETELY worthless. Progression is LOOOONG. And did I mention boring?
3.) Content - Again, pretty poor. You will get to everything the game offers within a couple of weeks. Not saying you will survive, but you can get to nearly everywhere.
4.) Sophistication - Damn near none. Again, in comparison to almost anything on the market, this game looks like it should played on a wristwatch. Palm OS is probably too beefy of an OS for it to be translated onto.
5.) Immersion - Nearly none. Sound is weak. Graphics are like 8-bit sprites. Combat is click-and-whack.
6.) Save your money. Don't even bother. Give yourself a couple of nice papercuts on your eyelids and then pour lemon juice into them.
Can't fault SOE for trying to stem the bleeding. As I posted previously here I think, SOE's subscription numbers for SWG have been steadily dwindling. If they had any good numbers to report, they would. They went free-trial VERY quickly for such a large and auspicious undertaking. My guess is: SOE is in the red ink on SWG, and is trying to find a way to black ink.
They can't fight the street-knowledge that the game is pretty boring, that the game fell FAR short of the hype surrounding it, and that they have serious and intrinsic flaws in the foundations of the game itself that may not be able to be overcome.
So, they know that the space expansion (Jump to Lightspeed) is something that nearly every Star Wars fan would want. They know that Tie Fighter vs. X-Wing sold big numbers and was not that complicated to recreate years later in their (alleged) MMORPG. They are hoping against hope that it will save the game.
It will not.
And furthermore, they are making another flavor of the same disastrous mistake they made with their Christmas Holocron Giveaway...
At x-mas they gave away a holo to everyone. Some folks got two. Then roughly 80% of the playerbase started 'hologrinding'. This entailed working through anywhere from 6 to 32 different professions, all the way to master, in the hopes that the player would unlock their Jedi slot. Dev's later quoted as saying, 'We don't like the hologrind any more than you do'. Ummm... Duh?!
The result was a serious hit to the playing community. Master crafters doffed their crafting stations and took up whatever new profession the holo's dictated. The economy (in sad shape at that point already) took an even sharper turn for the worse. Macro'ing was rampant, and player interraction went from slim to nearly non-existant. Whole planets appeared to be completely devoid of any player life.
Fast forward to JTLS expansion. Everyone takes off into space, and appreciates the new experience. Leaving the population even MORE dispersed, the planets even MORE devoid of life, the economy even MORE screwed up as shipwrights charge silly amounts of credits for the latest and 'best' ship...
This of course assumes that they manage to pull off the expansion, and a whole new type of gameplay, WITHOUT serious game-breaking bugs and other associated problems. Many of us, have no doubts in this. We have gone passed doubt long ago. Many of us simply believe that history will validate our suspicion that this game continues to circle the drain... and the spirals are getting tighter...
My advice: hit the silk now. They don't have the subscriber base to justify throwing the needed development muscle at this pile o' poo. Too far gone to bring it back with anything less than an exceptional effort and some real quality decisionmaking, not to mention wheelbarrows of cash (which contrary to their projections just never materialized).
I predict this game closes its doors in 2005. There will be too many other games competing, and many of them look FAR more compelling than SWG.
Nice try SOE. Very auspicious undertaking. Many thanks to you from the future MMORPG development community for a lesson in how NOT to do things.
Don't forget to turn off the lights when you lock up... Your passing will not be lamented.
Oh yeah. A pixel-present. Whoop-dee-friggin'-doo... I left AO before they could 'reward' me with pixel presents.
Lemme fill you in on how SOE is rewarding their veterans:
You get a DEED for A SHIP. Not the ship itself, but a deed to one. This ship will not be craftable by anyone, and cannot be traded. Furthermore, it will not be all that useful as it is a 'luxury yacht'. With a single gun mount I believe... (my understanding of the ship details might not be spot-on).
But, HERE is the kicker (and man lemme tell you those marketing folks at SOE are friggin genious's):
You can't actually USE the deed to CREATE the ship, UNLESS YOU BUY THE NEW EXPANSION PACK due out later this year. Many months from now...
What a nice thing for SOE. I can hear it now: 'Hey there my Rodian SWG chum. Thanks for playing our relatively boring game, and for putting up with all the technical difficulties and flat-out assinine decisions we have made about priorities for bug-fixing, gameplay modifications, nerfs, etc. We certainly appreciate your business, and in a show of our gratitude, here is your VERY OWN SHIP! Of course, you cannot USE it. You can't really DO anything at all with it. But we will tie up an inventory slot and get you slavering for the new expansion. Oh, and by the way, you have to buy the new expansion when we release the bug-riddled thing later this year. Thank you for your patronage. Now keep paying your monthly fees and be sure to buy the new expansion pack so you can use the present we rewarded you with for being a fuggin' stoopid... err that is 'loyal' customer.'
What a joke. People from the top on down in that organization need to receive a collective bitch-slap.
Take this post with a grain of salt, as Funcom and SOE have made me a bitter gamer...
I am intrigued here by the paralells shown between the history of Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.
When AO launched, it was the biggest debacle in an MMORPG to date. Almost a complete flop... Including submitted credit card info over an unsecured server among a great many other problems.
When SWG launched, the first day was a complete meltdown, and only those who downloaded/used Mozilla could actually succeed with getting through the game registration. From day 2 on, things improved. People were actually able to get into the game. Things were buggy as all get out, but at least you could be in the game.
In the early AO, one would run into tons of bugs and other broken parts of the system. One would submit a trouble ticket. Said ticket would go into a black hole, and you would never hear from a company representative.
In the early days of SWG, one would submit a trouble ticket, and have it filed into a similarly-constructed-yet-Star Wars-themed black hole...
In the early days of AO, they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with the debacle of the launch that occurred, the tone of the forums went decidedly ape-$hit. In response, AO took their forums private. Access only to paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what Funcom has to hide?". As a player at that time, they had a LOT to hide.
In the early days of SWG they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with a more-decent launch than AO, but with a product that significantly fell short on the promises made on the packaging of the game, as people starte to realize that the game really was not that much actual FUN, the tone of the boards turned decidedly ugly. SOE responded by making the forums private. Only paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what SOE has to hide?". As a player at that time, they also had a LOT to hide.
AO has sinced released a couple of expansions, fixed a lot of their problems, and seen meagre retention of their player base. Others who waded through the early problems have resolved to never play AO again. (count me among them, or ever play ANY Funcom product again). Now, AO has to give away a free time period to tempt people into even TRYING the game. I think however, that they did not attempt this tactic until well after a year's worth of the game being live.
SWG has since released a couple of updates that make good on the claims and promises they made back when the game was still in beta (vehicles, player cities, mounts, etc.). They have fixed a lot of problems, encountered many more, and seen a somewhat better than meagre retention of their player base. (however, I would love to hear some real figures from SOE about subscription levels. We have not in a loooong time, and this leads me to believe that they do NOT in fact, have very impressive numbers. Furthermore, they leapt to the free-trial quite early (out of necessity, I believe, to stop the hemhoraging playerbase).
The paralells are telling for me. Both games might very well be worth the effort of a player who is not familiar to take them up. It is my hunch however, that buyer's remorse will settle in not long after the initial coolness factor has worn off.
Every single one of my friends, (realword and virtual) have left these games never to return. We have simply been so burned by them and their companies that we will not even look at another product from the companies that offered us the gold-plated turds we received.
As for myself and many, many other MMORPG gamers, SOE will not likely see another dime from us, nor Funcom. Nor I would argue should they. The marketing departments forced games to go live that were not ready, and then did not allow for the technical staff to complete what they had rushed to release, or to stabilize incredibly shaky results.
If you have never played the game, you may want to do so. There is, in fact, a lot of things to do in it for someone who has never experienced it. My word of caution to you would be: don't expect too much. The fun curve will level out and start to decline quite early on in your experience (YMMV of course).
What kills me about the one-year anniversary is the fact that:
The Annum-Vets get a reward! Hoo-ray! And what is this nice thank you from the kind folks at SOE?
You get: a deed to a ship for when the expansion Jump to Lightspeed comes out.
Translation: SOE is providing a carrot at the end of a string for you. Keep playing this (allegedly fun) game, and wait for the expansion to come out. But wait, there are a few stipulations to experiencing this 'gift'.
Keep paying the monthly fee until we feel that the expansion is buggy enough for release. AND you of course must purchase the expansion to actually REALIZE the gift...
What a marketing coup! The sheer genious of it!
Come on you fanbois and fangrlz: keep coughing up the change, banking on the fact that the expansion might actually bring FUN to the game... Just don't hold your breath.
The other interesting note from the timeline is that they at one point had 275k active subscribers. The article mentions that 'well-over 400k players have tried the game'. (translation: 400k people have played it, but that doesn't mean that they are still playing or even that they stuck around very long...). If SOE had better numbers they would state them.
Bottom line: Some folks will really like this game. It is also likely that their love-affair will be short-lived once the realization hits that the game just frankly is not very fun, and is a whole lot like work.
SOE will not be getting any more of my money. I too played AO for months from launch and unFuncom will not be seeing a red cent of mine either. Ever. Don't care how cool AO is now in comparision to where it was, and additionally don't care how cool SWG was/is/will be. SOE has lost many customers who feel either similar or exactly like I do.
The first poster had it right, this game had what was likely the greatest potential of any MMORPG to date. That potential has been squandered, and I have no faith that the people in charge or the devs can resurrect it.
I too find the accuracy of the chart to be suspect, but it is better data than I can find elsewhere.
As far as the 300k+ persistent world players from thin air for FFXI. Combination of two things: Japanese market and clients on both PC and console.
FFXI was released early in Japan ahead of North America's release I believe. (i could be wrong). But this is where some of the newer player numbers came from. I am not attributing all of them to it, but I am attributing many. The game is a huge success in Japan.
The SE Korean game Phantasy Star Online boasts somthing like 12 million subscribers or somesuch. But their metric for measuring their playerbase is skewed in comparison to the other MMORPG's mentioned in Bruce's chart. I think he has something in his notes about that.
I don't think that the numbers are statistically insignificant. And I do not think that it is the rare exception you consider it to be.
Here is the link to Sir Bruce's latest chart that I could find:
As you can see, there are some interesting details when one starts to look at the peaks and turning points and the coincidental timing/launch of new games/expansions.
The problem here is that the numbers are guesswork and the level of detail is confounding. The method of comparison is also not incredibly standardized. (i.e. global market vs. North American market, etc.).
What we really need is an in depth analysis on a monthly basis of the subscription levels. Or even better, how popuated various game worlds are by real players. Only the business element cares about subscriptions. (SWG seems to have north of 250k subscriptions. But they have recently gone to a 14-day free trial. Usually a sign of needing an infusion of new revenue in the way of short-term subscriptions...)
Of course we could not rely upon companies giving us real legitimate numbers. I would not believe any statistic provided by Funcom, nor many of the other game companies.
As far as audience cap. I think that that will be a soft number until the basis for analysis is agreed upon. What about console accounts? (FFXI for PS2, etc.). What about the silly subscription levels in South Korea for that one game that boasts the largest audience online for ANY game. Largely because of funky math having to do with multiple accounts based at an internet cafe or something like that... What about the kids growing older and wanting to get into a new game type. Or those in rural areas getting access to broadband connectivity...
There is money to be made, and there are games to be played. Everyone is waiting for the next big thing. I agree that a game cannot have a financial model based upon taking accounts from other games. But I would argue that a significant amount of this type of activity does in fact go on, and absolutely impacts the bottom line of a game.
I respectfully disagree about the culling of users from one MMORPG to another. You make the argument in your post that UO did not take from M59. That might be true. But...
It has been my experience that some MMORPG players actively play more than one game. I believe that most however, only devote time to one game at a time. For many it is not the multiple monthly fees that they have going, rather the limited time that they have to devote to more than one character with more than one game.
I played Anarchy Online (AO) at the onset. It was the single largest debacle I had ever seen for a launch at that point. In fact, it was SO bad, that many people demanded refunds and some folks banded together for a class-action suit (though I am not certain what happened to that). I suffered through roughly a year of that game. Funcom offered not only the buggiest game on the market for that niche, but additionally had levels of customer service that set records for how NOT to treat your clients. It was as though they would calculate the most-public-relations-damaging options and green-light them. Truly amazing.
To this day, I will not allow a single copper penny from me to pass to them in any way shape or form. It does not matter how improved AO is today vs. at launch. It does not matter if Funcom releases the next generation, blow-your-mind, absolutely HAVE to play MMORPG. They will NEVER see another dime from me. The WHOLE company for ANY of their products.
The reason I mention AO, is that it offers an example of how NOT to do things. Sometimes I think that cannibalizing users from one game to another takes into account out-of-game or meta-game influences on the audiences. In this instance, DAOC got my money next.
Played DAOC for a while, but did not seem to enthralled by it. Was a good solid game, but just was not holding my attention.
Next was EoB. What a flop! Neat concept for a game, but in the end, about as exciting as watching paint dry. It has been cancelled and with good reason. It sucked and was no fun to play.
I would argue that some EoB players have migrated to EVE. Those that wanted to stay in the space game niche anyway.
But, I went to ShadowBane. Nifty concept, far more PvP oriented, but quite chaotic. In the space of a few months, the server that I played on had a single guild monopolize most of the geography, and bands of lesser guilds could not unseat them. Left that game because of the lack of forethought and planning from their devs. PvP is great, but if you have a guild that attacks a castle of the enemy at 4AM EST on a Tuesday morning, it is unlikely you will be able to summon much help to save it...
So, about this time SWG came out. Launch was initially a train wreck. Ghosts of AO crept in. Things cleared up and got better, but many many problems existed with such a significant MMORPG effort. Content was significantly lacking. Bugs were rife and flourishing. Many features promised for release were not in game. It would be months before the features would be added. The bugs (some dead, some flourishing) are still there. I played the game for nearly a year. It got better, but did not get fun. One day, I realized that 'Hey, this really isn't fun, and in fact, it is a whole lot like work.'
So then, CoH came out. I started to have fun again. Imagine that. Here is a game whose simplicity is as stark a contrast to SWG's complexity as you could get, yet in CoH I have many, many friends and acquaintences that are refugees from SWG and are having a good time and not looking back.
The whole point of this recounting is to say, again IMHO, that in fact, many players only play one of these games at a time. The connection to a character is strong, but not strong enough to prevent a player from trying a new game, especially if it addresses one or more concerns that a player has with their current game (i.e. SWG is not fun, and CoH is).
I believe that not many people play more than one of these games at a tim
Not certain what you are speaking about here. How can a game that has not been released and still has months of development left have any market share? Doesn't it have to be a product first? Or are you talking about 'buzz rating' or 'mind space'?
And what 'recent article' put EQ's marketshare at 80% of the MMORPG market?! I find that claim dubious.
Am I missing something here, or are you posting from the future?
You have real people in the game world, let them run the world. People are sordid, scheming and endlessly changing. If you harness your players properly you don't have to create content because they will create it for you.
I have enjoyed reading this discussion. However, the above point I believe is worth looking at again:
I would argue that the quoted statement is not a good assumption. Look at There and Second Life. Additionally, SWG for most of it's live lifespan has relied upon the players to create content.
I would argue that this approach is also doomed to failure. SWG is my only example as I have not played Second Life or There (but am to understand that these games are a build your own type of thing, a sandbox with legos if you will).
However, in SWG, because the majority of the content has not been incredibly well received, at one point the devs said the point of having such poor or limited content is that the devs wanted to rely upon the player base for building their own content. They just wanted to put together the best sandbox they could to promote such activity.
The reality: You have one or two servers where one or two Player Associations do engage in sandbox content creation. The problem is that there are FAR too few players willing to create the content. Many players do NOT view content creation as fun. I would argue that most do not. They are paying to play a game that someone has built and is providing for them. Not to put in 'work' creating things for the benefit of the community of players. Most believe that that is in fact what the devs should be doing.
(additionally, most players are so creatively challenged that they cannot even come up with an original name, let alone any type of original or compelling story, etc.)
Getting off on a rant and I had not intended to do that. So I will close with this:
If I am to create my own content, one had best give me the most user-friendly tools with which to do this, and incentive for doing so. If one does not, then one's game is bound to die a premature death.
I had thought that with the levels of complexity and 'balanced' systems would make SWG the end-all be-all of the MMORPG market. I was mistaken. It does provide quite a sandbox, but in the end, just really is not fun. SOE spent a WHOLE lot of money to have the end result being far more like work than like play.
Anyways, nice discussion. It has been a pleasure to follow along and watch it progress.
Folks need to realize that this is all much ado about nothing. IMHO - it won't save the game. Played it myself since the launch (well day two since one could not get in day one). Was an interesting game with one major problem: it's not fun. Same AI on EVERY mob (from rat to rancor), completely whacked player economy, bumbling idiot dev team ('We don't like the Holocron mess anymore than you do...'), seriously erroding player-base, complete lack of class balance, bugs from early beta STILL not fixed, etc. etc. etc.
But I am quite certain that this crack team of talented devs will provide for the saving grace in this game that is to be the Space Expansion. After all, they did such a good job with the original game... Broken missions, missing content, worthless game systems, etc.
Try to envision the worst train wreck that SOE could release with the SWG: Space Expansion. Then don't worry. It won't be that bad.
It will be worse...
This game had more promise than any other I have ever played before. And the fact that said promise has been so thoroughly squandered and sabotaged... makes me ill.
It took them roughly 10 months (post-release) to try to affect decent changes to the most basic of Star Wars elements: droids. It is bad enough that we don't have ships yet. Did not have speeders or other ground transportation until roughly 5 to 6 months post-release. There is very little Star Wars about the game.
Save your money. Or don't, blow time and cash on this 'game' and then discover in several months that 'Hey, I am really not having very much fun.', dump the game and wonder why you bothered.
Go play CoH for fun if you actually want to enjoy your gaming experience.
Your mileage may vary, but I gave the game a half-year beyond the time when I should have bailed on it. Take my advice. Bail on it before you get into it. Go play KotOR. You'll thank me later.
Slashdot Mirror
Out of idle curiosity, what is your opinion on SWG? Would you call it a success as far as:
1.) Personally?
2.) Financially?
3.) Culturally?
4.) None of the above.
I mean, how do you feel about it now, (if I am to understand it correctly, in that you no longer have anything to do with it...)?
- Z
I can't hear you... Could you possibly *TYPE LOUDER*?
8)
I bought the box. Amazed it plays on a Toshiba Satellite that is a couple of year old. However, I will say as an avid gamer, this is the worst distribution mechanism I have ever seen.
The thing took me over 3 hours to install, patch and attempt to play. I had not used Steam before, no reason to. Then, insult to injury, I have to be ONLINE(?!) to play the SINGLE PLAYER(?!). WTF?
The game is amazing, they did a fantastic job. But I expect a better experience from my gaming companies than what I found. After all, I BOUGHT THE FRIGGIN GAME, like I buy ALL the games I play.
Valve is pushing the envelope with them, and I cannot blame them for attempting to cut down on piracy, but the inconvenience caused by their distribution or unlocking mechanism is beyond what I had previously thought a gaming company might do. There were literally thousands if not tens of thousands who awaited this game with slobbering anticipation, and then they take one in the poop even if they bought the box version!
If they were going to make it so much better to do a totally online download and install, I wish they would have at least TOLD us the preferred method, and WARNED the general public that their box version would need significantly more patience than doing the online purchase.
Yes I am still pissed about this even though I love the game.
I am not bitter... I am alum-flavored...
For what it is worth:
SWG has a VERY sketchy track record. The company that runs it has been at best deceptive about where the game is going and getting bugs fixed, balance issues addressed, give some point to the Galactic Civil War, etc. etc. etc.
Do NOT expect JtL to be ANY better than SWG was at launch. Buggy, laggy, etc. Read up on some of the forum information at it appears that the JtL expansion is more poorly developed than Earth and Beyond was. That speaks volumes.
Frankly, SOE nor LA will ever see another dime from me. And with good reason. HUGE potential squandered. If LA retakes leadership and implementation of this game, it MIGHT get better, but I have little faith of that either.
The new crop of MMORPG's will chew most of the meat out of SWG, and leave it what it deserves to be: an also ran.
- Zhirem
Played it very early on for a couple of years when I was still a strictly Mac guy. There is no PC version, nor linux, etc.
The game is 2D with really poor sprite graphics. It is NOT free, but it IS cheap.
People are not interested in levelling because there really are no levels. Skills train offline and online, and generally the folks are nice and will help newer players. Most everyone role plays.
Now for the negatives:
1.) Graphics - Circa 1984 or 1985. Compared to ANYTHING out on the market at this time, it is beyond the pale. Friggin' lame.
2.) Gameplay - In a word: 'boring'. You start out whacking rats. You can be one of three classes, one class of which is almost COMPLETELY worthless. Progression is LOOOONG. And did I mention boring?
3.) Content - Again, pretty poor. You will get to everything the game offers within a couple of weeks. Not saying you will survive, but you can get to nearly everywhere.
4.) Sophistication - Damn near none. Again, in comparison to almost anything on the market, this game looks like it should played on a wristwatch. Palm OS is probably too beefy of an OS for it to be translated onto.
5.) Immersion - Nearly none. Sound is weak. Graphics are like 8-bit sprites. Combat is click-and-whack.
6.) Save your money. Don't even bother. Give yourself a couple of nice papercuts on your eyelids and then pour lemon juice into them.
But hey, YMMV. 8)
- Zhirem (the real one)
Can't fault SOE for trying to stem the bleeding. As I posted previously here I think, SOE's subscription numbers for SWG have been steadily dwindling. If they had any good numbers to report, they would. They went free-trial VERY quickly for such a large and auspicious undertaking. My guess is: SOE is in the red ink on SWG, and is trying to find a way to black ink.
They can't fight the street-knowledge that the game is pretty boring, that the game fell FAR short of the hype surrounding it, and that they have serious and intrinsic flaws in the foundations of the game itself that may not be able to be overcome.
So, they know that the space expansion (Jump to Lightspeed) is something that nearly every Star Wars fan would want. They know that Tie Fighter vs. X-Wing sold big numbers and was not that complicated to recreate years later in their (alleged) MMORPG. They are hoping against hope that it will save the game.
It will not.
And furthermore, they are making another flavor of the same disastrous mistake they made with their Christmas Holocron Giveaway...
At x-mas they gave away a holo to everyone. Some folks got two. Then roughly 80% of the playerbase started 'hologrinding'. This entailed working through anywhere from 6 to 32 different professions, all the way to master, in the hopes that the player would unlock their Jedi slot. Dev's later quoted as saying, 'We don't like the hologrind any more than you do'. Ummm... Duh?!
The result was a serious hit to the playing community. Master crafters doffed their crafting stations and took up whatever new profession the holo's dictated. The economy (in sad shape at that point already) took an even sharper turn for the worse. Macro'ing was rampant, and player interraction went from slim to nearly non-existant. Whole planets appeared to be completely devoid of any player life.
Fast forward to JTLS expansion. Everyone takes off into space, and appreciates the new experience. Leaving the population even MORE dispersed, the planets even MORE devoid of life, the economy even MORE screwed up as shipwrights charge silly amounts of credits for the latest and 'best' ship...
This of course assumes that they manage to pull off the expansion, and a whole new type of gameplay, WITHOUT serious game-breaking bugs and other associated problems. Many of us, have no doubts in this. We have gone passed doubt long ago. Many of us simply believe that history will validate our suspicion that this game continues to circle the drain... and the spirals are getting tighter...
My advice: hit the silk now. They don't have the subscriber base to justify throwing the needed development muscle at this pile o' poo. Too far gone to bring it back with anything less than an exceptional effort and some real quality decisionmaking, not to mention wheelbarrows of cash (which contrary to their projections just never materialized).
I predict this game closes its doors in 2005. There will be too many other games competing, and many of them look FAR more compelling than SWG.
Nice try SOE. Very auspicious undertaking. Many thanks to you from the future MMORPG development community for a lesson in how NOT to do things.
Don't forget to turn off the lights when you lock up... Your passing will not be lamented.
- Zhirem
Oh yeah. A pixel-present. Whoop-dee-friggin'-doo... I left AO before they could 'reward' me with pixel presents.
Lemme fill you in on how SOE is rewarding their veterans:
You get a DEED for A SHIP. Not the ship itself, but a deed to one. This ship will not be craftable by anyone, and cannot be traded. Furthermore, it will not be all that useful as it is a 'luxury yacht'. With a single gun mount I believe... (my understanding of the ship details might not be spot-on).
But, HERE is the kicker (and man lemme tell you those marketing folks at SOE are friggin genious's):
You can't actually USE the deed to CREATE the ship, UNLESS YOU BUY THE NEW EXPANSION PACK due out later this year. Many months from now...
What a nice thing for SOE. I can hear it now: 'Hey there my Rodian SWG chum. Thanks for playing our relatively boring game, and for putting up with all the technical difficulties and flat-out assinine decisions we have made about priorities for bug-fixing, gameplay modifications, nerfs, etc. We certainly appreciate your business, and in a show of our gratitude, here is your VERY OWN SHIP! Of course, you cannot USE it. You can't really DO anything at all with it. But we will tie up an inventory slot and get you slavering for the new expansion. Oh, and by the way, you have to buy the new expansion when we release the bug-riddled thing later this year. Thank you for your patronage. Now keep paying your monthly fees and be sure to buy the new expansion pack so you can use the present we rewarded you with for being a fuggin' stoopid... err that is 'loyal' customer.'
What a joke. People from the top on down in that organization need to receive a collective bitch-slap.
- Zhirem
Take this post with a grain of salt, as Funcom and SOE have made me a bitter gamer...
I am intrigued here by the paralells shown between the history of Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.
When AO launched, it was the biggest debacle in an MMORPG to date. Almost a complete flop... Including submitted credit card info over an unsecured server among a great many other problems.
When SWG launched, the first day was a complete meltdown, and only those who downloaded/used Mozilla could actually succeed with getting through the game registration. From day 2 on, things improved. People were actually able to get into the game. Things were buggy as all get out, but at least you could be in the game.
In the early AO, one would run into tons of bugs and other broken parts of the system. One would submit a trouble ticket. Said ticket would go into a black hole, and you would never hear from a company representative.
In the early days of SWG, one would submit a trouble ticket, and have it filed into a similarly-constructed-yet-Star Wars-themed black hole...
In the early days of AO, they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with the debacle of the launch that occurred, the tone of the forums went decidedly ape-$hit. In response, AO took their forums private. Access only to paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what Funcom has to hide?". As a player at that time, they had a LOT to hide.
In the early days of SWG they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with a more-decent launch than AO, but with a product that significantly fell short on the promises made on the packaging of the game, as people starte to realize that the game really was not that much actual FUN, the tone of the boards turned decidedly ugly. SOE responded by making the forums private. Only paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what SOE has to hide?". As a player at that time, they also had a LOT to hide.
AO has sinced released a couple of expansions, fixed a lot of their problems, and seen meagre retention of their player base. Others who waded through the early problems have resolved to never play AO again. (count me among them, or ever play ANY Funcom product again). Now, AO has to give away a free time period to tempt people into even TRYING the game. I think however, that they did not attempt this tactic until well after a year's worth of the game being live.
SWG has since released a couple of updates that make good on the claims and promises they made back when the game was still in beta (vehicles, player cities, mounts, etc.). They have fixed a lot of problems, encountered many more, and seen a somewhat better than meagre retention of their player base. (however, I would love to hear some real figures from SOE about subscription levels. We have not in a loooong time, and this leads me to believe that they do NOT in fact, have very impressive numbers. Furthermore, they leapt to the free-trial quite early (out of necessity, I believe, to stop the hemhoraging playerbase).
The paralells are telling for me. Both games might very well be worth the effort of a player who is not familiar to take them up. It is my hunch however, that buyer's remorse will settle in not long after the initial coolness factor has worn off.
Every single one of my friends, (realword and virtual) have left these games never to return. We have simply been so burned by them and their companies that we will not even look at another product from the companies that offered us the gold-plated turds we received.
As for myself and many, many other MMORPG gamers, SOE will not likely see another dime from us, nor Funcom. Nor I would argue should they. The marketing departments forced games to go live that were not ready, and then did not allow for the technical staff to complete what they had rushed to release, or to stabilize incredibly shaky results.
I for one s
If you have never played the game, you may want to do so. There is, in fact, a lot of things to do in it for someone who has never experienced it. My word of caution to you would be: don't expect too much. The fun curve will level out and start to decline quite early on in your experience (YMMV of course).
What kills me about the one-year anniversary is the fact that: The Annum-Vets get a reward! Hoo-ray! And what is this nice thank you from the kind folks at SOE?
You get: a deed to a ship for when the expansion Jump to Lightspeed comes out. Translation: SOE is providing a carrot at the end of a string for you. Keep playing this (allegedly fun) game, and wait for the expansion to come out. But wait, there are a few stipulations to experiencing this 'gift'.
Keep paying the monthly fee until we feel that the expansion is buggy enough for release. AND you of course must purchase the expansion to actually REALIZE the gift...
What a marketing coup! The sheer genious of it!
Come on you fanbois and fangrlz: keep coughing up the change, banking on the fact that the expansion might actually bring FUN to the game... Just don't hold your breath.
The other interesting note from the timeline is that they at one point had 275k active subscribers. The article mentions that 'well-over 400k players have tried the game'. (translation: 400k people have played it, but that doesn't mean that they are still playing or even that they stuck around very long...). If SOE had better numbers they would state them.
Bottom line: Some folks will really like this game. It is also likely that their love-affair will be short-lived once the realization hits that the game just frankly is not very fun, and is a whole lot like work.
SOE will not be getting any more of my money. I too played AO for months from launch and unFuncom will not be seeing a red cent of mine either. Ever. Don't care how cool AO is now in comparision to where it was, and additionally don't care how cool SWG was/is/will be. SOE has lost many customers who feel either similar or exactly like I do.
The first poster had it right, this game had what was likely the greatest potential of any MMORPG to date. That potential has been squandered, and I have no faith that the people in charge or the devs can resurrect it.
- Zhirem
Thanks for the tip. Do not follow the BSD or even OS stuff that much, so was completely in the dark.
- Zhirem
I too find the accuracy of the chart to be suspect, but it is better data than I can find elsewhere.
As far as the 300k+ persistent world players from thin air for FFXI. Combination of two things: Japanese market and clients on both PC and console.
FFXI was released early in Japan ahead of North America's release I believe. (i could be wrong). But this is where some of the newer player numbers came from. I am not attributing all of them to it, but I am attributing many. The game is a huge success in Japan.
The SE Korean game Phantasy Star Online boasts somthing like 12 million subscribers or somesuch. But their metric for measuring their playerbase is skewed in comparison to the other MMORPG's mentioned in Bruce's chart. I think he has something in his notes about that.
- Zhirem
MMOG Analysis
I don't think that the numbers are statistically insignificant. And I do not think that it is the rare exception you consider it to be.
Here is the link to Sir Bruce's latest chart that I could find:
As you can see, there are some interesting details when one starts to look at the peaks and turning points and the coincidental timing/launch of new games/expansions.
The problem here is that the numbers are guesswork and the level of detail is confounding. The method of comparison is also not incredibly standardized. (i.e. global market vs. North American market, etc.).
What we really need is an in depth analysis on a monthly basis of the subscription levels. Or even better, how popuated various game worlds are by real players. Only the business element cares about subscriptions. (SWG seems to have north of 250k subscriptions. But they have recently gone to a 14-day free trial. Usually a sign of needing an infusion of new revenue in the way of short-term subscriptions...)
Of course we could not rely upon companies giving us real legitimate numbers. I would not believe any statistic provided by Funcom, nor many of the other game companies.
As far as audience cap. I think that that will be a soft number until the basis for analysis is agreed upon. What about console accounts? (FFXI for PS2, etc.). What about the silly subscription levels in South Korea for that one game that boasts the largest audience online for ANY game. Largely because of funky math having to do with multiple accounts based at an internet cafe or something like that... What about the kids growing older and wanting to get into a new game type. Or those in rural areas getting access to broadband connectivity...
There is money to be made, and there are games to be played. Everyone is waiting for the next big thing. I agree that a game cannot have a financial model based upon taking accounts from other games. But I would argue that a significant amount of this type of activity does in fact go on, and absolutely impacts the bottom line of a game.
- Zhirem
I respectfully disagree about the culling of users from one MMORPG to another. You make the argument in your post that UO did not take from M59. That might be true. But...
It has been my experience that some MMORPG players actively play more than one game. I believe that most however, only devote time to one game at a time. For many it is not the multiple monthly fees that they have going, rather the limited time that they have to devote to more than one character with more than one game.
I played Anarchy Online (AO) at the onset. It was the single largest debacle I had ever seen for a launch at that point. In fact, it was SO bad, that many people demanded refunds and some folks banded together for a class-action suit (though I am not certain what happened to that). I suffered through roughly a year of that game. Funcom offered not only the buggiest game on the market for that niche, but additionally had levels of customer service that set records for how NOT to treat your clients. It was as though they would calculate the most-public-relations-damaging options and green-light them. Truly amazing.
To this day, I will not allow a single copper penny from me to pass to them in any way shape or form. It does not matter how improved AO is today vs. at launch. It does not matter if Funcom releases the next generation, blow-your-mind, absolutely HAVE to play MMORPG. They will NEVER see another dime from me. The WHOLE company for ANY of their products.
The reason I mention AO, is that it offers an example of how NOT to do things. Sometimes I think that cannibalizing users from one game to another takes into account out-of-game or meta-game influences on the audiences. In this instance, DAOC got my money next.
Played DAOC for a while, but did not seem to enthralled by it. Was a good solid game, but just was not holding my attention.
Next was EoB. What a flop! Neat concept for a game, but in the end, about as exciting as watching paint dry. It has been cancelled and with good reason. It sucked and was no fun to play.
I would argue that some EoB players have migrated to EVE. Those that wanted to stay in the space game niche anyway.
But, I went to ShadowBane. Nifty concept, far more PvP oriented, but quite chaotic. In the space of a few months, the server that I played on had a single guild monopolize most of the geography, and bands of lesser guilds could not unseat them. Left that game because of the lack of forethought and planning from their devs. PvP is great, but if you have a guild that attacks a castle of the enemy at 4AM EST on a Tuesday morning, it is unlikely you will be able to summon much help to save it...
So, about this time SWG came out. Launch was initially a train wreck. Ghosts of AO crept in. Things cleared up and got better, but many many problems existed with such a significant MMORPG effort. Content was significantly lacking. Bugs were rife and flourishing. Many features promised for release were not in game. It would be months before the features would be added. The bugs (some dead, some flourishing) are still there. I played the game for nearly a year. It got better, but did not get fun. One day, I realized that 'Hey, this really isn't fun, and in fact, it is a whole lot like work.'
So then, CoH came out. I started to have fun again. Imagine that. Here is a game whose simplicity is as stark a contrast to SWG's complexity as you could get, yet in CoH I have many, many friends and acquaintences that are refugees from SWG and are having a good time and not looking back.
The whole point of this recounting is to say, again IMHO, that in fact, many players only play one of these games at a time. The connection to a character is strong, but not strong enough to prevent a player from trying a new game, especially if it addresses one or more concerns that a player has with their current game (i.e. SWG is not fun, and CoH is).
I believe that not many people play more than one of these games at a tim
Not certain what you are speaking about here. How can a game that has not been released and still has months of development left have any market share? Doesn't it have to be a product first? Or are you talking about 'buzz rating' or 'mind space'?
And what 'recent article' put EQ's marketshare at 80% of the MMORPG market?! I find that claim dubious.
Am I missing something here, or are you posting from the future?
- Zhirem
I would argue that the quoted statement is not a good assumption. Look at There and Second Life. Additionally, SWG for most of it's live lifespan has relied upon the players to create content.
I would argue that this approach is also doomed to failure. SWG is my only example as I have not played Second Life or There (but am to understand that these games are a build your own type of thing, a sandbox with legos if you will).
However, in SWG, because the majority of the content has not been incredibly well received, at one point the devs said the point of having such poor or limited content is that the devs wanted to rely upon the player base for building their own content. They just wanted to put together the best sandbox they could to promote such activity.
The reality: You have one or two servers where one or two Player Associations do engage in sandbox content creation. The problem is that there are FAR too few players willing to create the content. Many players do NOT view content creation as fun. I would argue that most do not. They are paying to play a game that someone has built and is providing for them. Not to put in 'work' creating things for the benefit of the community of players. Most believe that that is in fact what the devs should be doing.
(additionally, most players are so creatively challenged that they cannot even come up with an original name, let alone any type of original or compelling story, etc.)
Getting off on a rant and I had not intended to do that. So I will close with this:
If I am to create my own content, one had best give me the most user-friendly tools with which to do this, and incentive for doing so. If one does not, then one's game is bound to die a premature death.
I had thought that with the levels of complexity and 'balanced' systems would make SWG the end-all be-all of the MMORPG market. I was mistaken. It does provide quite a sandbox, but in the end, just really is not fun. SOE spent a WHOLE lot of money to have the end result being far more like work than like play.
Anyways, nice discussion. It has been a pleasure to follow along and watch it progress.
- Zhirem
Folks need to realize that this is all much ado about nothing. IMHO - it won't save the game. Played it myself since the launch (well day two since one could not get in day one). Was an interesting game with one major problem: it's not fun. Same AI on EVERY mob (from rat to rancor), completely whacked player economy, bumbling idiot dev team ('We don't like the Holocron mess anymore than you do...'), seriously erroding player-base, complete lack of class balance, bugs from early beta STILL not fixed, etc. etc. etc.
But I am quite certain that this crack team of talented devs will provide for the saving grace in this game that is to be the Space Expansion. After all, they did such a good job with the original game... Broken missions, missing content, worthless game systems, etc.
Try to envision the worst train wreck that SOE could release with the SWG: Space Expansion. Then don't worry. It won't be that bad.
It will be worse...
This game had more promise than any other I have ever played before. And the fact that said promise has been so thoroughly squandered and sabotaged... makes me ill.
It took them roughly 10 months (post-release) to try to affect decent changes to the most basic of Star Wars elements: droids. It is bad enough that we don't have ships yet. Did not have speeders or other ground transportation until roughly 5 to 6 months post-release. There is very little Star Wars about the game.
Save your money. Or don't, blow time and cash on this 'game' and then discover in several months that 'Hey, I am really not having very much fun.', dump the game and wonder why you bothered.
Go play CoH for fun if you actually want to enjoy your gaming experience.
Your mileage may vary, but I gave the game a half-year beyond the time when I should have bailed on it. Take my advice. Bail on it before you get into it. Go play KotOR. You'll thank me later.