EQ2, while also having similar issues also had poor gameplay design. Much of which was rushed or cut just to make the release date. If you read some of the early reviews you will see some pretty harsh criticisms of the game. Such as bland soleless world, more of the same, harsh grindy gameplay, boring crafting, uninspiring combat, etc. EQ2 was very unfinished in terms of gameplay testing and as a result spent the better part of the first few years overhauling bad choices and incomplete systems.
I could agree on EQ2's world being bland compared with EQ - I never felt EQ2 to be a true sequel in spirit of EQ - and SWG being released with lacking content although as SWG vets continually proved it apparently was a heck of a lof of fun in its heydays, but EQ2 having boring crafting? Sorry, you lost me there. If EQ2's elaborate crafting system is boring (which definitely wasn't the general opinion, I don't care that a handful of people of a whole mass of people might or might not have said it), then crafting in WoW, LotrO, EQ, Rift and Aion must be sheer torture, just to name a few.
Anyway, this is going a bit offtopic, so I'll just agree to disagree that EQ2 was regarded as a bad product. It wasn't as successful as WoW, but it wasn't a bad product neither. Not how it was regarded in general and not in my opinion.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
EQ2, while also having similar issues also had poor gameplay design. Much of which was rushed or cut just to make the release date. If you read some of the early reviews you will see some pretty harsh criticisms of the game. Such as bland soleless world, more of the same, harsh grindy gameplay, boring crafting, uninspiring combat, etc. EQ2 was very unfinished in terms of gameplay testing and as a result spent the better part of the first few years overhauling bad choices and incomplete systems.
I could agree on EQ2's world being bland compared with EQ - I never felt EQ2 to be a true sequel in spirit of EQ - and SWG being released with lacking content although as SWG vets continually proved it apparently was a heck of a lof of fun in its heydays, but EQ2 having boring crafting? Sorry, you lost me there. If EQ2's elaborate crafting system is boring (which definitely wasn't the general opinion, I don't care that a handful of people of a whole mass of people might or might not have said it), then crafting in WoW, LotrO, EQ, Rift and Aion must be sheer torture, just to name a few.
Anyway, this is going a bit offtopic, so I'll just agree to disagree that EQ2 was regarded as a bad product. It wasn't as successful as WoW, but it wasn't a bad product neither. Not how it was regarded in general and not in my opinion.
/offtopic.
We liked it because it was very sandbox'ish. Meaning you could do or be anything within the realm of the IP. Sadly this turned south upon the revamp. The biggest thing to date that people love about SWG was the housing system. This alone kept the game chugging along and became a collector game that it is today. Being able to organize your interior in any way you see fit made one able to come up with basicly any concept for an interior. Tons of screens out there on people that have done so, but in the end, this was definintly hands down SOE problem with LA just saying "Sure , sounds good"... Smedly double and trippled talked so much in that time he could never keep his own record streight. The recent hacking also just shows how that company won't invest dime one into anything and is just looking to bleed their user base dry till it's gone, from what I hear sense then, it is pretty much nill in the sub department. Heck I keep getting "promotional invites " to old SOE games I use to play weekly now, so I know they must be hurting, never got these many before.
/rant off
my two cents.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
I've written this a dozen times by now, once more won't hurt: it's time for some disgrunded SWG vets to let this issue go already and give it a rest. Bioware's SW MMO is obviously not the game they dreamed of. It's time for them to accept this and move on. No point in making meaningless posts leading up to futile debates.
Perhaps I should have said poor crafting. I personally found it very boring, but that doens't mean if EQ2 crafting was boring then every crafting system in every other game is boring. There is a very solid reason why SOE had to revamp the crafting system, much like every other major system in the game.
Of course EQ2 wasn't as successful as wow, but wow wasn't merging servers about a year after release, because of massive player dropoff. That is the case for EQ2 though. Clearly there was something very wrong with the game to go from jam packed servers to closing a large portion of the servers that quickly.
That isn't saying some people don't enjoy it, but most did not.
I've written this a dozen times by now, once more won't hurt: it's time for some disgrunded SWG vets to let this issue go already and give it a rest. Bioware's SW MMO is obviously not the game they dreamed of. It's time for them to accept this and move on. No point in making meaningless posts leading up to futile debates.
Couldn't agree more, first time for me even commenting on this topic in a very long time, I think 2 years now, but eh, seeing this show up here. Really suprising to be honest, anyone with half a brain knows how this stuff works in the industry... well ok, maybe he's a kid so my bad for the bash.
In any case, I look forward to SWTOR not because it has any relation to swg, heck if it did, I probably would run further the other way. I am looking forward to it , just because it's off the TOR lore and bioware is on it; thou bioware's dragon age 2 was a huge let down (beleieve because everyone is working on the finals for swtor.
To the end, I personally beleive it will be a great story based MMO with some MMO features like grouping, social interactions and guild formations with pvp, in the end to me , I look at this title like TOR on steroids, which is a great thing to me as I loved the single based games very much so.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
EQ2, while also having similar issues also had poor gameplay design. Much of which was rushed or cut just to make the release date. If you read some of the early reviews you will see some pretty harsh criticisms of the game. Such as bland soleless world, more of the same, harsh grindy gameplay, boring crafting, uninspiring combat, etc. EQ2 was very unfinished in terms of gameplay testing and as a result spent the better part of the first few years overhauling bad choices and incomplete systems.
I could agree on EQ2's world being bland compared with EQ - I never felt EQ2 to be a true sequel in spirit of EQ - and SWG being released with lacking content although as SWG vets continually proved it apparently was a heck of a lof of fun in its heydays, but EQ2 having boring crafting? Sorry, you lost me there. If EQ2's elaborate crafting system is boring (which definitely wasn't the general opinion, I don't care that a handful of people of a whole mass of people might or might not have said it), then crafting in WoW, LotrO, EQ, Rift and Aion must be sheer torture, just to name a few.
Anyway, this is going a bit offtopic, so I'll just agree to disagree that EQ2 was regarded as a bad product. It wasn't as successful as WoW, but it wasn't a bad product neither. Not how it was regarded in general and not in my opinion.
SW:ToR is going to be nothing more then Dragon Age with lightsabers online. Quite honestly, no NGE type things will not happen to ToR. People will be busy with an end game of having sex with a party member npc they swooned through game to worry about NGE and raids (gawd I hate RPGS these days).
Ya how dare rpgs these days actually have mature adult elements in them like love and sex, its just crazy, they should just be filled with pop culture jokes and random creatures slaughtering to magically produce items.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Why would anybody believe that LucasArts had anything to do with the game-breaking design decisions? Not only is it common knowledge that it was all SOE's decision, it's also proven by multiple sources including Wikipedia.
for something thats such common knowledge there sure arnt any links getting thrown out....
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I'd be happy for once if they released KOTOR and NGE'd it to be like the old SWG. Will never happen though.. I'm not that lucky and this game will be successful at launch.
George Lucas is too busy diving into an olympic swimming pool full of hundred dollar bills to bother trying to wreck this game.
Also from reading comments by Bioware's staff over the years it seems one of the big reasons they let KOTOR 2 go to Obsidian and instead made Jade Empire, was they were tired of fighting with the LA peanut gallery. This time around I'm pretty sure they drew a big line in the sand and told LA "back off monkey boy or we won't make your game."
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
While the Star Wars brand is pretty much still prominent in many gamers’ minds thanks to Star Wars – The Old Republic and Star Wars Kinect (Terminal Reality), LucasArts doesn’t share in any of those developments.
1 I'm not a SWG vet as the term gets used around here. I quit SWG before the first expansion, because the game was so broken, unfinished and mismanged. I was actually playing EQ2 when the NGE hit and ironically it was getting its own version of a combat upgrade at that very same time. Again angering and driving more customers away.
2 The quote about SWG bleeding 10k a month was in reference to the game before the combat upgrade. That same SOE dev went on to explain that the combat upgrade actually started growing the game again. The NGE was actually developed in secret during a time that SWG was growing again.
1. From my experience it wasn't even the bugs that drove most away, it was the speed in which actual new things to do were introduced, content was severly lacking in SWG. Mostly due to a lack of resources, that were instead devoted to fixes.
The one postive addition during the entirety of Pre-cu was JTL, I'd count the major patch in fall of 03, when they released Mounts and a bunch of major fixes. That stuff should have been done at launch though.
2. After the CU there was a spike, which again went into steady decline prior to NGE, mostly again due to no new content outside of ROTW a paid expansion. ALl resourses were again devoted to 100% bug fixing mode. Which they usually broke more than they could fix.
I blame all of this on lack of sound management, not the actual development team. Those guys were responsible for many great additions to the MMO space, it was the monkeys in charge that didn't give them a chance at a steady stream of this, I'd say in large part most likely due to a lack of resources given.
In short LA was the least of SWG's problems, it was the resources it was given by SOE. Who were too busy biting off more than they could chew. Constaly worried about what's down the line and who has what, never worried enough about what they had or the services they were providing.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
1. Star Wars Galaxies was released at least 6 months too early. This was 100% Lucas Art's decision as the publisher of SWG. This is not speculation as most things NGE are, this is fact.
a) Most MMOs are. It sucks, hopefully they don't do it this time, but most MMOs are.
2. Lucas Arts did a terrible job of marketing SWG. This looks to be a non issue as less advertisibng is even needed these days, but they are getting SWTOR out there. will they continue to do it after launch?
b) SWG was marketed all over creation and they even did jokes about it on Leno. Where were you?
3. Lucas Arts handcuffs SoE's development. Every last thing SoE wants to do they need to get approval from SWG. Even for bug fixes and such.
c) They own the franchise, get over it.
d) It's a good thing they did. They at least slowed SOE down from fucking up the game completely for a few years so it was enjoyable.
4. This goes big with #3. We dont know for sure how much of the NGE LA demanded. As much as the signs point tot hem at the very least beign responsible for the 'iconic classes', we dont know for sure. We do know this: LUCAS ARTS APPROVED THE NGE. They let it go in immediately after an expansion. they did not inform the customers it was coming. All the petty things that LA denied SoE over the years but this they allow?
e) Bullshit. SOE described exactly how the NGE was developed and approved. They test marketed to a bunch of kids that nobody knew and never spoke to the people who were playing SWG at the time. Lucasarts listened to them when they said they would make more money on the NGE. That was Lucasarts mistake, listening to SOE.
Now its doubtful that SWTOR would need to be NGE'd, but Lucas Arts was very impatient last time. If this game doesnt have good retention will they panic again? I think the game will do well so a lot of this will be moot, but anyone who isnt at least a bit skeptical is nuts.
god i hope they actually dont listen to the whiners QQing and saying the game is soo hard then they would have to make a NGE crap and screw it up like SWG. But at least there is one good thing there is no sign of $OE in SWTOR.
My hopes aren't high for SWTOR just having seen a plethora of in game footage which screamed mediocre, but then again the whole radial storyline seemed very interesting. I thought SWG was the best MMO till NGE, player cities were and still are my favorite thing in any mmo I've played to date.
In regards to everything you said above I agree. Almost every major problem SOE has comes from up top and crashes downhill on the employees. SWG couldn't maintain design focus for more than a few weeks with the devs being pushed one way, then another and then back again. It was very frustrating and honestly the reason why I left when I did. It was clear SOE had no idea what they were doing or where they were going to take the game. To be fair though, from what I have heard and read, that is exactly the culture at SOE. Small little groups of people all infighting and pushing for their ideas to take center stage.
You can see the same things in other SOE games like EQ2, FR and right now in DCU. That is why I don't put much stock in posts like this that try to put Lucas Arts or some other company as the root of SOEs problems. Considering Lucas Arts/Bioware have already teamed up for an awesome game and SOE has managed to find failure on their own, with a partner, publishing or simply buying an existing mmo. I think it shows pretty clearly where the problems came from and how little bioware has to fear from Lucas Arts repeating any mistakes made in SWG.
The question is can Bioware make the jump from single player story games to mmos. I hope so.
Here we go again. Another disgruntled whoever, that still thinks LA was responsible for what happened to SWG, when there's pure 100% evidence and proof that SOE screwed that game up from the beginning as well as the debacle known as the NGE.
Link your proof that the early release was SoE's decision and that SoE was behind anything in the NGE other than the fast combat system (might as well link proof that it was SoE's decision to ask for a change to the combat sytem too)
Youd have to be pretty dense to think LA didnt play a huge role in the NGE.
The problem with your arguement here teakbois, is the you can not prove your point either. Also it is the Developer that says "It's not quite done, but we can fix that after release." not the publisher. If you have the two working together as a good team, then you don't have to worry about it much. The "Proof" to musicmann's post comes in the long series of mistakes that SOE has been a part of, SWG being just three of them. Yet look as all the games that LA has been involved in . . . personally I think that record is pretty good myself.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I think it shows pretty clearly where the problems came from and how little bioware has to fear from Lucas Arts repeating any mistakes made in SWG.
The question is can Bioware make the jump from single player story games to mmos. I hope so.
There would be one major reason why regardless of how well TOR does, its live service will always be a better experience than SWG had. Bioware from the ground up actually has a passion to do well on the gaming end of the business .
All SOE has ever been concerned with was monetary gains, and of course keeping up false appearances. Such as they are a market leader in the industry. To be so you would need to have quality products. Quality over quantity is not an idea they embrace.
Edit again- Just think for one moment, if SOE had focused even half of the attention they had focused on fillling out some extensive game library; on making SWG the best game it could possibly be. At a time early enough, to plug the many holes it leaked players from.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
1. Star Wars Galaxies was released at least 6 months too early. This was 100% Lucas Art's decision as the publisher of SWG. This is not speculation as most things NGE are, this is fact.
The first 6 months of SWG was the best part fo the game.. it was an amazing time and some of the best memories of an MMORPG i have so i really ahve no idea what your talking about there.
2. Lucas Arts did a terrible job of marketing SWG. This looks to be a non issue as less advertisibng is even needed these days, but they are getting SWTOR out there. will they continue to do it after launch?
Not really on release SWG sold many many copies and the servers where highly populated for a very long time, nutil SOE started messing with things.
3. Lucas Arts handcuffs SoE's development. Every last thing SoE wants to do they need to get approval from SWG. Even for bug fixes and such.
This was a good thing really to try and stay true to what Star Wars was but somehow SOE started to get things passed that was just stupid. LA where stupid for letting them do this.
4. This goes big with #3. We dont know for sure how much of the NGE LA demanded. As much as the signs point tot hem at the very least beign responsible for the 'iconic classes', we dont know for sure. We do know this: LUCAS ARTS APPROVED THE NGE. They let it go in immediately after an expansion. they did not inform the customers it was coming. All the petty things that LA denied SoE over the years but this they allow?
IT was probally a bad mix of SOE pushing LA and LA actually letting them do it.
Now its doubtful that SWTOR would need to be NGE'd, but Lucas Arts was very impatient last time. If this game doesnt have good retention will they panic again? I think the game will do well so a lot of this will be moot, but anyone who isnt at least a bit skeptical is nuts.
SWTOR is probally already NGE'd lol but we will have to wait and see.
Regarding SWG - As many have already stated the OP has no clue what went on in SWG development. IT was SOE who made the design decision of the CU AND the NGE. If you want proof go and read the posts and blog of Dundee (Freeman) he himself claimed that the NGE was the worst SOE decision ever. LA asked SOE to change the game because the numbers were falling and WoW was soo succesful. We also know the reason why the NGE was soo bad. The SOE developers designed the NGE by NOT talking to ANY players. They created a game THEY would like. Julio torres for example said he HATED the old crafting and social system so for him it was natural to simplify it. I myself talked to SWG devs at the GamesConvention in 2005 and 2006 and was on the summits. Believe me they knew they screwed up. All your asking for proof is soo god damn annoying because the very "facts" you state are result of bad research on the topic. The info is out there. And its on the blogs of people like Koster, Freeman, Torres. If you dont even know these names and their relation to SWG you better shut up and troll elsewhere - now go and make your homework - then come back and say "Sorry, you were right."
Regarding SWTOR - I think it will be the best Coop Game ever. I am also conviced it will be a good overall game experience - for the 8 weeks that it will take to play through it. After that i will just move on to the next game. It is a bioware game and they are known for delivering excelent sotry driven iconic games. But after interviewing the guys from LA/EA & Bioware at GamesConvention in 2009 and 2010, i am VERY sure that this game will have no EndGameContent that there will be no long time motivation. I dont expect it either. Oh and BTW i already played SWTOR so i think i know what i am talking about. The design of SWTOR is a core of story, voiceover, player colaboration and themepark. And i am sure it will top in all of these cores.
But there is no design for any kind of self sustaining end content. So thats why i say SWTOR will be a good Coop game, but when compared to classical MMORPGs i think it will lack many thinks. - Thats okay for me, i dont expect them and i am sure i will like SWTOR for the limited time i am playing through it.
Regarding SWG - As many have already stated the OP has no clue what went on in SWG development. IT was SOE who made the design decision of the CU AND the NGE. If you want proof go and read the posts and blog of Dundee (Freeman) he himself claimed that the NGE was the worst SOE decision ever. LA asked SOE to change the game because the numbers were falling and WoW was soo succesful. We also know the reason why the NGE was soo bad. The SOE developers designed the NGE by NOT talking to ANY players. They created a game THEY would like. Julio torres for example said he HATED the old crafting and social system so for him it was natural to simplify it. I myself talked to SWG devs at the GamesConvention in 2005 and 2006 and was on the summits. Believe me they knew they screwed up. All your asking for proof is soo god damn annoying because the very "facts" you state are result of bad research on the topic. The info is out there. And its on the blogs of people like Koster, Freeman, Torres. If you dont even know these names and their relation to SWG you better shut up and troll elsewhere - now go and make your homework - then come back and say "Sorry, you were right."
Regarding SWTOR - I think it will be the best Coop Game ever. I am also conviced it will be a good overall game experience - for the 8 weeks that it will take to play through it. After that i will just move on to the next game. It is a bioware game and they are known for delivering excelent sotry driven iconic games. But after interviewing the guys from LA/EA & Bioware at GamesConvention in 2009 and 2010, i am VERY sure that this game will have no EndGameContent that there will be no long time motivation. I dont expect it either. Oh and BTW i already played SWTOR so i think i know what i am talking about. The design of SWTOR is a core of story, voiceover, player colaboration and themepark. And i am sure it will top in all of these cores.
But there is no design for any kind of self sustaining end content. So thats why i say SWTOR will be a good Coop game, but when compared to classical MMORPGs i think it will lack many thinks. - Thats okay for me, i dont expect them and i am sure i will like SWTOR for the limited time i am playing through it.
i agree on most everything regarding SW;ToR except for the end-game stuff.
They already announced some form of open world PvP, instance PvP, end game flashpoints, end-game raiding (which they call operations). So there is some end-game content. Not sure if it will be enough but there is still stuff to keep people around after max level and the story is "over".
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
I could agree on EQ2's world being bland compared with EQ - I never felt EQ2 to be a true sequel in spirit of EQ - and SWG being released with lacking content although as SWG vets continually proved it apparently was a heck of a lof of fun in its heydays, but EQ2 having boring crafting? Sorry, you lost me there. If EQ2's elaborate crafting system is boring (which definitely wasn't the general opinion, I don't care that a handful of people of a whole mass of people might or might not have said it), then crafting in WoW, LotrO, EQ, Rift and Aion must be sheer torture, just to name a few.
Anyway, this is going a bit offtopic, so I'll just agree to disagree that EQ2 was regarded as a bad product. It wasn't as successful as WoW, but it wasn't a bad product neither. Not how it was regarded in general and not in my opinion.
/offtopic.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
We liked it because it was very sandbox'ish. Meaning you could do or be anything within the realm of the IP. Sadly this turned south upon the revamp. The biggest thing to date that people love about SWG was the housing system. This alone kept the game chugging along and became a collector game that it is today. Being able to organize your interior in any way you see fit made one able to come up with basicly any concept for an interior. Tons of screens out there on people that have done so, but in the end, this was definintly hands down SOE problem with LA just saying "Sure , sounds good"... Smedly double and trippled talked so much in that time he could never keep his own record streight. The recent hacking also just shows how that company won't invest dime one into anything and is just looking to bleed their user base dry till it's gone, from what I hear sense then, it is pretty much nill in the sub department. Heck I keep getting "promotional invites " to old SOE games I use to play weekly now, so I know they must be hurting, never got these many before.
/rant off
my two cents.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
I've written this a dozen times by now, once more won't hurt: it's time for some disgrunded SWG vets to let this issue go already and give it a rest. Bioware's SW MMO is obviously not the game they dreamed of. It's time for them to accept this and move on. No point in making meaningless posts leading up to futile debates.
Perhaps I should have said poor crafting. I personally found it very boring, but that doens't mean if EQ2 crafting was boring then every crafting system in every other game is boring. There is a very solid reason why SOE had to revamp the crafting system, much like every other major system in the game.
Of course EQ2 wasn't as successful as wow, but wow wasn't merging servers about a year after release, because of massive player dropoff. That is the case for EQ2 though. Clearly there was something very wrong with the game to go from jam packed servers to closing a large portion of the servers that quickly.
That isn't saying some people don't enjoy it, but most did not.
Couldn't agree more, first time for me even commenting on this topic in a very long time, I think 2 years now, but eh, seeing this show up here. Really suprising to be honest, anyone with half a brain knows how this stuff works in the industry... well ok, maybe he's a kid so my bad for the bash.
In any case, I look forward to SWTOR not because it has any relation to swg, heck if it did, I probably would run further the other way. I am looking forward to it , just because it's off the TOR lore and bioware is on it; thou bioware's dragon age 2 was a huge let down (beleieve because everyone is working on the finals for swtor.
To the end, I personally beleive it will be a great story based MMO with some MMO features like grouping, social interactions and guild formations with pvp, in the end to me , I look at this title like TOR on steroids, which is a great thing to me
as I loved the single based games very much so.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
Maybe I missed something, but I don't think this is a discussion of Bioware not making SWG 2.0 and people upset it isn't a sandbox.
SWG crafting > Eq2 crafting by far!
Ya how dare rpgs these days actually have mature adult elements in them like love and sex, its just crazy, they should just be filled with pop culture jokes and random creatures slaughtering to magically produce items.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
for something thats such common knowledge there sure arnt any links getting thrown out....
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I'd be happy for once if they released KOTOR and NGE'd it to be like the old SWG. Will never happen though.. I'm not that lucky and this game will be successful at launch.
George Lucas is too busy diving into an olympic swimming pool full of hundred dollar bills to bother trying to wreck this game.
Also from reading comments by Bioware's staff over the years it seems one of the big reasons they let KOTOR 2 go to Obsidian and instead made Jade Empire, was they were tired of fighting with the LA peanut gallery. This time around I'm pretty sure they drew a big line in the sand and told LA "back off monkey boy or we won't make your game."
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
saw this a little awhile ago:
http://www.gamebandits.com/news/pc/star-wars-the-old-republic-lucasarts-team-frustrated-with-its-own-efforts-06640/
While the Star Wars brand is pretty much still prominent in many gamers’ minds thanks to Star Wars – The Old Republic and Star Wars Kinect (Terminal Reality), LucasArts doesn’t share in any of those developments.
take from it what you will
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
1. From my experience it wasn't even the bugs that drove most away, it was the speed in which actual new things to do were introduced, content was severly lacking in SWG. Mostly due to a lack of resources, that were instead devoted to fixes.
The one postive addition during the entirety of Pre-cu was JTL, I'd count the major patch in fall of 03, when they released Mounts and a bunch of major fixes. That stuff should have been done at launch though.
2. After the CU there was a spike, which again went into steady decline prior to NGE, mostly again due to no new content outside of ROTW a paid expansion. ALl resourses were again devoted to 100% bug fixing mode. Which they usually broke more than they could fix.
I blame all of this on lack of sound management, not the actual development team. Those guys were responsible for many great additions to the MMO space, it was the monkeys in charge that didn't give them a chance at a steady stream of this, I'd say in large part most likely due to a lack of resources given.
In short LA was the least of SWG's problems, it was the resources it was given by SOE. Who were too busy biting off more than they could chew. Constaly worried about what's down the line and who has what, never worried enough about what they had or the services they were providing.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
god i hope they actually dont listen to the whiners QQing and saying the game is soo hard then they would have to make a NGE crap and screw it up like SWG. But at least there is one good thing there is no sign of $OE in SWTOR.
My hopes aren't high for SWTOR just having seen a plethora of in game footage which screamed mediocre, but then again the whole radial storyline seemed very interesting. I thought SWG was the best MMO till NGE, player cities were and still are my favorite thing in any mmo I've played to date.
@malickie
In regards to everything you said above I agree. Almost every major problem SOE has comes from up top and crashes downhill on the employees. SWG couldn't maintain design focus for more than a few weeks with the devs being pushed one way, then another and then back again. It was very frustrating and honestly the reason why I left when I did. It was clear SOE had no idea what they were doing or where they were going to take the game. To be fair though, from what I have heard and read, that is exactly the culture at SOE. Small little groups of people all infighting and pushing for their ideas to take center stage.
You can see the same things in other SOE games like EQ2, FR and right now in DCU. That is why I don't put much stock in posts like this that try to put Lucas Arts or some other company as the root of SOEs problems. Considering Lucas Arts/Bioware have already teamed up for an awesome game and SOE has managed to find failure on their own, with a partner, publishing or simply buying an existing mmo. I think it shows pretty clearly where the problems came from and how little bioware has to fear from Lucas Arts repeating any mistakes made in SWG.
The question is can Bioware make the jump from single player story games to mmos. I hope so.
The problem with your arguement here teakbois, is the you can not prove your point either. Also it is the Developer that says "It's not quite done, but we can fix that after release." not the publisher. If you have the two working together as a good team, then you don't have to worry about it much. The "Proof" to musicmann's post comes in the long series of mistakes that SOE has been a part of, SWG being just three of them. Yet look as all the games that LA has been involved in . . . personally I think that record is pretty good myself.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
There would be one major reason why regardless of how well TOR does, its live service will always be a better experience than SWG had. Bioware from the ground up actually has a passion to do well on the gaming end of the business .
All SOE has ever been concerned with was monetary gains, and of course keeping up false appearances. Such as they are a market leader in the industry. To be so you would need to have quality products. Quality over quantity is not an idea they embrace.
Edit again- Just think for one moment, if SOE had focused even half of the attention they had focused on fillling out some extensive game library; on making SWG the best game it could possibly be. At a time early enough, to plug the many holes it leaked players from.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yes they will. It will be terribad.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Regarding SWG - As many have already stated the OP has no clue what went on in SWG development. IT was SOE who made the design decision of the CU AND the NGE. If you want proof go and read the posts and blog of Dundee (Freeman) he himself claimed that the NGE was the worst SOE decision ever. LA asked SOE to change the game because the numbers were falling and WoW was soo succesful. We also know the reason why the NGE was soo bad. The SOE developers designed the NGE by NOT talking to ANY players. They created a game THEY would like. Julio torres for example said he HATED the old crafting and social system so for him it was natural to simplify it. I myself talked to SWG devs at the GamesConvention in 2005 and 2006 and was on the summits. Believe me they knew they screwed up. All your asking for proof is soo god damn annoying because the very "facts" you state are result of bad research on the topic. The info is out there. And its on the blogs of people like Koster, Freeman, Torres. If you dont even know these names and their relation to SWG you better shut up and troll elsewhere - now go and make your homework - then come back and say "Sorry, you were right."
Regarding SWTOR - I think it will be the best Coop Game ever. I am also conviced it will be a good overall game experience - for the 8 weeks that it will take to play through it. After that i will just move on to the next game. It is a bioware game and they are known for delivering excelent sotry driven iconic games. But after interviewing the guys from LA/EA & Bioware at GamesConvention in 2009 and 2010, i am VERY sure that this game will have no EndGameContent that there will be no long time motivation. I dont expect it either. Oh and BTW i already played SWTOR so i think i know what i am talking about. The design of SWTOR is a core of story, voiceover, player colaboration and themepark. And i am sure it will top in all of these cores.
But there is no design for any kind of self sustaining end content. So thats why i say SWTOR will be a good Coop game, but when compared to classical MMORPGs i think it will lack many thinks. - Thats okay for me, i dont expect them and i am sure i will like SWTOR for the limited time i am playing through it.
I'm sorry but "thats a fact" ..let me guess you got all your info from the internet and duh thats never wrong. haha thats a fact
Sorry but come on you can do better than "I say so ..so its a fact"
i agree on most everything regarding SW;ToR except for the end-game stuff.
They already announced some form of open world PvP, instance PvP, end game flashpoints, end-game raiding (which they call operations). So there is some end-game content. Not sure if it will be enough but there is still stuff to keep people around after max level and the story is "over".
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.