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So why hasn't SWG bounced back... honestly.
Bob_Blawblaw
Member Posts: 1,278
After reading this post (thanks Kaz for bringing it to my attention) on the Oboards, claiming that SWG is suffering due to a smear campaign by 'disgruntled vets', it really begs the discussion, who is responsible for keeping people out of the game?
The angry vets?
Or simply a crappy game?
Or both?
I think the implications are pretty interesting.
For myself, being an 'angry vet' who's posted my disdain for SOE and the current iteration of SWG, my ego would love for me to be a participant in the downfall of SWG. Although reality may be a bit different.
Sure, word of mouth has initially caused ALOT of damage to SWG upon NGE day, but in the last few years, the serious hatred posts have died out considerably, and honestly, I have a hard time believing the small handful of us 'vocal minority' are still keeping the masses at bay... so why hasn't SWG bounced back?
Addendum: adding a poll, and another option... 'the NGE community'
Comments
Plenty of people hate WoW, it seems to do pretty well with subs.
People make up their own minds about products/services--all being vocal does is give it more attention, so more people try it and find out for themselves.
Apply lemon juice and candle flame here to reveal secret message.
The game has a Bad Name now. I have talked to people that I know they have not played the game by what they are talking about. They still have bad things to say about SWG. People hear or read people complaining about a game and then repeat that as if it is a game they have played. Word of mouth is very very strong. Even when it comes from people that have no idea what that are talking about. I feel sad about SWG. I have come back to SWG on and off sence the game came out and it is a fun game.
Word gets around and the word has been spread very well. There are a lot of Star Wars fans out there and a lot of them were looking forward to this and a lot of them are still angry. It will be a boil on the ass of this genre for years to come, even after it's shut down.
1 cup of SOE giving an existing customer base the middle finger
1 cup of taking a unique character progression system and making it closer to more of the same
2/3 cup of word of mouth
1 1/3 cup of many gamers having the memory of elephants and the tenacity of tigers
For someone to suggest it is a "smear campaign" only speaks to their ignorance on various levels. The actions of SOE are the cause of what they are getting gamer community wise today. They are "owed" a clean slate just as much as their former customers are "owed" classic servers.
I find it funny that they (SOE) and some "fans" of them are now crying that they deserve such a tabula rasa and they expect that it should be given them yet they will extend no such courtesy with the above mentioned classic server. It's SOE's right to take a customer be damned approach with their games. It is their game, afterall. That said, the opinions of their practices are the domain of their customers, past and present. SOE has not right to submit demands on those opinions because of them, if they are, causing financial distress to their product. Instead they should try changing their business approaches and take some "good faith" actions if they want to rid themselves of this laughably perceived "smear campaign".
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
too true
the game wasnt crap it is now enough said. Don't change whole damn games. I still find it hard to believe that they had this idea for NGE anyway..........
all memories now and enjoy those i shall
I think their greatest failure was in thinking the customer was expendable.
If you have a business and regular customers, even if you are not the biggest success story on the block, you focus on what makes you unique and play to your strengths. You can then build on those strengths, adding new things that will interest the veterans while drawing in a new crowd.
But SOE took another route. Instead of investing the subscription fees they recieved from players toward improving the game, they used the money to buid a secret version of the game, one that would fundamentally change how the game was played. They lied to the community many times, and when people voted with their wallets they simply shrugged nonchallantly and said they would get new customers. This has given SWG a bad reputation.
It would be great if the word of mouth was what was killing the game, as it would mean we, as customers, could wield power beyond canceling our accounts. Sadly, the major reason SWG has such a small playerbase is because the game is horrible and unfun. The Star Wars IP is keeping the game on life support, as no matter how bad a Star Wars game is, there are people who will buy it because it is Star Wars. The game is a broken mishmash of systems taken from games of much higher quality and implemented in the worst way possible.
SOE needs to own its failure and the fanbois need to stop blaming SOEs failure on the vets.
You definitely described one of the major reasons why I personally will have no part of a SOE title, but I left that option out of the pole/question on purpose.
I suppose what I wanted to really get at is why did these so called millions of players never materialize, and why to this day, does SOE have a hard time attracting players? The MMORPG market is expanding exponentially every year thanks to WoW (etc etc), which should translate to new players who have no known connection to or grievance against SOE. MANY of those are likely Star Wars fans to some degree.
Like somebody posted earlier, Blizzard has it's share of haters as well, yet continues to gain buttloads of new subscribers everyday. Why can't SOE?
Could it be that EVERY ONE of those newbie MMO players come through the mmorpg.com disgruntled vet forums before shelling out cash to SOE?
OR, as somebody has mentioned earlier, have they all tried it already... and the game is just not good.
/HanSolo "It's not My Fault!"
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Kinda late to this. But I picked "All of the above"
The Disgruntled Vets - Sure thing! Either through forums (official or not) and of course in other MMO in-game chats. A great example is MMO discussions while in the game. When people talk about bad MMOs, SWG frequently is brought up. The funny thing is that there's a bit of "... it was good up until they ________."
Current Community - Not so much the current players themselves. It's just that SOE destroyed the once far larger, very active player community that used to exist. The CU killed a noticeable amount, but the NGE hit the playerbase like a dinosaur-killing asteroid. LOTS of trust was lost. Let's say SOE *somehow, someway* implements Pre-CU servers with newest content adjusted for the original system. How many would actually come back from that old playerbase? Not me. Burned me good already years back, and not forking over money to get screwed again by that same company.
The game itself being crappy - CU implementation left alot to be desired and was not what I thought it'd be. But the NGE made the game inferior in so many different ways. By design and intent.
And as for the link provided earlier from someone about the o-board post blaming the players that left... please, WE didn't implement the horrible NGE. WE didn't want a stripped down, dumbed down game. WE did not betray the trust. WE did not see our community as expendable to chase some other magical, larger, non-existent playerbase. And WE did not feel like sticking around a wrecked MMO and still PAY for it.
SOE did all that, not us. We just left when those monkeys ran the ship into a huge iceberg... on purpose, and told us to like it or leave.
I can go on and on about SOE, but I also know Lucasarts had a hand in this. I can go on about LA also, since those worthless monkeys have been inept since 1999.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
In a word, SONY. I don't trust them.
It is a combination of factors, in varying and changing degrees.
At first, disgruntled vets, reacting to a seriously poor plan and even poorer execution, raised enough ruckus to be heard by the national media. That was unthinkable at the time and certainly took SOE and LA by surprise. Their suits were in full damage control mode for months. We let the gamng community know very clearly what was done to us and what we felt about it and it looked very bad on SOE/LA. Very. Bad. Whether they had valid reasons for the NGE was completely immaterial; they could not shake the appearance of being a couple of greedy companies dissing existing paying customers in hopes of gaining even more moola. Other gamers were left to ponder what might happen to them and their efforts in-game should they trust this team. Certainly, that granted some percentage of the prospective playerbase pause.
While the game has arguably improved, it started off in such terrible condition after the NGE that by the time it got to a playable state (again, arguably) interest had waned. Eventually, the vet cries morphed into so much noise. In fact, I have anecdotal evidence that perceived vet "whining" had pushed some gamers to try SWG. But the current game could not hold against other offerings, even to those gamers who have no idea what SWG once was. There are simply better games at the same price point. As many have said, the game itself is its own example why not to play.
In my few efforts back at SWG, I have not found much "community" to speak of. That may not be a fair assessment, as my longest stretch since NGE was one month, but I have not found anything close to even the player community you could find on WoW. If that's a negative, I cannot say. Certainly isn't a plus.
In its efforts to fix what they've screwed up, they've spent most their resources rebuilding the game instead of improving on what was already there. Meanwhile, other MMO's have been improving their game and are now light years ahead in gameplay, content, and quality.
SWG is a hybrid 3ps with a Neverwinter Nights type gaming engine, and the effect is disastrous. It will never work so well as a game that has the right engine for the right gameplay.
SWG provides an experience that barely competes with ftp games, let alone ptp. Thus, its main demographic is people who can't get enough of Star Wars, but don't like MMO's enough to try anything else. And even those people it craps on by raping the continuity of the IP.
I have no real veteran anger. I'm not one of those folks that looks back fondly with rose colored glasses at pre-cu SWG. But the gaming engine worked correctly for it's own gameplay, which automatically makes it a better game than it is, today. And no amount of legacy quests or phat loot is going to help a game that's "not comfortable in its own skin(engine)".
I have been coming to this site for some time, and i think this is the first time i ever posted anything. I played swg for sometime, never a vet, but not a noob either, i think the game was fun which is why i came back to it time and time again. The problem for me was that the graphical errors made it almost unplayable, like shooting something, then it shows its dead, but the thing is still standing there, cant loot or anything, or some other cases showed the thing standing there "dead" then all of a sudden 15-20 seconds later it falls over, then you can loot. Another issue i had was at the beginning when you are on the station when you take the shuttle to the planet, a lot of times it would just leave me in the middle of space not able to move or anything else. So for me that is why swg has failed (coming from a casual player).
edit: nope see there second post ever!
This. Well said Warmaker.
Word of mouth is a strong consumer tool. Don't balme the consumer for a faulty, substandard product/service. A bad reputation is earned and it takes effort to repair it - something $OE apparently has no interest in doing.
WoW also has huge marketing campaigns.
Word of mouth, especially from other consumers is a huge tool whether in favor or against an item or idea.
This thread is probably one of the more valid and interesting reads I have seen here in a long while. The point about WoW's subs versus the amount of hate and complaints is a ringer. I know a nearly equal amount of people who love the game to the amount that hate it. Forums constantly are filled with venom about the direction of the game. Yet, 12 million and climbing.
The point about SOE's biggest sin is one of my personal mantras. The people who paid and were loyal were treated like they were expendable. I could metaphor it all day but it wouldn't matter - it comes down to real subscription base versus an imaginary one. NGE can be spun all day long but it comes down to the fact that they wanted WoW numbers (not a sin per se) but sacrificed a healthy community to do it (there is your sin). Like stated earlier - money that was paid in good faith by people thinking that it was going towards future content and towards the advancement of their profession (/ranger salute) was wasted on an overhaul nobody wanted or asked for. The cries across the forums were for content, bug fixing and balance - not for a game replacement with no chance of opting for an alternative.
To show just how messed up the NGE was and how "to hell with the client" SOE was - they didn't even offer a single classic server when they brought the NGE online. You know, I would wager that the sub rates would have been quite respectable on that server and forced SOE's hand into adding more and then making NGE the minority.
Anyway, to respond to the whole "disgruntled vet" conspiracy - that is a cop out. Blaming the failure of a contraversial and lesser product on the people who would have simply preferred a choice is shortsighted and obtuse.
QFE!!!
Blaming the "vets"? Are you **edit**ing kidding me?!?!?!!!! 1st...I have yet to see these "angry hoards" they think are out there. Are there upset players/former players? Sure, but the number is FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR lower than on some forums. Holy crap...go read the Modern Warfare 2 PC page once - THOSE are some PO'd people.
I love it though...typical...rather than SoE or the fanboi's accepting that SOE is the ONLY one to blame for the state of the game, they try to blame others.
I highly encourage anyone that hasn't replied to this thread that Irish started, to please add to it. THESE are the "PO'd" vets. Geezus...read what they say!!! They don't hate SWG...in fact, most AGREE that it was the greatest MMO of ALL TIME!!! There's VERY little bitterness in those replies...VERY LITTLE! Yet those are the people who are responsible for SWG's demise?!?! Get a clue.
The game's graphics are h o r r i b l e.
And yes, while graphics don't make the game bad graphics ruin the game.
The SWG as is today, is just bad quality. Last time I played, last year sometime, I think, the combat still looked and felt glitchy. Animations are still horrible, you actually have to download MODS to fix what SOE messed up, including the interface that looks like a 10-year old designed it. Players (how small the population is) and NPCs run around like they're on crack which helps to further ruin immersion.
It isn't the ones bad-talking the game that's been hurting it all this time, afterall like what some of us have been saying WoW has been bad-talked for a while and it's still doing the best in terms of subs. There's one thing I can say for Blizzard though and that's they actually listen for the most part, unlike SOE when they stuck their fingers in their ears when they sprang the crap they called the NGE on us and didn't listen. Closing down any post that was against them basically causing the meltdown that's been killing the game slowly ever since November 15, 2005.
The problem is SOE.
Some great responses already. I agree with it being a combination of quality issues and throwing players under the bus. Of course people are going to discuss this on MMO dicussion forums, so word of mouth probably plays some role. Imo, horrible management of the game and its customers led to bad word of mouth though, not the other way around.
I also want to add that in spite of all the problems in the past, I consider returning to SWG. Why? Because I love StarWars, MMOs and the MMO gaming community.
Here's what stops me: I usually don't have long to wait before SOE seems to give the finger to their players yet again. I'll list just a few examples that have come to light long after the NGE.
-Adding RMT, game-changing loot to games like Everquest, after saying that they were against doing this,
-Adding RMT to SWG at the expense of crafters and content that would otherwise be included in the subscription fee,
-Making game-changing loot available for SWG via the card game, and encouraging people to pay real cash for only a random chance to win it,
-Running their TCG game tournaments in such a manner that they were banned in numerous states (requiring an entry fee for a random chance of winning prizes),
-Completely changing the business model for Free Realms, after the game went live,
-What I see as continuing abuses of power in the moderation of their forums (welcome to the refuge nonetheless Tux).
These are just a few examples. All of them lead me to the following conclusion: If I play an SOE game, it's probably going to be changed out from under me, I probably won't like the changes, the changes won't be for the players' benefit, and I'm likely to be treated poorly from a business and customer relations standpoint. Does that sound like an enjoyable online gaming experience, or an entertainment service that I would be willing to pay for? Lol, not bloody likely.
Flying Ewoks with cupid wings and bows, and Zombie Storm Troopers.....
The same reason EQ1 or UO hasn't "bounced back". The only people this game can hope to attract is it's old players, too many people are looking for some kind of "next-gen mmo" and jumping ship over and over till then find it.
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