Game was doing horrible in subs and revenues, don't see why it'd be LA's biggest failure shutting it down.
Sure, there's always hoping, but after so many years of decline, hope just isn't realistic anymore and becomes delusion.
Actually at the time of the shutdown announcement the game was on the rise. In April there was only one FULL server, yet during May and June 2 more servers became FULL, and a 4th was on its way to becoming FULL too. It could have been down to the free 45 days, and things could have gone back down again afterwards, but the shutdown announcement came before people had the chance to sub, so LA did not care how well the game was going to get, even if millions came, and filled all servers up to FULL.
They also implemented a constant free CTS in April, which I believe to be thing that brought people back, as everyone could play on a server of their choosing, and finally got rid of "lack of population" moans, as if people were on a dead servers all they had to do was transfer for free. It did not last long as the shutdown announement killed the game, and now the same moans are happening in SWTOR already!
Their biggest mistake was shutting down the game when they did. If they waited another month, they would have known for sure whether people would have subbed. It still would have given plenty notice for closure; most MMOS only give 1-2 months, they gave SIX months for SWG - way too much notice. If people did not resub, and populations declined further, then it would have made sense to shut SWG down, but that is not what happened. and it got the axe when it was on a high, and makes it the biggest worst move in history (not necessarily the shutting down of SWG but the timing of it - If they waited one or two months until Aug, then if people resubbed after the free 45 days, and the population sustained itself on paid subs, they may not have shut down SWG, but if people did not resub then the shutting down would have been more acceptable)
SWG only died after June because the game was shutting down, not because SWG was doing horrible, and people did not want to play it. So in a way, it was a good thing, as it now keeps SWG immortilsed as a GREAT MMO!
This thread has the potential to go very bad, but read it out...
I think it's pretty hard to deny that TOR's subs are dropping. How fast is debateable but if one is to trust the data seen at torstatus.net, the numbers are only dropping overall.
Looking at the TOR forums, alot of the requests are for features that were in SWG and are likely not going to be seen in SWTOR because it's just not that type of game. Things like more player interaction, explorable worlds, better space, better world pvp, etc. Those asking for these are unlikely to stick with the game once the novelty of it wears off.
However, SWG was that type of game. I'm well aware that this is just thinking in a "what if" scenario, but if SWG wasn't shut down, those that were not happy with those short commings in TOR could have enjoyed SWG and kept them in LucasArts' revenue. Instead, they're leaving TOR and LA is losing their money.
While there are those that like to say that if SWG wasn't shutdown it would be a fairly empty game with TOR around as well. However, I'm not so sure that would have been the case...
/facepalm.
Let it go, man. SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.
I've let it go, I'm kind of excited to see what happens with The Repopulation and hoping it will be where I can continue my MMO gaming. However, it doesn't hurt to look back and wonder as well
As for SWG being dead, well, right before the announcement of its shutting down it had just as many "Extremely Heavy" servers as TOR does now, heh.
I have trust issues with the Hero engine now though
One thing SWTOR shares with SWG is the buggy engine. If anyones that nostalgic they really should give it a go, just so they can experience the thrill of being punted off the servers at the wrong moment :P
As for the OP point you need to consider time and nostalgia here. There are two groups who ask for these sorts of things imo.
First Group: Those who think SWTOR should of been SWG 2.0. There generally the loudest and hate everything about SWTOR anyway because it isn't SWG
Second Group: Those who think some of the elements of SWG were cool and would have liked some of that in SWTOR. In terms of creating a more vibrant world, SWG nailed that much better then SWTOR. But theres two things to note here: 1. these people don't actually want SWG and 2. The MMO wolrd has moved on since SWG was developed.
The fact of the matter is most MMOs are developed around quests and gear grinding. SWG was developed as an online world, which you could inhabit within the Staw Wars IP. SWG was developed at a time when the online world was a lot smaller and the philosophy behind games design was to cater to the hardcore enthuasist. SWTOR has awider demographic to appeal to, a demographic that is used to the quests and dungeon grinder system.
SWG tried to redesign itself but failed horribly there, (least we forget the change was prompted my declining subs), and although some people commented that later the changes proved useful, it was always a broken down, badly coded mess at times. If it was still around, how would it have favoured in this enviorment were people expect each MMO that releases to have tons of content and be bug free?
SWG had some great ideas and I enjoyed my time there, but it never would have surived without the station pass the last two years in my opinion. Maybe someone somewhere in a development studio will be an old fan of those sorts of games and think about using modern techniques to bring those old school features to a new audience. Well we can dream eh? :P
This thread has the potential to go very bad, but read it out...
I think it's pretty hard to deny that TOR's subs are dropping. How fast is debateable but if one is to trust the data seen at torstatus.net, the numbers are only dropping overall.
Looking at the TOR forums, alot of the requests are for features that were in SWG and are likely not going to be seen in SWTOR because it's just not that type of game. Things like more player interaction, explorable worlds, better space, better world pvp, etc. Those asking for these are unlikely to stick with the game once the novelty of it wears off.
However, SWG was that type of game. I'm well aware that this is just thinking in a "what if" scenario, but if SWG wasn't shut down, those that were not happy with those short commings in TOR could have enjoyed SWG and kept them in LucasArts' revenue. Instead, they're leaving TOR and LA is losing their money.
While there are those that like to say that if SWG wasn't shutdown it would be a fairly empty game with TOR around as well. However, I'm not so sure that would have been the case...
/facepalm.
Let it go, man. SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.
I've let it go, I'm kind of excited to see what happens with The Repopulation and hoping it will be where I can continue my MMO gaming. However, it doesn't hurt to look back and wonder as well
As for SWG being dead, well, right before the announcement of its shutting down it had just as many "Extremely Heavy" servers as TOR does now, heh.
I have trust issues with the Hero engine now though
One thing SWTOR shares with SWG is the buggy engine. If anyones that nostalgic they really should give it a go, just so they can experience the thrill of being punted off the servers at the wrong moment :P
As for the OP point you need to consider time and nostalgia here. There are two groups who ask for these sorts of things imo.
First Group: Those who think SWTOR should of been SWG 2.0. There generally the loudest and hate everything about SWTOR anyway because it isn't SWG
Second Group: Those who think some of the elements of SWG were cool and would have liked some of that in SWTOR. In terms of creating a more vibrant world, SWG nailed that much better then SWTOR. But theres two things to note here: 1. these people don't actually want SWG and 2. The MMO wolrd has moved on since SWG was developed.
The fact of the matter is most MMOs are developed around quests and gear grinding. SWG was developed as an online world, which you could inhabit within the Staw Wars IP. SWG was developed at a time when the online world was a lot smaller and the philosophy behind games design was to cater to the hardcore enthuasist. SWTOR has awider demographic to appeal to, a demographic that is used to the quests and dungeon grinder system.
SWG tried to redesign itself but failed horribly there, (least we forget the change was prompted my declining subs), and although some people commented that later the changes proved useful, it was always a broken down, badly coded mess at times. If it was still around, how would it have favoured in this enviorment were people expect each MMO that releases to have tons of content and be bug free?
SWG had some great ideas and I enjoyed my time there, but it never would have surived without the station pass the last two years in my opinion. Maybe someone somewhere in a development studio will be an old fan of those sorts of games and think about using modern techniques to bring those old school features to a new audience. Well we can dream eh? :P
I'd say I'm in the second group. TOR is what it is and rather than bitch on their forums wanting it to be more like SWG, I quit and am now waiting for something like SWG to be developed (like The Repopulation)..
As you said, the MMO world has moved on since SWG but unfortunately, I wouldn't say it's moved on for the better. Pretty much all studios have made their new games as a copy of WoW in an attempt to gain WoW like numbers. Each new game doesn't really offer anything new. I really do hope the MMO industry can go back to thinking individually and making big budget games that are unique and not trying to be a copy of the current top big budget game.
I think that TOR and SWG are such different games that both could have survived. Had LA given SOE the license and at a price that fit the subs, we'd all still be playing. I think LA figured that all MMOs are equal so why have 2.
We all knew it was going to happen it was only a question of when. And I still haven't played an SOE game to this day and I likely never will.
No one knew that SWG was going to get shut down, not even SOE.
It certainly should not have gotten shut down last year, as no matter how low the population got it was still better than other active MMOs.
The game had 13 servers, most other MMOs only have about 5 or 6 servers or less. DCUO only has 4 servers total, and in June 2011 SWG had 4 FULL servers, with the rest medium/Light, and DCUO was still P2P, and none were FULL. Vanguard has only 2 servers, and even on the free 45 days both servers stayed at rock bottom. SOE were in discussion of dropping servers down again, and be no less than 4 by 2012, as stated here.
The next course of action would have been to take the game F2P. If after that it did not do well still then it would have been known it would get shut down.
SWG got shut down before its time, and all because LA did not want it to go F2P
o.o Clearly, that's exactly what happened. Exactly....
Or it was completely not..what happened..at all. It got shut down because not enough people wanted to pay for it, could it have limped along uselessly in F2P mode...well who knows, I suppose attach it to station pass and let it rot there with whoever wants to play it does no harm, but it was never going to make any money. I imagine the price of a Star Wars licence is anything but cheap, and ultimately SOE would have had to decide if they wanted to pay the ticket price, I also suspect that LA was charging a ridiculous amount for it.
So from LA's perspective, if you want a SW IP you have to pay our SW IP price, clearly they have NO problem selling out under any circumstances, they're going to milk this cow until it produces dust..and then they'll just sell us dust until we wise up.
From SOE's perspective they had a game that may have managed to get by on a F2P level but wasn't likely to make any real money. There's no way SOE is going to pay the licence fee for a SW IP in this circumstance. Did SWTOR have something to do with it? Yes, but I don't believe from LA's standpoint. I think SOE figured hell, there's another SW MMO that has a bunch of hype around it, we're not going to keep jack here and they abandoned ship.
Was it a failure? No, I believe it was financially justifiable. SWG wouldn't be profitable now just because people have good memories of it. I have great memories of childhood cartoons but if I watch them now they bore me to tears. Fact is SWG was fun for what it was, but honestly it was the least star warsy thing out there, could've been anything really. The systems that made the game unique had almost nothing to do with Star Wars itself.
I would love to see a game with similar systems, an updated engine (obviously) and the kind of freedom that SWG offered but why attach the SW IP to it?
Do I believe someone, someday will pick up SWG as a F2P experiment? No, in fact I'd file that one with unicorns and bridge trolls being a reality. SWG is a memory, for many a good one, for many a painful one and for others it's good riddance to bad rubbish.
I did hthe trial for SWG about 4 months before it shut down...I was impressed with the amount of people still playing..... I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a game similar to what SWG was in its early years.
I did hthe trial for SWG about 4 months before it shut down...I was impressed with the amount of people still playing..... I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a game similar to what SWG was in its early years.
I agree, this is what DOES truly surprise me. With so many people listing what they did enjoy about SWG, it almost all boils down to the innovative systems and almost never has anything to do with SWG itself.
A game with multiple, expansive and explorable locations. Deep, meaningful crafting that could propel an equally deep and meaningful player economy. Freedom to essentially "Live" in the world without having to be held by the hand and told to go somewhere to do X amount of somethings to improve..man that'd be great.
You know the more I think about it, SWG is as close to a real Elder Scrolls Online game as we'll ever get. What made Oblivion and Skyrim so amazing? Huge tracts of territory to explore, a fun crafting system, freedom to do what you want when you wanted, multiple ways to progress and improve without feeling like you're being TOLD you have to do it.
Give me systems like that, It doesn't need a Big IP behind it, in an updated engine run by a company that isn't trying to clone a themepark success and I bet we'd have an amazing game.
We all knew it was going to happen it was only a question of when. And I still haven't played an SOE game to this day and I likely never will.
No one knew that SWG was going to get shut down, not even SOE.
It certainly should not have gotten shut down last year, as no matter how low the population got it was still better than other active MMOs.
The game had 13 servers, most other MMOs only have about 5 or 6 servers or less. DCUO only has 4 servers total, and in June 2011 SWG had 4 FULL servers, with the rest medium/Light, and DCUO was still P2P, and none were FULL. Vanguard has only 2 servers, and even on the free 45 days both servers stayed at rock bottom. SOE were in discussion of dropping servers down again, and be no less than 4 by 2012, as stated here.
The next course of action would have been to take the game F2P. If after that it did not do well still then it would have been known it would get shut down.
SWG got shut down before its time, and all because LA did not want it to go F2P
o.o Clearly, that's exactly what happened. Exactly....
Or it was completely not..what happened..at all. It got shut down because not enough people wanted to pay for it, could it have limped along uselessly in F2P mode...well who knows, I suppose attach it to station pass and let it rot there with whoever wants to play it does no harm, but it was never going to make any money. I imagine the price of a Star Wars licence is anything but cheap, and ultimately SOE would have had to decide if they wanted to pay the ticket price, I also suspect that LA was charging a ridiculous amount for it.
So from LA's perspective, if you want a SW IP you have to pay our SW IP price, clearly they have NO problem selling out under any circumstances, they're going to milk this cow until it produces dust..and then they'll just sell us dust until we wise up.
From SOE's perspective they had a game that may have managed to get by on a F2P level but wasn't likely to make any real money. There's no way SOE is going to pay the licence fee for a SW IP in this circumstance. Did SWTOR have something to do with it? Yes, but I don't believe from LA's standpoint. I think SOE figured hell, there's another SW MMO that has a bunch of hype around it, we're not going to keep jack here and they abandoned ship.
Was it a failure? No, I believe it was financially justifiable. SWG wouldn't be profitable now just because people have good memories of it. I have great memories of childhood cartoons but if I watch them now they bore me to tears. Fact is SWG was fun for what it was, but honestly it was the least star warsy thing out there, could've been anything really. The systems that made the game unique had almost nothing to do with Star Wars itself.
I would love to see a game with similar systems, an updated engine (obviously) and the kind of freedom that SWG offered but why attach the SW IP to it?
Do I believe someone, someday will pick up SWG as a F2P experiment? No, in fact I'd file that one with unicorns and bridge trolls being a reality. SWG is a memory, for many a good one, for many a painful one and for others it's good riddance to bad rubbish.
It is funny that that those who were in the know of SWG and in contact with people within SOE and LA, say the things that I do, yet people who have not much desire for SWG and only take in news snippets around the internet say what you do.
If SOE wanted to abandon ship all by themselves withoiut LAs influence they would not have given 6 months notice. Smedley said it was a joint decision between LA and SOE. SOE wanted to take the game F2P, LA did not want it to go F2P, so the decison then was to shut it down. That makes more sense than not enough paying, and the game not making money.
Shutting the game down on 24th June was a moronic move if you are right. In April would have made more sense as the game had only one healthy server. At the time of the shutdown announcement there was 4 healthy servers, probably because of the free 45 days, so one week later SOE/LA would have seen if these people would have subbed or not.
If it was getting shut down because not enough people were paying for it, as you say, then waiting a few weeks to see if these people would sub to it or not, which would still give 4 months notice for closure would have been the wisest move. When games close they only have to give 1 months notice, so 4 would have been way plenty too, 6 months was too generous for SOEs behaviour.
But that is not what happened, they announced the shutdown a few days before the first 45 free days were up, when people were all playing on their free time. So therefore it did not matter if these people paid or not, the game was getting shut down on Dec 15th, giving a whopping 6 months notice as well. Then hardly anyone subbed to the game then for a game that was closing. Shutting down the game then, at that time. lost SOE loads of money. No MMO that has shut down has given this much notice before, as it is not needed, so why SWG and especially SOE, and at a crucial time with the game running with quadrupuple the population and still rising?
The free CTS plus the unplanned free 45 days (it was a good will gesture for the security breach and not a promotion for SWG) brought the game back to life. The free 45 days proved that the game would have done well as F2P. If it quadrupled the population just on past/current SOE/SWG customers, it would have brought in a tonne load more if it was opened up to everyone. Even DCUOs 4 servers were all dead in June, but when it went F2P all 4 servers have been practically full since, and there been queue times.
There was more to it than lack of players playing.
If it was announced to shut down in April instead of them doing the constant free CTS, or in July or August IF the population dropped back down, then you might have been right, but that is not what happened, and as a result, I just do not see your scenario at all.
This thread has the potential to go very bad, but read it out...
I think it's pretty hard to deny that TOR's subs are dropping. How fast is debateable but if one is to trust the data seen at torstatus.net, the numbers are only dropping overall.
Looking at the TOR forums, alot of the requests are for features that were in SWG and are likely not going to be seen in SWTOR because it's just not that type of game. Things like more player interaction, explorable worlds, better space, better world pvp, etc. Those asking for these are unlikely to stick with the game once the novelty of it wears off.
However, SWG was that type of game. I'm well aware that this is just thinking in a "what if" scenario, but if SWG wasn't shut down, those that were not happy with those short commings in TOR could have enjoyed SWG and kept them in LucasArts' revenue. Instead, they're leaving TOR and LA is losing their money.
While there are those that like to say that if SWG wasn't shutdown it would be a fairly empty game with TOR around as well. However, I'm not so sure that would have been the case...
I left swg after the nge, that is when the game lost me. What we got with SWTOR is the NGE v2.0, except worse. The reason why SWTOR's numbers are falling is nobody wants the NGE in any shape or form. SWTOR is basically kotor melded with the NGE, and there is (1) no heart to the game, (2) a game on rails.
SWG had run its course LA was not about to renew the IP with soe wince swtor was fixing to be out. LA wanted folks to be playing the newest version of the IP.
I would guess why there is a new IP under way for spike tv, still wondering wht it is going to be. LA wants the money, swg was not generating the expected revenues, and I would bet that swtor will not be generating the numbers that LA expected. One has to wonder if LA will cancel the license and ea/bioware will be forced to terminate the game, not the first time they done that.
I got to say i wanted the sandbox elements of swg before the nge, playing the nge v2.0 just really has turned me off. I love star wars but there have been just so many crappy star wars games over they year, all of them being a cash grab using the IP's name.
I am guessing the game was still profitable even with the smaller population...I mean I had a guild mate that was spending 100 a month on those stupid cards and another that was spending 50 on them... thats like 6 subs in revenue there... most of my guild mates had 2 to 4 accounts.
The game itself had gotten stale, yes some stuff had been added but overall it just didnt have enough dev time anymore, that being said no one anywhere can beat swg's crafting system economy, and pre nge character customizing was top notch.... make a 4004 tka with doctor thrown in... no problem... make a dancer/ranger rifle/pistol... you were pretty unlimited, and space, glorious space...that being said I wouldnt want SWG back with NGE... why oh why has no one copied these elements of SWG.
If someone would make a game where item drops were complete crap but could be reverse engineered by a competent crafter and remade into awesome versions, where the entire economy was run from player made items (that decayed non repairable as you used them) that all the stats varied, depending on the material stats (which changed over time). where you could play a single character as a certain build then decide to change it down the road without rerolling, that had a fully formed second game within the first game (space) then add to it DAOC's RVR elements and I will be your fan for eternity. Oh forgot the housing... loved swg's windowed houses... posters on the walls, all the holos around... was great too....
I am guessing the game was still profitable even with the smaller population...I mean I had a guild mate that was spending 100 a month on those stupid cards and another that was spending 50 on them... thats like 6 subs in revenue there... most of my guild mates had 2 to 4 accounts.
The game itself had gotten stale, yes some stuff had been added but overall it just didnt have enough dev time anymore, that being said no one anywhere can beat swg's crafting system economy, and pre nge character customizing was top notch.... make a 4004 tka with doctor thrown in... no problem... make a dancer/ranger rifle/pistol... you were pretty unlimited, and space, glorious space...that being said I wouldnt want SWG back with NGE... why oh why has no one copied these elements of SWG.
If someone would make a game where item drops were complete crap but could be reverse engineered by a competent crafter and remade into awesome versions, where the entire economy was run from player made items (that decayed non repairable as you used them) that all the stats varied, depending on the material stats (which changed over time). where you could play a single character as a certain build then decide to change it down the road without rerolling, that had a fully formed second game within the first game (space) then add to it DAOC's RVR elements and I will be your fan for eternity. Oh forgot the housing... loved swg's windowed houses... posters on the walls, all the holos around... was great too....
It wasn't LA's biggest failure because it was SoE's decision. They shut it down because they didnt want to renew the license. LA doesn't care as long as they get the money from the IP.
I am guessing the game was still profitable even with the smaller population...I mean I had a guild mate that was spending 100 a month on those stupid cards and another that was spending 50 on them... thats like 6 subs in revenue there... most of my guild mates had 2 to 4 accounts.
The game itself had gotten stale, yes some stuff had been added but overall it just didnt have enough dev time anymore, that being said no one anywhere can beat swg's crafting system economy, and pre nge character customizing was top notch.... make a 4004 tka with doctor thrown in... no problem... make a dancer/ranger rifle/pistol... you were pretty unlimited, and space, glorious space...that being said I wouldnt want SWG back with NGE... why oh why has no one copied these elements of SWG.
If someone would make a game where item drops were complete crap but could be reverse engineered by a competent crafter and remade into awesome versions, where the entire economy was run from player made items (that decayed non repairable as you used them) that all the stats varied, depending on the material stats (which changed over time). where you could play a single character as a certain build then decide to change it down the road without rerolling, that had a fully formed second game within the first game (space) then add to it DAOC's RVR elements and I will be your fan for eternity. Oh forgot the housing... loved swg's windowed houses... posters on the walls, all the holos around... was great too....
It is not just about getting in a small sum, SOE probably wanted the devs for PS2 or EQ3.
Let´s face it, this game would never come back to the subs it had in early 2004 no matter what they do. First the NGE and then a dwindling population for years, realistically is there no chanse this game could become what SOE want it to be.
Hopefully SOE or someone elsecan make a game in the future that have learned the lessons from swg, and hopefully will other companies think hard before they completely revamp a game without first talking to the community but when SWG closed down it was years too late do turn things around.
It wasn't LA's biggest failure because it was SoE's decision. They shut it down because they didnt want to renew the license. LA doesn't care as long as they get the money from the IP.
It was Lucasarts. Smedley admitted it in an interview when he resurrected EQmac
It was something that SOE could say "yes" to a couple of months after it had to say "no" to pleading Star Wars Galaxies fans. So why did EQMac get saved while SWG was not? It came down to licensing, and with LucasArts calling the shots with SWG, SOE didn't have the flexibility that it did with EQMac. SOE's reticent to shut anything down, Smedley said, although sometimes the higher-ups have to make the call to do so.
It wasn't LA's biggest failure because it was SoE's decision. They shut it down because they didnt want to renew the license. LA doesn't care as long as they get the money from the IP.
It was Lucasarts. Smedley admitted it in an interview when he resurrected EQmac
It was something that SOE could say "yes" to a couple of months after it had to say "no" to pleading Star Wars Galaxies fans. So why did EQMac get saved while SWG was not? It came down to licensing, and with LucasArts calling the shots with SWG, SOE didn't have the flexibility that it did with EQMac. SOE's reticent to shut anything down, Smedley said, although sometimes the higher-ups have to make the call to do so.
Yeah, they didnt want to pay the license. So it got shut down. Mystery solved.
They own the IP rights to EQ, so it cost them nothing to keep the EQMac server up. They had to pay LA and it wasnt worth the cost to them, so they shut SWG down.
I don't know why you want to martyr LucasArts and claim that SoE are some sort of caring company. The whole SWG mess stinks of typical SoE crap. Have you seen what they did to Everquest 2? They turned that into a WoW clone as well. And they only care about the bottom dollar, not the customer. So yeah, it was obviously SoE that decided to pull the plug when they refused to pay the bills.
It wasn't LA's biggest failure because it was SoE's decision. They shut it down because they didnt want to renew the license. LA doesn't care as long as they get the money from the IP.
It was Lucasarts. Smedley admitted it in an interview when he resurrected EQmac
It was something that SOE could say "yes" to a couple of months after it had to say "no" to pleading Star Wars Galaxies fans. So why did EQMac get saved while SWG was not? It came down to licensing, and with LucasArts calling the shots with SWG, SOE didn't have the flexibility that it did with EQMac. SOE's reticent to shut anything down, Smedley said, although sometimes the higher-ups have to make the call to do so.
Yeah, they didnt want to pay the license. So it got shut down. Mystery solved.
They own the IP rights to EQ, so it cost them nothing to keep the EQMac server up. They had to pay LA and it wasnt worth the cost to them, so they shut SWG down.
I don't know why you want to martyr LucasArts and claim that SoE are some sort of caring company. The whole SWG mess stinks of typical SoE crap. Have you seen what they did to Everquest 2? They turned that into a WoW clone as well. And they only care about the bottom dollar, not the customer. So yeah, it was obviously SoE that decided to pull the plug when they refused to pay the bills.
I'm not exactly a fan of SOE any more after this PSS1 nonsense, and taking away All Access from EU customers, with no alternative, yet US players can still get it.
However Lucasrts were the ones behind SWG being shut down, and is made clear as day in there, and straight from the horses mouth. It is not opinions, it is FACT. It never said anything about not wanting to pay the licence at all, and is no where fact. If SOE were calling the shots, then they would have paid the licence
To answer the OP's question.. No! In the long line of mistakes that LA has made with it's IP closing a niche game with only a few thousand people playing is not what I would call their biggest failure. Hell it's not even close.
SWG was one of LA's biggest failure. I'm sure LA wasn't at all sad to distance themselves from that bad memory. One mistake after another. One failure after another for years and years...and the lies. Oh my the lies.
Comments
Rose tinted glasses
/thread
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
/openthreadSome scabs should be picked at forever.
no - this was
Game was doing horrible in subs and revenues, don't see why it'd be LA's biggest failure shutting it down.
Sure, there's always hoping, but after so many years of decline, hope just isn't realistic anymore and becomes delusion.
Actually at the time of the shutdown announcement the game was on the rise. In April there was only one FULL server, yet during May and June 2 more servers became FULL, and a 4th was on its way to becoming FULL too. It could have been down to the free 45 days, and things could have gone back down again afterwards, but the shutdown announcement came before people had the chance to sub, so LA did not care how well the game was going to get, even if millions came, and filled all servers up to FULL.
They also implemented a constant free CTS in April, which I believe to be thing that brought people back, as everyone could play on a server of their choosing, and finally got rid of "lack of population" moans, as if people were on a dead servers all they had to do was transfer for free. It did not last long as the shutdown announement killed the game, and now the same moans are happening in SWTOR already!
Their biggest mistake was shutting down the game when they did. If they waited another month, they would have known for sure whether people would have subbed. It still would have given plenty notice for closure; most MMOS only give 1-2 months, they gave SIX months for SWG - way too much notice. If people did not resub, and populations declined further, then it would have made sense to shut SWG down, but that is not what happened. and it got the axe when it was on a high, and makes it the biggest worst move in history (not necessarily the shutting down of SWG but the timing of it - If they waited one or two months until Aug, then if people resubbed after the free 45 days, and the population sustained itself on paid subs, they may not have shut down SWG, but if people did not resub then the shutting down would have been more acceptable)
SWG only died after June because the game was shutting down, not because SWG was doing horrible, and people did not want to play it. So in a way, it was a good thing, as it now keeps SWG immortilsed as a GREAT MMO!
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I still shake my head at that. Most useless character in the entire franchise.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
One thing SWTOR shares with SWG is the buggy engine. If anyones that nostalgic they really should give it a go, just so they can experience the thrill of being punted off the servers at the wrong moment :P
As for the OP point you need to consider time and nostalgia here. There are two groups who ask for these sorts of things imo.
First Group: Those who think SWTOR should of been SWG 2.0. There generally the loudest and hate everything about SWTOR anyway because it isn't SWG
Second Group: Those who think some of the elements of SWG were cool and would have liked some of that in SWTOR. In terms of creating a more vibrant world, SWG nailed that much better then SWTOR. But theres two things to note here: 1. these people don't actually want SWG and 2. The MMO wolrd has moved on since SWG was developed.
The fact of the matter is most MMOs are developed around quests and gear grinding. SWG was developed as an online world, which you could inhabit within the Staw Wars IP. SWG was developed at a time when the online world was a lot smaller and the philosophy behind games design was to cater to the hardcore enthuasist. SWTOR has awider demographic to appeal to, a demographic that is used to the quests and dungeon grinder system.
SWG tried to redesign itself but failed horribly there, (least we forget the change was prompted my declining subs), and although some people commented that later the changes proved useful, it was always a broken down, badly coded mess at times. If it was still around, how would it have favoured in this enviorment were people expect each MMO that releases to have tons of content and be bug free?
SWG had some great ideas and I enjoyed my time there, but it never would have surived without the station pass the last two years in my opinion. Maybe someone somewhere in a development studio will be an old fan of those sorts of games and think about using modern techniques to bring those old school features to a new audience. Well we can dream eh? :P
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
I'd say I'm in the second group. TOR is what it is and rather than bitch on their forums wanting it to be more like SWG, I quit and am now waiting for something like SWG to be developed (like The Repopulation)..
As you said, the MMO world has moved on since SWG but unfortunately, I wouldn't say it's moved on for the better. Pretty much all studios have made their new games as a copy of WoW in an attempt to gain WoW like numbers. Each new game doesn't really offer anything new. I really do hope the MMO industry can go back to thinking individually and making big budget games that are unique and not trying to be a copy of the current top big budget game.
Leave it to a dude from chilly to have such a logical thought process.
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Not sure if shutting it down was on the NGE was.
I think that TOR and SWG are such different games that both could have survived. Had LA given SOE the license and at a price that fit the subs, we'd all still be playing. I think LA figured that all MMOs are equal so why have 2.
No. LA's biggest failure was way before SWG shutdown.
Yup...when they signed the agreement to produce TOR.
MMO History: 2528 days in SW:G
o.o Clearly, that's exactly what happened. Exactly....
Or it was completely not..what happened..at all. It got shut down because not enough people wanted to pay for it, could it have limped along uselessly in F2P mode...well who knows, I suppose attach it to station pass and let it rot there with whoever wants to play it does no harm, but it was never going to make any money. I imagine the price of a Star Wars licence is anything but cheap, and ultimately SOE would have had to decide if they wanted to pay the ticket price, I also suspect that LA was charging a ridiculous amount for it.
So from LA's perspective, if you want a SW IP you have to pay our SW IP price, clearly they have NO problem selling out under any circumstances, they're going to milk this cow until it produces dust..and then they'll just sell us dust until we wise up.
From SOE's perspective they had a game that may have managed to get by on a F2P level but wasn't likely to make any real money. There's no way SOE is going to pay the licence fee for a SW IP in this circumstance. Did SWTOR have something to do with it? Yes, but I don't believe from LA's standpoint. I think SOE figured hell, there's another SW MMO that has a bunch of hype around it, we're not going to keep jack here and they abandoned ship.
Was it a failure? No, I believe it was financially justifiable. SWG wouldn't be profitable now just because people have good memories of it. I have great memories of childhood cartoons but if I watch them now they bore me to tears. Fact is SWG was fun for what it was, but honestly it was the least star warsy thing out there, could've been anything really. The systems that made the game unique had almost nothing to do with Star Wars itself.
I would love to see a game with similar systems, an updated engine (obviously) and the kind of freedom that SWG offered but why attach the SW IP to it?
Do I believe someone, someday will pick up SWG as a F2P experiment? No, in fact I'd file that one with unicorns and bridge trolls being a reality. SWG is a memory, for many a good one, for many a painful one and for others it's good riddance to bad rubbish.
I did hthe trial for SWG about 4 months before it shut down...I was impressed with the amount of people still playing..... I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a game similar to what SWG was in its early years.
I agree, this is what DOES truly surprise me. With so many people listing what they did enjoy about SWG, it almost all boils down to the innovative systems and almost never has anything to do with SWG itself.
A game with multiple, expansive and explorable locations. Deep, meaningful crafting that could propel an equally deep and meaningful player economy. Freedom to essentially "Live" in the world without having to be held by the hand and told to go somewhere to do X amount of somethings to improve..man that'd be great.
You know the more I think about it, SWG is as close to a real Elder Scrolls Online game as we'll ever get. What made Oblivion and Skyrim so amazing? Huge tracts of territory to explore, a fun crafting system, freedom to do what you want when you wanted, multiple ways to progress and improve without feeling like you're being TOLD you have to do it.
Give me systems like that, It doesn't need a Big IP behind it, in an updated engine run by a company that isn't trying to clone a themepark success and I bet we'd have an amazing game.
It is funny that that those who were in the know of SWG and in contact with people within SOE and LA, say the things that I do, yet people who have not much desire for SWG and only take in news snippets around the internet say what you do.
If SOE wanted to abandon ship all by themselves withoiut LAs influence they would not have given 6 months notice. Smedley said it was a joint decision between LA and SOE. SOE wanted to take the game F2P, LA did not want it to go F2P, so the decison then was to shut it down. That makes more sense than not enough paying, and the game not making money.
Shutting the game down on 24th June was a moronic move if you are right. In April would have made more sense as the game had only one healthy server. At the time of the shutdown announcement there was 4 healthy servers, probably because of the free 45 days, so one week later SOE/LA would have seen if these people would have subbed or not.
If it was getting shut down because not enough people were paying for it, as you say, then waiting a few weeks to see if these people would sub to it or not, which would still give 4 months notice for closure would have been the wisest move. When games close they only have to give 1 months notice, so 4 would have been way plenty too, 6 months was too generous for SOEs behaviour.
But that is not what happened, they announced the shutdown a few days before the first 45 free days were up, when people were all playing on their free time. So therefore it did not matter if these people paid or not, the game was getting shut down on Dec 15th, giving a whopping 6 months notice as well. Then hardly anyone subbed to the game then for a game that was closing. Shutting down the game then, at that time. lost SOE loads of money. No MMO that has shut down has given this much notice before, as it is not needed, so why SWG and especially SOE, and at a crucial time with the game running with quadrupuple the population and still rising?
The free CTS plus the unplanned free 45 days (it was a good will gesture for the security breach and not a promotion for SWG) brought the game back to life. The free 45 days proved that the game would have done well as F2P. If it quadrupled the population just on past/current SOE/SWG customers, it would have brought in a tonne load more if it was opened up to everyone. Even DCUOs 4 servers were all dead in June, but when it went F2P all 4 servers have been practically full since, and there been queue times.
There was more to it than lack of players playing.
If it was announced to shut down in April instead of them doing the constant free CTS, or in July or August IF the population dropped back down, then you might have been right, but that is not what happened, and as a result, I just do not see your scenario at all.
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I left swg after the nge, that is when the game lost me. What we got with SWTOR is the NGE v2.0, except worse. The reason why SWTOR's numbers are falling is nobody wants the NGE in any shape or form. SWTOR is basically kotor melded with the NGE, and there is (1) no heart to the game, (2) a game on rails.
SWG had run its course LA was not about to renew the IP with soe wince swtor was fixing to be out. LA wanted folks to be playing the newest version of the IP.
I would guess why there is a new IP under way for spike tv, still wondering wht it is going to be. LA wants the money, swg was not generating the expected revenues, and I would bet that swtor will not be generating the numbers that LA expected. One has to wonder if LA will cancel the license and ea/bioware will be forced to terminate the game, not the first time they done that.
I got to say i wanted the sandbox elements of swg before the nge, playing the nge v2.0 just really has turned me off. I love star wars but there have been just so many crappy star wars games over they year, all of them being a cash grab using the IP's name.
I am guessing the game was still profitable even with the smaller population...I mean I had a guild mate that was spending 100 a month on those stupid cards and another that was spending 50 on them... thats like 6 subs in revenue there... most of my guild mates had 2 to 4 accounts.
The game itself had gotten stale, yes some stuff had been added but overall it just didnt have enough dev time anymore, that being said no one anywhere can beat swg's crafting system economy, and pre nge character customizing was top notch.... make a 4004 tka with doctor thrown in... no problem... make a dancer/ranger rifle/pistol... you were pretty unlimited, and space, glorious space...that being said I wouldnt want SWG back with NGE... why oh why has no one copied these elements of SWG.
If someone would make a game where item drops were complete crap but could be reverse engineered by a competent crafter and remade into awesome versions, where the entire economy was run from player made items (that decayed non repairable as you used them) that all the stats varied, depending on the material stats (which changed over time). where you could play a single character as a certain build then decide to change it down the road without rerolling, that had a fully formed second game within the first game (space) then add to it DAOC's RVR elements and I will be your fan for eternity. Oh forgot the housing... loved swg's windowed houses... posters on the walls, all the holos around... was great too....
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It wasn't LA's biggest failure because it was SoE's decision. They shut it down because they didnt want to renew the license. LA doesn't care as long as they get the money from the IP.
It is not just about getting in a small sum, SOE probably wanted the devs for PS2 or EQ3.
Let´s face it, this game would never come back to the subs it had in early 2004 no matter what they do. First the NGE and then a dwindling population for years, realistically is there no chanse this game could become what SOE want it to be.
Hopefully SOE or someone elsecan make a game in the future that have learned the lessons from swg, and hopefully will other companies think hard before they completely revamp a game without first talking to the community but when SWG closed down it was years too late do turn things around.
It was Lucasarts. Smedley admitted it in an interview when he resurrected EQmac
Lucasarts called the shots with SWG
It was something that SOE could say "yes" to a couple of months after it had to say "no" to pleading Star Wars Galaxies fans. So why did EQMac get saved while SWG was not? It came down to licensing, and with LucasArts calling the shots with SWG, SOE didn't have the flexibility that it did with EQMac. SOE's reticent to shut anything down, Smedley said, although sometimes the higher-ups have to make the call to do so.
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Yeah, they didnt want to pay the license. So it got shut down. Mystery solved.
They own the IP rights to EQ, so it cost them nothing to keep the EQMac server up. They had to pay LA and it wasnt worth the cost to them, so they shut SWG down.
I don't know why you want to martyr LucasArts and claim that SoE are some sort of caring company. The whole SWG mess stinks of typical SoE crap. Have you seen what they did to Everquest 2? They turned that into a WoW clone as well. And they only care about the bottom dollar, not the customer. So yeah, it was obviously SoE that decided to pull the plug when they refused to pay the bills.
I'm not exactly a fan of SOE any more after this PSS1 nonsense, and taking away All Access from EU customers, with no alternative, yet US players can still get it.
However Lucasrts were the ones behind SWG being shut down, and is made clear as day in there, and straight from the horses mouth. It is not opinions, it is FACT. It never said anything about not wanting to pay the licence at all, and is no where fact. If SOE were calling the shots, then they would have paid the licence
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To answer the OP's question.. No! In the long line of mistakes that LA has made with it's IP closing a niche game with only a few thousand people playing is not what I would call their biggest failure. Hell it's not even close.
SWG was one of LA's biggest failure. I'm sure LA wasn't at all sad to distance themselves from that bad memory. One mistake after another. One failure after another for years and years...and the lies. Oh my the lies.