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SWG would have been more successful if...
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
SWG would have been more successful if it started out as a themepark. Instead it started a sandbox, failed, turned to a themepark, but alienated the small playerbase it had.
In history of MMOs, themeparks have always been far more successful than sandbox games. EQ had more subscribers than UO and far more than Asheron's Call. Then modern times, EVE is "successful", but nothing compared to WoW...and every time a themepark MMO comes out, it starts off with FAR more players than EVE can ever dream of. Likewise, sandbox MMOs that try to launch now never end up doing that great (like Vanguard)
I really think SWG should have started out as a themepark. This would have had far more long term success. But you can't just change the entire genre of the game mid-way through its life. No matter how bad it was originally.
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Comments
If SWG had started its life as a themepark, it would have burned out of the gate with how buggy it was.
It only did as well as it did because of the depth of the sandbox elements it did have. People played the game for those, because of how well they were done despite the terrible job SOE did of releasing a bug ridden and unfinished product.
And an even worse job of having any vision on how to run the game long-term. (This has been a serious problem for SOE, they can't seem to run a game past a year or two without ruining it or pissing off most of their customers.)
And the prime and overwhelming argument against thinking SWG would have succeeded as a themepark is TOR. That game was 10x more polished than SWG was at launch or on the day it closed and had all the publicity and marketing in the world, and that game STILL tanked faster than any P2P game in history in terms of population.
So... SWG would have been more successful, if someone else had been running it.
I guess I would say that two things different would have made the biggest difference.
1 - Should never have launched without the space portion of the game.
2 - Should never have had jedi at all.
SWG failed due to a series of mis-steps throughout its history, but being a sand box style game was not one the problems.
But if you keep thinking that all MMO's must be designed to garner the most sales you might as well stick with "the One" and play WOW ad infinitim.
Fortunately it appears some developers are content to not always swing for the fence in their designs and we might see some new ideas emerge in the near future.
But standard theme park MMORPG? There's an idea we can drive a stake through.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If the game started out a sandbox and stayed a sandbox it would have made it.
But you know. Greed.