Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Future Plans for SWG? 99

Posted by Zonk from the hee-rollback dept.
Warcry has a short article with impressions from someone who was asked to participate in a Star Wars Galaxies focus group. The moderator evidently presented several options, and the group responded. From the article: "The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Future Plans for SWG? More

Future Plans for SWG?

Comments Filter:

  • Please move along. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @02:57PM (#14860147)
    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    No, seriously, please. Just move along. For the love of the Force, our dev team has been raping your childhood memories like a Gungan on crystal meth for over three years now, and the only thing we've done that was even remotely cool was sending 1200 donuts [penny-arcade.com] to Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] last week.

    And you're still here?

    Please. Move. Along.

    Cautiously optimistic? Don't make me get Ackbar out here.

    • I never understood the childhood memories garbage...did you forget them or something? Does the new release somehow destroy what you already had?
      • "Memories" isn't quite the right word for it. Perhaps "hopes" would be more accurate.

        As in "Wow, Star Wars is a cool movie. Wouldn't it be great if I could go to Tatooine, fly an X-Wing or use a Light Sabre?" For people who haven't played Star Wars Galaxies, thinking about that would lead them to imagining just how good it would be.

        People who have played the game are stuck with remembering just how dull it was, and that sucks all the fun out of it.

        So, yes, the new release did indeed destroy, or at

  • SWG is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dc29A ( 636871 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:01PM (#14860180)
    Focus groups won't save it. During peak house there are some 10k players online (can't find link). During Everquest's peak, SOE announced live that there are currently 100k people online. Looking at EQs subscriber numbers at that time (around 500k), SWG should have about 50k total active accounts. That's down from about 250-300k. Ouch.

    The game is butchered, just let it die. The amount of bad mainstream press (Washington Post, CBS et al) it got, it pretty much guarantees that Joe Average probably has heard of it and staying away from SWG.

    EQ with very loyal fanbase wasn't able to recover from the clusterfuck of Gates of Discord (and it was far less in magnitude than NGE of SWG), SWG with revamp after revamp won't be able either. SOE already tried saving EQ by inviting uberguild leaders to a weekend in San Diego, baseball game and al, focus groups of course. Result: server merges, continuous population decline.
    • Look at Planetside. They're still dragging it along, even though it probably has peak-user numbers in the hundreds.

      • Re:SWG is dead. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by moe.ron ( 953702 )
        Planetside was never really butchered by SOE (though for some this is debatable). Planetside's core gameplay has remained close to its original concept despite rather large (pun) additions to the game. What is killing Planetside is a total lack of publicity, promotion, and marketting. While the style of gameplay in Planetside wouldn't appeal to enough people for it to have 100k players in peak hours, it would certainly attract a lot more avid players if the players only knew about it. When was the last ti

        • Re:SWG is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Sierpinski ( 266120 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @04:01PM (#14860893)
          When was the last time you saw a commercial for Planetside on television?

          About as often as I've seen commercials for World of Warcraft on television. Zero. Yet WoW has reached the 6 million subscriber mark.
          Word of mouth has to count for something, and apparently people just aren't telling their friends about Planetside.
          • As I said, "While the style of gameplay in Planetside wouldn't appeal to enough people for it to have 100k players in peak hours". Planetside is a fairly unique game. It is trapped between two very popular genres and is shunned by both. One thing it does have is a strong community who for the first two years pulled off a impressive grass-root marketting campaign. Problem is, a few hundred die hard fans just don't have the power to push a game like that in this day in age.

            WOW has received tremendous publi

            • Re:SWG is dead. (Score:3, Informative)

              by Jaruzel ( 804522 )
              In the UK last year WoW had a brief advertising run on TV - the usual 30 second collection of hi-speed 'footage' with accompaning tub-thumping music. Whether that affected sales, I know not.

              -Jar.

        • Planetside's core gameplay has remained close to its original concept despite rather large (pun) additions to the game.

          Oh I wish that were true. I stopped playing because the game got too rediculous, LIU runs, these shielded capitol bases, etc. Hell, I remember when there was no lattice. When the game was simple it was fun, you could jump on, find a hot spot, HART in and kill some NC/TR scum. But because of all this extra junk it just became stupid.
        • I'd argue that what killed it was the high price tag, and general poor interface design and programming on sony's part. It does not have the amount of content of a full MMORPG, so I at least was unwilling to pay that much for it. It wasn't an issue when I was still playing other SOE games, but by itself it was a bit much.

          As far as programming goes, it just feels cumbersome. It's a huge memory hog. It's 15x faster (literally, 20s instead of 5 min on my system) to alt tab out and kill it when you want to q
      • Hell, look at Shadowbane- it must have a peak pop of 100-200 on all servers. Yet they keep it going on. Once a game is already sold, it pays for a single server with a very small subscriber base. Just stop new development work and you have a cash cow for years.
    • Focus groups won't save it.
      Have focus groups ever really done anything useful?

  • Rollback... how far? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cryptomancer ( 158526 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:01PM (#14860183)
    How many changes have gone into the game that need to be undone for it to go back to a state that a majority of people are happy with? A month? Three? Six? A year or more? And even then, would people who liked the game then want to return to it?

    I think I liked the game best sometime after Publish 10.. I liked the Combat Upgrade. Right about then was when my interest in the game peaked. And the very next patch I cancelled.

    Maybe an option not explored in the focus groups would be the "sunset" of SWG, and the development of its replacement.
    • the Beta was good, will that do ?
    • As someone who bought the game on Day 1: ALL of them. OK, some of the play balance tweaks in the first few patches were needed, and I'm not asking them to take out vehicles or mounts, but other than that virtually every game systems change was for the worse.

      And next time? (A) Enforce the (expletive deleted) Terms of Service, and (B) whenever someone insists that you make it more like Everquest, tell them to go play Everquest.
    • You liked the CU, I hated it and quit because of it. So even if they do a rollback, then a rollback to when? I think the rot started to really rot when they removed the hologrind.

      Why? Well at least with the holo grind people were doing different things while grinding. The holo monkeys gave the rest of the galaxy a constant supply of fresh meat. People needing newbie weapons, needing groups to survive doing from melee to ranged.

      Or did the rot set in earlier when they added the doc buffs that allowed the so

    • The fact is, it's not just SWG. If you look at EQ2, since last I've played last year, none of my characters even plays the same or has the same spells. No, seriously, I don't even mean tweaked or rebalanced. They're a completely different class, which just sorta reuses the name of the old one. And now they're busy nerfing crafting into oblivion too, in a desperate bid to become even more over-simplified than WoW.

      That pretty much sums up the last year at SOE: making broad-sweeping changes to their games, and
      • Honestly, I haven't heard anyone mention crafting as an EQ2 strongpoint, but since you said they were "pimping it as the one thing that's better than WoW," I'm guessing it's in the kind of discussion I'd rather stay out of.

        EQ2's theme has been stripping down things that are boring. Long, boring travel times across terrain you've passed a million times. Long, boring steps to craft a final product that doesn't make it harder or more complicated, just a giant pain in the butt. Long, boring grinds with
        • "Let's be honest, there are very few games in which the actual crafting process appeals to anyone except the obsessive compulsive grinder, and EQ2 was (is) no exception."

          As I was saying, I'm at the moment not discussing whether it actually is more fun or not, nor passing judgment about the mental illnesses (e.g., in your words, "obsessive compulsive grinder") of those who like X instead of Y. The argument about EQ2 crafting being somehow superior, however, did get posted all over the place, and even managed
        • I've split the message into two, because it's really two different issues, and I'd rather not mix them up. Plus, the crafting one is really of minor importance, compared to the constant (other) changes to everyone's characters.

          The problem with crafting is this: over-simplifying it won't make it more attractive to those who weren't in that category, since it just replaces one boring grind with another equally boring grind. If anyone can make 10,000 swords a day by just clicking a "make sword" button, limited
          • ..The problem with crafting is this: over-simplifying it won't make it more attractive to those who weren't in that category, since it just replaces one boring grind with another equally boring grind. If anyone can make 10,000 swords a day by just clicking a "make sword" button, limited only by the quantity of ore on hand and the recipes, then you just replaced the old grind with a grind for ore and recipes. Hope you like it more when you run around looking for a tin vein, or when you get some equivalent of

  • Its time for this game to... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 222 ( 551054 ) * <stormseeker@gma i l .com> on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:07PM (#14860250) Homepage
    delete and reroll.

  • Sony needs to kill it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by panic911 ( 224370 ) * on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:12PM (#14860303) Homepage
    I think Sony needs to kill off the SWG game. Maybe, if LucasArts gives the rights out, someone will build a good MMORPG out of the star wars universe. Using Star Wars as a MMORPG is a great idea, and Sony did an OK job of it. But "Sony Station" is a big piece of crap that's ran by immature moderators. I would like to play that game again, but won't as long as Sony has control of it.
    • I agree. Sony had their chance. Let the thing die and bring it back by someone else later on.
    • Bear in mind that there's a good chance most of these changes came about more as pressure from LucasArts than their own design decisions.

      ...not that it wasn't a fairly stagnant environment beforehand, but there was certainly no reason that SOE would knowingly disenfranchise their active player base without much assurance of pulling in other players. (I think LucasArts did commit to some extra marketing pushes to back up the switch and hope to draw in new players, but they'd still have to go in knowing th

  • SWG (Score:1)

    by w1mp ( 210200 )
    About the only thing they could do to get more subscribers (back) is a rollback. That is the only thing anyone interested in playing that game wants. Its going to be a niche market, might as well cater the the hardcore...

    Unfortunately, its about the last thing that will ever happen. Can't have mgmnt admitting to mistakes...

  • SWG Last Rights (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stormcrow309 ( 590240 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:15PM (#14860337) Journal

    In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Requim aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

    Ok, the prayers have been said IN LATIN, so lets stop beating this dead horse and let it die.

  • City of Jedi (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Forrest Kyle ( 955623 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:30PM (#14860515) Homepage
    I've always thought the best strategy for building a Star Wars MMO would be to combine something like City of Heroes with World of Warcraft. Yes, I know this seems obvious. "Wow, combine two great game ideas! You're a genius!" But here's what I mean:

    Every player character is a jedi. You can totally customize your race, appearance, and style of force use. In fact, you don't even have to use the force if you don't want. But you start out with force potential. And the players can go around the Star Wars universe being good or bad guys, doing quests and unlocking new force powers and crafting interesting weapons.

    The reason I say this, is because it makes every player feel like an important part of the action. I can only reallly speak for myself, but I'm not going to pay money for a game just so I can experience the simulated thrill of eeking out a living as a dancer, or a baker or some crap. I want a gun, a lightsaber, and directions to the nearest enemy. I want to be a part of the Star Wars adventure and kick some ass. I don't need to meet Han Solo every ten minutes to remind me I'm in Star Wars, but neither do I want to spent 345 hours farming pubic hairs on some remote moon in the yadda yadda quadrant.

    I've never designed a game so my opinion amounts to approximately ass, but I just feel like Star Wars Galaxies was designed by people with no concept of human psychology or game design theory. [shrug]
    • The problem with that is that if everyone is a jedi, it isn't Star Wars. That's a big part of the problem with the crap they're doing now. It doesn't feel like Star Wars if it's not incredibly hard to be a jedi.

      Stormtroopers, Fighter Pilots, Smugglers, everyone can be all that, and having the universe be primarily combat oriented is fine. But 10,000 assclowns runing around named "1337j3d1" swingin their lightsabers around is not Star Wars.

      • But 10,000 assclowns runing around named "1337j3d1" swingin their lightsabers around is not Star Wars.

        On the other hand, those 10000 clowns are the best reason for Senator Palpatine to build an army of clones to whipe out the Jedi. Your comment explains a lot about Starwars 1-3 (chronologically).
        • The problem with 10,000 Jedi running around, is that this isn't suppose to be a time when 10,000 Jedi are running around. If my memory serves me properly, SWG takes place between episodes 4 and 5, AFTER the clone wars and AFTER Vader mercilessly slaughtered 9,998 Jedi. Yup, so the only Jedi he wasn't suppose to have gotten rid of was Yoda and Obi-Wan right? So my question about SWG is, "Why are you even allowed to be a Jedi class?" I commend SOE with that brilliant piece of story line engineering.
      • But 10,000 assclowns runing around named "1337j3d1" swingin their lightsabers around is not Star Wars.

        Maybe you didn't see Attack of the Clones. =D

        • Sorry, seems like it needs to be done:

          • Episode I: The Phantom Assclown
          • Episode II: Attack of the Assclowns
          • Episode II: Revenge of the Assclown
          • Episode IV: A New Assclown
          • Episode V: The Assclown Strikes Back
          • Episode VI: Return of the Assclown
          Now for something on topic: I think they should've let the user choose their character class instead of assigning it to them. Sticking them with the dancer class would suck. The dancers are NPCs.
      • The problem with that is that if everyone is a jedi, it isn't Star Wars. That's a big part of the problem with the crap they're doing now. It doesn't feel like Star Wars if it's not incredibly hard to be a jedi... 10,000 assclowns runing around named "1337j3d1" swingin their lightsabers around is not Star Wars.

        People say this stuff all the time, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

        1) There are these things called "NPCs". The devs can put in as many as they want. The NPCs can be the pubic hair farmers,
        • 1) The time they set the game in has 2 known Jedi. This allows for perhaps 100 unknown Jedi. No ammount of NPC balancing is going to fix the balance there. Furthermore there are plenty of "Hero's Journeys" to be had in the Star Wars universe without being a Jedi.

          2) This isn't that part of the continuity. And you know very well that I wasn't talking about the story arc specificaly. The universe has a feel to it, and you wreck that feel by having too many assclown jedi where none should exist.

          3) You

      • Frankly, probably the biggest and most unimaginative mistake of SWG was placing it in the timeline of the original EP4-6 trilogy where, yeah, there are virtually no Jedi left. Not only that limits the availability of _the_ most demanded class by the players, it also severely limits what you can do with the game universe and what story you can tell with it.

        You'll notice that the most successful games set in a given universe step outside the timeline that confines them. KOTOR is one example, but maybe World O

    • Re:City of Jedi (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fred_sanford ( 678924 )
      You may not want to be a baker or a dancer but I was quite happy being a care-bear tailor. That WAS the beauty of it, you could fight if you wanted a fighter, you could craft if you wanted a crafter. Both roles played an important part in the universe. Jedi's were scarce. Crafting was complex with bio-e, tailor, weapon smith, armor smith, chef, all playing niche roles. The crap now makes me happy I got out while I was still having fun.

      btw, I really miss JTL. Any good online space sims out there?
      • It makes sense on paper, but SOE f'd it up. I hated crafting because the it worked. I'm talking about the UI and the actions involved. The act of playing that role was so screwed up and such a time sink. However, on paper, having the ability to craft all of these items and have them be more than just a decoration for the house (ie., useful) is a good idea.

        It was the same with combat. The ideas that were there at launch were interesting, but executed so poorly. People say that that pre-cu combat was more
    • SWG is a brilliant example of why games that revolve around a universe that contains a special few will never succeed. They are a special few, not everybody. If everyone were a jedi, would that even be close to what Star Wars truly is? If not everyone can be a jedi, those who are not will go play a different game. If everyone is a jedi, being a jedi is cheapened to the extreme.

  • I love the NGE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:30PM (#14860520)
    Seriously, the NGE have provided a much better experience for both vets and new players. The game is much more exciting, challenging, and rewarding. The subscriptions are actually on the rise and I think this game will get back to its glory days in no time. I am vet, since beta, and I completely support the NGE and the direction this game is heading. The game was stale before NGE hit and I can wait for what SOE has in store in the future. I am in no way affiliated with SOE or Lucas Art, just a humble fan of this great game.

    - Smed
    • Of course there is 1 person who likes the changes its finding 2 that would suprise me!
    • I actually have a friend who went back to the game after the NGE. He loves it.
      He suckered a me and someone else he played WoW with into trying it out.
      What can I say, no character customization, seriously whacked out combat, buildings that pop up after you've driven on top of them, no apparent player population. I wasn't impressed. The space combat is pretty cool although seriously repetitive.
      My friend is known to be extremely critical and have very picky taste. Apparently Sony has hit on the formula that is
    • Who let the Sony executive into this forum?

      Notice there is no handle; only posted as Anonymous Coward. How appropriate.

  • Be a Jedi now in the new revision. Everyone will love you. They'll give you free gifts of money & wealth, and sing your praises throughout all the galaxies.

  • Said for the 1,000,001th time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Volatile_Memory ( 140227 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:37PM (#14860596)
    TOO MANY JEDI!

    I cancelled soon after the do-gooders with the glowing swords started showing up by the truckload.

    Sure, there are a plethora of other things to pick on, but the whole atmosphere of the game is ruined by the presence of lightsaber-wielding freaks every 10 feet. According to the films, there were two known Jedi in the entire galaxy at the time this game takes place. In-game, there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands.

    Change rules, change professions, change and publish whatever... unless the amount of Jedi are cut back by 99% the game will never have the proper feel.

    v.m

  • The rollback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @03:40PM (#14860633)
    They should roll back to before LucasArts licensed the game to such a shitty company.

    -Eric

    • If such a thing were possible, do you think we could just rollback to before episode I?

      I want you guys with tech degrees and movie editing props to try something tonight. Take Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3 - and cut out EVERYTHING except the lightsaber fights. Paste all that together, and tell me Lucas wouldn't have been much better off just publishing this.
    • Considering that lucasarts is a shitty company lately, and defecated out episodes 1,2 and 3 under Lucas' now incompetent direction, it was probably a match made in hell from the start.
    • LucasArts is now a shitty company. You can count on one hand the amount of games they have released in the past 6 years that didn't have Star Wars in the title.

  • Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Why's_This_Fish_So_B ( 904222 )
    Why do /. mods even bother to post anything SOE related? Regardless of content, all that happens is that the flamethrowers come out. Oh they ruined SWG! Oh SOE is collapsing! This from people who, presumably, don't *play* SOE games any more, so how do they know that SWG or EQ has a dwindling population? Oh, rumors on the net and speculation. That's productive.

    As I posted (pointlessly, to a thread from last Wednesday, where nobody will ever see it) this is the same forum where another game which makes

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 2megs ( 8751 )
      Why do /. mods even bother to post anything SOE related? Regardless of content, all that happens is that the flamethrowers come out. Oh they ruined SWG! Oh SOE is collapsing!

      But it's entertaining to watch what's going on with SWG from a safe and comfortable distance.

      Why do you think people go to stock car races? Hint: it's not to see cars turn left.

      That's productive.

      Nope, that's slashdot.
    • I played SWG for over a year. I joined late because I didn't know that Sony is the only MMO company that does not think Credit Cards are the only form of payment in the world. For wich they deserve credit. Not many international companies realize this. Even paypal requires a credit card, HELLO, if I have a credit card I wouldn't use paypal would I?

      Anyway, you make a rather stupid mistake, you think that the people who decry sony are the same who defend blizzard. No way.

      Blizzard if anything is a far worse

      • I recall that Blizzard often had its servers listed as UP when they were DOWN, too.

        I'm no SOE fanboi, nor am I a Blizzard fanboi. I played WoW for nearly a year before I gave up on it. I played EQ2 for about 2 months before I was sure how bad it was.

        I will say this, though, from my experience. SOE patched EQ2 nearly daily. SOE has nearly doubled the size of the "world" in EQ2. Blizzard patches monthly, and only hotfixes bugs that benefit the player. Blizzard hasn't added much of anything to its game,
      • "I played SWG for over a year. I joined late because I didn't know that Sony is the only MMO company that does not think Credit Cards are the only form of payment in the world."

        Good. Credit Cards are another filter for the obnoxious kiddies. It's not foolproof by any means, but if you *really* don't want to pay via credit card you can go to any gaming shop and purchase timecards with cash or check.
    • "As I posted (pointlessly, to a thread from last Wednesday, where nobody will ever see it) this is the same forum where another game which makes you sit for half an hour or longer before you can start playing has people bending themselves into logical pretzels to defend this 'feature'. If SOE put a queue on any of its games it would have been flamed here and people would be screaming about class-action lawsuits because they were deprived of their game time."

      See, it takes a nerd to take one detail out of con
  • The SWG track record has been something like SOE Malevolence 24, Users 0. Highlights include that whole incident where they deliberately lied to their playerbase while they were working on still another revamp and the consistent fabrications about profession enhancements which were "almost done" only to turn out to never have been started. Then there was that snafu involving the expansion which said revamp invalidated after less than a week of retail after SOE has taken our money for it. Then the fact th
  • "As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups.""

    Or...because knowing Lucas and Sony...those bastards are probably planning on releasing a SWG Classic edition that you'll have to shell out another $50 for....

  • I have seen numerous references that SWG was great back then and sucks now. What made the game so great and what made it fail? Please enlighten an uninformed individual like myself.

    • Re:Pros/Cons? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @06:38PM (#14862407) Journal
      It was open. Perhaps I should first tell you about a game that isn't open. Everquest 2. In EQ2 you pick a race. Then you choose your alignment. Except that most races are limited to either being good or evil. (Note that you CHOOSE your alignment, not get to be evil based on your choices in the game). Then in game you select your base class. Fighter, priest, wizard, scout. THAT is your last real choice. Oh wait, but at level 10 you get to choose a specialisation. Well yeah. They slightly refine you base class. Some are different. For instance a brawler is a very different type of fighter then the others BUT the difference between the wizards ain't really all that big.

      Then at level 20 you are supposed to get you final class. Except it is prediced. The only difference that the titel is now based on your alignment. Monk (good) Brawler (bad) unarmed fighter.

      So how closed is this? Well, at no point do you choose say something like your stat points. Meaning every half-elf brawler level 18 is EXACTLY the same. Because of the way equipment works you will probably also be using pretty much the stuff.

      Now they added some minor choices that make you character slightly unique but in EQ2 you pretty much now exactly what a well played shaman is and isn't capable off. Player X will have the same spell list as player Y.

      SWG on the other hand left it totally open how you developed your skills. In fact with a new character most players would dabble in ALL the disciplines, being a medic, ranger and melee combat, a dancer and a crafter with a bit of scout for good measure.

      Depending on your style and if you weren't a template stacker you could have some unusual mixed. A medic with a sniper rifle , a doctor jedi. Whatever!

      To an extent, it allowed a great deal of freedom. Crafters with a sideline in rifles so they could safely clear their harvesters of nasty critters. Dancers with a sideline in cutting peoples heads off.

      In SWG you never knew exactly what the other guy was capable off.

      SWG is GTA

      EQ2 is Need for Speed.

      One is freedom, the other is on rails.

      • Mod this guy up, he just said it all. I played SWG from a few weeks after release for almost a year and a half. I currently play WoW and while its fun I still look back at the good ol' days of SWG. First I went down the path of a Bounty Hunter, then I decided to become a Swordsman but retain my gun fighting skills for ranged combat. Later I dropped guns altogether and became a Chef! I spent almost 5 weeks during the summer becoming a Master Chef and then creating the finest Brandy on the server which I so

  • I'd go back to the good old days (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrJynxx ( 902913 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @06:57PM (#14862564)
    If they rolled the game back to maybe one patch after launch I'd consider going back if all of the original players returned. But I know that will never happen, so i'll just continue with my rant about why this game pissed me off. The game had complexity, was actually somewhat fun, and the grind hadn't set in just yet.

    People at that time actually experimented with professions and once they found something they liked, they kept it! there were people in the cantina's, we had real people vendors making stuff, rangers hunting, BH's weren't doing much but had cool weapons, etc. This was when the game had an actual economy, people created pseudo corporations and made a killing!

    The game started to go into the shitter once they gave everyone holocrons as a christmas gift. That started the real grinding evolution. A friend of mine actually did 32 professions to get his Jedi. The whole jedi thing didn't outright destroy the game because ppl still played it and worked together to grind out those professions (and some actually discovered hey i actually enjoy this profession, screw jedi). But there was still a need for the interdependicies between the professions. Armorsmiths still needed to get minerals to grind out their profession, which meant they needed architects to build the factories and the miners needed the extractors so everything worked out quite well(I used to be an armorsmith which is why i used this example).

    BUt now, they have completely destroyed everything all of the pre NGE players created, everything was scaled back from 32 professions to 9 "iconic" professions (If i hear iconic, or whatever the hell word they kept using i'll puke) . It actually appeared to be the work of lazy ass people. Maybe they fucked up the game so bad that the only way to undo everything was to have this wonderful NGE.

    And who the hell made the call to let everyone be a jedi. When the game first came out they said "yes you can be a jedi but it'll take you a long time to figure it out" and they kept up with it for a long time.. I think it took almost a year for the first jedi to appear and now everybody and their grandmother are a jedi.. crap!

    I'd go back to the game only if I knew the same players returned, which is highly doubtful because they've probably found a new home in World Of Warcraft.

    I've never seen anything in my entire life managed so poorly from a software deployment/change point of view. Hell, MS has a better track record than these clowns. And this game has totally ruined the star wars experience for me. I don't think i'll ever try another starwars game again!!

    MrJynx

  • Seriously, article NDA out of existence.
  • SWG at this point can't really be saved.

    What amazes me is that lucas arts let sony do SWG the way they did. Now Sony, having EQ, you would think we'd have seen everquest in space, if that had been the case (something half way between EQ and EQ2 in terms of technology) it might have been quite successful, maybe not WoW successful, because that didn't have the Sony name attached (the Sony customer service reputation is of course a disaster, although the ticket system in SWG was a huge improvement). Unfortun
    • ...What amazes me is that lucas arts let sony do SWG the way they did. Now Sony, having EQ, you would think we'd have seen everquest in space, if that had been the case (something half way between EQ and EQ2 in terms of technology) it might have been quite successful, maybe not WoW successful, because that didn't have the Sony name attached (the Sony customer service reputation is of course a disaster, although the ticket system in SWG was a huge improvement). Unfortunately what they got was UO on the groun

  • Poof goes the article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by garylian ( 870843 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @07:18PM (#14862697)
    Apparently the website linked in TFA heard from SOE's lawyers, and pulled the comments based on the NDA.

    So, literally, nothing to see here.

  • the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by crabsauce ( 869339 ) on Monday March 06, 2006 @07:25PM (#14862737)
    Seems that someone who claims to have taken part in the "Los Angeles SWG research focus group" yesterday has posted details about the 2 hour session. From their post: "The discussion began with a round-robin introduction and telling what we felt the best and worst aspects of Galaxies are. Then the real discussion began. The moderator brought out three pamphlets. One, which I believe was entitled Paths To Power, outlined the implementation of a Dark Side/Light Side path a la KOTOR, for every profession. It also went into detail about re-doing missions as either side and seeing the different view on things, different abilities for each, etc. The group was very much interested. The second was entitled "The Galactic Civil War" and I'm sure you can imagine what it outlined: bringing the GCW back to prominence. It discussed controlling Star Destroyers and Blockade Runners, but also seemed to deadlock players as either Imperial or Rebel. The third outline basically discussed morphing Galaxies into Battlefront II, complete with having iconic characters not only immediately available during your mission, but for you to be able to -- yes, you're actually reading this -- play as movie characters. The group was not pleased. Then he told us that these were possibilities for expansion packs, not publish updates. The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said "Rollback" almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups. So there you have it. They're either going to continue the trend of "Expansion Packs aren't necessary (nudge nudge wink wink)", or, if they go by what the focus group asked, we will see a rollback of some degree. The number one issue brought to the moderator when he asked about the biggest negatives in Galaxies was the lack of diversity in professions and the overwhelming letdown that was the NGE for people like musicians, creature handlers, smugglers, etc. He was finishing sentences for us because he had obviously heard quite a bit about it in the previous groups. THAT'S ALL FOLKS" Hmm... Light/Dark side for EVERY profession? Awesome, because what SWG really needs is some Sith Lap Dancers. Keep that to Jedi only please. The Galactic Civil War has never been prominent. Unless you are talking about the Imperial Crackdown publish, which may as well have given Rebels 100,000 Faction Points everytime they logged in? As for the third discussion point, If SWG players wanted to play Battlefront II, they would be playing Battlefront II. It also saddens me to hear that the choices at the end were "Pay for stuff you don't want" or "Pay for stuff you want for many, many more months as we try to milk every dime". A rollback will never happen. If a rollback to Pre-NGE does happen, I'm sure I can look up some old Dev posts to find creative ways to say "That's not what I said" or "You're taking that out of context" or "That was a true statement at the time I made it".
  • ..when the game first first announced. Man, goldmine! How could they go wrong with a full universe of stories and creatures, gunslingers, heros, villans, etc. A perfect universe for a MMORPG. Wow, it took SOE to screw it up.
  • Here's a plan.

    Rollback the current SWG to pre-NGE and keep it in Episode IV timeline. Start a new SWG in the Episode I timeline. Give creative control to George Lucas and let him generate ideas for plot, quests, events, etc. Because if George could use his genious to create something as awesome as Episode I...

    Sorry. I couldn't keep a straight face and keep typing. I seemed to have left my sarcasm switch on.

    I played SWG in beta. That's all. It was uninteresting and boring then. I cannot imagine how mind-n

Slashdot Top Deals

Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!

Close