SOE Retains Star Wars License 55
Next Generation confirms that Sony Online Entertainment will retain the Star Wars license for for their Massive title Star Wars Galaxies. From the article: "LucasArts and SOE have no plans to 'sunset' Star Wars Galaxies. The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience. As has been announced several times previously, LucasArts and SOE are 100% committed and determined to continue to support Star Wars Galaxies together, especially with our renewed focus on improving the game for existing players through robust publish and content offerings in 2006."
Die Sony Die (Score:3)
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:2)
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:2)
A foray into the music and movie businesses.
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:1)
Unfortunately, then they took this as license to use those tired old mechanics and punish the user for existing in everything they've made since. All the while trumpeting how brilliant their design (do what MUDs did in 1990) is in every interview and how t
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:2)
However, way before Everquest was the hugely popular Ultima Online, developed by Origin (bought out EA several years later).
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:2)
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:2)
Around '98 was spun off and focused on makeing PSOne games. They changed their named to Verant Interactive and EQ was released '99. In 2000, SOE bought back Verant and merged it with SOE.
So, for most of the time EQ was being funded by Sony but they had no
Re:Die Sony Die (Score:1)
Around '98, 989 Studios was spun off
Maybe someone rootkitted their brains (Score:2)
-Eric
Doesn't change the fact... (Score:1)
What they could do with SWG is... (Score:2)
Nah, screw the people that play it...THIS is how SOE wants the game to be, now pay your fees and play it dammit!
Re:What they could do with SWG is... (Score:1)
In my opinion they should have spent the time they spent on the new design in making the JTL part of the game more like X-Wing Alliance. The orignial design of Star Wars Galaxies with an X-Wing Alliance style space fighting would be my wet dream.
Thank Goodness! (Score:1)
People with no lives can breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you Sony. Thank you LucasArts. God bless us every one (and Tiny Tim too).
Re:Thank Goodness! (Score:1)
That will run the command to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, etc.
Meanwhile... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:1)
Thanks George (Score:1)
Easy task (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy task (Score:2)
Re:Easy task (Score:1)
Sure now they could promise "No NGE in here"...
but what is to say that they reverse on that decision and screwing that userbase again? (I know stupid thought, but they have made some strange and idiotic decisions in the past year or so.)
Don't forget, the larger part of that userbase lost their trust in SOE...
Re:Easy task (Score:2)
You're basically asking them to maintain two MMO's, doubling the amount of work to be done. It's just not as reasonable an expectation you make it out to be.
Re:Easy task (Score:2)
Re:Easy task (Score:1)
To quote the first poster: Die Sony Die!
Re:Easy task (Score:2)
As for 50K salary- possibly, for game programming. Anything else you're being fucked over. I make nearly twice that, I wouldn't even submit a resume for a 50K job.
How to get this ex-subscriber back.... (Score:2, Informative)
I won't go so far as to say that I will not come back as long as Sony has the license...
However, I will say this, the only way I will ever give this game another shot is if I hear that they have totally abandoned the current version and built a new one from scratch. This entire concept of slapping on change after change is just not working (and no except SONY ever thought it would). The problems run deeper than that - they need to admit defeat and start over. If they do, I'd give the new game a try, bu
Counter-intelligence (Score:2, Insightful)
SOE losing Star Wars: Galaxies license? @ GameSpot [gamespot.com]
Given the previous statements made by SOE concerning SWG, any comments from their PR department should be cast in a very skeptical light.
Alternate Timeline Servers maybe? (Score:4, Interesting)
As it is, all those Jedi running around during the New Hope - Empire Strikes Back timeline just bugs the crap out of me.
Re:Alternate Timeline Servers maybe? (Score:1)
Buy the fanboys cried, LA instantly capitulated and a good game design was thrown out the window with the rest of the good ideas this game started with.
Re:Alternate Timeline Servers maybe? (Score:1)
An edit button would be nice some days.
Re:SWG Fun? (Score:1)
I started out as a Twi'lek dancer, on naboo. It was quickly apparent that the Empire ran the planet, and I considered moving to a different one. Left for Tattooine, picked up some pistol skills and some scouting experience.
Then I actually ran into a decent-sized group that was going to go out "hunting." They said they needed some entertainment, so I hopped along. we went to Dantooi
Amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The two companies will continue to work together as partners in making Star Wars Galaxies the ultimate online Star Wars experience."
It's pretty easy to be the "ultimate online Star Wars experience" when you're the only game in town...
Re:Amusing... (Score:2)
Damn (Score:1)
Let this game die already, its suffering.
Total BS (Score:3, Interesting)
I see a couple of main ways (other than another posters multiple time-line server idea) to get back players they have lost - PRIMARY is to revert back to the original "complex" game idea and (pardon the shouting) FIX WHAT ACTUALLY FUCKING NEEDED TO BE FIXED: armor certification and some balancing (but give crafters decent damn armor so they don't have to hire people to guard them or bug their buddies to help them place harvester on Endor, Yavin, and other extremely hostile worlds), rebalance doctor buffs (not a complete nerf, balance), let the MIND stat be changed like every other stat (thus reducing the Swordmaster and TKAs ability to kill all fast), include GOOD mind buffs to EQUAL what docs could do to Health and Action and their sub-stats (again to balance out swords and TKA), and fix all the other little crap that needed to be fixed (locations that were not all there, elevators that didn't work, mini-missions you could not complete, NPCs you could not reach, etc.). I'm sure I forgot a few things since it has been a long while since I played but that is the major issues that I can remember.
The other main way to bring back their player base is simple: Give up the Star Wars license and let someone else take over the old code base and/OR let the new licensee create an entirely new game (although I would suggest using the first, apparently too complex, version of the game as a basis for any new game). *shrug* Maybe I'm just too optimistic but I enjoyed both sides of the original SWG especially since I didn't feel forced to grind out combat and could craft instead.
Re:Total BS (Score:2)
Re:Total BS (Score:2)
Then again, it is (at times) much harder to admit defeat and failure in the dog-eat-dog world of corporations and say "OK, let
Re:Total BS (Score:2)
This is not the SWG you thought it was (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the highlights:
This is, for all intents and purposes, SWG becoming a sci-fi analog to WoW. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it's not the game a lot of the players signed up for. If SOE pulls it off they may get a sizable player base, although I wouldn't pretend they'll match WoW's size.
The developer Helios has really upset the players with his pronouncement that SWG no longer strives to be a world simulator. One of the selling points of the original SWG was the open world where players would find their own things to do instead of being on treadmills. Sure, SWG failed in large ways because of experience grinding and lack of working, interesting content. But the play area was flexible enough and the way things worked pre-NGE managed to keep a lot of people interested.
Another developer, ChrisCao, comes across as an ass. He managed to insult just about everyone with what he said, being particularly dismissive of entertainers. His contention is that entertainers don't belong in the Star Wars universe because the only one in the movie got eaten. Not only is this wrong (cantina in Mos Eisley, partying ewoks, Jabba's personal entertainers), but by his logic they should eliminate bounty hunters because Greedo and both Jengo and Boba Fett were killed.
There was also a developer comment made (I think by ChrisCao) that droid engineers didn't exist in Star Wars, which is also ridiculous. Annakin was a droid engineer who built C-3PO. Luke, too, was a budding droid engineer. It was his tinkering with R2-D2 that unlocked Princess Leia's message. The jawas, as scavengers, also served as droid engineers. Gotta whip them into shape to sell them.
I don't know what kind of Star Wars fans the developers are, but it seems the ones making the decisions only understand the superficial aspects of the story arc. Some of us like playing someone like Oola or Watto or Uncle Owen. Give me an arid planet and some second-hand, rusted moisture extractors and I'll keep myself entertained for as long as there's a market for water.
SWG is turning into a radically different game. That's fine, if that's the business decision that needs to be made. I'm not sure they'll be able to make all of their changes in a short enough time to save the game, but that's just one player's opinion. And thank you, SOE, for finally being forthcoming in your intent so we can make informed decisions about playing. I started playing SWG because it was sci-fi and it had one of the most elaborate crafting systems of any MMOG on the market. Now that crafters are going to shift to glorified loot pimpers maybe I'll look elsewhere. Seed [seedthegame.com] looks intriguing and is scheduled to launch in about a month. A zero-combat MMORPG may be just the antidote to what SWG wants to become.
Re:This is news? (Score:1)
How this could work... (Score:2)
But even if they're telling the truth, it would make perfect sense for them to make another completely different Star Wars MMO with Bioware (in fact it h
Re:How this could work... (Score:2)
Why... (Score:1)
I mean, of all franchises, of all pop-culture icons, how can George Lucas allow this to happen to the one that made him king? The game is not canon, it changes every year, it's currently losing subscribers new and old no matter what the latest spin from SOE's PR department says. All those thin
part of me died (Score:1)
Robust is a funny word. It sounds nice, but it doesn't actually mean anything. Slowly destroying most of the professions then removing them altogether in favor of cookie-cutter character clones hardly qualifies as a game "fix." Part of me wishes they'd just let it die already and move on, while another part wants them to hand the game over to a company that knows what they're doing. I mean, let's be hone
How Unfortuanate (Score:1)
I will never go back. And even if they started a new SW MMORPG from scratch I will never give SOE any more of my money or time.
The most interesting thing to me is the fact that I have yet to read a positive comment on this article. Now of course thos
If they keep on saying this... (Score:1)