Our guild membership has increased since chapter 6 in a major way.  SWG is on a comeback but nothing of the sorts where there are players in every NPC city on every planet like it used to be. It is on a comeback through the gameplay.  Heck even Vanguard is getting fixed. I miss the old days of SWG- but I don't miss Jules Torres!

Originally posted by Kokushibyou

IT FINALY MAKES SENSE!  SOE released Vanguard in such a terrible condition so that SWG would look mildly playable in comparison!

Apparently you don't know the all the stupid drama with Vanguard.  It wasn't a SOE originally.  It was released by Sigil in cooperation with SOE.  Sigil royally screwed up.  There were quite alot of people fired when SOE basically took the reins.

I'm a four-year SWG vet.  I've played though all the changes.  The population will never be what it was....that's a fact.  However, I've noticed a 'small' increase in the population.  The current DEV team is actually trying.  It's kind of shocking considering what the game has been through.

What kills this game, and will be the death of it, is the lack of content.   Once you hit cl90, your gaming experience changes signifigantly.  There isn't any real high-level content.  What lillte there is, everyone has done a few hundred times by now.  Chapter 7 is suppose to be adding some content.  We'll just have wait and see how that pans out.

One of the biggest request I see that people want are some free server transfers.  It seems the large servers are getting larger, but the small ones are still hurting.

I thought I would add a word or two to the conversation.

I wouldn't say SWG is making a comeback. At this point in the game's career I believe that to be impossible. An increase in server population isn't really anything to base a comeback off of. Considering swg has over 30,000+ trials going at a time, you could see a flux in players one month and a decline the following month. Rinse and repeat.

While I give the DEVs credit for trying to revive the game, I believe it's too little to late. Most of us vets who stuck around through all the changes gave up on seeing anything worth while a long time ago. Be wary of chapter publishes that promise new content. Rehashing old themeparks for the 5th time is not new content. This is why my account is still on the cancelled list.

I've given up telling players that this game isn't worth touching. The truth is, if you've never played pre-cu or cu then you'll never miss it like those of us who had the chance to fall in love with a totally different game experience. Fresh nge players seem to like it. This is the only reason why this game still exists, along with a few diehard vets.

Is SWG making a comeback? No

Is SWG dying? Not anytime soon

Id would come Back to the SWG and i think alot of folks would too if they made A star wars game that hads space and planets on one map.

For me SW could be the greatess game ever. If done right!!!!

They need to make a Galaxy not a few planets u can zone to

I was so exited to get jump to lightspeed untill i loged it on and realised the 2 were appart from each other!!!

I need a SW  I can park my ship down anywere on the planet and take off from were u landed.

SW is space exploration . its flying in a astroid field to lose somone trying to blow you up!!

For the imperials its trying to enforce there law

At the beguining of the game it should be  Quest till u earn money to buy  your first Ship (car).

Leave Jedi's Out of it!!!

A Star Wars done right would have 10 million + subscriptions

Do it right and id be the first to come running back

Originally posted by local93bc

Id would come Back to the SWG and i think alot of folks would too if they made A star wars game that hads space and planets on one map.

 

For me SW could be the greatess game ever. If done right!!!!

They need to make a Galaxy not a few planets u can zone to

I was so exited to get jump to lightspeed untill i loged it on and realised the 2 were appart from each other!!!

I need a SW  I can park my ship down anywere on the planet and take off from were u landed.

SW is space exploration . its flying in a astroid field to lose somone trying to blow you up!!

For the imperials its trying to enforce there law

 

At the beguining of the game it should be  Quest till u earn money to buy  your first Ship (car).

Leave Jedi's Out of it!!!

A Star Wars done right would have 10 million + subscriptions

Do it right and id be the first to come running back

 

Afcourse this would be great, when i first heard of JTL i was actualy hoping this aswell, untill i got more familiar with the type of tech these type of games need, and now all i can say is what you want more sure  want including these company's that make these games, but do not underastimate the tech that is needed, let alone look at what a amount of people simply play with medium systems. So what you want wil become possible maybe 3/5 years from now when tech is at a point to realize this without the lose of to much else of a game or its performance, might even be more years. When we see this happening on a constant and stable rate within single player games , then it will be more reality to see it in mmorpg, as mmorpg still lay many years behind when it comes to what single player games are capable of, i would say most if not all mmorpg are about 2 years behind current single player games in terms of tech capabiltiy.

lololol this game making a comeback? LOLOL sry gave me a good lol.

no ur wrong

fail

your name doesnt give you any influence on these forums atall.

fail.

Afcourse this would be great, when i first heard of JTL i was actualy hoping this aswell, untill i got more familiar with the type of tech these type of games need, and now all i can say is what you want more sure  want including these company's that make these games, but do not underastimate the tech that is needed, let alone look at what a amount of people simply play with medium systems. So what you want wil become possible maybe 3/5 years from now when tech is at a point to realize this without the lose of to much else of a game or its performance, might even be more years. When we see this happening on a constant and stable rate within single player games , then it will be more reality to see it in mmorpg, as mmorpg still lay many years behind when it comes to what single player games are capable of, i would say most if not all mmorpg are about 2 years behind current single player games in terms of tech capabiltiy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well when they do Ill be there......

Originally posted by lolatngefans

lololol this game making a comeback? LOLOL sry gave me a good lol.

no ur wrong

fail

Shrug, all games fail. I've yet to see one that hasn't faltered and hasn't pissed anyone off ever. Let alone games with popular titles that just go silently into the night. SWG numbers probly are up since they dropped to such insane lows.

This game is making a comeback if and only if:

a) The current game is fixed and much more content is added

b) A new and completely kickass expansion is released

c) Veteran sentiment reverses

in that order. And yes, SOE does need (require) the veteran support for this game to succeed once again.

As it is now, I have current players and veteran in-game players telling me that the game is not yet ready for primetime: 4 years after the fact. Unfortunately for SOE, they could only really get away with this until the next generation MMOs come forth, which are significantly shorter in playtime and duration than their juggernaut SOE grindfest forefathers.

Uphill battle with time against them and a flood of sci-fi MMOs en route, folks.

Originally posted by xPaladin

This game is making a comeback if and only if:

a) The current game is fixed and much more content is added

b) A new and completely kickass expansion is released

c) Veteran sentiment reverses

in that order. And yes, SOE does need (require) the veteran support for this game to succeed once again.

As it is now, I have current players and veteran in-game players telling me that the game is not yet ready for primetime: 4 years after the fact. Unfortunately for SOE, they could only really get away with this until the next generation MMOs come forth, which are significantly shorter in playtime and duration than their juggernaut SOE grindfest forefathers.

Uphill battle with time against them and a flood of sci-fi MMOs en route, folks.

Excellent Post!

They could "fix" this quite easily to almost all 3.

a) Revert the C6 Combat Downgrade leaving new players to level and the existing content to build toons after 90

b) Server merge freeing up at least 3 servers and install pre CU or CU

c) Take the "new" content they are working on and make it the difficulty that is in the C6CD

d) Then announce and start working on a new expansion.

There will be no classic servers, the chapter six upgrade is staying, we are currently adding content & fixing bugs before a new expansion is released.

The dev team was just cut down to 20 people not to long ago (I wish could find the link where smed/soe said that).  Compare that to the 80 people they had working on just the Jump to Lightspeed expansion. A reduced size dev team is actually a sign of a declining game.

Since you ask, I would not say the game is making a comeback based on SOE advertising to fill a programming position.  There are many possibilities for such a search:  replacing someone for retired, was transfered to a new title, quit and yes adding a new member to the team. 

If SOE increased the size of the team I bet they would announce it, but maybe not.  Signs of a comeback would be stores starting to carry the gamebox again, new servers, press releases, an expansion or anything that shows forward progress.  It has been almost 2 years since the NGE was released and zero new content expansions and it looks like it could easily go another year without seeing new ground.  Honestly I don't know how this game can make a comeback with such a small team.  It almost seems that it is put on life support and is just riding out the time.

I agree. The development team on SWG has not the resources or manpower to make any value added changes to SWG. If they really wanted to make a comeback then they would have to make a huge investment with manpower and captial. The statement about "life support" seems to be on the mark.  Go with the bare minium and let it ride out into the sunset.

SWG had a surge of returning players in the weeks following CH6.

This has turned out to be a temporary bubble and not permanent, they are almost back down to pre 6 numbers (which was around 45-50Kish.

They think they will get most of the ones that came back for CH6 back when they release CH7 in November, but I doubt they will stay, since CH8 won't be out until February `08 at the earliest.

Originally posted by xluciferx

There will be no classic servers, the chapter six upgrade is staying, we are currently adding content & fixing bugs before a new expansion is released.

"We"??????  Are you talking about the C6 Combat Downgrade?  I thought you did that with "bugbash".

Blix, did you follow me over here?  And is this confirmation that there is a link between SOE Austin and the devil?  ROFL

(Sorry, too easy)  LOL

Originally posted by cabalist

SWG had a surge of returning players in the weeks following CH6.

This has turned out to be a temporary bubble and not permanent, they are almost back down to pre 6 numbers (which was around 45-50Kish.

They think they will get most of the ones that came back for CH6 back when they release CH7 in November, but I doubt they will stay, since CH8 won't be out until February `08 at the earliest.

 

Or is the beginning of another "SWG will shutdown in <insert date>" rumors?

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

 

Originally posted by cabalist

SWG had a surge of returning players in the weeks following CH6.

This has turned out to be a temporary bubble and not permanent, they are almost back down to pre 6 numbers (which was around 45-50Kish.

They think they will get most of the ones that came back for CH6 back when they release CH7 in November, but I doubt they will stay, since CH8 won't be out until February `08 at the earliest.

Source?

 

Or is the beginning of another "SWG will shutdown in <insert date>" rumors?

I can sorta back him up here. Mind you this is all hearsay but it comes from (IMO) a good perspective. My very old school buddies still playing SWG keep telling me that old faces pop on once in a while and then disappear, but there are more new players than old.

AT LEAST ON BLOODFIN, the population is indeed up since after NGE launch. Mos Eisley is thriving, and in fact it serves as the "main city of the game" now. People post LFMs/LFGs there, newbies crop up, people get ganked, etc. Coronet was perhaps unsurprisingly barren, but I heard Corellia is the rebel hangout for the server (I suspect they're around somewhere). Things are still slightly more desolate than the CU period, and some player towns are complete ghost towns.

On an interesting sidenote, I'm 99.995% positive station pass accounts are indeed counted as "active subs." Reason I say this is because I went on a "tour de olde" revisiting old sites, and several people whom are EQ1 and EQ2 Station Pass players, but are also ex-SWG players, still have their active housing in SWG, either paid or with dues owed, but can not be demolished. By looking at the houses you could easily assume they were still playing SWG, but I factually know these folks are not.

I'd guess as to this being the reason why they "can't count subs": It's too difficult for them to determine who's actively playing what game on a station pass account. Personally, as a database pro, I could probably whip up some queries to determine this, and if I can do it, so can they. It's more than likely they don't want to allocate resources to determine how many. Thus they'll use the simplest number they can provide: everyone. That all said, I wouldn't believe any sub number for SWG even if it came out of SOE's mouth.

I have been playing SWG consistently since day 1.  I can't play other MMO's b/c they are too constricting and not sandbox enough.

Before I paste what they are planning (which explains why they are highering) I think it is important ot note...returning players are not playing the SWG most other ppl are.

Logging in you only see 9 profession and an expertise..and bad default controls.  5 mins of remapping and your playing like CU. I meet a returning vet at least once a week and give them this speech (I haven't had one cancel their account yet)

SWG can be played two ways..casual an hardcore.  Casual players can level from 1-90 spend their expertise points, quest, loot, and be totally content.  But you cna go much deeper...The iconic profession is only a skill set. After choosing your Iconci profession you shap it to your play style with the expertise.  Additionally you reinforce your template with attribute choices, which affect combat offenses and defenses.  So instead of kill grinding a proffession box for that melee defense, you go out and quest, loot, work with traders to make attachments, develop a buff set up with items, food, and entertainer build-a-buffs, apply pups, etc. 

What you end up with is a character that does what you want it to in the game universe...but he is balanced,  You don't have to have that CM tree, you don't have to have the boxes in defense.  And on top of it you can develop different buff.attribute combos with your expertise to be used in different situations...all without shouting "LF Bol group,"  or equipping chugging galons of brandy while running in circles queuing attacks,

I have seen the iconic smuggler prof become swordsman and pikeman.  Officers become fencers. Bounty Hunters into rangers.  The skill sets and modifiers YOU develop allow you to be things in the current game..not a floating title over your head.  On top of that you are balanced for pvp no matter what you choose ( only weaker in certain situations while stronger in others).

After I give this run down...vets are rdy to try out the game with a fresh perspective in mind.  There is so much to do now. But the game is now built on community so finding a good guild is very important.

Anyway here is whats scheduled for chapter 7 and future chapters (why they are hiring and my vets friends and I keep subbing).

And if your looking for a large community of Imps/Nuetrals still palyign the gmae and keeping a fresh perspective visit us at AI.tricerealm.com

MAIN FEATURES: EXPLINATIONS OF EACH:

-The Aurillian Township-
"This is an amazing new township on the planet of Dathomir, which is somewhat familiar to the Aurillian Village back in the days pre-NGE. However, much beauty and graphical work has been put into it, and will be nothing players have ever seen, aside from the fact that it will be an actual Town of technology, and not a village.
The township's main purpose is to provide players with exciting never-before seen type of quests and willl challenge the greatest of groups through lairs and small realms of heroic MOBs and NPCs. Discover while obtaining new rewards, new items, and fending off new MOBs." --DevChat Log
There was also mention of few rewards that can be obtained. I was able to find out that new high stated jewelery, rare weapon schematics, new DNA samples, and container pockets for belts will be some of the many loot drops and rewards for the Aurillian Township.

-Origin Points/Story-
This is expected to greatly enlighten the roleplaying universe and those who just love a good lore. With the "Origin Points System", players will be able to create the story of their character with enourmous wide varieties leading to specializing many different skills.

After you create your origin, your story, and your traits, you will be given "origin points" into various skills and attributes depending on what your background is.

Collection System
Not much was said about this, except about the rewards, and the extremely vast amount of collections you could accomplish.
"This system we have built will make it so it is guarenteed that almost NO player could accomplish every single little thing we have installed, unless one were to work on just this for dozens of hours a week for a year or two. Rewards for these numerous collections can range from exciting new (never-before seen!) furniture, to new animations and positions including the old Meditation Stance. Like stated before, the majority of the new content and rewards we want to be left as a suprise " --DevChat Log
Later in the post they also mentioned something about another collections reward that would allow us to store more items in our houses/structures. These "pieces of data" would come in increments of 100 item allowance, and you could collect as much as you wanted until you reached the cap, which will be a 5,000 item allowance.

-The Imperial Themepark-
"Think of this much like the update of the Rebel themepark back in the previous chapter. It is Imperial, it is far more harder, it includes a new collection of rewards, and will be one-hundred times more fun than the one originally created in the pre-NGE. The Imperial Themepark will be especially for levels 85-90 with a different twist and feel to the original questline. You will not be doing 5-8 different missions for each NPC like in the current themepark. We plan to put this on TestCenter later this week." --DevChat Log
The Imperial Themepark HAS already been tested, unfortunately, since I did not post this any sooner. Expect -AI- looking for YOU to be in a group to run this with us.

______________________________________________

RELEASE DATE:
"We plan Chapter 7 to be released late September, and will be loading it to TestCenter after release." --DevChat Log

______________________________________________

CHAPTER 8 AND THE DISTANT FUTURE RELEASES
During the DevChat there was also some information about future releases due to happen in the near and distant future. There is also minds in SoE about a new planet, so get reading

Here is a list of the many things thrown into SoE's 'plan lab', and the many things guarenteed to be enabled:

-More space instances
-A new wide variety of different ships!
-Player gunboats/shuttles
-Star Destroyers for large guilds (distant future, must have a certain amount of active guild members to obtain)
-Able to go inside planets' space stations (much like Tansarii)
-Unique types of ships, with methods like cargo, transport, navigation, or just to partay!
-An easier and more exciting way to fly and interact in space
-A new planet(s) is definately in the future, but will not be expected until at least chapter 9 or 10" --DevChat Log

-Better and more adventurous outlook on every planet.
-Upgrades and large NPC city re-vamps
-Converting pre-CU quests into NGE quests (ex. The Warren, Geo Cave)
-New civic structures!
-New house models!
-Gardening, and outdoor house decoration!
-More droids, droid features!
-More styles of clothes
-Eventually creating multi levels for high-rise NPC builidngs
-New and amazing NPC interactions for NPC cities and POIs
-Different map opimizations
-Starport revamps

-More jedi abilities and addition of jedi abilities such as SABER BLOCK able to 'throw back' projectiles, and different stances.
-Weapons enabled on vehicles and speederbikes
-More vehicles, mounts
-Exciting new ways to travel, more about this in the future.
-Ideas of larger groups or contact/collision with other full groups alongside you (ex. /group2, /group3)
-New bounty hunting system
-More "training/assignment" missions designed for each of the 9 ionic professions.
-Ability to see hairstyles with helmets, hats, and robes on

Originally posted by Coochanawe

-A new planet(s) is definately in the future, but will not be expected until at least chapter 9 or 10" --DevChat Log


-Converting pre-CU quests into NGE quests (ex. The Warren, Geo Cave)

Statement 1: Hey a whole new planet!  or better yet, multiple planets!   Some time in the future.

Statement 2: We are finally getting around to fixing quests that have festered for close to 2-4 years since we revamped the entire game.... twice since those quests were released.  (yes that says PRE combat upgrade)

I found that very telling of the SWG management of this product.  Plan and scatter. 

Also, what is with having to give players pep talks to keep them playing?  The game should be fun enough to stand on its own to feet.