Hi

I was thinking that TOR will cater to the mass audience that SOE tried to bring to SWG with the NGE. We all know SOE failed at that. TOR will alienate even more people from SWG when it launches, we all know. But...I think if SOE focuses in a more hardcore, crafting and/or mature SWG and brings back more of the classic features to SWG, it can bring back life, because there are going to be lots of people that won't like that new TOR.

Just forget about the NGE target audience, it's lost and will be more distant when TOR launches. SOE focusing on the classic and original audience seems to me the only way to differentiate and succes in the thunderstorm.

Think about actual SWG with some of  the last nice additions, but also with classic features like skill system, classic combat system, no levels, weapon accuracy vs distance, decay, etc. and focused on making the hardcore, crafting and/or mature players really enjoy a simulation of Star Wars world, not just a game of heroes and villains.

What do you think? can it be a reborn of SWG, in terms of classic standards and subscriber base if SOE plays well cards? (that means, do what the playerbase has been telling you for ages, for once at least)

I agree with everything you said, unfortunately I doubt seriously SoE would figure this out and fix it.

I am sure that all the powers that be have already sat down and worked things out.  The only wild card in their plans is the quack.

SOE may be allowed to keep SWGNGE in station pass.  They may also at the time of launch be allowed to bring back classic servers.

But what do I believe...

LA protects this IP with an iron fist.  I don't see them allowing any competition if they can help it to compete with their new WOW chaser.  I believe if they allow SOE to keep SWG running it will be the last version (NGE).  Although the NGE was originally designed to appeal to the WOW crowd, all the Pre-CU like features they have added back has changed the game where it may not be like what is going to be in TOR.  So I can see where they might let it exist in SP, really don't see LA allowing it.

SOE launching a classic server is silly.  One, it would be admitting to the fact they have had the original code all this time.  The last time I heard they maintain that all copies of Pre-CU are gone.  For them to release classic servers would again be evidence of them lying.  Also considering the bad blood I suspect SOE would rather let the whole SWG go.  I believe they would rather start focusing on something else.  As Long as the have SWG there will be disgrunted vets out there that will never let it down.  It will affect SOE's rep or the rebuilding of the rep.

Also with all the work that has quacked, those people are not going to stop.  A classic version is coming and they will not be hampered by a bad rep like SOE.  In short SOE is going to have to compete with them as well.  The quack is technically free.  This will be even harder to compete with.

LA is counting on TOR to do what the NGE couldn't.  Bring in WOW like numbers.  If they are successful the realativelly small current population is not going to compare with the millions they think TOR will have.  If TOR is that successful then the NGE may be allowed to exist in SP because it isn't affecting anything.  If TOR is not then SWG will die.  LA will want all their MMO customer focus on TOR.  NGE three months of money and development vs. TOR four to five years of new money and development.  Which do you think LA will back.

Again the quack will cater to vets.  People SOE will never get back and LA has a legal battle they would probably loose if they fight it.  To date it sounds like LA suports it as fan art anyway.  I don't see it being scrapped.  They question is if as a free game when it goes live who will play it?  Just vets or will the people that would have played TOR go there because it is SW and FREE.  Either way it still all depends on how successful TOR is in its own right.

In short I don't believe SOE will have SWG running after TOR launch.  But if they did it will still be only the NGE.

Originally posted by GrandAm

I am sure that all the powers that be have already sat down and worked things out.  The only wild card in their plans is the quack.

SOE may be allowed to keep SWGNGE in station pass.  They may also at the time of launch be allowed to bring back classic servers.

But what do I believe...

LA protects this IP with an iron fist.  I don't see them allowing any competition if they can help it to compete with their new WOW chaser.  I believe if they allow SOE to keep SWG running it will be the last version (NGE).  Although the NGE was originally designed to appeal to the WOW crowd, all the Pre-CU like features they have added back has changed the game where it may not be like what is going to be in TOR.  So I can see where they might let it exist in SP, really don't see LA allowing it.

SOE launching a classic server is silly.  One, it would be admitting to the fact they have had the original code all this time.  The last time I heard they maintain that all copies of Pre-CU are gone.  For them to release classic servers would again be evidence of them lying.  Also considering the bad blood I suspect SOE would rather let the whole SWG go.  I believe they would rather start focusing on something else.  As Long as the have SWG there will be disgrunted vets out there that will never let it down.  It will affect SOE's rep or the rebuilding of the rep.

Also with all the work that has quacked, those people are not going to stop.  A classic version is coming and they will not be hampered by a bad rep like SOE.  In short SOE is going to have to compete with them as well.  The quack is technically free.  This will be even harder to compete with.

LA is counting on TOR to do what the NGE couldn't.  Bring in WOW like numbers.  If they are successful the realativelly small current population is not going to compare with the millions they think TOR will have.  If TOR is that successful then the NGE may be allowed to exist in SP because it isn't affecting anything.  If TOR is not then SWG will die.  LA will want all their MMO customer focus on TOR.  NGE three months of money and development vs. TOR four to five years of new money and development.  Which do you think LA will back.

Again the quack will cater to vets.  People SOE will never get back and LA has a legal battle they would probably loose if they fight it.  To date it sounds like LA suports it as fan art anyway.  I don't see it being scrapped.  They question is if as a free game when it goes live who will play it?  Just vets or will the people that would have played TOR go there because it is SW and FREE.  Either way it still all depends on how successful TOR is in its own right.

In short I don't believe SOE will have SWG running after TOR launch.  But if they did it will still be only the NGE.

I see something different happening.
 

Firstly, I don't think any of the 3 companies involved in the SW MMO's need to worry about the Emu.  I doubt it'll be ready before SW:TOR goes Live.  I think once people relise the nature of what Emu's really are it won't be any serious threat.  Of course, there is always the threat that LA will stop tolerating them - when Smedley posted his opinion on the Emu back in 2006 he mentioned that it was SOE that was keeping LA back from unleashing the lawyers on them.

I don't see SWG being shutdown just because SW:TOR is released.  The two games sound like they're going to be very different.  As you said, the new game is going to be aimed at grabbing the WoW crowd - you're goal of playing the game will to be the hero and this will be made easy to obtain.  SWG on the other hand is more about actually being part of the Star Wars world and not necessarily being the hero, but the person you see in the background of the movie that the heroes try to protect.  Despite the NGE, SWG is still a sandboxy game, which attract a different bunch of people.

I think the pressure will be off SWG to lose its sandbox appeal with this new game coming out and we'll see more features in the game being added that embrace the sandbox, open endness and the crafting/economy the game has.  This has already started with GU5 with the WS revamp and previously with Storyteller.  I think we'll see more of that with the upcoming Game Updates which focus on the crafting professions, player cities and guilds.

I don't understand your statement of why LA would want to kill off SWG if SW:TOR isn't successful.  If SWG is keeping up its profit (which won't be hard for it to do) then I think it'll be a case of the opposite.  SWG is also the only MMO they can incorporate any future movie promotions into - they can't go ahead and add items from the movies into a game based 3000 years in the past.

Originally posted by Obraik

I think the pressure will be off SWG to lose its sandbox appeal with this new game coming out and we'll see more features in the game being added that embrace the sandbox, open endness and the crafting/economy the game has.  This has already started with GU5 with the WS revamp and previously with Storyteller.  I think we'll see more of that with the upcoming Game Updates which focus on the crafting professions, player cities and guilds.

That is what I've tried to say. I didn't meant to "bring back pre-cu", but to introduce features that could appeal to the classic community (some old, some new). In fact as you say it has already happened and the trend continues. A game update centered around player cities and guilds is the best example.

This is good for SWG, focusing in a well defined playerbase, not just trying to appeal to everyone. Raising the review and user ratings, generating better word of mouth and consolidating into one of the few sandobox mmos in the market.

It seems so ovbious, lol. I wonder if SOE will try this or what, we all know they are the best at the worst decisions

Originally posted by Distiler

Originally posted by Obraik

I think the pressure will be off SWG to lose its sandbox appeal with this new game coming out and we'll see more features in the game being added that embrace the sandbox, open endness and the crafting/economy the game has.  This has already started with GU5 with the WS revamp and previously with Storyteller.  I think we'll see more of that with the upcoming Game Updates which focus on the crafting professions, player cities and guilds.

 

That is what I've tried to say. I didn't meant to "bring back pre-cu", but to introduce features that could appeal to the classic community (some old, some new). In fact as you say it has already happened and the trend continues. A game update centered around player cities and guilds is the best example.

This is good for SWG, focusing in a well defined playerbase, not just trying to appeal to everyone. Raising the review and user ratings, generating better word of mouth and consolidating into one of the few sandobox mmos in the market.

It seems so ovbious, lol. I wonder if SOE will try this or what, we all know they are the best at the worst decisions

I think over the last week it's become more obvious where the main influence for these past decisions have come from - LA...
 

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by GrandAm

I am sure that all the powers that be have already sat down and worked things out.  The only wild card in their plans is the quack.

SOE may be allowed to keep SWGNGE in station pass.  They may also at the time of launch be allowed to bring back classic servers.

But what do I believe...

LA protects this IP with an iron fist.  I don't see them allowing any competition if they can help it to compete with their new WOW chaser.  I believe if they allow SOE to keep SWG running it will be the last version (NGE).  Although the NGE was originally designed to appeal to the WOW crowd, all the Pre-CU like features they have added back has changed the game where it may not be like what is going to be in TOR.  So I can see where they might let it exist in SP, really don't see LA allowing it.

SOE launching a classic server is silly.  One, it would be admitting to the fact they have had the original code all this time.  The last time I heard they maintain that all copies of Pre-CU are gone.  For them to release classic servers would again be evidence of them lying.  Also considering the bad blood I suspect SOE would rather let the whole SWG go.  I believe they would rather start focusing on something else.  As Long as the have SWG there will be disgrunted vets out there that will never let it down.  It will affect SOE's rep or the rebuilding of the rep.

Also with all the work that has quacked, those people are not going to stop.  A classic version is coming and they will not be hampered by a bad rep like SOE.  In short SOE is going to have to compete with them as well.  The quack is technically free.  This will be even harder to compete with.

LA is counting on TOR to do what the NGE couldn't.  Bring in WOW like numbers.  If they are successful the realativelly small current population is not going to compare with the millions they think TOR will have.  If TOR is that successful then the NGE may be allowed to exist in SP because it isn't affecting anything.  If TOR is not then SWG will die.  LA will want all their MMO customer focus on TOR.  NGE three months of money and development vs. TOR four to five years of new money and development.  Which do you think LA will back.

Again the quack will cater to vets.  People SOE will never get back and LA has a legal battle they would probably loose if they fight it.  To date it sounds like LA suports it as fan art anyway.  I don't see it being scrapped.  They question is if as a free game when it goes live who will play it?  Just vets or will the people that would have played TOR go there because it is SW and FREE.  Either way it still all depends on how successful TOR is in its own right.

In short I don't believe SOE will have SWG running after TOR launch.  But if they did it will still be only the NGE.

I see something different happening.
 

Firstly, I don't think any of the 3 companies involved in the SW MMO's need to worry about the Emu.  I doubt it'll be ready before SW:TOR goes Live.  Have you seen what they have accomplished lately? I think once people relise the nature of what Emu's really are it won't be any serious threat.  Depends on the individual live servers Of course, there is always the threat that LA will stop tolerating them - when Smedley posted his opinion on the Emu back in 2006 he mentioned that it was SOE that was keeping LA back from unleashing the lawyers on them.

I don't see SWG being shutdown just because SW:TOR is released.  The two games sound like they're going to be very different.  As you said, the new game is going to be aimed at grabbing the WoW crowd As was the original design of the NGE- you're goal of playing the game will to be the hero and this will be made easy to obtain.  SWG on the other hand is more about actually being part of the Star Wars world this after almost three years of putting back what they removed and not necessarily being the hero, but the person you see in the background of the movie that the heroes try to protect.  Despite the NGE, SWG is still a sandboxy game, which attract a different bunch of people.

I think the pressure will be off SWG to lose its sandbox appeal with this new game coming out and we'll see more features in the game being added that embrace the sandbox, open endness and the crafting/economy the game has I admit the crafting isn't bad, but the economy is out of control IMO .  This has already started with GU5 with the WS revamp and previously with Storyteller.  I think we'll see more of that with the upcoming Game Updates which focus on the crafting professions, player cities and guilds.

I don't understand your statement of why LA would want to kill off SWG if SW:TOR isn't successful.  If SWG is keeping up its profit (which won't be hard for it to do) then I think it'll be a case of the opposite.  SWG is also the only MMO they can incorporate any future movie promotions into - they can't go ahead and add items from the movies into a game based 3000 years in the past.

Last para:

No.  Here is why IMO if TOR is successful SWG will stay.  Also why SWG will disappear if TOR fails.

If TOR kills WOW and tears away the 10Mil subs,  The remaining SWG playerbase is a drop in the bucket.  It will be a who cares situation at LA because they have bigger fish to fry.

If TOR fails.  Keep in mind.  The money on SWG is already spent and I believe they have either already recovered investment costs or don't expect to recover any negative balance at this time in the games life.  TOR on the other hand is brand new and needs time with a successful launch to recover the investment costs before it can turn a profit.  If it fails to bring in the numbers they want or need they will eliminate anything they can that would draw away from it.  Namely a competeing SW MMO.  SW is the key.

No in order for SWG to continue operating after launch TOR will have to be massively successful where the SW fans of SWG won't matter to the success of TOR.  It has more to do with finacial and managerial accounting than the marginal profit SWG makes.  The small profit it makes will be less impactful than an investment loss.

I know this sounds goofy, but I have seen this crap before.  A big company has a popular flagship line that does well, they let their smaller offerings operate.  The heavily invested flagship line fails to draw an investment return, they dump anything that can be tearing away from a return on that investment.

In short LA is embracing TOR for their MMO future and if they must they will sacrifice SWG subs to ensure on their accounting books that the investment of capital is being recovered on TOR.

All my opinion and accept I could be completely wrong.  Of course as a corp. these companies use accrual based accounting and I hope they have had the foresight to accomodate a TOR failure on the books not just a success.

Originally posted by Obraik

I think over the last week it's become more obvious where the main influence for these past decisions have come from - LA...
 

Well yeah I've been thinking on that too. But it's so easy to bash SOE, at the end they are the executors and we don't really know what's going on between them and LA.

Anyway, I agree that LA was the gripping hand in the SWG history of failures and in the last weeks we have seen it clearer.

Originally posted by Distiler

Originally posted by Obraik

I think over the last week it's become more obvious where the main influence for these past decisions have come from - LA...
 

 

Yeah I've been thinking on that too, absolutely agree.

Since reading some of what Nichols has said and the close description of TOR to what was said about the NGE and its goals...

Yes I have to agree with Obraik as well.  It is beginning to sound like LA just sat by and let SOE take all the hits for the NGE fiasco.  SOE is still accountable though.

Originally posted by GrandAm

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by GrandAm

I am sure that all the powers that be have already sat down and worked things out.  The only wild card in their plans is the quack.

SOE may be allowed to keep SWGNGE in station pass.  They may also at the time of launch be allowed to bring back classic servers.

But what do I believe...

LA protects this IP with an iron fist.  I don't see them allowing any competition if they can help it to compete with their new WOW chaser.  I believe if they allow SOE to keep SWG running it will be the last version (NGE).  Although the NGE was originally designed to appeal to the WOW crowd, all the Pre-CU like features they have added back has changed the game where it may not be like what is going to be in TOR.  So I can see where they might let it exist in SP, really don't see LA allowing it.

SOE launching a classic server is silly.  One, it would be admitting to the fact they have had the original code all this time.  The last time I heard they maintain that all copies of Pre-CU are gone.  For them to release classic servers would again be evidence of them lying.  Also considering the bad blood I suspect SOE would rather let the whole SWG go.  I believe they would rather start focusing on something else.  As Long as the have SWG there will be disgrunted vets out there that will never let it down.  It will affect SOE's rep or the rebuilding of the rep.

Also with all the work that has quacked, those people are not going to stop.  A classic version is coming and they will not be hampered by a bad rep like SOE.  In short SOE is going to have to compete with them as well.  The quack is technically free.  This will be even harder to compete with.

LA is counting on TOR to do what the NGE couldn't.  Bring in WOW like numbers.  If they are successful the realativelly small current population is not going to compare with the millions they think TOR will have.  If TOR is that successful then the NGE may be allowed to exist in SP because it isn't affecting anything.  If TOR is not then SWG will die.  LA will want all their MMO customer focus on TOR.  NGE three months of money and development vs. TOR four to five years of new money and development.  Which do you think LA will back.

Again the quack will cater to vets.  People SOE will never get back and LA has a legal battle they would probably loose if they fight it.  To date it sounds like LA suports it as fan art anyway.  I don't see it being scrapped.  They question is if as a free game when it goes live who will play it?  Just vets or will the people that would have played TOR go there because it is SW and FREE.  Either way it still all depends on how successful TOR is in its own right.

In short I don't believe SOE will have SWG running after TOR launch.  But if they did it will still be only the NGE.

I see something different happening.
 

Firstly, I don't think any of the 3 companies involved in the SW MMO's need to worry about the Emu.  I doubt it'll be ready before SW:TOR goes Live.  Have you seen what they have accomplished lately? I think once people relise the nature of what Emu's really are it won't be any serious threat.  Depends on the individual live servers Of course, there is always the threat that LA will stop tolerating them - when Smedley posted his opinion on the Emu back in 2006 he mentioned that it was SOE that was keeping LA back from unleashing the lawyers on them.

I don't see SWG being shutdown just because SW:TOR is released.  The two games sound like they're going to be very different.  As you said, the new game is going to be aimed at grabbing the WoW crowd As was the original design of the NGE- you're goal of playing the game will to be the hero and this will be made easy to obtain.  SWG on the other hand is more about actually being part of the Star Wars world this after almost three years of putting back what they removed and not necessarily being the hero, but the person you see in the background of the movie that the heroes try to protect.  Despite the NGE, SWG is still a sandboxy game, which attract a different bunch of people.

I think the pressure will be off SWG to lose its sandbox appeal with this new game coming out and we'll see more features in the game being added that embrace the sandbox, open endness and the crafting/economy the game has I admit the crafting isn't bad, but the economy is out of control IMO .  This has already started with GU5 with the WS revamp and previously with Storyteller.  I think we'll see more of that with the upcoming Game Updates which focus on the crafting professions, player cities and guilds.

I don't understand your statement of why LA would want to kill off SWG if SW:TOR isn't successful.  If SWG is keeping up its profit (which won't be hard for it to do) then I think it'll be a case of the opposite.  SWG is also the only MMO they can incorporate any future movie promotions into - they can't go ahead and add items from the movies into a game based 3000 years in the past.

 

Last para:

No.  Here is why IMO if TOR is successful SWG will stay.  Also why SWG will disappear if TOR fails.

If TOR kills WOW and tears away the 10Mil subs,  The remaining SWG playerbase is a drop in the bucket.  It will be a who cares situation at LA because they have bigger fish to fry.

If TOR fails.  Keep in mind.  The money on SWG is already spent and I believe they have either already recovered investment costs or don't expect to recover any negative balance at this time in the games life.  TOR on the other hand is brand new and needs time with a successful launch to recover the investment costs before it can turn a profit.  If it fails to bring in the numbers they want or need they will eliminate anything they can that would draw away from it.  Namely a competeing SW MMO.  SW is the key.

No in order for SWG to continue operating after launch TOR will have to be massively successful where the SW fans of SWG won't matter to the success of TOR.  It has more to do with finacial and managerial accounting than the marginal profit SWG makes.  The small profit it makes will be less impactful than an investment loss.

I know this sounds goofy, but I have seen this crap before.  A big company has a popular flagship line that does well, they let their smaller offerings operate.  The heavily invested flagship line fails to draw an investment return, they dump anything that can be tearing away from a return on that investment.

In short LA is embracing TOR for their MMO future and if they must they will sacrifice SWG subs to ensure on their accounting books that the investment of capital is being recovered on TOR.

All my opinion and accept I could be completely wrong.  Of course as a corp. these companies use accrual based accounting and I hope they have had the foresight to accomodate a TOR failure on the books not just a success.

If success is killing WoW and taking away a large chunk of their subs, then I think SW:TOR will be considered a failure.  I don't believe another MMO is going to single handedly "kill WoW."  Aiming to kill WoW becomes a games undoing.
 

Killing SWG because TOR isn't doing well would not be in their best interests.  SWG has been described by LA since the TOR announcement as "very profitable", which implies that it has since made back its investment.  Keeping SWG alive is a guaranteed source of income for them, especially with it being on SOE's Station Access - which SWG benefits from everytime they add new games.

There is of course, the community impact of shutting down SWG because TOR isn't profitable.  Shutting SWG down purely because TOR doesn't do well is not going to put much faith into the players of TOR.  It will become quite clear that their interest is not in the communities that evolve from MMO's. 

Right now the only people playing SWG are the hardcore fans who wont ever leave because they invested too much time into their characters before the NGE, thats why they stayed around even though they hate all of the changes. SOE are just going to keep adding micro transactions into the game to keep the money flowing for the existing subscribers. We're seeing this with the whole trading card game thing that lots of people are obviously putting money into to get their loot cards. When I played the trial I saw a handful of people with all the vehicles and that just proves that they musta spent hundreds to get all them loot cards. I spent about $20 for a laugh and didn't get one loot card and I was just seeing what the game was like again and didn't even like the game but theres something about gambling thats addictive.

The only problem I see for SWG is if Bioware pull out all the stops and create a online world that SWG fans wanted and then I could see them playing TOR instead, however I can't imagine they'd close their SWG subscriptions.

So I think for sure we'll see an effect and even lower populations but people will still come back to Galaxies.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Right now the only people playing SWG are the hardcore fans who wont ever leave because they invested too much time into their characters before the NGE, thats why they stayed around even though they hate all of the changes. SOE are just going to keep adding micro transactions into the game to keep the money flowing for the existing subscribers. We're seeing this with the whole trading card game thing that lots of people are obviously putting money into to get their loot cards. When I played the trial I saw a handful of people with all the vehicles and that just proves that they musta spent hundreds to get all them loot cards. I spent about $20 for a laugh and didn't get one loot card and I was just seeing what the game was like again and didn't even like the game but theres something about gambling thats addictive.

The only problem I see for SWG is if Bioware pull out all the stops and create a online world that SWG fans wanted and then I could see them playing TOR instead, however I can't imagine they'd close their SWG subscriptions.

So I think for sure we'll see an effect and even lower populations but people will still come back to Galaxies.

While I'm sure there are some that still play even though they "hate" it, there are those of us that play it because we genuinely enjoy it. 

Even if I didn't enjoy the game, there's nothing else out there that has all the features of SWG - I doubt this will change after TOR goes Live...

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Right now the only people playing SWG are the hardcore fans who wont ever leave because they invested too much time into their characters before the NGE, thats why they stayed around even though they hate all of the changes. SOE are just going to keep adding micro transactions into the game to keep the money flowing for the existing subscribers. We're seeing this with the whole trading card game thing that lots of people are obviously putting money into to get their loot cards. When I played the trial I saw a handful of people with all the vehicles and that just proves that they musta spent hundreds to get all them loot cards. I spent about $20 for a laugh and didn't get one loot card and I was just seeing what the game was like again and didn't even like the game but theres something about gambling thats addictive.

The only problem I see for SWG is if Bioware pull out all the stops and create a online world that SWG fans wanted and then I could see them playing TOR instead, however I can't imagine they'd close their SWG subscriptions.

So I think for sure we'll see an effect and even lower populations but people will still come back to Galaxies.

 

While I'm sure there are some that still play even though they "hate" it, there are those of us that play it because we genuinely enjoy it. 

Even if I didn't enjoy the game, there's nothing else out there that has all the features of SWG - I doubt this will change after TOR goes Live...

I can only speak for Farstar which is the server I play on but most the people I talked to prefered the game before the NGE and are only playing it because they put so much time into the game already.

There is one other thing though that I thought to myself "if SWG didn't have this then I would never have liked this game Pre Cu or not" and thats player housing seamlessly built into the world without loading times. I spent soooooo much time customizing my home and making vendors, it was the most fun part of the game.

The problem is though that the whole loot system is still broken, good loot isn't rare enough and theres just soooo much of it pouring onto the market. I was doing collection quests and every mob I' kill i'd get a shit load of credits and some good armour or weapon. In just a few hours I had over 400 items on my vendors that were selling likt hot cakes.

I can't be bothered to go into detail but basically everything bad about the game now is because of the NGE. I hate the classes and I want to be able to dabble like I used to with the profession system, many people say that the profesions were broken but only for PVP. I was a PVE person, mainly because the PVP in Galaxies sucked but in PVE you really could just pick what you wanted and balance wouldn't matter and I loved that. I would just keep switching professions all the time and my character I mastered them all because that was the fun of the game. I'd spend all day crafting my goods putting them on sale and I'd hav lots of friends contacting me for my wares.

The game had no content and was a broken mess and the only good things SOE have added in since the NGE was collections and the trading card game. I'm a big fan of both of these things because they just add another element to the game. However I just wish the interfaces for them were better because collections has poor art and is laid out very poorly and the trading card game is a cluster fuck.

I dunno all i'm saying is for me and I did give the game a fair trial on the veteran promotion thing, however everything I loved about the game before is gone and whats left like housing is just broken now and pointless. Another thing is the fact that the community used to be soooo great but now I don't like alot of the dicks that are still around.

For me if they took Pre CU and fixed Doctor Buffs and made armour and weapons more diverse, then added lots of content into the game then SWG would have been fantastic. Then they could have added a Z axis and collision so they could have WOW like quality content.

Well, I think we all agree there are interesting features in each of SWG incarnations that will be nice to have mixed in today's SWG. The best of each world. This is why I started the thread, to express the "feeling" that SOE needs to do this in order to differentiate from Bioware's TOR and stick with the Star Wars virtual world experience and continue operating without interfering with Bioware thus not being forced to close the doors.

What SOE can't do is trying to compete in the same range of customer target, the NGE target player is now officially lost.

I believe SWG can benefit, but I doubt they do.  TOR seems to be taking the route that we all hoped it would not take, the carebear level-based guided system that we've seen in recent years.  SWG could bring back their sandbox style with player housing and hardcore skill system if they wanted, but those days are long gone.  I'm afraid we are stuck with what we got.  Apparently these types of games are working out very well for developers because they keep pumping them out.  TOR might be a fun game, but I don't see it being as immersive in the SW environment as SWG use to be.  This could ultimately bring people back to SWG to give it a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th try....but they will only find disappointment and quit. 

Let's face it, putting jedi in SW MMOs ruins them unless done in some creative, unique way where there won't be nothing but jedi.

The only thing TOR will help SWG with is putting it out of it's misery, like a race horse(Pre-CU) with a broken leg(NGE).