Originally posted by Zippy

It dies because of SOE.  They kill all games and fail to support all games except EQ2. What SOE did to SWG and to Vanguard was borderline criminal.  Two great games lefttowither and die with no support.  Very sad.  Once can only imagine how great these two games could have been with another developer.

Actually, wasn't Vanguard bought out by SOE?

If I am remembering correctly, Vanguard had one of those 'worst MMO' launches possible.

The dev of VG also ran out of money so they couldn't even fix the thing. Enter SOE who bought VG and pumped money into to get into a reasonable state.

It is popular to say 'SOE is evil' but in VG's case they were the knights in shining armor.

SOE actually has a habit of supporting games that are way beyond its natural lifespan.

It is to their credit they left SWG running as long as they did.

Originally posted by Zippy

It dies because of SOE.  They kill all games and fail to support all games except EQ2. What SOE did to SWG and to Vanguard was borderline criminal.  Two great games lefttowither and die with no support.  Very sad.  Once can only imagine how great these two games could have been with another developer.

I played SWG for a long time and the support wasn't bad at all. They added a lot of content and features.

With TOR launching soon... there can be only one. I think they missed clone wars adventures, or forgot it exists or something. For now.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Zippy

It dies because of SOE.  They kill all games and fail to support all games except EQ2. What SOE did to SWG and to Vanguard was borderline criminal.  Two great games lefttowither and die with no support.  Very sad.  Once can only imagine how great these two games could have been with another developer.

Actually, wasn't Vanguard bought out by SOE?

If I am remembering correctly, Vanguard had one of those 'worst MMO' launches possible.

The dev of VG also ran out of money so they couldn't even fix the thing. Enter SOE who bought VG and pumped money into to get into a reasonable state.

It is popular to say 'SOE is evil' but in VG's case they were the knights in shining armor.

 

SOE actually has a habit of supporting games that are way beyond its natural lifespan.

It is to their credit they left SWG running as long as they did.

Vanguard released 1/30/07.  SOE bougt the game in May.  Between release and May Sigil added mroe content than SOE would add combined in the next 3 years.  Vanguard's release was not bad.  The oroblem it had it was not playable on 95% of most computers.  If you had a good rig it ran fine.  When SOE took over the game still had 95k subs.  SOE introducded a crash bug with their 1st patch which took them 3.5 months to fix which pretty ended the game lowering the population to 20k.  Many people have theorized they introcuded the bug intentionally as their only puirpose in buying Vanguard was to protect EQ2 against Vanguard.  At the time of aquistion SOE still had over 100 devs. Once aquiired SOE could move the better devs to eq2 and fire the rest.  Which is what they did.  Letting the game wither and die with no support and empty promises.  Withijn less than a year the game was down to one full time dev from over a 100.

Certainly Sigil deserves much of the blame.  But so does Microsoft and SOE for forcing SIgil to redesign and wowify the game in 2006 causing them to release an unfinished game.  But bigger than the unfinished part was the mistake Sigil made in forecasting what type of computers people would own in 2007.  They were much to ambitious on many fronts.  Content wise the game released amazing in terms of horizontal 1-50 content.  In terms of polish and finish it was very bad.  But unlike most bad ganes the infrastrure and foundation was there to make a good game if there was continued support.

Originally posted by Zippy

It dies because of SOE.  They kill all games and fail to support all games except EQ2. What SOE did to SWG and to Vanguard was borderline criminal.  Two great games left to wither and die with no support for years.  Very sad.  Once can only imagine how great these two games could have been with another developer.

Your joking right?  It seems like you have absolutly no idea what your talking about.  SWG was still getting attention from SOE.  Its Lucas Arts who pulled their license (the most common belief is so that it wouldnt be in any way competing with the new SWTOR).

Because, Bureaucrats that own and control the game are not liking how much they are making off of it so they want it to disappear!  All hail the overlords of the gaming industry!

If you want good games, quit supporting gaming Titans that don't care one bit about the games they control.  Go play Rift, they are an independent gaming organization that cares about making games versus just profits.

Originally posted by Xerathule

Because, Bureaucrats that own and control the game are not liking how much they are making off of it so they want it to disappear!  All hail the overlords of the gaming industry!

 

If you want good games, quit supporting gaming Titans that don't care one bit about the games they control.  Go play Rift, they are an independent gaming organization that cares about making games versus just profits.

I wouldn't really call them Independant, but yes they do care about the game from what I can tell.  But no, they care very much for profits as well.  

Originally posted by marinrider

Originally posted by Zippy

It dies because of SOE.  They kill all games and fail to support all games except EQ2. What SOE did to SWG and to Vanguard was borderline criminal.  Two great games left to wither and die with no support for years.  Very sad.  Once can only imagine how great these two games could have been with another developer.

Your joking right?  It seems like you have absolutly no idea what your talking about.  SWG was still getting attention from SOE.  Its Lucas Arts who pulled their license (the most common belief is so that it wouldnt be in any way competing with the new SWTOR).

This post is factually wrong according to the statements by SOE.

SOE is on record of saying 'We didn't ask Lucas Arts to renew the license for SWG'.

Originally posted by Zippy

 

Vanguard released 1/30/07.  SOE bougt the game in May.  Between release and May Sigil added mroe content than SOE would add combined in the next 3 years.  Vanguard's release was not bad.  The oroblem it had it was not playable on 95% of most computers.  If you had a good rig it ran fine.  When SOE took over the game still had 95k subs.  SOE introducded a crash bug with their 1st patch which took them 3.5 months to fix which pretty ended the game lowering the population to 20k.  Many people have theorized they introcuded the bug intentionally as their only puirpose in buying Vanguard was to protect EQ2 against Vanguard.  At the time of aquistion SOE still had over 100 devs. Once aquiired SOE could move the better devs to eq2 and fire the rest.  Which is what they did.  Letting the game wither and die with no support and empty promises.  Withijn less than a year the game was down to one full time dev from over a 100.

Certainly Sigil deserves much of the blame.  But so does Microsoft and SOE for forcing SIgil to redesign and wowify the game in 2006 causing them to release an unfinished game.  But bigger than the unfinished part was the mistake Sigil made in forecasting what type of computers people would own in 2007.  They were much to ambitious on many fronts.  Content wise the game released amazing in terms of horizontal 1-50 content.  In terms of polish and finish it was very bad.  But unlike most bad ganes the infrastrure and foundation was there to make a good game if there was continued support.

I recall looking at VG cause some of my friends bought it. But none of them could play it so I never looked at it again until the 'miracle' patch came out. Even then the miracle patch still didn't up the subs of VG so SOE couldn't justify putting more resources into it.

I certainly can't blame SOE for making the correct business decision on that front. It might have been a good game but if no one is playing it, why put more money into it?

There were some 'grassroots' effort to get people to re-sub VG but MMOs really can't survive a bad launch. Which SOE had nothing to do with.

RIP SWG you used to be a great game but SOE doesnt care about their customers and decided destroy you.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Zippy

 

Vanguard released 1/30/07.  SOE bougt the game in May.  Between release and May Sigil added mroe content than SOE would add combined in the next 3 years.  Vanguard's release was not bad.  The oroblem it had it was not playable on 95% of most computers.  If you had a good rig it ran fine.  When SOE took over the game still had 95k subs.  SOE introducded a crash bug with their 1st patch which took them 3.5 months to fix which pretty ended the game lowering the population to 20k.  Many people have theorized they introcuded the bug intentionally as their only puirpose in buying Vanguard was to protect EQ2 against Vanguard.  At the time of aquistion SOE still had over 100 devs. Once aquiired SOE could move the better devs to eq2 and fire the rest.  Which is what they did.  Letting the game wither and die with no support and empty promises.  Withijn less than a year the game was down to one full time dev from over a 100.

Certainly Sigil deserves much of the blame.  But so does Microsoft and SOE for forcing SIgil to redesign and wowify the game in 2006 causing them to release an unfinished game.  But bigger than the unfinished part was the mistake Sigil made in forecasting what type of computers people would own in 2007.  They were much to ambitious on many fronts.  Content wise the game released amazing in terms of horizontal 1-50 content.  In terms of polish and finish it was very bad.  But unlike most bad ganes the infrastrure and foundation was there to make a good game if there was continued support.

I recall looking at VG cause some of my friends bought it. But none of them could play it so I never looked at it again until the 'miracle' patch came out. Even then the miracle patch still didn't up the subs of VG so SOE couldn't justify putting more resources into it.

I certainly can't blame SOE for making the correct business decision on that front. It might have been a good game but if no one is playing it, why put more money into it?

There were some 'grassroots' effort to get people to re-sub VG but MMOs really can't survive a bad launch. Which SOE had nothing to do with.

http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?id=1262&month=072011&section=News

SoE is working on VG.  They have actually released the two patches mentioned in this blog post.  Which is what leads me to believe there is more behind the "not renewing the license" than just not renewing it.  I'm sure SWG had more players than VG does.  Additionally, the devs for SWG were actually working on content, and it caught them by surprise as well.

But then SoE decides to make new content for VG and not make it F2P?  Somethings up.

Bring on Planetside 2, at least Sony hasn't destroyed that franchise yet.

SWGs end was a long time coming.  A year into its release I would have never predicted that it would have ended so soon, but some very very bad decisions made by SOE has made it really obvious that it would be over soon for a while now.

It annoys me when people say VG and SWG had bad launches.  I played both within 1 week of launch and they both ran great with no game breaking glitches.  The only glitches I encountered I thought were just sorta funny.  Some players are pricks.

Originally posted by marinrider

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Zippy

 

Vanguard released 1/30/07.  SOE bougt the game in May.  Between release and May Sigil added mroe content than SOE would add combined in the next 3 years.  Vanguard's release was not bad.  The oroblem it had it was not playable on 95% of most computers.  If you had a good rig it ran fine.  When SOE took over the game still had 95k subs.  SOE introducded a crash bug with their 1st patch which took them 3.5 months to fix which pretty ended the game lowering the population to 20k.  Many people have theorized they introcuded the bug intentionally as their only puirpose in buying Vanguard was to protect EQ2 against Vanguard.  At the time of aquistion SOE still had over 100 devs. Once aquiired SOE could move the better devs to eq2 and fire the rest.  Which is what they did.  Letting the game wither and die with no support and empty promises.  Withijn less than a year the game was down to one full time dev from over a 100.

Certainly Sigil deserves much of the blame.  But so does Microsoft and SOE for forcing SIgil to redesign and wowify the game in 2006 causing them to release an unfinished game.  But bigger than the unfinished part was the mistake Sigil made in forecasting what type of computers people would own in 2007.  They were much to ambitious on many fronts.  Content wise the game released amazing in terms of horizontal 1-50 content.  In terms of polish and finish it was very bad.  But unlike most bad ganes the infrastrure and foundation was there to make a good game if there was continued support.

I recall looking at VG cause some of my friends bought it. But none of them could play it so I never looked at it again until the 'miracle' patch came out. Even then the miracle patch still didn't up the subs of VG so SOE couldn't justify putting more resources into it.

I certainly can't blame SOE for making the correct business decision on that front. It might have been a good game but if no one is playing it, why put more money into it?

There were some 'grassroots' effort to get people to re-sub VG but MMOs really can't survive a bad launch. Which SOE had nothing to do with.

http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?id=1262&month=072011§ion=News

 

SoE is working on VG.  They have actually released the two patches mentioned in this blog post.  Which is what leads me to believe there is more behind the "not renewing the license" than just not renewing it.  I'm sure SWG had more players than VG does.  Additionally, the devs for SWG were actually working on content, and it caught them by surprise as well.

But then SoE decides to make new content for VG and not make it F2P?  Somethings up.

  SOE doesn't have to pay royalties to anyone for VG.  It's their game completely.  LA charges utterly ridiculous amounts for the SW name (and they can get away with it)  Perhaps with 100K it was worth it.  However the population of SWG has not been near that level for years.  It's a simple financial decision.  Not a conspiracy

Originally posted by Ecnali

     SOE...Lucas Arts...have they lost their collective minds? I know, many of you are SWG haters...well, I never played pre-NGE and only started after - and I loved it.  My gods, the crafting is amazing - it's the best crafting system ever  and the one thing SOE didn't...tweak...and if I was an SWG hater I'd probably say that is the reason crafting in SWG remained great as SOE never got around to 'fixing' what wasn't broken.

     I had stepped away from the game for about a year -  guild dissolution, deployment overseas, real life stuffs - and then in summer of 2011 - I decided I really missed crafting - so I went back! I moved all my characters off Bloodfin which was dead onto Chilastra which was vibrant, created two new characters -crafters, obviously -  on Starsider which was just packed! I managed to pick up enough resources and in less than a week, with harvesting, the kindness of strangers who out of the blue gave me 10mil, I was able to start crafting!

     Bang...4 days later....the hack...actually, apparently the hack took place 2 weeks before that, but SOE didn't bother to tell me that was going on when they happily took my money....Sadness on my part. Madness... grief and SOE's inability to keep the paying subscriber informed. "check our facebook, check our twitter"  nothing there. Went 12 days without a single update.

     Finally, the light at the tunnel! SWG is back on-line! Yay! Back to crafting, back to questing - and then two days later, an announcment about the closure of SWG. In December. ...

     I stopped playing. I cancelled my accounts which I had just reopened.  I have made a vow to never buy another Sony product again in my life if there is an alternative within my means and grasp.

     SOE, Lucas Arts...they are wasting an opportunity here, and they are being blind, misled, or just plain ignorant.  Even with not having actual physical data, I'm sure there is enough room out in the real world, enough people who play games, for two Star Wars IP MMOs. I went back to SWG because of its crafting - and I'm not the only one who feels this way.  I have the means and willingness to pay a hefty monthly fee to play SWG if they would keep one server up.

     Why does modern game theory diss crafting? Why is no one trying to copy the SWG model of crafting? Why is it all classes are combat and why aren't there dedicated crafting classes in modern MMOs? There are people out there who would devote themselves to that if given the opportunity over combat classes - especially if it meant the ability  to make superior crafted gear equal to or better than drops was part of the design. SWG had it and now it's going...going...gone. (Oh, EVE, they too have a ... complex crafting system - but EVE Online crafting takes time and coordination among dozens, hundreds of players. Also, in EVE, you can lose everything you own in the blink of an eye - EVE is a very intense hardcore game [yes, I play it too but I'm a carebear...a very heavily armed and dangerous carebear...ergo, I play EVE to craft.] But even EVE is going through a rough patch right now....sigh.)

     I feel like crying. You go overseas, you do your duty, only to have your heart ripped out when you get back anyway.  Maybe I should take up paintball, or airsoft...but, now I'm too old, too fat...and that's too much like work anway.  I want to sit in my air conditioned room and be grumpy and play the damn game for fun. If only I lived in my parents's house...

     Oh well, life goes on.  As with everything, you got to take the good with the bad. Star Wars Galaxies, may you rest in peace...Crafting...I will miss you.  SWTOR, the King is dead, long live the King!

P.S. Maybe I should check out WoW more.....

The game sucked and was in no way shape or form star wars apart from skins.. that is why it must die.

wish they would just let it go FTP and live on that way

 There is no way SOE could justify paying the license fee compared to the amount of subs it was a smart move for them.Lets face it in this economy and mmog market whats the average player gonna pick up from the store? A old swg game by SOE or the newest mmog from Bioware? As for why is Vanguard still runnin that is simple really.They own Vanguard it is worth them to keep it as part of there all access package you can buy.

yeah lucas arts doe NOT wan thi game to live any longer

Best off to let this game die, NGE killed it, I stopped playing after that, and while I still play EQ (have done since release) I'd be wary of any other SoE game they release.

The fact they are actually closing the game down, is simple economics and nothing else at the end of the day, these companies are here to make money for thier shareholders and nothing else, there's no big bad conspiracies or secret agenda, it's all down to money, a sad but true fact and more people should be aware of this before talking utter rubbish

let it go....LET IT GO!

SOE failed BIG with NGE. SOE failed from the start with how much of a mess the code for the game was. The first big game change (CU) KILLED the population, and NGE buried it. NGE was so bad I thought it was a sick joke. It was just terrible bug wise, and how bad it functioned as a whole. Literally like duct taping wings to a buss to make an airplane instead of designing a airplane from the start. Pathetic execution of an idea Lucas arts since brought to Bioware.

Lucas arts have Bioware doing what SOE totally failed to.

TOR actually has many SWG elements and even music/menu style. It also has many SWG vets, including my whole guild (Cheers Iron Circle!).

I look forward to launch!

Hopefully they design a real space game not to long down the road, but the game is going to be a success for good reason.