Originally posted by admriker4

It wont suprise me if true. Here's what I predict will happen....

Oct 21st - SOE announces expansion for SWG (to counter KOTOR announcement).

December 24th - expansion goes live for SWG

December 25th - SOE announces SWG will close early 2009 (merry xmas suckers)

December 25+  forums are flooded everywhere with complaints. Threats of lawsuits appear. Players are actually surprised SOE would mislead them. The chief complaint is that players wouldnt have bought the expansion had they known the game was due to be cancelled soon.

Pre-Cu vets like me will rejoice and sip the nectar of sweet revenge from the tears of foolish NGE players. We will remind them that SOE did the very same thing with the last expansion.

January 2009 - the devs and Smedley will go into PR hyperdrive. They will express dismay at the fans because they thought giving the fans one final gift would be appreciated. The NGE players will thank SOE for "gift" and promise to enjoy it until the last day the game lives.

 

Im quite sure this isnt beyond Smedley. And its definitely possible to make an expansion for very little money. And dont forget SOE doesnt use subscription fees like theyre supposed to (adding content and fixing bugs). It would be no suprise to learn they used that money to develop an expansion and then later get people to re-buy it come launch day. Nobody can accuse the NGE players of being very smart.

Make no mistake, this game is done. Unfortunately an expansion will send the opposite message to the NGE faithful. They'll think nobody would sell us an expansion and then close the game soon after ! Despite it having been done before by other developers 

Of course none of that is beyond Smed.  Because he's done exactly THAT before, for all intents and purposes SWG did in fact shut down 2 weeks after we were charged for the last expansion, because other than our avatar appearance, name, and the physical game space the NGE had almost nothing to do functionally with the game that we were sold the expansion for.  Those of you who never got to play it when it was still under the CU system really missed out, it rocked.

That said I still don't see any sort of expansion happening for the NGE just simply because there aren't enough people left who play it for SOE to profit off of it.  The 4th expansion was in fact in production in late 2005-early 2006 and was canceled because by THEN the NGE had fallen below the threshold of an expansion being profitable.  Of course they were lying when they stated that they were "combining" the live and expansion teams, the truth was that they ditched/moved the excess Devs and from then forward a skeleton crew has been running it.

Ask Smed if SWG still has a team of 70 developers on it today, which was the number he gave in 2005.

I doubt they have actually 10 real developers anymore, ie: people who actually code/design/actually do things, forum mods not counted.

As for that Exar Kun instance, looked like any generic castle dungeon interior from EQ2 to me, just like the scavenger hunt system was, I think it literally was taken from EQ2 and modified.

But hey, you NGE fans should feel fortunate.  You actually do get more development than any other MMO that has less than 20,000 active subscribers, something that I think has more to do with SOE wanting to train their trainee Dev team (this is the first MMO project for almost all of them) than any feeling that they owe it to the players.

Originally posted by Force_Fire

Originally posted by fordzilla

Originally posted by tillamook

Fake I guess xD

 

www.massively.com/2008/10/16/rumors-of-new-star-wars-galaxies-expansion-most-likely-false/

 

I was really hoping SOE was that desperate.

 

strange that massive is sony owned yet they couldn't get a firm "no" from within their own company. soe hoping to stir some interest with this i see...

 

Listen to the Voice Over...that sounds like my 13 year old nephew. ROFL!

  That is the clue and the balance over the music spells fake - but nice try. Anything to make the fanbois pee their pants is allright by me!

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Lateris

I liked the artwork for Mustafar but then came the NGE. But I have to agree the artwork has gone downhill. What I find "iconic" about this is that their art department for SWG doesn't really exists any longer. There are modders who are doing a better job such as texture updates for planets and even a full texture revamp for space. These are done by one person who get more accomplished in 3 months than the staff at SWG can get done in a year regarding textures.  I can see this being a fake. The talent is out there. If it is real what a burn!

 

Yes, I guess Hoth, the latest Halloween event and all the previous instances just magically drew themselves...

Hoth is really, really hard to do.  Take Tattoine textures and make it white.

The Haloween junk (which has NO place in SWG, NO place) is probably mostly recycled from EQ2.  Just like "collections" and just like the interiors of some of those "let's beat on Foozle for an hour" instances.

I look at everything with a skeptical eye but the VIDEO seems pretty authentic. I watched it with no audio so didnt hear teh cheesy voiceover - which even then, if it is authentic, it probably doenst have the professional VO yet. Plus, would you say a 13yr old could manipulate the textures, skins, etc enough to create a video of that quality?

Over the past 5 yrs I've learned to put zero trust in any denial from SOE. Its actually humorous when you think about all their denials that always come to fruitition :)

I'd 75% conviced this will be released

Originally posted by Inat_mivea

I look at everything with a skeptical eye but the VIDEO seems pretty authentic. I watched it with no audio so didnt hear teh cheesy voiceover - which even then, if it is authentic, it probably doenst have the professional VO yet. Plus, would you say a 13yr old could manipulate the textures, skins, etc enough to create a video of that quality?

Over the past 5 yrs I've learned to put zero trust in any denial from SOE. Its actually humorous when you think about all their denials that always come to fruitition :)

I'd 75% conviced this will be released

Hmm...  A list of SOE statements/denials that turned out to be the opposite would be rather long.

Originally posted by precuorbust

Originally posted by Inat_mivea

I look at everything with a skeptical eye but the VIDEO seems pretty authentic. I watched it with no audio so didnt hear teh cheesy voiceover - which even then, if it is authentic, it probably doenst have the professional VO yet. Plus, would you say a 13yr old could manipulate the textures, skins, etc enough to create a video of that quality?

Over the past 5 yrs I've learned to put zero trust in any denial from SOE. Its actually humorous when you think about all their denials that always come to fruitition :)

I'd 75% conviced this will be released

 

Hmm...  A list of SOE statements/denials that turned out to be the opposite would be rather long.

 

 

 

 

 

thats what  I mean. The fact that they deny it makes me believe it more :)

MAtt check out these texture updates made by the community:

 The other point I want to make is that these were made by modders and not SOE. Texture updates for Naboo, A better sky for Tatooine. New textures for the ground and buildings on tatooine..In fact ships were modded to look more "epic" in the sky. What ever happened to the avatar texture updates they promised? They quit after a few races were updated. What ever happened to the braids for wookies? They quit. My point is the quality of art work has gone down hill since the staff was cut. I think that is a shame.  SWG isn't a bad game and still has more freedom than other MMORPG"s. I just expect a certain pride to be taken with the use of the name "Star Wars".   

As impressive as it is to see those ships flying over Eisley, they're not exactly the sort of ships you'd expect to see casually flying over a city like that.  Nor are they really "texture updates", these ships all exist in the TRE files, all that has been done is a modder has altered what ships are displayed as commuter traffic in the skies by swapping out the old ones for these different ones. 

As for the sky textures themselves, I can't really see what's different.  Here's a screenshot I have from last week outside Theed that shows the sky:

The majority of the races have had texture updates, I believe only Wookiee's and Bothans have missed out so far.  The updates are most notable on human-like races:

This is what he used to look like before the update (tattoo style and colour has changed, though):

Funny thing is, by messing with the avatar's SOE actually made them look worse.

Originally posted by efefia

Funny thing is, by messing with the avatar's SOE actually made them look worse.

Not sure of your definition of worse.  In the screenshots I posted it seems pretty clear that the updated textures make my character look better.  His face is much better defined compared to the rather flat look of the original textures.

The thing is I can only imagine what this game could have been if the CU had Never happened. What cool and new features would we be seeing right now. This game would be still be going strong with 250k + subs and I wouldn't be typing this right now

Originally posted by Exar_Kun

The thing is I can only imagine what this game could have been if the CU had Never happened. What cool and new features would we be seeing right now. This game would be still be going strong with 250k + subs and I wouldn't be typing this right now

And me and Ob wouldn't be posting comparison screen shots of the current game. And most of all I would not have to install texture mods. I find that we all want or wanted SWG to be  the "it" game. And we bicker over the same issues.  All that time has been wasted by the BS. 

Originally posted by Lateris

Originally posted by Exar_Kun

The thing is I can only imagine what this game could have been if the CU had Never happened. What cool and new features would we be seeing right now. This game would be still be going strong with 250k + subs and I wouldn't be typing this right now

And me and Ob wouldn't be posting comparison screen shots of the current game. And most of all I would not have to install texture mods. I find that we all want or wanted SWG to be  the "it" game. And we bicker over the same issues.  All that time has been wasted by the BS. 

The texture mods you have installed don't make much sense though.  As I said, you wouldn't see Corvette's or Warships flying overtop Eisley - that is probably why you don't see anything official like that ;)

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Lateris

Originally posted by Exar_Kun

The thing is I can only imagine what this game could have been if the CU had Never happened. What cool and new features would we be seeing right now. This game would be still be going strong with 250k + subs and I wouldn't be typing this right now

And me and Ob wouldn't be posting comparison screen shots of the current game. And most of all I would not have to install texture mods. I find that we all want or wanted SWG to be  the "it" game. And we bicker over the same issues.  All that time has been wasted by the BS. 

 

The texture mods you have installed don't make much sense though.  As I said, you wouldn't see Corvette's or Warships flying overtop Eisley - that is probably why you don't see anything official like that ;)

It's NOT gonna happen, BUT...

if SOE would release Pre-CU servers, the game population would be up to 200k and growning by the end of November.

Pride is an expensive sin.

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Lateris

Originally posted by Exar_Kun

The thing is I can only imagine what this game could have been if the CU had Never happened. What cool and new features would we be seeing right now. This game would be still be going strong with 250k + subs and I wouldn't be typing this right now

And me and Ob wouldn't be posting comparison screen shots of the current game. And most of all I would not have to install texture mods. I find that we all want or wanted SWG to be  the "it" game. And we bicker over the same issues.  All that time has been wasted by the BS. 

 

The texture mods you have installed don't make much sense though.  As I said, you wouldn't see Corvette's or Warships flying overtop Eisley - that is probably why you don't see anything official like that ;)

The Corvette was really just a versatile multipurpose ship. Used for many purposes. I’m sure you can look it up. As for other ships in the shot, they might be just pirates and smugglers coming in and out of the city. Mos Eisley was a cesspit of all kinds of activity. Don’t hate just because some modders did a better job capturing that atmosphere than SOE did.

 The ships are a not the textur emods- any who I am moving on to a new thread- Have fun guys. Order 66 should be upheld!

just wanted to bring this up again. . . someone made an interesting discovery. They newly released 'diner' (TCG loot boo!) is in this video:

diner:

COULD have been taken from the .TRE files and put into the game via clientside mod...

Anyone know exactly when this thing entered the .TRE files?  If it was AFTER that "fake expansion" video then you might have some smoke leading to a fire here...

Pretty much all the loot card items had at least their graphics added to the .tre files when the initial patch for the TCG was patched to the game.  That includes all the TCG 'expansion' items.  It was after somone on the OBoard posted some pictures from the .tre files, which included several of the TCG loot items, that SOE decided to no longer allow pictures from the .tre files to be posted on the OBoard.

The diner was in the .tre files before the fake expansion vid was posted.

Originally posted by Obee

Pretty much all the loot card items had at least their graphics added to the .tre files when the initial patch for the TCG was patched to the game.  That includes all the TCG 'expansion' items.  It was after somone on the OBoard posted some pictures from the .tre files, which included several of the TCG loot items, that SOE decided to no longer allow pictures from the .tre files to be posted on the OBoard.

The diner was in the .tre files before the fake expansion vid was posted.

 

 

i had never seen it. We all heard about Tanaab and the boardable star destroyer (ISD Instance) - i'm surprised no one ever mentioned these new items in the tre files