and I say that has been its problem for the past 3 years now - Its not going anywhere.

From: www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86979-LucasArts-Says-Star-Wars-Galaxies-Isnt-Going-Anywhere

The excitement of the new baby has taken all the attention away from the firstborn, but not to worry: LucasArts says Star Wars Galaxies will continue to be fully supported.

Star Wars: The Old Republic, the upcoming MMOG set in the Knights of the Old Republic era of the Star Wars universe, is one of the most anticipated games in recent memory, leveraging both the Star Wars name and the reputation of developer BioWare for creating top-notch, epic RPGs. All but lost in the hullabaloo of the game's recent unveiling, however, is Star Wars Galaxies, the original Star Wars-based MMOG created by Sony Online Entertainment and launched in 2003.

Despite a rocky start, the turmoil of the New Game Enhancements (NGE) and reportedly low subscription numbers, Star Wars Galaxies continues to operate, and Tom Nichols of LucasArts says that won't be changing anytime soon. "We have many other features planned to support Star Wars Galaxies," he told Eurogamer. "We see no reason why the two games can't exist together."

He added that LucasArts has learned many lessons from its experience with Galaxies, particularly with regards to what players want from a Star Wars game. "We've learned how important it is to listen to your community and act on that feedback," he said. "We also realized what players expect from an online Star Wars game - they expect to be that iconic Star Wars hero as soon as possible. They don't want to play for hundreds of hours just to become a Jedi." As a result, unlike Star Wars Galaxies, players in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be able to begin the game as a full-fledged Jedi or Sith.

Nichols also said that Star Wars mastermind George Lucas is "very excited" about the new game. "He knows how important this project is for LucasArts and that it represents our re-entrance into the MMO space," he said. "He's very much involved with the project, obviously at a high level, but he's very enthusiastic about it."

Whether or not Lucas believes that Star Wars: The Old Republic will ever challenge MMOG behemoth World of Warcraft for dominance of the genre is impossible to say, however: Nichols revealed that George has never actually played it.

Let's hope LA doesn't screw this one up and give Bioware a bad name like they did with SOE.

they should take each game in different directions. Revert SWG to the sandbox, living world game and make TOR the more "mainstream" game .... aka a WoW clone.

Um..

"We also realized what players expect from an online Star Wars game - they expect to be that iconic Star Wars hero as soon as possible. They don't want to play for hundreds of hours just to become a Jedi."

So much for having listened to the fans or learning anything from galaxies...

personally I never wanted to be an iconic hero or a jedi... to bad out of all the people who quit SWG.   They still think it was because Jedi wasn't a starting profession...

Even if I wanted to be a Jedi..  For me actually working and figuring out how to get "something".  Is what makes it rewarding or gives any sense of achievement.  I guess the message just got lost in the mass exodus that their "changes" caused.

Not going anywhere in the sense that the "CU is here to stay" I reckon.

Frankly, its easy to say that there isn't a reason to run both right now. One game is online while the other is in development. It will be an entirely different story when SWTOR comes out.

Think about it. What if the numbers are not quite what LA expected? We've seen their reaction to that before. ANd on the flip side, if sub numbers are low or drop, whether it be their fault or not - Bioware can easily claim that the target audience is split between their shiny new game and the ruined carcass of SWG. This will put LA in a bind and one with an easily predictible outcome.

They may hohum around the subject of WoW but you know they are secretly gunning for its numbers. That cannot be acheived if you are fighting a war on two fronts. Who can actually argue about this strategy makes any sense? To quote Connery on SNL, "Dossey it up however want, Trebek. What matters is does it work?"

No.

tbh if I were actively playing SWG I'd be pretty pissed right now, nothing short of a definitive  "SWG isn't going to be shutdown even after SWTOR is released" would do for me, so far all they've done is go on about chapters and content additions that we already know have been in the works for months already, there's no reason for swg subscribers not to feel like their game is effectively doomed.

Originally posted by kefkah

They may hohum around the subject of WoW but you know they are secretly gunning for its numbers. 

Whatdya mean secretly. 

www.eurogamer.net/article.php

SWG hasn't been going anywhere since 15 November 2005.

Travelling in a loop at Warp 1, going nowhere fast.

SWG is definitely going somewhere. It's been circling the drain for 3 years.

Originally posted by EbenEmael

SWG is definitely going somewhere. It's been circling the drain for 3 years.

I stand corrected.

/bow

Originally posted by Asiak

Originally posted by kefkah

They may hohum around the subject of WoW but you know they are secretly gunning for its numbers. 

Whatdya mean secretly. 

www.eurogamer.net/article.php

 

 

LOL, well, okay. Good point.

And good find. heheh

Originally posted by kefkah

Frankly, its easy to say that there isn't a reason to run both right now. One game is online while the other is in development. It will be an entirely different story when SWTOR comes out.

Think about it. What if the numbers are not quite what LA expected? We've seen their reaction to that before. ANd on the flip side, if sub numbers are low or drop, whether it be their fault or not - Bioware can easily claim that the target audience is split between their shiny new game and the ruined carcass of SWG. This will put LA in a bind and one with an easily predictible outcome.

They may hohum around the subject of WoW but you know they are secretly gunning for its numbers. That cannot be acheived if you are fighting a war on two fronts. Who can actually argue about this strategy makes any sense? To quote Connery on SNL, "Dossey it up however want, Trebek. What matters is does it work?"

No.

If SWTOR fails to the point that an argument can be made that the miniscule number of SWGNGE subs are "harming it's chances" then you are talking probably the largest catastrophe in the history of the industry in terms of cash burned to no return.

SWTOR will launch with at leat 300K subs if not many more, which is at least 30-40x more than the NGE has.

What did LucasArts learn from Galaxies? I didn't see anything in that post about what they learned, if they say they learned that we want to be instant iconic characters, they didn't learn anything.

This isn't going to determain that SWG will definitely stay, Sony has lost alot of money lately (find articles on movie/music industry) and lost more money on PS3 than they made on PS2 alone, think of how much they're losing keeping dead games like Matrix, Planetside and SWG (and PoTBS) alive.

I'm pretty sure the current hardcore SWG fans that can't really let it go are happy that it'll stay, but soon they'll hear even more *chirp chirp chirp chirp*.

Originally posted by sookster54

What did LucasArts learn from Galaxies? I didn't see anything in that post about what they learned, if they say they learned that we want to be instant iconic characters, they didn't learn anything.

This isn't going to determain that SWG will definitely stay, Sony has lost alot of money lately (find articles on movie/music industry) and lost more money on PS3 than they made on PS2 alone, think of how much they're losing keeping dead games like Matrix, Planetside and SWG (and PoTBS) alive.

I'm pretty sure the current hardcore SWG fans that can't really let it go are happy that it'll stay, but soon they'll hear even more *chirp chirp chirp chirp*.

Yeah, if LEC runs around for the next 1-2 years (whenever it's scheduled for release) saying crap like that they may not have quite the launch they expect.  Indeed, the only reason why I'm willing at this point to give it a try when it opens isn't LEC.  It's Bioware.  I've bought every Bioware RPG ever made.  Never been disappointed by any of them.

This is were they fail with me!

He added that LucasArts has learned many lessons from its experience with Galaxies, particularly with regards to what players want from a Star Wars game. "We've learned how important it is to listen to your community and act on that feedback," he said. "We also realized what players expect from an online Star Wars game - they expect to be that iconic Star Wars hero as soon as possible. They don't want to play for hundreds of hours just to become a Jedi." As a result, unlike Star Wars Galaxies, players in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be able to begin the game as a full-fledged Jedi or Sith.

I never made it to Jedi pre cu or cu. I dont want one click im Jedi! I want to spend hundreds of hours learning other things to be a Jedi. I dont want 9 Iconic prof either I want atleast 20 of them but 32 would be fine with me! His letter says to me that past and present SWG players have been nothing but Beta testers!

The NGE has made a game that was built for 32 prof feel barren with 9. My perdiction for this new game is its about to be headed down hill after the next release of info on it!

"We've learned how important it is to listen to your community and act on that feedback,"   If this was the case why then does SWG have empty servers and players are wanting free Free character transfers?

There's alot of water to go under the bridge before Galaxies and The Old Republic have to worry about co-existing.  Still, while many here dislike the NGE and what it did to SWG, it's still going to be the only *official* thing closest to the game you did like.

Another thing to consider is that SWG will be the MMO that they can incorporate any new movie based stuff into (unless of course, Lucas breaks his pledge and they do a movie based around the old republic times...).  They're not really going to get away with adding prequel stuff to a game that's set 3000 years in the past...

They always say they've learnt from their mistakes but if they have really learnt from them and listening to the community now then WHY THE FUCK ARN'T YOU MERGING THE CURRENT SERVERS AND RELEASING PRE NGE SERVERS?

There's no point playing SWG NGE any more , the clock is ticking , anything you achieve in game is a waste of time .

The best part of SWG was that it was immersive… I FELT like I was part of the time line. Sure at first I said I wanted to become a jedi, but franchise is so much more than just the jedi poster children. I found myself in love with the game and my toon that was just some smuck in a great big world.