I started back in '05. Sure I wasnt there from the beginning but I was there for the major milestones and stuck it out through thick and thin.

          Sure I quit 2-3 times a year but I think the average player does so and this really only started in '08 for me. I did come back beacuse of my friends and the wishful thinking, hopes and dreams that the Star Wars universe that I have come to love from childhood has evolved in SWG.

         Time and time again I was dissapointed with the same kill 6 this, fly 1000m talk to this guy, kill 10 more of this and repeat. Sure there were new improvements but IMHO they broke more and more of the game then they did improve it.

        I always stayed up on the forums and read all the disgruntled players threads and even those who praised the game. It got the the point that I was not even playing anymore and just logging on the guild vent to chat with my friends. I stayed subbed however I think I played less than 10 min a month.

       After about 6 months of this and the wife nagging about not playing and paying subs I canceled my sub to the game. I continue to read up on the forums, what I see here and what makes me really sad:

      People continue to ask and ask and ask for GCW,  people continue to complain about balancing professions (the original issue is that they can never leave the profs alone). People keep asking for new content and old content (really the best of both worlds) but the same excuse is "we cant due to the current system and the frame it is built upon."

       There is a large presence in the SWG community that feel that the SWG TCG is pulling possible resources that could have been dedicated to the MMO, although the SWG Team swears that there were additional resources taken to create and maintain the TCG the other question seems to be where is all of the major income from the TCG being sent? Is it being used to upgrade servers? Is it being used to add additional manning, resources to MMO Game creation?

     Ultimately the blatant disreguard for the community, requests and opinions of the SWG community although I may not agree with them all is what makes me sad. The fact that the player base would seem to be absolutely oblivious to this is also disturbing. I can count on 1 hand the actual interaction that the current Lead Developer "Dotaniku" (or however you say it)  has made with the community, I think the PR "Valaria" has had more interface with posts like "I will have to look into that" or "I canot discuss this at this time" and never getting back to anyone.

     So I ask myself what do I do now? Sit back and wait for SWTOR, hope and pray they can pick up where SWG left off.

For the record, damn near nobody quit before the CU and the NGE did just about everyone in with a braincell.

Most people that played prior were pretty much on the whole time.   Speaking as one from Bria and the beta days until the NGE I can tell you my friends list was around 500 and as a Jedi Knight, (Pre pub 9 Jedi even if you know what that is) we were very tight.

The community was 100 times different once the NGE hit.   It filtered out alot of good people and allowed for a more casual, game playerbase that accepted anything thrown at them, from fail after fail, to Devs quitting to embarassing reports and awards....

I mean look it up... FIND Out what was rated the WORST MMO ever, on this site I think it won two years in a row the worst game ever with like thousands of votes of fail.

In the end you have a game that had promise and was a work in progress to a business that gambled and didnt pay off.

The real sad part is that the fans suffered, showed up at the meet and greet (Go INDY!) to chew the Dev team out and they just squirmed and then left... lol I think one was left at SOE by the next few months...

SOE will fail soon enough with the game, LA is gonna push the new one so much that SWG will become the pimple on the ass of MMOs even more so.

Lets hope its sooner then later.

Originally posted by I-s-k-akaJO

For the record, damn near nobody quit before the CU and the NGE did just about everyone in with a braincell.

Most people that played prior were pretty much on the whole time.   Speaking as one from Bria and the beta days until the NGE I can tell you my friends list was around 500 and as a Jedi Knight, (Pre pub 9 Jedi even if you know what that is) we were very tight.

The community was 100 times different once the NGE hit.   It filtered out alot of good people and allowed for a more casual, game playerbase that accepted anything thrown at them, from fail after fail, to Devs quitting to embarassing reports and awards....

I mean look it up... FIND Out what was rated the WORST MMO ever, on this site I think it won two years in a row the worst game ever with like thousands of votes of fail.

In the end you have a game that had promise and was a work in progress to a business that gambled and didnt pay off.

The real sad part is that the fans suffered, showed up at the meet and greet (Go INDY!) to chew the Dev team out and they just squirmed and then left... lol I think one was left at SOE by the next few months...

SOE will fail soon enough with the game, LA is gonna push the new one so much that SWG will become the pimple on the ass of MMOs even more so.

Lets hope its sooner then later.

Unfotunately, you are right.

SWG has become the MMO's worst example of how to completely ruin a game in just about any fashion thinkable. It was fairly succesful despite its meriad of bugs and unfinished professions. The game was still a beta when released. We were all shocked when we were told the game would release during beta.

That did set a presedence over the future of the game. That same mentality, together with the extreme tweaking of anything in the game (going from one extreme to the other instead of fine tuning), completely didn't matter for a lot of us. The game was unique, and fun for all play styles. Best of all, we all needed one another and everyone's presence in the SWG universe had a purpose.

Now, after all the awkward changes, SWG is not more but an empty graphical reminder of an unfinished game with great potential. All they had to do was finish it properly and then gradually add stuff to it instead of killing its power and uniqueness.

SWG now is nothing but a ghost of its potential when it was launched. One can really not even come close to compare it to what it used to be.

Apart the fact that the game launched with huge bugs in an alpha state what killed it:

1. Holocrons and Jedi grind fest
2. Combat Upgrade
3. Lack of content
4. Communication issues

While the combat upgrade didn't impact the size of the player base a lot it completely changed the dynamics. More or less dual speced crafters / combatant  became useless in combat, healers not needed anymore. And levels were added meaning if you weren't of the right level you became useless in a group. Also if I remember well group size when down from 20 to 6? That killed group play and pugs.

At this point the game could still be salvaged even if the CU wasn't at all what was needed.

The way they implemented the Jedi unlocking destroyed the foundation stone of the game: socialization. After that people would grind, grind and grind. Entertainers weren't doing this for the fun anymore they were just passing by. Crafters were clueless of their professions and resources prices went up through the roof. Role Playing disappeared from the game.

While content was created by the players, the Holocrons and the NGE never really filled the gap, at least in terms of quality and quantity.

I would not know were to start about the miscommunication issues between SoE and it's customers but it is certainly THE best study case of what not to do.

As in every MMO many voicy players pointed at how the classes were unbalanced. IMHO MMOs will never be balanced so either play your class for the FUN or build the perfect L33t template, just live with it.

DDO did a fine job with that in the way your class (or template) is supposed to fill in a role and that's the way it should be... unless you want every class have the same powers and skills.

 --- ---

Give me a team of 50 devs & artists,  the Pre-CU source code, and in less than a year I'll have 500k players hooked to the game if not 1 million. And even after SWTOR I know I would keep many of them in the game, most playing both games.