Originally posted by ionlyneedit

Here's my SWG trial experience:

I was a Jedi Wookie with a floating head (the head literally did not connect to the body) and about 15 minutes after I had created him I was running near a wall and for some reason I glitched to the outside of the space station and all I could see was the star field and was unable to move or otherwise take any action.

So, despite the lure of being a floating-headed magical space sasquatch, I decided that falling out of the space station and needing GM assistance 15 minutes into the game wasn't a good sign. Call me superstitious.

Hey ionlyneedit,

Sorry to hear that you ran into those bugs.

I've not seen the "floating head" issue you described, I don't suppose you have a screenshot?  This would help me track down the problem.

However, I am aware of the issue with ending up in the "black space" area with no way out other than contacting customer support.  I agree that this is extremely frustrating and needs to be fixed.  I'll see if anything can be done to prevent that happening.

If you are able to continue in spite of these issues, please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

Maybe more people don't play, because the dev team lets known issues like this survive and instead spends time creating money grabs like the card game instead.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Maybe more people don't play, because the dev team lets known issues like this survive and instead spends time creating money grabs like the card game instead.

 

 

Friends of mine who have recently left told me exactly that.  This reminds me of the bug that had people getting trapped under the map on Kashyyk as well.  A serious issue, but not fixed for years and years.  The friends of mine that do still play know all about the chronic bugs and accept that this is the level of quality they will get in the only StarWars MMO available at the moment.  If people are looking for the polish they'll find in games like WoW, they're likely to be frustrated here.  If they want a lot of content for their subscription money, they'll also probably wonder why so much of the new development seems focused on the card game and new loot cards that they will be invited to gamble for.

SWG has been a train wreck in slow motion save yourself and just stop looking.

Originally posted by ionlyneedit

Here's my SWG trial experience:

I was a Jedi Wookie with a floating head (the head literally did not connect to the body) and about 15 minutes after I had created him I was running near a wall and for some reason I glitched to the outside of the space station and all I could see was the star field and was unable to move or otherwise take any action.

So, despite the lure of being a floating-headed magical space sasquatch, I decided that falling out of the space station and needing GM assistance 15 minutes into the game wasn't a good sign. Call me superstitious.

ok that made me laugh out loud, but I agree that sets the bar pretty low..

I must admit I prefer none level based sandbox games. 

 I know they lost most of their fan base when they did career updates.  It used to be a sandbox game that turned into a themepark game.  This game could have been soooo much better if it would have kept to it's original path and stayed the way it was and just fixed bugs and server issues and what not.  Now it's just a sub par WoW clone and that's the reason I don't play this anymore.  Oh and the fact that they don't really do much with the game anymore.  Like one of the previous posters said the fact that the devs let things like that go instead of fixing them.  The game is so desolate that now they don't even spend money on it anymore so the issues will still be there.

Um cause nobody else plays it lawl and yeah soe ruined the game just wait for kotor

Originally posted by DeadlyByDez

Ok I ge the whole PRE CU thing. Surely his game has everything for the star wars fan? PvP battles space flight, planet exploration mass pvp. I am downloading the trial now. Can someone please tell me why this game is not bigger than wow?

First the attention to detail is not there.

The devs can care less what the community thinks about concerning what they are doing.

The content is weak at best.

Little to no care concerning Star Wars canon.

Inexcusable bugs that have existed since launch.

Those are my top 5 but I could go on for much longer.  The dev team working on this game really has no business working on a pay to play game, imo.  Doing the same thing over and over the same way and expecting a different result is the first sign of insanity.  I did reload the damnable thing for a recent vet trial and its just as shoddy today as it was the day the NGE was foisted upon us.  I, for one, will not give money to a company that is inept and incapable of the job they are being paid to do.

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Originally posted by severius

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Originally posted by DeadlyByDez

Ok I ge the whole PRE CU thing. Surely his game has everything for the star wars fan? PvP battles space flight, planet exploration mass pvp. I am downloading the trial now. Can someone please tell me why this game is not bigger than wow?

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First the attention to detail is not there.
The devs can care less what the community thinks about concerning what they are doing.
The content is weak at best.
Little to no care concerning Star Wars canon.
Inexcusable bugs that have existed since launch.
Those are my top 5 but I could go on for much longer.  The dev team working on this game really has no business working on a pay to play game, imo.  Doing the same thing over and over the same way and expecting a different result is the first sign of insanity.  I did reload the damnable thing for a recent vet trial and its just as shoddy today as it was the day the NGE was foisted upon us.  I, for one, will not give money to a company that is inept and incapable of the job they are being paid to do.
 

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Agree that paying 15$ for this game really is a question mark? What does it get you anymore? It used to get top grade live game development and expansion work. Now it gets you some cards and items you have to pay for multiple times, if you dont get the item you want you have to pay ingame credits, which creates a new credit seller ecomomy.

Gotta agree that after listening to every Dev and even Smed and Torres since start-up all say they love playing WOW; really peed me off. The only time a Dev plays is testing on TC if even that. Just look at the number of fantasy mmos to scifi. Its a one sided industry, I belive most of the Devs would rather make elves and goblins, which reflected in SWG, most of SWG feels and looks like a fantasy mmo.

Look at whats been the main focus of SOE since Koster and the old Devs left. SWG is getting everything that EQ2 had that SWG didnt and nothing really more than that. Instances for the pve crowd, collections, and even the card game, all are from EQ2. I doubt its as easy as cut and paste, but not much real development oriented to the game has been done since CU and the village. The village was probably the last original project to come out of SWG dev team.

Sum it all up they should stop charging for subs since they really cant justify anything beyonds server expense and maintance.

Frankly this game has never been great no matter which era you are talking about, but I did at least enjoy playing until they killed the community with the NGE. Once my guild left, so did I. I tried coming back  a few times but the game had become so boring and monotonous that I gave up. The empty ghost town that was once corbantis didn't help either. Leveling in this game is soooooo boring and the comabt system just plain sucks. I can't wait until TOR gets released and shows how real professionals develop and release a game.

Originally posted by Gravez

Originally posted by ummax

 

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Originally posted by Daffid011

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Originally posted by ummax 
 
here are some <<snip>>
eve
SWG
Ryzom
There are a few others that never made it past beta including one called Seed. It was truly a work of art that game, but there was only one problem no one wanted to play it as it was pure sandbox. So not sure how you can say what you do the evidence says otherwise otherwise games that are sandboxes that have shut down would be open and thriving.
I suggest you take a peak at information about SEED as it was created to draw in a market that people felt was large enough but it could not get up enough steam to keep it running no one wanted a true sandbox. So I guess your in a way correct as many sandboxes died due to lack of community that wanted to play them. However any of the games above that are still running I would consider successful however they are not by any means popular and never were either past or present. They are all actually pretty old as well.
 

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Eve had an ugly release
SWG had an ugly release
I'm not to familiar with ryzom to be honest, so I can't really comment on that.
I don't know what to call second life, but I sure wouldn't classify it as a sandbox mmo in the same category with swg, ryzom and eve.   Let alone any other mmo we talk about.
However games don't thrive when they have bad launches.  Look at conan, warhammer, vanguard, potbs and about 5 dozen other games.   When I said not there hasn't been a good sandbox release in ten years I was talking about the launch, not the game.  A bad launch is almost always the death of a game.  It is hard to make claims that almost no one wants a sandbox game when you look at past sandbox releases, because they were horrible.  Strangely enough eve and swg got through bad releases far better than anything in the last 5 years that I can think of.  Both of which were successful and popular (save all the soe nonsence that drove players away)
I was actually invited to seed beta, but couldn't get the game to run.  Seed didn't die due to player interest, it died for numerous reasons from funding (mainly) to being far ahead of its time.  It was closer to a social simulation than it was a sandbox game. 
 
My point is that I don't think the market has really been tested as far as a sandbox style game goes, because no one has made a serious effort at it.  Heck, most companies can't even release a decent linear game anymore let alone something that really breaks the diku mud rut. 

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 I personaly think that sandboxes have been tested as much as the linear type quest stuff they do. There are a lot around they simply dont get the large followings for whatever reasons. WoW's release was not particularly stellar either as far as it running well, but people forget and it drove no one away. People either like what they see and despite opening problems stay or they hate what they see and leave. When I play sandbox games I see I sometimes invite someone from another game that I make friends with along and they install the thing and I get the same question from the personality that enjoys the way WoW is or others smaller (lord of the rings) etc. Its always the same question that goes something like "cool game, but what is the point? ". It always ends in "what is the point" or "I dont get it". My answer is probably not very helpful unfortunately and its usually something like "well there really is no point its a sandbox you can make a life of your choosing and forge ahead and become a part of a world" They kind of screw up their faces and stick around for another week and then leave never to return with the same comment.

Anyhow there is of course a market for sandbox games as there are still people playing them , but not as many people playing all those games added up together as there are people playing all the other type added up together. LIke sandboxes we are in the middle of another fad eventually that will get worn out and probably more sandboxes will be made, but for now if you want to create a game that will hold a large audience the chances are better if you produce a quest type thing then if you produce a sandbox. AOC flopped from what I understand due to the fact that they only really released 20 levels of game and after that it was nothingness. The type of player that played AOC was the type that wants a path to follow otherwise the nothingness and levelling just by bashing mobs would not have driven people away and they would have remained after 20 levels. I believe Warhammer is a success (it looks like it to me anyhow). Every game will have people saying it sucks even WoW has its league of "haters". As for seed it was actually released I stated paying for it but it was laggy as hell and died soon after . They simply could not draw an audience and if the theory is that people willp lay something even if its full of bugs as long as it is fun for them (which is probably true as it happens all the time)then people should have picked up the game and played it and remained. That's not what happened though. I played in the beta and at their release it was released in bad shape just like other games, but did not survive it. So to me this says that no one was interested enough to stick around and pay for the game to be developed. This was not so in other cases so using the same applied logic if failed not just because of money issues but it failed because no one wanted to pay to play the thing hence it was not successful or popular. I was fascinated by the art and wanting to see what they did with it and wish it had lived. It was truly RP central, but in the end no one wanted to pay the game it simply was not good enough to play in that condition.

In any event for now it appears no one wants to take the risk of creating a sandbox although that earth one (the one with the post apocolyptic theme I can't remember the name now) is a try at it.

I do feel the market has been tested and that they draw numbers of people to them, but no the don't draw nearly the large crowd that the other styles do (right now). Basically to me people want to be entertained and for that to happen not only the world has to exist a story of some sort has to be put forward and exist in the form of mini games, quests or people don't feel entertained. The other thing is that most of these games even WoW can be used as a sandbox to an extent and the quests ignored but the sandbox can't be used like WoW as that requires people to actualy write up quests and create the content. So the only time I think you will see a sandbox is when its included as a part of the regular type game and another game devoid of quests and content is probably a very bad idea if you want to draw the largest audience possible.

 

People don't want two jobs, I think that's why sandboxes fail. SWG failed because it was a sandbox and it was totally incomplete. It was decent at 200 things and good at none.

Some people might call it a "job". To others its complexity which brings about depth and immersion into the game.

It has been my experience that these games with a certain degree of complexity often contain many more features which contribute to a rich community and the ability to imagine and create loads of player content.

Those people who label such games as a job generally prefer FPS or some other kill, kill, kill game, and care less for communities, role playing and the like. I believe there is space for both these groups though.

I also think that games with depth can be quite immersive and popular.  The idea that SWG failed because it was a sandbox seems to perpetuate the mythological thinking that led to the birth of the NGE.  The myth is that the game didn't do well because it had too much depth and complexity.  This reminds me of Nancy MacIntyre's comments that too much reading is bad in an MMO.

This thinking overlooks the notion that many people say they left SWG because it was broken and incomplete.  People also leave broken and incomplete FPS games that are very straightforward.  Look at Tabula Rasa's rocky release and inevitable demise if you will.

For reasons we may never understand, decision makers at SOE seemed to miss this simple reality: people don't like to pay for things that are broken.  They also tend not to find them entertaining, which is important, if it's an entertainment service they are paying for. 

Instead of accepting this simple truth, they seemed to assume that they needed to toss out the broken sandbox game and replace it with a broken, quest-based, shooter.  I think the outcome of this strategy should really be all the proof anyone needs regarding just how flawed their thinking was.  When they got rid of the broken sandbox, and replaced it with a broken fps, subscriptions plummeted, and have never regained the levels they had when the game was a sandbox, even though it was a broken one.

 P.S. If the intent in a post above is to say that SWG failed at release because it was a broken and incomplete sandbox, I agree--emphasis on the broken and incomplete though. 

pre cu swg failed because of one simple reason.  it contained the name "Star Wars" in the title and thus set a bar so high, that I doubt anyone would have ever been fully pleased with it.  

i expect SWTOR to go the same way.  it'll start off strong, but will end up like swg.  just watch.

Originally posted by SkeeSkee

pre cu swg failed because of one simple reason.  it contained the name "Star Wars" in the title and thus set a bar so high, that I doubt anyone would have ever been fully pleased with it.  

i expect SWTOR to go the same way.  it'll start off strong, but will end up like swg.  just watch.

Pre-CU SWG failed because it was released unfinished and never completed.  It was full of bugs and devoid of content, but the developers and managers thought the game mechanics were the problem.  Along with that, it was also released when paying a monthly fee to play a video game wasn't normal (most of the Star Wars fansites were filled with 'I'd never pay a monthly fee to play a video game' posts).

TOR will launch without the lack of content problem, since that seems to be the main focus of its development.  WoW has also made paying a monthly fee to play a video game acceptable to more folks (a ton more), so TOR has a much better chance to succeed than SWG ever did.

Originally posted by SkeeSkee

pre cu swg failed because of one simple reason.  it contained the name "Star Wars" in the title and thus set a bar so high, that I doubt anyone would have ever been fully pleased with it.  

i expect SWTOR to go the same way.  it'll start off strong, but will end up like swg.  just watch.

By this line of logic there can never be a successful star wars game or one that gets great reviews.  There are a number of successful star wars video games.  Kotor and lego star wars just to name some examples. 

The problem was absolutely not peoples expectations based on the star wars title.  If anything, that is the biggest reason this game has survived as long as it has.  If it wasn't a star wars game it most likely would have shut down years ago or not come anywhere close to the success that this game once had.

Sci-fi genre MMO games just doesn't have the luck that fantasy ones do, SWG and EVE is basically the only MMO's out right now and EVE is rapidly gaining subscribers and it's been out just as long as SWG has. It's too early to really say how good SWTOR will be and how well it'll hold up, it's being done by Bioware which is a thumbs up from me but a thumbs down because it'll be published by EA (evil jerks), just as long as EA doesn't have executive rights to post-release, the game should strive.

As for video games; yes Battlefront 1/2, KOTOR 1/2, Tie Fighter series and the Jedi Knight series were all awesome- Jedi Academy was one of my favorite. However it seems the Force Unlieashed isn't as successful as the older titles were though.