The folks at SOE have posted the release notes for Game Update 8 for Star Wars Galaxies which went live today.

Player Cities:

Beginning 5/1/2009 12:01AM PDT, during every galaxy restart, if a citizen has not logged in within the past 90 days, he will be automatically removed as a citizen of the city and all his packable structures within the city limits will be eligible for packup. You can use the citizen roster window to see how long it has been since a citizen last logged in. This packup with not be the same as the existing abandoned packup, in that you will not get points for packing up these structures. They will not be marked as abandoned, but will be flagged in some other way. Packable structures within the city limit that do not belong to a citizen will also be eligible for packup if the structure’s owner (specifically, the character who owns the structure) has not logged in within the past 90 days. To be absolutely clear, we are talking about when this particular character/citizen last logged in. In-game mail will be sent to the mayor when a citizen is removed because of this 90 days inactivity. If the citizen logs back in after he has been removed as a citizen because of the 90 days inactivity, and his resident structure is still standing inside the city limits, he will be immediately added back to the citizen list, and the mayor will be sent in-game mail indicating that the citizen has been added.

For players who for any reason that cannot log in the character at least once during the 90 days, there will be a feature to allow the mayor of the city to flag that citizen as “safe”, meaning the citizen will not be removed from the citizen list, and none of the citizen’s structures within the city limits will be flagged for packup. Structures belonging to the citizen in a different city (where he is not a citizen) would be eligible for packup using the rules stated above. There will be a limitation on the number of citizens that can be "protected" as this is a feature for those cases which would normally not occur very often.

Read more here.

nice going $OE. Trying to ensure a quick buck hopeing that players will return to remain citizens just to keep up status of towns??? way to go.... way to go...

 Nothing personal but I think your games been abandoned for awhile now.But hey, what do your customers know.

Just keep on keeping on you may find that nut yet ;you blind squirrel you!

   Indeavor to persevere.

Even though I havent played this game is several years, this is something that should have been implimented from the beginning of Player Cities. If you havent played a game in several months, chances are, you have quit and moved on to greener pastures.

Noone should be able to complain about this.

Originally posted by Grifin

 Nothing personal but I think your games been abandoned for awhile now.But hey, what do your customers know.

Just keep on keeping on you may find that nut yet ;you blind squirrel you!

   Indeavor to persevere.

Things change,

You are correct that many have abondeoned SWG as 300,000 plus structures were packed up.  However, you should log into Bria and take stock.  At times the server has been impossible to log into because of the traffic.  Yes, half of the severs were made to free CTS to the higher pop leaving them vastly empty.  With the now amount of new MMO's that via for your sub money, what non-WOW game has 25 full and healthy server populations?  With the many changes and bug fixes to SWG, the only significant problem it has is its sorted reputation (with complete acceptance of its wrong handling) propagated by a dedicated cross section of MMORPG former-players.

Its been almost 4 years since the launch of the NGE.  Its not the same mess dumped on SWG back then.  People lost thier Alpha Class, thier Legendary Weapon(s), thier significate hold on a given market, and/or a gaming system that was, long term, unsupportable by Lucas Arts standards.  SWG had that for only 3 years.  The current level based game has much more to offer then most other IP MMO's released now.  Again, its main trouble today is a vocal dedicated former player group, "wronged in the eyes of God" on a crusade.  This coupled with Lucas Arts insistance that they support SWG when they have no market plan to re-package the current game for exposure leaves SWG devoid of new players.  Bad + Bad = (you get the picture yet?).

But SOE is at fault, aren't they?  SOE developes and runs (servers) the game.  Lucas Arts conducts market research, packages, promotes and approves of changes to SWG.  No system or quest is allowed into SWG without approval by Lucas Arts.  Who has more power over SWG?  The current smaller developer team has done more positive work on the game then the full crew it had Pre-NGE.  Much of thier work has been equal part of bug fix coupled with approved addtions, however, more and more additions have started to come as tech has become unified and "snowflake" tech has been abandoned.

Want to know more about SWG's history?  Find a former Lucas Arts employee(there are plenty) and ask 'em.  NDA aside, SWG is a favored topic. The Damn Truth is out there.

First of all, this is way too ambitious for a failed, not failing, failed MMO. Secondly, in what way did that update say "OO! This is going to be fun!!"....It didn't, that's the problem. It sounds down right ridiculous as a form of game play. Lets hope SWtOR does better than its predecessor.

Originally posted by Kaibyaku

First of all, this is way too ambitious for a failed, not failing, failed MMO. Secondly, in what way did that update say "OO! This is going to be fun!!"....It didn't, that's the problem. It sounds down right ridiculous as a form of game play. Lets hope SWtOR does better than its predecessor.

...and there you have justification for simple game play over World Simulator.  This attitude is why both companies pursed the direction they did.  Players made these complaints and thats why Player Cities and Associations went ignored.  Its finally being undated to be inline with other games UI's after all these years.

Originally posted by JYCowboy 

 Again, its main trouble today is a vocal dedicated former player group, "wronged in the eyes of God" on a crusade.  This coupled with Lucas Arts insistance that they support SWG when they have no market plan to re-package the current game for exposure leaves SWG devoid of new players.  Bad + Bad = (you get the picture yet?).

Why does everyone blame lack of marketing and players for all the problems of mmos?  SWG isn't exactly some highly guarded secret.  Wow, eve, turbine, etc all have their dedicated former players that have negative opinions, but those games do just fine.

Maybe it is time to stop blaming the players and look for something else to hang on the hook.  Just a suggestion.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by JYCowboy 

 Again, its main trouble today is a vocal dedicated former player group, "wronged in the eyes of God" on a crusade.  This coupled with Lucas Arts insistance that they support SWG when they have no market plan to re-package the current game for exposure leaves SWG devoid of new players.  Bad + Bad = (you get the picture yet?).

 

Why does everyone blame lack of marketing and players for all the problems of mmos?  SWG isn't exactly some highly guarded secret.  Wow, eve, turbine, etc all have their dedicated former players that have negative opinions, but those games do just fine.

Maybe it is time to stop blaming the players and look for something else to hang on the hook.  Just a suggestion.

First, I blamed both the companies that market the game and the dedicated grudge carriers.  SWG has no product on the shelf where most other active games do.  Even inactive games like Tabla Rasa still have product sitting on the shelf at Best Buy.  SWG doen't have negative former players that simple got bored or lost in PVP and quit.  There is an active crusades to kill SWG because the "switch and bait" lies that were told in mistake of marketing.  SOE is required to eat crow on subject for thier mistakes while Lucas Arts stands silent.  The companies have a strained relationship because both of their practices contribuited to the fiasco.  Player complaints are justified but nothing they do changes anything legally in the industry.  The game has lived on and has evolved into a good game.  But because thier anger is still fueled by the loss in the blatent change and makes it thier duty to always warn new players away.  There are few angry MMO players that equal the level of vement hate that SWG has earned in its past.  Goggle Star Wars Galaxies and see what most Blogs say.

Now in my defence, is SWG a perfect game?  No, its just a game much like others in the market but has had more time to evolved into a more finished product than what has been released just last season.

If the game was great, more people would play it.  It is just that simple.

You can blame former players, marketing or any number of other reasons, but in the end if the gameplay was so great then more people would play it.  

Maybe the reason for lack of exposure isn't the cause, but is a result of you know... the game not attracting people. How long can a company justify advertising if they are not getting results?

Originally posted by Daffid011

If the game was great, more people would play it.  It is just that simple.

You can blame former players, marketing or any number of other reasons, but in the end if the gameplay was so great then more people would play it.  

 

Maybe the reason for lack of exposure isn't the cause, but is a result of you know... the game not attracting people. How long can a company justify advertising if they are not getting results? 

 

 

I said good, not "great".  No matter what former players say, SWG was never great in any point in its history based on the demands of the common MMORPG market.

The game was fine pre CU, they listened to too many complaining fans. It is STUPID, to update this piece of crap any further, yeah great, finally caught up updates for the player cities, except, that should have been done pre cu, not now, not when its a utter piece of junk.

But your a hardcore, so anything they do, can't possibly be wrong in your eyes.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Originally posted by Daffid011

If the game was great, more people would play it.  It is just that simple.

You can blame former players, marketing or any number of other reasons, but in the end if the gameplay was so great then more people would play it.  

 

Maybe the reason for lack of exposure isn't the cause, but is a result of you know... the game not attracting people. How long can a company justify advertising if they are not getting results? 

 

 

 

I said good, not "great".  No matter what former players say, SWG was never great in any point in its history based on the demands of the common MMORPG market.

Maybe I misunderstood you when you said the main problem of the game was lack of advertising and former players bad mouthing the game.

I just don't know how many years people should be expected to wait for a game to become good or however you want to label it and then be expected to sign right up.

I thought the main problems the game have were the lack of development with no expansions in over 3 years, the constant screwing with the direction of the game from the CU/NGE to several of the publishes, the neglecting of several professions and aspects of the game, the performance issues, soes love of RMT and reselling content through virtual cards and so on.  All of those things seem to be problems for the current playerbase let alone potential players.

Also when you said this game has more to offer than most other IP based mmos, I found that strange.  Does swg even have enough content to level from 1 to 90 on without resorting to bland randomly generated mission termial quests while limiting yourself to one level a day?  Last I recall there wasn't enough quests to level on, but soe was promising to put in enough to level on... I think that was somewhere around dec 2005.  That sounds like a fairly big obstacle for a game to gain subscribers, but hey lets blame the former players instead?

Originally posted by Kaibyaku

The game was fine pre CU, they listened to too many complaining fans. It is STUPID, to update this piece of crap any further, yeah great, finally caught up updates for the player cities, except, that should have been done pre cu, not now, not when its a utter piece of junk.

But your a hardcore, so anything they do, can't possibly be wrong in your eyes.

The game was not fine pre CU.  If it was doing so well, why were players leaving it?  The CU and the NGE were direct responces to the amount of sub they were loosing.  For its current market share, it warrants the "STUPID" updates it gets.

As to me being "hardcore", I have been its strongest critic when the game was at its worse (ex: post NGE).  The smaller dev team has made a differance in turning the "junk" around into a good game.  Its been almost 4 years since the NGE was launched and its not been sitting there as you remember that dark November day when your Jedi was made a starting class while other professions were removed all together or all your looted gains made worthless.  The dev team has gutted the old code that was broken and replaced it with working features.  Is it complete? No.  Will it challenge WOW for subs in its market share?  No game will, as I understand the market now.

You have expressed your dislike of SWG today.  Why?  What angers you most, your past with it or its current state?

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by JYCowboy

 

Maybe I misunderstood you when you said the main problem of the game was lack of advertising and former players bad mouthing the game.

I just don't know how many years people should be expected to wait for a game to become good or however you want to label it and then be expected to sign right up.  

 

I thought the main problems the game have were the lack of development with no expansions in over 3 years, the constant screwing with the direction of the game from the CU/NGE to several of the publishes, the neglecting of several professions and aspects of the game, the performance issues, soes love of RMT and reselling content through virtual cards and so on.  All of those things seem to be problems for the current playerbase let alone potential players.

 

Also when you said this game has more to offer than most other IP based mmos, I found that strange.  Does swg even have enough content to level from 1 to 90 on without resorting to bland randomly generated mission termial quests while limiting yourself to one level a day?  Last I recall there wasn't enough quests to level on, but soe was promising to put in enough to level on... I think that was somewhere around dec 2005.  That sounds like a fairly big obstacle for a game to gain subscribers, but hey lets blame the former players instead?

I made it clear, its bad history (well earned) should not be the only barrier to try this game if you have a passing interest in a Star Wars MMO.

As to how many years to wait, don't.  Find that perfect game in the market and sign up.  Be devoted and thrive as its community will allow.  I only ask that you not down the present state of a game if you haven't tried it.

SWG developement does not include anymore expansions. Those days are over for SWG as Lucas Arts will not be spending anymore money on promotion campainse.  All the expansion worthy material is being slowly trickled out through the chapters and updates which is part of the subscription.  The best it can achieve for marketing is a re-packageing of its current standing.  As to major direction change, there hasn't been a shift from its current develoment path since Shadowkai left after the installation of the new GCW, Restuus content.  Under him the focus was PVP and a reaction from the pro-PVE side warrent a shift back.  Now after two years the GCW will be re-addressed.  Again, here is why  I say good and not great.  If you mean ignored professions in light of Traders and Entertainers then I can agree as they have no fun leveling quest line of profession spacific meta-games.  It is very possible to play SWG without playing the TCG.  There are ingame alternatives to the items released in the TCG.  The TCG loot cards just look cool for the most part.  Think about who holds the copyright to anything Star Wars that would include images and story.  Who is really the one loving the RMT in the TCG system.  By the way, RMT is not limited to SWG.  Its just they found a way to make more from players than other game companies.  Again, good not great.

There is content to level a character from 1 - 90.  Do your Tutorial and Legacy Quest will get you to about CL55.  Next stop is Kashyyyk, where you begin to level to 70 with the many quest there.  The Meatlump Themepark is repeatable and is significant for CL 65-80.  At CL80, you should be looking for quests at Mustafar.  If you have completed Mustafar, then you can repeat the Azure Cobal quest series not to mention doing Heroic Encounters at high level for xp.  All the while your leveling through this track you can do 10 terminal missions a day to earn about 1 level in xp.  Couple this with 15% xp buff from an Entertainer and you can level quite fine.

Since 2005, there hasn't been any friendly and/or helpful user guide to inform new or returning players this information as Lucas Arts does not want to be out the money to commission one.  Again, good but not great.  SOE's guys work daily with the community to change SWG for a better game within the limited confines of policy and budget they have.

My top 3 problems with SWG are:

1. NGE policy holds the FPS targing system as prime to the market accepted and standard lock and autofire system.  FPS was how Freeman sold Lucas Arts on the NGE.  Keymapping is a standard for SWG vets as the lock and autofire is avaible but not supported in documention.

2. There is no universal guide or understanding of the progression through SWG for a new/returning player to refereance.

3. Uncustomizable and clunky UI.

I was called "hardcore" in this thread about SWG.  Fair enough.  I have played it for its full commerical life and weathered the changes.  It has been mystical journey and a craptastic money grab but I could always find something to do.  My eyes have always been open to why was something changed or done to SWG.  I now know more truth in this product from other sources and accept why they happened.  I could very easily have gone blinding mad when my 3 Elder Jedi were taken away.  I have even confronted the devs directly.  They do the best they can with what means they are given.  Its the ones that make the board decision that caused the real trouble.  The active campaine by former players to kill SWG should end.  The ones responsible for the NGE and earlier failings are gone or dead.  The campaine won. (sidenote: Those guys and dolls are on SW:TOR, btw) I only ask, let the current dev team continue to fix and heal the mistakes with support and not a slap.

Another poster looking to pass blame onto LA to deflect negative attention from their game...

SOE made the decision to violate the cardinal rule of MMO's, never change the core mechanics of the game. SOE pitched the idea to LA, SOE developed the crummy coding, and SOE implemented it with shady marketing tactics.

And dont let the defender here gloss over what SOE did. It wasnt just a mistake of bad marketing. SOE stole subscription money. They lied to the then current players, promising fixes and new content plus profession revamps. What they got was a brand new game the suits at SOE knew most would hate. That subscription money was used to design a game for a new player market.

And even if the 200,000+ players could somehow overlook having their subscription money misused, SOE still has another obstacle to overcome (which they never will)....the whole point of playing an MMO is to invest time in an avatar, to improve him, to watch him grow, evolve, etc. Why would anyone in their right mind play an MMO made by SOE when they have consistently violated the cardinal rule and changed the core game many times over. SOE destroys players' work like its a monthly ritual required to get paid.

Nothing has changed over at SWG. The subscription revenue is still being misused as i write this. Instead of adding a new planet or fixing the thousands of bugs that remain in the game, SOE uses that money to develop trading cards that the players (who already paid for it with their sub fee) must now rebuy it.

I will never stop my crusade to see swg shut down. They stole my money, lied to me, and then said rofl go away we dont need ya anymore because the wow players would know flock to play swg.

shame on anyone who plays this game

I won't talk about wich version of SWG is better or how it failed but:

In the current state of the game the mechanics are broken

It is supposedly a FPS combat system : without collision detection, Lost of sight, 3D movement (Z axis) and finally and not the least the impossibility to actually miss (either you shoot and hit or you don't)

So either bring back queued combat or implement a real FPS combat system.

"The CU and the NGE were direct responces to the amount of sub they were loosing. For its current market share, it warrants the "STUPID" updates it gets".

That sentence is so wrong I just had to comment.  NGE was in response to the success of World of Warcraft.  It had absolutely nothing to do with LOSING subscriptions.  It was LA's thought that making the game more like Wow would boost subscription numbers, SWG was pretty much treading water in that department.  LA's reasoning was that if Wow could achieve those numbers, simplfying SWG would do the same.

I don't believe CU was a fix for subscription loss either, it was an attempt by SOE to fix the broken combat and buffing system.

Hope people still enjoy playing SWG.  I still play the space part occassionally, but even the most populated shards are still quite empty.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

 I still play the space part occassionally, but even the most populated shards are still quite empty.

You should try X-Wing Alliance it's far better than JTL. Unless you want the network feature then you might have a look at X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.

Originally posted by JYCowboy 

A bunch of solid stuff posted by Cowboy

Well said Cowboy.  I agree with most of what you posted, some I didn't, some I would go a bit further or not as far.

The only point I would disagree with you that is worthy of mentioning is that soe is fully into the RMT and virtual items sales mode.  You can see soe pushing rmt in several forms in many of their games.  That is a trend which suggests that lucas isn't calling the shots on this, but was sold the idea by soe since they are already hip deep into rmt.  For lucas I suspect it is just market research for their next mmo which looks like it will be rmt based.