Originally posted by Daffid011

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.

 

FYI, I just recieved this morning an email from Lucas Arts (Im on thier list). 

LucasArts Insider Issue #79  features as its first promotional  SWG:TCG Galatic Hunters expansion.  To quote:

"Star Wars Galaxies is on the Hunt!
In the second expansion to the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game, Galactic Hunters, boost your decks with all new strategy-enhancing bounty hunter cards. For the first time ever, both light and dark side players will wield iconic Star Wars bounty hunter units to issue and collect bounties on opposing players.

Plus, Galactic Hunters also introduces the all-new bounty hunter-themed quest arc, rich with epic quest rewards, strategy enhancing keyword abilities such as "target" and "shield", plus a new, unique set of loot cards that can be redeemed for virtual items in the Star Wars Galaxies MMO.

Want to find out more? Head over to the official Star Wars Galaxies site!"
 

Again, Lucas Arts promotes these features as they have a vested interest.  Though Sony owns SOE Denver (the TCG branch) thier return on this product is probably no were the percent as LA.  From my conversations with insiders, LA was furious with SOE on returns for SWG back before the NGE.  This was spurred on by the success of WOW and never meeting the expected sub goal of a Million that Linage had earned.  Further, players were leaving SWG for WOW.  SOE responded by the demands by going forward with the CU.  When the CU failed to make significate gains on previous subs and still lossed, LA returned with even more outrage thus making the NGE a easy sell.  There was even another version of SWG which we never got to see.  But, because it was not "simple" enough, LA passed on it.  The trouble with SOE started way way back before launch.  SOE, and other makers, had a practice of laying the infrastructure to a game and finishing after release with early sub money.  This coupled with LA's high return demands and special marketing promotions shows both companies should share the ultimate blame.  Yelling at SOE is like beating a Horse for going the wrong way while the rider directs it there without blame.

As for the whole lucas did this, soe did that with swg, lets just say it was a poisonous relationship.  Soe, like you said, releases games prematurely and funds their development with subsciption money.  Lucas has no problems releasing terrible games that they hire other companies to create.  Battlefront still upsets me.  Still, there are companies that release great star wars games, so it isn't all lucas faults.

However, soe owns the denver studio for the sole purpose of implementing micro transactions into their games.  That is not something lucas had control over as it was something that soe was already doing to their other games.  RMT is the single biggest driving factor at soe right now.  It is very unlikely that lucas looked at the small population of swg and made soe put an rmt card game into swg for money.  Soe made the card game an available option to lucas and they accepted for whatever reasons they did.  Odds are most likely against it being for any sizable monetary reasons.  That ship sailed a long time ago.  It isn't like lucas arts is going to make millions from swg players buying cards, but they just might avoid problems in their future mmos based on what they learn in swg... which might save them millions in lossed revenue from making another giant mistake. 

I understand that both companies are to blame for many of the actions taken, but there are some that directly point to soe as the driving force.  You can see the history of those actions in non-swg games, because that is the procedure for the company.  It is just the way they do things and the micro transaction card game is one of those.  Lucas can be blamed for allowing soe to do it, but not really anything beyond that.  It isn't like lucas made soe buy/create the denver studio after all.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

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.

I apologize for picking at your post but seriously, this is complete bull.  No product on the shelf?  Umm, go check out the all in one package that is still on shelves for SWG.  I can guarantee you my local Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Gamestop stores all have SWG games sitting on their shelves.  I will agree that word of mouth has had a great deal to do with the downfall of this game, but it isn't just former players that had something to do with that.  Many of the major gaming websites did not have much "great" to say about the changes that were made.  Include the mass exodus of their player base and most folks passed on SWG for another game which is now currently the largest MMO in history.

Secondly, most knowledgeable players realized very early on that SOE was not entirely at fault for the changes.  The old "it takes two to tango" statement definitely applied to this debacle.  However, Lucas Arts did not have anything to do with the way SOE mishandled the interaction with the player base during this time.  It was god aweful, and I would liken their complete failure in this regard to something on the order of Age of Conan type failure.  Two names need only be mentioned to garner the angst of former SWG players and they are John Smedley and Haden Blackman.  Anyone that knows their connection to the failure of that game really knows what happend back then.

Lastly, calling a game "great" is a very subjective thing.  I would disagree with you completely in this statement.  I came back to SWG after WoW et. al. burn out towards the end of last year and while it has improved it isn't anywhere close to being competitive quality wise with games like WoW, LoTRO, Eve, or even WAR for that matter.  Being a good game has nothing to do with how many people log in to Bria each day.  Bria is merged with several other servers and the game still doesn't perform well.  Sadly SWG hasn't evolved into anything better.  The game had potential but is now a complete failure based on that initial potential.  And in all the years this game has been out, can you honestly say it is a more "finished" product?  Christ man there's still bugs in that game that have never been fixed.  That's not development, that's just retarded.

Originally posted by Airwren

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by JYCowboy 

 

 

I apologize for picking at your post but seriously, this is complete bull.  No product on the shelf?  Umm, go check out the all in one package that is still on shelves for SWG.  I can guarantee you my local Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Gamestop stores all have SWG games sitting on their shelves.  I will agree that word of mouth has had a great deal to do with the downfall of this game, but it isn't just former players that had something to do with that.  Many of the major gaming websites did not have much "great" to say about the changes that were made.  Include the mass exodus of their player base and most folks passed on SWG for another game which is now currently the largest MMO in history.

Secondly, most knowledgeable players realized very early on that SOE was not entirely at fault for the changes.  The old "it takes two to tango" statement definitely applied to this debacle.  However, Lucas Arts did not have anything to do with the way SOE mishandled the interaction with the player base during this time.  It was god aweful, and I would liken their complete failure in this regard to something on the order of Age of Conan type failure.  Two names need only be mentioned to garner the angst of former SWG players and they are John Smedley and Haden Blackman.  Anyone that knows their connection to the failure of that game really knows what happend back then.

Lastly, calling a game "great" is a very subjective thing.  I would disagree with you completely in this statement.  I came back to SWG after WoW et. al. burn out towards the end of last year and while it has improved it isn't anywhere close to being competitive quality wise with games like WoW, LoTRO, Eve, or even WAR for that matter.  Being a good game has nothing to do with how many people log in to Bria each day.  Bria is merged with several other servers and the game still doesn't perform well.  Sadly SWG hasn't evolved into anything better.  The game had potential but is now a complete failure based on that initial potential.  And in all the years this game has been out, can you honestly say it is a more "finished" product?  Christ man there's still bugs in that game that have never been fixed.  That's not development, that's just retarded.

Haden was instrumental, but the counterpart to John Smedley at Lucas Arts was Jim Ward.  You should Google Jim and check out his interviews.  You will see why I blame LA policies.  Jim left LA for personal reasons about 2 years ago.  But he was there through the significate period in SWG.

Originally posted by Airwren

I apologize for picking at your post but seriously, this is complete bull.  No product on the shelf?  Umm, go check out the all in one package that is still on shelves for SWG.  I can guarantee you my local Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Gamestop stores all have SWG games sitting on their shelves.  I will agree that word of mouth has had a great deal to do with the downfall of this game, but it isn't just former players that had something to do with that.  Many of the major gaming websites did not have much "great" to say about the changes that were made.  Include the mass exodus of their player base and most folks passed on SWG for another game which is now currently the largest MMO in history.

To follow up on SWG sitting on the shelf, I went to my local Wal-Mart where there is only the new SW: Empire at War compliation pack avaible. It does not have a SWG offer.   This was the same for a Wal-Mart two cities over as well.  Best Buy had the same and no Best of Star Wars which offers a 14 day trial of SWG.  Game Stop, in my area, did not have the Best of compliation.  Game Stop, however, has been cutting down on the PC products and only offers new/popular products in short supply.  I did find seven copies of the Best of compilation at Fry's Electronics.  This store also carries SWG 60 day game cards.  Fry's is a specialty chain store owned by the Tandy Corp. but are not as wide spread as Best Buy.  This is all in the busy Dallas/Ft. Worth area where PC games would be plentiful.  Where are you that the Star Wars Galaxies game is avaible and which product is on the shelf?

There is a small line on the best of game box about SWG 14 day trial or something like that.  So technically it is still available.  Once in a while you can find one of the original boxes for sale in a store, but overall you are right that there is no effort by soe/lucas to put the product on shelves.

I still disagree that has anything to do with the low populations of swg.