Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Well, you are wrong. I played, and left, well prior to the CU and NGE. I left because it was a badly designed game with the only saving grace being the really great community.

I played from just after release to about six months after the NGE, and still sometimes play for a month even now just to upkeep my buildings and look at some of the stuff I collected.

Point: I was there. You were not.

 

The games and companies are in it to make money. I am not sure how this is just not an accepted certaintiy for a for profit business. 

 And yet, down below, you contradict yourself by saying:

 

Nothing to refute the multiple instances of factual developer commnets post mortem, just blind hate being spewed under the well worn out guise of "corporate greed" as the basis to back claims.

So which is it?? Were they "in it to make money", or was their greed some kind of illusion?? I say the former. But here's a lesson from a person who has been in business for two decades now; you don't shit on your customers. EVER. You do what you can within reason to attract new ones, while treating the ones you have like gold.

 

 

{mod edit}

The whole premise behind a segment of the pre NGE crowd is soley based in "corporate greed" and are incapable of thinking logicaly at how and why a company needs to manitin there bottomline.

 

The logic behind your line of thought is that : regardless of anything else, they shoul manitain the game because "I" play it.

Its stupid, and counter to basic capitalistic concpets. That was my point. You have to do better than "corporate greed" when presented with facts as a response.

 

All your doing is lobbing ad hominems now, instead of refuting the claims made by the games developers themselves, who by the way do not work for said company anymore, that refute the very worn out "corporate greed" group think response.

 {mod edit}

I am using logic, reason, and buisness experience to back my arguments. You are using conjecture, and a blind dislike of SWG.....which you admitted to quitting before the CU even hit, thus basically admitting that you never liked the game anyway.

And all you're really doing is talking in circles and wasting my time.

{mod edit}

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Well, you are wrong. I played, and left, well prior to the CU and NGE. I left because it was a badly designed game with the only saving grace being the really great community.

I played from just after release to about six months after the NGE, and still sometimes play for a month even now just to upkeep my buildings and look at some of the stuff I collected.

Point: I was there. You were not.

 

The games and companies are in it to make money. I am not sure how this is just not an accepted certaintiy for a for profit business. 

 And yet, down below, you contradict yourself by saying:

 

Nothing to refute the multiple instances of factual developer commnets post mortem, just blind hate being spewed under the well worn out guise of "corporate greed" as the basis to back claims.

So which is it?? Were they "in it to make money", or was their greed some kind of illusion?? I say the former. But here's a lesson from a person who has been in business for two decades now; you don't shit on your customers. EVER. You do what you can within reason to attract new ones, while treating the ones you have like gold.

 

 

 

{mod edit}

The whole premise behind a segment of the pre NGE crowd is soley based in "corporate greed" and are incapable of thinking logicaly at how and why a company needs to manitin there bottomline.

 

The logic behind your line of thought is that : regardless of anything else, they shoul manitain the game because "I" play it.

Its stupid, and counter to basic capitalistic concpets. That was my point. You have to do better than "corporate greed" when presented with facts as a response.

 

All your doing is lobbing ad hominems now, instead of refuting the claims made by the games developers themselves, who by the way do not work for said company anymore, that refute the very worn out "corporate greed" group think response.

 

{mod edit}

I am using logic, reason, and buisness experience to back my arguments. You are using conjecture, and a blind dislike of SWG.....which you admitted to quitting before the CU even hit, thus basically admitting that you never liked the game anyway.

And all you're really doing is talking in circles and wasting my time.

{mod edit}

Ok Bud.

CU and NGE were corporate greed.

Greed killed SWG regardless of all the other facts counter to that simplistic opinion.

You still havent countered facts presented to prove your "greed" theory over the facts presented by the games ex developers themselves.

{mod edit}

You guys are silly, SWG was fun,  fun as hell!!!!  Nothing out now is close fun wise,   i think the only other people who can relate is the old school Daoc  peeps...

Originally posted by Obee

The numbers you keep using for around the CU are actually the numbers from the time of the NGE.  They come from Dan Rubenfield's blog post.  The numbers around the CU were in the 225k-250k range and got close to 300k after the CU.  Then, after everyone realized the CU was crap, the 10k per month bleeding began and the NGE came along and took out 1/2 to 3/4 of the remaining playerbase at once.  The numbers continued to dwindle to the point today where they are low enough to warrant cancellation of the game.

The game wasn't bleeding subs prior to the CU, but it wasn't growing either.  The CU gave a brief bump and led to the bleeding numbers.  SOE responded by trying to replace the entire existing playerbase with a mythical new one that was in the millions.  One that never materialized, mainly because the NGE was, and is, horribly unfun and broken.

Wow, long thread in such a short time, it's clear that it's a topic that's a shocker to many

Anyway, about the sub numbers, if you look at the timeline in the MMO charts you'll see that it coincides with the release of both WoW and EQ2 and that SWG wasn't the only one taking a dip with losing subs, other MMO's like EQ did as well around the exact same time and they didn't have a CU or anything like that.

It's obvious that the release of those games had a significant impact: we had entire major guilds move from SWG to EQ2 when it got released, a lot of SWG players had also been ardent EQ fans so of course they wanted to see what EQ2 was and WoW was from Blizzard, one of the most popular and successful MMO's around and had an enormous buzz going on for it from people playing it. So maybe that the hard core of SWG fans didn't care about those 2 MMO's but there were enough SWG players that did, enough to take a dive from 300k to 250k subs, and that decline continued in that year and dived even below 200k.

As for the game SWG, it was a game that had quite some features that were unique and not to be found in other MMO's. But it was also a game with some huge flaws, preventing it from reaching numbers that equalled or surpassed EQ despite the more popular franchise, and no where it became more apparent than when WoW arrived on the scene and showed Lucas Arts that it was indeed possible to reach those high numbers but with another design model and a smoother, more polished gameplay experience.

As for how it would've been if the CU and NGE hadn't been implemented, who knows, but they were losing subs just like other MMO's already to both EQ2 and even more so WoW. They could have maybe stopped it at the 150-200k mark with doing nothing majorly, we'll never know.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Obee

The numbers you keep using for around the CU are actually the numbers from the time of the NGE.  They come from Dan Rubenfield's blog post.  The numbers around the CU were in the 225k-250k range and got close to 300k after the CU.  Then, after everyone realized the CU was crap, the 10k per month bleeding began and the NGE came along and took out 1/2 to 3/4 of the remaining playerbase at once.  The numbers continued to dwindle to the point today where they are low enough to warrant cancellation of the game.

The game wasn't bleeding subs prior to the CU, but it wasn't growing either.  The CU gave a brief bump and led to the bleeding numbers.  SOE responded by trying to replace the entire existing playerbase with a mythical new one that was in the millions.  One that never materialized, mainly because the NGE was, and is, horribly unfun and broken.

Wow, long thread in such a short time, it's clear that it's a topic that's a shocker to many

Anyway, about the sub numbers, if you look at the timeline in the MMO charts you'll see that it coincides with the release of both WoW and EQ2 and that SWG wasn't the only one taking a dip with losing subs, other MMO's like EQ did as well around the exact same time and they didn't have a CU or anything like that.

It's obvious that the release of those games had a significant impact: we had entire major guilds move from SWG to EQ2 when it got released, a lot of SWG players had also been ardent EQ fans so of course they wanted to see what EQ2 was and WoW was from Blizzard, one of the most popular and successful MMO's around and had an enormous buzz going on for it from people playing it. So maybe that the hard core of SWG fans didn't care about those 2 MMO's but there were enough SWG players that did, enough to take a dive from 300k to 250k subs, and that decline continued in that year and dived even below 200k.

 

As for the game SWG, it was a game that had quite some features that were unique and not to be found in other MMO's. But it was also a game with some huge flaws, preventing it from reaching numbers that equalled or surpassed EQ despite the more popular franchise, and no where it became more apparent than when WoW arrived on the scene and showed Lucas Arts that it was indeed possible to reach those high numbers but with another design model and a smoother, more polished gameplay experience.

As for how it would've been if the CU and NGE hadn't been implemented, who knows, but they were losing subs just like other MMO's already to both EQ2 and even more so WoW. They could have maybe stopped it at the 150-200k mark with doing nothing majorly, we'll never know.

If there is one thing any MMO has shown us is that once you start losing subs you general don't get them back, thus far there have been only three exception and that was WoW (During the chinese thing) DDO, and EvE.

I highly doubt not changing anything would have made much of a difference.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

{mod edit}

Ex developers, let me remind you what "ex" means; they dont work for SOE anymore, have made the events of that period well known. 

How an ex employee is a PR muppet is, well, silly.

I dont want your essay, I want you to disprove what was stated by those, ex employees,  over the decisions and reasons behind the CU and NGE. Its simple, stop with the ad hominems, and produce somthing tangible to back your opinions that are counter to what is on the common record at this point by sources outside of SOE who had first hand, hands on expereince with the game and its design direction at the time.

Nope, SWG was buggy and could be frustrating...

It was way to complex for you im sure but like i said it was fun!!!

I would trade in the 5 years of WOW for 6 months of pre-cu no problem...

I'm really surprised the SWG lasted this long after the NGE disaster. It was and will always be my favourtie MMO of all time (pre NGE ofc) but i guess the independent server that has a name of a flightless bird from New Zealand will pick up more of a population now.

Blah to all the wall of text arguments, it doesn't matter.

RIP SWG, haven't played in years but will be coming back just to get some screenshots.  My first MMO experience was on SWG launch day in 2003.  I'll remember the good times, forget the bad times, and hope for a new sandbox that puts as much effort into non-combat activities as SWG did.

Originally posted by TUX426

This is so sad...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWb3cxA4g_U&feature=player_embedded

Hmm...interesting, she says she's been playing for 6 years, meaning she probably only knows the nge system.  I wouldn't piss on the nge if it were on fire, let alone shed a tear over its passing.

They implemented the NGE because they were losing subs rapidly and continuously, especially with the WoW release (and to a lesser degree EQ2 and GW) that happened in that time. I thought that was common knowledge.

Had they done nothing, it wouldn't mean that the subs decrease would suddenly magically halt. It didn't for EQ and DAoC who experienced the same sub bleeding in the same time period.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

 i think you'll probably find this particularly interesting.

"Not just make Galaxies better, but make it succesful. Not the 200k
subs it had, but really succesful. The idea was that we had the most
valuable IP in the entire world, and we fucked it up to the point of
having 200k subs.

And yes, all 200k of you were important, but 200k means nothing in the
scheme of things.
I worked on Galaxies for around 5 and a half years. That’s a long time."

From that link I also got the following information, said by the same person, to which people often refer:

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000
subs a month.
Note – I think our subs were closer to 160-180 than 200k. It was a bad financial situation no matter how you look at it.

It was not idyllic. You can remember it as an amazing game, but it wasn’t.

Hell, all of you who recall the grand ole days of launch seem to
conveniently forget that everyone quit shortly afterwards.

It’s similiar to the UO rose colored glasses. Everyone remembers the
positives, but nobody remembers how unpalatable UO was before Trammel.
Nobody acknowledges that after Renaissance, UO’s numbers rose from
110k to 220k.

But I digress.

WOW was out. SWG was niche and clunky. Or so it seemed.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Incredible, really.

Your arrogance and yet you still refuse to back yourself after all the crappy coments directed at me.

You do the googling, is a great way to back your opinion. Classic intellectual capitualation.

 

 "You do the googling" is my way of saying that I consider it a waste of time to argue with someone about the color of the sky, and can't be bothered to illustrate the obvious.

If someone tells me I am wrong, I do the research and find out for myself. I don't demand that they waste their time providing links and quotes to information that is readily available to me.

it can be an educational experience....give it a try.

Yawn.

Link to counter that the reason SWG development changed the game ,was greed, and not a loss of subscribers as presented by ex employees.

I cant believe you think anyone buys the "i cant be bothered to back my claims" BS. 

All you have done is insult, with no meat to back any of your statements other than "google" it. 

Which I have, and its been very hard to find any factual backing at all that disputes the claims the game was losing subscribers and thats the reason for the drastic changes to the game.

Just a bunch of random bloggers with no facts, that just spout of their "opinions", very similar to you.

 Dude. Get over it. You're wasting my time, and cluttering up the thread with your rediculous denial of common knowledge.

So......"you got nothing"

Would of saved a lot of space yourself if you would of said that from the begining.

 I got plenty. As does the rest of the MMORPG community.

Go get some.

 

 

Edit, just to shut you up, Let Me Google That For You

 

i think you'll probably find this particularly interesting.

"Not just make Galaxies better, but make it succesful. Not the 200k
subs it had, but really succesful. The idea was that we had the most
valuable IP in the entire world, and we fucked it up to the point of
having 200k subs.

And yes, all 200k of you were important, but 200k means nothing in the
scheme of things.
I worked on Galaxies for around 5 and a half years. That’s a long time."

 

There's a WEALTH of information out there for you. Go read it.

 

 

Im sure you acciedently left this part out...Im sure..

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000
subs a month.
Note – I think our subs were closer to 160-180 than 200k. It was a bad financial situation no matter how you look at it.

It was not idyllic. You can remember it as an amazing game, but it wasn’t

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

They implemented the NGE because they were losing subs rapidly and continuously, especially with the WoW release (and to a lesser degree EQ2 and GW) that happened in that time. I thought that was common knowledge.

Had they done nothing, it wouldn't mean that the subs decrease would suddenly magically halt. It didn't for EQ and DAoC who experienced the same sub bleeding in the same time period.

That is the common knowledge outside of the rabid SWG pre NGE fanboys. Getting them to admit it is another matter.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

They implemented the NGE because they were losing subs rapidly and continuously, especially with the WoW release (and to a lesser degree EQ2 and GW) that happened in that time. I thought that was common knowledge.

Had they done nothing, it wouldn't mean that the subs decrease would suddenly magically halt. It didn't for EQ and DAoC who experienced the same sub bleeding in the same time period.

The success of WoW is what ultimately did in swg.  I know a lot of people that left swg for WoW even during pre-cu, mainly because it was more polished and had much more content.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

They implemented the NGE because they were losing subs rapidly and continuously, especially with the WoW release (and to a lesser degree EQ2 and GW) that happened in that time. I thought that was common knowledge.

Had they done nothing, it wouldn't mean that the subs decrease would suddenly magically halt. It didn't for EQ and DAoC who experienced the same sub bleeding in the same time period.

 Indeed. The CU started the exodus. Instead of fixing what they had, they re-designed the game, and made many of our accomplisments worthless, made ALL of our hard-earned equipment worthless, and the player's faith in the developers and the stability of the game itself faltered.

If, over night, things you worked for months to achieve are taken away from you, how much faith do you then have in that company?

The killing stroke was the NGE, which was an effort to attract the WoW generation. When our accomplisments were once AGAIN made worthless, and for some of us our entire build removed from the game, the majority of the population had had enough.

Culminating, finally, in the events of today.

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

{mod edit}

 

 

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000
subs a month.
Note – I think our subs were closer to 160-180 than 200k. It was a bad financial situation no matter how you look at it.

It was not idyllic. You can remember it as an amazing game, but it wasn’t

 

 

 

 copy/paste fail??

The part you are referencing was damage done as a result of the CU. Apparently ALMOST killing the game wasn't enough for them, and thus NGE.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

 Indeed. The CU started the exodus. Instead of fixing what they had, they re-designed the game, and made many of our accomplisments worthless, made ALL of our hard-earned equipment worthless, and the player's faith in the developers and the stability of the game itself faltered.

Not really. What I said before, if you look at when the dive began, it was at the same time as when the dive began for other MMO's like EQ and DAoC, namely at the release of WoW and EQ2. You'll see that those MMO's lost 50-100k subs in the same months after those launches which was before any CU hit the scene.

Why do you have such a hard time seeing and acknowledging that SWG was just as much affected by the release of WoW and EQ2 as other MMO's did like EQ and DAoC?

Like I said, the server I was on had firsthand experience with it with whole guilds moving from SWG to EQ2, SWG players who'd also been EQ fans, and I doubt that our server was unique in seeing this pattern.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

{mod edit}

 

 

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000
subs a month.
Note – I think our subs were closer to 160-180 than 200k. It was a bad financial situation no matter how you look at it.

It was not idyllic. You can remember it as an amazing game, but it wasn’t

 

 

 

 copy/paste fail??

The part you are referencing was damage done as a result of the CU. Apparently ALMOST killing the game wasn't enough for them, and thus NGE.

Read the last line. That is the reason, as he stated multiple times, for SWG problems. If you think that game wasnt losing subscribers BEFORE CU, you are living in dream bud.  The CU and ultimately NGE were direct results of declining retention and competition in the market.

Its just a lot easier for some of you to be able to "Blame" something other than a less than quality game at launch, that started to take it on the chin once other quality MMO titles were released.

The game was bad from the begining, thats the reason it had som many problems throughout its life. The CU and NGE didnt help, but those are not the begining reasons for the failure.

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

They implemented the NGE because they were losing subs rapidly and continuously, especially with the WoW release (and to a lesser degree EQ2 and GW) that happened in that time. I thought that was common knowledge.

Had they done nothing, it wouldn't mean that the subs decrease would suddenly magically halt. It didn't for EQ and DAoC who experienced the same sub bleeding in the same time period.

The success of WoW is what ultimately did in swg.  I know a lot of people that left swg for WoW even during pre-cu, mainly because it was more polished and had much more content.

Hell everyone from every MMO left for WoW, who wouldn't?  Blizzard is a huge name even back before WoW and it was a goliath from the start.   Most of the old mmoers pre-wow knew of or had played some of Blizzards titles and they were fun as hell.  Little did we know then that they would ruin the whole genre by causing every developer to copy WoW's style lol.  People have to realize though that before WoW, 100-200k subs in an MMO was great, since there was no game bringing in millions of subs.  Now, if the game doesn't hit a million + subs right away it's an automatic failure in the eyes of the noob gamers and the companies paying for it.

Oh well, didn't like it anyway after the changed stuff even though I played a new toon to level 50+ but still, didn't truly like it.  Also, at least there's something more promising on the horizon for Star Wars fans so yeah, good riddense, R.I.P SWG