Originally posted by Tivian

Originally posted by OldAgeJunkie

Weird that you say its better then ever, I just went back for the free 30 days and guess what not a soul in sight. This game is dead, let it die and get over yourself.

 

It helps if you open your eyes when you play. you would see other players! I think your the one that needs to "get over" your self. and get over the fact that this game is not going anywhere

You're joking, right?  You do know that Bioware is making a Star Wars MMO as we speak...?  You do know that compared to most other MMO games the SWG servers are considered dead...?

I'll give SOE credit for the TCG, they found a way to milk money off of a dead game.  It was a pretty smart idea and a good model to make money off of a game that few people play.

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by Trubaduren

www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php  I took these screenshots in january, and starstrider was the most populated server at that time, still it wasn't much. And all other planets than tatooine was DEAD. I'm feraing since the server merge all but 4 servers are empty, beacuse everyone moved to those i guess, or whatever happend.

 

That was six months ago, and before the Free CTS.  Starsider had a population explosion since.  Take another look.

Players report that the server is as busy, if not busier than Pre-CU.

Who?  What players?  Names?  I'm going to have to go with the old..  "screenshots or it didn't happen" : )

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by Thunderous

There is turnover in WoW.  Players quit, new ones begin.  In Star Wars Galaxies players quit and very few take their place.  The game offers no staying power to retain subscriptions.  SOE and LucasArts put almost no resources or effort into this game and it shows.  There CAN'T be more than 5,000 to 8,000 active players.

 

I'm afriad that no matter how much you want this to be true due to your obvious hatred of all thing SoE, more and more new and returning players are filling out the ranks of SWG players every day.

I get the chance to speak to many of them in game and there is a recurring trend of SWG seeing an influx of WoW burnouts looking for a more engaging game world to play in, and SWG delivers that.

There is also plenty of sandbox gameplay in SWG, a number of my friends have put together awesome creations via the story teller system and run fun events.

First of all, how is it possible to "hate" a video game?  Anyone who feels emotion towards an online game strong enough to love or hate has some issues controlling themselves.

Secondly, you come on here and post NOTHING but positive spins towards a game that is 6 years old, most likely has less subscriptions than almost any other major MMO on the market, and goes through more development turnover than probably any other game on the market.

I could care less how much money SWG is making.  I can tell you just out of logic that it isn't making much.  If it were a profitable venture you would see advertising, larger development allocations, and a lot more work going into fixing the mechanical problems that plague this game.

Pre-CU was a decent game, it offered freedom, but it had a LOT of holes in it.  The current version of SWG has a lot of holes and offers far less freedom.  SWG has been mismanaged from the start and has only gotten worse over time.

You keep coming here and posting your spin-control, that's fine.  But don't tell me I am wrong or that I "hate" a game simply because I use logic to make my evaluations.  The servers are a fraction of what they used to be.  That tells me that FAR fewer people play this game than used to.  That also tells me that the game isn't a highly profitable cash-cow for either SOE or LEC.  NO game is 100% positive, especially this one.  This game is so poorly coded and maintained that it can't compete with games like WoW, WAR, or EVE. 

I'm not sure if you get compensated by SOE for your internet viral efforts nor do I care, but some of the things you claim on these boards are just non-sense.  It's a shame there aren't laws to prevent people from false advertising on message boards.

I didn't see inflation as a major problem with the original system.

Once they removed decay, the economy became pointless.

There should be a taxation system in place, especially for games with player cities.  Every player pays a flat tax rate on their earnings, whether it be from loot or selling items.  That money goes into city coffers.  Keep decay intact, give players a reason to use crafters on a repeated basis.

As long as there are an abundance of players, and new ones starting on a consistent basis, inflation will control itself.  There will ALWAYS be a crafter willing to sell for less to make money. 

Originally posted by grandpagamer

Originally posted by Karahandras

oh, come on

I only ever played nge and the game is no longer as good as when i started, it's badly bugged, ill treated and almost no community left(after a 7 month break i logged back in and my 40+friend list had 5 ppl left playing)

there is a reason swg has sub numbers a f2p grindfest would be ashamed of and it has nothing to do with the vets, it is purely down to soe

Having never played the game i cant comment on bugs etc but i can make a comment on your friends list. I logged back into WOW after several months of playing other games and found the same thing as you. Off a huge friendls list i found, after a few days, that 4 still log on and play now and then. This in no way means WOW isnt populated it just means some have moved on and others have come to play. Is this the case with SWG, i dont know.

This is not the case of Star Wars Galaxies.  All my friends quit the same day, back in Novemeber 2005, when the NGE was forced on the community.  Hundreds gone in a day that have never returned.  That month, this game lost probably 200,000 active players. 

It has never recovered since and the servers have only become more desolate each passing month.

There is turnover in WoW.  Players quit, new ones begin.  In Star Wars Galaxies players quit and very few take their place.  The game offers no staying power to retain subscriptions.  SOE and LucasArts put almost no resources or effort into this game and it shows.  There CAN'T be more than 5,000 to 8,000 active players.

Can't go wrong with Zombies.  The more this game resembles Fallout the better.  I don't remember which Star Wars movie had Zombies though...  Maybe "The Empire Strikes Back"...  Oh wait... 

It's been obvious for years that SOE can do little to nothing to actually FIX the game, so 7 years later it's all still window-dressing.

Will Zombies increase the population of SWG?  Absolutely not.  Will they give the current players something to do for a week or so?  Probably...

This game is a debacle, an absolute debacle, but as long as suckers will pay to play it you gotta give SOE props for packaging a turd and selling it to them.

It is amazing how people like BadgerSmaker can possibly claim that ANY of the current servers have more populations than ever.  I checked it out 2 days ago for kicks and despite appearing to be populated Star had a minimal amount of players, and they were concentrated in 2 areas.  In Pre-CU, Lowca had twice as many players than what I saw on Star, and Lowca was a "light to medium" server.

Bloodfin is a shell of what it was, Bria the same, and Flurry was nearly 100% empty.

It's ok to say that servers like Star and Bloodfin have SOME players on them, more than most of the empty servers, but to make claims like the "population of Star is higher than ever" is just lunacy.

It's one thing to be a fanboy of a game but it's another to mislead potential players and returning vets as to how many people still play this game.  Another year, same old stuff though.  Some of the players of this game are so lonely on the servers they will say anything to get people to log on...

OP, the problem is that a lot of us "vets" have tried this game, over and over again.  Every time they give us free time we likely log on to check it out.

The real issue is that the game isn't very good.  Combat is lame, the community is tiny, and our freedom has been taken away.  This game is no different than any other themepark/restrictive MMO out there, aside from subtle freedoms remaining from Pre-CU.

I can't possibly fathom how someone can have fun playing SWG for more than a day.  It boggles my mind.  The grind is horrible, the bugs are annoying, the combat is beyond repair, and the game BARELY resembles something Star Wars.

It's easy to blame the "vets" of this game for the lack of population.  However, it's far more accurate to blame the poor mechanics and systems of the game for the lack of players on the servers.  If the majority of people thought Star Wars Galaxies was any fun at all, they would play.  Even with the Station Pass SOE can't get anyone to play this game.

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan

If this was the case then SWG would have been steadily growing over the years, not declining.

 

It is.  Log in to one of SWGs top eight servers and see.

If players hadn't skewed themselves across the top eight servers with the Free CTS, we'd have a healthy population on all 24 servers, just a bit larger than Shadowfire currently. 

But try Starsider, it's rockin'.

LOL!  Wow, thanks for the laugh.  SWG hasn't seen a decent population since 2005.  There aren't enough subscriptions in this game to fill a star-cruiser.

Originally posted by Shohadaku

 Login bloodfin, bria, or starsider. Especially starsider. It's as populated as any server was pre cu.

That is far from true.  Star isn't close to as  populated as Lowca was Pre-CU, which was medium to low. 

The lowest populated servers in Pre-CU had much larger populations than the most populated SWG servers today.  You could log an any server back then and find people all over the place.

Now you log in and it's hard to find someone outside of Mos Eisley.  Heck the cantina in Coronet on most servers back in the day had more players than you would find in all of Mos Eisley today.  That doesn't even include the buffing lines by the starports back then.

SWG is dead.  It's been dead since November of 2005.  I have never witnessed a mass exodus from a game like that.  Tens of thousands of players leaving daily when the NGE hit...  It is unprecedented and it was quite sad.  The game now is just a shell of what it once was.  It's on life support until the new Star Wars MMO comes out and puts it out of it's misery.

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Obraik

SWG has always had too many servers

 

What exactly are you basing this comment on to make the assertion that there are too many servers?

 

Kauri, Lowca, etc have always had pops that could have been handled by a number of the other more populated servers.  They were always known as low-pop servers, even back when SWG was at its peak.

There are MMO's now that have more players then SWG had during its peak and have less servers then SWG has ever had.

Ummm, I had a toon of Lowca from day 2 to this very day, and back in Pre-CU and CU Lowca had a nice population. 

Of course SWG had about 250,000 players back then as well, as opposed to the 10,000 or less that it has today.

Originally posted by darkchance

Im a big WoW player and when ive took breaks in the past ive played different MMO's while i was away. I tried this game out on the trial during one of these wow breaks and i have to honostly say this game is awesome. I really dont see where everyone is saying it stinks i loved it beyond WoW, but the only reason i didnt play longer is because i was on the trial and i dont have a credit card. Do they still sell Game Cards at all? If so where? Thanks

You actually enjoy SWG?  WoW, no pun intended...

Originally posted by ummax

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by ummax

[quote]Originally posted by Moaky07

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Originally posted by Thunderous

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Originally posted by ummax

 

 

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Originally posted by OddjobXL
 
I would recommend SWG to roleplayers, to people who like space sim PvP and to creative folks that like to design interesting spaces and events.   Nobody else, not even Star Wars fans (unless they fit the above description), really needs apply. 

 

 

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Yup this game was never about star wars. If it had been many including myself would not have remained past 15 minutes of initial gameplay when it was introduced in 2003. This is a scifi-based game sim that if you enjoy making your own little world its great. If I had picked up this game and only wanted to play because it was star wars I would not have remained for the time I did. Its a game that is more of a self made life with some storm troopers and thrown in and the occassional glimpse of a star wars character. If you want to build your house, fly a space ship and be able to make your own little world then this game is for you. If you want to take part in a star wars driven story this game is not for you as its a sci-fi sim and always has been. Thankfully its less grindy then it was when it was originally made but if you want actual story driven star wars accuracy this aint it and it never has been. Its also the reason its always had such a small audience.
 

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Your never-ending mission to justify the NGE is always amusing 

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Yeah unfortunately this has nothing to do with any nge's cu's fbi's cia's nid's rcmp's or any other abbreviation you can think of

The game was never popular please find someone else to quote from now on though cause quite frankly i was simply replying to someone else and agreeing with his remarks so maybe your issue is your perception of what is actualy going on here which as usual is absolutely nothing other then a couple of people speaking in a thread about a game that never ever was popular considering the franchise it represented.
 

You are kidding right?

 

Swg was the second most popular mmo in 2003.  It broke sales records at the time and the game was sold out all over the place during release.

 

I can't think of one other game on the market the was released in such a poor state and remained so popular for years. 

 

no i'm not kidding.  I consider the game successful, but not popular.  If it was popular it would have had a fanbase much larger then and now, but it does not.   Popularity is different then success.

macdonalds is popular .   However the local Shawarma grill down the street is successful , but in comparison to macdonalds its very unpopular even though he has been in existance for the same amount of time as the macdonalds in the neighourhood he is still a small shop and not frequented nearly as much as the macdonalds.  

Sandboxes are not popular and never ever were.  SWG in all its states was never popular.  It does not mean however that what was there was not good,  It simply did not hit the mark that is should have, not then and not now and there are a million examples to prove this.   Heck even stupid old me knows that sandbox based sim games are not where the money is at which is why swg remains unpopular to this day as that is still essentially what it is with a few quest lines thrown in to make it less grindy. 

 

Oh, so Ultima Online, SWG, and EVE Online are NOT popular?

Yep, SWG was so UNPOPULAR that when SOE changed it from a sandbox to a themepark game, the "vocal minority" aka the vets who enjoyed their unpopular sandbox went to work and spread word of mouth that killed the NGE faster than the bogus combat ever could have.

LIKE I SAID, just because YOU don't understand sandbox games, aren't creative enough to enjoy them, and can't keep up with those of us who are/do, does NOT mean they are not popular.  Pre-CU SWG was a great foundation for a game, SOE just never added the content that would have made the difference.

Heck, SOE launched the game with no mounts, no vehicles, very few meaningful quests, no space gameplay, and a TON of bugs.  Had they simply fixed the bugs, added the content, and completed the game, the sky was the limit.

Many people are getting bored with themeparks.  A completed Pre-CU right now, would be a major player in the market.

Do the math.  Do ALL Star Wars fans play video games?  No.  Do ALL the Star Wars fans who play video games play MMO games?  No.  So Koster had to appeal to more than JUST Star Wars fans when he designed this game.  He had to appeal to a wide variety of fans.  The game had obvious design flaws that needed correcting but the core system was solid, it was fun, and it was successful. 

The version SWG offers now, which YOU claim is superior and fun, is widely considered one of the worst MMO games ever to grace a live server.  It's a debacle.  Hence there are 10,000 or so paying beta testers who play it and about 99% of the MMO playerbase who will NEVER play it.

Ciao-

Originally posted by ummax

 

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Originally posted by OddjobXL

 

I would recommend SWG to roleplayers, to people who like space sim PvP and to creative folks that like to design interesting spaces and events.   Nobody else, not even Star Wars fans (unless they fit the above description), really needs apply. 

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Yup this game was never about star wars. If it had been many including myself would not have remained past 15 minutes of initial gameplay when it was introduced in 2003. This is a scifi-based game sim that if you enjoy making your own little world its great. If I had picked up this game and only wanted to play because it was star wars I would not have remained for the time I did. Its a game that is more of a self made life with some storm troopers and thrown in and the occassional glimpse of a star wars character. If you want to build your house, fly a space ship and be able to make your own little world then this game is for you. If you want to take part in a star wars driven story this game is not for you as its a sci-fi sim and always has been. Thankfully its less grindy then it was when it was originally made but if you want actual story driven star wars accuracy this aint it and it never has been. Its also the reason its always had such a small audience.

 

Your never-ending mission to justify the NGE is always amusing, but since when is 250,000 or 300,000 a small audience in 2003?  SOE and LucasArts would give ANYTHING to have 250,000 people playing SWG right now.  Heck, I bet they would give anything to have 25,000 people playing right now...

For what it's worth:

Pre-CU - 250,000 or so players for several years

NGE - 8,000 to 15,000 for several years

Doesn't take much of a mathematical mind to determine which game really appealed to a small audience.  I love it when it is quite obvious that rapid fanbots (no names necessary) clearly had difficulty playing in the sandbox Koster built and understanding the game who now come here and bash it for the greatness it offered.

The bottom line on SWG is that it has always been failed potential.  Pre-CU was buggy, messy, complex, but it was unique and it today's MMO market would stand alone as the only true ground-based sandbox experience.  It's undeniably obvious that the NGE from the code to the borderline illegal way it was implemented just isn't popular or enjoyed by many.

Pre-CU was far from perfect but had the time been spent fixing, building it, completing points of interest, tweaking combat, correcting bugs and overhauling mechanics instead of building a horribly buggy and simplistic NGE version we all get to laugh at now, SWG would be standing alone and attracting gamers who are bored with simple, uninteresting games built for 12 year olds.

Just because some of YOU struggled to master Pre-CU SWG doesn't mean it only appealed to a small audience.  250,000 players in 2003 was a healthy population, and it still is today.  However, 10,000 or so players is just pathetic for a Star Wars IP.  So no matter how some of you chalk it up, you're wrong, SOE and LA were wrong, and the result is a version of SWG that almost NO ONE likes or plays.

Ineptness at it's greatest.

Originally posted by anakinsella

Originally posted by Thunderous

10,000 people on 6 servers or on 25 servers is still 10,000 people.

It doesn't make SWG any less broken, neglected, grindful, boring, or lacking.  If you wish to waste money paying a monthly subscription for a game that most people wouldn't play for free, be our guest.

But it sure doesn't keep you from trolling a SWG forum, for a game you seem to hate with a passion.

 

I don't hate any game with a passion, it's a game.  I do dislike the fact that many of this board are misled and conned into subscribing to a game and wasting time and money.  It's not ethical. 

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by Daffid011

Considering how long the game has had a free trial, the nearly constant offer to returning players free trials and the dwindling population of the game I don't think it is fair for you to assume that someone trying the game will enjoy it.  If what you suggest is true then the game would be growing and not merging servers and working for years on how to fix population problems.

Based on the 'success rate' of the free trials over the years I think you would be closer to the truth if you assumed someone wouldn't like the game.
 

 

The free trial has always been available, it's how a lot of players end up starting out in Star Wars Galaxies.

I see lots of new players signing up for SWG every day via the trial.

When the Returning Veteran trial is active, I also see large numbers of players coming back to SWG, enjoying themselves immensely and going on to pick up a subscription.

My perceptions of SWG's population, having played consistently for five years, playing on many of the various servers, collating statistics from various sources and talking with the games Developers are very different from someone who perhaps just posts about it on a message board.

From all those sources of information, I see SWG as a busy and growing game that is enjoying quite a successful period if you factor in the follies of it's past.

It's not for everyone, especially many of the veterans and I completely understand that.  I played Ultima Online for five years and left due to some changes to the game that I didn't enjoy and despite trying once to get back into it I just couldn't, too much had changed and too much time had passed, it just wasn't the same game I loved.

If however you don't have a history like this with SWG, I'm sure new and returning players will at least be entertained with that SWG has to offer. 

Two years ago I wouldn't have recommended this game to anyone, but it has improved so much in the amount of content, features and bug fixes that I would encourage anyone to give it a go.

Well your "sources" are lying ot you.  The population of SWG isn't growing and it isn't a booming game with returning players.  They took 10,000 or so from 25 servers and mashed them down into 4-6 servers.  It may FEEL more populated, but that is a far stretch from it actually being more populated.

You are simply lying to get people to sub.  This is a sad problem with hardcore fanbots.  They so desperately want people to enjoy the game they play that they will say anything to trick people into spending time and moeny to do so.

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?

People don't play this game because it is broken, boring, empty, old, and overall pretty shoddy.

If it were quality, more people would play it.

Originally posted by Trand

Sigh these are not hacks they are MODS! No diffrent than what people download and use for WoW! They just make the game more enjoyable for some people, I swear all you people just make up this stuff to bash DarkFail.

 

 

Those are indeed hacks that give an unfair speed advantage to a player.  It's unfortunate that the Darkfall client is heavily packed client-side, it really is.

With little or no GM presence it is almost impossible to detect.  I don't see how Aventurine can fix this, I really don't.

Originally posted by dhayes68

I've already seen it. It was called the NGE. and it totally fucked me.