No I am not John Smedley, but I have an idea how those things work.

The reason why Bioware didn't announce KOTORO yet, it's because then SoE will have to answer a very important question: "What will happen to SWG?"
Because KOTORO is not official at the moment they can dismiss the question with a "no comment", since all the info are speculations.
Once the game will become official, SoE will have to answer that question, and a "no comment" will not be acceptable.
They will have to say if it will close or stay open.
And if they say that the game will close its door in one year time, most people will probably leave the game, since most won't feel like investing in a game with no future.

Because I think that the licence in the MMO market is exclusive, which means that it has to be transferred from a company to another, I guess that the begin of KOTORO will mean the end of SWG.
And to avoid SoE and LA losing even more customers, they are keeping it under wrap as much as they can to limit the damages.

Discuss

There is no KOTORO.

There will be a Star Wars: The Old Republic game which is speculated to be a MMO, but that is not KOTOR.

Originally posted by ste2000

No I am not John Smedley, but I have an idea how those things work.

The reason why Bioware didn't announce KOTORO yet, it's because then SoE will have to answer a very important question: "What will happen to SWG?"
Because KOTORO is not official at the moment they can dismiss the question with a "no comment", since all the info are speculations.
Once the game will become official, SoE will have to answer that question, and a "no comment" will not be acceptable.
They will have to say if it will close or stay open.
And if they say that the game will close its door in one year time, most people will probably leave the game, since most won't feel like investing in a game with no future.

Because I think that the licence in the MMO market is exclusive, which means that it has to be transferred from a company to another, I guess that the begin of KOTORO will mean the end of SWG.
And to avoid SoE and LA losing even more customers, they are keeping it under wrap as much as they can to limit the damages.

Discuss

   You are Spot on - Lets see what Lucas Arts does with the August 15th opening of The Clone Wars.
That would be an ideal time to announce it.

It doesnt seem likely that Lucas Arts would allow his IP to have two representatives in the MMO market. And that has nothing to do with the quality (or lack of) in SWG. You simply dont want competing games when you spend 75 million dollars to develop something.

Yes Bioware will bring in new gamers to KOTOR probably like Blizz did with WoW. However a large amount of players will certainly come from ex-disgruntled vets and current SWG players.

Bioware certainly wouldnt agree to invest into a large project knowing that SOE would be trying their hardest to keep their players at the same time.

And then there is the whole secrecy issue. Sorry but I dont buy into the theories that Bioware wants to keep it a secret so players cant give input. Clearly hype helps with initial box sales (see Age of Conan). There can only be one reason to keep this project secret and thats to protect Star Wars Galaxies.

There are a select few thousand remaining players over at Star Wars Galaxies that have deluded themselves into believing there is hope for their game. The announcement of KOTOR followed by the closure of SWG would quickly lead to the majority cancelling.

Bioware's MMO is still 2 yrs from launch most likely. SOE and LA can milk a lot of money during that time from the SWG players. I doubt they could keep it quiet right till launch as they'd want beta testers but still they'd want to wait as long as possible.

No question in my mind, the secrecy is obviously meant to protect SWG because its sunsetting soon.

Instead of just makign new threads about hte same stuff every 3 mins, check otu the forums, last week some good posts were made. The 2 mmos could very well coexist, competiton between the two would mean more ppl playing a star wars game than if there was jsut one mmo. And no the license to use start wars is not exclusive to one mmo.

Next time use the search feature

There is no proof that there can't be two Star Wars mmos out at the same time. It is possible Bioware has a clause in their contract, but nothing to prove it can not be.

For all we know SOE could be preparing to make a graphics update and return to pre cu/nge. Not likely, but possible.

If SWG closes it will probably be due to the lack of succes the game has. SOE uses a lot of maintenance on smaller mmos that doesn't deliver. Some of these might be closed.

People said that there couldn't be two Everquest games running at the sametime. Last time I checked EQ 1 and EQ 2 are both still up and running.

People claimed Ultima Online was going to be shut down, infact if I had a dime for everytime I heard one of the upset UO Vets go off on how UO was going to be shutdown in (whatever date or time here) I'd most likely have a million in the bank and be driving the nicest BMW I can buy.

People are "now" claiming AoC is about to die in the next few months. How it's about to die? I have no idea! As the game is doing "ok" and has had a launch like many other MMO's... Tons of people thinking AoC is going to be the next "big" thing. And now those that enjoy the game are the ones still playing it.

Hell I'd put good money on people claiming the new MMO's coming out in the next 6 months are about to die after they launch.

Really so far to date I have seen very few MMO's do so poorly that they need to be shutdown. We have Asheron's Call 2 a game that came out about a year too soon and well didn't do all that well in sales. Auto Assault another game that just bombed big time. EA had a few that bombed outright from the launch, and when I say bombed I mean BOMBED! I'm talking under 2k Players. And Hellgate:London looks to be shutting down sometime soon... Shame as Hellgate kinda had some good ideas and the whole Diablo/FPS gameplay was a fun break from other games now and then.

Other then that look at how many MMO's are on the market that are doing much worse then SWG. And yes there are a number of them, and many of them are still going.

Matrix Online and Planetside are still going. Matrix is kinda fun but just falls short in something. Planetside can be fun, but most of the battles turn into a cluster f### and from what I've seen most battles end up in the same way. One side go's after a Base being held by another side, after about half an hour of fighting the third side comes in and mops up both sides.

World War 2:Online is still going, and lord knows WW2:Online makes SWG in any of it's forms look great. I still hear the bugs are bad over there.

RF Online is still up and running, Dark and Light a game many SWG Vets claimed would be the "new" SWG is still going...

People said that there couldn't be two Everquest games running at the sametime. Last time I checked EQ 1 and EQ 2 are both still up and running.

Except that both are owned by SOE. In this case, both games would not be owned by the same company.

Also, do you really think that EA/Bioware are going to spend upwards of 50+ million dollars to develop and not have an exclusive license?

You people act like KOTORO (or whatever it's called) will be out next month.  SWG has plenty of time to die from natural attrition.  KOTORO won't be out for years.

It's really up to LA, SOE can and will keep the game running under station access for as long as they like, with hardly any subs if needed, they've proved that with MxO.I can't see LA wanting to have more than one Star Wars based mmo though, particularly one with the reputation that SWG has, lets face it, it's the red head step child of the LA games stable right now and I doubt any of the LA execs would lose a wink of sleep if it disappeared overnight. It's all going to be down to contractual obligations though, if as rumoured the BioWare mmo is indeed based on the Star Wars IP it's conceivable that it's been cooking since December 2005, makes sense after the implementation of the NGE and it's effects on the population and the mmo communities perception of the game and developer so I would assume it's a good bet that whatever license obligations/contracts were in place at that time possibly wouldn't have been renewed, the only question is how long. All conjecture of course and we'll never know until/if it closes down.

Originally posted by Fed1

People said that there couldn't be two Everquest games running at the sametime. Last time I checked EQ 1 and EQ 2 are both still up and running.

 

Except that both are owned by SOE. In this case, both games would not be owned by the same company.

 

Also, do you really think that EA/Bioware are going to spend upwards of 50+ million dollars to develop and not have an exclusive license?

Yes, looking at it from bioware's POV and the most reasonable reason for the secrecy around the project; It seems liely that SOE will be losing their license. This certainly dosen't have to be true, but the people who don't think this is probably the case are mostly the same fools who ignored all the evidence that Bioware was working on a Star Wars game.

Originally posted by MikeMB

World War 2:Online is still going, and lord knows WW2:Online makes SWG in any of it's forms look great. I still hear the bugs are bad over there.

 

Sorry, just wanted you to know as to what you 'hear' about WW2 Online is false and has been for several years now.  They get a few bugs that get squashed quickly when the put new features in, but that's about it.  The game runs on computers that can't run the new games like AoC, and without any doubt (having played every major mmo title up to and currently including AoC, that has pvp in it) WW2 Online - now called Battleground Europe - is by far the best pvp game in existence overall.  It's fair, impartial and one bullet can and does kill you whether you're a private or a four star general.  If you suck flying a fighter aircraft, that fact will be pointed out to you the first time you get near a contested city.  If you think that you're a great tanker because you coaxed down 4 infantrymen, a sapper, or another tank, or an atg, or an attack aircraft, or gods help you, a destroyer, will put an end to any delusions of grandeur.

I'll admit fully that the graphics of WW2O stink, but, they have to.  Visibility in nearly all mmos only goes out to between 500-800 meters tops, while visibility in WW2O goes out 6000 meters.  The world modeling and player modeling has to for less poly count to keep the fps in a playable range.  Even with all that, the aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and ships are as highly detailed as you can get anywhere AND their physics, armor density, and performance are all modeled after the real world opposites.  Even the physical characteristics of the various bullets (feet per second and mass) are modeled into every rifle, smg, etc in game.  If you take the time to learn what your favorite weapons are capable of, you can kick ass.  Further, out of all the online games in existence, the playerbase of WW2O has more control of how the game is played than any other game by miles.  I'm talking about the High Commands of both the Allies and the Axis sides.  Become an officer and you can affect which towns are attacked or where your brigade goes to defend.  All this on a detailed map of western Europe that is precisely 1:2 scale of the real thing and you have the biggest land mass of all MMO games - especially since you could fit the land masses of ALL other mmo games INTO the one land mass in WW2O.

Anyway, 'nuff said.  I play a lot of mmo games for various reasons, but none are as good as WW2O when it comes to organized, visceral combat.  Parachute in with 50 of your closest friends into a battle for Antwerp or Brussels and you'll see what I mean.

As far as SWG, my houses are paid off for then next 3-4 years, but I'm not playing it at the moment.  SOE cares far more for EQ1 (let alone EQ2) than it does for SWG, and my guess is they will kill it off sometime shortly after the Old Republic mmo goes live.