I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

Good, one less terrible game on the market. I was never too fond of it when it came out and liked it even less with the overhaul.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

I think everyone agrees that SOE made horrible decisions and did indeed shit on their playerbase they had. The thing many looking in on it, outsie all the emotion, is that it wasnt corporate greed, but an obvious attempt to not whither away into oblivion.

The thing you also fail to accept or realize is that the game was NOT doing well pre CU. I dont know why you have such a hard time understanding this fact. Did the CU and NGE speed up the decline of the game? I think thats a fair statement. Were they the cause of the faliure of the game, NO.

Its obvious you have love for SWG, and its hard for some of you old timers to seperate the emotion (GREED!!!) from the facts (game wasnt good at launch, retention was bad and subs declining, what can we do to fix it: CU- NGE) .

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.

Does it matter why they changed it?

In fact let's say you change your game to save it.   Then instead of saving it you pretty much killed it *oh no* what would you do?

Well obviously you would do absolutely nothing... because someone so intent on "saving the game" would make it worse and then leave it that way.   I personally think its quite honest to say that what was done to SWG hurt SOE.   They are a gaming company and they pissed off a lot of customers and lost some good designers.

Perhaps that is what makes it so easy for people to pull random theories out of a hat.   In the end the "reason" doesn't matter and the game is going to shut down.   The only thing we will never know is, what would have happened if they had been intent on fixing the game they actually sold people.

SWG was my first MMO experience and I will always remember it fondly. SWG had problems but it was a great experience. Still, 300k subscribers was excellent in the preWoW world and is still pretty good.

Instead of balancing classes, fixing the rampant bugs, and giving the players more structure, SOE replaced a decent but tflawed game with a terrible game. Talk about burning down the barn to get rid of the rats.  RIP SWG.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

Well, that's the whole point now, isn't it?

They did do something to keep their subs level or to halt the sub decrease, the CU and the NGE. The NGE was a bad decision, but one that was made because of them continuously losing subs.

You're saying that if they hadn't implemented the CU and NGE that SWG wouldn't have lost subs, but all signs indicate that this wouldn't have been the case, after all they started losing big chunks of subs before any CU when WoW and EQ2 launched, just like other MMO's, and looking at how these other MMO's fared that didn't receive any CU or NGE, this wouldn't just have halted.

Doing some minor changes and improvements wouldn't have done much for their continuous subs decrease,  just as that didn't work for the subs decrease in other MMO's like EQ and DAoC.

You said they had to do something, well they did, the CU and NGE. The NGE was a bad decision, no doubt about it, but I doubt that not having implemented the CU would have meant that SWG would have stabilised and not lost subs anymore to the newer MMO's: after all, this also didn't happen for other older MMO's like EQ and DAoC.

I don't care for SWG and NGE or CU or whatever, but seeing what happened around that time in the MMO genre, it seems pretty obvious to me that the significant decrease that all MMO's experienced during that time, SWG included, was due to the release of the new MMO's like WoW. You don't have to be an apologist to see that, just using common sense.

Anyway, I'm out of this debate, it's starting to pingpong around with the same arguments; if people feel the need to hate SOE and ignore the far stronger influence of the WoW and EQ2 launch above any CU update, well, it's their belief and worldview. Believe whatever you want to, or need to.

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

The thing you also fail to accept or realize is that the game was NOT doing well pre CU. I dont know why you have such a hard time understanding this fact. Did the CU and NGE speed up the decline of the game? I think thats a fair statement. Were they the cause of the faliure of the game, NO.

Its obvious you have love for SWG, and its hard for some of you old timers to seperate the emotion (GREED!!!) from the facts (game wasnt good at launch, retention was bad and subs declining, what can we do to fix it: CU- NGE) .

And this.

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

I think everyone agrees that SOE made horrible decisions and did indeed shit on their playerbase they had. The thing many looking in on it, outsie all the emotion, is that it wasnt corporate greed, but an obvious attempt to not whither away into oblivion.

The thing you also fail to accept or realize is that the game was NOT doing well pre CU. I dont know why you have such a hard time understanding this fact. Did the CU and NGE speed up the decline of the game? I think thats a fair statement. Were they the cause of the faliure of the game, NO.

Its obvious you have love for SWG, and its hard for some of you old timers to seperate the emotion (GREED!!!) from the facts (game wasnt good at launch, retention was bad and subs declining, what can we do to fix it: CU- NGE) .

 The CU was a genuine attempt to fix teh game. Stupid, and misguided, but their hearts were in teh right place.

BUT, they should have listened to their players. We told them not to do it, that many of us would quit, and lo and behold, that is exactly what happened.

In fact, we crashed the servers without protests. We flooded the forums.

SOE has NEVER listened to their players in regards to SWG.

The NGE was absolutely an example of corporate greed. Just look at posts by Nancy Macintyre, and other developers. Take a look at some of Tiggs' statements just before and after her dismissal from the company 2 weeks before the NGE launched.

The game had flaws in it's original form, but flaws that could have been fixed with far less time and money than was invested in the CU and NGE.

AND, they would have probably kept a good portion of their players, and quite likely attracted more.

SWG should not have tried to COMPETE with themepark games.....it should have focused on what it was best at....being a virtual galaxy where people be what they wanted to be in a Star Wars setting.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

SWG should not have tried to COMPETE with themepark games.....it should have focused on what it was best at....being a virtual galaxy where people be what they wanted to be in a Star Wars setting.

As the Internetz like to say, "/thread." Now let's give our condolences to the soon-to-be-dead SWG and perhaps reminicise about the good times we shared with it. I think we've pretty much come to an agreement as to its demise.

I am sad to hear that SWG is closing down. Despite its many flaws and its bad history/reputation, it is one of the most unique games out on the market. I played a bit of pre-CU and a bit of the NGE.

I started out in 2003. I remember the game as being heavily bugged back then. My character was a twi'lek pistoleer/scout/creature handler with some BH thrown in. All I remember is how unbalanced the game was combat-wise and how little there was to do overall as a combat profession. It was very easy to max out a character and to make a cookie cutter PvP spec that could win most fights. There was very little choice of equipment for min maxers, and if you wanted to PvP, you had to min max. Min maxing reduced the choice too of what kinds of gear traders could sell. I also remember how silly the doctors' buffs were and that you always had to have them if you wanted to make any credits as a combat profession. I remember the solo team missions. I also remember the constant roll-backs, rubberbanding, and lag problems.

The community aspects of the game were the strong points. The non-combat professions were a great idea, as was that of players making their own cities and having their own politicians. Entertainers were great to have around, doctors, medics, etc. The crafting was some of the best I've ever played. I liked the interdependancies between the professions and how one could mix and match. There was tons of potential roleplay situations and I liked how customizable characters were. It was great to go into a cantina or medical centre and find lots of players hanging out there chatting.

But overall, I just couldn't keep myself playing, even once I had found a nice guild. The server rollbacks, buggy engine, the fact that there was very little to do other than missions and PvP made me bored after a bit. I do like sandboxes, since I've played games like EVE for years and years, but there really wasn't much of a personal goal I could set since I found that attaining goals was very easy in SWG.

In that sense, the NGE brought some more interest for combat professions but did so in a very negative way. I don't think that SOE should have gotten rid of the things they got rid of. Merely redoing the combat would have been enough as well as adding more structure or things of interest in the game. They got rid of the more flavourful classes like bioengineer and nerfed traders. And they never fixed a lot of the bugs and technical issues. I went back earlier this year to see how SWG had changed and I still found it laggy and buggy.

It still had some redeeming qualities but if anything, I think this would have been a great game to put as a hybrid F2A/P2P. Oh well, I guess it's easy to get rid of the game and count one's losses rather than to keep it limping and put any developer time in it.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

Well, that's the whole point now, isn't it?

They did do something to keep their subs level or to halt the sub decrease, the CU and the NGE. The NGE was a bad decision, but one that was made because of them continuously losing subs.

You're saying that if they hadn't implemented the CU and NGE that SWG wouldn't have lost subs, but all signs indicate that this wouldn't have been the case, after all they started losing big chunks of subs before any CU when WoW and EQ2 launched, just like other MMO's, and looking at how these other MMO's fared that didn't receive any CU or NGE, this wouldn't just have halted.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that. What I said was that they wouldn't have driven 90% of the players to quit in anger. A trickle of lost subs is nothing. Simply improving the existing game, and adding content could have fixed that. The people who left for WoW were likely gone for good, but if they left for a themepark game, then SWG wasn't for them to begin with. But there are a LOT of people out there looking for a good sandbox game, and they could be playing SWG today.

Doing some minor changes and improvements wouldn't have done much for their continuous subs decrease,  just as that didn't work for the subs decrease in other MMO's like EQ and DAoC.

EQ and DAOC were themepark games. They were unable to compete in the themepark market. SWG was a sandbox game....at the time the only other real sandbox was UO, and that was a bit dated even then.

 

You said they had to do something, well they did, the CU and NGE. The NGE was a bad decision, no doubt about it, but I doubt that not having implemented the CU would have meant that SWG would have stabilised and not lost subs anymore to the newer MMO's: after all, this also didn't happen for other older MMO's like EQ and DAoC.

See above.

 

I don't care for SWG and NGE or CU or whatever, but seeing what happened around that time in the MMO genre, it seems pretty obvious to me that the significant decrease that all MMO's experienced during that time, SWG included, was due to the release of the new MMO's like WoW. You don't have to be an apologist to see that, just using common sense.

 Nothing can justify dropping a steamer on the people who pay your bills.

 

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by xx19kilosold

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

I think everyone agrees that SOE made horrible decisions and did indeed shit on their playerbase they had. The thing many looking in on it, outsie all the emotion, is that it wasnt corporate greed, but an obvious attempt to not whither away into oblivion.

The thing you also fail to accept or realize is that the game was NOT doing well pre CU. I dont know why you have such a hard time understanding this fact. Did the CU and NGE speed up the decline of the game? I think thats a fair statement. Were they the cause of the faliure of the game, NO.

Its obvious you have love for SWG, and its hard for some of you old timers to seperate the emotion (GREED!!!) from the facts (game wasnt good at launch, retention was bad and subs declining, what can we do to fix it: CU- NGE) .

 The CU was a genuine attempt to fix teh game. Stupid, and misguided, but their hearts were in teh right place.

BUT, they should have listened to their players. We told them not to do it, that many of us would quit, and lo and behold, that is exactly what happened.

In fact, we crashed the servers without protests. We flooded the forums.

SOE has NEVER listened to their players in regards to SWG.

The NGE was absolutely an example of corporate greed. Just look at posts by Nancy Macintyre, and other developers. Take a look at some of Tiggs' statements just before and after her dismissal from the company 2 weeks before the NGE launched.

 

The game had flaws in it's original form, but flaws that could have been fixed with far less time and money than was invested in the CU and NGE.

AND, they would have probably kept a good portion of their players, and quite likely attracted more.

SWG should not have tried to COMPETE with themepark games.....it should have focused on what it was best at....being a virtual galaxy where people be what they wanted to be in a Star Wars setting.

You keep saying the NGE was corporate greed, but ingore the developer saying subs had been dropped to 160k and they were losing 10k a month. Thats not greed man, thats a company who doesnt know WTF to do to save its game and came up with a pretty stupid plan (NGE). It wasnt greed, It was stupididty on display, but not greed.

Im out as well. Whatever makes you old SWG vets feel good as to why the NGE was implimented, doesnt matter to me, but the facts are there for you all one day, when the hate subsides.

Originally posted by Comnitus

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

SWG should not have tried to COMPETE with themepark games.....it should have focused on what it was best at....being a virtual galaxy where people be what they wanted to be in a Star Wars setting.

As the Internetz like to say, "/thread." Now let's give our condolences to the soon-to-be-dead SWG and perhaps reminicise about the good times we shared with it. I think we've pretty much come to an agreement as to its demise.

 Agreed.

Great news, very glad to see it go after what they did to the game. RIP SWG ...

(apparently i wrote in the wrong thread. so here is my (lengthy) post again; apologies to those who are reading it a  second time. )

    I'm Sad. I'm Mad. I'm Distraught. And..ultimately, I'm helpless and am unable to do anything about this. I am one person out of hundreds of thousands...perhaps millions, who have played this game and love it and have dealt with the deaf ears of SOE.

     I recently resubscribed to SWG because of the crafting. This was just before Sony and SOE were brought down because of the hacking. I didn't even know that was going on - I just decided that I wanted to craft, be an industrialist, and SWG is the only game (well, possible exception being EVE - but EVE is just brutal) that has crafting cred. It's sad that no new MMO, or old MMO for that matter, developed something that was so amazing - SOE did something right! Anyway, I was in the process of doing fun stuff crafting wise then bam, 4 days later after I resubscribe, the hack (which actually happened apparently days/weeks before I resubscribed!) brought down the servers. Then...it was wait...wait...wait for SOE to say something about the game. Anything. SOE did not communicate with their player base regularly. It was distressing. Again, SOE did not (does not) listen nor respond. 

    And now, after managing to get all of my characters off Bloodfin and onto Chilastra, with the hopes of hooking up with  my old guildmates...only to find out that half of them were too slow and unable to move to Chilastra which was closed to the Free Character Transfer Service as Chilastra, along with Europe-Farstar, were full. So that's three 'full' servers now on SWG, the other being Starsider.

     So, I have a town on Chilastra. I was in the process of bringing the Kue Corporation back online, to be a titan of industry on Chliastra. and now...now I no longer have the urge to try. Where can I go for crafting now? SWG was my only hope.  Now, I have to deal with the politics, backstabbing, heart-stopping fear of EVE while trying to acquire goods and move them from null sec space to high sec with 3 wardecs and demands by corporation management and alliance leadership....EVE, it's fun, but it's brutal. No Star Wars Galaxies to save me...

     I will never buy another Sony product again.  All the joy and wonder that filled me with the Star Wars IP - Lucas Arts has managed to chip away and destroy. I hope one day my fall to the Dark Side is halted...perhaps even redemption will be possible and i will one day again reach for the Light. But not today.

I will miss you, Star Wars Galaxies. May the Valar guide and protect you and bring you peace.

My gawd so many people in this thread argueing over who, what, where and how much. ITS DEAD!

Its like standing over a dead prostitutes corpse and arguing how good a lay she was!

PreCU SWG was awesome - people loved it - they ruined it

CU SWG was tolerable - people adjusted - they ruined it some more

NGE SWG was playable - some people where persistant - they killed it

Left shortly after CU launch but still closing SWG is like the death of an old friend.

For me NO MMO or gaming experience have given the thrill of a PreCU jedi bountyhunt.

No MMO have given me such an amazing feel of ingame community.

No MMO have given a feel of a second life with housing, unique crafting and the possibility of a unique template (still preCU)

Still thankfull for all the good times now 6 years later!

Will never forget you SWG reset in pieces......bitch

Cool screenshot.

Sigh.

Well, that's that then, huh?

SWG was my first MMO back in 2005.

Absolutely loved it, grouping with mates for "Bols, North" missions or Pickets was so much fun.

Left after paying for Obi Wan, then getting my "your NGE is a joke" refund.

Came back this year after I walked in disgust from WoWCata & you know what?

With some control & UI tweaks I rediscovered how much I loved this game.

And now it's done.

I think the SOE hack was possibly the final nail, moreso than the talk of ToR - imagine they lost a lot giving away 45 days free game time.

Mind ends on Wednesday.

After that, I'm gone.

Now I need to find a new MMO to fill the void.

Suggestions on a postcard....

RIP Star Wars Galaxies. You were a good friend after all.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I never claimed that SWG was perfect pre-CU.....I believe I sad something along the lines of "the game wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, but what game doesn't?"

And of course teh release of WoW affected the ENTIRE MMORPG scene.

However....

NOTHING was as damaging as the CU, and then the NGE.

AND, the ROOT of my original argument, which some people seem to be glossing over and forgetting entirely, is that the NGE was the direct result of corporate greed, and was basically the death of the game. Yeah, it's been limping about like a bleeding, wounded animal for a few years, but with barely enough population to fill 4 servers (Bria, Starsider, Bloodfin, and Ahazi are really the only ones with anyone playing on them now).

The apologists keep saying "but, it was losing subs before the NGE anyway, something had to be done".

Ummmm...how about not shitting on your player base and fixing the game you created to begin with??

SWG never would have attracted WoW numbers anyway.....the solution would have been to do they could to KEEP their current subs, and improve the existing game.....not give them all the finger and create an entirely new game on top of the old one.

 

Well said. $OE was always more worried about the players it didn't have rather than the loyal, paying players it DID have. Resources were constantly being directed to the next unwanted revamp or expansion instead of fixing the original version of the game that the players wanted. The very core elements that made SWG truly unique and set it far apart from the themepark games were the very elements that were removed, dumbed down and/or completely marginalized.

It was about time.

Loved the game when at its best, but this one is way overdue.

*sighs* Inevitable, really.

Always thought back of it with a wistful sense of loss. Never really felt like going back, though. The game died with NGE for me.

Still. It's kinda sad to see it get it's final blow. But then again, dead horse. Stick.

Originally posted by kuhronusu

now i'm fearing for Vanguard.

 

RIP SWG, i never played it but i read very interesting things about it... i hope someday another company creates a game as great as SWG once was.

(mod edit)

 Notice, that if you read all the "fine print" on the official site about the free trials they are offering on all their other games, NOWHERE is Vanguard mentioned.  I too fear for Vanguard's future.

Check it out:

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/playerinfo/