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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| SWG: Star Wars Fans Flee Net Galaxy @ Wired |
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Is any publicity still good publicity? If you subscribe to that theory, SOE must be thrilled to see another article on the New Game Experience, this time at <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,69816,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer" target="_blank">Wired</a>:<blockquote><em>"It's now a shoot'em-up game for adolescents, not at all conducive to our play style," says Carolyn Hocke, a web technician for Saint Michael's Hospital in Wisconsin, whose character A'thena was mayor of an in-game city on Tatooine and owner of a bustling shopping mall. "People who we grew to know over the last couple of years are gone. Cities are ghost towns, guilds are gone. My galaxy is gone, my game is gone."
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<br>The changes to Star Wars Galaxies, developed by Sony Online Entertainment, are aimed at bringing in new players and keeping them around to pay the $15-a-month gameplay fee. To this end, the so-called New Game Enhancements, or NGE, abandon much of the complexity of the original design, which let players choose from more than 30 different professions, then carve out an economic niche for themselves in the Star Wars universe. </em></blockquote> |
Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:34 am |
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Kepler
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 109
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The problem is not the NGE. The problem is that what SWG was had nothing to do with Star Wars.
It was a MMOG in space with classes, skills, xp grinding, tradeskills, player made cities, a player run economy...basically the same as every other MMOG out there.
Web technicians at hospitals may be intellectually disappointed in the simplification of SWG but, for better or for worse, it feels more like the movies.
I would ask this inflamed IQ techie to revisit the movie, Star Wars. Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Star Wars too. I saw the original in a movie theater at age 8 and love it still today.
This techie laments that the complexity of the original design is gone? Complexity? What?
The MMOG SWG was complex but Lucas' storytelling was written for children and parents who wanted to have fun with some popcorn with their kids. That is not my opinion, Lucas affirms this himself.
"Someone get this walking carpet outta my way."
"Woohoo! Nice shot kid!"
"I have you now!"
"Sorry, its your baby now. So long Dave."
"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."
Kids grow up, get an education, get jobs, formulate opinions of the world and romanticize things like Star Wars and create an image of what it never was. |
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Fri Dec 16, 2005 1:50 am |
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Guest
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While I agree with your perspective on the feel of the game, it does not change the fact that what they did with NGE (tested it out for a bit after having tested out the original game a long time ago) is create a subpar crappy empty game. I was no fan of the original but at least it had some gameplay mechanics that kept it interesting for some. However, they just scrapped all that and made a real subpar (Romeroesque?) attempt at a WoW (and I love WoW) clone that just leaves a bad tast in one's mouth. |
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Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:07 pm |
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Hedek
Head Merchant
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 50
Location: France |
I'm never fundamentally against change, but I'm always against poorly implemented change.
The NGE has been poorly implemented for 2 reasons :
1. From a marketing/legal point of view, they released it right after shipping a paying expansion, yet the NGE changed so much the game that many costumers wouldn't have bought it had they knew. That was easy to fix, and SOE did it (porbably because their lawyers stressed them to) by offering a refund.
2. Lack of testing, poor quality, "unfinished" feel, it's an incomplete change. While a player base can accept a "beta state" during the early days of a NEW mmorpg, SWG has been around for more than 2 years, people are tired of playing a game that's for ever in beta state. The pre-cu and post-cu SWG always felt unfinished because of the tons of bugs and "yet unimplented" features. And all that time waiting has lead to nothing but starting everything back from scratch.
Similar to what the devs did to the fundementals of the game, I think it's fair if SOE lose most of their current costumers (a "purge"), time will tell though if the new influx of costumers will compensate for this "costumers base purge". I seriously doubt it, only a real "Star Wars Online 2" could have done that.
_________________
Retired Editor @ RPGDot
Ex Guru @ HK's Torment (dead Planescape Torment fansite) |
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Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:53 pm |
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Kepler
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 109
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quote:
create a subpar crappy empty game.
I will get flamed for this.
The point of my original poist was this:
The Star Wars films are subpar and empty.
The dialogue quotes were some examples. Good guys and bad guys having shoot outs and sword fights. Guys google eyed over women. Goofy comic relief robots. Ewoks. All set in space and spaceships with zero scientific realism.
Believe it or not. I am actually defending Star Wars and trying to take the focus away from MMOG gamers upset about gameplay changes in a game that never had anything to do with Star Wars at all.
The WIRED article title "Star Wars fans flee net galaxy" is unfair to Star Wars because the article is about an MMOG fan not a Star Wars fan. (Although she may be a fan) |
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Sat Dec 17, 2005 4:49 am |
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Hedek
Head Merchant
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 50
Location: France |
The recipes to success for a movie aren't the same for a mmorpg.
There are many things that explain the success of the movies, trying to apply the same ingredients in a game will lead to failure. A movie is a 3h long experience, a mmorpg is an infinite experience. They can never put enough Star Wars characters and Star Wars related quests in a mmorpg, that's something you can do in a single player games such as KOTOR, and in essence, KOTOR really felt to me as a mix of a star was movie and a RPG. I was "watching the story of Kotor unwind" as much as I was playing it, and after I had finished the game, I could replay it 2 or 3 times and that's it, exactly like the movies, I saw them at the cinemy then watched them again on my TV once ro twice.
I feel the original team of SWG had the right vision of what had to be done, and they did it quite well tbh : a real, deep and huge MMORPG inspired by and taking place in the Star Wars universe, not a Star Wars movie turned into a MMORPG.
Look at WoW (since SOE talks so much about it) they didn't try to make it an adaptation of an RTS, they only took the lore from their RTS Warcraft, they made a totally different game with totally different mechanics, gameplay and goals.
I feel the original SWG had all the potential to be the first WoW (in terms of success) the reason why it failed is not because it wasn't enough like the movies, but the because it was unfinished, too many announced features weren't implemented, there were too many bugs, and the gameplay wasn't polished enough.
WoW is as traditional an MMORPG you can get (there's NOTHING innovative about WoW, it's all stolen ideas taken from other MMORPGs yet it's the only MMORPG to "have them all" and almost bug less, well polished, and in a "completed" state). This sort of hybrid mmorpg SOE is getting with the NGE is not what's going to save SWG. Simply because the mmorpg genre is not suited for that kind of gameplay, it's not a gameplay that lasts long enough.
A mmorpg HAS to be deep and complex, yet it doesn't mean not being simple, WoW is very simple at first, but any vet WoW players knows how hard it is to be successful at MC, how much organisation it requires (anywhere from having to use voice chat to addons such as CT_Raid) and concentration from each member (any mistake can result in a wipe). The talent + equipement costumization system also leads to a lot of thought to plan in order to maximise your character's potential, etc. All I'm trying to say is that the original had it all to be a successful SWG, it's the way the handled it that went wrong, not the fundamentals.
NGE is changing the fundamentals but the problems are still there and nothing is done to solve them : general feel of "low quality" and lack of "professionalism", tons of bugs, unfinished/unimplented features (GCW, FRS, smuggling, etc)
_________________
Retired Editor @ RPGDot
Ex Guru @ HK's Torment (dead Planescape Torment fansite) |
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Sat Dec 17, 2005 12:26 pm |
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THX1138
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 25
Location: the belly of the whale or Palatine, IL USA |
| SW Galaxies vs The Star Wars mythos |
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Granted the SW movies ARE very stupid. All 6 of them. ESB is the only one I like.
However, the Star Wars universe is VAST and extremely cool. I only played SWG briefly, but the core game plus the adventures set in the movie storylines were very fun. I considered SWG to be a well done 3D version of UO. If this NGE strips SWG down to a DAoC or even WOW level of gameplay, SOE may have shot themselves in the foot. Here is a no brainer but: Nothing is Going To Beat WOW.
Blizzard has this market all sown up. I think that's too bad, because now it seems likely that no one EXCEPT Blizzard is going to try anything new in this genre. I hope I'm wrong!!!
It seems that DAoC has implemented WOW like aspects into itself as well. This makes sense to do, they are essentially the same game. I know Mythic didn't try to alienate almost their entire subscription base.
SWG is/was a very indepth and satisfying experience, alot like UO. If that has been altered to compete with WOW, then that is really sad. |
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Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:25 pm |
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