A long time ago on a server long since reformatted, we Star Wars fans enjoyed a multi-plex hybrid of vast role-play gaming goodness. A game called Star Wars Galaxies was developed by Sony online entertainment.
We as gamers saw one of the most complex combat, class and crafting systems ever implemented into a video game by the hand of man. Star Wars Galaxies came out in 2003 and was brought in part to us by names such as Raph Koster, and even famed Brad Mcquaid ( Everquest ) had a hand in designing from what I recall hearing or reading somewhere in the past.
I recently stumbled onto a blog dated back in 2008. It was called "In which I try to speak honestly about history"
It is essentially ( Jeff freemen I believe or a close friend of his ) an ex-swg developer spilling his side of the story with regards to what happened to SWG. One of the main quotes from that blog is the key reason I will never purchase the new swtor game made by bioware.
You can follow this link and read it for your self in its entirety.
http://rubenfield.com/?p=86
“Can you change an MMO drastically after it launches?”
Categorically, NO.
If we were to do it again, and wanted to make those types of changes,
you have to make a new game.
Relaunch with a new title.
Or shut down Galaxies and relaunch for real.
You cannot change it at runtime"
This above quote is exactly what is happening right now. You have greed as the driving factor behind Bioware's new mmo Star Wars The Old Republic. Greed brought about the New Game Enhancement pushed by higher ups onto the developers of Star Wars Galaxies who then in turn destroyed one of the most exotic and complex games ever designed by humans.
To anyone who might be reading this; this is a warning that Bioware's new game is nothing more than the NGE 2.0, relaunched under a new title and new company and oh ya, Star Wars Galaxies is shutting down...
Although I could care less that SWG is closing down, I haven't played it since the NGE 1.0 destroyed the game and player base. What Lucas Arts is doing is complete bull shit. They purposely wrecked SWG trying to get Blizzards subscribers out of sheer greed. Nothing more, nothing less was the driving force behind the NGE and the new SwTOR game. I am one pissed off Star Wars fan and MMO gamer who is merely trying to spread this information to ill-informed players who may be thinking of supporting this company.
Whats sad is people won't care about any of this.. All they will see is a shiny new game highly based off of World of Warcraft game mechanics and re-skinned for the Star Wars universe. We as gamers need to stand up to this type of bullshit and not support it. I say the SwTOR game will fail on its own since the game is merely a single player derivative of Knights of the Old Republic series of offline games. The game itself appears to be using a next generation pay model to suck as much cash from players as possible and I will not be surprised to see in game micro-transactions for appearance gear and other trinkets. Companies who go out of their way to make these games chasing the almighty dollar need to fail and they need to know we as consumers are not going to put up with this type of horse-shit. Make a game because you wanna make something fun and enjoyable, but don't make it to squeeze every last penny you can from an aging franchise-IP just because you think it should have 10 million subscribers. Of course they need to turn a profit but sacrificing the old game the way they did and churning out a game heavily based off of bad WoW mechanics, in an attempt to draw in as many casual gamers as possible is a recipe for disaster.
The casual gamer is a player who generally floats around from game to game in his spare time not really ever caring about the game at all. They flock to whatever is new and usually play for a month or two then move on to something else after boredom sets it. These are the exact people bioware are hoping plague their servers. They tend to be the majority of gamers so instead of building a game that has a faithful community of players, they would rather take in casuals by the truckload every other month. This model and method doesn't last long before your game dies and fails miserably. Usually around the 6 month mark.
I personally predict a NGE type exodus from SwTOR since most people will be severely burnt out on the WoW type mechanics of combat. They will also be sick of seeing the exact same shit wow did with regards to crafting and skills.. This whole game wreaks of a 300 million dollar failure and I'm going to have a good laugh when it sells around 1.5 million boxes and can only retain 15 year old kids beyond the first month, who will then leave in droves for the next WoW type clone 6 months later. This entire genre is sickening to be honest and the men running these companies need a serious wake up call and I plan to give them one by not ever buying this game. I will read their forums at launch and every once in a while just to witness the exodus after the first month. I personally predict this game to have less subscribers than Star Wars Galaxies did at the 6 month point; which is around 180k.
You should be proud of the pre cu game Raph. There was no game like it and probably never will be since everyone is chasing wow’s sub base with crappy wow clone after clone. When will these companies get it through their head it wasn’t wow the game that made it popular, it was a faithful blizzard following made up of diablo, starcraft and warcraft fans. Couple that with the fact that Blizzard used subliminal audio tracks and hypnotic use of colours to brain wash players into a zombified state, thats how you retain 10 million subscribers.. Theres no other reason for it.. WoW as a game sucked pretty bad, and if you follow the corporate food chain up to the top of who's running blizzard you find someone deeply rooted in Illuminati beliefs and practice. Think I'm joking? Go do your home work..
Did you ever wonder why when you tried to quit World of Warcraft you would end up dreaming of playing it or dreaming of re-subscribing to it? I've heard too many accounts of this happening to people who didn't know each other so it wasn't some vast inner conspiracy.. It was factual evidence through word of mouth that it was happening to people, my girlfriend included..
Even today there is a huge following for the upcoming bioware game swtor which has severely ripped off wow in every way it could and slapped the star wars universe right over top of near decade old mechanics and most notably a piss poor combat system that is enough to put most people right to sleep.
Greed is fueling swtor, when the NGE failed Lucas Arts knew it needed a new company and new launch of the Star Wars IP-mmo so it could have a chance at succeeding. I personally am never going to support Lucas Arts or Bioware's new mmo game simply because they don’t care about me or my fellow Star Wars fans. They don’t care about making a quality, fun and innovative game.. All they care about is 10 million subscribers like blizzard claims to have and I personally feel Lucas Arts' pride is shot to shit after having one of the best lore and IP's on the planet fail as it did even after a severe butchering of the core game aka NGE 1.0
The entire industry right now is a fucking joke that makes me want to puke.
I say to anyone reading this who loved the original incarnation of swg, I say boycott the new swtor and show these pricks that another wow clone is not what we want to play. We never wanted WoW. I'm still bitter over the NGE and the simple fact that Lucas contracted Bioware to make the NGE 2.0. I will never give these people my money ever again, period.
NGE 1.0
Bioware's NGE 2.0
I can understand your reasons. I loved SWG a lot and what LucasArts did with it now is shameful. I am just as outraged as you. And I am VERY skeptical over SWTOR for many reasons.
ReplyDeleteBUT: I say give TOR a chance. Maybe it is still fun. At least a while. And also, it's a game. It's a fun hobby and neither a political party nor a religion. I know some things can hurt, and I understand your reasons. But maybe after some time to can let it go and open yourself to the future.
*peace*
I think that the SWG vets and sandbox fans should really let this one go and give it a rest. Bioware made it very clear from day 1 that TOR a)would NOT be SWG II and b)it would be a themepark MMO with all the norms accompanying the genre. You don't like themeparks? fair enough. You wan't a SWG II? fair enough and tough luck. Bashing and hating a game because YOU don't approve of it's features is both pointless and immature. There are plenty of people out there who like what they see about TOR so far (i am one of them) and are waiting hard to get their hands on it.
ReplyDeleteHahaha, you're one of those nutties that believe the moon landing is fake, that 9/11 was rigged by the US government, and that blizzard brainwashes its subscribers with subliminal messages.
ReplyDeleteHow does it feel to be such a conspiracy nut? Seriously, how does it feel to know you're on the bottom of the intellectual barrel, that everything you say and do is irrational in its foundation and that no one takes you seriously?
Sir, you have no idea what you are talking about. Greed? You don't really know how business works do you? If you see another game in the industry with such huge succsess of course you are going to want to copy that succsess to some degree. Of course money drove them to change Galaxies, but thats how business works. But think of it this way: to earn money you need subscribers: to get subscribers you need a game that is enjoyable. So even if they failed miserably, they really just wanted to make more people like the game. And of course they wnated money, but man, that's how life works, you better accept that now or you might aswell go hang yourself.
ReplyDeleteNow what else kind if bullshit did you talk about? Oh the game mechanics. Yes, the game mechanics are very similar to those in WoW (for some reason you seem to think that WoW invented those mechanics) so what? Its a system that works very well, Bioware as taken it and improved it, for example, no more autoattack,casting and moving at the same time. you are in completle control of you characters. Whats the big deal? If im not mistaken, Duke Nukem 3D was the first FPS, that is 15 year old game mechanics, but people still make FPS. But would you say that Crysis is a Duke Nukem Clone? No you wouldn't, because other developers has taken the concept and evolved over time, exactly what WoW did with Everquest and that is what SWTOR is doing with WoW. I don't know about you, but i find these mechanics enjoyable, and i guess other people does to, when you think of what success these mechanics have had. Then you talk about Casuals, and say that they only play games for about two months. I have lots of friends that are causual players, they don't play as much as me, but they do log in and play the game a few times a week, and they are certainly not bad at the game. Wich really makes me wonder where the fuck you got those statistics and how the hell you define a causual. You're pissed about that they had to shut down galaxies? Of course they had, both you and me knew that Galaxies days where counted as soon as they launched NGE. I don't even think SOE makes a profit from Galaxies anymore, im not sure about this, but im pretty sure that the only reason that the Galaxies servers are still up and running is because SOE has been son kindly to keep them up out of respect for the people that bought the game. You think its free to run an MMO? Its not, and there hasn't been a better time to close it down now when there is a good alternative to the remaining Galaxies players. Oh, and you totally said that SWTOR is a WoW clone, well of course you see it as a WoW clone when you completly leave out some of the groundbreaking new MMO additions completly. Take the dialogue system for instance. There is unique voices for every class, there is unique stories for every class, with choices that drasticcly changed the gameplay. Do you understand what amount of replayabillity that means? Do you understand exactly how much dialogue there is? Over 60 averege fucking Star Wars Novels - and you did not even care to mention this in your ranting. That only shows how one sided this article is, and how poorly executed it acctually is. You think it will fail because WoW did not succeed because of it gamesplay but because of its fanbase, because as everyone knows, the BioWare/StarWars franchishe has alot smaller fanbase than Warcraft, right?
Mate let go of SWG and grow up... and as for constantly saying it's based off WoW mechanics... firstly you've not played the game... so how you came to this exclusive conclusion that you alone somehow discovered this secret that it's a WoW clone when by far the majority of BETA testers to date (Who have actually played the game) have approved of the game and stated that it's unique...
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just let go of SWG, grow up and spend your time doing something constructive instead of nerd raging over a bloody computer game...
Lifes too short to be wrapped up with computer games... get laid or something...
As a pre-10 jedi from SWG I can agree with you about what SOE and Lucas did to SWG was nothing short of stupid. And I agree that it was done because of wanting more money and subscribers. We all know that backfired. However that is pretty much all I can agree with in this article. Let me explain...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I am getting real tired of some people bashing TOR. Most people who talk about it have never seen more than a few screen shots and video's. Let the game come out before you call it another WoW ripoff. I have had some hands on with this game. I was at E3 this past year and got to play it. This game is in no way another WoW ripoff. There are so many features in it that add depth. I am a huge star wars fan and I can say this game will do the franchise justice. Now is this a new SWG? Of course not. However I dont think it needs to be. This game will stand alone. This will be the new game that many others try to copy.
Now as for the "greed" portion of your article. Everything in this world is done for greed, but I can say this. I spoke with Daniel Erickson at a after party at E3. I can tell you that his main motivation is not greed. Yes he wants to make money for himself and his company, but you can tell he has a true passion for what he does. He is so very proud of the story that he wrote for TOR and it shows every time he speaks about it. I do agree that Lucas just wants more money but does that surprise anyone here? Hell he ruined the Indiana Jones franchise because of it. But when it comes to the team working on TOR that is not why they are in it. They are in it because they have such a huge passion for what they do. They want to make the best MMO ever. I think they just may have done that.
Anyways I will get off my /soapbox now.... Dont flame me too much. rofl. J/k. Let it rip.
I have come to the conclusion you watch to much television and are addicted. Please see a doctor about this problem or it could get out of control and you could say things like "this game is a copy of WoW". Oh wait, you did, i'm sorry but your too far gone nothing can help you now, good luck. and about the greed thing. I bet i am darn right that you like making money? i mean who doesn't. seriously you need help.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread427145/pg1
ReplyDelete"reply posted on 12-1-2009 @ 01:38 AM by Bob Sholtz
I played wow for about 2 years, and quit about three weeks ago. I began to suspect subliminal messaging when i ended up having about 8 wow related dreams since i quit. All of the dreams focused on me reactivating my account."
" Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
ReplyDeleteI played wow for about 2 years, and quit about three weeks ago. I began to suspect subliminal messaging when i ended up having about 8 wow related dreams since i quit. All of the dreams focused on me reactivating my account."
-----------------------------------------------
"I quit 3days ago...and the exact same thing is happening to me. Thats most of the reason why im posting on here"
And for anyone else not convinced about the subliminal use going on; you can google Audio Visual Entrainment. Most of what you will find is people using it for good and positive means.
ReplyDeleteBut in reality it can be used to train and control human behaviour for other nefarious intent. I wish I could live in everyones fantasy land world where this shit doesn't exist but its all over the place if you begin to look for it. I'm only posting this because no one seems to believe it can and does happen, and that is fine.. I only mentioned it within context of my original post about all the companies chasing wow's 10 million subscribers and not one of them succeeded yet because they have no fucking clue what their doing.
The illuminati are all about keeping people asleep and under control but its their M.O to rub it in your face at the same time.. I.E hidden in plain sight.
You are completely idiotic and delusional. I hope you burn in the depths of the underworld for your inability to be a human being. How does it feel to know that you killed 5 pandas by posting this?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many things that you got factually wrong that I don't even know where to start.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, This isn't NGE 2.0. This a completely different offering from anything Star Wars Galaxies even attempted to offer.
SWG didn't have depth, it had sandbox. And that combat system you bragged ended with almost every class getting nerfed in some way or another. Everything in the game that was worth doing was something created by community using the tools the developers put in the game.
The game didn't cost 300 million to produce. It cost about 80 million. You can find that information on EA's income statements that by law have be factually accurate.
Of course the sad fact is, there is a reason why people don't care about "this", it's because "this" is a delusional fantasy. What's sad here is the following, 1) no one is going to care about your blog post enough to take it seriously 2) your obvious motivation behind writing this is that after all these years you still can't cope with the fact that your Star Wars Galaxies is gone.
"First off, This isn't NGE 2.0. This a completely different offering from anything Star Wars Galaxies even attempted to offer. "
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the NGE 2.0.. open your eyes.
"Of course the sad fact is, there is a reason why people don't care about "this", it's because "this" is a delusional fantasy. What's sad here is the following, 1) no one is going to care about your blog post enough to take it seriously 2) your obvious motivation behind writing this is that after all these years you still can't cope with the fact that your Star Wars Galaxies is gone"
I can cope just fine. My problem is this is the new game enhancement 2.0 and the only reason it is being developed is because the nge 1.0 failed. I linked and quoted a fucking ex swg dev saying the same thing in 2008. Again open your eyes moron and read...
As far as anyone caring or taking it serious? Ask me if i care?
Short answer, I don't care what a brain washed little peon thinks about anything. I've done my homework and ya the 300 million maybe wrong I don't care what the number is actually.. It was the number I heard thrown around the most and it really doesn't matter in the end except when TOR fails miserably; because its nothing more than the NGE 2.0 with a bioware-kotor-single player twisted pay model, Ill be laughing my ass off at you morons because you are paying a monthly fee for a single player game and too dumb to realize it because they made it co-op and online and slapped the MMO tag to it.
If I was Ea i'd say it was 80 million dollars too at this point.. knowing its going to fail as bad as it is. 80 million sounds not quite as bad as 300 when the game turns out to suck beyond the single player experience because thats all TOR is wrapped into a WoW style clone -- again chasing the wow subscribers.
These people aren't stupid. They know the mmo game design is a cash cow even if you only retain 100-200k players. If they had a brain they could of made kotor co-op online games, used their servers and slapped a 10 or 15/monthly on it.. and people like you would pay it a year in advance.. Thats what tor is kotor 3 online.. nothing more nothing less.. It couldn't hold the original swg jock strap up when comparing in game mechanics. There was more creative innovation the swg crafting system than all of tor combined. But you probably never played swg.. you played wow didn't you?
You know what I like, I can post whatever I want here to you dumb asses and not have to worry about moderation LOL...
And if I haven't responded to you directly here, its not because I'm at a loss for words or can't find arguments to debate with, I could really care less about interacting with you fanboys. This blog is the truth about what happened with the star wars mmo and how those greedy cock suckers pride is shot after the NGE failed.
I agree with your prediction of TOR subscriptions...almost. I believe the game will set sale records when launched. Subs will continue to increase for 6 months. Then, they start falling. The new subscribers will not equal the number of players leaving. At the 1 year mark, the subscriber base will be stable, and far lower than Lucas Arts imagined.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of this being the NGE2 is not far off. Had they kept SWG open another year, it would not be as obvious but business first. Why cripple the competition when you can kill them.
You serious? You have not even followed SWToR as much as you think you have. Let me cite some specific examples:
ReplyDeleteCrafting:
1) It followed more of Aion's crafting with Fluxes and Critical Crafts. That is not WoW's
2) Companion Characters can gather for you on gathering missions, and even while they are with you so YOU can continue the fight, OR you can gather while your companion continues to fight. That is Not in WoW
3) Mission Skills, Diplomacy, Treasure Hunting....
4) Crew SKILLS! Your Companions are actually put to work. I will be such a slave driver.
Combat:
1) Removal of Auto-Attack. All abilities and the 'Standard' attack will have to clicked.
2) Moving while using Abilities. WoW only allows Instants to be used while on the move.
3) First MMO As I know of, to have a 'Cover' System put in place.
4) As stated by Daniel Erickson "If you choose not to use a Companion, the game becomes much harder and some tasks will be near impossible to complete"
Story:
1) All companions (or most) will be acquired by completing Story.
2) Everyone gets a ship after completing Story on the Origin Planets
3) Approximately 200+ hours of Story Content per Class.
4) Approximately 60 Star Wars Novel Size of Story Telling. Sorry, that is more then what MOST Games Have right now. Be it SinglePlayer or MMO
5) Conversation Dialogue where you actually get to Pick what you want to say. No more, Wall of Text when you go to acquire a quest.
6) Multi-player Dialogue System in place.
Read up more on SWToR before you ever consider bashing it. Also, did you take that 300 million dollar quote from that EALouse guy who already RETRACTED his statement on SWToR and Bioware. The cost is no-where near that amount. Do more FUCKING Reading you Lazy Fucking Bastard.
Ah well, let me get this straight: this is a ripoff of a 8 years old game, that failed miserably after the developers tried to tune it for the mass-market. So, they are doing version 2.0 of fucking up YOUR game. This is what your rant is all about...
ReplyDeleteLet me quote: "This is exactly the NGE 2.0.. open your eyes."
Ah, a very sound and profound argumentation on your side.
Oh, and btw I dreamt of playing SWG, too, while I was heavily addicted to that game, back then. Must have been the subliminal sound and graphics...
Every company ends up breaking their product because they rush to the shelves and play catchup with patches or they listen to the truely mindless masses QQ on forums who think they have a brain. On the other hand it is THEIR product so they can do what they please in the end with it. Pay them or don't. I'm a Star Wars fan I will try the SWTOR out for the sake of my KOTOR and ME genre fond memories!
ReplyDeleteSee you at launch, motherfucker!
ReplyDelete/facedesk!
ReplyDeleteI don't quite understand why you're so upset? You should take some pills or something ... It's just a video game dude ... what kind of posts were you writing when Phantom Menace came out?
ReplyDeleteNice job Troll. You sure put in some effort to get people to bite.
ReplyDelete"AnonymousCowardProductions"
Kind of gives it away
unbeleivable what peope will write. nge2, i lol'd
ReplyDeleteYou honestly haven't been following SWTOR at all have you? The crafting and skills are the same? Only info I've seen on crafting is that your companions can collect stuff and do missions for you while offline. Other than that, they haven't released much.
ReplyDeleteYou're a clueless MMO player imo, and have NO idea what you're talking about.
Wow. Maybe if you put the same amount of time into something else.. say designing your own game (Since you believe every game has too be completely innovative and nobody else can do it due to greed) as you have into writing this article you might get somewhere.
ReplyDeleteJono
Ahhaha this idiot is making up fake stories and replying to him self about being addicted to WoW. The only reason people are even viewing this blog is because you are an idiot. Your content isn't good. You suck at writing. Your arguments are shit "Just open your eyes" lmao. You are the biggest joke.
ReplyDeleteThere was no game like it and probably never will be since everyone is chasing wow’s sub base with crappy wow clone after clone.swtor credits
ReplyDeleteswtor credits
How the fuck has this 'blogger' gotten onto the front page of a google SWTOR search? Yeah because dumbasses like me click it.
ReplyDeleteDon't be a dumbass like me and click this link. Tell your friends, they'll live happier lives.