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
