Ah, I see that you are linking to the 'sanitized' blog article where Rubenfield toned down his abusive disdain for SWG vets. Take what he says regarding player numbers and player loses with a block of salt. He was trying to justify the creation of and push for the NGE and spread around the blame as much as possible since it failed on an epic scale.
Happen to know where we could find the "original"?
I think the original was gone in a couple days time. I actually copy/paiste it into Word Perfect so I still have it around somewhere.
If it's true that SWG was losing 10,000 subs a month, that would make anyone panic. $150,000 less each month? A million less in 6-7 months?
Well it only has 7k subs now according to the figures I last heard from an insider, how bad could it have got without the NGE? In fact how bad could it have got without the NGE or CURB? Certainly no worse than the 7k and item shops crap it has today? Seems they wasted alot of time and resources to convince the playerbase to quit and play something else!
Well done SOE!
Agreed...
I'll say it till my dying day...I don't care what any "insider" says about the 'bleeding Subs" and all that garbage...People quitting MMO's for a Month or two? That's news?...lol...Most would have come back if they just stuck to improving the Game thay had...Most of the Player base was in it for the long haul...
All I know is before the NGE it was a vibrant Game with an impressive population...My Guild was jumping every day...There were hunting groups every day, night and weekend...There was serious lag in Dant Mining Outpost, Mo Eis and Theed due to the masses...There was NOT a Sub problem like they would like everyone to believe...It's a stupid, stupid excuse for an even more stupid move...
The NGE was the Grand daddy of Epic failures...There will never be a dumber decision made in Gaming ever again...They would still have a pretty decent Pop if they just built on the CU, added the Heroics, Restuss, Battlefields, etc...
Such a complete waste...Cost me some of the best Gaming Friends I ever had...Completely gutted My Guild...Even My RL best friend quit...Still to this day, due to the NGE purge, I get email addy's for Guildies I get along with just incase something stupid happens...Oh well...
Both sides throughout this thread have made excellent points. On one hand you have to consider the loses that were taking place, on the other you have to consider they never tried to fix the base game or add to it, as they have the NGE. If they had kept the same level of commitment they had during the pre-cu era post NGE, this game would have been dead in 6 months.
It was only after the nge that they decided to worry about what their players wanted, and adjusted according to those wants. What did the players want? More sandbox function, more content, a brush over with some polish. Reworking systems so that they made sense in a leveled environment (post Cu). Meaningful PVP, galactic civil war additions, battlegrounds ETC....
Had they added all of that on to the pre-cu game, it would have never lost players as it did, it would have gained them IMO OFC.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Ah, I see that you are linking to the 'sanitized' blog article where Rubenfield toned down his abusive disdain for SWG vets. Take what he says regarding player numbers and player loses with a block of salt. He was trying to justify the creation of and push for the NGE and spread around the blame as much as possible since it failed on an epic scale.
Happen to know where we could find the "original"?
I sent you a PM. I think you have a good guess where it is posted at as a sticky.
Both sides throughout this thread have made excellent points. On one hand you have to consider the loses that were taking place, on the other you have to consider they never tried to fix the base game or add to it, as they have the NGE. If they had kept the same level of commitment they had during the pre-cu era post NGE, this game would have been dead in 6 months. It was only after the nge that they decided to worry about what their players wanted, and adjusted according to those wants. What did the players want? More sandbox function, more content, a brush over with some polish. Reworking systems so that they made sense in a leveled environment (post Cu). Meaningful PVP, galactic civil war additions, battlegrounds ETC.... Had they added all of that on to the pre-cu game, it would have never lost players as it did, it would have gained them IMO OFC.
Agreed...
I know this much...My now-dead Guild was the largest Guild on our server for a good portion of the post NGE period till it fell apart about a year ago (directly after the 2nd Housing Purge and the new 90 day rule went into effect...That was the last straw for us carebears...haha) More than half of that Guilds Leadership ended up being Folks who joined AFTER the NGE...Most of these Folks did not have a clue what the NGE was...lol...I know, I had to be the Storyteller most of the time...They just wanted to Play a Star Wars MMO...So had SOE not completely hacked off most of their Vets and simply listened to their Player base and how they wanted to expand upon the CU there would have been a REAL nice long term population in game...I'm 100% certain of that...
Think of it this way...If they could have leveled off around 200K in Subs that's still 3 million in gross revenue a Month...$3 million a freaking month! Greed can lead to some tremendously bad life decisions...Greed led to the NGE...Devs are always telling Players to be patient...Where was the patience at SOE? Stupid...
Anyone with at least bits of brainpower must know that SWG was losing subs when WoW came out and would continue to lose subs. SW:G NGE or not was doomed to the rapid decrease of subs. SW:G pre-CU would still struggle now with whatever amount of subs SW:G now has. SW:G, VG, EQ2 are basically all the same games, all struggle with the same amount of subscribers (5000-20.000). WoW killed this subgenre within MMORPG.
SWG was losing subs long before wow came out. That is why soe was in full discussions about the Combat Revamp(not the combat upgrade that eventually happened. SWG was bleeding subs right out of the gate, because the game was so broken and incomplete. They knew there were problems in the game and people were leaving as a result of it. They just never understood or cared to respond to those issues. It is not soe's corporate culture to respect their customers.
Sure SWG would have to compete with wow, but it doesn't matter, because the condition of the game never gave it a chance to compete in the market. The same reasons eq2 can't compete, because it was a half finished piece of shit on release and soe expected their customers to mindlessly stick around for months and years while they finish the game.
You have a broken game, run by a company that doesn't listen to their playerbase and instead focuses on making changes that either come with a price tag or what they think will attract the phantom potential customers.
There is just no way this game could compete under those circumstances.
Perhaps if soe got their head out of their ass and actually responded to players they wouldn't be swirling the toilet bowl so quickly.
The fact that its still talked about today says it all. SWG has never been a perfect game, it is still my favorite despite all its flaws. (mostly cause i love Star Wars) I myself would like to see a combination of the old with some of the changes made since NGE. I really think that SOE / Lucas Arts saw WOW and the money it was making and they wanted it for SWG! I dont think they really cared what the playerbase had to say, if they would have worked more with the playerbase and tried to improve the game rather than doing the NGE i think the game would be amazing today! I wish i never heard of NGE or the word Iconic! One way to answer the question is to bring back a classic server and lets see what happens!
The fact that its still talked about today says it all. SWG has never been a perfect game, it is still my favorite despite all its flaws. (mostly cause i love Star Wars) I myself would like to see a combination of the old with some of the changes made since NGE. I really think that SOE / Lucas Arts saw WOW and the money it was making and they wanted it for SWG! I dont think they really cared what the playerbase had to say, if they would have worked more with the playerbase and tried to improve the game rather than doing the NGE i think the game would be amazing today! I wish i never heard of NGE or the word Iconic! One way to answer the question is to bring back a classic server and lets see what happens!
Ppl always talk about it was bleeding subs and they had to do this or this but had they actually stuck with the game they had knowing that there was 200k with a 10k lost per month and fixed half the bugs and added new content they might have had a great thing and fixed the bleeding subs and gotten a increase building up. The devs always blame the bleeding subs but never say anything about how they werent paying attention to what the players were wanting or the bugs that players were calling game breakers. But noone will know anything for sure as you cant really predict this things.
I still think if some random bunch of ppl can get the interest of 30k ppl to join their forums and can get a 1000 plus on a server thats nowhere near complete that La or SOE could get atleast 100k willing to come back and pay for Pre-cu.
Originally posted by Darthconnor I still think if some random bunch of ppl can get the interest of 30k ppl to join their forums and can get a 1000 plus on a server thats nowhere near complete that La or SOE could get atleast 100k willing to come back and pay for Pre-cu.
Do you honestly think it would be that high for long? I agree that there is the potential for 100k returns to "check it out", but I don't think pre-NGE SWG could survive much longer than the NGE version after all this time for several reasons, but mostly...SoE.
SoE has proven they don't care what the customer wants and they'll do whatever they like. SoE hasn't destroyed Galaxies because they "tried too hard" or "tried to please everyone"...SoE destroyed the game with their greed and complete incompetence - they had NO CLUE what they should do with the IP and it's been obvious in everything they have done over the years. You could ask a group of 4th graders to design a better Star Wars game and I bet you they could.
NGE, CU or Pre-CU...those, IMO, are just minor issues compared to the true problem. Had the company designing Galaxies had a clearer understanding of what Star Wars was and more appreciation for their customers, any one of those 3 versions could have been successful.
Did Soe admit they made a mistake? Nope...nothing to see here folks....
(BBBBBWWWWWWAAAAHHHH fire a gigantic plunger on side of soe building. Flag rolls from handle saying ...EPIC FAIL!)
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care. Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
I've never read that but wow! If it wasn't for his being so unprofessional and generally rude one might at least see the reasons they did the things they did even if they didn't agree. But I find it amazing that he would insult the players like that.
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Originally posted by Kylrathin Smed: "Guys, this balloon we're in is slowly sinking. It's never gotten us as high as we thought it would, though. In 2 years we'll be on the ground. Suggestions?" Dan: "Well, the balloon is obviously flawed. We should start over. Pop the balloon right now and blow a new one before we hit the ground." Smed: "This makes sense."
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
Originally posted by Kylrathin Smed: "Guys, this balloon we're in is slowly sinking. It's never gotten us as high as we thought it would, though. In 2 years we'll be on the ground. Suggestions?" Dan: "Well, the balloon is obviously flawed. We should start over. Pop the balloon right now and blow a new one before we hit the ground." Smed: "This makes sense."
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
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I've never read that but wow! If it wasn't for his being so unprofessional and generally rude one might at least see the reasons they did the things they did even if they didn't agree. But I find it amazing that he would insult the players like that.
Yeah, The guy went back and edited it twice after the original, but it was out.
The other interesting bit in there was that it was an admission that SOE "Never lost the Pre-NGE code" as they said or implied a couple of times as an excuse as to why they never put up a Pre-CU/NGE server. It isn't that they couldn't, they did not choose to.
Originally posted by Kylrathin Smed: "Guys, this balloon we're in is slowly sinking. It's never gotten us as high as we thought it would, though. In 2 years we'll be on the ground. Suggestions?" Dan: "Well, the balloon is obviously flawed. We should start over. Pop the balloon right now and blow a new one before we hit the ground." Smed: "This makes sense."
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
Not at all disagreeing with you Sov, you're right something needed to be done. Absolutely. The fact that SOE knew the NGE was going to drive away the current players is one thing, but the fact that they thought what they replaced Pre-CU with would actually compete with WoW was blatantly retarded. The quality just wasn't there, yet they thought people would come in droves (once they 'got over it').
You're right, the better decision, we'll never know, but I can give an educated guess that if they had put as much effort into Pre-NGE as they did Post-NGE I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
Yet I never sit around and brood over NGE, in fact I never think of it at all. But yet other people can't seem to stop thinking about it, it's fascinating.
But I do approach games with the mentality that (it's just a game) and when I'm done having fun I move on to a new source of fun. Yes there are times where I think "Why did they do that to the game" or even "Man that was a stupid decision" but then I move on, because there are an insane number of games in the world to play.
Yes we all get it, people that played prior to NGE were upset about NGE. Is that surprising? No. Is it ridiculous that after all this time they keep going on and on about it? Most definetly, there's no going back at this point, it was a long time ago, move on. Don't let a game control you so much and allow you to get so angry, it's just a game.
Perfect analogy! That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years. The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
Not at all disagreeing with you Sov, you're right something needed to be done. Absolutely. The fact that SOE knew the NGE was going to drive away the current players is one thing, but the fact that they thought what they replaced Pre-CU with would actually compete with WoW was blatantly retarded. The quality just wasn't there, yet they thought people would come in droves (once they 'got over it').
You're right, the better decision, we'll never know, but I can give an educated guess that if they had put as much effort into Pre-NGE as they did Post-NGE I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
As we know, those are the suits in the boardroom. Many times the just don't get it and they make decisions based upon practically nothign.
Do you remember the scene in "The Fly", the one with Jeff Goldblum, where he points out that the machines are great at moving items but that they don't do well with tissue? He sent a steak through a machine and it was exactly the same steak but upon tasting it, was found to be disgusting.
That is what a lot of suits are in companies. They make decisions that seem to make sense but they don't understand the essence of what they are deciding.
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but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they. I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good". And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money. So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
I kinda disagree.
While businesses can't sit still, you have to remember where our society was at 6 years ago. It was the dawn of high speed HOME Internet access. Broadband was the exception, not the rule. I originally played SWG on a 56k modem tbh. I really feel that the "Losing 10k subs a month to WoW" arguably had as much to do with that as it did WoW. Gaming was going from single player to online...not just "MMOs", but FPSs and RTS games as well. A dip in subscribers was inevitable.
Rather than panicking, like SoE did, they should have refocused on THEIR game and THEIR strengths (Star Wars). What they did instead was completely gut and change an under performing product and sell it under the same name, despite the customers they already had - It would be like McDonalds completely changing their menu to all chicken products because KFC had a better month...but still calling it the Big Mac.
No company can change their product every time another company outsells them. SoE did. It was simple greed.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they. I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good". And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money. So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
I kinda disagree.
While businesses can't sit still, you have to remember where our society was at 6 years ago. It was the dawn of high speed HOME Internet access. Broadband was the exception, not the rule. I originally played SWG on a 56k modem tbh. I really feel that the "Losing 10k subs a month to WoW" arguably had as much to do with that as it did WoW. Gaming was going from single player to online...not just "MMOs", but FPSs and RTS games as well. A dip in subscribers was inevitable.
Rather than panicking, like SoE did, they should have refocused on THEIR game and THEIR strengths (Star Wars). What they did instead was completely gut and change an under performing product and sell it under the same name, despite the customers they already had - It would be like McDonalds completely changing their menu to all chicken products because KFC had a better month...but still calling it the Big Mac.
No company can change their product every time another company outsells them. SoE did. It was simple greed.
we are not in disagreement.
what I said is that businesses won't sit by and slowly watch their subs dwindle over a few years.. They will take some sort of action to not only stem that flow but also to increase the game.
In the end what they did was say "we want wow numbers, we see what wow did, therefore if we do what wow did we will get wow numbers AND though we might lose some or all of our subs it's worth it because we will get wow numbers".
You see this type of thing all the time in fast food resaurants as well. One restaurant offers a better salad then the other offers a better salad and in the end they realize that I'm the only person who would eat the better salads but I don't frequent fast food restaurants so then they cancel their better salads.
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we are not in disagreement. what I said is that businesses won't sit by and slowly watch their subs dwindle over a few years.. They will take some sort of action to not only stem that flow but also to increase the game.
In the end what they did was say "we want wow numbers, we see what wow did, therefore if we do what wow did we will get wow numbers AND though we might lose some or all of our subs it's worth it because we will get wow numbers". You see this type of thing all the time in fast food resaurants as well. One restaurant offers a better salad then the other offers a better salad and in the end they realize that I'm the only person who would eat the better salads but I don't frequent fast food restaurants so then they cancel their better salads.
OK, my disagreement was on "SoE had to do something". You're right, they did, but not what they chose to do and not really anything I feel would be outside of "normal" updates - MMOs need to continually evolve to survive, that's partially why we pay a monthly fee, to fund that development. Had they simply continued improving the game they had, we wouldn't be here having this conversation most likely.
OK, my disagreement was on "SoE had to do something". You're right, they did, but not what they chose to do and not really anything I feel would be outside of "normal" updates - MMOs need to continually evolve to survive, that's partially why we pay a monthly fee, to fund that development. Had they simply continued improving the game they had, we wouldn't be here having this conversation most likely.
I couldn't agree more.
Instead, what they did was say "ok, we need to turn this around NOW, what do we need to do".
It was a purely mercenary decision that ended up not panning out.
edit: though I will add that they "did have to do something" and that is what you said, continue to develop and make the game better. Do things that would make the experience truly a unique and better experience for its players.
Eve has it right. They do what they do and slowly over the course of years have developed a die hard, loyal following.
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Originally posted by Sovrath I couldn't agree more. Instead, what they did was say "ok, we need to turn this around NOW, what do we need to do". It was a purely mercenary decision that ended up not panning out.
Exactly!!! Knee jerk reaction that was fueled by panic over the start of MMO gaming as we now know it. Like you alluded to in your last post, they were willing to trade 200k subs for the potential 500k+ they hoped to get from WoW. So concerned over what they DIDN'T have, that they sacrificed what they did have.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?!
Even McDonald's knows when to stop selling salads :P
Originally posted by Darthconnor I still think if some random bunch of ppl can get the interest of 30k ppl to join their forums and can get a 1000 plus on a server thats nowhere near complete that La or SOE could get atleast 100k willing to come back and pay for Pre-cu.
Do you honestly think it would be that high for long? I agree that there is the potential for 100k returns to "check it out", but I don't think pre-NGE SWG could survive much longer than the NGE version after all this time for several reasons, but mostly...SoE.
SoE has proven they don't care what the customer wants and they'll do whatever they like. SoE hasn't destroyed Galaxies because they "tried too hard" or "tried to please everyone"...SoE destroyed the game with their greed and complete incompetence - they had NO CLUE what they should do with the IP and it's been obvious in everything they have done over the years. You could ask a group of 4th graders to design a better Star Wars game and I bet you they could.
NGE, CU or Pre-CU...those, IMO, are just minor issues compared to the true problem. Had the company designing Galaxies had a clearer understanding of what Star Wars was and more appreciation for their customers, any one of those 3 versions could have been successful.
I really have no idea and i do agree that the game itself wouldnt have as much to do with customers staying as Soe and their policy of do what they want. Though really noone can know how good or bad it would do until it gets done and sadly i doubt even if they had ppl paying them upfront they would do it because it might prove that the Nge isnt as good as the prior game and that even in its current state players choose an older version would hurt their pride or whatever, Hell who really knows but i can agree that atleast at first it gets a good amount of subs and that Soe and their policies towards customers would be what would hurt the servers population the most.
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Happen to know where we could find the "original"?
I think the original was gone in a couple days time. I actually copy/paiste it into Word Perfect so I still have it around somewhere.
I know many quit SWG when WoW was released and I dont think NGE was the only reason for that.
I think I better uninstall SWG, seems they dont have any "welcome back vet" and they dont plan on making it F2P any time soon.
Well it only has 7k subs now according to the figures I last heard from an insider, how bad could it have got without the NGE? In fact how bad could it have got without the NGE or CURB? Certainly no worse than the 7k and item shops crap it has today? Seems they wasted alot of time and resources to convince the playerbase to quit and play something else!
Well done SOE!
Agreed...
I'll say it till my dying day...I don't care what any "insider" says about the 'bleeding Subs" and all that garbage...People quitting MMO's for a Month or two? That's news?...lol...Most would have come back if they just stuck to improving the Game thay had...Most of the Player base was in it for the long haul...
All I know is before the NGE it was a vibrant Game with an impressive population...My Guild was jumping every day...There were hunting groups every day, night and weekend...There was serious lag in Dant Mining Outpost, Mo Eis and Theed due to the masses...There was NOT a Sub problem like they would like everyone to believe...It's a stupid, stupid excuse for an even more stupid move...
The NGE was the Grand daddy of Epic failures...There will never be a dumber decision made in Gaming ever again...They would still have a pretty decent Pop if they just built on the CU, added the Heroics, Restuss, Battlefields, etc...
Such a complete waste...Cost me some of the best Gaming Friends I ever had...Completely gutted My Guild...Even My RL best friend quit...Still to this day, due to the NGE purge, I get email addy's for Guildies I get along with just incase something stupid happens...Oh well...
Both sides throughout this thread have made excellent points. On one hand you have to consider the loses that were taking place, on the other you have to consider they never tried to fix the base game or add to it, as they have the NGE. If they had kept the same level of commitment they had during the pre-cu era post NGE, this game would have been dead in 6 months.
It was only after the nge that they decided to worry about what their players wanted, and adjusted according to those wants. What did the players want? More sandbox function, more content, a brush over with some polish. Reworking systems so that they made sense in a leveled environment (post Cu). Meaningful PVP, galactic civil war additions, battlegrounds ETC....
Had they added all of that on to the pre-cu game, it would have never lost players as it did, it would have gained them IMO OFC.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Happen to know where we could find the "original"?
I sent you a PM. I think you have a good guess where it is posted at as a sticky.
Agreed...
I know this much...My now-dead Guild was the largest Guild on our server for a good portion of the post NGE period till it fell apart about a year ago (directly after the 2nd Housing Purge and the new 90 day rule went into effect...That was the last straw for us carebears...haha) More than half of that Guilds Leadership ended up being Folks who joined AFTER the NGE...Most of these Folks did not have a clue what the NGE was...lol...I know, I had to be the Storyteller most of the time...They just wanted to Play a Star Wars MMO...So had SOE not completely hacked off most of their Vets and simply listened to their Player base and how they wanted to expand upon the CU there would have been a REAL nice long term population in game...I'm 100% certain of that...
Think of it this way...If they could have leveled off around 200K in Subs that's still 3 million in gross revenue a Month...$3 million a freaking month! Greed can lead to some tremendously bad life decisions...Greed led to the NGE...Devs are always telling Players to be patient...Where was the patience at SOE? Stupid...
SWG was losing subs long before wow came out. That is why soe was in full discussions about the Combat Revamp(not the combat upgrade that eventually happened. SWG was bleeding subs right out of the gate, because the game was so broken and incomplete. They knew there were problems in the game and people were leaving as a result of it. They just never understood or cared to respond to those issues. It is not soe's corporate culture to respect their customers.
Sure SWG would have to compete with wow, but it doesn't matter, because the condition of the game never gave it a chance to compete in the market. The same reasons eq2 can't compete, because it was a half finished piece of shit on release and soe expected their customers to mindlessly stick around for months and years while they finish the game.
You have a broken game, run by a company that doesn't listen to their playerbase and instead focuses on making changes that either come with a price tag or what they think will attract the phantom potential customers.
There is just no way this game could compete under those circumstances.
Perhaps if soe got their head out of their ass and actually responded to players they wouldn't be swirling the toilet bowl so quickly.
The fact that its still talked about today says it all. SWG has never been a perfect game, it is still my favorite despite all its flaws. (mostly cause i love Star Wars) I myself would like to see a combination of the old with some of the changes made since NGE. I really think that SOE / Lucas Arts saw WOW and the money it was making and they wanted it for SWG! I dont think they really cared what the playerbase had to say, if they would have worked more with the playerbase and tried to improve the game rather than doing the NGE i think the game would be amazing today! I wish i never heard of NGE or the word Iconic! One way to answer the question is to bring back a classic server and lets see what happens!
Ppl always talk about it was bleeding subs and they had to do this or this but had they actually stuck with the game they had knowing that there was 200k with a 10k lost per month and fixed half the bugs and added new content they might have had a great thing and fixed the bleeding subs and gotten a increase building up. The devs always blame the bleeding subs but never say anything about how they werent paying attention to what the players were wanting or the bugs that players were calling game breakers. But noone will know anything for sure as you cant really predict this things.
I still think if some random bunch of ppl can get the interest of 30k ppl to join their forums and can get a 1000 plus on a server thats nowhere near complete that La or SOE could get atleast 100k willing to come back and pay for Pre-cu.
You have to read the original post in its full glory: www.mmofringe.com/oldforum/modules.php
Do you honestly think it would be that high for long? I agree that there is the potential for 100k returns to "check it out", but I don't think pre-NGE SWG could survive much longer than the NGE version after all this time for several reasons, but mostly...SoE.
SoE has proven they don't care what the customer wants and they'll do whatever they like. SoE hasn't destroyed Galaxies because they "tried too hard" or "tried to please everyone"...SoE destroyed the game with their greed and complete incompetence - they had NO CLUE what they should do with the IP and it's been obvious in everything they have done over the years. You could ask a group of 4th graders to design a better Star Wars game and I bet you they could.
NGE, CU or Pre-CU...those, IMO, are just minor issues compared to the true problem. Had the company designing Galaxies had a clearer understanding of what Star Wars was and more appreciation for their customers, any one of those 3 versions could have been successful.
Did Soe admit they made a mistake? Nope...nothing to see here folks....
(BBBBBWWWWWWAAAAHHHH fire a gigantic plunger on side of soe building. Flag rolls from handle saying ...EPIC FAIL!)
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
You have to read the original post in its full glory: www.mmofringe.com/oldforum/modules.php
I've never read that but wow! If it wasn't for his being so unprofessional and generally rude one might at least see the reasons they did the things they did even if they didn't agree. But I find it amazing that he would insult the players like that.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You have to read the original post in its full glory: www.mmofringe.com/oldforum/modules.php
I've never read that but wow! If it wasn't for his being so unprofessional and generally rude one might at least see the reasons they did the things they did even if they didn't agree. But I find it amazing that he would insult the players like that.
Yeah, The guy went back and edited it twice after the original, but it was out.
The other interesting bit in there was that it was an admission that SOE "Never lost the Pre-NGE code" as they said or implied a couple of times as an excuse as to why they never put up a Pre-CU/NGE server. It isn't that they couldn't, they did not choose to.
Perfect analogy!
That is what blows my mind. The fact that they use the claim they "were losing 10,000 subs a month", so they decided to essentially give EVERYONE the shaft and lose 200,000 subs in a week, rather than watch the players trickle out on their own over the course of a few years.
The fact that they even thought those 200,000 would be replaced by an even greater number (considering the extremely sorry state of the game on Nov 16th) speaks volumes about SOE's perception of their customers collective intelligence.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
Not at all disagreeing with you Sov, you're right something needed to be done. Absolutely. The fact that SOE knew the NGE was going to drive away the current players is one thing, but the fact that they thought what they replaced Pre-CU with would actually compete with WoW was blatantly retarded. The quality just wasn't there, yet they thought people would come in droves (once they 'got over it').
You're right, the better decision, we'll never know, but I can give an educated guess that if they had put as much effort into Pre-NGE as they did Post-NGE I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
I played SWG after release.
Yet I never sit around and brood over NGE, in fact I never think of it at all. But yet other people can't seem to stop thinking about it, it's fascinating.
But I do approach games with the mentality that (it's just a game) and when I'm done having fun I move on to a new source of fun. Yes there are times where I think "Why did they do that to the game" or even "Man that was a stupid decision" but then I move on, because there are an insane number of games in the world to play.
Yes we all get it, people that played prior to NGE were upset about NGE. Is that surprising? No. Is it ridiculous that after all this time they keep going on and on about it? Most definetly, there's no going back at this point, it was a long time ago, move on. Don't let a game control you so much and allow you to get so angry, it's just a game.
but you have to remember, business don't work that way. And nor should they.
I'm not saying what they did was right but NO business is going to look at their products and say "well, it's ok, if we lose subs for a while eventually we'll just close down. It's all good".
And certain businesses tend to be very mercenary about their prodcuts. If it doesn't look like there is a future, they axe it. If they are publicly traded then they are obliged to make sure they are making money.
So SOE had to do something. What the better decision would have been we might never know.
Not at all disagreeing with you Sov, you're right something needed to be done. Absolutely. The fact that SOE knew the NGE was going to drive away the current players is one thing, but the fact that they thought what they replaced Pre-CU with would actually compete with WoW was blatantly retarded. The quality just wasn't there, yet they thought people would come in droves (once they 'got over it').
You're right, the better decision, we'll never know, but I can give an educated guess that if they had put as much effort into Pre-NGE as they did Post-NGE I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
As we know, those are the suits in the boardroom. Many times the just don't get it and they make decisions based upon practically nothign.
Do you remember the scene in "The Fly", the one with Jeff Goldblum, where he points out that the machines are great at moving items but that they don't do well with tissue? He sent a steak through a machine and it was exactly the same steak but upon tasting it, was found to be disgusting.
That is what a lot of suits are in companies. They make decisions that seem to make sense but they don't understand the essence of what they are deciding.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I kinda disagree.
While businesses can't sit still, you have to remember where our society was at 6 years ago. It was the dawn of high speed HOME Internet access. Broadband was the exception, not the rule. I originally played SWG on a 56k modem tbh. I really feel that the "Losing 10k subs a month to WoW" arguably had as much to do with that as it did WoW. Gaming was going from single player to online...not just "MMOs", but FPSs and RTS games as well. A dip in subscribers was inevitable.
Rather than panicking, like SoE did, they should have refocused on THEIR game and THEIR strengths (Star Wars). What they did instead was completely gut and change an under performing product and sell it under the same name, despite the customers they already had - It would be like McDonalds completely changing their menu to all chicken products because KFC had a better month...but still calling it the Big Mac.
No company can change their product every time another company outsells them. SoE did. It was simple greed.
I kinda disagree.
While businesses can't sit still, you have to remember where our society was at 6 years ago. It was the dawn of high speed HOME Internet access. Broadband was the exception, not the rule. I originally played SWG on a 56k modem tbh. I really feel that the "Losing 10k subs a month to WoW" arguably had as much to do with that as it did WoW. Gaming was going from single player to online...not just "MMOs", but FPSs and RTS games as well. A dip in subscribers was inevitable.
Rather than panicking, like SoE did, they should have refocused on THEIR game and THEIR strengths (Star Wars). What they did instead was completely gut and change an under performing product and sell it under the same name, despite the customers they already had - It would be like McDonalds completely changing their menu to all chicken products because KFC had a better month...but still calling it the Big Mac.
No company can change their product every time another company outsells them. SoE did. It was simple greed.
we are not in disagreement.
what I said is that businesses won't sit by and slowly watch their subs dwindle over a few years.. They will take some sort of action to not only stem that flow but also to increase the game.
In the end what they did was say "we want wow numbers, we see what wow did, therefore if we do what wow did we will get wow numbers AND though we might lose some or all of our subs it's worth it because we will get wow numbers".
You see this type of thing all the time in fast food resaurants as well. One restaurant offers a better salad then the other offers a better salad and in the end they realize that I'm the only person who would eat the better salads but I don't frequent fast food restaurants so then they cancel their better salads.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
OK, my disagreement was on "SoE had to do something". You're right, they did, but not what they chose to do and not really anything I feel would be outside of "normal" updates - MMOs need to continually evolve to survive, that's partially why we pay a monthly fee, to fund that development. Had they simply continued improving the game they had, we wouldn't be here having this conversation most likely.
I couldn't agree more.
Instead, what they did was say "ok, we need to turn this around NOW, what do we need to do".
It was a purely mercenary decision that ended up not panning out.
edit: though I will add that they "did have to do something" and that is what you said, continue to develop and make the game better. Do things that would make the experience truly a unique and better experience for its players.
Eve has it right. They do what they do and slowly over the course of years have developed a die hard, loyal following.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Exactly!!! Knee jerk reaction that was fueled by panic over the start of MMO gaming as we now know it. Like you alluded to in your last post, they were willing to trade 200k subs for the potential 500k+ they hoped to get from WoW. So concerned over what they DIDN'T have, that they sacrificed what they did have.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?!
Even McDonald's knows when to stop selling salads :P
Do you honestly think it would be that high for long? I agree that there is the potential for 100k returns to "check it out", but I don't think pre-NGE SWG could survive much longer than the NGE version after all this time for several reasons, but mostly...SoE.
SoE has proven they don't care what the customer wants and they'll do whatever they like. SoE hasn't destroyed Galaxies because they "tried too hard" or "tried to please everyone"...SoE destroyed the game with their greed and complete incompetence - they had NO CLUE what they should do with the IP and it's been obvious in everything they have done over the years. You could ask a group of 4th graders to design a better Star Wars game and I bet you they could.
NGE, CU or Pre-CU...those, IMO, are just minor issues compared to the true problem. Had the company designing Galaxies had a clearer understanding of what Star Wars was and more appreciation for their customers, any one of those 3 versions could have been successful.
I really have no idea and i do agree that the game itself wouldnt have as much to do with customers staying as Soe and their policy of do what they want. Though really noone can know how good or bad it would do until it gets done and sadly i doubt even if they had ppl paying them upfront they would do it because it might prove that the Nge isnt as good as the prior game and that even in its current state players choose an older version would hurt their pride or whatever, Hell who really knows but i can agree that atleast at first it gets a good amount of subs and that Soe and their policies towards customers would be what would hurt the servers population the most.