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Was shutting down SWG LA's biggest failure yet?

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  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987

    Originally posted by Panther2103

    Originally posted by ignore_me


    Originally posted by Panther2103


    Originally posted by ignore_me


    Originally posted by Panther2103

    Well, I did like SWG a lot while I did play it. But it did have a population that wasn't exactly healthy. It had 1 server that was populated and the rest maybe had a dusting of players. People who are upset that it shut down are all the ones who weren't even playing it when it did. It's like walking away from a peice of pizza that you ate half way and didn't plan on eating it later, and coming back and being upset that it's gone because someone threw it away when it started getting moldy.

    I challenge you to find a group of people anywhere who aren't petulant.

    I'm assuming you mean people who were once fans of a game getting upset by a game shutting down, yeah I understand. But people everywhere saw SWG's shutdown coming. Once TOR was announced people knew it was only so much time until the inevitable happened. The issue with that statement in general is people get upset that they lose all of their characters and such, so it's going to cause an uproar even if they don't really care that the game itself is shutting down, more of their time invested being lost, even if they weren't playing it at all for a couple of years. Sure, I was one of those people when the original Lineage got shut down, I lost my characters and gear and all of that, but eventually people have to give it up. The game isn't going to be ressurected, the only hope short of a sequal that won't be anything like the game, would be the emulator. Which isn't too bad, I've used it before and it had like 300 people online or something at the time. 

    I mean everyone. It's human nature given any group of people who desire something. I was responding to your pizza analogy (which I think is a good analogy). As for resurrection, who can say? Would a new game that achieved much of what the old one did (or more) be considered a resurrection?

    It really depends on what you consider a ressurection. I would call it a resurgence. But for them to achieve that, it would have to be really similar to the original. But then you have the split, theres the people who liked it Pre NGE, and people who started and liked it after NGE. I wish they would make one that was very similar to either one of those, since both were fun to me. I just don't know who could possibly do that. SOE is very unreliable in terms of developing things that people want, they seem to go with whatever is popular at the moment. 

    That's probably true, sigh

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • GinazGinaz Member RarePosts: 2,558

    Your OP topic is based on the assumption (not fact btw) that LA was the one that decided to end swg.  John Smedley himself said it was soe's decision to end the the game.  Maybe LA  upped the price for the liscence renewal, maybe soe was offered a significantt amount of money or other incentives to not renew it, whatever the case the ultimate decision was with soe.  I know a lot of the nge leftovers will always blame LA because for most of them soe could never do any wrong and the failure of swg was the fault of all the disgruntled players who left and not soe, however, when pressed to rpovide any shred of PROOF to their claims, they can't.  Not saying LA didn't play a role, just that nothing can be proven from what is known.

    Really, move on and get over it.

    Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?

    Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.

  • ObraikObraik Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261

    Originally posted by Panther2103

    Originally posted by ignore_me


    Originally posted by Panther2103


    Originally posted by ignore_me


    Originally posted by Panther2103

    Well, I did like SWG a lot while I did play it. But it did have a population that wasn't exactly healthy. It had 1 server that was populated and the rest maybe had a dusting of players. People who are upset that it shut down are all the ones who weren't even playing it when it did. It's like walking away from a peice of pizza that you ate half way and didn't plan on eating it later, and coming back and being upset that it's gone because someone threw it away when it started getting moldy.

    I challenge you to find a group of people anywhere who aren't petulant.

    I'm assuming you mean people who were once fans of a game getting upset by a game shutting down, yeah I understand. But people everywhere saw SWG's shutdown coming. Once TOR was announced people knew it was only so much time until the inevitable happened. The issue with that statement in general is people get upset that they lose all of their characters and such, so it's going to cause an uproar even if they don't really care that the game itself is shutting down, more of their time invested being lost, even if they weren't playing it at all for a couple of years. Sure, I was one of those people when the original Lineage got shut down, I lost my characters and gear and all of that, but eventually people have to give it up. The game isn't going to be ressurected, the only hope short of a sequal that won't be anything like the game, would be the emulator. Which isn't too bad, I've used it before and it had like 300 people online or something at the time. 

    I mean everyone. It's human nature given any group of people who desire something. I was responding to your pizza analogy (which I think is a good analogy). As for resurrection, who can say? Would a new game that achieved much of what the old one did (or more) be considered a resurrection?

    It really depends on what you consider a ressurection. I would call it a resurgence. But for them to achieve that, it would have to be really similar to the original. But then you have the split, theres the people who liked it Pre NGE, and people who started and liked it after NGE. I wish they would make one that was very similar to either one of those, since both were fun to me. I just don't know who could possibly do that. SOE is very unreliable in terms of developing things that people want, they seem to go with whatever is popular at the moment. 

    I think the CU was pretty close to a cross between both of them, especially the way the game was when it shutdown.  If they had kept the CU with all the content they have added since they got rid of that things would have been quite peachy.  The only major thing that would need to have been done was fixing up Jedi in some way, which likely would have involved nerfing them down to the strength of a standard elite profession due to their high population numbers...

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  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987

    Originally posted by Ginaz

    Your OP topic is based on the assumption (not fact btw) that LA was the one that decided to end swg.  John Smedley himself said it was soe's decision to end the the game.  Maybe LA  upped the price for the liscence renewal, maybe soe was offered a significantt amount of money or other incentives to not renew it, whatever the case the ultimate decision was with soe.  I know a lot of the nge leftovers will always blame LA because for most of them soe could never do any wrong and the failure of swg was the fault of all the disgruntled players who left and not soe, however, when pressed to rpovide any shred of PROOF to their claims, they can't.  Not saying LA didn't play a role, just that nothing can be proven from what is known.

    Really, move on and get over it.

    Get over what? This discussion is about a question asked by the OP. If you're giving out free counseling I saw another thread about depressed gamers.

    You did great until the last line, which overshadowed the intelligent paragraph preceding it.

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • ObraikObraik Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261

    Originally posted by Ginaz

    Your OP topic is based on the assumption (not fact btw) that LA was the one that decided to end swg.  John Smedley himself said it was soe's decision to end the the game.  Maybe LA  upped the price for the liscence renewal, maybe soe was offered a significantt amount of money or other incentives to not renew it, whatever the case the ultimate decision was with soe.  I know a lot of the nge leftovers will always blame LA because for most of them soe could never do any wrong and the failure of swg was the fault of all the disgruntled players who left and not soe, however, when pressed to rpovide any shred of PROOF to their claims, they can't.  Not saying LA didn't play a role, just that nothing can be proven from what is known.

    Really, move on and get over it.

    Ultimately, every decision to do with SWG came down to what LA wanted to do.  SOE had to get approval from LA before tehy could do anything with the game - even if they wanted to talk about the game in their own publications.  I would find it quite surprising if shutting down the game didn't ultimately come down to LA's decision.  You're right though, there is no definite proof that this was the case, but based on the history of the game and just the way LA is, it's not hard to make an educated guess...

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  • grimalgrimal Member UncommonPosts: 2,935

    Don't quite understand these threads other than flaming TOR.

     

    If you look back, SWG had nil subs at the end.  Every comment (or nearly) in regards to SWG was it needed to die, it was a ghost of it's shell, blah blah blah.

    Now, since people are hating on TOR, it's all rose-colored glasses and SWG shouldn't have been shut down?

    Come on people.

  • gostlygostly Member UncommonPosts: 134

    As soon as they allowed everyone to be a jedi, SWG died. The devs made a decision to change the entire game when the population was very healthy. That alone I've never been able to comprehend.

    So I don't see why SWG staying up would have mattered at all, even wtih SWTOR starting to lose players. It's not like SWTOR's failure would have jump started SWG's popularity imo.

  • grimalgrimal Member UncommonPosts: 2,935

    Originally posted by bigsmiff

    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Obraik

     

    /facepalm.  

    Let it go, man.  SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.  

    I think the dying ended in SWG a couple of years ago and it ended up with a healthy population when it shut down. I preferred SWG over ToR and would love it if it were ever resurrected. I feel that LA made a huge mistake in shutting SWG down since it could have done well as a F2P title. SOE is showing that they know how to do F2P well.

    Healthy Population? Lol! You mean the one server that all the free transfers went to?

  • ObraikObraik Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261

    Originally posted by grimal

    Originally posted by bigsmiff


    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Obraik

     

    /facepalm.  

    Let it go, man.  SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.  

    I think the dying ended in SWG a couple of years ago and it ended up with a healthy population when it shut down. I preferred SWG over ToR and would love it if it were ever resurrected. I feel that LA made a huge mistake in shutting SWG down since it could have done well as a F2P title. SOE is showing that they know how to do F2P well.

    Healthy Population? Lol! You mean the one server that all the free transfers went to?

    The days before the shutdown announcement, the servers Starsider, Chilastra, Flurry and Farstar all had "Extremely Heavy" populaton loads during prime time.  The rest were a scattering of Medium and Light.  Of course when the announcement was made these numbers dive bombed.

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  • firefly2003firefly2003 Member UncommonPosts: 2,527

    After first hand playing TOR coming from SWG the day it shutdown, I have to say the game was lacking in every aspect except story and that was their only positive and it's clearly not working for them now, only way in the future if they do make another SW MMORPG I would seriously consider taking the things that made SWG great and unique and take elements from what works in themeparks with the exception of loot treadmills and instanced pvp and merge them into one hybrid its the only proper way now to make a MMORPG.

    Chasing WoW's number's and success is no longer going to cut it in today's oversaturated MMO market. Its time to be unique again or fail.


  • firefly2003firefly2003 Member UncommonPosts: 2,527

    Originally posted by Obraik

    Originally posted by grimal


    Originally posted by bigsmiff


    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Obraik

     

    /facepalm.  

    Let it go, man.  SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.  

    I think the dying ended in SWG a couple of years ago and it ended up with a healthy population when it shut down. I preferred SWG over ToR and would love it if it were ever resurrected. I feel that LA made a huge mistake in shutting SWG down since it could have done well as a F2P title. SOE is showing that they know how to do F2P well.

    Healthy Population? Lol! You mean the one server that all the free transfers went to?

    The days before the shutdown announcement, the servers Starsider, Chilastra, Flurry and Farstar all had "Extremely Heavy" populaton loads during prime time.  The rest were a scattering of Medium and Light.  Of course when the announcement was made these numbers dive bombed.

    True those servers were full but a lot of that was due to the 45 free days SOE gave to subscribers due to the hacks of last year , but a lot of those people when I talked to them planned to resub once the free time was up, after they announced the closure in June hopes for a return to a healthy popullation were dashed due to the shutdown announcement.


  • RyowulfRyowulf Member UncommonPosts: 664

    Ftp would have worked for SWG. Would it have had huge numbers? No, but I bet it would have been more than enough to make money (even if it wasn't much).

    Not that it matters, since LA doesn't want more than one SW mmo running.

  • noncleynoncley Member UncommonPosts: 718

    Originally posted by Settingsun

    Ftp would have worked for SWG. Would it have had huge numbers? No, but I bet it would have been more than enough to make money (even if it wasn't much).

    Not that it matters, since LA doesn't want more than one SW mmo running.

    I think a FTP version of pre-CU SWG would have done very well. 

  • ArchammerArchammer Member Posts: 3

    Originally posted by Obraik

    Originally posted by grimal


    Originally posted by bigsmiff


    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Obraik

     

    /facepalm.  

    Let it go, man.  SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.  

    I think the dying ended in SWG a couple of years ago and it ended up with a healthy population when it shut down. I preferred SWG over ToR and would love it if it were ever resurrected. I feel that LA made a huge mistake in shutting SWG down since it could have done well as a F2P title. SOE is showing that they know how to do F2P well.

    Healthy Population? Lol! You mean the one server that all the free transfers went to?

    The days before the shutdown announcement, the servers Starsider, Chilastra, Flurry and Farstar all had "Extremely Heavy" populaton loads during prime time.  The rest were a scattering of Medium and Light.  Of course when the announcement was made these numbers dive bombed.

    Sadly this is true. After the announcement, the forums for the servers Obraik mentioned mostly became "goodbye everyone" threads. 

    SWG, even with the "low population numbers" was still a great game with a tight knit community

  • PyrateLVPyrateLV Member CommonPosts: 1,096

    Originally posted by noncley

    Originally posted by Settingsun

    Ftp would have worked for SWG. Would it have had huge numbers? No, but I bet it would have been more than enough to make money (even if it wasn't much).

    Not that it matters, since LA doesn't want more than one SW mmo running.

    I think a FTP version of pre-CU SWG would have done very well. 

    Pre-CU for sure, but even NGE version would have done well as FTP

    I think closing SWG instead of making it FTP (They already had the TCG and were making good $$ on it) and putting all their bets on SWTOR was a BIG mistake on LAs/SOEs parts

    Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
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  • ThorkuneThorkune Member UncommonPosts: 1,969

    Originally posted by grimal

    Originally posted by bigsmiff


    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Obraik

     

    /facepalm.  

    Let it go, man.  SWG was dying long before TOR was a twinkle in Bioware's eye.  

    I think the dying ended in SWG a couple of years ago and it ended up with a healthy population when it shut down. I preferred SWG over ToR and would love it if it were ever resurrected. I feel that LA made a huge mistake in shutting SWG down since it could have done well as a F2P title. SOE is showing that they know how to do F2P well.

    Healthy Population? Lol! You mean the one server that all the free transfers went to?

    Do you even know what you are taking about? I had toons on several servers and I had no problem finding groups. And, I am talking about before the shutdown announcement. Please know what you are spouting off about before you comment. Starsider, Chilastra, Europe-Chimera were all doing good before the shutdown announcement. The servers weren't brimming over with people, but they weren't dead either.

  • RyowulfRyowulf Member UncommonPosts: 664

    Keep in mind, had the kept it open, it could/would have drawn players away from Tor, so I guess I can see why they did it.

  • firefly2003firefly2003 Member UncommonPosts: 2,527

    Originally posted by Settingsun

    Keep in mind, had the kept it open, it could/would have drawn players away from Tor, so I guess I can see why they did it.

    If they would of kept it open I'm sure there would have been questions on the TOR forums from TOR players asking why the hell does SWG have this feature and we dont?


  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987

    Originally posted by firefly2003

    Originally posted by Settingsun

    Keep in mind, had the kept it open, it could/would have drawn players away from Tor, so I guess I can see why they did it.

    If they would of kept it open I'm sure there would have been questions on the TOR forums from TOR players asking why the hell does SWG have this feature and we dont?

    It looks like that anyway and SWG is dead.

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • AcorniaAcornia Member UncommonPosts: 281

    George and LA had to play a part in everything that has happen todate.  But in the long run that is nether here not there.

     

    It would be very hard to bring back the old preCU SWG because of the state of the game engine they used and you would have to recode everything from line 0 because of the state of coding back at the time when it was first started.

     

    Yes, I would like to see a preCU type SWGMMO see the light of day.  But I would think a new open game base on George's plans for post SWG episodes VII through XII.  That would have the feel of the old game but give us new ground to cover in rebuilding what has been done in the first six sagas and the problems they had created plus how will the power vaccum be reshaped.  I think something like this would give players the best chance to shape what happens in game.

  • ArchammerArchammer Member Posts: 3

    There were many players on my server (By that I mean the Imperial PVP guilds and vent on Chilastra) that had decided before SWGs end was even announced that they would probably stay subbed to SWG on their accounts and play TOR for a bit to see whether they want to make the full jump. That all changed when they announced SWG would end right before SWTOR would be released, where people decieded to drop subs due to there being no point anymore. I ended up subbing 1 month in September in order to play the last few months and only logged in twice during those months. 

     

    Announcing its death dropped the subs to all time lows, but the devs seemed to take this as a sign to introduce the things we had been waiting for as if they could do whatever they wanted at that point

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by PyrateLV

    Pre-CU for sure, but even NGE version would have done well as FTP

    I think closing SWG instead of making it FTP (They already had the TCG and were making good $$ on it) and putting all their bets on SWTOR was a BIG mistake on LAs/SOEs parts

    FTP = File transfer protocol, it is usually used to share stuff on your computer with friends...

    But I assume you meant F2P. And I am not so sure it would have worked, the game would probably have been made pay2win.

    For a game to survive as F2P it still needs to get in cash, and most PvP focused games fails as F2P. It works fine for PvE based games like DDO and LOTRO but if you think about it, few PvP games ever succeded with that business model.

    As soon as you sell really useful stuff in the store people will quit.

  • vanderghastvanderghast Member UncommonPosts: 325

    SWG was a flawed, badly designed mess of a game from day one thanks to a designer that thought star wars was about crafting and player housing littering planets rather than adventure and space battles etc.  Had the game been some generic sci fi game it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but the fact that it carried the name star wars made it a mess and nothing like star wars.  Not one bit of that game felt star wars.  The engine was clunky and bad, the graphics weren't even good when it came out let alone by todays standards.  Everything about the game was bugged, boring or just badly designed.  It should have been put out of it's misery long long ago.

  • hyllstarterhyllstarter Member UncommonPosts: 203

    Yeap I would still be playing SWG if it was still around. TOR is ok. But only reason i'm still playing it is because of all my friends and enemies from swg are there.... Also The Repopulation does look really fun.

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  • ObraikObraik Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261

    Originally posted by vanderghast

    SWG was a flawed, badly designed mess of a game from day one thanks to a designer that thought star wars was about crafting and player housing littering planets rather than adventure and space battles etc.  Had the game been some generic sci fi game it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but the fact that it carried the name star wars made it a mess and nothing like star wars.  Not one bit of that game felt star wars.  The engine was clunky and bad, the graphics weren't even good when it came out let alone by todays standards.  Everything about the game was bugged, boring or just badly designed.  It should have been put out of it's misery long long ago.

    While it didn't necessarily follow the canon of Star Wars, it was still a Star Warsy game.  The difference between it and TOR was that SWG let you choose how you wanted to exist in the Star Wars universe - if you didn't want to be the hero and wanted to be the Watto or Uncle Owen of the Star Wars universe then those options were available to you however if you wanted to be the hero that you see in the movie, those options were available to you too.  In SWTOR your characters story is pretty much predetermined when you choose your characters profession.

    It was the fact that you could virtually live in the Star Wars universe that made it so appealing to many.

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