SOE forum, thoughts?

[warsloth]

found this on gameplay, I found it somewhat thought out. It was pleasant compared to all the flames:


Greetings SWG community,

I am a day one veteran player who watched and waited for this game before its release Jun 27th 2003. Many many changes have taken place since the first months when the pioneers of this magical and awesome new game started to fill and help mold the galaxies we have now. Early on most of the changes were great, and any new additions to the game content were anxiously awaited by all the players. Anyone who was here when player mounts were released will remember that feeling of relief of not having to run everywhere anymore!! Then player cities and shuttles, then player vehicles....and so on. There was always a cycle back then too....new changes came with a small cost of a new list of small bugs that had to be worked out over time. The bugs sucked but it was a small price to pay for the enhancements we recieved most of which were as good as we imagined they would be. This cycle would continue throughout the life of the game until the present.

Imagination being the one thing this game fed into its player community on a regular basis and created a loyalty in players to think they may never leave the game. Conversations of playing SWG as senior citizens was a joke passed around more than one guildchat channel I'm sure!. The one thing that always sparked any players imagination was the idea that one day they might become a Jedi and have a chance to live out the fantasy of being special and to stand out from the crowd even if its just in a virtual world. Little did we know back then that Jedi would be the greatest and worst thing about SWG.

Everyone keeps asking why......why did they change it?.....why no warning?.....why did I lose my game?.....why am I out all this work?.....why would they alienate so many of us? The plain fact of why is money. They simply didnt bring in and keep as many players as they had hoped they would to be able in their eyes call this a successful game. Especially when other games have nearly 2million active accounts compared to at the hieghest point SWG held 300,000 active accounts. Out of those you have to figure about 1/3 to 1/2 are alternate character accounts on average. SWG may have sold 1million copies but in the past months its declined to about 250,000 active accounts.

Having a clear picture of past events and changes in SWG, and then getting to see the actual numbers(here www.mmorpgchart.com) it helped me understand the 'WHY' of it all. Here is what I came up with.....

June 27th 2003 Launches with an unpolished unfinished system with many missing elements from the "final vision"

July 2003 SWG hits 300,000 accounts despite the bugs and races to implement fixes every update twice or more a week

Aug 2003 2 months into the game the playerbase started to dwindle....combat other than leveling is sparce and if you aren't in an active role in a crafting profession and no idea of how to "Get jedi" you might get bored and leave.

Sept 2003 to Dec 2003Even with the implementation of many new activities, enhancements, player cities, vehicles, the playerbase was declining. Servers started seeing their first jedi. In this timeframe the path to jedi was revealed the secret to unlocking a second character jedi and holocrons were given as a holiday gift to help players get into the jedi system. In hopes to keep them around and try to find their SECRET 5th profession.

Jan 2004 Despite the path to jedi being revealed player accounts continued to drop, more than likely because of the incredible amount of time and effort needed to obtain what was now the ultimate goal for most of the playerbase.
Dropping to its lowest point since the launch, at 275,000 active accounts

Feb 2004 Enter the Village....A new path to jedi has been revealed and with the Secret Profession out of the way players have a clear path to obtaining a jedi to live their fantasy with. New and old players that had left come back to the game with a new vigor. still never passing 300,000 active accounts.

Aug 2004 Up until this point the game has held steady with its playerbase, Player cities had Flourished and PvP had increased to its hieghest point despite major imbalances in combat professions and lack of content with the GCW.

Sept 2004 to
Nov 2004 SWG has not met its goals as far as active accounts and is staring at the launches of MAJOR competition with the likes of WoW and SOE's own EQ2. Fickle gamers swarm to the shiney new games like a bees to honey.
SWG is hit hard as players give up their dreams of being a jedi hero or anti-hero and move on to the other games.
Talk of a Combat Upgrade is revealed in hopes to quell the leak in the dwindling number of active accounts.

Dec 2004 JTL is launched in hopes of keeping or bringing back players giving new content and more of a starwars feel. The expansion is bought by mainly existing players and only for those characters that really needed it. It didnt do as well as was hoped it would.

Jan 2005 to Gradutates from the Force Sensitive Village start to pour into the community the once rare jedi are now common place among PVE and making a large dent in the PVP playstyles. Large numbers of jedi grinding in solitude for months begin to finish templates and move into the mainstream.

May 2005 Although the decline of active accounts has slowed it continues to drop to its lowest at 250,000 accounts even with its promised improvements to many ingame systems and professions including the GCW enhancements.

April 2005 RoTW is released with the CURB giving players a new system of combat to learn and much needed new "ground game" content. Despite the changes and new content the playerbase stays relatively the same....some leave others take their place leaving it a loss in a business sense and a no harm no foul for the player community.
Leaving us at 250,000 active accounts and staring at a game like WoW with a 2million active account base and climbing.

June 2005 Player accounts increase slightly but no significant change. Game content and loot systems and continuing "nerfs" and balances make no change on the numbers.

Jul 2005 to
Nov 2005 The active account data hasnt been released but I can only assume it dropped slightly since July. Even if it continued to go up since then it would never exceed the 300,000 it was at in its hieght. Time for changes in the form of BIG CHANGES. The old game is scuttled for a whole new system of gameplay in hopes to make the game a success.

So there it is my friends and enemies. I'll leave it at that as I promised I would attempt to be unbiased in my post to the moderaters.(didnt want to waste my time on this...lol) As always in the trade forums the Market will decide the price and the fate of a sale and for SOE's sake I hope the cost was worth it.

May the Force be with you...always!

[Skorixor]

seems like it's just another long version of what everyone else has already said or knows...

[warsloth]

With the exception of the JTL launch he has it pretty much down.

I feel that we may be later looking at this timeline as either "the rocky start" or "the history of the late SWG"

Personally, I am hoping to see more come of this, and maybe some changes to make this more suitable to what I can enjoy.

Right now there is a lot of battlefog, and there's no telling if the people who came back and newbs are beating out those who are leaving.

After waiting for this to hit live to play it with a lvl 65, I found the combat repulsive. This was not complemented by the fact that I couldn't get nearly the same XP I used to.
I did try creating a new character and running the startup, and found it to be entertaining.

But afterwards I think back to my lvl 65, and how he is left behind. More importantly, what happens when my new char gets beyond the little quests and has no other way to grind?

Looks to me like they have created a trap for new players and screwed us veterans.

I am trying to be optimistic about this, but as far as I can see, they have yet another short sighted flop.

[Jabe Adaks]

I'd like to know where people get these "numbers" from to support their subscription arguments. I sincerely doubt SOE makes it public knowledge as to how many subscribers there are currently. At first I fell for some of the claims, (e.g. Griggs' friend knows a dev that said... lol) but now I am sincerely skeptical and I am pretty sure its all just trash.

People have been saying subs were as low as 60,000 now I hear 250,000.. Which is it? The fact is nobody really knows and the number changes daily like the stock market anyway.

Honestly I am tired of hearing people's interpretation of their last two years of gaming. We all have our own idea about what has happened but in the end it doesn't matter and we won't really know anything solid until people like Tiggs have their NDA run out or something. If Tiggs is career minded she'll never really talk anyway. So I say who cares.

Jabe

[Sai'nu]

Can we still log on? Yes.

Is it still Star Wars Galaxies? Yes.

Do I still have my toons? Yes.

Is it still a MMORPG? Yeap.

*shrugs* There just happens to be more changes here than anywhere else. Some might actually call that more competitive than other titles really.

[warsloth]

Ever wonder if we are just rationalizing though?

It may still be there, we may still be on it, but why don't they let us know.

Other games I have played give you the specific numbers of who is online at any given time, and how many per server.

I can't deny that SOE is dastardly.

Where are they helping to fight the tide of false reports then?

**edit** Im staying away from those freakin boards...

[Jerrel]

As for the number I'd imagine its out there some were. SOE has to make reports to Sony Entertainment (or whatever division of Sony SOE is part of) and Lucas Arts about how well the game is doing and just saying that we're pulling in x amount of dollars isn't enough for a report. So its all a matter of knowing where to look and who to ask.

Just wonder aloud hear: Is there any law or what not that compels a company to publish its sales numbers? If so I wonder if it is applied to monthly fee's say for magazines or...video games?

[Cryil]

Where are they helping to fight the tide of false reports then?

Im sure if they started doing something along the lines of locking or deleting threads that are/could be posting false reports, that would only further fuel some peoples speculations.

"See! they deleted my post, so i must of been right!!"

[Hashum]

Can we still log on? Yes.

Is it still Star Wars Galaxies? Yes.

Do I still have my toons? Yes.

Is it still a MMORPG? Yeap.

*shrugs* There just happens to be more changes here than anywhere else. Some might actually call that more competitive than other titles really.

Ok, first to Jabe's question as someone pointed out already the number of Active Accounts is available if you're willing to look. I have not, I don't really care but I'm sure it's required as part of their financial reporting which is probably done at least on a quarterly basis.

And whether they want to release the information or not I don't think it has any reason not to other then shame. When they were the first game to hit 300,000 active accounts or something like that they made an announcment. This type of competitve market is different then most in that pricing is pretty much the same so information like that isn't as necessary to keep under wraps as it might be in a manufactoring business.

As to the guys run down that's all well and dandy as Skor said we all knew the gist of that already. What bothers me is to Batak's point.

Can we still long on? Sure we can, but not to the game that we paid for, not to the game that we bought. Did that game have issues, Yes. But those issues could have been corrected without the NGE.

Is it still SWG? No I don't think so. This is Jedi Academy Online.

Do I still have my Toons? My toons are virtutally still there yes, but they're not the same.

Is it still an MMORPG? Nope, it's now a FPS that allows you to RP to some extent.

[xyryn]

**edit** Im staying away from those freakin boards...

Me, too. I had the worst depression in a year and a half after reading the ent board.

[warsloth]

Where are they helping to fight the tide of false reports then?

Im sure if they started doing something along the lines of locking or deleting threads that are/could be posting false reports, that would only further fuel some peoples speculations.

"See! they deleted my post, so i must of been right!!"

they could just post factual numbers

[Sai'nu]

As to the guys run down that's all well and dandy as Skor said we all knew the gist of that already. What bothers me is to Batak's point.

Can we still long on? Sure we can, but not to the game that we paid for, not to the game that we bought. Did that game have issues, Yes. But those issues could have been corrected without the NGE.

Is it still SWG? No I don't think so. This is Jedi Academy Online.

Do I still have my Toons? My toons are virtutally still there yes, but they're not the same.

Is it still an MMORPG? Nope, it's now a FPS that allows you to RP to some extent.

I'll certainly agree that Pre-NGE was on the right track and this is no longer the exact game we originally bought. But, is it still a MMORPG? Yes, I believe it is. I do have a little trouble getting off emotes since the cursor will now fire off at anything that walks in front of it now when you hit enter. And, getting used to having to hit / then talking has taken a little getting used to.

FPS? I have mixed feelings on this. If it locked us in First Person I'd agree. And it does seem if we manipulate screens we have to hit ALT key to escape that locked First Person it wants us to use. I'm still leaning toward calling this a Hybrid MMORPG. I can still RP... I can still do combat... though my frustration, like many, comes in the form of how Melee is so horrible now. But they are working on fixes. I truly believe with the armor addition it won't seem as bad as it does now.

It is still Star Wars though... just not the Galaxies we remember. And, indeed, probably a game a few people simply do not want to play now. That does suck and I hate to see any of you leave. And believe me... I hate FPS games. But the fact that this lets me do combat in third person still... with some annoyances (creatures that stand on top of each other so I can't get off clear hits without hitting the buddy, etc, etc..) makes me like it and reminds me to try and be patient with it.

I'm still going to stick with what I said. It's still a MMORPG. It's still Star Wars. And we've still got our Characters.

Is this the game we wanted? If they'd just done this... or that. I think this is where our frustrations are right now. And from our collective points of view... I think I can see where everyone is comming from that is staying or leaving. For those of us sticking it out still... we can only try to make the best of what we're given... or move on.

I believe this history shows they've tried and are trying to keep the game going. I'm not supporting how they handle things though. They need better PR people and deffinately need to listen to their paying player community more if they want to make more money.