Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[Lantyssa]

I actually felt like it wasn't FPS enough.  Or, maybe to be more accurate, it was an FPS with pretty mediocre gun play.  It was probably the single biggest turn off for me. 

I'd say the combat controls were just plain terrible.  Had it been standard DIKU combat, or something more like Borderlands in action, the game would have held me longer.  I enjoyed many aspects of it, and I'll definitely be trying again once it's f2p.

But it'll be the combat that makes me put it down again.

[Sheepherder]

Blizzard also has a little online action RPG you may have heard of.

And the Xbox and PS2 versions of Star Wars: Battlefront alone (PC sales aren't listed) nearly match the numbers for Diablo II.  In case you haven't done this before, your next tack is to trot out the "But D2 was PC only, and some people don't meet the minimum specs for PC games," argument.  But if you want we can skip that step.

[Surlyboi]

Blizzard also has a little online action RPG you may have heard of.

And the Xbox and PS2 versions of Star Wars: Battlefront alone (PC sales aren't listed) nearly match the numbers for Diablo II.  In case you haven't done this before, your next tack is to trot out the "But D2 was PC only, and some people don't meet the minimum specs for PC games," argument.  But if you want we can skip that step.

Have you not been paying attention to the sales discrepancy between PC games and console games that's been brought up at least twice?

[Sheepherder]

Obviously more people didn't buy D2 because it wouldn't run on their computer, right?

I told people not to go there.

[Ratman_tf]

Blizzard also has a little online action RPG you may have heard of.

And the Xbox and PS2 versions of Star Wars: Battlefront alone (PC sales aren't listed) nearly match the numbers for Diablo II.  In case you haven't done this before, your next tack is to trot out the "But D2 was PC only, and some people don't meet the minimum specs for PC games," argument.  But if you want we can skip that step.

wut I don't even follow. I just wanted to point out that the Blizzard fanbase is/was more than just Warcraft fans.

[Surlyboi]

Obviously more people didn't buy D2 because it wouldn't run on their computer, right?

I told people not to go there.

Ah, misread that, my mistake.

[Sheepherder]

wut I don't even follow. I just wanted to point out that the Blizzard fanbase is/was more than just Warcraft fans.

And Lucasarts and Star Wars in particular has been driving a significant portion of video game development and sales since the Atari 2600.  Because Star Wars nerds just fucking love video games.

You like shooters with three dimensions, where you can pan the camera along the z-axis, and where you can strafe to avoid incoming fire, right?  You should give this one a try:

[Simond]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

[Ginaz]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

Yes, just like EVE is a bad game.  People still have fun with it, though, just like they did with swg.

[Ratman_tf]

wut I don't even follow. I just wanted to point out that the Blizzard fanbase is/was more than just Warcraft fans.

And Lucasarts and Star Wars in particular has been driving a significant portion of video game development and sales since the Atari 2600.  Because Star Wars nerds just fucking love video games.

You like shooters with three dimensions, where you can pan the camera along the z-axis, and where you can strafe to avoid incoming fire, right?  You should give this one a try:

IIRC Dark Forces (great game BTW) didn't have panning on the z-axis. I think it had autoaim on the Z like Doom though. Hrm. Maybe it did. I shall have to reasarch this.  

It also had no Jedi  (For a while.  ), like the X-Wing series. Just for those people saying all SW games have to have Jedi vroom lightsaber tardness.

[Merusk]

It had Z-axis panning, or else you'd never have been able to kill Dark Troopers, who enjoyed landing on your head.

[Ratman_tf]

It had Z-axis panning, or else you'd never have been able to kill Dark Troopers, who enjoyed landing on your head.

Yep. I blanked out the memory since the original used the awkward pgup pgdwn keys. 

[Morat20]

What's amazing is how many people stuck with it despite the glaring issues. It wasn't the Star Wars license that did that. There was a point where the game became more playable, despite being badly flawed, but that was a LONG time after launch.

People stuck with Shadowbane and Auto Assault until the end, too, despite both having huge tech problems and being shitty games.  Usually around here we deride those people and say they have shitty taste or are simply fanatics for the game system and have a laugh.  With SWG somehow that argument is deemed invalid and it's because the game, 'just had so much potential.'

Sizeable difference in numbers, at least until the CU and NGE hit. Not that the numbers were anything remotely WoWish, but it was doing well enough.

IIRC the timeline correctly, the CU and NGE were pretty blatant "Holy Fuck, look at WoW" responses. Prior to WoW, a 100k subs was dandy.

[5150]

I wouldn't worry Windup & Merusk TOR will no doubt be your holy grail of SW MMO where you get to be the hero and the focus of the story/galaxy and there won't be a Beru in sight.

add /sarcasm tag to taste

[Rake]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

SWG was beyond being a game. It was an alternate life.

Some people played it as a game, min-maxing and being the best duelist, or soloing Ackleys and Night Sisters.
But the special thing about SWG was that you could pretty much play it just as you like it. You didn't have to compete to have fun, you could live it.

I think everyone would have got bored and quit, or dragged on for the sake of it (like many do in MMOs), if combat was all it offered.
I actually enjoyed the combat, but I was spending a lot of my time doing stuff I'd never even dreamed of doing in other games.

One of my first loves was being a Bounty Hunter. I spent many happy hours tracking NPCs and Players down and working out the best way to kill them.
Other times, I'd be sitting in a Cantina with my friends watching a group performing a song and dance routine that they had choreographed just for that evenings event.
My friends, from the Player City we had, would go on group hunts, taking out new players to kill some of the nastier mobs.
Sometimes, wed go raiding bases, or defending our own.
I'd be sourcing Ores and planting harvesters, then I'd craft and run shop sometimes (on a second account).
I actually found myself role-playing, something I thought was really alien at first, but this game made it seem normal, somehow.
Fuck! I even got married in SWG.

The choices were endless, and it felt natural to actually spend time with others, for no other reason than it was fun.
What other games would ever consider riding a slow-ass Dewback, when you have a super fast speeder?
I made a fish tank and decorated my house, like it was a palace. I don't even like fishing, or D.I.Y. but I did it in SWG.

To tell the truth, the one thing that almost made me not join SWG, was the Star Wars connection.
I actually never thought much of the Star Wars films when they came out, I watched them like everyone did, but I wasn't really into it at that time.
Playing SWG taught me more about Star Wars than I'd ever cared to know before.

I'd still have to rate my enjoyment of pre-CU SWG above all over games, despite it's bugs and all the flaws that it had.
But it's hard to put into words exactly why. Anyway, it was very special.

Thank you Raph for creating that magical place.

[Surlyboi]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

You play (and like) WoW.

That's like a Ke$ha fan casting aspersions on Joy Division.

[Shatter]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

Maybe so but I got a 1.5 years of solid enjoyment out of it. 

[Merusk]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

SWG was beyond being a game. It was an alternate life.

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

[Morat20]

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

Some people find that entertaining.

Your argument thus boils down to "Stop having fun your way, start having it my way!".

If they found your way fun, they'd be doing that. I don't get the hate. It's not like US law requires you to sit down and play a virtual world game, or that it's somehow crowding out other games. Shit, you'd think your type of fun was niche, not the other way around!

[Shatter]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

SWG was beyond being a game. It was an alternate life.

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

Stop playing MMO's

[Sky]

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

I suddenly have an urge to tell some of our volunteers to go collect 10 rat gullets for me.

[Threash]

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

Some people find that entertaining.

Not enough people.  Some people enjoy having their balls kicked, that doesn't make their particular taste worth basing a game around either.

[Lantyssa]

200-300k people sticking around to play a buggy-as-hell game is plenty enough.

Maybe not if you want to reach WoW numbers, but no one has actually succeeded at that.  More than 250k two years into the game though?  Only a handful.  Just because you didn't like the game, doesn't mean it wasn't successful or that there weren't enough people who enjoyed it.

[Mrbloodworth]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

I disagree.

[Ginaz]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

I disagree.

As a game, just like with EVE, it wasn't all that great.  It was buggy as hell and there was very little dev made content for players to go through.  What it did, however, was give you the tools to make your own fun, again, just like EVE.  Some people like that while others (the majority it seems) like to have a more directed experience. 

[Surlyboi]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

SWG was beyond being a game. It was an alternate life.

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

And therein lies your problem, actually. Shit, at its height I had a life too. 100-hour work weeks and weekends of staggeringly huge bar bills. I wanted something that would take all that shit away and SWG did just that. And I was goddamn entertained. Like Morat said, just because you didn't find it fun doesn't mean a good number of other people didn't love it.

[Xanthippe]

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

I love virtual worlds, especially sandbox-y ones.  I have a life.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

If you don't like virtual worlds, why play an mmo?

[Merusk]

I love virtual worlds, especially sandbox-y ones.  I have a life.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

If you don't like virtual worlds, why play an mmo?

They are if you want to do more than putter around.  Virtual World always translates into "time to achieve" which is on par with games, but they have a "time to maintain" requirement as well, which makes them timel-sucking wastes.

Your second question is as pointless as asking Sky why he bothers when he wants to solo lots of stuff.   It's funny how the same arguments that are invalid when used against DIKUs are spewed in defense of bad VWs.

200-300k people sticking around to play a buggy-as-hell game is plenty enough.

If that were the case they wouldn't have entertained the idea of the CU in the first place.   You don't do that kind of thing unless you're pretty sure it'll be embraced OR you're not meeting your financials.

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

I suddenly have an urge to tell some of our volunteers to go collect 10 rat gullets for me.

K10R was a step.  It was certainly better than "here, go kill shit for xp. No, we're not going to tell you were, figure it out." that was EQ.  It was embraced and hailed as a great innovation at the time.  Now it's worn and tired and we'll see if Bioware can successfully pull off the next step or at least show us where some flaws in it are.

[Surlyboi]

200-300k people sticking around to play a buggy-as-hell game is plenty enough.

If that were the case they wouldn't have entertained the idea of the CU in the first place.   You don't do that kind of thing unless you're pretty sure it'll be embraced OR you're not meeting your financials.

No. She's totally right. The ONLY reason they weren't making their financials was because they were paying LA a mint for the license. Any game then that wasn't WoW would've killed for sub numbers like that.

[Mrbloodworth]

200-300k people sticking around to play a buggy-as-hell game is plenty enough.

If that were the case they wouldn't have entertained the idea of the CU in the first place.   You don't do that kind of thing unless you're pretty sure it'll be embraced OR you're not meeting your financials.

CU was a reaction to Wow. For the time, SWG was doing well pre-Wow launch. However with blizzards market opening title, it showed that game populations could be much larger, and some thought the SW IP should have been. But thats only a revelation that came AFTER blizzard opened the market so wide.

It was also extremely knee jerk reaction. Also for the sake of the discussion, the "Combat update" is not the same as the "New game enhancements", two different knee jerks.

SWG was built for a different era, one that is easy to pick at with hindsight and what era we are in now.

[palmer_eldritch]

SWG was A Bad Game. End of story.

SWG was beyond being a game. It was an alternate life.

And therin lies the problem.  I have a life. It's not perfect but I don't need to escape it so badly I fawn over terrible mechanics and space-cadet decisions for some guy wanting to test his social theories. I also don't need to get home from my job in one life to get to my job in another.

And thus is why I despise 'virtual worlds' of all stripes.  I'm looking for entertainment, not another even less convenient and time-consuming life.

I have a life and I find virtual worlds very entertaining.

It seems that different posters on this board have different opinions on the topic of "the type of game I enjoy most". Don't get so angry - they're not doing it to upset you.

[Nyght]

Hard to see the rest of the world I guess, when you are the center of the universe.  

[Ingmar]

Note that it is totally possible to love and enjoy a game that is bad in an objective sense. DAOC was riddled with horrible design elements but I still loved it (at the time).

[Sky]

K10R was a step.

I was remarking on your parallel of virtual and real life, that it would be funny if it worked in reverse. Now go make me two pair of shoes.

[Dark_MadMax]

People stuck with Shadowbane and Auto Assault until the end, too, despite both having huge tech problems and being shitty games.  Usually around here we deride those people and say they have shitty taste or are simply fanatics for the game system and have a laugh.  With SWG somehow that argument is deemed invalid and it's because the game, 'just had so much potential.'

Well SWG especially post Light Speed had hell lot of more stability and tools for sandbox than SB. Lets put it this way - SB never ever worked properly. SWG did at some point. Combat always sucked there though. - It was proven again and again- you cant have mass market game without good combat, its not sufficient to have good combat, but without it it will surely be a very niche game. No matter the rest.