Another One Bites the Dust: SWG Edition!

[Ginaz]

The subs swg had may have been only 50k more than UO peak population but UO was competing with....hmm...no one else for subs while swg was competing with UO, EQ, DAOC and whatever else was available at the time.

UO didn't peak until DAOC had already been out for a year.  

But no guys, it's cool. I'm sure that when they bought the Star Wars license and shelled out for development "Do little more than half of what our game from 4 years ago with no licensed IP did!" was totally their goal. It's the same song and dance you get from fans of every flop-ass MMO to have ever taken more than like a year to shut down.

"EQ2 doesn't seem to have done very well."

"Sure EQ2 didn't do WoW numbers, but who can compete with WoW? Those Blizzard guys have advantages that no one else in the industry has, such as competence!"

"But it peaked hundreds of thousands of subscribers lower than EQ1. That had to be disappointing."

"FUCK YOU SHUT UP IT TURNED A PROFIT EVENTUALLY FUCK YOUUUUUUU!"

UO had a 5 year head start on DAOC and 2 years on EQ to build an audience.  From what I remember, UO's population peak was after Trammel was introduced, meaning many of those who played before but were tired of the griefers came back for awhile and those that wanted to try UO but were hesitant due to its reputation of being full of PKing douche bags decided to give it a shot.  UO saw its stranghold on the MMO market evaporating because many looked at their experience in UO with said griefers and douche bags and the 2D graphics, then looked at what EQ and DAOC had to offer and collectively said "Fuck this shit!" and left for the newer games.  Whats the population of UO today?  Has it had any significant influx of new players over the past few years or is it mostly the old time neck beards who refuse to play anything else because they have too much invested to leave and don't want to go from a server legend in UO to just another random noob in a newer MMO?  Would UO even exist today if EA had to pay a liscening fee for an established IP?  

Anyway, we understand that you have an irrational hatred of swg because many people think of it as the best example of the sandbox model in the MMO genre instead of your precious UO.  So carry on nerdraging.

[Ingmar]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

I am still, to this day, running into completely new players in the random dungeon finder leveling up in WoW. New as in "I never played an MMO before this one" new. I also know a good number of "WoW was my first MMO" people who now play other ones, people who turned their nose up at subscription games before WoW.

EDIT: Since I have assumed the role of Timeline Correction Guy, UO only came out 4 years before DAOC, Ginaz.

[Malakili]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

Are you making a "Well, those players aren't REALLY part of the MMOG playerbase" argument, or a "The playerbase was always there, they just didn't have a game they liked" argument?

[WindupAtheist]

UO had a 5 year head start on DAOC and 2 years on EQ to build an audience.

So? You talked about how UO didn't have to face competition from the likes of EQ and DAOC, and I pointed out that those games had been out for four years and one year respectively before UO peaked. It's not my fault you don't know the timeline.

From what I remember, UO's population peak was after Trammel was introduced, meaning many of those who played before but were tired of the griefers came back for awhile and those that wanted to try UO but were hesitant due to its reputation of being full of PKing douche bags decided to give it a shot.  UO saw its stranghold on the MMO market evaporating because many looked at their experience in UO with said griefers and douche bags and the 2D graphics, then looked at what EQ and DAOC had to offer and collectively said "Fuck this shit!" and left for the newer games.  Whats the population of UO today?  Has it had any significant influx of new players over the past few years or is it mostly the old time neck beards who refuse to play anything else because they have too much invested to leave and don't want to go from a server legend in UO to just another random noob in a newer MMO?  Would UO even exist today if EA had to pay a liscening fee for an established IP?

Anyway, we understand that you have an irrational hatred of swg because many people think of it as the best example of the sandbox model in the MMO genre instead of your precious UO.  So carry on nerdraging.

If I cared what some neckbeards think is "the best example of the sandbox model in the MMO genre" I'd be trolling the EVE forum instead of pissing on this rusty old trainwreck. You know EVE, the sci-fi sandbox MMO that came out in 2003 and isn't being put out of it's misery this year.

[Ingmar]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

Are you making a "Well, those players aren't REALLY part of the MMOG playerbase" argument, or a "The playerbase was always there, they just didn't have a game they liked" argument?

If it is the latter, it is just semantics. Potential market and actual market aren't really the same thing.

[Ratman_tf]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

Are you making a "Well, those players aren't REALLY part of the MMOG playerbase" argument, or a "The playerbase was always there, they just didn't have a game they liked" argument?

What I"m saying is that there is the WoWsphere of about 11 million players, and then there's "Everybody else" who seem to share a pool of about a million players. Based on the sales and sub numbers we've heard about all other NA MMORPGs.

If TOR makes 5 million subs, I'll eat my hat. But I bet it follows the pattern.

[WindupAtheist]

I'd pay this more heed if one of these games grabbed a million people and kept them. Then I might think, yep, that's as big as anyone but WoW is getting. As it is, they seem to sell a million boxes and then crater. That just makes me think, wow, even a turd can sell a million boxes, so what would happen if one of them was really good?

[Mrbloodworth]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

For realz?  Take a look at any development article published sense then.

[Sjofn]

I am still, to this day, running into completely new players in the random dungeon finder leveling up in WoW. New as in "I never played an MMO before this one" new.

I had one of those in one of my lowbie (level 16!) PUGs last night. I was sort of surprised. I didn't think anyone like that still existed!

I got to explain to her need before greed etiquette. 

[Fordel]

Its not that surprising. Do you think all of those 11 million subs were playing straight for all 6 years now?


Its one of the big reasons they revamped 1-60, because they are still getting tons of new people.

[Sjofn]

No, but I didn't think they were still getting enough new people that I would actually meet any of them.

Preeeeetty sure they don't have 11 million people playing right now, anyway. 

[Fordel]

Who knows! 

[Amaron]

Its one of the big reasons they revamped 1-60, because they are still getting tons of new people.

I figured it was because $25 per character per server transfer is so asinine that people reroll constantly.

[Ratman_tf]

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

Yes it did.

How?

For realz?  Take a look at any development article published sense then.

Can you link just one? My googling isn't bringing up anything more than "WoW expanded the MMORPG market, and they're all playing WoW!" 

[UnSub]

The subs swg had may have been only 50k more than UO peak population but UO was competing with....hmm...no one else for subs

Not true - UO had the other early MMOs to compete with, before they were called MMOs. Meridian 59 springs to mind.

Of course, UO was the WoW of its day - the bigger investment title built on a popular gaming IP in Ultima. Plus people were excited about Richard Garriott being involved.

WoW didn't expand the MMOG playerbase.

If the 5 million or so Western MMO players existed before WoW came along, SWG failed much harder than anyone in this thread has stated.

Does anything, besides EQ and WoW, which surprised their creators?

CoH/V - a new MMO genre from an independent studio and their first game to boot - is probably a strong contender.

Plus there probably are some indie titles out there that have had greater legs than their creators would have expected. EVE would be one, perhaps. Maybe Puzzle Pirates. Wizard 101 as well. (I'm not expecting every MMO to have 1m+ players to be a success, just find the market success appropriate to their scope.)

'Potential' is a hard thing to measure, but SWG arguably didn't meet it. Raph can say, "It was profitable" as much as he wants - it wasn't profitable enough to stop the original guts being ripped out when the size of the potential MMO market was revealed. It wasn't profitable enough for LucasArts not to look for greener pastures (and SWOR has been in development for 4 - 5 years now, iirc?). If SWG didn't have the Star Wars IP, it could probably roll on indefinitely and we wouldn't have expected light sabers and space ships at launch.

Which (again) isn't to say that people were wrong for loving SWG, just that it was a title that never met the expectations that came from being a 'Star Wars' 'game'.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, I thought about CoX after I posted.  It might have met its potential, but I don't think it ever got past about 250k subs at peak, and it's been hovering around 100-150k for a while.

[Ratman_tf]

If the 5 million or so Western MMO players existed before WoW came along, SWG failed much harder than anyone in this thread has stated.

Let me know when a MMO besides WoW breaks 1-2 million subs.

[Morat20]

'Potential' is a hard thing to measure, but SWG arguably didn't meet it. Raph can say, "It was profitable" as much as he wants - it wasn't profitable enough to stop the original guts being ripped out when the size of the potential MMO market was revealed. It wasn't profitable enough for LucasArts not to look for greener pastures (and SWOR has been in development for 4 - 5 years now, iirc?). If SWG didn't have the Star Wars IP, it could probably roll on indefinitely and we wouldn't have expected light sabers and space ships at launch.

Which (again) isn't to say that people were wrong for loving SWG, just that it was a title that never met the expectations that came from being a 'Star Wars' 'game'.

I still think you're using a bad version of 'potential'. Hell yes, SWG was gutted and reformed the instant WoW's numbers became clear. Obviously either SOE or LucasArts decided that a pre-WoW triple-A game with the accompanying box sales and sub counts "Wasn't enough" in the face of the WoW juggernaut. Prior to WoW, I don't think either SOE or LucasArts was unhappy. They probably wanted a "bigger than EQ" game and didn't get it, but if it had really been a disappointment they wouldn't have yanked so much of the team off right after a rushed and buggy release.

Post-WoW? you can say it didn't meet the potential of the new post-WoW market, but who has? Everyone's been chasing WoW and no one has come within an order of magnitude. 11 milliion subs -- are there any Western MMORPGS that can boast even a million? Before, after, ever? Every MMORPG ever 'failed to meet it's potential' by that standards.

As for the obvious race to gut their game to ape WoW -- I will say this: The stupidity and futility of that lesson was learned by everyone and their dog. I mean we still keep seeing every goddamn MMORPG being hyped as the "Next WoW" and it's obvious SW:TOR is another, very expensive attempt -- but shit, at least they're designing from the ground up.

I still can't give over the sheer shit-stupid that must have been floating around LucasArts and SOE to decide they could jump from a steady, mature game of 100k subs or so to one of millions -- in six damn months.

[eldaec]

Comparing SWG to the dikus or to indie titles is retarded. It did 20% better than UO and 20% worse than EVE and burnt out in less than half the time of either of the other sandboxes, despite the license and a gazillion dollar development.

It didn't meet expectations.

[eldaec]

Also wow has considerably fewer than 5 million western subs, the total western mmo market is probably smaller than 5 million paid accounts and almost certainly fewer than 5 million wallets right now.

[Tale]

I still can't give over the sheer shit-stupid that must have been floating around LucasArts and SOE to decide they could jump from a steady, mature game of 100k subs or so to one of millions -- in six damn months.

It was the time of the Star Wars Episode III movie, which they were hoping to cash in on. The relaunched box art post-NGE is telling.

Original box:
Post-NGE relaunch:
It's SWG in disguise, looking like some other Star Wars game. I went back briefly and it was full of people who had bought the new box and didn't know what an NGE was, or that there had been a previous version of the game.

[Morat20]

Comparing SWG to the dikus or to indie titles is retarded. It did 20% better than UO and 20% worse than EVE and burnt out in less than half the time of either of the other sandboxes, despite the license and a gazillion dollar development.

It didn't meet expectations.

WTF? At the time EVE had a sub base much smaller -- EVE started off miniscule and slowly grew. (Shit, it had a massive sub bump with the CU and NGE as players fled SWG for the only other Sci-Fi MMORPG).

Development costs for SWG weren't particularly excessive -- they were, IIRC, right in line with the costs for EQ and EQ2 (less thasn WoW's).

And "burnt out in less than half the time"? You are aware that they radically revamped the game twice in six months? That CAUSED the game to collapse and die. It had plateaued prior and was following the same trajectory as EQ did.

Seriously, you can't blame the fucking collapse of the game on it's original design, since the game didn't collapse into a black hole of shit and suckitude until they recreated the game twice in six months.

[eldaec]

I'm not suggesting the NGE was anything other than retarded.

But SWG had already peaked at that point, and below EVE's eventual plateau. SWG could probably still have been turned around at that stage, but you don't get points for what could have happened.

[Morat20]

I'm not suggesting the NGE was anything other than retarded.

But SWG had already peaked at that point, and below EVE's eventual plateau. SWG could probably still have been turned around at that stage, but you don't get points for what could have happened.

SWZ plateaued, as best anyone could tell, at roughly the same size as any other MMORPG. It was a top-teir MMORPG, by size, when WoW came out. If you neglect WoW, and take SWG's guestimate of it's plateau subs when WoW came out, it'd still be in the middle tier by post-WoW standards (not counting WoW) -- which seem to view any came cracking 100k to 150k sustained subs as being middle to top-tier. (From what I can tell, post-WoW games get a much higher initial box sales from a larger market, but they tend to sag back down to the the 100k or lower range on sustained subs as players went back to WoW).

EVE is another outlier -- it started off ridiculously poorly, and has slowly grown for years -- no other MMORPG besides WoW has actually had steady, sustained sub growth year after year. And frankly, I don't think EVE hit the SWG's plateau until a year or two after the NGE.

Which comes right back to the point -- up until the day WoW launched with MILLIONS of subs -- SWG was a top-teir MMORPG. It had plateaued in the same general ballpark as the other "big name" MMORPGs and seemed set to do what all the rest of them had done -- basically keep coasting along on expansions and a stable sub-base until someone made a sequel of the game shut down.

Saying "Oh, SWG was a failure" is applying modern standards to past events. SWG achieved top-teir MMORPG status and seemed perfectly set to do what UO, EQ, and everyone else had done -- keep trucking along with expansions to keep the playerbase interested, yanking in their monthly sub fees for a a sub base that was right in line with everyone else's "popular" MMORPGs.

I can't seem to square "failure" with "Just like all the other profitable, successful big names". If SWG was a failure, who WAS a success back then?

[apocrypha]

8 years on and SWG is still causing forum fights.

Can't we let it die peacfully?

[Morat20]

8 years on and SWG is still causing forum fights.

Can't we let it die peacfully?

Post Mortems are important. :) I think we can all agree:

SWG launched broken.
SWG was never actually fixed.
The CU and NGE was a cynical, stupid, and short-sighted attempt to grab some of WoW's customer base. (I, to date, still have no idea how that was supposed to fucking work. Tale's box explanation is the best one I've heard).
WoW is still a massive outlier.
Sandbox games attract a crowd that only leaves when you pry it from their cold, dead fingers.
EVE would probably have more players, since it's a sandbox, except for the fact that it's playing a spreadsheet. :)

[eldaec]

If you are arguing 'doing about the same business as UO for half as long' was 'meeting expectations' for SWG, then ok I guess, we disagree.

8 years on and SWG is still causing forum fights.

Can't we let it die peacfully?

Star Wars.

16 pages is practically silence.

[apocrypha]

Post Mortems are important. :) I think we can all agree:

<snip>

EVE would probably have more players, since it's a sandbox, except for the fact that it's playing a spreadsheet. :)

I agree with everything else, and have no wish to examine the EVE thing here (or anywhere anymore if I'm honest), but didn't we all already agree on those things before this thread started? Like, 5 years before this thread started? 

[Morat20]

If you are arguing 'doing about the same business as UO for half as long' was 'meeting expectations' for SWG, then ok I guess, we disagree.

At what point did SWG become doomed to a life half as long as UO's? Was it at launch? Or was there some, you know, other point in the game's lifecycle where perhaps some poor choices were made that turned a game with a stable sub base into a laughingstock and an industry warning story?

Cause if it was doomed at launch, you have a good point! If, however, there was some noticeable point where a stable population dropped to a fraction of it's previous value -- then you have to question as to whether that might have possibly shortened it's lifespan a little bit.

Leaving aside the relative numbers difference between UO and SWG, and boring shit about plateau sub counts and whatnot.

[eldaec]

So, we're saying if it weren't for the NGE it might have done as well as UO as so that should be regarded as pre-NGE SWG being a success story?

[Morat20]

So, we're saying if it weren't for the NGE it might have done as well as UO as so that should be regarded as pre-NGE SWG being a success story?

Jesus, are you thick or what? SWG did better than UO, and stabilized at a sub count that was comparable to the other top teir MMORPGs of the time. It didn't quite reach EQ's numbers, but it had a sizeable, solid playerbase that was in the current range for top-end MMORPGs. And this despite that, even by MMORPG standards, it was buggy and broken as shit.

So yeah, it shouild be considered a success. It was built, released, sold a ton of boxes, and had a sub count that was in the neighborhood of it's competitors. It didn't take over the industry, it didn't flame out, it sat there solidly in the pack of big-budget MMORPGs.

What more couild SOE have realilistically wanted? I'm sure they wanked off to thoughts of 500,000 subs and ten million box sales, but I'm sure each time Ford releases a new car they hope everyone will sell their old ones and switch. However, they'll consider themselves perfectly successful if their new car merely situates itself as a solid seller alongside their competitors top cars.

That's sort of the problem with WoW. Eleven fucking million subs. A million box sales (or however many, but I think that's about right) and a steady sub count between 90k and 120k seems like the minor leagues? A total fucking failure.

Except when it was released, a million box sales and a plateau around 100k was good. SOE didn't unseat the king, but fuck -- they owned the King.

So yeah, historically and compared to it's peers -- it was a success. Right up until WoW redefined "Success".

In terms of game play? I doubt anyone involved with that abortion would consider it a success, because it launched broken and stayed broken. It was playable, I found it fun, but it was still broken.

I feel like I'm not speaking English here. It was released. It sold a lot of boxes. It's sub numbers plateaued in the same range as it's top competitors. How is this not a success? What's the failure there? It wasn't WoW? It didn't redefine the industry, sell tens of millions of copies, and plateau at ten million subs? Well like I said -- everyone but Blizzard is a fucking failure if that's your metric.

I don't know what sort of "success" you're looking for. I'm just using the common business type concept. "Was it competitive?" Yeah, it was competitive with EQ, EQ2, DoAC and whatever the hell else was out back then. And it stayed that way, right up until WoW's release and the game's self-inflicted suicide.

Now the NGE, that sure as fuck was a failure. But I get the feeling they didn't sink much money into it either.

[Shatter]

8 years on and SWG is still causing forum fights.

Can't we let it die peacfully?

SWG is like herpes, it never really goes away and still flares up once in a while. 

[Morat20]

8 years on and SWG is still causing forum fights.

Can't we let it die peacfully?

SWG is like herpes, it never really goes away and still flares up once in a while. 

I'm working nights. I have a laptop, and approximately 5 minutes of real work every hour. I got nothing else to do besides surf the web, read TV Tropes, and wish I was asleep.

[Numtini]

If you think this is a fight, wait until UO closes.  (If it ever does.)

[Reg]

At least UO threads have awesome charts. This thread is entirely chartless and boring.