On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure

The Escapist has a write-up of John Smedley's talk at SOE Fan Faire 2011, where, among other things, the SOE CEO explains the closure of Star Wars Galaxies (thanks Ant via Slashdot). Here's the explanation:
"It was time to turn it off. We have a contractual relationship that's ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts," Smedley said. "And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. I think that's going to be really well-received by the population." You can't deny Smedley's business sense there.
View : : :
20 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
Newer [  1  ] Older
20.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 13, 2011, 09:35
20.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 13, 2011, 09:35
Jul 13, 2011, 09:35
 
hubricide wrote on Jul 12, 2011, 21:23:
Another thing about SWG too is that when it came out the graphics were quite good. Vast landscapes like that hadn't really been done with that amount of detail and the player models etc were nicely detailed. The few actual pre-built cities that were in the game looked quite good, too.

Anarchy Online looked better earlier. Infact, still haven't seen a game with a dynamic weather system(and cool effects, imho) as good as AO

/seriously
19.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 21:23
19.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 21:23
Jul 12, 2011, 21:23
 
EVE is also an open-world/universe MMOG, although it's entirely space-based so it's more like the X series than your average MMOG..

Another thing about SWG too is that when it came out the graphics were quite good. Vast landscapes like that hadn't really been done with that amount of detail and the player models etc were nicely detailed. The few actual pre-built cities that were in the game looked quite good, too.
Avatar 20985
18.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 20:23
18.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 20:23
Jul 12, 2011, 20:23
 
Honestly - my biggest issue playing it was actually the really rabid SW fans. One took me from the semi-noob zone across at least half a planet to show me his jedi temple which he'd built. Explaining all the ranks of everyone and what role they all had to play.

Except there was nobody else an actual member of this guild/coven/council etc etc. It was just him - and his dreams of grandeur. After that - aside from the fact I had NO idea where I was I never logged in again in case another weirdo approached me. That's the same reason I don't play STO, Matrix Online (that still going?), DC Universe etc etc.

Gamer geeks are often also film or comicbook geeks - but when an online world crosses the boundaries and tries to mate them the results can be truly creepy.
17.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 19:29
17.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 19:29
Jul 12, 2011, 19:29
 
You have to be kidding me, SOE has been losing money by the buckets for ages. Anyone saying Smedley has any business sense has lost their marbles big time.
16.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 18:57
16.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 18:57
Jul 12, 2011, 18:57
 
scratz wrote on Jul 12, 2011, 14:21:
I'm genuinely surprised SWG lasted this long. The tiny numbers of core players it has retained for the last half decade or so is testament to the lack of interest in a "sandbox" game.

I don't think that there is a general lack of interest in a sandbox game (for reference see Oblivion or Skyrim which are offline RPGs but sandboxes about as pure as they get and very popular obviously).
There is, however, a general lack of interest in a sandbox game that is run by a totally incompetent developer who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag and an even more clueless utterly retarded publisher.

The game could have worked out if they would have addressed all of the post-launch issues properly. But they didn't. They were too busy working on new "exciting" (I hate reading that word in dev interviews or press releases thanks to SOE's/LA's over the top abuse of that poor word) content like mounts, vehicles, player cities and the Jump to Lightspeed space expansion.
The problem was they kept on piling more and more broken and buggy content on top of a broken and buggy base game.
Then you had issues like item and credit duping which incredibly took them weeks to fix and that completely ruined one of the fundamental game systems, i.e. the player-driven economy. Then there was enormous lag, especially after the addition of player cities. Then you had this super unimaginative unlock system for Jedi (grind to master multiple professions) which was not even in at launch (the first Jedi were unlocked manually) instead of a proper quest-based system that involved a bit of mystery.
And there was pretty much no trace of any Galactic Civil War (GCW) going on, you know, the whole "minor" Rebels vs. Empire thingie which they completely overlooked because of its apparent insignificance. Additionally the system was retarded. Anyone remember the dreaded Temporary Enemy Flag (TEF)? That one was dumb as hell...
And don't even get me started on Smugglers. This other really insignificant issue where thousands of wanna-be Han Solos waited for years for them to finally fix the profession which NEVER happened until the NGE hit. And that was a "fix" that no one wanted.
Or Creature Handlers... since everyone and their mom running around with three rancors in tow was sooo iconic and Star Wars-y.
The list goes on... every single one of the 32 original professions was FUBAR in one way or another with broken skills or rampant exploits (FOTM professions FTW!) that reared their ugly head whenever SOE tried to "fix" something or bugs that rendered a class nigh unplayable.

Nah. Seriously. All in all there was so much really, really fundamentally messed up, wrong, buggy, broken, poorly (or actually unearthly shitty) designed, laggy, dopey, non-Star-Wars-y content and gameplay in this game that it is no surprise it failed, sandbox or not. This game was destined to fail the way it was "handled" by the mentally and technically very weak powers that were.

15.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 18:32
15.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 18:32
Jul 12, 2011, 18:32
 
This guy better hurry up and retire - his in desperate need of his gold watch. The one he has at the moment is running about 5 years slow.
14.
 
No subject
Jul 12, 2011, 17:54
14.
No subject Jul 12, 2011, 17:54
Jul 12, 2011, 17:54
 
Once again, I am proven right. I just...simply rock!
13.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 17:34
13.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 17:34
Jul 12, 2011, 17:34
 
Having tried TOR it just made me want to go back to SWG all the more. Space combat was a joke and that was something that SWG did SO right.

This is one person that won't be moving to TOR.
12.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 17:16
12.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 17:16
Jul 12, 2011, 17:16
 
The open world asp[ects of SWG were quite spectacular for the time. Was fun to see gameplay that didn't revolve exclusively around 'whack-a-mole' quests. It let you play how you wanted. Merchant/Healer/Entertainer as well as the usual 'whack-a-molers'. The one area where SWG failed at the start was lack of story content. SOE could have done some awesome things that could have expanded the Star Wars universe, but for some reason left it mostly untouched.

Once Holocron grind started, that was beginning of the end. The revamp after that pretty much killed it for me. Haven't been back since. Might show up for a month just to see the universe end.
11.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 16:12
11.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 16:12
Jul 12, 2011, 16:12
 
SWG was a blast for me for one simple reason. I could bio-engineer creatures, use them as pets, train them and sell them. That was awesome.

Now, when I encountered a nest of Dark Sith just kicking it in the middle of no where on a hill side, apparently planning deep intricate plots by pathing around in a circle, that was less awesome.

Still, an interesting experiment in MMOs, nonetheless.
Avatar 55902
10.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 15:18
10.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 15:18
Jul 12, 2011, 15:18
 
That pretty much sums up my experience with Galaxies as well. It was a barely functioning piece of garbage for the first few years. I remember seeing it at E3 one year and the devs were showing off the planet generation stuff, exclaiming how large the worlds were. Too bad they were fucking empty.

About the only good thing I can say about that game is player housing.
Avatar 51617
9.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 15:09
9.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 15:09
Jul 12, 2011, 15:09
 
The game was not good at all when it first came out. I remember trying the open beta... I'm like level 2 at this point, I pick up a newbie mission, run 10 minutes in the direction it tells me to, get to my destination and there was NOTHING there. No huts, no creatures, no players...just sand. Walk around for a bit, nothing. Ran back to town, did a few more things, quickly realizing the game was a very very buggy piece of shit that wasn't even fun.

8.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 14:21
8.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 14:21
Jul 12, 2011, 14:21
 
I'm genuinely surprised SWG lasted this long. The tiny numbers of core players it has retained for the last half decade or so is testament to the lack of interest in a "sandbox" game.

And let's face it, "sandbox" basically means a 3D chatroom where you can craft. *Yawn*. How does something as inherently exciting and adventurous as the Star Wars universe, where good and bad are locked into a bloody conflict with everything at stake, become an empty world end game where you dance in a tavern for hours on end, or run for miles "looking" for minerals every day?

A little more organized PvP would have done this game wonders. Back in the early days on Radiant we would have brilliant, server crushing battles in the streets, but they were short lived when it became apparent there was little to gain, and occasionally too much to lose (bases destroyed in the middle of the night because no one was online to protect them, etc).

Oh well. It was a good try.

7.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 13:56
7.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 13:56
Jul 12, 2011, 13:56
 
SWG was awesome at first, truly an open world, I crafted stuff that people bought, healed people in the medical bay, shot some animal like things running around..

I just ran out of stuff to do. The planets were huge but mostly empty except for 'nests' (mob spawn points), not even any real landmarks most of the time. Mineral scanning was fun but highly luck-based for the good stuff and I wasn't interested in running 50 meters here, scanning again, repeat over and over for an entire moon.

I started when the game first began, so there were no player cities or spacecraft. The player cities are quite impressive now, but largely abandoned - in fact I didn't see anyone in the half hour or so I wandered around. The spacecraft look interesting but I didn't mess with them much.

Jedi never came in while I played.. that didn't help.

When they (SOE? I forget who) added more 'standard MMOG' class structure that didn't help..

Ultimately I think SWG was just too big for the number of players and the amount of unique content they had created. Player cities while impressive aren't actually very configurable beyond certain stock layouts (from what I saw). When I was first heard about them I thought they would be more unique building-per-building.

For those first few weeks though, SWG was quite awesome.
Avatar 20985
6.
 
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 13:37
6.
Re: On the Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 13:37
Jul 12, 2011, 13:37
 
TOR looks horrible, even their over the top cinematic trailers look more like "Clone Wars" than what I consider true "Star Wars" which is only episodes IV through V.

But Lucasarts/Lucasfilm has pissed in the soup so much that it really doesn't mater anymore.



Avatar 6174
5.
 
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 11:29
5.
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 11:29
Jul 12, 2011, 11:29
 
As I expected the contract was up soon so they figured they might as well close it before ToR ships.

Though when he says that SWG players are going to love The Old Republic I'm not so sure. I have a good number of friends who still play SWG and not a one of them is planning on picking up ToR for one simple reason. It isn't a sandbox game. SWG is still going (and has a decent number of subscribers) because a great many of those people play the game very socially. As anyone who has ever played can tell you, that as a major part of the game. Hanging out in the Cantina. Crafting some goodies to sell, advertising with your R2 unit. Working on your city. ToR is a strictly WoW style MMOG, I doubt there will even be RP servers. So these folks most certainly are not automatically going to hit up ToR when it releases.
Avatar 17499
4.
 
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 10:49
4.
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 10:49
Jul 12, 2011, 10:49
 
You can't deny smedley's business sense there
The contract is expiring, he doesn't have a choice. That's some business sense. Sort of like greg tito knows what he's talking about, when writing this article.
Scorpio Slasher: ... What about you boy, what do hate?
Marcus: ... Bullies. Tiny d*ck egotists who hurt people for no reason, make people lock their doors at night. People who make general existence worse, people like you.
Avatar 1858
3.
 
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 10:47
nin
3.
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 10:47
Jul 12, 2011, 10:47
nin
 

I actually thought (for some reason) that it had already closed down.

That was my thought last week, when they announced it.
2.
 
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 10:36
2.
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 10:36
Jul 12, 2011, 10:36
 
Is he being sarcastic???? Epic win!
I have a nifty blue line!
Avatar 46994
1.
 
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure
Jul 12, 2011, 10:35
1.
Re: On Star Wars Galaxies Closure Jul 12, 2011, 10:35
Jul 12, 2011, 10:35
 
I actually thought (for some reason) that it had already closed down. RIP Galaxies.


Also obligatory Penny-Arcadehttp://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/8/25/
”Not many people know I owned the first radio in Springfield. Weren’t much on the air then. Just Edison reciting the alphabet over and over. “A,” he’d say. Then “B.” “C” would usually follow."
Avatar 39012
20 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
Newer [  1  ] Older