The failure of SWGalaxies and SOE

[TronusNavigon]

Sometimes in the history of media, in this case electronic gaming, there is a company, conglamorate, or product that stands as an example of what not to do in the respective industry. SWGalaxies and SOE has just made history in this regard.

 

As a software developer based in NYC myself, my history with MMORPG starts from the beginning, yes okay MUDS and the such, but really with Ultima Online. You have to love UO, they were first to make all the mistakes while every other company watched and learned. They tested the waters of online social interaction within a virtual environment and they tasted the bittersweet results. UO, for the most part, listened to its client based.

 

We saw Everquest, learning from UO and taking the model a step further. We watched them become immensley popular by keeping it simple and make further mistakes. Everquest, for the most part, listened to its client base.

 

Blizzard... smart guys, great games. Watched, learned, and mastered. One of the smartest things about WOW is the interactivity between the environment, the developers, and the user base. If a user can actually feel something breathing behind all the pixels and logic, it makes the game much more exciting, personable and the user willing to cough up a monthly or maybe a yearly subscription.

 

One of the number one rules in business, at least part of what they told my mentor, a Harvard MBA from New York, "LOVE THE CUSTOMER". The customer is NOT always right, nor are they always cultured. But when dealing with a subscription based entity, your customers MUST believe there is someone alive on the other end of the product.

 

So now, let's take the case with an MMORPG like SWGalaxies. They failed so abruptly and outrageously by trying to pave a road of good intentions by emulating WOW... and now we see the dismal results. Emulating WOW sounds prudent, it IS prudent in fact from a marketing standpoint. As many have said, 4 million users cannot be wrong.

 

But... you do not DESTROY a paying user base, especially if they are a sticky customer presence. So here's where I get a little nasty, because from a business standpoint the decisions surrounding the NGE seemed like it was coming from a professional bookie or a degenerate gambler.

 

You see, the main difference between a MMORPG like WOW and Everquest, and an MMORPG like Star Wars is quite obvious. WOW is based off a really popular computer game. Everquest is based off really popular fantasy novels and pen and paper rpg's. Star Wars is a CULTURAL FRICKIN PHENOM. People who crave Star Wars are like Trekkies craving the Trek, although not as geeky arguably speaking, Star Warries eat this stuff up. So when an MMORPG comes along with a monthly subscription, its a gold mine. You have a user base that even through bugs and bullsh*t will continuously shell out dollars to play this game. Why? Because it's Star Wars number one. And Number Two: get ready...

 

Because unlike the other MMORPG, Star Wars had one of the most innovative skill and leveling systems and role playability, and recognizable landscapes and grind addiction unlike any other MMORPG in existance. That is arguable but it is not easily refuted.

 

SOE managed to obliterate this constant stream of profit for the hopes of swelling the user base by emulating the WOW look and feel of things. That's where my degenerate gambler analogy comes into play. Will it work? Maybe. But for the most part, that sticky fan base of SW-addict dollars has been cut down probably 60% by the next two months. And in a sense, they've gambled that a bunch of diablo FPS kiddies looking for that hot new thing will flood the market. But you know what, they're not sticky fans, they're hop alongs. Anybody working in a subscription based software company will tell you, you count on the hop-alongs to quickly refuel profit, but its the stickys throwing up yearly subscriptions and shelling out dollars for expansions that keep the trains running. Sure they're the most vocal, usually, but they are always consuming. Hop-alongs come, consume, and leave your game to die.

 

And frankly, SWGalaxies is NOT the hot new thing. It is a three almost four year old game now littered with horrible reviews all over the Internet, especially as seen in Gamespot and Amazon. They gambled that Evil Kinevil could jump fifty cars on a buggy, crapped out motorcycle, and half of the veteran crowd just hit the exit so as not to see the carnage. Now, a bunch of newcommers, many of the happy-go-lucky gamer crowd, are coming in, punching buttons, getting bored and quitting, because frankly, this is not a solid game, even when compared to a UO and especially a WOW.

 

And the nail in the coffin? The number one complaint from veteran users? Devs don't listen! Devs don't listen! But did they wait? Yes. Were they patient? For the most part. What were they promised? Upgrades for newer introduced classes. What did they get another expansion and then a complete overhaul and a total disregard for the veteran player base, long term paying customers who feel raped, as if they just bought a computer that only ran DOS.

 

So now, again, from a business perspective SOE has:

-- Hundreds upon hundreds of betrayed paying customers

-- A faulty product completely ripped apart, thrown together and re-released

-- A bunch of refunds implemented by a poorly if not maliciously decided

attempt to sell an expansion product to a customer base ignorant of this

product overhaul

-- A non-existant community collecting money with no regards to customer

satisfaction

 

This link says it all: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarsgalaxiesstarterkit/review.html?page=1

 

The people are NOT happy. And as the headlining point, SOE and SWGalaxies

has just made MMORPG history as what not to do when trying to rekindle

a brand name and turn it into, what some SOE thinktanks must've thought was something awesome.

 

Yes, the idea of the NGE was very awesome. In fact, from a business perspective NGE was absolutely necessary. I say again, NGE was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

 

With this I mean, I'm an old school RPG'er, so if I log onto SWGalaxies for the first time confused as hell, that's an adventure for me. And when I open up skills and see 32 different sets of hundreds of different skills, that makes me go, WOW! (no pun intended). And then I go and do a bunch of different things related to that skill and I roleplay and become a character and start off small and kicking around Mos Eisley Womp Rats, that's fun for me. Great. I'm a software engineer.

 

My brother is dentist. If he decides to try out SWGalaxies, guess what he wants to see? He wants to see his character blow open a door and find Han Solo, Chewbacca and the Falcon waiting for him. That's fun for him. But then he'd get bored, he'd try out Jedi, go nah, try bounty hunter, and then eventually quit because its still the same buggy old SWGalaxies we all played except now it tries to hold your hand before crashing to Windows.

 

If my brother got that, and then opened up a skillset to see 32 sets of hundreds of different skills... he would be hooked. It was something to play with. Like getting 32 boxes of different style legos instead of 9 boxes of lincoln logs.

 

Point being, NGE was needed. But. Implementation people, it's all about how you implement things, especially when dealing with a live, globule constantly breathing entity such as MMORPG. I mean, stop thinking of this as a game and start thinking of it as a bank or like a web hosting provider. SOE is collecting money, banks want to keep customers happy, they are constantly using the product, and there are other banks to choose from if they are not.

 

If someone walks into a bank, can't find deposit slips, looks for answers and finds the bank to be empty, guess how long they'll use that bank? This is an analogy related to business models, but this NGE was a business model decision to increase fun-factor, promotability and user fan base. This business model is beyond flawed. It is killing their reputation and anybody, ANYBODY, who wants to decide on a MMORPG, at this point, will ONLY, ONLY buy SWGalaxies if they are rabid SW fans. If they want a Sci-Fi feel, they have Anarchy Online, and if they want the REAL cutting edge game, they have WOW.

 

There was a much better way of creating this NGE. The way SOE choose was almost cowardly and that is why they are the butt of all redicule. That and the fact that there are some people at that company that should probably go back to business school. They have failed and it's sad. SWGalaxies was always a fun world, now the poor business practice and malevolent company policy decisions effecting the customer base has overshadowed everything and it has forced users to turn against and evacute the entity all together.

 

On Gamespot, one of the user comments that really saddened me was this:

I'm 41 years old and I have 2 sons that play also (a 13 year old and a 10 year old) well with this new change my sons wont even log on to play anymore. They have taken many of the fun characters out of the game.

 

Reading that got me down, because you know that the 41 year old father was the one who got his sons into Star Wars. Gee, I wonder what new MMORPG they'll probably migrate too... Anybody wanna take a guess? Like, wow man...

 

As Obi-Wan said to Anakin's brainless decision in Attack of the Clones, "Good Job."

[HUGOMAND]

It's sad... Right now I feel like I want to quit, but are there any other star wars mmo's out there? No

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

The changes to the game were needed. However, SOE have again failed to deliver. The marketing is clearly aiming at a new user base by making the game and now their website very 'Star Warsy'. The removal of professions down to just 9 was developement decision as they just cant fix anything in the game.

 

Those complaining about the changes have every single right because, the game that they purchased, isnt that game any more. Those who are liking the NGE are either new or have just returned from a huge break.

 

I shouldnt really be so stunned at SOE/Lucasarts behaviour at the community but I am. Its hard to believe that they could sink this low and thats what they are doing. Had Blizzard announced these kind of changes, I doubt that the community would kick off - why? Because they are trusted and can deliver on what they say. As you mention, always in touch with their community because they do value every single customer.

 

SOE have ruled the online roost for so long and along comes this fresher and slaps SOE where it hurts. And I hope it really does hurt. My server has lots hundreds of players, my city is all but empty with people leaving the game now and it seems all the hard work and hours I put into the game have been wasted.

 

I've played Galaxies since 2003 and remember being so excited and the game, although far from perfect, was enjoyable. The pvp battles were awesome, the community was fantastic. Then SOE decided to 'fix' things.....and have taken their hammer and tried to bash the game into shape but instead have made it look like an unleft DIY job!

 

I'm still working through NGE but with so many bugs, how can anyone enjoy it? Maybe its a case of 'out with the old and in with the new'?

 

DMUK

[Tysplo]

Well, I am a player who's returning from a very long break. I actually only played the game for a weak last year when they released the 14 day trial, but I agree with you 100%.

 

It's just amazing how many of the classes and skills they took away, and for what? To make it more "fun"? I remember on my first day playing when I opened up the skills page in the game and how amazed I was at all the different things there was to learn and to choose from. And I remember how motivated I was to keep gaining xp so I could learn the higher classes like Riffleman and Creature Handeler.

 

What's so great about leveling up now? So we can get a new skill every 3 levels?

 

Sure, the new system might be more newbie friendly.But I think it's more fun to constantly be learning things about a game then to understand everything 10 minutes and realize there's not much there.

[Manny C]

What does NGE mean? I stopped playing galaxies over a year ago, i dont really know what changes have happened.

 

In my opinion, I think Galaxies is a failure critically (you'd have to be a fool to say it's a failure commercially, they've made and continue to make craploads off it) because it was never a polished game design to begin with, and, to be blatantly tactless, you can spray a POS with all the deoderant in the world, the fact is that it's a POS and its still gonna stink.

 

The game was brought out months too early, which means that the whole game design was essentially still in the experimental stage, but once its out into the real world uve lost the total control you still have when the game is in beta. The fact is that when a game is released on the shelves, any updates and patches are small tweaks, filler used to clean up the cracks that open up with commercial use, or little holes you missed. To maintain the metaphor, galaxies' blueprint is screwed, the skill system may be new, but its not well designed at all, the interface means quests are unimmersive, meneal tasks and just about the only good thing is the visuals (which arent that great anymore). Every problem the game has springs from this, because when the fundamental design is flawed, no number of patches can fix it, the only way to fix it is to go back to the drawing board, look at what it is you're trying to acheive and begin again.

 

Galaxies is a painful example of wasted potential, star wars is so expansive and open that without splitting away from the fundamental things people like about star wars, it takes a complete moron to screw it up. What SOE have done wrong in my opinion is that they havent looked at Star Wars and properly delivered a star wars game. The absolute perfect example of this is the profession "smuggler". first off, smuggler really shouldnt have been in the game before the space expansion, as thats what a starwars smuggler is, someone who smuggles illegal goods around the galaxy. Where's the actual smuggling? where's the secret compartments in the ship? where's the Imperial search parties and blockades?

[Blaze629]

I hear you Manny. I quit too back in July of '04 when my 1 year term was up. I would like a new game as well. This probably won't happen but we can always hope can't we?

[TronusNavigon]

Galaxies is an example of wasted potential.

 

Truer words have never been said. That's why this excursion into profits is so painful for SWGalaxies and the community.

One thing they could've done old professions (Rifleman, Pistoleer) into skillsets, so we can still see improvements on different weapons.

Wnat balance? Make it so only certain professions out of the current 9 could learn Rifles faster or at a regular pace than say Traders and Entertainers, who

could still learn rifles, but at a handicapped rate because its out of their league of skills. Sort of a Primary, Secondary skillset style. Just an

example of appeasement for veteran members and increased fun factor for new users. It becomes extra data, nothing you have to think about too much, just

skills being raised.

 

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the developers either. This was obviously a decision based on business rules.

This whole thing reminds me of MTV back in the late 80's, when there was nothing but metal hair bands everywhere, and then Nirvana came along and destroyed

the entire oversaturated market of metal, and so MTV and pretty much every entertainment platform including clothing stores turned towards Grunge, and flooded

the market with bargain basement grunge sounding bands hardly as authentic as the original. Crazy analogy I know, but it's the same thing.

 

"Quick! Rip out everything and start over! Stuff in a bunch of quests, and a crapload of mobs! Okay! Okay! Yeah! That's great!"

 

So I'm not being too negative, some things I do like:

 

I like the combat system. I really do. It's fun. Except, the enemies run too much. They should run a little, but what is this a blaster battle or a digtal skeet shoot? And what's with the enemies having unlimited range and perfect accuracy? Why are green mobs winning battles simply because they run all over the place and including miles away from you yet are able to shoot you from 200 miles down the road? That sucks completely, especially for melee which is essen

tially useless in this new system.

 

Quests, very cool, well done. New UI, it's great, except it is bugged for certain veteran clients. Fix this, I hate using my veteran character and having my UI menu and XP bar 90% off screen.

 

Less crowded cities. No more trainers, Yeah! I liked them and all, it made city feel populated, but I'd rather it be populated with actual people, consideri

ng this is an MMORPG.

 

Back to rants:

 

One law of Software Development according to a Stanford graduate blogger, "Never rewrite, always reuse." If that old piece of code you go back to has suddenly grown strange hairs, there's a reason for those strange hairs. Don't throw it away and rewrite it, because those strange hairs will simply grow back, you reorganize it so that the hairs make sense.

 

Too many analogies, I'm getting back to work...

 

But I leave you and SOE, in relation to the NGE, with this great scene from the classic piece of cinema, Wierd Science:

 

CHET: What the hell's going on around here?

 

WYATT: Chet, it was an accident.

 

CHET: An accident? Do you realize it's snowing in my room, g*ddamn it?

 

WYATT: Some weird sh*t happened, Chet.

 

CHET: It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, monkey d*ck.

 

...just thought I'd lighten it up a bit...

[Cercueil]

I dont like all the changes, but overall im "liking the NGE" and im neither a "new or have just returned from a huge break" player.

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

The NGE is a good idea, I mention that - however, its the fact it is so bugged - thats the problem. SOE have NEVER had any major releases in Galaxies that is bug free. To launch a new Profession system for example, then allowing veterans to respec, for them only to find out that the 'rewards' that go with it, is bugged!

 

SOE need to sort out their quality and stop just throwing unfinished rubbish at the community. Maybe Galaxies is STILL in beta?!

 

DMUK

[Blaze629]

So it seems DMUK. It's like beta all over again I'm afraid.

[captain_ben]

Seems like they just outright refused to sort the bugs to save money and time for the NGE. Really get sick of people saying NGE was needed to get away from those bugs and problems, because some are still there plus many many new ones!

 

As for the huge battles add on they promised soon [AGAIN], get ready to be pissed off. On my last night in SWG before account ran out, I was SF Rebel as Spy in Bestine on my own with a T21. I was able to successfuly run bouncing about the city and stay alive for well over 3 hours, chased by different groups of player IMP SF each giving up and even refusing to attack me after a while. I kept bunny hopping around and cloaking, oops I mean smokebombing, at each corner and theyd stop, exclaiming wtf. I found this funny and also upsetting as smokebomb is supposed to end when you move thus I die from the ganking.

 

It didn't. I basically was in cloak mode for a very long time each time moving about dropping poison traps/firing and got many hate tells by the IMPs which again was funny, but goes to show how unbalanced Spy is. I had at the most 10-12 imps chasing me, all hitting me and slowing me but with my 3k heals and cloak, Id get away and heal back to max. Then repeat. Does this remind you of a certain pre-nge,pre-cu profession?

 

I was then able to kill several imps when they found themselves on their own by bunnyhopping around them at close range and spamming left click. One thing I noticed was my ping and pl and fps was 62, 05% and 28-30, yet I and the Imps doing the conga with me, we kept warping into walls. We were lagging horrondously regardless of our connection/pc and it made me very very very difficult to kill. Guess I had the advantage as I have an alienware pc and hbw connection.

 

Eventually I went to cnet and got killed by a cl 85 smuggler which wasnt a suprise as I was still 80 and it was also a close fight.

 

So anyone want to know what the alpha class is? It's spy. Yes my character is deadly and I have dueled and beaten 2-3 people at once, but do I like this upgrade? No. Its frankly a pile of rubbish and a repeat of all the mistakes SOE made is going to happen once again.

 

endeth rant.

 

edit: oh remembered something else, I was able to walk past IMP npcs as SF and wearing my rebel battle armour, one even said hi. Yep real starwarsy.

[TronusNavigon]

LOL!

 

Oh man. That's rich. Perhaps the comic book fans will recognize the play on this line:

"All New! All Different! Here we go again!"

 

Well, let me guess what happened. Release date is 15th, testing all day on 14th, testers find extreme amount of bugs. Business logic asks, "Ok it's broken. Did you have fun?"

 

"Uh... I guess."

 

"Release it."

 

End of story. Can the players run around and shoot at the same time? Starwarsy enough for me...

 

...not that I'm complaining or anything...

[SirLancelot]

As an aside. . .anyone getting the King Kong game? :-)

[jordie8472]

I am seriously considering coming back after being gone for two years. I found the game back in 2003 to be tedious and difficult. So, I guess the reason I want to come back is because the game will be somewhat easier now.

 

Side Note: I read on the Gamefaqs boards the Lucasarts and SOE will pull the plug in Feb. of '06 if things don't get better. Anyone else heard/read that? Do you think it could happen?

[Manny C]

I seriously hope its lucasarts threatening SOE, maybe it will make them get their freaking pants on and start dealing with the problems.

[jordie8472]

I agree. Lucasarts should be the one threatening SOE. SOE is pushing away a user base that in effect is hurting Star Wars as a whole. You know that Lucas doesn't want to see his ultimate product be damaged by this one game. Something has to be done quickly to bring the vets back to Galaxies.

[Trahern Valley]

Oh I dunno, I'm pretty sure LucasArts has released more than one dud in the past...

 

Or was that the Star Trek franchise? Hm, I wonder how STO is coming along.

[jedimaster20004]

Hi guys,,, they are soo stupid they dont ewen see there own misstakes i really hate them for destroying the game the new game sucks sooo bad but what can you do its all about mayking money,, right ???

[jedimaster20004]

oh if you want to play the old game reall SWG !! wait until they do a emulation and old swg updates no f**king new NCE jsut old swg like it was in the first year and its for free love the guys ho do this im gona play it for 110% so SOE f**k you a***es soo big that you can whit all the money you got from all the peapol the vets whill be back but not in your Pay Per month servers PS: Luckas need to kick SOE