A long while back I tried out SWG. I never got around to posting, or finishing, my thoughts on it. I played after NGE or whatever that was called, so I wasn't getting the supposedly better earlier version. But it was still pretty damn fun. Cities had player populations rather than loads of NPCs who give one quest and nothing ever again. And players had cities. The economy was massive, far beyond what I could easily perceive or comprehend. That's a double-edged sword, since once you're in, it's full of wonder and possibility, but a new player looks at it and wonders, "so, wtf do I do?"
I had a lot of fun when I played it for those two weeks. I even considered ever so slightly leaving WoW for it. But how can one leave WoW? You really cannot. It is always there, waiting, dominating. Well, until now (or a few months ago), for whatever reasons.
If I hadn't played WoW before, I think I'd have stuck with SWG. But I didn't. Instead I made a trial and was gone in two weeks. Another non-player. Another nail in the coffin. But WoW was the hammer.
It makes me a little sad to hear that SWG is closing, but I can't say what I actually lose from it. Maybe the evidence that that sort of game can work.
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SWG was quite profitable over those 8 years I think. ..
I never tried SWG, and now I regret it. I just figured it would always be around and kept playing WoW (which by the way is much easier to leave than you would think). I think they did some things right and they did some things wrong, but all in all its an MMO that didn't catch on past the 3 million mark according to Raph Koster ( http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/06/24/swg-is-shutting-down/ ) ....
This game wouldn't be shutting down had it not been for SW:TOR. Lucas Art can't license two games and expect for them to compete, and I'm guessing that Lucas Art figures most of the royalties from SWG will trickle over to SW:TOR (maybe, maybe not), either way in the demise of SWG it gives me a good idea of when to expect the release of SW:TOR...
@Nils
/Agreed
I think it was very profitable from a license standpoint as well as a sandbox standpoint as it showed how well a sandbox model could work.
It was an awesome game with its "Vanilla version" and was still loads of fun after it changed for the masses. It had a sense of scope, a make or break yourself. There was so much content one could get lost in. It didn’t rely on raid current tier or quit mentality. I leveled a Pistol Bounty hunter in vanilla version and it rocked. I did nothing but bounty missions for months. Raided Jawa villages, hunted people and spend record time farming the galaxy wide economy, it was very solo friendly. Its Achilles heel though was that it became well known right around the time WoW started to catch on, and though SWG had the Star Wars crowd, WoW had the easy appeal. SWG made the change to attract a larger fan base by adding space combat, allowing Jedi class to more people and such but by then WoW had the masses in the pocket.
What broke me away for good was I leveled a Commando, for the sole purpose of attaining a set of Katarn Clone commando armor. I spent months farming the mats, reputation and quests necessary to obtain the armor that, at the time was equal to a Legendary in WoW. When I finally got the armor, and holy shit it was listed as only being wearable by the "Officer class" even thought the tool tip clearly stated it was “commando" armor. The devs saw the issue, commented that it was a problem but refused to fix it. The game was full of little issues like this which amounted to a large collection of annoying ass things they refused to fix. All these little things began to snow ball and were enough of a catalyst to drive off people. Next day I bought wow. End of the Star Wars dream…… well….. until Hyperian the Sith Bounty hunter rises in Old Republic that is haha.
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