Business And Economy Archive

It's very badly out of date (Tiggs! Help, please!), but consider the Astromech Stats article on Professionsthat broke down the percentage of players in each starting and novice profession as of October 20, 2003.

Bearing in mind that some things have changed (Creature Handlers are no longer as valuable, and Jedi are no longer sorare), it's still interesting to note that with one exception (Merchant) the most popular crafting profession to pick up-- Architect -- was nearly halfway down the list. And most of the other crafting professions were even less well populated. (Pity the poor Brawlers and Entertainers!)

The fact is, SWG has always had more players interested in killing stuff than in building things (or inhealing or entertaining). The combat-oriented players constitute the majority of SWG's player base. As they are responsible for the majority of SWG revenues, they're going to get the lion's share of the typical SWG developer's attention. (In fact, as combat gets more features in SWG, that attracts more combat players and drives off non-combat players, which requires more combat features, and so on.)

Having said this, however, I think it's also the case that the non-combat players retain their subscriptions longer, do more to help build and sustain community,and thuscontribute more to the long-term stability of SWG. Most players who are interested in a game for its fighting features are going to show up, check out a game, and once they've "beaten" it or decided it's not enough fun, move on to the Next Big Game. It's the non-fighters who keep a game alive over the long term because they're the ones that stick around.

If that's right, then shouldn't the mix of features offered to SWG players be better balanced between the combat players and the non-combat players? For that matter, shouldn't non-combat features be designed to be fun in and of themselves, rather than being considered only for how well they service combat players?

It would be nice if thiskind of thinking were reflected in the GCW changes and other new features.

--Flatfingers