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Thread: Good or Bad news.
They've already made their profit off this game. You don't think the the $50 just to buy the game for most of the first year and then the silly monthly fees hasn't earned them a major profit??
And you're also overestimating how LA people think about their products. They don't exactly push out super quality products anymore. They contract most of their work out now. After Force Commander I swore I would not buy another LA product without trying a demo first. :-)
Guess it wasn't true
Not sure where that rumor got started about LucasArts / SOE. It's absolutely untrue. Tin-foil hats are in order.
John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
He has also agreed to do an interview, so stay plugged in as we will have that coming your way shortly.
All those were LA produced... but they contracting them out. Factor 5 did the RS series. Pandemic did Battlefront. J/K was done by raven. BH was done by LA though.
Sneakysmuggler wrote:
alpinestreams wrote:
This is a silly rumor that was on some other boards a week ago, and this website picked up on those postings. The Lucasarts position just adds fuel to the fire, but really, are their not these neat things called Contracts? Imagine the trouble that LA would have to go through to take over the game from SOE. did you notice there are no postings for dozens of CSR's? Producers? The changeover would take months to implement and I can't fathom that it would be worth the trouble. Why would LA care? SOE and LA are raking in SERIOUS money over this already. And frankly money is the BOTTOM LINE. That's really all that LA and SOE care about.
They've already made their profit off this game. You don't think the the $50 just to buy the game for most of the first year and then the silly monthly fees hasn't earned them a major profit??
And you're also overestimating how LA people think about their products. They don't exactly push out super quality products anymore. They contract most of their work out now. After Force Commander I swore I would not buy another LA product without trying a demo first. :-)
What about The Jedi Knight series?What about Bounty Hunter, the Rouge Squadron series, and Battlefront?These are all several great games that are recent.
Slarus wrote:
Possible actions that LA might take if they take over
Problem LA doesnt own the intelectual rights to SWG, so an LA take over kills the game on the table now.
- Reinstate Perma-Death at a one life counter. Total purge of the FSCS if the character is that FSCS (Lose all FS skills with no chance to get them back if the main slot) .
This whole rumor is clear Jedi haters trying to scare the thousand who bouthg the game to play non-scripted Jedi. KOTOR, Jedi Knights, Jedi Academy are all scripted you have no freedom.
- Total roll-back of the servers, and close down the less populated ones.
Ok but with no game to run, this isnt needed. LA doesnt own an MMORPG much less one based on Star Wars, so no need for this, SOEs SWG server would all be shutdown and your accounts deleted, everyone. After that we wait 3-5 years for the LA MMORPG if they even do it, after all SWG failed why try again? Then you have to build a player base of 300,000 in first 3 months to break even. After year one when the complaints that shut down SWG come in for the problems LA has, what then shut that game down too?.
The CEO of LA has said that he wanted SWG the best MMORPG on the market. So far SOE has not lived up to his standards.
If EQs problems (And it had far more of em after just a year) forced a shutdown, we wouldnt have SWG to complain about, becareful what you ask for.
If LA had/has their way,SWG will be an unstoppable game.
IT's a shame really, this game has potential, but SOE decided to focus on jedi because "everyone wants to be a jedi." I hope these rumors are true, unlike what LA did to Decipher with the old Star Wars CCG, I will have some satisfaction that they're leaving a less than stellarcompany. (I still believe LA's decision to cut ties with Dechipher was the worst business decision ever made. The WoTC game is piece of worthless garbage. Iplaced 7th in my province in the last provincial tournament.)
And if LA doesnt please you either? Alot of folks think LA is a magic wand and can do no wrong, this is a reputation no one can live up to. And shock of all shock what if they include Jedi too? HAHA! how funny, this rumor's entire reason for exsistance is Jedi hating, and chances are LA would have Jedi in the game too, after all Jedi are in every movie, game, book, etc. Why would they not have them in thier MMORPG? dont make a lick of sense. You Dechipher/WoTc example proves even more that a new game would be installed and SWG would be dead, it's about intellectual property, without LA SOE has no right to use the SWG game, but without SOE LA has no rights to the game either.
Actually if you check really closely into the games themselves, SoE does not develop ANY games. They have a separate divisional company Verant Interactive Inc. which has developed everything from EQ to SWG. They develop the games and maintain/update them by contract from SOE. It is very viable that lucas arts could pull their liscense and continute to use Verant as their development source, meaning we'd have the same dev team with new management and direction. SoE's end of the deal seems to be more along the lines of directing the games into the future, hosting, and supporting them. It is entirely possible although it's true nobody knows for sure that Lucas could be trying to take over the project (it IS factual that thousands of complaints have been filed TO lucas arts). I will reitorrate a statement made by LucasArts president during the creation of the Galaxies forums community.
"We see this Web site as an important step toward building a strong community for the Star Wars Galaxies line of games," says Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts. "We firmly believe that consistent and open communication with fans will be one of the keys to the success of the Star Wars Galaxies experience"
You will also note that Lucas announced JTLS on May 17th of 2001 (These are taken from LA Press releases by the way) and stated SOE would deliver the first expansion within 6 months of the games intial release. Here is the actual release
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- May 17, 2001 -- LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC and Sony Online Entertainment today announced the development of the first expansion product for Star Wars Galaxies (www.starwarsgalaxies.com), their massively multiplayer online role-playing game series. The add-on, expected to be available six months after the initial product release, will enable players to own and fly starships, allowing interplanetary travel and space combat.
Now the Sr Directors Position cannot just be a fluke if you look at key ingredients to the actual description
Responsible for creating and managing a newly created business unit revolving around the Star Wars Galaxies line of products.
Responsible for management of all aspects of both the Star Wars Galaxies Live Service and future expansions to ensure continued commercial success and encourage subscriber growth and increased customer retention.
Maintain close communication with the outside developer to ensure they meet contractual requirements and deliver the highest quality product on schedule and on budget.
Establish, maintain and enhance creative relationships with internal resources and the external developer. Foster positive working relationship and teamwork within the development teams with an emphasis on communication.
Now granted I am not a jedi hater so you can drop that idea, I don't particularly hate jedi, I don't particularly see them doing away with it entirely. I do however expect to have an actual Galactic Civil War again someday it IS an empire divided and not an empire of solo missions hunting mokk/janta. SoE has dropped the ball, it's clear they have not delivered on expansions, the numbers are beginning to wane, satisfaction I would say is at an all time low. Personally none of this really matters to me I'm more interested in JTLS and it seems to be quite a piece of work, Do I think LucasArts could run it better? I think they could give us back the content we are missing out on, Acts and storyline and such, I think they could go a hell of a long way to put the StarWars, back into Star Wars galaxies. And although this is just a "rumor" at this stage, the above mentioned job opening at LucasArts seems to suggest at least SOMETHING is afoot, that and a lack of any response to this growing rumor by SoE themselves. And oh yea I got sidetracked
This was the biggest shorfall SoE had right along those lines
We see this Web site as an important step toward building a strong community for the Star Wars Galaxies line of games," says Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts. "We firmly believe that consistent and open communication with fans will be one of the keys to the success of the Star Wars Galaxies experience"
- Reinstate Perma-Death at a one life counter. Total purge of the FSCS if the character is that FSCS (Lose all FS skills with no chance to get them back if the main slot) .
If LA had/has their way,SWG will be an unstoppable game.
IT's a shame really, this game has potential, but SOE decided to focus on jedi because "everyone wants to be a jedi." I hope these rumors are true, unlike what LA did to Decipher with the old Star Wars CCG, I will have some satisfaction that they're leaving a less than stellarcompany. (I still believe LA's decision to cut ties with Dechipher was the worst business decision ever made. The WoTC game is piece of worthless garbage. Iplaced 7th in my province in the last provincial tournament.)
Every update has included other features as well, the Devs have limited time number one. Two, Jedi is 4 or 5 professions under one title, so if every profession has 1, just one major issue by that standard Jedi has 4 or 5 major issues, you unfairly assessing priority as applied to volume. Jedi will under the multi-profession it is will always have MORE issues then any one profession, so each Jedi has more problems then each non-force profession. With JTL coming out and under design there has been less time, you got to give it a chance, your impatient is all, and blaming Jedi for your own impatience.
Actually if you check really closely into the games themselves, SoE does not develop ANY games. They have a separate divisional company Verant Interactive Inc. which has developed everything from EQ to SWG. They develop the games and maintain/update them by contract from SOE. It is very viable that lucas arts could pull their liscense and continute to use Verant as their development source, meaning we'd have the same dev team with new management and direction. SoE's end of the deal seems to be more along the lines of directing the games into the future, hosting, and supporting them. It is entirely possible although it's true nobody knows for sure that Lucas could be trying to take over the project (it IS factual that thousands of complaints have been filed TO lucas arts). I will reitorrate a statement made by LucasArts president during the creation of the Galaxies forums community.
Ah yes Verant, OWNED BY SOE! Breaking form SOE would be breaking from SOE. Last on this silly comment, Verant didnt develop the game, it's on the outside of the box.
You can't convince me you dont hate Jedi, when you condone the FABRICATED professions and then say Jedi THE MAJOR ELEMENT of Star Wars doesn't belong. We have without doubt proven you CANNOT produce a non-scripted game (MMORPG) and stick to movies for continuity, it's a fact they cannot follow continuity in an MMORPG, the game is in fact only BASED on Star Wars, just as the movie the Alamo was BASED on that battle, but events and interactions hardly went that way as portrayed in the movie, so there is no reason continuity wise not to have Jedi, there is nothing.
You blindly want to blame Jedi for everything, every fault in the game, your doing it. Your claim is permadeath and dropping FS questing so that every Jedi will be gone will fix EVERYTHING. You tell us nothing past that, so it must be your problem, Jedi, it has to be Jedi.
I can't say if it's true or not, all I can say is it is based on faulty logic to blame all problems on Jedi.