Jedi Council Forums - Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.

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Author	Topic: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
Sabrajaguar Registered: Dec '01	Date Posted: 2/14/07 7:01pm Subject: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars. - Date Edited: 2/14/07 7:01pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Sabrajaguar
	How to do it? Galaxies isnt even close to World of Warcraft when it comes to satisfied coustomers or reviews What did WOW do right that Galaxies have not? Was it the Horde vs Allince Apect? Well designed world, with in game economy? What is it? Was it the races? the Graphics? what? -----signature----- You are no warrior. Warriors win battles without murdering the weak.-Jacen Solo This Jeedai brenzlit slave spit upon your grandfather's bones.-Jacen Solo Don' thinkof it as murder, think of it as blessed release-Jacen Solo
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The_Chim Registered: Jul '01	Date Posted: 2/14/07 7:36pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	It....was this thread. -----signature----- Still FlareStorm's Sidekick, no matter what. 'you have balls.I like balls.' SFL What's strong enough for a women but built for a man? CENSORSHIP So no on know Shat I'm talking about? The Internet hath no fury like a gamer scorned…
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Teknobabel Registered: Jun '00	Date Posted: 2/14/07 7:53pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	Blizzard came along with a product at the time when SOE (sony online entertainment) was dominating the market for mmo's and it picked up a very large number of disgruntled players from a lot of the previous mmo's that were out. And by picking up I mean going out and seeking those large guilds to entice them over by inviting them into the beta and getting their feedback. Once you have a base of 20-40,000 hard core people the next million people is easy As to how it grew into what is today, it's a lot harder to answer, certainly there is a lot of "my friends all play so why can't I" going on, but more than that it's that the amount of content in the game is very large and it caters to all audiences, from the roleplayer to the dungeon raider to the pvp community and from the people who log on once in a blue moon to have fun to those poor sods spending 10 hours a day online. The other thing that made it attractive to casual players is that the amount of "grind" in the game is very small compared to other games, sure there are grinds for things but the grins no longer require 14 hours a day for you to achieve them. Getting to lvl 60 is about the best levelling experience you can have in an mmo. Star wars cannot replicate the success of wow because I do not see Lucas constantly evolving the storyline of starwars to cater for the small number of people who would play it (even if he had 8 million people playing, that would be a very small percentage of starwars fan across the world). Whereas for wow the storyline does change whenever the designers want it because its their fantasy world for them to change as they see fit. There are a lot of factors involved, could go on for a while, but ultimately wow came along at the right time, the franchise had a worldwide following (esp in Korea, this is needed !) and it didn't screw things up so badly as other mmo's have. -----signature----- I want to be young and wild, then I want to be middle aged and rich, and then I want to be old and annoy people by pretending that I’m deaf
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Kartanym Registered: May '02	Date Posted: 2/14/07 8:11pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	Story certainly played a part. Sure, it was great to have all those different characters and races to play as, but the story itself seemed weak compared to WOW, Guild Wars or City of Heroes. The other big flaw that determined the success of Galaxies was the updates themselves. The large, drastic change to how the game played (and we all know the fallout from that) certainly didn't help. The potential for a Star Wars online game is always there, but SOE, as they have done more often recently, slipped into the casual 'we're the dominator, so don't worry about it, people will still be with us no matter what' frame of mind. The console market is slipping away quicker then they expected (PS3 will still be a strong seller, but certainly not the giant killer the franchise used to be), the PSP has failed to grasp a large enough chunk of the market to be determined as 'successful'. The music market has also fallen out of their hands and into Apple's. So the same can be said of the MMO, where once Everquest ruled by a majority, now there are a number of other titles that have a solid user base, legions of fans willing to pay a small amount per month as long as the content keeps coming, and the developers listen to the feedback and use it. -----signature----- United Survival: A Choose Your Own Adventure RP http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/30353484/p1
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Sn4tcH Registered: Oct '04	Date Posted: 2/14/07 8:38pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	Maybe if Sony sat back and said, "We want to take all of the resources we have dedicated into MMORPGs, and use all of it to one game." I could see them building something much better than WoW. But there's a lot of MMOs that are better than WoW. They just don't have the fan base... -----signature----- http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?threadID=2000183542&tstart=30 The Batmite76 Batman Continuity Project PM me if you want to help!
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Soontir-Fel Registered: Dec '01	Date Posted: 2/14/07 9:57pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	First step: Take license away from Sony. Second: Give license to Bioware ??? Profit Sex. -----signature----- Errent_Venture Wrote " Listen to Soontir-Fel for he is a man ruling over other men." Ender_Sai wrote "In other news, I confer Modly praise on Soontir and Rogue_wookie for being superior men, worth of the title of Spartan. They, may keep their penises"
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Raven Title: SFF: Books and Comics Mangler Registered: Oct '98	Date Posted: 2/15/07 10:31am Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars. - Date Edited: 2/15/07 10:32am (1 edits total) Edited By: Raven
	Maybe I came into SWG at the wrong time, but there were a couple of things that set me off from the very first. And then, compared to WoW... First of all, the default UI on WoW is better. It's brain-dead simple to do whatever it is you want to do with it, whether it's add talent points or throw a spell onto a bar or what. The default UI on Galaxies I felt was too steep a learning curve for a casual player. It probably worked reasonably well for someone who knew where everything was and how it worked, but others, not so much. Secondly, the visuals. Don't get me wrong, SWG didn't have bad graphics. But WoW just looked better. Not in a sense of having cleaner, crisper graphics: in a sense of how great the eye candy shown was. To stand at the gates of Ironforge and look south to see Blackrock Spire, that was all it took to sell me on WoW's eye candy. No endless stretches of land here. Not very realistic, sure. But damn cool. Thirdly, the way that WoW picked you up as a level one, put you right into plot. Quest points would always lead you to more quest centers, and there are always more quests. Even a really casual player could do some pretty cool things, exploring the Scarlet Monestary, or assaulting the destroyed city of Stratholme, or fighting through Upper Blackrock Spire. That really beat out going to mission computers for missions. -----signature----- 1. Seek enlightenment. 2. ??? 3. Prophet.
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SkyeLightrider Registered: Jan '03	Date Posted: 2/15/07 1:18pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	I think the problem is that SWG was set in the wrong story frame. With MMOs, you have to have the ability to flow and change the story. A SW MMO set in the OT era as SWG would never work, there's no room to change the story without pissing off the movie fans. That's why KoTOR worked so well, it took the SW universe and made something totally different out of it, rather than rehashing the same story we've seen over and over again on other SW games (read: battle of hoth in EVERY starfighter game). Secondly, while WoW has pretty balanced characters, in the SW universe it's very tough to balance because of the Jedi. EVERYONE wants to be a Jedi because it's really cool to be one. Or a Boba Fett clone (which if they adapted SWG to include the Clone Wars we would see way too many Boba Fetts). Not many people want to be a run of the mill, ordinary character. The way the SW universe is setup is that the Jedi are on top, so everyone wants to be them. That's when SWG changed how to become a Jedi, making it nearly impossible to be one. If I can't play a Jedi, what's the point? That was the mentality of many people, so they left. So, non-flexible plot and a way over-popular character class (that was for many people's patience simply removed in the update) killed SWG in my humble opinion. Then again I don't play MMOs for several reasons: 1. I like a story to have a finale. 2. I will not EVER buy a game and then pay monthly for the priveledge to play it. 3. I don't have the time to play something I have little interest in. -----signature----- All good things... These are the Voyages... What You Leave Behind Endgame
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FlareStorm Registered: Nov '00	Date Posted: 2/15/07 2:32pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	Raven's point about the UI was a big factor for me. SWG had a huge learning curve in almost every aspect. WoW was simple to just get on and start playing.
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zacparis Title: Moderator: -Games Registered: Sep '03	Date Posted: 2/15/07 2:52pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars. - Date Edited: 2/15/07 2:53pm (1 edits total) Edited By: zacparis
	Sabrajaguar posted: How to do it? Galaxies isnt even close to World of Warcraft when it comes to satisfied coustomers or reviews What did WOW do right that Galaxies have not? Was it the Horde vs Allince Apect? Well designed world, with in game economy? What is it? Was it the races? the Graphics? what? You talk as if a SW game has to automatically be good. MMOs are notoriously hard to get right. Just look at the current market. Most MMOs released in the past few years have failed or kept a relatively low user base. WOW struck lightning and everyone tried to copy WOW's successful model (see Galaxies NGE), with little success. I'm willing to bet most people play Galaxies simply because it's Star Wars. The game itself is fairly poor, but the SW name keeps people hooked. -----signature----- Xbox Live/PSN = MedievalSam http://twitter.com/lastplayed
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Raven Title: SFF: Books and Comics Mangler Registered: Oct '98	Date Posted: 2/15/07 2:55pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	SkyeLightrider posted: Then again I don't play MMOs for several reasons: 1. I like a story to have a finale. 2. I will not EVER buy a game and then pay monthly for the priveledge to play it. 3. I don't have the time to play something I have little interest in. I once thought as you do. I overcame my objections in the reverse order you did. First SWG, then WoW, I had interest in. Secondly, I was leery for a very long time about monthly fees. And then I realized that since I buy a new game every month or two normally, I wasn't spending more money - I've spent less, actually. And thirdly, when you've beaten all the content in the game to date, it's game over. -----signature----- 1. Seek enlightenment. 2. ??? 3. Prophet.
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Coruscant Registered: Feb '04	Date Posted: 2/15/07 2:56pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars. - Date Edited: 2/15/07 2:58pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Coruscant
	zac and Raven are correct. WoW was in development for several years. There was refinement upon refinement to its graphics, interface, etc.... you should try to find some of the old screenshots from many years ago that show the ugly UI, the old Human model (which is more "realistic" looking but less.... cartoony and cool), among other things. WoW also came from Blizzard, which confines itself to its own creative projects and thus the creative team (headed by Christ Metzen, VP) could devote massive amounts of time to its story and lore. Additionally, Blizzard acquired the services of a Tigole (I think that was the name he goes by), who was one of the top guild leaders in the former MMORPG-King Everquest and thus knew all of that game's flaws and how WoW could improve upon them. edit: Galaxies was developed by Sony. Do you really think that corporate machine would devote as much time and effort to just one MMO project as Blizzard did to its only MMO? I certainly don't think so.
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Kartanym Registered: May '02	Date Posted: 2/15/07 6:49pm Subject: RE: Bringing the Sucess of WOW to Starwars.
	That seems to be a common factor for the success of MMO's. If you have one team and one resource pool specifically for that game, then everything will come together. That's why, for example's sake, WOW & Guild Wars have such a large number of dedicated users, because the quality of the product is constantly improved upon, and the resources are dedicated to the game. Where as with Galaxies, The Matrix online, The Sims Online ... all those games had a team of developers that were strung across multiple products as well as the MMO in question, so the dedicated wasn't as strong, nor productive. -----signature----- United Survival: A Choose Your Own Adventure RP http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/30353484/p1
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