Star Wars Galaxies

LEC in the late 80's to early 90's was pretty much where BioWare is today.  They had a great track record of making excellent games.  It makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes to change that.  Even more, it make you realize that just because a company has a history of making great games, it doesn't mean they always will.  Let's hope that BioWare doesn't take LEC's path, and if they do, let's hope they wait until after TOR to take it.

Originally posted by Obee

LEC in the late 80's to early 90's was pretty much where BioWare is today.  They had a great track record of making excellent games.  It makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes to change that.  Even more, it make you realize that just because a company has a history of making great games, it doesn't mean they always will.  Let's hope that BioWare doesn't take LEC's path, and if they do, let's hope they wait until after TOR to take it. 

Laziness happened.  That and the idiot Jim Ward.  When the prequel movies started coming out, LEC completely abandoned their non Star Wars franchises and just started releasing pieces of crap to go along with the movies.  Quality didn't matter, only release dates.  A lot of that filtered over to SWG.

Originally posted by salvaje

Originally posted by Obee

LEC in the late 80's to early 90's was pretty much where BioWare is today.  They had a great track record of making excellent games.  It makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes to change that.  Even more, it make you realize that just because a company has a history of making great games, it doesn't mean they always will.  Let's hope that BioWare doesn't take LEC's path, and if they do, let's hope they wait until after TOR to take it. 

 

Laziness happened.  That and the idiot Jim Ward.  When the prequel movies started coming out, LEC completely abandoned their non Star Wars franchises and just started releasing pieces of crap to go along with the movies.  Quality didn't matter, only release dates.  A lot of that filtered over to SWG.

This is a recurring theme that has come up regarding StarWars games, SOE and LucasArts.  Product/movie tie ins to maximize revenue seem to have become priority number 1 on Ward's watch.

At a glance, this seems like a wise approach, from a business standpoint.  In my view, however, it's a near-sighted viewpoint.

We've seen people post explaining (as if it needs explanation) that of course companies like LEC and SOE make decisions based on making money.  Of course they do, and this is actually good.  I'd never disagree with a company trying to maximize revenue. 

What this fails to consider is the broader view: that making money, maintaining quality, and maintaining customer satisfaction all need to go hand-in-hand.

Catastrophic, philosophical errors were made when product/movie tie-ins and marketting driven production superceded the quality of the product and customer satisfaction.  I'm not just speaking of the NGE by the way, although I think this is was the pinnacle of this escalating sytemic error.

I'd say this pattern occured at release, then again with the jedi system, then again with the CU, and then again monumentally with the NGE and ToOW. 

Jim Ward is now part of LEC history.  He's gone.  Did this marketting first and money at the expense of quality and customer satisfaction go with him?  Well, we can only hope.  As for SOE, I"m past hoping John Smedley will go somewhere that he can do less damage.  At this point, I think SOE is John Smedley, and I think he shares the money at the expense of quality and customers philosophy.  If I could, I'd remind John that you need to whole package to be successful.  If you think you can sacrifice one of these elements to improve another, you're in for dissappointment or the use of an unhealthy amount of denial to keep going.

Originally posted by salvaje

Originally posted by Obee

LEC in the late 80's to early 90's was pretty much where BioWare is today.  They had a great track record of making excellent games.  It makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes to change that.  Even more, it make you realize that just because a company has a history of making great games, it doesn't mean they always will.  Let's hope that BioWare doesn't take LEC's path, and if they do, let's hope they wait until after TOR to take it. 

 

Laziness happened.  That and the idiot Jim Ward.  When the prequel movies started coming out, LEC completely abandoned their non Star Wars franchises and just started releasing pieces of crap to go along with the movies.  Quality didn't matter, only release dates.  A lot of that filtered over to SWG.

You know...From my perspective it even started before the prequals.  I remember in 96 or 97 when the "enhanced" versions came out here in the U.S.A.

There was a local theater that played all three back to back.  I sat there hearing changed dialogue.  Speciffically with ESB and Darth Vader.  I sat and watched as Jabba was thrown into ANH.

It was in the mid 90's that things started to change as far as the franchise is concerned.  It is then (at least for me) that GL started selling out the SW brand beyond simple merchandise.

Something special I only saw again in CU (where I started) and has been lost to bad planning in almost all it's forms in the mid 90's.

In the prequals the main dialogue that I thought was good...  If not awsome was in the Coruscent theater where Palpatine really started to plant the seed of the Sith in the mind of Vader.  It all came from the actor that played Palpatine.  Not from Haden.  From the best of my knowledge he was the original from the RoTJ.  He did an awsome job.  To bad GL interfered beyond the original SW.  I wish he had remembered lessons learned from then and let somone else direct like ESB.  If he had done that,  I would have held those movies as something more than just emperical canon.  They just don't have the magic except for palpatine in the theater.

Also I really dislike how at the end seen of the "enhanced" RoTJ they decided to stick in Haden as a young Glowie.  Especially when Obi is old and so is Yoda.  More LA/GL ham-hazardness.  Unecessary and stupid.  Fully leaving me to believe GL has lost touch with what he created.

P.S. Darth Mull and Quigon were actually also cool.  I give that cradit to the actors.  Everything else look out.

IMO only =)

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by salvaje

Yeah, to us who are age 30+, the original movies were a big event in our memory.

To the kids who's first  Star Wars experience was the prequels, it didn't reach them quite as the original did us.  The prequels did well, but weren't exactly box office blowouts like the originals were (they are all in the top 10 movies of all time adjusted for inflation, in fact "Star Wars" is #1 I believe).

In 1977, other than Star Trek (which lived then only in books and reruns) Sci-Fi hadn't really gotten much of a shot in the mainstream, and was still dominated by monster/horror flicks with a few exceptions ("2001").  It was Star Wars that moved Science Fiction movies into the mainstream.

 

 

I don't know if I qualify under your 30+ elite crowd, but I'm 28. I didn't see any of the original movies on the big screen, but I did see them on video years before the prequels came out. What I really liked most about the movies were the fight between the Jedi and Sith, which I knew relatively little about. Maybe it'd help if I said Jedi and Sith are so interesting to me, because it is based on Buddism, Samurai's, and Mideval Knights. Add on force powers and lightsabers and you have me hooked for life. So you see, people liked the movies for different reasons and assuming most liked it for this or that is ignorant, because neither of us could possibly know this. What we do know is that the majority of people who do game, prefer to play a Jedi or Sith.

You can't say this..............So you see, people liked the movies for different reasons and assuming most liked it for this or that is ignorant, because neither of us could possibly know this.

And then say this............What we do know is that the majority of people who do game, prefer to play a Jedi or Sith.

Personally I liked Hans Solo, I mean he was a smuggler that flew the Millenium Falcon. I mean I grew up on the original movies, how can you want to be a Jedi when Luke didn't even get the girl lol. The only girl he seemed interested in at the beggining turned out to be his sister oO.

The above and the TOR thing going on now has led me to believe that LA intentionaly ruined Indiana Jones because Lucas always saw himself as Luke and Hans took the lime light lol. Just my own personal conspiracy theory.

Bottom line is is I will agree with you that assuming most liked it for this or that is ignorant, because neither of us could possibly kn ow this. This includes "What we do know is that the majority of people who do game, prefer to play a Jedi or Sith." Most I knew wanted to be bounty hunters, I personaly wanted to be a smuggler, several I knew wanted to be strom troppers lol. I knew 2 that wanted to be Jedi's. Lets see out of 50-ish people I knew that were in to the game 2 wanted to be Jedi's the rest wanted to be anything else.

So no I can't say what the majority wanted to be, nor can you.

Anyways I am taking a pass on this game, I just can't do anymore themeparks. The rides have all started to feel the same and there are some nice looking sandbox's comming out. SWG was the one and only Sci-Fi MMO I found that I enjoyed atleast Pre-Cu, SW:TOR sounds like it will bring in a lot of what made me leave SWG so good luck to you guys and I hope some of you enjoy it. I liked living in the SW universe, I never enjoyed visiting the SW Themepark once in awhile, hopefuly some will understand what I mean by that.

Luke did end up getting the girl in the end, unfortuantely, he didn't deserve her, my favorite EU character, Mara Jade.

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

 

You can't say this..............So you see, people liked the movies for different reasons and assuming most liked it for this or that is ignorant, because neither of us could possibly know this.

And then say this............What we do know is that the majority of people who do game, prefer to play a Jedi or Sith.

Personally I liked Hans Solo, I mean he was a smuggler that flew the Millenium Falcon. I mean I grew up on the original movies, how can you want to be a Jedi when Luke didn't even get the girl lol. The only girl he seemed interested in at the beggining turned out to be his sister oO.

The above and the TOR thing going on now has led me to believe that LA intentionaly ruined Indiana Jones because Lucas always saw himself as Luke and Hans took the lime light lol. Just my own personal conspiracy theory.

Bottom line is is I will agree with you that assuming most liked it for this or that is ignorant, because neither of us could possibly kn ow this. This includes "What we do know is that the majority of people who do game, prefer to play a Jedi or Sith." Most I knew wanted to be bounty hunters, I personaly wanted to be a smuggler, several I knew wanted to be strom troppers lol. I knew 2 that wanted to be Jedi's. Lets see out of 50-ish people I knew that were in to the game 2 wanted to be Jedi's the rest wanted to be anything else.

So no I can't say what the majority wanted to be, nor can you.

Anyways I am taking a pass on this game, I just can't do anymore themeparks. The rides have all started to feel the same and there are some nice looking sandbox's comming out. SWG was the one and only Sci-Fi MMO I found that I enjoyed atleast Pre-Cu, SW:TOR sounds like it will bring in a lot of what made me leave SWG so good luck to you guys and I hope some of you enjoy it. I liked living in the SW universe, I never enjoyed visiting the SW Themepark once in awhile, hopefuly some will understand what I mean by that.

Umm, my opinion on what the majority wants to play comes from the "fact" that most people were grinding for Jedi in Pre-CU, CU, and most rolled Jedi in the NGE. Also, the huge following KoToR has that, gues what, revolved around Jedi characters. So yes, I can say that gamers, notice I said gamers, want to play a force user character.