I heard about this last week, and I began to wonder why it wasn’t all over the blogosphere, or the MMO news reporting sites, but then I realized that this project probably isn’t legal. I am the first to admit that SWG was way better before the CU, and it seems that SOE has ignored the many petitions begging for it to be rolled back, but does that make it OK for players to take someone’s work and redistribute it?
On the other hand it sounds like this could be approved by Lucas Arts. If this is indeed legal, I have to give kudos to those people who loved the game so much that they decided to run it themselves, and make it possible for everyone to enjoy it. SWG before the upgrade was one of the best MMOs out there. Perhaps it could be again. Here is the information that I could find:
Conjuring Candles 
I had been following these guys a couple years ago. They had said then that they met with LA and did get approval, which is sort of surprising. Not sure if their temperament has changed since then, but they were a bit heavy handed and arrogant on their forums which turned a lot of people off. It sure did me anyway, so I stopped keeping up with their progress.
Agreed. SWG, in its initial 6-9 months, was my favorite MMO experience. My best MMO memories come from that game.
If it is legal, I’ll have to try it. Thanks for the heads-up.
John Smedley did an interview with Warcry a few days ago where he apologized for the NGE and admitted that the whole thing was a mistake, but reiterated once again that SOE would not perform a rollback. I would be interested to see if this second-party vintage SWG does get off the ground.
By the way, if you want to read the Smedley article, it can be found here:http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/2301-John-Smedley-Exclusive-Interview-with-the-SOE-CEO
Very interesting. That is an odd business decision. I wonder if they realize that if they did that roll back all people would come back to that game, perhaps even through the station pass.
Before NGE favorite mmo to date. Never seen a game so destroyed.
In a very strange way, I kind of understand where Smedley is coming from in not wanting to do a rollback at this point in time. SWG lost so many subscribers with the NGE and the majority of the current crowd is a post-NGE crowd. If he rolled back now, they would probably lose most of the pre-NGE crowd without any real guarantees of picking up their former playerbase.
A rollback would require that two of the three expansions be recoded… a costly venture especially when you don’t have any players.
I don’t agree with the decision… I’m just saying that I sort of understand it. I am one of the players that stuck it through despite being kicked so many times. I played in beta and at launch and played up until about 6 months ago despite all of the unwanted changes and development teams that seemed to be completely out of touch with the players. It finally just got to be too much.
I think SWG can be held up as a shining example to other MMO’s and the devistation that came about as a result of the CU and NGE just might prevent other companies from making the same bad decisions.
Still, as much as I loved SWG, as much fun as I’ve had with it, and as much as I miss playing, I don’t think I would go back even if they did roll it back at this point.
Okay I have to disagree with everyone on SWG (puts on flame retardant suit). I think everyone is looking at it through rose colored glasses as it had huge flaws pre CU & NGE. You could armour up and boost your self and be virtually indestrucable and just grind away. Community aside I think the game system itself felt like EQ with a sprinkling of SW. That said the CU & NGE were even worse, but I don’t think going back to the old system is going to make everything okay. I do see the reason they did the NGE (it actually was necessary), but I think they way they did it really pissed people off. Especially the jedi… I never agreed with the amount of grind you had to do to become one, but to basically change the game to have everyone be able to become a jedi!?! Worse was that you had no advantages of being a jedi before… I also divert from most former SWG players in that I thought that the jedi should have been the NGE way all along (the grinding quest to get them… is a pain and let’s face it most people who play SWG games want to be the jedi… not the 3rd fighter from the left).
All that aside I think it would be interesting to see what becomes of this… but honestly… the world has moved on… I’m hoping Bioware is doing a KOTOR MMO where a SW MMO might actually get done right…
One of the reasons that I preferred the early game actually was because there weren’t any jedi yet at all. When they showed up, they were truly in hiding because 2 deaths and they were dead… completely lost the character.
My whole view on SWG is fairly unpopular though. I thought that the very first mistake of the game was to place it in the time period that they did. As you mentioned, you can’t very well make a Star Wars game without jedi since a lot of people will want to be a jedi. That in and of itself made this time period a bad idea.
Of course, I know that most people said, “Well, with what happened in the temple at the end of Episode 3, the door was open for more jedi.” Personally (and this is just my opinion), I don’t buy that and actually view it as a cop-out.
Most importantly, however, is that the story before and after the time line where SWG was set had already been written. We all knew what came before and what came after. That pretty much nullifies any real accomplishments we make in the game as we already know the ultimate outcome.
I think the best thing that could have been done with SWG was to set it after Return of the Jedi. Yes, the major battles had been fought, but for the most part, the story was open-ended at this point. The EU existed, but it left a lot of open territory. Plus, the remnants of the Empire still existed and battles were still being fought and the jedi were on the rise again.
Of course, all of that is a different argument, one that has been beaten to death many times, and really doesn’t have much to do with Adele’s original post. lol. I just have always enjoyed talking about SWG and kind of get sucked in once I get started on it.
I can agree with that. I think we all just yearn for a SW game that doesn’t suck. I’m sorry but KOTOR for me set the bar for all SW games… If Bioware indeed is working on a KOTOR MMO I’m all in. Personally either period (before or after the movies) would be fine by me. I think it actually frees the developers a bit. So what if you don’t get to see Luke or Chewbacca… who cares… I don’t think those things hurt KOTOR a bit. If anything I think they made a more successful game because of it. I have hear it said that KOTOR was the best of all the prequals.
I wish some of these projects had better websites
I thought the initial setup, where jedi were very rare, was smart. Everyone wanted to play a jedi and didn’t know how to unlock a jedi slot, so the community came together to solve the mystery and every player had that hope of one day unlocking a jedi. Hope for future experiences, based on a general knowledge of the possibilities, is important in any game. You always want the player to be half-expecting something cool just over the horizon.
And, of course, jedi being rare strengthened the setting. The Star Wars setting was the heart of the game’s appeal, so the last thing you want to do is deviate from that.
SWG did a lot of things that were way beyond games like EQ. Spawns were randomly placed and creatures wandered. New players could join veterans, because the everyone’s health was roughly the same. The relatively static health also meant that players were not demi-gods in comparison with NPCs, thereby allowing players to empathize with NPCs more… to connect with the NPC societies and share their goals. NPCs had non-combat animations, which made the world feel more alive. The crafting system enabled individual customization to an extent that even current MMOs don’t. The world had true wilderness and an impression of distance. And there were plenty of other innovations.
The original game had problems, but it was very different from previous MMOs and provided a sort of gameplay that I haven’t seen repeated in an MMO since. These days, technology would allow so much more, so it would be hard going back and accepting the limitations. But I still respect it as a great game.
I agree with everything you said Aaron. One thing usually forgotten was actually how cool the “harvesting” system was. I hate harvesting in every mmo, but the fact you got to survey the planets and place harvesting machines in the rich areas netting the highest quality nodes was very cool. I played a long time just harvesting the hot spots and selling to brokers who in turn resold to crafters. Never in my life have I had so much fun being a harvest node “bounty hunter”.
i think that game should of focused alot on the post return of the jedi were after the death star wss destroyed i mean there was still war there it wasent like it jsut went away i mean the empire still had holds on alot of systems i think it should of focused alot on the civil war i been playing swg now for 3 years but i will admit the timeline of the story i like it but it woudl of been better if it took place after return of the jedi as far as the jedi go that dont bother me so much accept for the fact liek said above everyone wants to be jedi lol or sith