StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Mike Smith at Yahoo! Games wrote:Many players view their time commitment to a game as an investment, even if they never intend to cash in on it. Hands up who here still has an Ultima Online account tucked away, or an Everquest character gathering dust? So making drastic changes to a running game world is a thorny proposition for development teams to grasp. Even when making the most minor of changes, if players perceive any aspect of their character has been weakened -- or, in other words, their investment devalued -- negative publicity quickly follows.

Of course, this happens anyway with every patch known to mankind. The choice of whether to nerf regularly or resign the game to an ever-increasing arms race of superiority isn't exactly tough. But the rule of thumb for most MMOs is to make small changes, and gradually.

Exceptions prove the rule, though, and in the last few weeks, the reasons for this particular guideline have become all too clear to players of one particular MMO. Yup, that favorite whipping-boy, Star Wars: Galaxies, received an unprecedented overhaul a couple of weeks ago, replacing the standard combat system with a more action-oriented one, reorganizing the character classes, and simplifying the crafting system. This pissed off most of the player base and introduced a pile of new and interesting bugs into the bargain.

Galaxies always seemed like the red-headed step-child at Sony Online, despite the considerable press and anticipation that surrounded its development. After what was frankly a pretty scrappy release, Galaxies settled into a comfortable rut. Although it never delivered on its play-the-movie potential, subscriber figures hovered around the quarter-million mark for some time, which puts it a touch behind EverQuest II: hardly a stunning success, but a long way from a total failure too.

Despite a brave attempt to introduce some twitch-based elements with its first expansion (Jump to Lightspeed) and a combat system revamp, the game just couldn't get a break. Dedicated hardcore gamers can enjoy it, especially with its detailed and complex crafting system that allows you to construct anything from an armor patch to a city. But it's certainly true that LucasArts' stated desire to build an MMORPG that's friendly to casual players was never achieved.

So, Sony wanted changes, but how did such an unprecedented overhaul get approved? Maybe SOE sees it as a relatively safe, non-business critical place to experiment with different player management techniques. Maybe it was a response to the widespread criticism of the game at launch, and afterwards. But you have to be worried when you infuriate your subscribers to the point where community members are reportedly vandalizing copies of the new $20 Galaxies Starter Pack on store shelves. While that sort of juvenile behavior is disgraceful, perhaps it's a sign of what happens when you change too much, too fast.

Whatever SOE's reasons for pushing through the changes might be, by this point it's clear that satisfying their current subscriber base isn't high on the priority list. Despite the protestations of SOE president John Smedly on the official boards, even the most perfunctory look at the situation indicates their subscription numbers must have plummeted, and the situation has descended into a debacle.

Reading between the lines of his statements, it's possible to discern a little of his motivation. Star Wars fans are legion. Galaxies players are not. If Galaxies can be made to appeal to Joe Lightsaber instead of hardcore MMO players, Sony will make more money. With that in mind, the necessary changes are obvious. Open up Jedi for all players, instead of requiring a drawn-out and tedious process to enable the character class. Simplify and overhaul the combat system so new players are faced with something familiar and straightforward.

In other words, if you're a current player of SWG, you don't matter all that much. He implies you'll end up playing something else in the end anyway and the only way this game is going to stay live is to attract an influx of new, less hardcore players. Smedly tries: He dangles the vague possibility that guilds might one day be able to own Star Destroyers, and promises the return of a fan-favorite profession, the creature handler. But possibilities and promises aren't going to cut it with this game any more.

If your subscriber base is tiny, you have little to lose by reinventing yourself or experimenting with techniques (like the ads in The Matrix Online as test-beds for future, higher-stakes projects). If your subscriber base is large, their needs have to be balanced with the desire to attract new players. At best, Galaxies was stuck in a muddy no-mans-land in between these extremes, and in reinventing itself, it's just torn itself to pieces.

Whether SOE can put it back together again, and whether anybody will still want to play it when they do, remains to be seen. There's certainly room in many Star Wars fans' lives for a casual-friendly Galaxies, but so far the rollout has been handled so badly that the only sensible advice on the subject is to stay well away for now. Galaxies never quite managed to pull itself out of beta status, and these new changes seem to be a step back rather than forward.

This one's done, SOE; take it out back and shoot it, or roll it back a few weeks and leave it running as it was, with a minimal support staff. That way, at least you can build your new Star Wars MMO without wrecking the community you've already built. Companies that innovate in growing markets can rarely sustain their initial success for long, and with strong competition from the likes of Blizzard and NCSoft, Sony Online's once strong position looks increasingly shaky.

The only MMO that prides itself on targetting the niche hardcore audience is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes whose lead designer is Brad McQuaid (the original designer of EQ when EQ was Verant, not SoE) where it takes three people to chop wood.