SOE is closing 4 MMOs this year (... SWG2Wut?)

Somehow, I managed to miss this, but came across this news while randomly clicking some links: http://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/24546/soe-shutting-5-mmos-summer/

Shame to see Clone Wars Adventures and Free Realms closing, there are so very few "kid friendly and themed" multiplayer games available, that the loss of two in a single year is actually pretty devastating to the industry.  I think that SOE is banking all their bets on Everquest Next and ... its just not going to happen.  There is nothing that they can do that will be that "revolutionary" to become the new King of the MMOuntain. (my coinage, my credit :P)

All that aside, the exciting part that I took away from this is:

SOE is working on a previously unannounced MMO which later spawned an answer aimed at Star Wars Galaxies fans. “SWG PLAYERS – OUR NEXT GAME (not announced yet) IS DEDICATED TO YOU. Once we launch it… you can come home now.” However, it is also based on an all new IP.

I.

Can.

Not.

Wait.

Take my money already, SOE.  Since Lucas Arts and their evil-Emperor-stranglehold-over-everything-Star-Wars is now out of the picture, I hope that Disney will give full and free reign to SOE, so that they can make this new IP venture into THE incredible game that SWG should have been.

Sooo

Who's up for Club Penguin!? XD

I don't think SOE's unannounced game is Star Wars based. My understanding is that it will be based on their own, newly generated intellectual property. Similar to what BioWare did when they moved away from the D&D franchise and developed the lore for Dragon Age. That said, it might be very similar to a Star Wars universe, which I'm neutral on. I'm pretty much Star Wars-ed out.

Not going to be Star Wars, I'm quite sure of this.

Pre-NGE open world, free-plot housing, and a crafting system that's actually fun and rewarding? Even if it used Hello Kitty for the IP I'd play that! Okay... maybe that's gone too far.

Vanguard was and still is the best MMOG on the market, IMO. Best balance of difficulty, reward, and fun albeit a little heavy on the grind post-50. It's early technical failures simply doomed it to never have a big enough population to truly succeed. I'll miss it but hopefully Pantheon or EQNext can fill that void.

SOE messed up SWG in the first place. I don't have much faith that they will get it right this time around either.

SWG was dead once they released the combat update. The stuff after that like the tier or level system like Everquest just solidified the end for me. I also went to SWTOR and it was good for a bit till you hit the end game and ........nothing not to mention the whole FTP fiasco. If you could combine the crafting, buffs, social cantina interaction of SWG with the story telling and design of swotor then cool we would have something to look for. Fluctuating crafting material stats and experimentation were my thing, especially the jump to light speed pack.

To be perfectly honest I don't see anyone publishing a decent scifi MMO anytime soon except blizzard my guess is that blizz's next venture is going to be a steampunk type game but that is just my opinion.

"However, it is also based on an all new IP."

Hm, I didn't think of interpreting that to be a non-Star Wars IP.  I know that Disney is opening up some new Star Wars storylines, so just assumed that was what was meant by "all new IP", ie. "not Episodes 4/5/6" like SWG was.

If its not Star Wars, then I'm not sure what his point is behind commenting that its "dedicated to SWG players".  That's what a lot of us are thinking, because those of us that stuck it out, played it because we loved Star Wars.  SWTOR is just not the same.

Speaking of: SWTOR is Bioware's original IP, it didn't belong to Lucas Arts like SWG did.  

So, I guess we'll see.

If it's not the IV-VI era of Star Wars then it doesn't really matter to me how close it is to the SWG mechanics.  SWG mechanics were great, that's true, but it was the true Star Wars ip that was my main attraction to it.  I've never really liked any other sci-fi apart from Firefly.

I'd love another "classic episodes 4-6" themed MMO, but I'm skeptical that one can be well designed and still meet expectations of the canoniacal fanbois.  I'll be shocked if we ever see one again.  Enthusiastically shocked, but still shocked.

That said, if they can do it based on the Empire era that the Ep. IV-VI story was based in, rather than focusing on story elements of the films, then maybe.  I think that's what SWG original design aimed for, but then failed to separate itself from movie canon because it clung onto elements of the movies to attract players.

LOTRO has done a very good job of meshing together book canon, movie canon and a mostly undocumented world into its game.  You are aware that canon events are going on around you, and can take part in observing and participating in portions of them, but its designed so that you can't interfere or alter outcomes that are already set in place.  Its like being an "extra" that has a small, but important part to play in the tale.

Two points:

1) CU was fine. Some of the changes weren't ideal, but mainly it fixed the major exploit w/ the mind pool, which never made sense and eventually killed PvP.

2) Star Wars is ONE IP, regardless of era. So, SWTOR is not a Bioware original IP, it's their variation on a licensed IP.

I should probably also mention, that I think LotRO and TSW are the two best MMOs on the market right now.