After three and a half years Sony Online Entertainment(SOE) decides to stop with their game Star Wars Galaxies, an Empire Devided, the Star Wars MMORPG.
SOE has come to the conclusion that the Combat Upgrade and the New Game Enhancement 6 months after didn't made more customers. In fact SWG lost over 250.000 customers and the total interest in the game as it is now will never bring back the game it used to be.
The reason SOE kept up with the loss of customers is because Lucasarts kept the pressure on SOE. There is no win win situation anymore for SOE, in fact it's ONLY costing us money to keep the servers running.
Therfore the servers will be taken out of service on May 25th 2007.
We, all the people at SOE would like to thank the customers who stood by us from the beginning and all others who played this game and felt what the Star Wars Universe had to offer.
Sincerely,
-Thunderheart
Community Manager
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
eej wat voor dag is het vandaag?
Zondag?
John Smedley himself has posted the following posts in the private Senate Forum. They are currently still confidential and will likely be released to the public soon. Still I thought the upcoming changes were severe enough to not let the player base in the dark. It will likely get me into the dog house, but I felt that it is my duty as a community leader to get the information out.
Smed wrote:
Wonderful new changes are coming up for all the great SOE® games in the next couple of months!
We have already started these by adding a great new game, Vanguard® - Saga of Heroes™ to our palette of Products. In the upcoming months, Sony Online Entertainment™ will unveil it's great new Integrated Launchpad®, a unified platform to access all your favourite SOE® Station™ games on your PC and the Sony Playstation 3® Computer Entertainment-System™. We are also proud to announce the future availability of all Station Access™ games on both the PC and the Playstation 3® Computer Entertainment-System™.
Sony Playstation 3® ports for all Station Access™ games have been in the works for months and shall be ready to be released as soon as the new Integrated Launchpad® debuts.
To celebrate these changes, all Playstation 3® Computer Entertainment-System™ players will be able to download and test the new Integrated Launchpad® including 14-day Trial versions of all the great Station™ games for free.* To accomodate these changes, the monthly subscription fee for all individual games will be raised by $10 each. We are happy to announce that this will allow the price for the Station Access™ Subscription to stay the same low price of $29.99 a month, so upgrade to Station Access™ today!
John Smedley
CEO Sony Online Entertainment
*Offer does not include Vanguard® - Saga of Heroes™. After the Trial period ends, the regular monthly subscription fee will apply for each individual game.
Here is a bit specific about upcoming changes in SWG:
Smed wrote:
Exciting changes are ashore for Star Wars Galaxies™!
In addition to new changes that will impact all SOE games, Star Wars Galaxies™ will undergo some exciting changes in the next couple of months as well! First, there will be the addition of the long-awaited Beast Master Expertise that will allow players to hatch a companion and raise it until it matures.
Also, we are happy to announce that server consolidation will be happening soon. All the old and outdated servers will be shut down and six new, state of the art Servers brought online in their stead. These new servers should provide us with the platform to allow the implementation of the long-awaited collision detection as well as enable support for cross-platform gaming, which will allow Star Wars Galaxies™ players on the PC to play on the same servers with players on other platforms, such as the Playstation 3® Computer Entertainment-System™.
The Servers will include one classic PVE server, one permanent PVP server and one roleplay server for the United States and Europe, respecively. This will also remove the problem of excessive housing from inactive accounts, which players have been asking for. Also, we will deal with over inflation, as all players will be able to start with a clean slate.
All players will be able to transition to these new servers in a 1-month grace period, after which the old servers will be shut down.
Players who decide to transfer their character in the first 14 days when the new servers are online will be able transfer their favorite character from one of the old servers to one of the new servers absolutely free of charge*! Of course, every player may also choose to create a new character and start from the beginning instead.
The new Servers will also be capable of supporting real-time advertisement boards which will allow the players to get information about products of all kinds from all over the world. An in-game browser will be added together with new Unified launchpad functionality to allow players to follow the links on the advertisement boards to the respective product websites. This will also allow Advertisers to advertise their products in an interactive manner in real-time!
The introduction of the new servers will require us to slightly increase the monthly subscription fee, but we are expecting their performance to be much better than the old ones.
The user interface of Star Wars Galaxies™ will also receive another overhaul. Both the look and controls will be reworked and include the full support for Playstation 3® Computer Entertainment-System™ compatible game controllers as well as real-time voice chat. Full Windows Vista™ and DirectX 10 support will be included as well.
Stay posted for more Details on these exciting new changes that are coming to Star Wars Galaxies™!
John Smedley
CEO Sony Online Entertainment
*Only one transfer of one character without items included in the offer. In order to transfer the character with items or more than one character with or without items, regular Character Transfer Service fees apply. Credits and datapad items will not be transferred. Skills, abilities and level will not be transferred to classic PVE servers.
leuke 1 april grap Sytes.
kijk van mij mogen ze het doen! hup al die oude servers weg en hupsakee allemaal naar nieuwe servers. maar nee ik geloof het dus niet, zal daarom 1 april grap zijn.
SOE zijn schijterds. anyway dat van die crossplatform is al bekend.
Microsoft wil ook zoiets gaan doen met Xbox360.
schijterds? wel eens licenties gehoord 😉
ja ik weet van LA idd.
maar het ik denk nog steeds dat het een 1 april grap is.
mocht het echt waar zijn, dan juig ik het alleen maar toe.
ok we moeten allemaal opnieuw beginnen op die nieuwe servers.
well so be it. zouden er spelers daardoor stoppen, och zoveel speelden er al niet eens.
uuh hoeveel april is het nu ;)? 2 ,3, 4, 5 ;)?
Dash moest ook smakkelijk lachen in xfire 😉
Wat denk je dat de opzet van deze topic is 🙂
Kijken wie er wakker is ;D
Pwnage! ;D
? uiteraard was het allemaal 1 april grappen, dat wist ik vanaf het begin.
Zegt ie op 3 april ;D ;D