why the SWG NGE and SWTOR KotFE comparisons for?

If by NGE you mean a change to a Star Wars MMO that caused it to fail then its possible it could be that, none of us know.

If by NGE you mean a change in the way the game works mechanically we already had that and the game did not die so I'm sure we could handle another.

Personally I'm worried about the new story being completely different from the previous stories but since the story so far has been pretty hokey I guess it wont really matter.

Right.

How dare they jump to conclusions without reading any of the information they were given and simply imagining or extrapolating a worst-case vision of the future based on vague implications from word-use and inference of information not supplied.

Basically: They shouldn't do exactly what you are doing.

Star Wars Galaxies was an earlier Star Wars MMO, launched in 2003. There was a hybrid class/skill system - originally intended to be classless, but forced into changes due to the producers demanding a rushed launch - in which players could choose 4 or 5 (out of 30-some) different professions, including the ability to drop professions at will in order to level up new ones.

The game had a very rich non-combat experience - in fact, only about 10-12 of the 30+ professions were primarily combat oriented. Non-combat professions included things like Dancer, with performance skills that would buff the morale of customers, and remove the battle fatigue debuff; Politician, for the building and administration of player cities; Architect, for the construction of player buildings (which were placed directly in the world, not instanced like strongholds) and furniture; Tailor, for making clothing and light armors; Weaponsmith, for crafting weapons; Creature Handler, for capturing wild creatures and training them as pets (which could be kept or sold to other players). Each of these was developed to a level not seen in any other major MMO (except EVE Online, which hadn't been released yet).

But the producers decided to force the developers to rush the game out the door before they finished building most of the combat content. The devs literally flew some beta testers in to apologize to their faces before announcing the early launch. As a result, the combat portions of the game were rather lacking in developer-created content.

One key point is that, consistent with the MMO's timeline between Star Wars Episode 4 and 5, the entire list of known force users was: Luke Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader. In other words, no player force-usage. However, the devs had in fact created a plan for players to unlock Force-senstive character spots in a system that they had intended to take years.

A few months after launch, another MMO called World of Warcraft went live. The business people got antsy because Warcraft's buzz was eating into all of Sony's other games and they were worried that SWG, the one holdout, would soon suffer. To counter this, they forced the dev team to start giving hints about how to unlock the Force-senstive slots - which was by mastering 4 of the 30-some odd professions, but each player's list of needed professions was different (and mostly unknown to them). Predictably, this caused a huge portion of the player base to start grinding away at unlocking every profession in the game ... or to quit. It didn't help that EVE Online launched about this time.

Basically, the combat achievement and kill oriented types largely abandoned the game over the course of the next year. However, the non-combat types were having the time of their lives. They were building player event cities, holding tournaments, running interplanetary mining operations, crafting unique items (every item had its own unique stats, they weren't all just copies of the same +42 End/+36 [insert main stat here] gear) and so on.

So having reduced your player base to a particular crowd of people largely interested in sandbox, RP, crafting and player driven content, what's the obvious design decision to make?

Why, to introduce (bad) FPS mechanics, make all gear equivalent, force players into pre-defined classes and basically destroy the non-combat part of the game, of course!

Basically taking everything your remaining player base loved out and (badly) trying to break new ground in the diametric opposite direction. It'd be like WoW saying "There's too much focus on polish and casual game play here. Let's turn the game into the most hardcore of Korean grinder MMOs, delete all quest markers, make it full loot open PVP, and introduce a metric where if you don't grind at least 20 quests per day, you lose XP. And let's keep the quality control testing to a minimum for this one. A few game-breaking bugs won't hurt, and we certainly wouldn't want it to get out that we were making these changes before they went live."

That's an NGE. I feel reasonably confident no other company will ever be that stupid again. But hey, no one saw Sony pulling that move in the first place, so who knows?

actually i was simply curious, i never played SWG beyond the trial and so i dont understand a lot of this NGE stuff but then it was also used to justify and decry it on FE. it seems to be a flashpoint as well and its better putting it in a more constructive context as to why its being used for.

if you think my intention was to troll, i wont change your mind and its not my place to do so either, but to defend my own little corner as it were, i can see why it looks a bit suspect because of how convienient it looks, but that is not what i was thinking when writing this out. so if you wish to post your thoughts on the subject go right ahead but the more answers there are the more i can understand and if anyone else wants to take away some valid points from this, thats their choice.

the san diego comic con is next week, so more info on FE? will find out and see whats next on the xpac as far as info is concerned.

There is no comparison, and allot of facts in swg got distorted over time, especially when it came to nge. I loved that game and I still do but it does not mean people distort facts about that game.

On the other hand people are probably trying to make the comparison, because if bioware flops on this expansion, this game is done for. Anyone who has been around long enough is well aware of this fact. For the record I do not know how this expansion will turn out, I just am nearly 100 percent sure of what will happen if it flops.

4chan, mostly.

Honestly its just panic of the unknown.

Its funny though cause those that use the NGE claims to signify game killer have no clue what they speaking about. The Sony execs themselves have come out and stated point blank that after the NGE the subscriptions stopped bleeding and stayed steady till the end of game. The NGE was the game engine for the last 5 years or so of the game and saw 2 expansions created for game (something that was not done for the original game design)

People like to claim NGE killed SWG but it didn't, it actually had the exact opposite effect. And again that's straight from the Sony exec mouths.

So you gotta understand that those screaming NGE are really just screaming
"THEY CHANGING SOMETHING THAT MIGHT NOT BE TO MY PERSONAL TASTE"

Thats all it is.
Fear combined with lack of information resulting in drama and unsupported conclusions.

Truth is we don't know what the changes will be like
What we do know is not everyone will like it (nothing is ever perfect for everyone after all)
and if those who dislike the changes played SWG
We will undoubtedly hear more false screams of NGE NGE NGE
No matter how silly it makes them look.

As for content specifically

SWG was a sand box game that lacked direction and story
The NGE replaced the old grind system of advancement
with a more linear storyline advancement
The NGE basically changed the advancement portion of game from Sandbox to Linear story

For SW:TOR, its never been a sandbox design
So at most we will see individual class story be replaced with over arc story
but we saw that happen already with Makeb, Rishi, Yavin, Oricon, Ziost, CZ
So if someone was to scream about that change,
Wouldnt they already be doing it?
as its already been going on.

Personally I was this ... close to cancelling my SWTOR account prior to the expansion announcement
But that announcement hit many of the key marks important to me
-A refocus on subscribers FIRST AND FOREMOST (I was so done with being a 2nd class player because I was a subscriber)
- FREE TO SUBSCRIBERS (very important to me as I was not going to pay for another expansion after what we got with Rishi and Yavin)
- Ability to redesign my companion team (something I have wanted since closed beta of this game. Some companions just have no worth to me and Id rather pick and choose who is on my team)
- REFOCUS on story rather then the previous focus being on cartel shop

Im still waiting for more info on other things Id love to see like
Kashykk Planet,
Pazaak and KotOR1 swoop racing,
do we get new ships when we wake up and can we decorate our ships this time (aka mini strong holds)?
What planets?
what changes to crafting to make crafting matter once again?
and so so so much more

just so many questions left unanswered thus far
but there is a ton of time for them to be answered

so when you see the 3 letters NGE
roll your eyes and just move on

Many of the people that even use the NGE comparison(or hate on it) don't even know what it means. They've decided what they want it to mean and that makes it fact. I actually haven't seen any actual comparisons to it(or ones that made a lick of sense). SoR is the only thing EAware has done that has come close. At this point they would have to strip all combat out and all you do is what the story for it to compare to NGE. They already dumbed it down so it is almost impossible they could make it worse at this point.

That said I can see a concern that the game will get boring for some with no side quests even in the 1-60 content....depending on what that means. Many of the planets have side quest stories that have nothing to do with the class story. If you get board of class story you have something to do that isn't that or flashpoints. However we still have no clue what they mean about getting rid of side quests.

Bioware, is this games NGE. So many very bad decision designs that have caused problem after problem.

DMUK
Good to see you around!
Hope you are doing well

Most of the NGE comparisons are just click bait, most of the threads containing the topic are a mess.
Kalfear raised a good point too, the fear of the unknown.
And thats what i am putting it down to aswell,
No information, just speculation. Its not bIowares fault, information doesnt need to be all and final on announcement, but forum goers here are a heavy mix of Hater Drones here to complain no matter what, and Bioware Fanbois/Girls who will defend everything no matter what. With a sprinkle of reason, and normal chatter through out the threads