Choosing between SOE/LA and an Emu team is difficult, for me at least. SOE/ LA have a proven record of ineptness and, although I don’t necessarily hate the NGE, how it was dropped on the fan base was unethical in my opinion. However, SOE/ LA do have two advantages: money and infrastructure.

Both money and infrastructure address the question of longevity. SOE/LA will be able to maintain the game longer; look how long the NGE has been maintained with supposedly low population numbers. Also, If a server goes down, SOE/LA should be better prepared to quickly restore the server or replace it. With no money coming in, legally, I wonder how the Emu hosts will handle disaster recovery.

If the rollback is successful, I can see SOE/LA investing back into the game. They’re doing so currently with the NGE, so I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen with a pre-CU version. Let’s face it; the pre-CU wasn’t anything to write home about game-wise. The concepts were solid though, and I for one would be one happy camper to see the game get another chance.

Again, with no cash flow I don’t see the Emu hosts offering much in game enhancements. The counter argument to that statement is how well the Open Source community has done. While this is true, I’d be concerned about hacks. Bring on the quadruple sliced weapons.

Setting aside the emotional aspect, which I’m not trying to mitigate, I’d currently choose SOE/LA. My hope would be that SOE, particularly, would be able to turn around the SWG project as they did with EQ2.

bob_blawblaw

There are a few factors that one (by one I really mean myself) has to look at to make a decision on which host to support.

Longevity: Which one will be around next year? Nobody really knows.

Emus come and Emus go, so there's really no security there for your toons. Since they are not technically owned and run according to a service provider/consumer agreement, there's really nothing stopping the server owners from say, opting to run a CS server on it instead and deleting everyones progress.

SOE isn't really much better. While they will 'promise' to maintain said server, and keep it running, they have been known to screw things up in the past, so there isn't alot of trust there. Another problem with SOE, is that they are bound by LA. Say LA is planning on releasing a new SW MMO, which most will agree is inevitable. I really can't see LA allowing SOE to run SWG in parallel to their new shining SW MMO. This has been long rumored to happen between 2008-2009. So if SOE was to launch classic servers, and they do it soon, we'll only get around another year with it IMO.

Advantage: Neither

Population: This is the most important factor for me. I'm currently resubbed for a month to check out the new Chapter 6 changes, and the game has really come along way since Nov 05 (not near as good as Pre-CU FYI). The one glaring thing missing is players.

I really can't see Emus gaining any kind of massive population. Emus, from what I can tell, are fairly underground and not super user friendly. The problem with Pre-CU Emus is that Pre-CU wasn't really soloable (which to me is the beauty of Pre-CU). So if the populations are low, it's not really playable. The only way I can see around that is to add the blue frog mechanic, and to me that's not really playing SWG.

In the SOE camp, it's foggy, but there could be a light at the end of the tunnel. While they royally screwed the pooch with the NGE, and scared off all but a very small handfull, could pull off a decent sub recovery with classic servers IF they advertise. To be completely honest, if they advertise, I can see them getting better sub numbers than when they were at their peak. Why? The MMO market is huge now. People are getting bored of the easy games and are crying for something a little better. Plus, if SOE sets up classic servers, there will be massive amounts of noise in the gaming community because it will be so unprecedented. I'm not sure they'll get a huge number of vets back (especially after they nuke everyones houses), but I'm betting they'll get a fresh dose of newbies. My one small caveat here, is that if LA has another SW MMO in the works and will shut SWG down upon launching it, I can't see SOE doing much in the way of marketing. So...

Advantage: SOE

Personally, I feel better paying for a product that I know (or hope) is going to be there tomorrow or I get a refund (a feeling that is lessened by the fact that it's SOE, but still) than I do donating to a group of guys who albeit, deserve to be paid for their hard work, but who are not legally bound to deliver anything to me as a consumer. I just feel better knowing that if SOE screws me over, the media will write an article about it, and people’s buying decisions will be influenced, and Sony will lose money. If the Emus screw me over, nobody cares, they laugh and disappear into obscurity. While I really don't trust SOE, I'd rather pay for their classic servers in the end.

EasterDurni

I'm not interested in the Emu at all. The only reason I play MMOs is for the community and a couple of hundred Emu players that are only there for the old-fashioned grind-heavy game mechanics doesn't cut it for me.

Plus my NGE experience has made me very wary of investing time/energy into something that just might reward me by suddenly devaluing all my efforts and/or making the community collapse. There is no way I want to live through something like that again.

So I am in WoW, which is definitely not the game I most want to play. However, it is the most stable game with the largest number of players and that provides me some reassurance that the company running it isn't going to stage a virtual coup d'etat moments before I get an epic flying mount.

Efefia

The EMU is going to fail in a lot of people's eyes, no matter how complete or how much they adapt and customize the game, the beauty of SWG wasn't the game mechanics (many of which were horribly flawed), it was all about the game experience that was created by the community, the people were what made the game. The EMU isn't going to bring that back, too many people have moved on, WoW, Vanguard, EVE, etc, etc, have taken the old SWG communities and made them their own. There's no sleeping giant, this huge mass of ex-swg players that the Emu fanbois seem to think will come out of the woodwork and make it all right again. It’s simply not going to happen.

If you want a snapshot of what the Emu will mean to most, check out the videos they've got up on youtube. You'll see the Emu community in all it's glory, give them a lightsaber, 2 specials and they'll PvP for hours. I mean, the f**king NGE is more fun than that.

BigDogofBria

Both the Emu and a possible 'official' pre-CU concern me.

Frankly, I see the Emu as a chance for me to play on a server run by SWG fanbois I've never met and probably don't want to. No offense to anyone, but the clear majority of people I meet online are absolute asshats. Going into someone else’s house and playing SWG on their terms strikes me as pretty unappealing.

Of course, that's exactly what the problem with the real SWG has always been, someone else defining your experience in a game where the whole point is to make your own fun. While a pre-CU launch of any kind is a nice thought we are still going to have to put up with all the same shit all over again. Nothing will work, everyone will exploit, and the forums will be endless flame fests and blame games. And they'll just change it again in a few months. SWG is the ultimate carrot on a stick. While I have no sympathy for folks that stayed and slogged through the NGE, if this re-launch goes through there goes whatever progress they have made in the last two years. Yet another group of people screwed over by Sony.

What I want is a working version of the pre-CU code for me to go out and play the hell out of. No glitches, no exploits, no asshattery. As far as the combat balance in the game goes, it's a simple fix. Remove defensive stacking and nerf DOTs. That is all that was needed in '05 to correct the game. While there are a million other things that could have been addressed, the suckage of CH and ranger, the whole Jedi/BH soap opera, the stacking and DOTs were what was breaking the game.

If something launches that is like this, I'll pay to play it.

kefkah

Neither will be a "success" if they are held to re-achieving its former numbers/glory. In order to see them for their potential or their benefit you must look at each in a different light...

Rollback, or some form of improvised fix by SOE: SWG, is long in the tooth now and the current generation of players (WoW fans and such) see it like we view EQ. A part of gaming history, great in its time, fun to revisit from time to time but not worth the time or investment for full time play. Its glory days of newness and word of mouth have long since past. Those who would play it and stay would be those who have already played it. We know the ceiling on that number and that is nearly how big we should expect it to grow. How long will it live? Considering SOE, its past and style - it will be like the Matrix revamp - a last ditch effort to generate more blood out of the turnip. Kind of like that last I'm sorry, dinner/date you attempt to get one last round of sex from a soon-to-be ex. Make it seem like old times, pretend there is a future when you both know there is not. And keep in mind, this is only if SOE swallows its pride and does a rollback. I wouldn't bet money on it.

EMU: If viewed that the Emus are supposed to bring back the Bria of old, it will always been deemed as a failure. Truth is that few, if any, servers will be that big. But then again, I didn't play it for size. I played it for a past time and more importantly the social aspect of it. Here in lies the true strength of the Emu: A server built around a core of people who know each other.

…If it’s from a group you know - chances are data procedures are put in place. More than one person holds backups of the SQL database. And for the people running it, chances are that person would be placed in that position because of trust and their reputation. Oh, and for those worried about cheats - Antrix, the most current WoW Emu, has three cheat log options that log the IP and so on. I am sure the SWG Emu's will include this in their projects.

So if success is a virtual world to relive memories and interact with friends - SWG Emu wins. If its success is to be a logaoedic, spam metropolis run by people you don't know anything about - it fails. My money is on the Emu being the virtual world of friends as I have done such in the past personally and enjoy those memories as much if not more than the memories I have with the same friends on official servers.

Bissrok

I'm still expecting the SWG Emulator to surprise people. I think a lot of people have it in their minds that this will be on the level of an early WoW Emulator -low population, lots of crashes, lots of rollbacks. And I just don't think it's going to end up like that.

If you look at the early WoW and Lineage II private servers, most of their code was simply ripped as much data as they legally could from the official game. It was a rushed job and it was made (and populated) by people who only wanted to play a retail game for free. It hasn't been until very, very recently that these teams have been using more of their own code. And when you look at the new versions, the performance has been greatly expanded. Take the Warcraft servers, for instance. In the beginning they held 50-100 people, tops. And if more then ten gathered in one map, the server would crash. A year later, if you find a decent server, you can see 1000-1500 people on at once and massive PvP battles going on. And these games are still being run off poorly coded builds.

And then look at the Star Wars Galaxies emulator. It's being built from the ground up. And the goal isn't to play for free, it's to re-create a game that was taken from us without warning. And hell, even now, the SWG Emu's server is more stable than most emulators are two years after they're released.

I actually think that the game will be better on an emulator. If the game can hold as many people as some of the other emulated games can, the community should be fine. There are plenty of SWG vets (or, hell, just gamers in general) that are still looking around for a decent game. And a decent number of them, myself included, would never consider going back to SOE, even with “classic” servers.

The main issue, for me, is choice. I hated seeing Jedi run around without death penalties. I hated seeing people spend all their time grinding for it. And I really hated having to get buffed to do anything. Each of those were game-breaking issues for me. But, if those things were removed, other people would lose interest in the game. And with an emulator, I can have the game I want without ruining it for someone else. You would never be offered those choices with an official server.

As for money, it's really not hard to keep a server up, as long as you have a decent population. If you take donations (and the SWG crowd seems to be a lot more generous than the people playing on Lineage II private servers), and you sell off skills points, unique vehicles, armor, etcetera, the game does fine. It cheapens things, sure, but servers stay up for years like that.

Plus, this way, you're money doesn't go to support a company that blatantly, and unapologetically, lies to your face and mocks your complaints. And you have a dedicated team of people with waaaay too much free time that are fixing bugs and adding content. And, unlike a rollback, the emulator’s not just some pipe dream. The game’s not some mystical force that can never be rebuilt, and a lot of hardest parts are already behind them. It’s really just a matter of time. And, when that time comes, that’ll probably be the end of the official servers.

Meparch

Well pre-CU had many, many problems which prompted all the changes in the game to begin with. Either release will have to address those problems and find far better solutions that what SOE currently offers to be successful. So I guess the real debate is who can produce the best fix to pre-CU along with the best service?

SOE - They have money, where Emu has none. That translates into man power. They have all the original code on some backup copy and real servers to test stuff on. That would put them far ahead of the Emu and gives them the ability to stay far ahead. There may be a lot of drama at SOE but they can't be any worse than the Emu people. SOE can tap into their many artists to provide new content. SOE has the servers and the pipe to deliver server service far better than the Emu could ever hope for. SOE is clearly committed to change, no matter how bad that change is. This does mean they are willing to fix the game's problems where as Emu are more purist and just struggling to bring back the old imperfect game. Emu may not even do one fix to the old game.

Emu - Well about only thing the have going for them is this, LA doesn't call the shots and they are free to do as they will.

The clear winner, by a huge margin, is clearly the Emu team.
 

Both are a pipe dream. Emu is years away from having the game of old. Even once they get there, they won't be able to deliver servers capable of handling a thousand people at once. Even then it will be a game 7+ years old. SOE isn't going to do another big change. At best they will have classics along with NGE servers running. Whatever changes they make to pre-CU to fix it, no one is going to be happy with so it won't be the same game. I don't see either version being all that viable.

Louis Wu

The experience that was SWG came and went, and it'll never be back. There will be other experiences, some superior, some inferior, but the community experience of joining SWG at launch and playing it through the release of vehicles, mounts, Player Cities, JtoLS and then all the psychotic awfulness that followed it ... never happening again.

An 'official' SOE roll-back server? Well, I don't believe its coming. If it did come, I still wouldn't join because it would mean contributing some of my hard-earned money to Smedley's paycheck and I'm about as likely to do that as accept a hunting invitation from Dick Cheney.

I don't think it would be remotely like the pre-CU experience because (a) too much of the pre-CU community feels the way I do and those players wouldn't come back with a gun pointed at their head and (b) none of the people coding the game today have a clue how to code pre-CU and it would be like handing a 5-yr-old the keys to a Ferrari and saying 'Now don't crash it!"

The Emu servers ... well I wish them luck, but I think the absolute best to hope for is a server with a fraction of the pre-CU server populations running code that approximates pre-CU functionality but is subject to a lot of stability problems, bugs, exploiting, and lag. Hm ... now it *does* sound like the pre-CU experience!

jrscott

Admit it, you'd log on and check it out.