Just going to chime in here quickly about SOE and SWG and Lucas Arts.
It is common for people to toss the blame onto Lucas Arts, but I've never seen any actual proof or evidence of the claims that LA made them do this or that or that LA made ridiculous requests, demands and such (please point me to these tell-all reveals if I have missed them).
In my opinion though, it really doesn't change anything...
If I'm SOE, whatever I do is on ME. SOE is who I was paying and acquiring my service from. The way that they handled things after the launch of that game was ridiculous... the way that they tried to fix it with the Combat Upgrade was not-so-great and the way that they sprung the NGE and completely destroyed what that game was before it... is a monstrous debacle and nothing can ever separate SOE's responsibility from that.
They had power to work things out in their house and handle whatever demands they may or may not have been getting to make things work well.
Shifting blame about how the game was developed/altered/ruined away from the studio that was doing that development is, quite simply, nonsense.
I don't even necessarily believe any bit of the claims that LA made those demands... but, even if they did... have some pancacking guys and integrity in how you respond and how you manage your game.
Cut SOE no slack in this regard.