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Can someone explain to a newb what really happened?
nevenias
Member Posts: 48
Okay, i'm intrested in the game, have been for a while. Right now im playing one still under NDA and will be buying it on release. I have been in the MMO 'world' for about 6 months. So..
What really happened to SWG?
What is all this 'PRE' stuff i read about Pre-CU ect.
Why was everyone so upset with the changes?
Now im just hoping i can get a 'overview' of the changes and how/why they made the game fall off the map.
Changes that where made pre.... and pre.....
Now i love the Star Wars story, is the game still Star Wars?
If i start today, will i even really care about Pre.... or Pre..... ?
Thanks guys
What really happened to SWG?
What is all this 'PRE' stuff i read about Pre-CU ect.
Why was everyone so upset with the changes?
Now im just hoping i can get a 'overview' of the changes and how/why they made the game fall off the map.
Changes that where made pre.... and pre.....
Now i love the Star Wars story, is the game still Star Wars?
If i start today, will i even really care about Pre.... or Pre..... ?
Thanks guys
Comments
CU means combat upgrade, they redid the entire game system to make it more like a traditional mmo... it used to be that you could pretty much make your own class by picking and choosing different skill sets from over 25 different base classes and mix an match them... now there are 9 classes with their own skills that you can not customize... if your a hardcore star wars fan, I would still recommend trying this game, though. It can still be fun and the Jump To Lightspeed expansion (I think it's included with the classic now) is really fun. Still an okay game but not up to the same standards as the classic imho.
When the CU and NGE hit lots of people quit. And i'm not talking a few hundred, im talking the majority of the games community.
The game used to have 25-32 professions that you could customize fully, SOE killed all of them without even consulting the community.
Soe attempted to copy world of warcraft (Ingame evidence in overwhelming)
Now there is 9 cookie cutter professions with locked skills.
Many of us Vets hope Bioware will be remaking this game, We can only hope so
Look the over way my friend, SOE killed this game.
Youll see noone ingame because the servers are empty.
Customer server is laughable. (They act like 10 year olds and dont speak proper english)
I'm sure the game will close soon to SOE loosing money
I would have to disagree with you about there not being many people playing this game anymore... while it doesn't amount to nearly the same amount of people that played before, if you can find a good server then there are 20-30 + people in almost every city. I will say though, that I wouldn't buy this game... if you want to try it I would recommend downloading the free trial and seeing how it fits you first.
Didn't they limit the free trial to some small space station so new players couldn't see what the NGE was?
if they readd pre-cu ill be resubbing in 5 seconds
You had professions like;
Doctor
Medic
Creature Handler (RIP
Artisan
Bio-Engineer (Creating Pets for Handlers)
Taming wild animals and showing your friends
I havn't played in along time but last time i look crafting now wasn't worth it because you got better items than the max craftable item from quests.
All you need to know is to stay away from the game because the NGE is crap for everyone:
Veterans: Ruined the gameplay they loved and changed the game completly + screwing them over.
New players: Buggy peice of crap that makes them think why? I could be playing WOW which is much better.
look, there's a clause in the EULA that says something like "we reserve the rights to change gameplay" etc. etc. which is why i can't complain, even though i despise the changes.
however, SoE pulls BARELY legal shit, like bait and switch.
example. during one of their expansions, one of their ad campaigns was the upgraded ability/viability of certain skills classes and gear, i think it was less than a week after the xpac was released that the entire game was overhauledd and those skills, classes and gear left the game entirely.
hmm but not so much beyond that, as it deals with the "chage gameplay" clause, is... hmm alright so in starwars universe, jedi kick butt right?
well they incorperated this into SWG, making jedi an alpha class. people would go through RIGOROUS grinding to get it, and then they'd be preetty well off.
well after the NGE (new game "enhancments") they were dumbed down and put in as a starting proffession, effectivly screwing over anybody who put an ounce of work into it.
hmm what else to put. ah yes. throughout all of the radical 'enhancments' in the game, some devs who felt the game didn't compile with their "vision" were let go, or left (Raph Koster) which is understandable, however, SoE seems to refuse to replace them with anybody who's competant. their PR has gone to hell, where either their PR team is lying to the community, or the big wigs are lying to the PR team. regardless mixed messages have been flying this way and that for a few years now.
other reasons are their extreme censorship found within their forums. they used to have a system where they'd elect a leader of the community (1 for each proffession) to bridge information between each class and the devs, this no longer exists. why would this go away?
i'm still in contact with friends who play, my friend said to me last night, "643 people on f list, and only 3 or 4 on a saturday night"
Okay let me try to recap it for you.
The first Version of SWG was what we call today Pre-CU - so it means the game from release until spring 2004. In this version of the game There were no fix classes there were some Basic Professions such as Artisian / Scout / Brawler / Marksmen / Entertainer / Medic. You could choose ANY of these professions - you could even choose them all at once with the same Char. All of these Profession had their own XP so a Artisian had to craft or to mine to get xp and entertainer had to entertain a scout had to collect furs and other ressources from dead animals and so on. To prevent ppl from mastering all Profession there was a fixed Max of skills you could aquire but you still could choose what skills you would like to pick. On top of the Basic Professions there were the Elite or Advanced Professios.
http://swg.warcry.com/index.php/content/playerguides#Professions
http://swg.warcry.com/index.php/content/playerguides#Advanced
The number of Proffesions was 32 but the number of meaningfull combination was by far higher more like 400 or so if you add the fun combination also you would have more like 1000 classes.
You could be Master of 2 Elite Professions at most. But again what you choose and how your play was your decision for example i know a female entertainer who also was Master Bounty Hunter. That leads to the next topic JEDI. Something essential in the Star Wars Universe yet something problematic. PRE-CU it was very hard to get Jedi it was a grind fest and very time consuming. Once you were Jedi you were PREY. As soon as you showed your saber or used your skills near other ppl you got Visibility. Meaning you were reportet to the Imperial and they put a Bounty on that Players Head. So now other Players who were BHs were now able to track and to hunt this Jedi. It was like forced PVP. Still a Jedi Master wasnt an easy prey a master jedi could take on multiple BHs at once and win. At the beginning there was a perma death rule meaning if your jedi died he is dead say goodbye you had your fun you messed up. his was changed to a system were the jedi just lost a hell of XP as a death penality.
PRE-CU SWG was all about freedom. Your could do whatever you wanted to do. The grind time was done in about 2-4 weeks than your char was maxed and if you didnt plan to go jedi you were unable to level any further. You could now simply ENJOY the game. And it was enjoyable. In non jedi pvp melee were overpowered a rifleman had nearly no chance winning againt a Teras Kasi (Martial Arts) Fighter in close combat. The Combat was based on selfwriten macros were you timed your action ahead and simply watched your char and tried to adjust your style with minimal changes. All items decayed when you used them so even the super uber weapons. So such weapons werent used for normal hunting but only for special uses. The disadvantage of Pre Cu was the number of bugs. inoffical buglist went up to 1000 bugs.
THEN CAME CU
the CU (Combat Upgrade) changed the interface a bit colofull flashy items with a timer on them - the profession system remained in place but all the old skills were redone and changed. The CU changed the combat balance towards ranged professions and but melee on a huge disadvantage. Also the Combat system was now click on action no more macroing the complete combat. Already a few month before the CU a new Jedi system was put in place and it was now easy to get a jedi but it cost you like 3-5 month. Now there was a veteran reward that every account got that was active for 1 year the Anti decay kit which stopped decay for whatever item the kit was used on. Now we saw the super weapons that were hidden in the basements all the time. Ppl used these weapons now without fear of destruction for hunting and farming and outdmg such a weapon was absolutly impossible. The dev promised that the CU would solve the bugproblem but instead they just replaced the old bugs with new bugs that often were gamebreaking. The number of bugs were still in thousands.
NGE NEW Ga(y)me Enhancements
People just had adjusted to the CU as the 3rd expansion was about to be released Trials of Obi Wan a Jedi focused expansion with the planet mustafar (Episode III). ToOW was released for EXACTLY 7 days when SOE announced the next massive Game change. Maybe the greatest change in MMORPG history. ToOW was advertised to all old profession with new items and new stuff that would benefit all professions. Buappeared filled with anger and hate towards SOE a company that destroyed the game joy of many.
the NGE destroyed all professions and put 9 fixed classes in place. All with the same skillset. All with the same abilites. The only differnence was the equipment. Jedi was now a starting profession. A profession you had to play month or years before to aobtain. Also the Combat changed drasticaly. it became an FPS style. You have to mouseover the target and fire to hit. You couldnt lock the target at the beginning. That changed after a few weeks tho. But by far too late. Decay was disabled so the crafters had no more a steady income. A weapon once created was functionable for eternity. Compared to CU were you had to buy a new weapon each 1-2 weeks a huge difference. But not only the crafters and fighters got the shaft the entertainer got it really bad. PRE CU or in CU noone hunted or PVPed without an entertainer Buff. A doc could increase your pysical attributes but only entertainer could heal battle stress the so called battle fatigue and give mind buffs. These skills were just ripped off with the nge and now they could give a stupid XP buff that noone really needed they were just nice to have.
These are just same of the major issues that SWG went through - other players would report other things. SWG was PRE Cu around 280000 paying customers after CU it was about 200000 a few month after NGE the numbers dropped to like 80K. The latest research of some ppl showed that currently like 120K -130K play again. No idea if these numbers are true.
SOE has summoned the hate of a community. They changed the game 2 times againt the will of the majority of the community. Threads on the offical board got deleted within minutes. The complain posts reached within a short period of time 10000 posts. Articles all over the net
I tried to write that with as less emotions as possible because i want you to decide by your own.
Now my personal opinion: SOE achieved something special the first game of SWG it was a truly NEW Concept. It has problems yes the number of bugs as uncountable yes. But all the 280K ppl decided that they dont mind the bugs and want to hold onto it. Instead of improving the game SOE changed the game two times. Destroying with these changes the efforts of their customers. Or even showed them you are a minarity and we dont need you. THATS WHY PPL HATE SOE. MMOs are a SERVICE. A Service should be based on your customers conviction. And so i honestly hope that vanguard will FLOP also and will bury SOE in the pits of hell.
Sincerly Yours
Sioned
The long and short of the Pre's are as follows...
Pre-CU - Pre Combat Update, during the combat update the ENTIRE game changed massively and not for the better, the game was out of balance rather than take a slow approach and tweak classes and fix them over a period of time, they just ripped the entire system apart and remade it similar to what it was but not quite as fun and a whole lot more flustering.
Pre-NGE - Pre New Game Experience, this is what pretty much ended starwars for most people. The CU was bad but the hardcore players hung on and learned to play the new system and got used to it... a week or so after the last expansion they gutted the entire game top to bottom and re-released it as the NGE. 20+ classes gutted to 9, crafting destroyed, jedi everywhere (and this is supposed to be during the the original set of movies), economy destroyed, etc. They've been steadily working on improving the NGE since, which has largely consisted of adding back in the rebalanced features of PRE-NGE. There have never been changes on the level sony performed on SWG in any other mmo, ever. They took it from a turn based combat model to a click fest combat model.
Largely, most veteran players regard PRE-CU as the golden age of the game, the cities were populated to a degree you wouldn't believe, player cities thrived even before they had the actual player city code in the game and there were always hundreds of people on in any given area hunting, grinding, harvesting, etc. It was like watching a living starwars movie. The doctors had people waiting around chatting and such while they were waiting to get patched up after getting messed up in the field to the point they couldn't heal themselves up anymore... the bars were full of dancers and musicians and people sitting around at tables tipping them and chatting about starwars things. It was an amazingly immersive universe.
From what I understand its getting better, last i tried it was a few months ago now... but I saw 1 or 2 other people in several HOURS of playing. It's not really a starwars mmo anymore. It kinda sucks and isn't much fun. What MIGHT would fix most of the social problems in swg is merging worlds to increase population counts... but thats extremely hard in swg because of how open the original game was and how much overlap you'd have in "exceptional" areas.
Shadus
Not only in SWG but also in EQ2 they've made similar massive changes a couple of times, not quite as drastic but EQ2 had its own "CU" (LU14). Sony pretty much is the most hated mmo company in existence.
Shadus
Others have done a good job of discussing the changes, but there this one thing I wanted to disagree with. One of the posters above made the comment that despite all of the bad changes, if you were a hardcore Star Wars fan, you would like. I disagree with that. Perhaps its just that I have a different definition of hard core Star Wars fan.
In my mind, if you are a Star Wars fan, the movies are important. Staying true to the moives would be important to you if you are a true star wars fan. SWG MASSIVELY deviates from the movies. Its to the point that its really more of a parody of star wars than a game based on it.
While there are many ways the game deviates from movies, the most obvious and most notorious is that a very large percentage of the population is Jedi at a time when Jedi are all but extinct.
So if you find the movies amusing, but don't really care about them all that much it may be a game for you, but definitely not if you are a hardcore star wars fan.
Show me this and I will buy your next months sub..
"20-30 people in every city"
In fact I would buy two...just for kicks...
(At one time) this was how many people min was in the cantinas....) -- then this was also in the med center in the Big cities, then in the Transport area at least 100 - 150 on Bria... not including the people on the outskirts of the city buying things.
Yep.. this statement I would LOVE to see proven.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Agree, I'm a hardcore fan... from seeing it in 77 in my folks station wagon to owning "some in the box" Kenner action figures, to seeing the movies, etc.. reading the books, models, attending fan fests.. etc..
In fact THE TRUE hard core Star Wars fans consider this garbage at it's finest and almost the worst game now ever with the Star Wars label... We went from hope and promise, a world and open forum to a joke, a mistake and and just a game... ala World Sim to Arcade Gameboy.
Agree, this game is for the Star Wars fans that don't have a clue.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
You can't really blame companies for drooling over the subscriber numbers WoW has and wanting to copy that either. WoW has between 5 and 6 MILLION subscribers. Most MMO companies would kill for 1/2 million subscribers. And I admit there have been many times that I was playing WoW and wished I had a lightsaber or a blaster instead of an axe or bow. The problem though is that all these companies that are trying to copy WoW just don't get what is so good about WoW. What is good about WoW is not its setting, loot drops, interface, battlegrounds or anything like that....it is the level of polish in the game. It is the fact that things WORK in the game and when they don't work they are FIXED pronto. I guarantee you won't see an Imperial hat post in WoW like we did in SWG for year and a half.
The arguments I see in WoW are things along the lines of a scientific analysis of how damage over time increases too steeply in relation to other forms of damage while the arguments I still see in SWG are things like..."I can't equip my weapons or leave my house....please help me" and a bunch of responses that say "Lolz...cry more noob". The lesson of WoW is not orcs, axes, talent trees or battlegrounds...it is this...Make an MMO polished, as error free as possible and quit screwing with it so people can play the dam thing. Its too bad most MMO companies can't see the forest for the trees so I guess they will just have to be content with a few thousand subscribers while everyone continues flocking to WoW.
Oh yeah....one final thing....there should be a cardinal rule for MMO's in my opinion. That cardinal rule is that you should never ever ever make the hard work of your paying customers worthless. My hard work was wiped out in SWG not once, twice or even three times...but at least four times in the year and a half I played it. That is almost criminal and all the pain and suffering SWG is suffering now is the fault of every developer, suit and marketing type that decided to wipe the slate clean and start over again and again and again.
I have to thanks all those that gave there unbiased fact driven opinions, that was exactly what i was looking for.
Too bad SOE did what they did, based on this thread there was at one time one hell of a community there.
I am a huge Star Wars fan, but based on the track record of SOE with this game and others I'll be taking a pass.
WoW doesn't interest me in the least either.
Good thing im a huge Lord of the Rings fan
Thanks again everyone.
over 300,000 beta testers right now, and the community is a breath of fresh air. Incredible story, lush graphics, Direct X 9 &10 IE XP and Vista.
Min specs are incredibly low, like really really close to WoW low
Rediciously polished for Beta 2.0 farther along then ANY other beta i've played in the last 6 mos.
Now all that being said, there is no NDA concern (i think) as every north American beta tester was booted from servers today, Turbine is re-inviting those at some point this week, (crosses fingers) so technically there is no one under the NDA right now right?
Nope not really, I just know better since that is the top and it works it's way down.
Pre-CU pretty much only was able to make that mark of 20-30 people in every city... but hey if your gonna say it then back it up.
I'll pay for it... thats how sure I am of this utter bull$hit.
We were a take no mercy server, I understand that... but every backwater slow or empty server was flocking to ours.. it kinda sucked to a extent. Now... now it just doesn't matter so come and enjoy...lol most of us old guys are gone... there is still a few but most are gone as I said.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
I couldnt have said it better myself, SWG is a touchy subject for me and I like you will always feel angered when I think of what SOE did. After seeing how they handled SWG I vowed never to play a SOE game again.
I almost begin to cry when I read about the CU and the NGE, I mean what the hell where they thinking?
Going from a fucking good MMO to shit, and we never even saw it coming.
There is no way to tell a nood what really happend...
One example of why SWG has no longer a player base full of people. When NGE shipped you went down to 9 proffesions ( even though we all know they only really catered to Jedi ) each of which had a story line quest at certain levels. If i remember there was 3 one around lvl 9ish, one at 22, and the final one at 40( could be off on exact lvl, but you get the idea ) Now here we are 1 year, and 2 months later.... Has the Trader quests ever been implemented?, Can you do the lvl 40 for any proffession?
Now before you all attack an flame away as to it's level of importance, stop and think. This is why SWG is empty, over a years worth of broken non working content, yet how much has been added? Restuss is gone, but did they fix the stuck in aggro bug? etc. How long were Smugglers promised a fix? Ranger re-vamp anyone? THe fan base that stay'd before CU, and NGE liked the system as it was, but bugs, and broke stuff was the main concern. EVERYTHING was tossed on it's arse for the new ohh ahh shiney, yet bug reports overflowed. Eventually players got sick of waiting for the we'll fix it, but mean while look at this new kewl suff we're adding. Or were forced out by the removal of their years of work, and in-game effort.
Add this to the forum nazi's at the SWG official boards, now i understand the need to moderate, but when an entire community goes in an uproar on changes, you don't lock and delete, or ban everyone then wonder why no one is arround. If your facing a wildfire ravaging a hillside community, adding trees, and new houses is not the fix.
SWTOR. Face it, in the Scooby Doo Mystery Solving Van of coolness, this game is Velma. In this current MMO climate it has about as much chance for survival as a group of inquisitive teenagers in a 1980s slasher flick. -Tardcore May, 2011
Then after he turned two, he jumped on the couch one too many times, so Daddy came in and decided to break all four of his legs. Sure, you still loved that dog, and you tried to nurse it to health, but he'd never be the same. You tried to make the best of it, and still gave him all your love, but he couldn't do anything fun anymore.
Then 6 months later Daddy came in drunk and strangled it.
But he still insists that you should play with the dog. Even though he's now decomposing and stinks up the place. You can't play with him unless it's some demented game of catch that nobody else in there right mind would play with you.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
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