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What makes SWG special?
Huntn
Member Posts: 284
Not bate, but a serious question from a former WoW/Planetside player (who chose PS over SWG) and am now wandering the MMO wilderness looking for something special to play. I know there is a 14 day trial, but talking to real players might save me some time to make a good or avoid a bad decision. Solo friendly? PVE, PVP, or both? I'd prefer a dynamic environment (not static) but I realize that is nearly impossible to find. Lots of large worlds to explore?
Anyone feel like selling SWG?
-----------------------
Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
Comments
Hey man, I'm a WoW/Planetside Transplant myself. Left Planetside long time ago after I had maxed out all my stats and felt there was nothing worth playing for anymore. Similar thing with WoW.
I'm on the 14 Day Trial and I am liking it so far. I've made level 20 in 3 days following what all the veterans call the Legacy Quest (check my thread on it because it gets confusing at times). The PVE is tedious (like all MMOs) but at least it isn't simply point, click and watch. It is more interactive. The PVP is for mainly higher levels. All the PVP I saw was level 90s smacking the crap out of each other in the streets of Mos Eisley.
I did put my PVP on but within 10 seconds a level 90 Jedi came over and killed me so I learned my lesson and kept my PVP off. The Trial allows you to explore like 4 (?) planets but you need the expansions I believe to explore the rest. I've been to them all and they are really well done.
Dynamics? Not much to speak of. I mean, it's not like you see the world changing right before your eyes or the empire/rebellion gaining any ground. I did have a shock when I was in Bestine and Darth Vader landed with a crap load of Stormtroopers. A level 90 Jedi tried to attack him but the "Elite" stormtroopers killed him in one barrage.
SWG is your typical "sandbox" style world. With the exception on the expansion Kashyyyk and Mustafar all the planets are free to explore and are huge.
I would recommend you download the trial for sure. Most new players that haven't played the previous combat systems really fall in love with the game. What have you got to lose?
Oh, and I would also recommend Chilastra server
I've been playing the game since launch and I still have fun.
There are things you can solo and things that need a group. Plenty of PvP, at least on my server and the PvE is fun. When chapter 7 goes live there will be even more fun things to do in the game. And, if you're into space, chapter 8 is due out before the end of the year and that will give pilots more to do.
I'm pretty happy with the professions and the beast master expertise is fun too.
Joining a good guild can be a great bonus if they are a group of people that helps each other out etc
As for a level 90 attacking a low level player, I'm sorry about that happening. My guild is not into that kind of behavior and would only attack a low level if they attacked first. Some low levels do attack higher levels but soon find out that it was a mistake.
The graphics and the community are other bonuses that make the game great.
Yeah I logged 4 years (2 years each) in Planetside and WoW. I guess that is my MMO limit until something better comes along.
Thanks for the input! What are the PVE quests like? Are they your standard go kill 20 slugs and collect 10 hides or by chance is there some variety? WoW had an over abundance of kill and collect quests and just a couple of escort quests. I'm not saying I could never do one again but it was doing a WoW L60 K&C that I hit my limit with that game.
-----------------------
Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
On the lowend of the game it can be a bit that way but the highend quests tend to have variations to them.
The little yellow school bus??
SWG isnt a sandbox mmog anymore,since they added lvls,lvls force a linear pattern of questing or grinding in certain areas,they do not allow a player to chose what they want to do to progress.
Applying this sort of logic would mean the game was never a sandbox . There has always been a level based system in SWG , It used to be called your combat level . As there has always been a con system that dictates what level (CL) your character needed to be to survive in a certain area .SWG isnt a sandbox mmog anymore,since they added lvls,lvls force a linear pattern of questing or grinding in certain areas,they do not allow a player to chose what they want to do to progress.
Creature grinding was the only way to progress your character prior to the NGE . You are mistaking skill based character building to mean sandbox gameplay . Sandbox gameplay is very much present in SWG just as it has always been. Levels has nothing to do with it .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Applying this sort of logic would mean the game was never a sandbox . There has always been a level based system in SWG , It used to be called your combat level . As there has always been a con system that dictates what level (CL) your character needed to be to survive in a certain area .Creature grinding was the only way to progress your character prior to the NGE . You are mistaking skill based character building to mean sandbox gameplay . Sandbox gameplay is very much present in SWG just as it has always been. Levels has nothing to do with it .
Not true. The combat level system was imposed on SWG in the CU; the "/con" system we had before that served somewhat the same function but in quite a different manner.
In a level system, your CL is a massive factor: it largely determines damage, chance to hit, XP award, hit points and more. As your "level" increases you get more hit points, and it is only ever profitable to fight mobs within a fairly narrow range around your level.
These are alien concepts to the preCU game. Your Health-Action-Mind were what they were; you could shuffle the points around and buff them temporarily, but they did not increase with your non-existent "level". A mob was what it was, with defined resists to defined damage types, a defined damage and abilities and chance to hit. It didn't matter what you are, just what it was. And XP award was simply based on how much damage you dealt out. Mobs didn't have a defined XP yield, you kept getting some XP with each hit until you or it fled or died.
You could use any weapon you wanted; the game would not prevent you from using (however poorly) gear that you were not qualified to handle. What you could handle effectively depended on your in-game skills, and those skills also governed your accuracy and special attacks. It was your SKILL with the weapon in your hand that determined how a mob "conned" to you, not your "level". You could be a master with swords, but if you have no skill with the rifle in your hand, then a durni-rabbit will look dangerous to you! And fighting it with that rifle would be dangerous to you, because you would rarely hit and do little damage when you do. But pull out a sword and the durni's con-color will adjust to your sword skill; you'll likely hit and kill in one swing with your superior skill.
A few days ago I happened through Bestine and spotted a red dot on my radar that turned out to be a lowbie messing with his faction status. I assumed he was afk since he didn't respond to my tells. Sent him to the cloner with a short quip about going afk while on special forces status being hazardous to your health.
Housing/city system,Traders and their vendors (also the way you get resources) is what makes SWG special imo.
PVE is just your run of the mill combat, but at least it is sci-fi. So could be refreshing if you only played fantasy the last years. Oh, it's also full of bugs. Only used tactics in ground PVE is that of a punching bag.
Space missions can be very nice, story wise and the action. And is also challenging in an more interesting way imo (unless the lame ppl who bring a master pilot friend with the big guns).
PVP is nothing special either. Just stacking mods on armour and buff untill you drop. And then stand 2 feet of each other pressing buttons.
If the devs could make the Galactic Civil War period more apparent, then ground PVE and PVP could be made actually interesting.
TBH crafting is what makes SWG special (don't know if its still the same as pre-CU). Rest of the game is just horrible WoW clone with FPS crapped on top of it.
I know some of the changes in SWG have been controversial. There are a couple of MMOs coming down the pike that I'm thinking about like Warhammer, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa (until I saw the beating it was taking here in the forums) and even Hero's Journey, but in the mean time I'm checking current MMO's out there to see if there is something that could tide me over or even turn into an overlooked gem.
Thanks all for the SWG input. I appreciate it!
-----------------------
Past MMOs- Planetside, WoW.
Current MMO:
Current Games: L4D, Skyrim
Tried- ATITD, EQ2, SoR, Vanguard,SL,LOTRO,SotNW,SWTOR.
Anticipating- GW2, Planetside2
Applying this sort of logic would mean the game was never a sandbox . There has always been a level based system in SWG , It used to be called your combat level . As there has always been a con system that dictates what level (CL) your character needed to be to survive in a certain area .SWG isnt a sandbox mmog anymore,since they added lvls,lvls force a linear pattern of questing or grinding in certain areas,they do not allow a player to chose what they want to do to progress.
Creature grinding was the only way to progress your character prior to the NGE . You are mistaking skill based character building to mean sandbox gameplay . Sandbox gameplay is very much present in SWG just as it has always been. Levels has nothing to do with it .
ExactlyAnd this is the "SWG Current" forum if all your gonna do is come in here and biotch then just GTFO.
SWG used to be a LOT more special then it is today.
While the game offers VERY little in terms of the sandbox environment that it was designed with there are still plenty of the original elements still in the game.
The worlds are wonderful to explore. Rollplay options are endless and you can create a Star Wars experiance far greater then anything catered to you by SOE or LA. The client can be mod'd to enhance game play beyond the terrible default settings thus advancing the "individualism" of the game. You can even change the appearence of probe droids to appear as AT-AT's! Anyone seen IG-88's successor, it's scary!!
Character creation and appearence is awesome! While the character-classes are poor since the NGE you can still customize your character to appear as unique you could imagine. This is another of the strengths of SWG.
While the dynamics have improved since the "nge" they are still a pale sliver of how expansive the game used to be. Crafting feels static although some players claim there's some life to the market. There's no risk-vs-reward. Actually, there's no risk at all so everything feels as if it's being handed to you without effort. This takes away from a rewarding experiance of accomplishment.
take note, this game is NO longer a "sandbox". That portion of greatness was ruined with the Combat Upgrade and later destroyed by the "new game enhancements". That being said, there's still a few people who find it fun, but no where near the same capacity before these changes were made.
p.s. Try Dungeons & Dragons Online. That game is truely superior to SWG - seriously, it's a greater experiance with a shit-load of endgame content.
Creature grinding was the only way to progress your character prior to the NGE . You are mistaking skill based character building to mean sandbox gameplay . Sandbox gameplay is very much present in SWG just as it has always been. Levels has nothing to do with it .
Not true. The combat level system was imposed on SWG in the CU; the "/con" system we had before that served somewhat the same function but in quite a different manner.
In a level system, your CL is a massive factor: it largely determines damage, chance to hit, XP award, hit points and more. As your "level" increases you get more hit points, and it is only ever profitable to fight mobs within a fairly narrow range around your level.
These are alien concepts to the preCU game. Your Health-Action-Mind were what they were; you could shuffle the points around and buff them temporarily, but they did not increase with your non-existent "level". A mob was what it was, with defined resists to defined damage types, a defined damage and abilities and chance to hit. It didn't matter what you are, just what it was. And XP award was simply based on how much damage you dealt out. Mobs didn't have a defined XP yield, you kept getting some XP with each hit until you or it fled or died.
You could use any weapon you wanted; the game would not prevent you from using (however poorly) gear that you were not qualified to handle. What you could handle effectively depended on your in-game skills, and those skills also governed your accuracy and special attacks. It was your SKILL with the weapon in your hand that determined how a mob "conned" to you, not your "level". You could be a master with swords, but if you have no skill with the rifle in your hand, then a durni-rabbit will look dangerous to you! And fighting it with that rifle would be dangerous to you, because you would rarely hit and do little damage when you do. But pull out a sword and the durni's con-color will adjust to your sword skill; you'll likely hit and kill in one swing with your superior skill.
The difference between con level and character level isn't the point I was making , Though I will still have to disagree with you here . Yes in a skill based system such as pre-cu your CL didn't determine all outcomes as it would now . But it was still in its own right a level based system (determined by your over all combat skills ) which may have been more apparent if the buff's were not godly pre-cu . The buffs are what undermined the con system making a stacked build such as TK /SWORDS /M.Brawler overpowered to all but very few NPC'S / Creatures, even an incomplete build.The Combat system was far more open ended pre-cu , Through damage and resistance multipliers . But that still has nothing to do with SWG being a SAndbox .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There are many frustrating things about SWG. For instance, the combat is clumsy, and the bazaar has little to no versatility. A game that has been out this long, yet still doesn't enable you to search for level specific items doesn't speak volumes for the attention to detail.
There are rewarding things about the game. My favorite is the space battles. No MMO comes close to the space fighting in this game. EVE is child's play compared to SWG space dogfights.
I've only played 3 weeks, and I say its a decent game. I just don't know if I will continue past my free month do to the clumsy combat (not space), and I just can't get past a game this old doesn't allow its players to search the bazaar with detail.
I mean WTF? DAoC and EQ both have this, and they are far older and out of date.
Levels & other attributes is something they've said they'd like to implement but haven't yet due to time constraints.
Again: not true. The preCU /con system was based on your skill with the weapon in hand, NOT on "your over all combat skills". I once experimentally verified this when I wanted top-quality Avian Bone, and discovered that the best around was on Tatooine. At the time, my combat template was Novice Pistoleer, and no Brawler. By equipping an uncertified dagger (NovBrawler weapon cert), I was able to drive my /con so low that I could pull Dwarf Nuna missions out of Mos Espa.
Levels & other attributes is something they've said they'd like to implement but haven't yet due to time constraints.
The developers are not able to implement new features like this due to a single reason, budget. There's no other restraints.The lack of searching for level specific items was first raised when SOE decided to go with the "combat upgrade" (which wasn't an upgrade and turned everything to a level based system thus effectively breaking the entire model of which the game was developed on). There were a great deal of vocal concerns of a new level system actually causing more alienation due to the inability to locate weapons or items of an appropriate level. This was May 2005 and they've still refused to implement a means to make gaming in a "level based" system accessible - that's where all the spoon fed loot came from with the nge since it was easier to give it all away for free then require players to locate it.
You've always been able to locate personal vendors from the Bazaar if the owner registered them, at least since late 2003. You simply had to locate the item you wanted and generate a waypoint to the vendor.
And yes, space can be fun in SWG. My favorite aspect of the space game is minning. It's like a 3-D StarWars version of Asteroids! Seriously, minning deserves some serious recognition for creating a fun way to gather resources - was minning like this in Earth & Beyond?
Attempting to compare space in SWG to EVE is a matter of apples to oranges. If you like brainless action which requires little thought then SWG wins hands down.
sheesh, now I'm wanting to login and use my Buluuba-22 to mine some rocks!
Levels & other attributes is something they've said they'd like to implement but haven't yet due to time constraints.
The developers are not able to implement new features like this due to a single reason, budget. There's no other restraints.The lack of searching for level specific items was first raised when SOE decided to go with the "combat upgrade" (which wasn't an upgrade and turned everything to a level based system thus effectively breaking the entire model of which the game was developed on). There were a great deal of vocal concerns of a new level system actually causing more alienation due to the inability to locate weapons or items of an appropriate level. This was May 2005 and they've still refused to implement a means to make gaming in a "level based" system accessible - that's where all the spoon fed loot came from with the nge since it was easier to give it all away for free then require players to locate it.
You've always been able to locate personal vendors from the Bazaar if the owner registered them, at least since late 2003. You simply had to locate the item you wanted and generate a waypoint to the vendor.
And yes, space can be fun in SWG. My favorite aspect of the space game is minning. It's like a 3-D StarWars version of Asteroids! Seriously, minning deserves some serious recognition for creating a fun way to gather resources - was minning like this in Earth & Beyond?
Attempting to compare space in SWG to EVE is a matter of apples to oranges. If you like brainless action which requires little thought then SWG wins hands down.
sheesh, now I'm wanting to login and use my Buluuba-22 to mine some rocks!
There was talk about searching by level when Chapter 5 was being worked on. DevH was making a bunch of different improvements to the bazaar at the time and was saying that it would be rather difficult to implement but it something that could be done. Due to time constraints and having to work on Chapter 7 server side stuff he didn't have time to do it. I guess you could say that it's a budget issue since they could probably employ a new person to take care of it.Vendor searching from the bazaar wasn't implemented until just before the CU went to TC. Publish 14.1 on March 24 2005. Before then you needed to use the planetory map to find vendors.
Yeah, he meant vendor listings on the planetary map I think Obraik as opposed to the vendor search on the bazaar.
...The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.
Again: not true. The preCU /con system was based on your skill with the weapon in hand, NOT on "your over all combat skills". I once experimentally verified this when I wanted top-quality Avian Bone, and discovered that the best around was on Tatooine. At the time, my combat template was Novice Pistoleer, and no Brawler. By equipping an uncertified dagger (NovBrawler weapon cert), I was able to drive my /con so low that I could pull Dwarf Nuna missions out of Mos Espa.
It was rather hilarious for a Teras Kasi Master to have to equip a weapon like a CDEF pistol in order to reduce his consider level to get low level missions for the right thing to be hunting for resource harvesting purposes.
But it's what happened, and what you needed to do to focus in on the precise mission target you were seeking. This was extraordinarily important for scouts/rangers who were out looking for the 100CPU avian meat of the day.
As a CH, I could change the level of the missions I'd get (to target a specific creature) by equipping a lower power weapon or calling out a low level pet. You could switch weapons when /considering a target and have it go from certain death to an easy fight. One thing that was out of whack with the /consider system is that the target's (and your) damage absorbtion ability was not factored in, only the target's damage dealing ability. This became a very important factor when the full effects of high end armor and buffs kicked in, which wildly unbalanced the PvE game and made most PvE content ridiculously easy for prepared players to take on.
The CUNGE took on this issue by imposing an even worse "solution"; an overt level system that dumbed the game down to preschool level. The right speed for the gormless developers, as it turned out.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The game is still a sandbox MMO.
I mean... duh.
I miss the good ol' days when nerds were actually intelligent.
As in litter box?