Man, just watching some of those videos is bring tears to my eyes. It's very difficult to describe pre-CU SWG to folks who didn't play in that sandbox. It was unique and will always remain an ideal. Hopefully, after this recent trend of linearity has run its course, somebody will try to recapture the kind of gameplay pre-CU SWG provided, the variety and depth. Yes, no doubt it had its problems and bugs. Heck, I was a Commando. I KNOW about problems. But I was also a Master Weaponsmith/Droid Engineer, and a Master Chef, and a Master Ranger and a Master Doc/Pistoleer in among my 5 accounts, and the pure joy of the crafting kept me glued to my house for hours at a time (with tells from all over the server).
Nothing has come close to the personal experience of sharing a virtual world with other folks than pre-CU SWG.
-- Xix "I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
-- thirty something "professions," there were starter professions that branched off into elite professions, players had a certain amount of skill points to spend and could choose which skills/professions to spend them on (to a limit, had to go up the branch a skill was in to get the skill, couldn't just pick any skill randomly out of a profession)
-- no levels, no hearing "LFG around level x" or "sorry, you are too low level for this group;" a noob with only the first box unlocking a starter profession could group with someone who had used all their skill points with neither suffering xp loss
-- ability to choose combat or non-combat professions or a little of both
-- a player driven economy in which crafted items were needed and player owned vendors being the most popular way to sell and buy goods (there were bazaars in server cities but the most options were in the vendors)
-- an rp-encouraging game in which one COULD NOT just grindfest, one got wounds and had to find entertainers to heal the mind pool and docs to heal health...and find master musician, master dancer, and master doc if one wanted to buff up (this meant people ended up actually talking to each other and building a community....one unlike I've found in any other game); also inspecting a player brought up that person's "bio" in which rpers could type a storyline so many people dabbled in rp even if they weren't hardcore (not a hardcore rper myself but it was fun to rp from time to time or create a back story for my toons)
--player cities that served a purpose; housing was very customizable on the way one decorated it or one could just drop their junk in it and use it for storage; if one wanted they could get everything they ever needed to go from "noob" to "completed template" without going very far from the home town, the mayor could drop a certain amount of mission terminals and trainers, active player cities might have a doc and entertainers set up to buff and heal (either actual players or afk "bots" players had set up in the city)
-- lots of choices on how to level because planets were not level bound....there were easier and more difficult planets but the starter planets would give missions with the max amount of xp and someone with a few skills could group and brave the most difficult of planets (person might not survive but hopefully there was a rezzer in the group)
-- speaking of groups, the ability to have as many as 20 people in a group which was really cool at rp events because lots of players could group and use group chat to communicate...also great for ents because one got a better chance at getting max xp (ent xp was based on amount of people the player was grouped with up to a certain limit, and during pre-cu on a busy server it was easy to have 2 full groups of 20 in "Corolag")
-- easy ability to get around, as long as one had the creds they could buy a mount or vehicle, big player cities had shuttleports and server cities had starports; true at one time there was a ten minute wait between but for a crafter or ent that was time to get in a little xp, it was also time to visit with other people who might be standing around, and I've played games since then that one could easily spend 10 minutes or more walking from location to location only to die and have to do the walk all over again
-- the ability to hop in and start playing or log on and only play for a few minutes, yes there were planets that involved a lot of walking or interest points that were a journey from the nearest town but there was also the ability to hop on and do a couple of missions close to town or craft for a few minutes or dance/play music for a few minutes
-- high level of character customization, in the character creation screen there were lots of sliders and a color palette for eyes, hair, and skin AND if you got tired of your character's looks or wanted more options than what the creation screen offered, just go to an IDer (image designer...one of those 30 something profs mentioned earlier) and get it changed; also in customization there was armor and there was "regular" clothing and a master tailor had plenty of patterns and TONS of color options....and being as this wasn't just a grindfest game people tended to not go around in armor all the time (clothing also had slots sometimes in which "tapes" could be added to put some stats on the article of clothing)
*tries to think of what else there was in pre-cu that made it different from all the WoW clones of today*
-- combat system which allowed players to "visit" while fighting...yeah, that meant it was an easy auto-target with an auto-attack system (although, like WoW combat system, the auto attack could be running and person could click on other attacks to override the auto attack) but it was nice for one who enjoyed chatting rather than just running from kill to kill grindfesting their way along
-- Creature Handler profession that allowed a master creature handler to walk around with 20 something pets in the datapad with the ability to have up to 3 pets out at one time as long as the levels added up to equal or less than the max level the player could "handle" with the ability to swap out pets at any time (unlike WoW where hunter can only walk around with 1 pet and can only open 2 other slots for stabling pets); Handler could tame many wild animals or could purchase pets from Bio-Engineers (Bio-Engineers could create animals at different levels than what they spawned in the wild and could create some animals that could not be tamed in the wild..../sigh my woolamander collection /sniff....plus BE "pets" that had not been activated could be dropped in houses as decorations)
-- in game macros (yeah, they may have allowed people to afk their way through any profession....although how many MMOs have ways for people to do that anyway if they really want to even if it means using a second party cheat...but for my ents it meant I could actually interact with people while I got xp rather than having to continously type /flo # in order to get xp)
NGE:
-- an incomplete, broken , piece o' crap implementation of a WoW clone forced upon players with little notice (after the game had already been drastically changed with the "Combat Upgrade" just a few months earlier) that has been "completed"/"fixed"/"improved" over time, many times by adding some screwed up version of what was in the game during pre-cu and labeling it "new content" (example of how it was incomplete...when it was first implemented the 9 professions were straight skill trees, over time they added the expertise trees or whatever they are called to each of the 9 professions)
PLAYERS:
-- drop at implementation of CU; drop drastically at NGE; on SWG forums any outcry against NGE is labeled as the "vocal minority;" currently some are still looking for something that compares to that pre-CU experience, some have found other MMOs they enjoy, and some have given up on MMOs; as the OP can tell by his original post, that "vocal minority" is still vocal two years later
SOE:
--still dealing with what is considered by some to be the worst blunder in MMO history, new games they get their hands on are tainted by what happened to SWG (example: when SOE became connected to Vanguard, the faq suddenly included answers to questions of whether the game would ever experience drastic changes and who had control of the game)
I am officially feeling left out now. I see so many people shouting that pre-cu SWG was the most amazing game EVER especially on this site and in-game channels on EVE, Tabula Rasa etc. What the hell happened? It just seems the game was destroyed by SOE or Lucas and if it was so screwed up why didn't they roll it back? Seriously enlighten me!!!
Here's a quote from a highly esteemed SWG vet. It sums up the original game very well:
"The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group’s “Planet Side” testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over 8-10 different games.
I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to here the accounts of things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to be a part of this.
I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The Corellian plains and the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.
The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc…
The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.
The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.
Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.
Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went “hot” hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.
Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.
I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few knew I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.
Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.
Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing, when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more “Star Warsy” scene then a fight breaking out in a Star Wars bar.
You didn’t have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert. NPC’s could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town. For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time to be extra careful. But if laying low was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun Bunker, etc… The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.
New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend’s lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.
You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours… and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.
Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.
For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm’s End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend’s list and log off.
Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times."
What they did to this was remove most of the professions we had all mastered and enjoyed, removed the jedi quest line that people had worked on for in some cases more than a year, remove the functions of entertainers, lock everyone's pets in their inventory (datapad) and render them inaccessible, and roll out a game system whose basic functions (chat, movement, combat) were all badly broken. I couldn't walk or talk, my special attacks didn't work , and my healing healed enemies. Crafting became pointless as new loot that was superior to crafted gear dropped out of everything. We lost our characters, animations, professions, quest progress, game functionality and player interdependence, and got a load of bugs in place of all that. Also, this was done with no advance warning right after we bought an expansion that was designed for the old game. The day after we paid for the expansion, this "new game enhancement" was announced. That's it in a nutshell.
Since that happened people have asked for rollbacks or classic servers. On the SOE boards we got locked, deleted, banned for that. Instead of rolling back or offering classic servers, SOE has slowly been putting back some of the features they took out, albeit in watered down forms. Most former players feel this is far too little, and far too late. Many of us also didn't take kindly to feeling maligned in SOE/LA p.r. statements that seemed to depict us a whiners out to ruin the reputation of their wonderful product.
This was well put. and all truth with out the bitterness that most people including me have wrote very cunstructive Good job couldnt have said it better.
Even now, two years after the NGE, I can't watch pre-CU videos and screenshots without tears coming to my eyes. There were bugs, there was drama, but I loved that game. The ability to change the professions on your main character, the crafting, the pvp, the intensity of the community ... it was something else.
When they CU was announced, there was a loud uproar, there were demonstrations on the servers, there were goodbyes. So much we had worked for became worthless in one blow. My carefully gathered doc resources were so much trash. My beloved architect / tkm a broken template. My poor skill tapes, my new uber pistol....I never even got to use it. Many left, but my guild talked me into staying.
Slowly, we got back on our feet, regathered some of what we had lost. A new expansion was announced, some people actually came back to see it. The very day after the expansion officially went live, the NGE was announced, to go live in less than 2 weeks. This time ALL our professions were destroyed, all our stuff worthless. Where the CU still had people in my guild hesitating, they now just quit. No arguments, mostly no forum posts, no 'can I have your stuff' jokes. It was all futile. So many goodbyes in such a short period.
And all this because LA / SOE suffered WoW-envy, and LA felt THEIR IP should be able to get millions of subscriptions too, if only they dumbed down the game and made it more like WoW (they actually called it 'too cerebral'). The most ironic thing was that SOEs stated target audience was lower than 18 and male. One month after the NGE, long-term academic research was published, which made clear the average MMO gamer was 20+, and that there were a LOT more female players than most people thought.
The saddest thing about it all, was that in the last months before the CU, we were SO close to being bugfree. My (rebel) guild warred an imperial guild on the agreement no one was to use a jedi. Both sides had hardcore PVPers, who KNEW their templates. It was a marvellous week. Our CM was held in check by a smuggler (drove the poor CM nuts) and their CMs by our docs. I went after their riflemen on my swords/doc (and weren't THEY surprised)..... The balance in SWG was never really one-on-one, it was in the group dynamics. Yes, Jedi ruined that balance to an extent, especially against ranged opponents, but there were advanced player suggestions on how to give jedi a seperate conflict, that I feel might have worked. Adding a solid, non-linear quest system for those so inclined would probably have brought them a LOT more subscribers.
One of the worst things about the whole CU/NGE fiasco was the way SOE and LA treated us, their customers in interviews and forum statements. They were convinced that making the game more 'starwarsy' and 'iconic' would draw in new customers by the thousands, so they felt they could afford a 'few' dislikers. They called us who objected to the changes the vocal minority, whiners, childish nay-sayers who were stomping their feet but who would continue playing anyway. They insulted our intelligence at every corner. Posting ANY criticism on their forums would get you banned, even if what you posted was a polite summary of bugs and problems still not dealth with. Posts were deleted and locked by the hundreds, and still are when anyone dares comment negatively, or asks if there may be, one day, a classic server.
To the person posting about Bloodfin: as I understand, Bloodfin is now the server with the top population, even before Bria. You cannot really use it as a base for determining the success or failure of the NGE. From what I heard, most other servers are ghost towns and people are still actively emigrating to Bloodfin.
I am officially feeling left out now. I see so many people shouting that pre-cu SWG was the most amazing game EVER especially on this site and in-game channels on EVE, Tabula Rasa etc. What the hell happened? It just seems the game was destroyed by SOE or Lucas and if it was so screwed up why didn't they roll it back? Seriously enlighten me!!!
pre-cu SWG was even though many thing where broken/not working/not complete/not implemented, it stil was one of my personal best experainces in a MMORPG as it had anything i could wish for in a mmoRPG.....apart from the broken stuff ect ...afcourse
The rest.....is history, but even so, i don't think that today's generation of gamers would apriciatte pre-cu as ...we all know gamers did not evolve into the patient type of gamers as most these day want it ALL and what it NOW, pre-cu would not give those type of players what they WANT as it was very VERY heavy on the time"sinks". I'm glad i have played it, but most likely even if it all was fixed (pre-cu today) i simply don't have the time for it. Subbed recently to Tabula Rasa and even that game i don't have enough time to play, other then my sunday/monday
Oh did return for about 8 months and did enjoy the game allot ...well that is the crafting part, the combat part i never liked since NGE.......which is funny as some fools on this forum consider me a pro-NGE fanboy of some sort, to me it only proofed that some simply can not read if their conclusion was that of me.
God how I miss the good old days! Those clips brouht back sooo many good memories!! God I hope the speculated KoTOR:O from Bioware brings back some of the old SWG feel!
The Bloodfin that we knew, Linna, is long dead... People who changed servers outnumber the minority of the originals by a lot. There are even people who... roleplay... Which used to be a permaban offense on Bloodfin.
Lol. We definitely had some choice words for them, "carebears" being the least. Still... Miriya Sterling, Jadewitch, Brisc, Keesa and several others of the more hardcore PVP crowd had these epic RP stories on the forums. I enjoyed those, truth to be told.
Pre-CU SWG was a dream. A vision about bringing together people with the same burning passion. Sure, it was bugged, the balance was terrible, but I daresay it had the best community we will ever know. The freedom, the blasted sand dunes on Tatooine. The starter melon! lol
So many posters have said it better and I can't even begin to explain what Pre-CU was like for me. It became more than a game. For the love of God, I even had a SWG friend stay at my place during his Europe trip!!! The friendships, the in-game alliances, my guild...all lost.
Many belittle us, look down upon our sense of loss. They say it's only a game. They are wrong. It was a community. The two things are not necessarily connected.
Pre-CU SWG was a dream. A vision about bringing together people with the same burning passion. Sure, it was bugged, the balance was terrible, but I daresay it had the best community we will ever know. The freedom, the blasted sand dunes on Tatooine. The starter melon! lol So many posters have said it better and I can't even begin to explain what Pre-CU was like for me. It became more than a game. For the love of God, I even had a SWG friend stay at my place during his Europe trip!!! The friendships, the in-game alliances, my guild...all lost. Many belittle us, look down upon our sense of loss. They say it's only a game. They are wrong. It was a community. The two things are not necessarily connected.
SOE we fight, lest beasts we become...
Hell yeah!
I met a few online friends in person. I was invited to go to Florida to meet a few others as well. There were others too I wanted to meet in person, but unfortunetely without SWG being the central meeting place we lost touch.
Pre Cu you could acompany with amazing people. Still have contact to some in my friend list. Some i lost tho ..:(
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Man, just watching some of those videos is bring tears to my eyes. It's very difficult to describe pre-CU SWG to folks who didn't play in that sandbox. It was unique and will always remain an ideal. Hopefully, after this recent trend of linearity has run its course, somebody will try to recapture the kind of gameplay pre-CU SWG provided, the variety and depth. of sharing a virtual world with other folks than pre-CU SWG.
Actualy after reading this thread, the combat system and skill System sound a hell of a lot like what Fallen Earth is suppose to become.
PreCU SWG was, and is, my favorite MMORPG of all-time.
The game was fun. The community was great. A ton of my friends played. Something to do in game each and every night.
...
SWG had 85-90% of the things I wanted in an MMORPG. Instead of taking the steps to get closer to that 100% mark.. they went the opposite way.
The CU was actually not that bad. I was able to deal with it just fine. I lost an entire guild full of friends because of the CU, but it was much closer to the legacy system than the NGE.
The NGE just mucked up the works. The game is a shadow of a shadow of it's former self.
...
Sandbox vs cookie-cutter/linear... best way to sum it up, though.
Fsck. A thread isn't supposed to make you want to cry at your computer, is it?
Here's the thing:
The new SWG isn't bad. It's a WoW clone in a lot of ways, but has some uniqueness, and it's still the SW world. If you came upon SWG fresh, you'd probably say "Huh, not bad. It's not WoW, but it's a good sci-fi mmo."
The old SWG was a religion, a way of life, an addiction, and a revolution. I have to play a game where I could name 6 crafters off the top of my head (Chef Eerif made the *best* foods out there. Wookieluv was the Walmart of SWG. I knew a couple master asmiths that I wouldn't even share their names, they were that good). I have yet to find a game where I had contracts with people to gather resources. I have yet to find a game where you don't even shop in the game run bazaar for anything but cheap throwaway stuff, but you could name 10 cities that sold your buff packs with the best stats. I have yet to play a game where characters would do *nothing* but walk around, camping in pretty spots, and talking to friends. The was an entire skill tree devoted to just wandering around. And you *knew* that if you talked to a Master Ranger, they could get you where you wanted to go, and show you 4 things you'd never seen on the way. People *wrote dances* for the game. There were guides on how to transition from step to step, and what music went best with what styles. I mean, dayum!
Priests in WoW think they have it bad? Try being a master doc. The entire *server* knew who the master docs were. The instant you stepped in town, it was like you were surrounded by seagulls. "Buffs? Buffs? Buffs? Buffs?" You could pump out 2 million credits in an hour, helping the entire game. And you loved it.
That's the thing. New SWG isn't bad. Old SWG was a beautiful bug filled trip. Sure, there were uber toons. But no one cared. It was just *fun*
And that's why people are so bitter. SWG had *huge* issues. Hell, the running joke was that SWG was in beta for two years, and the install disk was just a note that said "Please patch" But it was so worth it. Old SWG was like nothing else out there.
Then the decision was made to streamline it, and remove the complexity, because it seemed like people didn't like it. I blame MTV.
Who am I? @Lorechaser on CoH Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner) Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry) ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO And many more.
To me, it was the most pointless, ridiculous, and absurd Grind ever. It took no skill to become a Jedi, just patience and a heck of a lot of time. I thought it was complete BULL and quit playing.
Guess what? In the SW lore it took even more patience and time to become a Jedi! This is what was great about how they had Jedi. What, you think being able to click on "Jedi" as a profession is a better way? Give me a break....people are now Jedi their first minute into the game.
Also something very important that you didnt see the level on your pvp opponents or the mobs. If you felt after 2 hours of gaming to go for a rancor hunting you could do so. You had to learn by your own what is doable and what not. Also the thing in pvp was that you didnt underestimate someone just because you knew he was 5 level below you - there were no levels just skills. if a hot girl was comming after you in Purple hotpants and a bustier you still had to run for your live if she was a skilled Close Combat char. In my eyes that has also lead ppl to be more polite than today. /shrug i liked it and i miss it
That is a really good point Sioned. Today when they have the level over your head and enemies it takes all the guess work out of the game. It is so much more fun and realistic to have to find out the hard way.
Wow lots of good explanations in the thread, thanks all. Kinda makes me feel sad how it went because I tried out the trial when I was playing Vanguard and I thought I might get a station pass. To be honest I couldn't understand the hype but now its obvious. If I remember rightly I had about 6 profession options and went bounty hunter. Plus the server I was on reminded me of Vanguard at peak times....empty
Its a great shame SOE / Lucas went this route trying to copy WOW. If they kept the old model and kept improving, balancing it might be one of those games pumping along, gaining players and not having many leave. In some ways its the player base that is at fault. If 99% of all players cancelled their subs in the same month this game got screwed maybe then they would have stopped the change. Zero players = no game. So there must have been some that stuck it out....I guess I can't blame them.
I was always a musician. My friends and I started a band... on talus. Well, we didnt know Talus wasnt a busy place, but we all started there got together and played for the people that came in. We actually got people to stay and watch our show for well over one hour all the while chatting with us and enjoying themselves.
Now my friends all left at one point or another for real life issues, but not I. I played on in Coronet finding a bunch of people to play with and just have a good time while leveling up musician. I am not an RPer, and at the time I was not a PvPer either, but I found myself drawn into RPing and later on in my SWG life found my love for PvP.
The grouping in Coronet was always friendly, the people who came in were either friendly or quiet, almost everybody had a good time while there. People would congratulate you when you finally got enough xp to get the next skill box, advise you on which skill to get next, and even help you with money if you dont have enough money to train the next skill box.
Some combat players would come in and chat with us entertainers. I found so many friends this way it makes me sad that others after the whole hologrind situation never experienced it. One guy I met, whose name I have a hard time remembering (makes me sad) was a rebel. He tipped me well so I would give him info on any overt imps in the area. He and his friends eventually got me to leave the cantina and level up a few boxes of pistol while they killed stuff. I didnt help them much if any, yet they enjoyed having a noob combat player in their midst.
I didnt keep pistol for long as another person I became good friends with was a doctor and told me how good it was (pre doc buffs). So I started to level it. he gave me stims galore, and more if I ever needed them. Once I got to master medic I went to Lok and healed groups out there as they took on nyms. I made a ton of money on those missions and met some people I would fight along later on in my SWG life (and some I would be fighting).
During my downtime from healing, I continued to play my nala in C-Net and met some wierd guy that was playing by himself. Being leader of the ent group I invited him and he declined. I laughed as I whispered him and we ended up chatting for three times as long as it took for him to heal his own wounds. He and I became fast friends and later on I joined his guild.
from that point on I hunted nightsisters, rancors, FS NPCs, imperial stormtroopers, you name it we hunted it as a guild. I healed them as none of us had any armor at that point (doc buffs were not good yet). I became a rebel and we often fought imperials, which is how we got together with the other rebel guilds on the server interested in PvP.
Often would be the nights we had 50+ rebels in somebody's rebel base, me buffing them both doc and musician buffs getting ready for the upcoming base assault. We would go to the imp base and assault, taking it down or not, fighting a lot of imperial players along the way and having a blast the entire time. Often the night would end with everybody having black bars, imps and rebels, and joining each other in one cantina or the next laughing about the battle watching a show and having just as good of a time as during the battle.
I remember getting tells from people asking me to perform at their weddings, picnics, and cities. I remember parties that lasted longer than I realized, store openings that gave free stuff away the first night, DWB attacks attempting to get the first jet packs...
The game was buggy as hell, often bases wouldnt be able to be shut down was a huge one. Rebel, imp battlegrounds that were taken out because they didnt work right and never put back in, overpowered doc buffs and armor. Overpowered rifleman... god i hated those rifleman... i would take all those bugs and more to play the game as it was once more. Pre hologrind there was/is no better game for a non twitchy unpatient kiddy.
Also makes me think of the LFG system in other MMOs. If you put together a party in WoW for example, you do it because you need them for a mission/quest. You use them or they use you as a tool and when it's finished people go their seperate ways hunting for that ever elusive next item or level.
It wasn't like that PRE-CU. People actually cared. I can't remember how many times I saw complete strangers rushing into a battle to defend somebody they didn't even know. When I started, I kept getting amazed at how friendly people were, they poured their knowledge and credits/items over you like it was x-mas.
Btw, Han DID shoot first, otherwise he wouldn't be Han Solo, now would he?
Also makes me think of the LFG system in other MMOs. If you put together a party in WoW for example, you do it because you need them for a mission/quest. You use them or they use you as a tool and when it's finished people go their seperate ways hunting for that ever elusive next item or level. It wasn't like that PRE-CU. People actually cared. I can't remember how many times I saw complete strangers rushing into a battle to defend somebody they didn't even know. When I started, I kept getting amazed at how friendly people were, they poured their knowledge and credits/items over you like it was x-mas.
Btw, Han DID shoot first, otherwise he wouldn't be Han Solo, now would he?
SOE we fight, lest beasts we become...
Well thats not entirely true. Prior to doc buffs and armor people did group with strangers to do missions on dath/dant/lok. How many times I remember seeing, "Ok everybody get a mission to the SW for 12k rancors" or "Everybody get a mission for Nyms to the North"
As for people caring, I agree for the majority of people I met throughout my time in SWG. Eventhough they were strangers they were kind, thoughtful, and generous. What goes around came around, I was nice and generous in turn to people I didnt know, and what is best- nice people werent taken advantage of.
A lot of people have already pointed out what I would have said, and a lot I had forgotten (thanks for reminding me). I'll just put it like this. For 2+ years I had 2 computers logged into that game on each of my 2 accounts 24x7x365. When I went AFK, I wouldn't log out, I'd just find a nice spot in a cantina and set my AFK tag. I wanted to be able to come back to my computer and immediately be back ingame. I was literally living and breathing the virtual world of that game. I was "Living" in the game world.
I have fond memories of SWG pre-CU. for all it's bugs (an yes there were A LOT) it was great. HUGE HUGE potential. every char you met was an unknown. twilik in hot pants might be a master BH/tka badass. You just didn't know till the lasers started flying.
My best memory of SWG pre-CU was tatooine. sitting on a sand dune at night just watching the scenery. followed closely by the fond memory of being eaten by my first Krayat dragon. >>>>>this what I did
I waited and waited for them to add the remaining content to complete the StarWars feel. It wouldn't have been any harder than the sillyness that they did put in.
I waited for them to bring the Galactic Civil War to life! rather than joke it had become.
Comments
Man, just watching some of those videos is bring tears to my eyes. It's very difficult to describe pre-CU SWG to folks who didn't play in that sandbox. It was unique and will always remain an ideal. Hopefully, after this recent trend of linearity has run its course, somebody will try to recapture the kind of gameplay pre-CU SWG provided, the variety and depth. Yes, no doubt it had its problems and bugs. Heck, I was a Commando. I KNOW about problems. But I was also a Master Weaponsmith/Droid Engineer, and a Master Chef, and a Master Ranger and a Master Doc/Pistoleer in among my 5 accounts, and the pure joy of the crafting kept me glued to my house for hours at a time (with tells from all over the server).
Nothing has come close to the personal experience of sharing a virtual world with other folks than pre-CU SWG.
-- Xix
"I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
Pre-CU:
-- thirty something "professions," there were starter professions that branched off into elite professions, players had a certain amount of skill points to spend and could choose which skills/professions to spend them on (to a limit, had to go up the branch a skill was in to get the skill, couldn't just pick any skill randomly out of a profession)
-- no levels, no hearing "LFG around level x" or "sorry, you are too low level for this group;" a noob with only the first box unlocking a starter profession could group with someone who had used all their skill points with neither suffering xp loss
-- ability to choose combat or non-combat professions or a little of both
-- a player driven economy in which crafted items were needed and player owned vendors being the most popular way to sell and buy goods (there were bazaars in server cities but the most options were in the vendors)
-- an rp-encouraging game in which one COULD NOT just grindfest, one got wounds and had to find entertainers to heal the mind pool and docs to heal health...and find master musician, master dancer, and master doc if one wanted to buff up (this meant people ended up actually talking to each other and building a community....one unlike I've found in any other game); also inspecting a player brought up that person's "bio" in which rpers could type a storyline so many people dabbled in rp even if they weren't hardcore (not a hardcore rper myself but it was fun to rp from time to time or create a back story for my toons)
--player cities that served a purpose; housing was very customizable on the way one decorated it or one could just drop their junk in it and use it for storage; if one wanted they could get everything they ever needed to go from "noob" to "completed template" without going very far from the home town, the mayor could drop a certain amount of mission terminals and trainers, active player cities might have a doc and entertainers set up to buff and heal (either actual players or afk "bots" players had set up in the city)
-- lots of choices on how to level because planets were not level bound....there were easier and more difficult planets but the starter planets would give missions with the max amount of xp and someone with a few skills could group and brave the most difficult of planets (person might not survive but hopefully there was a rezzer in the group)
-- speaking of groups, the ability to have as many as 20 people in a group which was really cool at rp events because lots of players could group and use group chat to communicate...also great for ents because one got a better chance at getting max xp (ent xp was based on amount of people the player was grouped with up to a certain limit, and during pre-cu on a busy server it was easy to have 2 full groups of 20 in "Corolag")
-- easy ability to get around, as long as one had the creds they could buy a mount or vehicle, big player cities had shuttleports and server cities had starports; true at one time there was a ten minute wait between but for a crafter or ent that was time to get in a little xp, it was also time to visit with other people who might be standing around, and I've played games since then that one could easily spend 10 minutes or more walking from location to location only to die and have to do the walk all over again
-- the ability to hop in and start playing or log on and only play for a few minutes, yes there were planets that involved a lot of walking or interest points that were a journey from the nearest town but there was also the ability to hop on and do a couple of missions close to town or craft for a few minutes or dance/play music for a few minutes
-- high level of character customization, in the character creation screen there were lots of sliders and a color palette for eyes, hair, and skin AND if you got tired of your character's looks or wanted more options than what the creation screen offered, just go to an IDer (image designer...one of those 30 something profs mentioned earlier) and get it changed; also in customization there was armor and there was "regular" clothing and a master tailor had plenty of patterns and TONS of color options....and being as this wasn't just a grindfest game people tended to not go around in armor all the time (clothing also had slots sometimes in which "tapes" could be added to put some stats on the article of clothing)
*tries to think of what else there was in pre-cu that made it different from all the WoW clones of today*
-- combat system which allowed players to "visit" while fighting...yeah, that meant it was an easy auto-target with an auto-attack system (although, like WoW combat system, the auto attack could be running and person could click on other attacks to override the auto attack) but it was nice for one who enjoyed chatting rather than just running from kill to kill grindfesting their way along
-- Creature Handler profession that allowed a master creature handler to walk around with 20 something pets in the datapad with the ability to have up to 3 pets out at one time as long as the levels added up to equal or less than the max level the player could "handle" with the ability to swap out pets at any time (unlike WoW where hunter can only walk around with 1 pet and can only open 2 other slots for stabling pets); Handler could tame many wild animals or could purchase pets from Bio-Engineers (Bio-Engineers could create animals at different levels than what they spawned in the wild and could create some animals that could not be tamed in the wild..../sigh my woolamander collection /sniff....plus BE "pets" that had not been activated could be dropped in houses as decorations)
-- in game macros (yeah, they may have allowed people to afk their way through any profession....although how many MMOs have ways for people to do that anyway if they really want to even if it means using a second party cheat...but for my ents it meant I could actually interact with people while I got xp rather than having to continously type /flo # in order to get xp)
NGE:
-- an incomplete, broken , piece o' crap implementation of a WoW clone forced upon players with little notice (after the game had already been drastically changed with the "Combat Upgrade" just a few months earlier) that has been "completed"/"fixed"/"improved" over time, many times by adding some screwed up version of what was in the game during pre-cu and labeling it "new content" (example of how it was incomplete...when it was first implemented the 9 professions were straight skill trees, over time they added the expertise trees or whatever they are called to each of the 9 professions)
PLAYERS:
-- drop at implementation of CU; drop drastically at NGE; on SWG forums any outcry against NGE is labeled as the "vocal minority;" currently some are still looking for something that compares to that pre-CU experience, some have found other MMOs they enjoy, and some have given up on MMOs; as the OP can tell by his original post, that "vocal minority" is still vocal two years later
SOE:
--still dealing with what is considered by some to be the worst blunder in MMO history, new games they get their hands on are tainted by what happened to SWG (example: when SOE became connected to Vanguard, the faq suddenly included answers to questions of whether the game would ever experience drastic changes and who had control of the game)
Here's a quote from a highly esteemed SWG vet. It sums up the original game very well:
"The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group’s “Planet Side” testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over 8-10 different games.
I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to here the accounts of things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to be a part of this.
I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The Corellian plains and the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.
The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc…
The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.
The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.
Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.
Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went “hot” hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.
Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.
I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few knew I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.
Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.
Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing, when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more “Star Warsy” scene then a fight breaking out in a Star Wars bar.
You didn’t have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert. NPC’s could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town. For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time to be extra careful. But if laying low was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun Bunker, etc… The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.
New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend’s lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.
You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours… and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.
Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.
For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm’s End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend’s list and log off.
Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times."
What they did to this was remove most of the professions we had all mastered and enjoyed, removed the jedi quest line that people had worked on for in some cases more than a year, remove the functions of entertainers, lock everyone's pets in their inventory (datapad) and render them inaccessible, and roll out a game system whose basic functions (chat, movement, combat) were all badly broken. I couldn't walk or talk, my special attacks didn't work , and my healing healed enemies. Crafting became pointless as new loot that was superior to crafted gear dropped out of everything. We lost our characters, animations, professions, quest progress, game functionality and player interdependence, and got a load of bugs in place of all that. Also, this was done with no advance warning right after we bought an expansion that was designed for the old game. The day after we paid for the expansion, this "new game enhancement" was announced. That's it in a nutshell.
Since that happened people have asked for rollbacks or classic servers. On the SOE boards we got locked, deleted, banned for that. Instead of rolling back or offering classic servers, SOE has slowly been putting back some of the features they took out, albeit in watered down forms. Most former players feel this is far too little, and far too late. Many of us also didn't take kindly to feeling maligned in SOE/LA p.r. statements that seemed to depict us a whiners out to ruin the reputation of their wonderful product.
This was well put. and all truth with out the bitterness that most people including me have wrote very cunstructive Good job couldnt have said it better.
Even now, two years after the NGE, I can't watch pre-CU videos and screenshots without tears coming to my eyes. There were bugs, there was drama, but I loved that game. The ability to change the professions on your main character, the crafting, the pvp, the intensity of the community ... it was something else.
When they CU was announced, there was a loud uproar, there were demonstrations on the servers, there were goodbyes. So much we had worked for became worthless in one blow. My carefully gathered doc resources were so much trash. My beloved architect / tkm a broken template. My poor skill tapes, my new uber pistol....I never even got to use it. Many left, but my guild talked me into staying.
Slowly, we got back on our feet, regathered some of what we had lost. A new expansion was announced, some people actually came back to see it. The very day after the expansion officially went live, the NGE was announced, to go live in less than 2 weeks. This time ALL our professions were destroyed, all our stuff worthless. Where the CU still had people in my guild hesitating, they now just quit. No arguments, mostly no forum posts, no 'can I have your stuff' jokes. It was all futile. So many goodbyes in such a short period.
And all this because LA / SOE suffered WoW-envy, and LA felt THEIR IP should be able to get millions of subscriptions too, if only they dumbed down the game and made it more like WoW (they actually called it 'too cerebral'). The most ironic thing was that SOEs stated target audience was lower than 18 and male. One month after the NGE, long-term academic research was published, which made clear the average MMO gamer was 20+, and that there were a LOT more female players than most people thought.
The saddest thing about it all, was that in the last months before the CU, we were SO close to being bugfree. My (rebel) guild warred an imperial guild on the agreement no one was to use a jedi. Both sides had hardcore PVPers, who KNEW their templates. It was a marvellous week. Our CM was held in check by a smuggler (drove the poor CM nuts) and their CMs by our docs. I went after their riflemen on my swords/doc (and weren't THEY surprised)..... The balance in SWG was never really one-on-one, it was in the group dynamics. Yes, Jedi ruined that balance to an extent, especially against ranged opponents, but there were advanced player suggestions on how to give jedi a seperate conflict, that I feel might have worked. Adding a solid, non-linear quest system for those so inclined would probably have brought them a LOT more subscribers.
One of the worst things about the whole CU/NGE fiasco was the way SOE and LA treated us, their customers in interviews and forum statements. They were convinced that making the game more 'starwarsy' and 'iconic' would draw in new customers by the thousands, so they felt they could afford a 'few' dislikers. They called us who objected to the changes the vocal minority, whiners, childish nay-sayers who were stomping their feet but who would continue playing anyway. They insulted our intelligence at every corner. Posting ANY criticism on their forums would get you banned, even if what you posted was a polite summary of bugs and problems still not dealth with. Posts were deleted and locked by the hundreds, and still are when anyone dares comment negatively, or asks if there may be, one day, a classic server.
To the person posting about Bloodfin: as I understand, Bloodfin is now the server with the top population, even before Bria. You cannot really use it as a base for determining the success or failure of the NGE. From what I heard, most other servers are ghost towns and people are still actively emigrating to Bloodfin.
Linna Baresi
Bloodfin, 2003-2005
It's so refreshing to see that some people actually understood this!
The Bloodfin that we knew, Linna, is long dead...
People who changed servers outnumber the minority of the originals by a lot. There are even people who... roleplay...
Which used to be a permaban offense on Bloodfin.
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/star-wars-galaxies-2005/667893p1.html
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/07/so_what_happened_to_star_wars.html
http://blog.tp.org/chip/archives/002076.html
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/19/community-building/
And......
Some pre-cu Clips
http://starwars.yahoo.com/videos/star-wars-galaxies-pre-cu-video?ue_dpoa=16e1b940ecbf3145b91e283c4b80abc6&ue_dpoat=videos&ue_dpat=videos&ue_dpam=soft&ue_dpln=A+New+Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfGk17aJqlI
And a personal note:
pre-cu SWG was even though many thing where broken/not working/not complete/not implemented, it stil was one of my personal best experainces in a MMORPG as it had anything i could wish for in a mmoRPG.....apart from the broken stuff ect ...afcourse
The rest.....is history, but even so, i don't think that today's generation of gamers would apriciatte pre-cu as ...we all know gamers did not evolve into the patient type of gamers as most these day want it ALL and what it NOW, pre-cu would not give those type of players what they WANT as it was very VERY heavy on the time"sinks". I'm glad i have played it, but most likely even if it all was fixed (pre-cu today) i simply don't have the time for it. Subbed recently to Tabula Rasa and even that game i don't have enough time to play, other then my sunday/monday
Oh did return for about 8 months and did enjoy the game allot ...well that is the crafting part, the combat part i never liked since NGE.......which is funny as some fools on this forum consider me a pro-NGE fanboy of some sort, to me it only proofed that some simply can not read if their conclusion was that of me.
God how I miss the good old days! Those clips brouht back sooo many good memories!!
Lol. We definitely had some choice words for them, "carebears" being the least. Still... Miriya Sterling, Jadewitch, Brisc, Keesa and several others of the more hardcore PVP crowd had these epic RP stories on the forums. I enjoyed those, truth to be told.
Linna
Wow.... this thread took me back....again.
Pre-CU SWG was a dream. A vision about bringing together people with the same burning passion. Sure, it was bugged, the balance was terrible, but I daresay it had the best community we will ever know. The freedom, the blasted sand dunes on Tatooine. The starter melon! lol
So many posters have said it better and I can't even begin to explain what Pre-CU was like for me. It became more than a game. For the love of God, I even had a SWG friend stay at my place during his Europe trip!!! The friendships, the in-game alliances, my guild...all lost.
Many belittle us, look down upon our sense of loss. They say it's only a game. They are wrong. It was a community. The two things are not necessarily connected.
SOE we fight, lest beasts we become...
Hell yeah!
I met a few online friends in person. I was invited to go to Florida to meet a few others as well. There were others too I wanted to meet in person, but unfortunetely without SWG being the central meeting place we lost touch.
Pre Cu you could acompany with amazing people. Still have contact to some in my friend list. Some i lost tho ..:(
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Actualy after reading this thread, the combat system and skill System sound a hell of a lot like what Fallen Earth is suppose to become.
PreCU SWG was not my first MMORPG to play.
It was the MMORPG that got me hooked, however.
PreCU SWG was, and is, my favorite MMORPG of all-time.
The game was fun. The community was great. A ton of my friends played. Something to do in game each and every night.
...
SWG had 85-90% of the things I wanted in an MMORPG. Instead of taking the steps to get closer to that 100% mark.. they went the opposite way.
The CU was actually not that bad. I was able to deal with it just fine. I lost an entire guild full of friends because of the CU, but it was much closer to the legacy system than the NGE.
The NGE just mucked up the works. The game is a shadow of a shadow of it's former self.
...
Sandbox vs cookie-cutter/linear... best way to sum it up, though.
Fsck. A thread isn't supposed to make you want to cry at your computer, is it?
Here's the thing:
The new SWG isn't bad. It's a WoW clone in a lot of ways, but has some uniqueness, and it's still the SW world. If you came upon SWG fresh, you'd probably say "Huh, not bad. It's not WoW, but it's a good sci-fi mmo."
The old SWG was a religion, a way of life, an addiction, and a revolution.
I have to play a game where I could name 6 crafters off the top of my head (Chef Eerif made the *best* foods out there. Wookieluv was the Walmart of SWG. I knew a couple master asmiths that I wouldn't even share their names, they were that good). I have yet to find a game where I had contracts with people to gather resources. I have yet to find a game where you don't even shop in the game run bazaar for anything but cheap throwaway stuff, but you could name 10 cities that sold your buff packs with the best stats. I have yet to play a game where characters would do *nothing* but walk around, camping in pretty spots, and talking to friends. The was an entire skill tree devoted to just wandering around. And you *knew* that if you talked to a Master Ranger, they could get you where you wanted to go, and show you 4 things you'd never seen on the way. People *wrote dances* for the game. There were guides on how to transition from step to step, and what music went best with what styles. I mean, dayum!
Priests in WoW think they have it bad? Try being a master doc. The entire *server* knew who the master docs were. The instant you stepped in town, it was like you were surrounded by seagulls. "Buffs? Buffs? Buffs? Buffs?" You could pump out 2 million credits in an hour, helping the entire game. And you loved it.
That's the thing. New SWG isn't bad. Old SWG was a beautiful bug filled trip. Sure, there were uber toons. But no one cared. It was just *fun*
And that's why people are so bitter. SWG had *huge* issues. Hell, the running joke was that SWG was in beta for two years, and the install disk was just a note that said "Please patch" But it was so worth it. Old SWG was like nothing else out there.
Then the decision was made to streamline it, and remove the complexity, because it seemed like people didn't like it. I blame MTV.
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
Guess what? In the SW lore it took even more patience and time to become a Jedi! This is what was great about how they had Jedi. What, you think being able to click on "Jedi" as a profession is a better way? Give me a break....people are now Jedi their first minute into the game.
That is a really good point Sioned. Today when they have the level over your head and enemies it takes all the guess work out of the game. It is so much more fun and realistic to have to find out the hard way.
Wow lots of good explanations in the thread, thanks all. Kinda makes me feel sad how it went because I tried out the trial when I was playing Vanguard and I thought I might get a station pass. To be honest I couldn't understand the hype but now its obvious. If I remember rightly I had about 6 profession options and went bounty hunter. Plus the server I was on reminded me of Vanguard at peak times....empty
Its a great shame SOE / Lucas went this route trying to copy WOW. If they kept the old model and kept improving, balancing it might be one of those games pumping along, gaining players and not having many leave. In some ways its the player base that is at fault. If 99% of all players cancelled their subs in the same month this game got screwed maybe then they would have stopped the change. Zero players = no game. So there must have been some that stuck it out....I guess I can't blame them.
Awesome thread. Brings back a lot of memories.
I was always a musician. My friends and I started a band... on talus. Well, we didnt know Talus wasnt a busy place, but we all started there got together and played for the people that came in. We actually got people to stay and watch our show for well over one hour all the while chatting with us and enjoying themselves.
Now my friends all left at one point or another for real life issues, but not I. I played on in Coronet finding a bunch of people to play with and just have a good time while leveling up musician. I am not an RPer, and at the time I was not a PvPer either, but I found myself drawn into RPing and later on in my SWG life found my love for PvP.
The grouping in Coronet was always friendly, the people who came in were either friendly or quiet, almost everybody had a good time while there. People would congratulate you when you finally got enough xp to get the next skill box, advise you on which skill to get next, and even help you with money if you dont have enough money to train the next skill box.
Some combat players would come in and chat with us entertainers. I found so many friends this way it makes me sad that others after the whole hologrind situation never experienced it. One guy I met, whose name I have a hard time remembering (makes me sad) was a rebel. He tipped me well so I would give him info on any overt imps in the area. He and his friends eventually got me to leave the cantina and level up a few boxes of pistol while they killed stuff. I didnt help them much if any, yet they enjoyed having a noob combat player in their midst.
I didnt keep pistol for long as another person I became good friends with was a doctor and told me how good it was (pre doc buffs). So I started to level it. he gave me stims galore, and more if I ever needed them. Once I got to master medic I went to Lok and healed groups out there as they took on nyms. I made a ton of money on those missions and met some people I would fight along later on in my SWG life (and some I would be fighting).
During my downtime from healing, I continued to play my nala in C-Net and met some wierd guy that was playing by himself. Being leader of the ent group I invited him and he declined. I laughed as I whispered him and we ended up chatting for three times as long as it took for him to heal his own wounds. He and I became fast friends and later on I joined his guild.
from that point on I hunted nightsisters, rancors, FS NPCs, imperial stormtroopers, you name it we hunted it as a guild. I healed them as none of us had any armor at that point (doc buffs were not good yet). I became a rebel and we often fought imperials, which is how we got together with the other rebel guilds on the server interested in PvP.
Often would be the nights we had 50+ rebels in somebody's rebel base, me buffing them both doc and musician buffs getting ready for the upcoming base assault. We would go to the imp base and assault, taking it down or not, fighting a lot of imperial players along the way and having a blast the entire time. Often the night would end with everybody having black bars, imps and rebels, and joining each other in one cantina or the next laughing about the battle watching a show and having just as good of a time as during the battle.
I remember getting tells from people asking me to perform at their weddings, picnics, and cities. I remember parties that lasted longer than I realized, store openings that gave free stuff away the first night, DWB attacks attempting to get the first jet packs...
The game was buggy as hell, often bases wouldnt be able to be shut down was a huge one. Rebel, imp battlegrounds that were taken out because they didnt work right and never put back in, overpowered doc buffs and armor. Overpowered rifleman... god i hated those rifleman... i would take all those bugs and more to play the game as it was once more. Pre hologrind there was/is no better game for a non twitchy unpatient kiddy.
Also makes me think of the LFG system in other MMOs. If you put together a party in WoW for example, you do it because you need them for a mission/quest. You use them or they use you as a tool and when it's finished people go their seperate ways hunting for that ever elusive next item or level.
It wasn't like that PRE-CU. People actually cared. I can't remember how many times I saw complete strangers rushing into a battle to defend somebody they didn't even know. When I started, I kept getting amazed at how friendly people were, they poured their knowledge and credits/items over you like it was x-mas.
Btw, Han DID shoot first, otherwise he wouldn't be Han Solo, now would he?
SOE we fight, lest beasts we become...
As for people caring, I agree for the majority of people I met throughout my time in SWG. Eventhough they were strangers they were kind, thoughtful, and generous. What goes around came around, I was nice and generous in turn to people I didnt know, and what is best- nice people werent taken advantage of.
A lot of people have already pointed out what I would have said, and a lot I had forgotten (thanks for reminding me). I'll just put it like this. For 2+ years I had 2 computers logged into that game on each of my 2 accounts 24x7x365. When I went AFK, I wouldn't log out, I'd just find a nice spot in a cantina and set my AFK tag. I wanted to be able to come back to my computer and immediately be back ingame. I was literally living and breathing the virtual world of that game. I was "Living" in the game world.
My best memory of SWG pre-CU was tatooine. sitting on a sand dune at night just watching the scenery. followed closely by the fond memory of being eaten by my first Krayat dragon. >>>>>this what I did
We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Pre cu was the best mmo ever and always will be IMHO.
I'll agree with you as long as you change that to "pre cu had the POTENTIAL to be the best mmo ever."
At the time it was anybody's game. With mammoth potential and not as many mmos out there swg could have had it all.
We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.