Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
free trial review...
admriker4
Member Posts: 1,070
I took up the challenge of the free trial recently for 4 days. My review...
Population - very low on all servers. A few like chilastria and bria had some players around but nothing like a few years ago. I took my droid engineer out of retirement on Chilastria and restarted my vendors. I went out looking for a place to advertise my goods. Over 4 days and nights, I saw maybe 15 people max in Mos Eisely (and 8 were afk).
I tried Theed, totally dead. Maybe 5 people max were around everytime
I tried Restauss and this was where I found the most players. On saturday night I saw maybe 25 people total. Right now Im online and advertising my goods, I see maybe 10-12 people in Restauss.
Ive also tried Kashyyk, completely dead. In 4 attempts over 4 days I saw a grand total of 1 other person
I tried Mustafar, I think maybe the max I saw was 8 people.
Granted there are probably some players in their cities and in space. But still the populations are much much worse than when I last tried a free vet trial a year ago.
One person from my friends list came online once. I asked him some questions but he hadnt played in years either. He was just on to check on his houses and had no plans on staying past the free trial.
Crafting - my review is limited to droid engineering and artisan.
Artisan is dead. completely dead. since vehicles dont decay, i see little reason to even bother with it
Droid engineering, they finally added some new combat droids we were asking for. That only took them what 4 years to implement. Anyway, while at Restauss I saw a grand total of ZERO droids being used. I asked a few players why werent they using a droid to give them a little more dps in their fights...i got no responses, they were too busy pwning each other.
Im not even sure what a mining droid does since there is no addon component to put inside them. I ended up making one into a combat model.
I guess surgical droids are obsolete considering I no longer see the component to craft med 110 bonus anymore. Not sure why the model still exists since I cant make the bonus part anymore.
Since crafters are hard to find, I cant make musical playback droids or lvl 6 armor parts (they require components from other trader class)
In one day I had 4 droid vendors up and running plus a resource vendor and a surplus harvester vendor. Each is well stocked with my goods. Ive also advertised with my merchant barker droid and my toon. In 4 days Ive sold 4 harvesters, 1 droid, and one ancient broken lightsaber (that always cracks me up, someone is always willing to buy one of those for 5 million because they dont know where to get it)
No idea what this back-engineering ability is. I asked a few, someone thought I could break down some junk loot but wasnt sure.
Combat - I have a lvl 90 jedi that I played around with some. First off, sometimes I would bug out and couldnt do any attacks at all. I would have to run away. If I took the attacks off my toolbar and reput them on, then combat would work.
Also why do they even bother with so many specials. Since Im limited to left-click as standard attack and only right-click as my special, seems a waste to even have more than 2 (one to use and one to switch off to).
combat plays like I need a 3rd hand. Maybe it was meant to work best with a gamepad ? I use arrows to move with left hand. I use right hand for mouse to attack and keep cursor on target. Okay so how exactly am I supposed to switch out a special so I can heal myself for example AND not lose target ? Since specials are not like the classic old way where Id click them and not lose auto-target and auto-attack, I cant do anything but shoot really.
combat has been reduced down to a series of pew pew pews until someone drops. And if they run around at all, its game over for me. I cant keep that stupid curser on them when they jump around. There really isnt any strategy involved unless you consider running around strategy. Its just plain awful now.
The effects are very strange now. someone I saw had what looked like a shield from City of Heroes on them. partical effects dont compare to the old animations we had.
Player cities and structures - one improvement I saw was new elite harvesters which take more lots up but harvest much more resources.
Cities are still abandoned and everywhere. I thought SOE did a purge of buildings ? A few were removed because I saw someone selling a plot of land near Theed but otherwise no spaces were available like I thought would be.
I was stuck putting my vendors in my old house near Anchorhead. Every major city had hundreds of abandoned houses surrounding them still. I say abandoned because most had cute signs on the door from clearly cancelled accounts like NGE bites, and Never forget nov 05, etc Did SOE only remove houses that had run out of maintenance ? Mine werent removed on any of my toons on any servers despite me not having paid for the game since Nov 2005 with one free appearance a yr ago.
Entertainers seem to a dead profession. They have buffs but not very useful for me considering I didnt need XP and assembly bonus does zilch for a droid engineer. The prof is mostly a chat room thing now. I saw the same 3-4 entertainers in Mos Eisely hanging out and chatting with friends. There was some cybering going on to which was disturbing. I never saw that in pre-nge days but I guess thats a reflection of the kind of player now in SWG.
Overall - very sad state of affairs. combat is nowhere near as fun as before. Its extremely simplistic and boringly repetitive. remnents of crafting remain but sadly nobody seems to bother buying your goods anymore. populations are the lowest ive seen in the game so it was hard to do much. apparently theyve added heroic dungeons but i didnt get a chance to try them because I had no idea where they were, much less found a group looking for me to go.
I would equate the game's remaining players now as similiar to what Ive seen in other MMO's that were about to close down. They know the end is near and seem sad about the game. But they arent going anywhere, those gamers are the types that will remain until the servers close. The game could be reduced to chat only and theyd stick it out. Some were in denial, hoping that SOE could somehow turn things around and the game would grow again.
I'll admit it was nice to hear the music while hitting Lok again. And it was nice messing with harvesters and making a few droids. But ultimately it was pointless with the shoddy combat system and total lack of players around. The next time I will play this game is when they announce the servers are shutting down (so I can say goodbye)
Comments
admriker4
Excellent post , it is unfortunate but thats what the nge has reduced SWG to
cheers
I also play chilastra and see alot more people at any time than what he said, seems a little fishy to me.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
Admirker4,
Much of what you review mirrors my own experience in the last few days.
But what's worse is I feel completely uninspired by this game. Ever moment inside it feels like a chore, which is quite different from my experience of the past where I would want to log in just to hang out and be apart of the game.
To me this game feels like it has no soul.
I dunno you fans say you see all these people but in December I tried the veteran trial agan cause theres two people in my ex guild (which had hundreds of people before the CU and about 80 people before the NGE) wanted all the ex players to take down their buildings from the city. I logged in at prime time and I saw hardly anyone, like most people were AFK in mos eisley cantina and outside the port and a few people dotted around starports like mustafar and restuss but that's it.
You fans of the current SWG seem brain washed cause one guy trying to start up our guild again just talks about SWG like it's all roses and saying how amazin restuss is for PVP and how they'ved fixed everything. Yet I login and just seem a poor copy of wow and a shadow of what the game used to be and I don't see how anyone can find PVP fun or restuss fun when you can just play WOW and have a better PVP time. I also find it funny how you say how great the game is and yet you have to use UI mods and animation mods and manually fix the combat by changing all the default key mapping around so you don't have to use that stupid FPS targetting thing which makes no sense cus the bullets follow u around wherever u run and go through buildings lol.
I dunno how you can act like everything is roses cause the game is pure crap.
If you'd just quit and the others quit then SOE would have no choice but to give classic servers and I think we'd all agree that the game was way better before all this CU and NGE stuff and if you think it isn't then you have seriously problems in your life.
Tweaking your keymaps and even appearances doesn't really mean much. I tweak nearly everything I buy to make it just right for me, from Windows, to SWG to my car. The fact that you can personalise things to match the way you operate is a bonus, not a negative.
Riker gives his opinion of the game as a vet, being invited back on a vet trial. Of course his point of reference is going to be from what was. Obraik, your opinion is also important, but Riker is not wrong nor do your comments really help change what he feels. Riker is being pretty neutral I think. If the game is to be treated as "new", then I would say it would fare far worse than what Riker has posted because there are at least ten games I can think of that play better than SWG. Riker has given the game a fair chance to win him back and the feeling overall is one of neutrality, leaning toward loss. His opinion of the current game is relevant, just as your cheerleader point of view is.
Akevv Ostone
No Longer SWG Free
I disagree. He's overlooked alot of things to get to the opinion he came up with. Most of what I posted wasn't really an opinion but solutions to the technical difficulties he encountered due to a conflict between the way the game used to play and the way it does now.
I'm not going to lie to you Obraik, my opinion certainly is jaded. But regardless of my opinion I have tried very hard to remain non-biased in game, and it fails to inspire me time and time again. I don't feel the "Star Wars" in this - not in the past and probably even less now.
It seems to me that in pre-CU everyone wanted more - more content, more professions, more crafting, more purpose, more community. The NGE gaves us exactly the opposite - less. How can I possible find the current game entertaining when it has done the reverse of what I wanted?
I'm still trying to figure out why "veterans" who dislike NGE even do the trial anymore. To top it all off, I don't understand why they post their "reviews" anymore, if it's been said and done in a "vet review" once, it's been said 100 times.
Note to vets: If you didn't remotely tolerate NGE when it came out, you are not going to like NGE now regardless of the changes. Your friends are not going to be there, your cities are gone, your PA's are disbanded, and you are not going to find people wandering around aimlessly to old pre-CU and CU hotspots.
SWG just came out with a space content publish a few weeks ago so space has a pretty significant draw right now and those people don't show up on /who and you cannot see them in space unless you are within about 5000m. SWG also came out with the "new" village and it's associated instances not long ago which also has a draw. Unfortunately for newcomers, everyone has pretty much done all the pre-quests inside the village, so if they are doing that content, they are in the instances. Mission terminals give experience now and people tend to do those straight out of their home player city. Bottom line is that SWG may no longer be fun for you, but it does not mean it sucks for the people who do play and know where and what to do.
I disagree. He's overlooked alot of things to get to the opinion he came up with. Most of what I posted wasn't really an opinion but solutions to the technical difficulties he encountered due to a conflict between the way the game used to play and the way it does now.
From what I read he couldn't get a straight answer from the players on line or lack there of to help him at all! In pre-CU you had players almost tripping over themselves to help out a newbie or fellow player. So why go to the official site so he can be flamed as a Newb or hater? So by the he saw things his opinion is true and valid.
Curiousity is what brings me back for a look. That and the ability to say I've seen it and can speak from at least some experience of it.
I disagree. He's overlooked alot of things to get to the opinion he came up with. Most of what I posted wasn't really an opinion but solutions to the technical difficulties he encountered due to a conflict between the way the game used to play and the way it does now.
Restuss is generally not the place to ask people for help. It's a busy PvP area with the people there being focused on the battle at hand. It's not always because people "don't want to help" or the more stereotypical explanation of PvP'ers being "immature assholes." I consider myself to be pretty forthcoming with helping people in game, but if I'm in Restuss I'm generally not going to be able to help you at that time.From what I read he couldn't get a straight answer from the players on line or lack there of to help him at all! In pre-CU you had players almost tripping over themselves to help out a newbie or fellow player. So why go to the official site so he can be flamed as a Newb or hater?
People on the forums are willing to help, as long as you've showen you've put some effort in and read the stickies relavent to the profession/system you're asking about. There's alot of helpful answers in there that does cover alot of the common questions new and returning people have.
Curiousity is what brings me back for a look. That and the ability to say I've seen it and can speak from at least some experience of it.
I applaude you Suvroc for at least being curious about the state of the game! I can't say I'm not curious myself but I just cant bring myself to reinstall the game and sit throught the hours to update the game just to retry the game and subsequently uninstall it again after seeing what was done to one of the best MMO's put out.
Curiousity is what brings me back for a look. That and the ability to say I've seen it and can speak from at least some experience of it.
So, what have you done since you started your trial? Did you get involved with the BM crafting process that we talked about a few weeks ago?
I think it's a fair review of his experiences.
I disagree. He's overlooked alot of things to get to the opinion he came up with. Most of what I posted wasn't really an opinion but solutions to the technical difficulties he encountered due to a conflict between the way the game used to play and the way it does now.
Restuss is generally not the place to ask people for help. It's a busy PvP area with the people there being focused on the battle at hand. It's not always because people "don't want to help" or the more stereotypical explanation of PvP'ers being "immature assholes." I consider myself to be pretty forthcoming with helping people in game, but if I'm in Restuss I'm generally not going to be able to help you at that time.From what I read he couldn't get a straight answer from the players on line or lack there of to help him at all! In pre-CU you had players almost tripping over themselves to help out a newbie or fellow player. So why go to the official site so he can be flamed as a Newb or hater?
People on the forums are willing to help, as long as you've showen you've put some effort in and read the stickies relavent to the profession/system you're asking about. There's alot of helpful answers in there that does cover alot of the common questions new and returning people have.
Ok I'll give you Restus but IIRC he did say he asked around in other cities and got nada.
That's what I was trying to convey to Obraik. Those are his experiences and how he feels about the game.
In response to the original post, there is an auto attack you just have to turn it on. I believe on my keymap it is Y, this will give you a different target, u can then double click and enemy or hit the middle mouse button to autolock onto a target. Sounds to me like you just missed it in the options.
Also, some servers are more dead than others. I currently have been popping in and out of game with station access, and my server has a very low population. It just depends on the server i guess, i know my server has the second lowest count for PvP officers.
I disagree. He's overlooked alot of things to get to the opinion he came up with. Most of what I posted wasn't really an opinion but solutions to the technical difficulties he encountered due to a conflict between the way the game used to play and the way it does now.
Restuss is generally not the place to ask people for help. It's a busy PvP area with the people there being focused on the battle at hand. It's not always because people "don't want to help" or the more stereotypical explanation of PvP'ers being "immature assholes." I consider myself to be pretty forthcoming with helping people in game, but if I'm in Restuss I'm generally not going to be able to help you at that time.From what I read he couldn't get a straight answer from the players on line or lack there of to help him at all! In pre-CU you had players almost tripping over themselves to help out a newbie or fellow player. So why go to the official site so he can be flamed as a Newb or hater?
People on the forums are willing to help, as long as you've showen you've put some effort in and read the stickies relavent to the profession/system you're asking about. There's alot of helpful answers in there that does cover alot of the common questions new and returning people have.
Ok I'll give you Restus but IIRC he did say he asked around in other cities and got nada.
Let's be frank though. The majority of the solutions to the issues he had are infact in the stickies on this very forum he posted his review on. Isn't it a little ironic to complain about requests for help being ignored when he's ignoring the help right under his nose?
Curiousity is what brings me back for a look. That and the ability to say I've seen it and can speak from at least some experience of it.
So, what have you done since you started your trial? Did you get involved with the BM crafting process that we talked about a few weeks ago?
Actually, I took one of my toons and tried to respec the expertise to BM but I'm unable to train in any expertise. I think we all know why, so I'll try to find the time to address that.
On another toon I began crafting some of the things needed for BM, but I doubt very much I'll have the time to do it in the next 11-12 days.
But I will say that I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated to do it, never mind excited. I read a comment somehwere that describes BM as a 1000 times more complex yet a 1000 times less rewarding, and that really nailed it for me - at least in my very limited experience so far.
Much like so many other things in SWG now I'm finding it very uninspiring.
Curiousity is what brings me back for a look. That and the ability to say I've seen it and can speak from at least some experience of it.
So, what have you done since you started your trial? Did you get involved with the BM crafting process that we talked about a few weeks ago?
Actually, I took one of my toons and tried to respec the expertise to BM but I'm unable to train in any expertise. I think we all know why, so I'll try to find the time to address that.
On another toon I began crafting some of the things needed for BM, but I doubt very much I'll have the time to do it in the next 11-12 days.
But I will say that I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated to do it, never mind excited. I read a comment somehwere that describes BM as a 1000 times more complex yet a 1000 times less rewarding, and that really nailed it for me - at least in my very limited experience so far.
Much like so many other things in SWG now I'm finding it very uninspiring.
It depends on what you find rewarding. IMO, pets in the current system are more rewarding then what was available pre-nge. Each pet has its own personality and they're actually rather powerful - a single (well made) pet is almost as powerful as a player. If having 3 pets out a time or being able to have a mount walk with you was what you considered rewarding, then it may not be for you.
Honestly, I don't like using pets in an MMO, but I did love the taming part of Creature Handler. It complimented my enjoyment of exploration. Being out in the wilderness looking for baby animals to tame was pretty cool and really fit my playstyle.
And I think that's why BM doesn't work for a lot of people. I remember seeing a poll here on MMORPG about playstyles and exploration was either in first or second place of preference. Creature Handler just worked well with that.
You know it and I know it... But thanks for inadvertently pointing out how wretched the default keymap and control setup is. They finally got around to giving you a "selection" of keymaps to choose from, but I honestly didn't see any difference. The one named "SWG classic" was nothing of the sort. Honestly, if you're going to try to entice the vets to return and play (else what's the point of vet trials?), the least you can do is give them a keymap-control scheme that approximates what they are accustomed to.