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Pre-cu SWG pvp, what was it like?
BlackWizards
Member Posts: 173
SWG pre-cu and UO are basically the holy duo of mmo's at this point, no other games have received such praise and exaltation as these two. Unfortunately for me I did not play either at the time they where at their peek so I can speak little about them.
My question is simple, what was the pvp system of old SWG, was it FFA, was there loot, could it happen any where, could you share some stories, was it even a pvp centric game?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Pre-CU was a beach... Infinite possibilities. It was the closest thing ever attempted to a real Star Wars universe simulation that you could live in and influence.
CU was a sandbox, a much more limited version of that above, but still sorta kept the theme.
NGE is a catbox. And you know what gets deposited in those.
An example of Pre-CU... You could never ONCE set foot into combat, yet be as valueble if not more so than an alpha class Jedi...
By being a Doctor who set himself up to provide optimum combat buffs by buying or making the best, etc.
Or by being the weaponsmith who made the best Krayt fitted weapons on the server.
Or by being the best armorsmith, who made the 90% stun comp armor...
Or by being an available entertainer, and giving those mind buffs...
God I miss that.
Aye, the diversity was immense and made the game a hell of a lot of fun, there were so many facets to the preperation for combat that it was and probably always will be the most in depth combat in any game ever.
As for combat itself, well it was lacking in someways, the combat queue and semi turn based combat was great for slow paced PvE, for PvP though it wasn't as much fun as it should have been. There were also a lot of wildcard factors that were minor annoyances in combat, DoT's were insanely overpowered, legendary looted weapons essentially gave their users god mode. Combat was probably one of the weak links early on in the game imo. Pretty much every other aspect of the game was the best that's been seen so far in mmo's.
...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.
Ok interesting info, few more questions, where could you pvp, was it in special zone or anywhere? Did you gain/lose anything from pvp?
You could PVP anywhere. there were no special zones. Player made cities and bases were the special zones back then. PVP was Rebel vs. Imperial, guild vs. guild, or dueling. Factional you could be overt (pvp enabled) or covert (pvp disabled..but still a member of the faction and could come to the aid of other members in pvp and attack factionsl npcs). When covert, if you helped anyone who was pvp enabled, healed or defended them, you were flagged (pvp enabled) for 5 minutes after you ended combat. If you attacked an oppsing faction npc while covert you were flagged (pvp enabled) so people couldnt just go into your faction's outpost and kill all the NPC's while you stand there and watch. There was a lame attempr at planetary control..control was completely useless however. The only real loss was decay from use of your equipment, and the time it took to get back into battle. Jedi, the loss was extemely severe at first..non existant at the end. That goes for both pve and pvp though.
Any help?
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Yup that answers all my questions tyvm.
Pre-CU SWG, there were no gay designated PvP zones.
To participate in PvP, you went to a faction NPC officer / recruiter and "declared" yourself. It would make you an "Overt" Rebel or Imperial. You are now open to all PvP. To go back to a pure PvE status, you go do the same process and make yourself "Covert."
There were certain situations that PvE and PvP did cross, however. The biggest one, that the game never explained in any shape or form in the Pre-NGE days is via TEF's, or Temporary Enemy Flags. If you were attacking ANY opposing faction NPCs, you had a short term TEF on you. It made you a viable target to Overt players from the opposing side. It was a great way for active PvPers to truly do something in almost all faction related situations. If you saw a Rebel "Covert" player farming Stormtroopers at Bestine, then you as a "Overt" Imperial could attack him and make him stop, whether or not the Rebel was intent only on PvE.
But like I said, the game never explained how the TEF system works. It was a very nasty surprise to those that just joined a faction, went out only to PvE and got wasted by a well-honed PvPer out of nowhere. The game really should have explained it as soon as you joined a faction, but it never did.
PvP locations? There was a variety. Firstly, there were no designated PvP only zones. Practically every area is potentially a PvP zone. You just had to be "Overt."
Some areas did get reputations for being quite heavy in PvP. Coronet, Theed, Bestine, and later Mos Eisley attracted a good amount of PvP (I never understood why you would be Overt and travel to a major starport to allow yourself to be load ganked... repeatedly). I vividly recall the back and forth PvP fights between Anchorhead and Bestine, which actually had a bit of distance between them. Lastly, the game had Faction Bases of various sizes that can be laid down by players at hefty Faction Point costs. At certain times of a day, the bases were vulnerable to destruction by opposing PvPers. Lots of PvP were involved with Faction Bases back then.
Rewards of PvP. Pre-NGE, there wasn't much tangible rewards. You gained a few Faction Points for killing opposing players, but that was pretty much it, other than pride with your faction and bragging rights. Just like in any MMO with any decent PvP, the better ones got a great reputation among the players on the server, but there were no gay little numbers saying so.
Faction Points... "FP's" could be gained in PvE (easier to do) and in PvP. In the Pre-CU days, it got you access to horrible faction gear (stat-wise). However, there were 2 things of any sort of usefulness in FP acquired items in the Pre-CU days.
1) Stormtrooper Armor (Imperials only, naturally). The stats were horrible. In the days of 90% Stun Composite, Faction Armor (including Stormtrooper & Rebel Marine Armor) had 30% resists to a few damage types and lots of vulnerabilities. But of the faction armors in Pre-CU, a good number of people still wore ST armor. Why? To be a Stormtrooper. Very, very few things scream Star Wars more than a unit of Stormtrooper players going down the streets of Bestine and Mos Eisley. SWG **used** to have many Imperial Trooper guilds. Members wore Imperial uniforms, and in combat, all clad in Stormtrooper Armor. Some went further to use military jargon / speech styles like the Troopers in the movies, and allowing only weapons used by the Empire.
2) The "Imperial Hat." Allowed later in the Pre-Cu days. All it is, is the hats worn by Imperial characters in the movies. I cannot understate enough how much we fought for this in the GCW-subforum in the official SWG forums.
Rebel Marine Armor, indeed, all current Rebel armors, look ugly as hell. STILL. They pale in comparison to the look, detailing, slight weathering, wear and tear, artwork quality, and overall appearance of Stormtrooper and later Scout Trooper Armor. I will say that Shock Trooper Armor was FUGLY.
Losses in PvP... Not much, really, other than loss of condition of equipment. Remember, SWG back then used to have Decay with almost all equipment. They will break down eventually to uselessness. Especially with the notorious, dubious, tasteless tactic of "Triple Incapping" someone.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
As Fikus has stated, you could PvP anywhere. There were (and still are) battlefields that were supposed to function as special factional fighting zones, both PvE and PvP, but they never were able to get them to work. Later on during NGE times they actually got functional battlegrounds to work but the old battlegrounds were not retrofitted to work that way.
Base defending and busting was the main PvP activity and many epic battles were fought on Ahazi over bases. Player cities were often built around defending bases. You could also be subject to PvP if you attacked PvE NPCs of the other faction, because you'd get a TEF (Temporary Enemy Flag) that would last for five minutes or so, similar to NPCs flagged PvP in WoW.
What would you gain? Well, there was a PvP rating, and you'd get some faction for killing higher rank enemy players, but PvP was pretty much its own reward.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about the rating. You only saw it after killing or died in PvP.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I played Star Wars Galaxies at launch but the game was unplayable so I quit and then picked it back up again after the space expansion because a Star Wars mmo without space is stupid. However the combat was just really bad when I played because there was no diversity in it and everyone was the same template. I mean everyone was wearing comp armour and you had to get doctor buffs to even play the game and you could solo anything, it felt really stupid. All the buff bots got annoying too because if you can play the game AFK then you know theres something wrong with it. I can't remember the templates that were always used because it was a long time ago but there was alot of professions and yet most of them were unused because in PVP they were sooo underpowered and you'd get your ass handed to you. So everyone used the same 2 or 3 templates or they were Jedi and there were sooooooooo many Jedi I mean everyone had one. If I remember right everyone attacked mind or something because it couldn't be healed so that was being exploited. Oh and decay was sooo broken because it would decay way tooo fast and you'd have to buy new armor every few days and Anti Decay Kits came and destroid all that because people would buy like 10 of them and never have to buy new armor and weapons.
It was a terrible combat system and thats why SOE had to change it but the next time I would play was towards the end of the CU and the animations were really bad so I quit again. Then I tried the game in 2006 with one of them veteran trials things and I thought it was even worse so quit againnnn.
I loved the profession system and I loved the seemless player housing/cities but the game was just shit. It was exploited badly and very broken and people were always complaining about it. Then it got 2 changes that did nothing to make the game any better but get rid of the one thing that made it good in the first place.
I really don't understand why everyone seems to love it and I think basically the only reason they praise it sooo much is because SOE took it away from them and they just want an excuse all over SOE. However if it came back now all the veterans would just be complaining about it again and don't get me any of that SWGemu crap because theres only ever like 90 people playing it at one time which doens't count.
The wrost thing about SWG however is where was the fucking Star Wars in it and where was the content. Everyone used to stand around the towns all day long because there was no quests or anything to do. I mean every review of the game said the same thing about lack of content and on the forums back then it was the same thing about lack of content.
The only way to progress through the game was grinding and grinding is boring man I don't want to kill the same mobs over and over and over again it gets boring. I want kool quests to do like save Han Solo from Jabba or something, whats Star Wars about grinding on Squills I never even saw any Squills in the movies.
Oh yeh and you were stuck to the ground and the game is capped at like 25FPS and it was soooo laggy none of my friends could play it because they'd enter a town and get like 5FPS.
Terrible game and I can only hope Bioware stays true to the KOTOR series and makes a great mmorpg.
Pre-cu PvP combat
Combat medic/Rifleman 64m mind poison/mind disease toss, followed by headshot you are dead.
Fencer/swordsman/TKA you will miss them about 99% of the time in combat
Jedi with the right template almost impossible to beat in combat.
Any other template loses to the above three.
Enjoy sandbox.
These all depended at what patch nerfed what ,according to that there were always a FOTM ...and you forgot to mention the effort for to become Jedi and the penalties tied to a loss.
To get your Jedi toon you invested much more effort then some regular profession put in (some grinded all 32 profession just for the unlock and then add in the diffcultness to grind that toon upin the hidden compared to the easiness of regular combat toons)and there were penalties tied to a loss,Permadeath, skill loss, negative xp etc...Jedi was something special and had to pay a high price for to a loss.
Pre CU combat was very enjoyable except the GCW conflict wasnt very good designed.
But if you put in all the richness the game had beside the combat you can easy say that was the golden age of MMO, the times of PRECU.
Entertainer, trader, crafter, explorer it had all what you can imagine of an MMO and what an Star Wars Simulation need.
Ah great times..no MMO of today can compete with the rich MMO experience of PRECU ..quite for some years now the quality of MMO available on the market is horrible..
-----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)
The great thing about that was you were defending your territory. It made combat personal, and there was a small sense of shame when your city was over-run and your base(s) destroyed.
In the early days of our player city our Imperial neighbours were European and had different hours then us when they would be on - usually only when our city crafters were the only ones left to defend our city. They would invade and over-run us with little effort, but eventually they incited our many citizens to retaliate in force. We eventually over-ran them in one monumental attack. It was a great feeling!
Defending your city added to the feeling of loathing towards your enemy, and therefore making the game much more immersive IMO.
The great thing about that was you were defending your territory. It made combat personal, and there was a small sense of shame when your city was over-run and your base(s) destroyed.
In the early days of our player city our Imperial neighbours were European and had different hours then us when they would be on - usually only when our city crafters were the only ones left to defend our city. They would invade and over-run us with little effort, but eventually they incited our many citizens to retaliate in force. We eventually over-ran them in one monumental attack. It was a great feeling!
Defending your city added to the feeling of loathing towards your enemy, and therefore making the game much more immersive IMO.
Only EVE Online has anything like that anymore. In 0.0 space, you literally have player owned Empires, who hold sovergnity and their names show on the map: go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png is such a map.
I played none of those templates.
I did enjoy the sandbox. Loved it as a matter of fact.
Your NGE?
10k subscribers at best.
Enjoy the NGE.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I did once have a MSwordsman/MFencer/TKM...
And that was damn fun. The uber tank with DPS. Had no healing at all though...
never did the fotm templates myself. Forever I was a Master Creature Handler and Master Pistoleer.
PVP usually happened around bestine, at least for me as I spent most of my time on Tatooine especially early on in the game's life. There would be running gun battles from bestine to anchorhead, strikes on mos espa and entha. It was FUN. Sure, there were problems... combat medics and the mind poisons they could throw through a wall and 3 stories of a bunker, cloner camping, and other things but overall it was very very fun. My pet rancors rampaging around and silly rebels ignoring me because of the big scary beastie
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
The key to defeating a CH was to ignore the beastie and go after the CH.
A CH had no inherent defensive bonuses. He might have some from another profession, be it brawler or marksman based, but all those SP invested in CH didn't buy you anything but a meat shield that a smart opponent would ignore, as critters were notorious for having mediocre, at best, DPS.
I loved to watch people foolishly take on the critter while the CH inflicted damage with a blaster. I had higher dps with the pistols line of marksman than any of my critters (to include a rancor and a gurreck) could inflict.
The thing CH pets were good for was psychological impact. A rancor scared players, especially inexperienced ones. The spider creatures (like mereks and gaping spider hunters) freaked people out too. MCM had psychological impact as well...people would get hit by a disease tick and they'd panic.
PvP between Bestine and Anchorhead was very common on Ahazi. Lots of PUGs would form up at the cantina in Bestine or the tavern in Anchorhead to head across the desert to raid the other faction's stronghold. Bestine and Anchorhead are only like 1.5k apart, perfect for on foot assaults. Often they'd meet at the damaged base between the two strongholds and hilarity would ensue.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I played none of those templates.
I did enjoy the sandbox. Loved it as a matter of fact.
Your NGE?
10k subscribers at best.
Enjoy the NGE.
I am very much enjoying the game with my friends thanks for asking.
And yet I never had any of those templates but had a pvp total approaching 2000 at one point, interesting, I guess I just rock!
I've already highlighted what I think were the major flaws, and there were a few, but the combinations of templates that were effective still vastly outnumber the 7 combat "classes" that are in the game right now.
...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.
To me, it was at its best before:
I guess my outlook is skewed. Lately I prefer FPS pvp. Just log in and start fightin.
Edit: oh, and I also miss my imperial buddies running down to Anchorhead to say hello with 3 AT-STs a piece in tow.
And remember for the first couple of days where there was an imperial mission bug and everyone was running around in Stormtrooper armour? I played a Zabrak and I remember how much the non-human in the empire penalty used to bug me.
I played none of those templates.
I did enjoy the sandbox. Loved it as a matter of fact.
Your NGE?
10k subscribers at best.
Enjoy the NGE.
I am very much enjoying the game with my friends thanks for asking.
What?... All 2 of them?
Enjoy the simplified game, after all, simple minds were their target audience. "Reading is bad" and all that.
Also, please enjoy the... *chuckle* "Trading Card Game" on SWG
It perfectly complements that coloring book simpleton game SWG has become.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)