You give a young person (probably 15 and under) a round trip ticket to Italy. What would happen? Well, he/she would probably say "cool", and hop on the first plane. When he/she arrives there he/she says, "wow, this is awesome." after roaming around for a day or 2, he/she realizes he/she no speaky the lingo. He/she is unable to do much, sees a couple sights and gets bored fast cuz he/she has no idea what Italy really has to offer him/her. So the next day he/she takes the first plane back home, tells his/her friends it was cool but it was no big deal.
You give an intelligent adult (notice i said intelligent) the same ticket to Italy. What would happen? Well i am positive that he/she would get excited as well. But prior to leaving he/she would go and research the country online, talk to some friends that have been there, try to learny the lingo and plan out his/her stay with maps and guides. When he/she arrive there, he/she is happy to see that the research paid off big time. Being that its his/her first time there, it takes awhile to adjust. But he/she does adjust. Why? Cuz he/she learned the lingo, what to say and not to say, who to talk to and who not. He/she has a wonderful time in Italy going where He/she wants, doing what he/she wants to do. He/she visits all the great landmarks, travels throughout the country meeting new people and finding new places to go. After making some new friends he/she get offered a new job working there. He/she decides to move to Italy, take the job and become successful.
SWG, NGE :
Same deal, a round trip ticket to Italy (15 and under) What would happen? He/she jumps on the first flight. After arriving there, he/she finds a tour guide. The tour guide takes he/she on a tour of Italy and shows him/her everything there is to see. But the guide knows he has to increase the population of Italy. So the guide carefully plans out his/her daily tours, gives him/her money and anything he/she desires to keep him/her there. The guide introduces him/her all kinds of people, which in turn give him/her anything he/she wants, and learn to speak his/her language. They cater to his/her every need, and soon he/she think that he/she are the best thing to happen to that country. Why? cuz they gave him/her everything on a silver platter, like he/she was something special. All the while, the guide and his friends got what they wanted, his/her trust. So he/she follows them around and does whatever they tell him/her. He/she stays there cuz he/she is getting the royal treatment. Why go home? He/she likes it here.
Now for the intelligent adult. (notice again i said intelligent) What would happen? He/she does the same as before and does his/her research. During the research he/she finds that there are some strange things going on over there. But with confidence he/she flies to Italy ready to take in all the challenges head on. When he/she arrives, a nice tour guide helps him/her out as well. He takes him/her on the same tour he gives everyone else. He/she says to the guide, "Excuse me but I didnt want to go there, and I didn't want to do that." Of course the guide ignores him/her and continues with the tour. He/she has some fun and gets to see the sights, but he/she is a bit disappointed cuz he/she has not been able to do anything he/she want to do. The guide, being a pain in his/her ass, won't leave his/her side and continues to push him/her to do things he/she doesn't want to do. Finally after a few days he/she gets mad and decides to fly back home. When he/she gets home he/she tells his/her friends that it was fun, but the guides there are very annoying and you had no freedom to go anywhere or do anything he/she would have liked to do.
What maybe fun for some may not be fun for others. The veterans of SWG were happy with the first scenario. The freedom to go where and when you want, and to be whomever and whatever you wanted. To personalize their experience in the game. The NGEr's are happy with the same old, same old linear experience like in other games. SWG still has a lot to offer everyone. It has gotten better since the release of the NGE, but understand that the veterans will never get back the experience they lost. It was a very original game back then. It was also broken. I think SOE has been doing a great job trying to get the game on track and make it a game for all to enjoy. Unfortunately the game is still broken with lots of bugs and problems that should have been fixed years ago. Gamers are in it for the game. RPGr's are in it for the world and experience. I am sure that world RPGs will be the wave of the future. Second life has a huge following but theres no content or story. When MMORPGs can learn to combine worlds with story and content we will all be happy. Its a tall order and will be a huge challenge to devs. But i am sure that this too shall come to pass.
Still an idiot.... Can't you just stop the thousands of words and just write down your conclusion: "Wow rocks, all other games are too damn confusing" You cant even write about SWG without dragging UO once again in the mud. You dont like advanced skill trees, complex character systems, and player freedom.. Ok, we have lots of kids in MMOs nowadays, I guess you are their spokesperson. But for those that created the MMO market, those that made it big and gave it such a buzz that every company in the world wanted to make an MMO to cash in on it, the things you hate is why we loved it. And so would everyone else but the hype sheep, those that started playing WoW because thier friends do it, those that play WoW because they talk so much about it in school and in magazines. Those that would wear a spraypainted armadillo on their head if a magazine told them it was the new thing. Also the crowd that is slowly killing the MMO market because games has become so dumbed down, so simplified (Somehting you seem to love) that players leave the game within its first three months! To spend 4 years developing a game to live three months is not financially defendable, so... What the market is NOT having right now.. is a new MMO aimed at the real MMO players. The hundred of thousands that wanted a mature game, a complex game, a challenging game for the intellect, not the patience, a game where the player is in control, and not led by the nose by what the developers have decided. A game where the player choose what his character can and cant do, not being given a predesigned character with predesigned skills moving down a predesigned path of quest on a predesigned road to a predesigned endgame. The things you speak so highly of, copied straight from the WoW concept book like some newbie developer thinking he has all the answers while just looking over the shoulder on what has most costumers right now, is already covered by WoW. The real MMO players? That started this market and is the reason it is succesful today? Has nothing to play.... Nothing.. All new games has been released for the WoW players. Look at EQ II... Look at Vanguard... You dont decide anything yourself. Its all predesigned. Thats supposed to aim for people that want to feel in control of their own game, to get more freedom and more power, and that is the difference they pay 15 bucks a month for? Or people that just like some brainless running around without taking any real decisions ever? SWG had lots of problems.. I know, I betad it and I fought like a flipping tiger to get some problems through the wall of a defensive fan base to the developers. Quite alot of the oldtime MMO players that were nto there because it was SWG, but because it was an MMO fought with teeth and claws to point out the flaws in the system. Unfortunatly, the SW fan base won, we were drowned out. Those same problems haunted the game for years later, until the dreaded NGE. They, like you, put the blame in a completly wrong direction. it was not the skills that was the problem, it was not the full control of your character that was the problem, it was not freedom tyhat was the problem, or its similarities to UO, you drunken twat. No matter... You will write four five more little rants against player freedom and player power until you say "WoW is best, developer control for the win!!" Its flipping disgusting. You are one of the 11 year olds from WoW forum, you are the reason MMO players are leaving MMOs, and the Hype sheep are the only ones left, those that will be gone as soon as they talk about something else on the schoolyard. Just look at the forums here... Its not about discussing MMOs anymore, with its good and bad sides, perfections and flaws. Its all about defendign "your" game and bashing all others. Constructive critisism is not allowed anymore as it should be on a site promoting a market, not a brand, but like a schoolyard, its fighting over what you think is "the latest" and the others think is "the latest hype". Its not a forum anymore, its a kiddie corner. And these are the players you think people want to pay extra money monthly to spend time with, in games aimed at their extremly limited mental capacity. Today I saw a post that DaoC sucks because they did not get all the skills lvl 1, and he did not understand how to put an icon in the icon bar. He did not have a problem... No, the game SUCKED! Its your kind of player.. its the ones you want more games for and less games for mature people... World vs Game... Its not that.. Its idiots vs People. And you are the spokesperson of idiots and want them to win. Thank you so much for taking your time to make a dumbed down market even dumber.
Eh all games have their faults, but no one can deny WoW's game play. Playing a rogue vs a warrior vs a mage vs a warlock vs a hunter.. It's strength lies there. More so than the content. But yeah, again it's still too simple for even my tastes.
But it should be noted, a portion of the post above seems to have suggested that EQ II was released after WoW. Not true.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
First the vast majority of players of World of Warcraft are from asia... over 6million of the 8 million or so. And with the popularity of mmo's in general in asia I doubt very many of those 6+ million are new to mmos... What was it Richard Garriott said, 1 in 10 people in korea have a lineage account?
Secondly, when SWG was at its most popular there were no jedi, there were random events across the servers hosted by GM's that provided players with a good amount of content. What killed swg wasn't so much the lack of "quest driven things to do" but first the bugs that went ignored, followed closely with the lack of a focus on the dev team to provide players with new challenges.
Let's be honest here, you can talk about the "game" in these mmo's all you want however, it is nothing more than a grind. Whether you go to some static npc with a freaking symbol over his head or you go to a terminal you get one of two types of quests: Go kill x amount of mob a, or go deliver this doodad to that person over there somewhere.
Actually the only first gen game to really provide a game I think was SWG... after they removed permadeath and saber TEF from jedi they were an unstoppable character. Like what just about every rpg gamer develops thier single player characters to be. Whether it be BG, Morrowind, Oblivion, Icewind Dale, any of the gold box games, whatever. You become near to god like in your power and you walk around killing anything and everything. Precisely what a fully templated and exceptionally geared jedi could do.
Only most of the Jedi in Star Wars were killed by non-Jedi. If Jedi are these near ogd like beings how did they are get killed? Why was Yoda in hidding? :P
Anyway what killed the Star Wards feel for me was when I found out, hammers, polearms, and swords were actual player weapons with their own combat styles. A sword is equal or better than a blaster? I can accept Jedi using hand to hand weapons even though really its stupid (rig some explosives and they are toast), but hammers?
I'm sorry but as a casual player, I have to totally agree with the original writer that SWG was a HORRIBLE casual game. Now say what you will about casual players and their expectations, but SWG didn't come close to meeting any of them.
Here are my observations having played an average of 20 hrs/week for 3 months after launch.
1. Economy and gear: Casual players shouldn't expect the best gear, but they should be able to get decent gear and participate somewhat in the crafting system. In SWG, the economy was dictated by the better crafters - whose prices usually were way above what any casual player could afford. Furthermore, the crafting system was fascinating as a business sim but required huge amounts of time/experience to get anything out of. Once again, not casual friendly.
2. Things to do: Casual players want at least a chance to do some fun missions or feel like they've made progress in say an hour or two of play. Casual players would be hard pressed to do basic maintenance on harvesters or pay rent on their house in a two-hour SWG play session, much less take a hunting trip to Endor.
3. Community interaction: Casual players know they'll never be guild leaders but they still want to have decent relationships with friends and other players. This is much easier to do in a storydriven game (hey all - who wants to go run blah blah dungeon or do so & so quest) than in a sandbox. In a sandbox environment, you get a lot of deep player politics and behind-the-scenes scheming that may be fun for hardcores but will never be accessible to casual players. You'll just never be more than a tourist at best to quote Elvis Costello.
4. PVP: At least in GW and WOW, casual players can participate and slowly build up rewards by putting a few hours in a week. In SWG, I found I never had a chance against the hardcore jedi or bounty hunters. Besides that, there was almost no reason to PVP except for EPEEN points, which of course is why very few well-adjusted adults actually participated after the first month or so.
So please don't flame the original author or accuse him of wanting spoonfed idiot content. He's writing from a casual gamer's point-of-view, and believe it or not there are many MMOGs out there that are very accomodating to people who don't want to make an MMOG a full-time job. SWG was not one of these - and the author is 100 percent correct in saying it offered almost nothing to casual gamers.
Which when you look at it is a tragedy, considering Star Wars is one of the most pop culture friendly, "casual" Sci Fi franchises ever created.
I'm sorry but as a casual player, I have to totally agree with the original writer that SWG was a HORRIBLE casual game. Now say what you will about casual players and their expectations, but SWG didn't come close to meeting any of them. Here are my observations having played an average of 20 hrs/week for 3 months after launch. 1. Economy and gear: Casual players shouldn't expect the best gear, but they should be able to get decent gear and participate somewhat in the crafting system. In SWG, the economy was dictated by the better crafters - whose prices usually were way above what any casual player could afford. Furthermore, the crafting system was fascinating as a business sim but required huge amounts of time/experience to get anything out of. Once again, not casual friendly. 2. Things to do: Casual players want at least a chance to do some fun missions or feel like they've made progress in say an hour or two of play. Casual players would be hard pressed to do basic maintenance on harvesters or pay rent on their house in a two-hour SWG play session, much less take a hunting trip to Endor. 3. Community interaction: Casual players know they'll never be guild leaders but they still want to have decent relationships with friends and other players. This is much easier to do in a storydriven game (hey all - who wants to go run blah blah dungeon or do so & so quest) than in a sandbox. In a sandbox environment, you get a lot of deep player politics and behind-the-scenes scheming that may be fun for hardcores but will never be accessible to casual players. You'll just never be more than a tourist at best to quote Elvis Costello. 4. PVP: At least in GW and WOW, casual players can participate and slowly build up rewards by putting a few hours in a week. In SWG, I found I never had a chance against the hardcore jedi or bounty hunters. Besides that, there was almost no reason to PVP except for EPEEN points, which of course is why very few well-adjusted adults actually participated after the first month or so. So please don't flame the original author or accuse him of wanting spoonfed idiot content. He's writing from a casual gamer's point-of-view, and believe it or not there are many MMOGs out there that are very accomodating to people who don't want to make an MMOG a full-time job. SWG was not one of these - and the author is 100 percent correct in saying it offered almost nothing to casual gamers. Which when you look at it is a tragedy, considering Star Wars is one of the most pop culture friendly, "casual" Sci Fi franchises ever created. I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. SWG was my first MMO and it was awesome. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player.
I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player. Now that SWG has been downgraded i am now a casual player again. You obviously don't know anything about economics. The crafters didnt run the economy, we all did. An economy is stimulated by the exchanging of money for product or services. This happened quite freqently by non crafters that performed vital services to the community. I would list them, but you would not understand how such professions worked. Probably cuz you never played them. I admit there was a bit of unbalance to the game with regards to jedi and BH. But i also remember killing off both of those profs many times as a carbineer/medic. There was a great balance in the game for hardcore and casual player, thats what i liked most. Most of what you said is counteracted by one word. Community. I hate to assume, but your unfounded babbling above suggests a lot. You must fall under the heading of, i like linear mmorpgs, i need a guide to show me where to go and what to do next, i just want to do what im told and kill shit along the way. In what skill do you build XP? oh you dont, you use it to build a lvl. In SWG i could tell you exactly what skill i was using and where my XP went. Nowdays you get XP to run from one place to another. Talk to this guy ill give you XP and money. XP no longer stand for experience, its money to buy yourself a lvl. I use to have specific skills that i earned experience in, no lvls. NVM..... the only people who understand, are the vets that left the game in the first place. Im tired of all the narrow minded points of view from people who believe that if its not like every other game, then its not a good game or it wont work. SOE had a great thing going for them and they blew it. It's that easy. If they gave the original game the same time they spent on making the NGE it would be the best MMO out today. Sadly they made a WOW clone. OH wait, dont get me wrong now. I dont mean content, i mean the game system itself.
All I know was SWG was the second MMO I played and I loved it.
Cities attacking each other, destroying bases, watching gun fights in the cantina.
I played from the original release up to the CU.
The CU broke the game for me literally. I couldn't play because lag was at about 0.5FPS on my comp. after the CU.
So eventually I went to WOW and in under three weeks I had literally everything maxed in WOW including running end game raids. 1 Week later I said wow, this is way to easy and boring.
So after I heard of the NGE I tried that for 6 months and couldn't believe how bad it was. They might as well called it SWG for the mentally impaired. It was easier than WoW. The end game I was soloing everything and hardly even getting touched. PVP lasted about 5 seconds at max. with a bunch of whinny kids.
So I made a crafter ground it out in just a 3 day time period only to realize you can't actually craft anything that sells due to drops off low end mobs being better than the highest crafted items in game.
Loved the original, hated the NGE as it was nothing but a dumbed down version of WoW which I thought could never happen from any game. WoW handed everything to you on a gold plate. Original SWG not only did you have to find your food you had to make the plate as well. NGE hell they just feed you the food too, what a waste.
I won't get dragged into a WoW vs SWG vs UO debate, I'll let you all do that.
I will say I agree with the OP comment that you can't design a game with the hardcore players in mind. Doesn't matter what the level cap is in any game you WILL find someone who will burn through the levels and hit the cap before anyone else. Level 70 in WoW in 28 hours for example. In EQ1 the first expansion Ruins of Kunark upped the cap to 60. Now, EQ1 had a vastly steeper leveling curve then than it does now, estimated that the xp for 51-60 would take longer than 1-50. Officially SOE said they expected it to be several weeks before people would hit the new cap of 60. Well the "months" on Brell Serilis turned out to be 16 days as a Necromancer was our first 60 and she wasn't even the fastest server wide, a ranger hit 60 a few days before her (don't remember the server).
I'm sorry but as a casual player, I have to totally agree with the original writer that SWG was a HORRIBLE casual game. Now say what you will about casual players and their expectations, but SWG didn't come close to meeting any of them. Here are my observations having played an average of 20 hrs/week for 3 months after launch. 1. Economy and gear: Casual players shouldn't expect the best gear, but they should be able to get decent gear and participate somewhat in the crafting system. In SWG, the economy was dictated by the better crafters - whose prices usually were way above what any casual player could afford. Furthermore, the crafting system was fascinating as a business sim but required huge amounts of time/experience to get anything out of. Once again, not casual friendly. 2. Things to do: Casual players want at least a chance to do some fun missions or feel like they've made progress in say an hour or two of play. Casual players would be hard pressed to do basic maintenance on harvesters or pay rent on their house in a two-hour SWG play session, much less take a hunting trip to Endor. 3. Community interaction: Casual players know they'll never be guild leaders but they still want to have decent relationships with friends and other players. This is much easier to do in a storydriven game (hey all - who wants to go run blah blah dungeon or do so & so quest) than in a sandbox. In a sandbox environment, you get a lot of deep player politics and behind-the-scenes scheming that may be fun for hardcores but will never be accessible to casual players. You'll just never be more than a tourist at best to quote Elvis Costello. 4. PVP: At least in GW and WOW, casual players can participate and slowly build up rewards by putting a few hours in a week. In SWG, I found I never had a chance against the hardcore jedi or bounty hunters. Besides that, there was almost no reason to PVP except for EPEEN points, which of course is why very few well-adjusted adults actually participated after the first month or so. So please don't flame the original author or accuse him of wanting spoonfed idiot content. He's writing from a casual gamer's point-of-view, and believe it or not there are many MMOGs out there that are very accomodating to people who don't want to make an MMOG a full-time job. SWG was not one of these - and the author is 100 percent correct in saying it offered almost nothing to casual gamers. Which when you look at it is a tragedy, considering Star Wars is one of the most pop culture friendly, "casual" Sci Fi franchises ever created. I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. SWG was my first MMO and it was awesome. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player.
I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player. Now that SWG has been downgraded i am now a casual player again. You obviously don't know anything about economics. The crafters didnt run the economy, we all did. An economy is stimulated by the exchanging of money for product or services. This happened quite freqently by non crafters that performed vital services to the community. I would list them, but you would not understand how such professions worked. Probably cuz you never played them. I admit there was a bit of unbalance to the game with regards to jedi and BH. But i also remember killing off both of those profs many times as a carbineer/medic. There was a great balance in the game for hardcore and casual player, thats what i liked most. Most of what you said is counteracted by one word. Community. I hate to assume, but your unfounded babbling above suggests a lot. You must fall under the heading of, i like linear mmorpgs, i need a guide to show me where to go and what to do next, i just want to do what im told and kill shit along the way. In what skill do you build XP? oh you dont, you use it to build a lvl. In SWG i could tell you exactly what skill i was using and where my XP went. Nowdays you get XP to run from one place to another. Talk to this guy ill give you XP and money. XP no longer stand for experience, its money to buy yourself a lvl. I use to have specific skills that i earned experience in, no lvls. NVM..... the only people who understand, are the vets that left the game in the first place. Im tired of all the narrow minded points of view from people who believe that if its not like every other game, then its not a good game or it wont work. SOE had a great thing going for them and they blew it. It's that easy. If they gave the original game the same time they spent on making the NGE it would be the best MMO out today. Sadly they made a WOW clone. OH wait, dont get me wrong now. I dont mean content, i mean the game system itself.
A few rebuttals:
1. When you say I know nothing about economics, I completely beg to differ. I have friends who were master crafters who spent countless hours organizing expenses/profits by spreadsheet, searching for the best research nodes, overseeing inventory and cataloging materials, etc. Obviously, they charged top credit for their gear. As I said before - great business sim, but not very causal friendly. While some people (myself included) relied on a "frontier" economy where as a lower level ranger I traded crap skins and you make me a crap underpowered flashlight I mean blaster, the good stuff always remained completely out of my price range. By the time Jump To Lightspeed came along, critics from IGN, Gamespot and PC Gamer all agreed the cost of ships were obscenely high for all but the most hardcore players.
I guess I could have rolled a Twi'lek dancer and performed "vital services" like cybersex, but that's just not my style.
2. You accuse me of wanting everything spoonfed to me, that all I want to do is kill shit and be told where to go. Well, in one sense you're right. I work 50-70 hours a week at a Fortune 100 company, I really don't need a second job where I have to "make" my own fun. And I do enjoy games that have strong storylines and interesting plot-twists, even if those storylines are linear. In future MMOGs I'd like to see multiple ways to do the same quest or branching story arcs where your decisions can open up new quests or keep you from going down certain roads. And let's face it - SWG was all about telling you where to go and where to kill stuff - that was the whole point of the mission terminal system.
3. Community - ahh such a double-edged sword. You accuse me of not getting it, even though I'm still in contact with close friends who I first met in SWG. The only thing is we all moved on to better games a long, long time ago. The thing is, I don't want to rely on community to make all my fun, any more than I want to play a game where there is no community. Having a completely player-run sandbox creates a lot of problems, including:
A. Player created content usually equals total drivel. For every cool roleplayer with a great backstory, there's five people who want to cry on your shoulder because "their entire family got wiped out by the Imperials!" For every smuggler who takes great pains to play the role of self-respecting citizen by day and smuggler by night, there's a wannabe yakuza/mafioso who rolls around town going "you talking to me?" and spamming you to duel him over some minor slight. For every Imperial or Rebel player who actually cares about the grand struggle on their server, there are even more who just want to get off on a power trip as a jackbooted thug (Imperial) or sociopathic anarchist (Rebel).
B. Forced community involvement. I don't like raid schedules, which is why I don't belong to uber-guilds in WOW. But in SWG, I was expected to go to town hall meetings and discuss zoning laws in order to be considered a "good "citizen. I can see some people may be excited about the chance to "run their own towns!" in a game, but I play games to take a break from reality and relax with friends, not have to deal with even more stupid rules or social obligations.
C. Way too much politicking/scheming. In my short time in SWG, I saw all the usual drama of cyberromance fallouts and friendships gone bad taken to new extremes. Just like in real-life I try to stay nuetral in things, but what do you do when the owner of the town cantina refuses to serve you because "your siding with her ex-boyfriend", i.e., I still go on missions with the guy? In our town, a lot of nastiness went down when a rival faction set down stakes and tried to take the community over politically. The old mayor - a guy who had spent the entire beta planning out the perfect community - got voted out simply because the imperials brought in more people, which in turn led to a coup attempt by the old mayor's friends. By the end, real-life death threats were being exchanged and somebody hacked and brought down the community web forum.
4. Believe it or not I agree with you that I'd like to see the same level of character customization and skill progression in future games. I hate having to have the same spec as a million other mages in WOW because there are only 2 or 3 viable ways to use your talents. Hopefully, the next game that tries to do such a system won't include the ungodly grind SWG required.
I'll agree about the content lacking for players just joining the game, and it being a bit too confusing at start. They fixed the with the starter station in the NGE, However, and content that previousely existed before the NGE was either borken or didn't even provide XP in the NGE leveling system.
Your end statemant is a joke at best, the content they are putting in right now is just content that was previousely in game..... so for your post you get a 1 out of 5, just for effort
i agree 100% with the OP. I want to play starwars for teh story and helping the galaxy. SWG has never given any one the adventure of saving the galaxy or working with icons to better your profession. And thast so what is missing in that game.
So eventually I went to WOW and in under three weeks I had literally everything maxed in WOW including running end game raids. 1 Week later I said wow, this is way to easy and boring.
I was a fulltime SWG addict on Bloodfin preCU. All the crying for content i cannot relate to. For me it was a virtual amazing 2nd life.
We lived the saga! Just the curiosity of the world and exploring the universe was bigger than any game.... still to this day. The vastness of the game preCU all the possibilities you could choose from had not been seen before and not yet since.
There WAS endless of ways to find means to entain yourself without a plottet line....
Ever since they ruined SWG ive missed it and still miss it. My friends and foes.. the community.. They'll allways be a fond memory... even remember the best and "worst" of them like Gallow, Rayen, Namaar, Morlock, Rac, Jonaga, Amie and many many more..and this is years after i left the game at preCU launch. Cant remember the names of 10 people in WoW and im a fulltime hardcore addict.
SWG was not all about content.. entertainment you could find for yourself... it was all about the people in the game.
I'm not an expert but isnt that what Role Playing Game is all about?
I stoped reading after half the crap. Swg wasnt anythig for this guy. He never understood the game, but still he feels that he is the Guy to explain what was wrong with it.
So go killing some creatures from a random spawned mission is pointless, but to go kill that orc boss who dont bother anyone as far as you dont go and seek him up, is meaningful, just becasue its handcrafted content? You dont really beleave what that static npc told you, about how you had to go kill that evil boss to save the world. For people in swg it was at least som kind of point in hunting -i had to kill that animal to reach my harvestor, or to get hides for my armor crafting. It mattered if i killed stuff or not. Random spawns was also a soruce for creature handlers looking for pets to tame. I never felt that anything i did in swg was pointless, witch on the other hand was a big problem for me in wow.
Its not really a problem with too many games on the market as swg (the original swg, not the cunge-crap). Still there actually is some pople out there who liked swg, and want a game like that. No matter how wrong this guy thinks it is with games like swg, or how much he try to explain it, i just se a guy that fail to understand that not everyone like it the way he wants it.
(excuse my bad grammar and typos. Second lanugage)
I was a fulltime SWG addict on Bloodfin preCU. All the crying for content i cannot relate to. For me it was a virtual amazing 2nd life.
We lived the saga! Just the curiosity of the world and exploring the universe was bigger than any game.... still to this day. The vastness of the game preCU all the possibilities you could choose from had not been seen before and not yet since.
There WAS endless of ways to find means to entain yourself without a plottet line....
Ever since they ruined SWG ive missed it and still miss it. My friends and foes.. the community.. They'll allways be a fond memory... even remember the best and "worst" of them like Gallow, Rayen, Namaar, Morlock, Rac, Jonaga, Amie and many many more..and this is years after i left the game at preCU launch. Cant remember the names of 10 people in WoW and im a fulltime hardcore addict.
SWG was not all about content.. entertainment you could find for yourself... it was all about the people in the game.
I'm not an expert but isnt that what Role Playing Game is all about?
Wumi
QFE ... I used to hang with the same people nightly Pre-cu . I can't say how it was on other servers . But on bloodfin the community was the game . So I was never that thirsty for content . Until that community started being decimated by what the OP and others wanted .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's been said so many times its almost painful. SWG wasnt about being in the movies. It wasnt about you defeating the emperor by throwing him down a big hole. SWG was about living and fighting during the GCW. It was a place for you to make your own reputation. People just dont seem to get that. What story did you all want? Im sorry but you couldnt be the Ultimate Hero or Villian in a story line that would effect 1000's of other gamers. It just wasnt possible nor wanted by most of the players. That is what single player games are for. No one in any MMO achieves that why was SWG supposed to be different? What kind of quests were there supposed to be? Go kill the wolves that are not even bothering anyone? Bring me back some rat ears? It amazes me that people dont really understand what SWG was about.
SWG was about choices and freedom. The SWU was just the back drop for what was supposed to be the greatest story ever told..your own. Remember that? Problem was a lot of people didnt know what to do. People like to be told how they are going to play a game and what they are supposed to do. SWG had tons of things to do. Infact I dont think I ever got bored because I could do what I wanted to do.
In the end it doesnt matter. The masses have spoken and open ended games are not what they want. The market is filling up with WoW clones. Everyone wants a linear game where your choices are more or less made for you. Your direction is very clear from the moment you create a character. Im not saying it makes the game easy or less fun. It all depends on what you are looking for I guess.
"Cantinas weren't the dangerous places of the films but a place for strippers (frequently men behind a female toon) to shake their grove thing for a handful of virtual coin and socialize with emotes."
That's the biggest load of rubbish I've heard today and it's extremely disrespectful to many players who play entertainer characters in the game.
Firstly, SWG dancers aren't strippers. Not only do dancers NOT get paid for removing items of clothing, I've been playing since the first month the game went live and not once have I seen a dancer strip in the game. Heck, it's not even possible to get naked - the toons have non-removable underwear on. I'm not saying that lewd conduct never goes on, but the tales of it are much more common than the behaviour itself.
Secondly, Mr. Wilson may be surprised to know that this is a role playing game: real life males play female characters and real life females play male characters. There's nothing at all 'wrong' with that. On the contrary, roleplaying is actively encouraged in every MMOG I know. Heck, real life humans even play wookiees - how sick would Mr. Wilson think that was? I mean they're entirely different species. I suppose it would be okay in Mr. Wilson's book if a male human was playing a male wookieee - I mean it's okay as long as the differences are only in terms of species, but heaven forbid if the toon has different sexual organs.
Honestly, grow up! I mean I expect to see juvenile rants in the game forums, but to see such nonsense make its way into a serious review is ludicrous. Whoever is hiring Mr. Wilson needs to look at their hiring practices and possibly child labour laws. It is illegal to hire children without certain safeguards being in place. However, I'm not sure about child labour laws where only the mind of the employee is under age.
As to why SWG failed, it's not because the developers chose 'world over game' as Mr. Wilson suggests. Sandbox games can be made to work if they are bug-free and adequately supported. SWG was neither. As others have said, SWG failed because the game was six months short of being finished when it appeared on the shelves and the people behind the game were so clueless that it took another three years (and two turnovers in development staff) to even begin to fix it. Finally it's on the right track, but at this late stage the game is a shadow of what it could have been and any improvements made now may be a case of too little too late.
SWG was the first 3D MMORPG I played, id played a few 2D ones previous where the depth of gameplay didnt go much beyond grinding levels and cash to get more stuff to make grinding levels and cash easier. So i was impressed when i entered SWG's world with my highly customised character (a huge leap from chosing trouser, jacket and Hair colour). The skill system it used is still one of my favorites, it didnt limit the player at all you could be all things over a period of time. You start off farming, switch to fighting and then decide to become a chef with the same avitor, no need to reroll just becuase your bored with one stlye of play. I pray for a game to offer that level of fluidity to character development again. SWG definately had its faults, largely bugs and balance. Balance is always a problem in mmorpgs, there are always 'best' builds and the best the developers can hope for is to ensure that all the different playing styles (melee, range, pets etc.) are viable and close enough so that people can never quite agree on what is the best.
SWG was the best game ever made in my oppinion. Why you ask? Well it was because it was HARD. I play games to be challenged, because in overcoming that challenge and prevailing I have an imense amount of fun. SWG had its bugs, it had its bland quests I grant you that.... but those things were vastly overcome by the ability to choose what to do. I was not limited to simply fighting with a dagger, a sword, or an axe on ym character, I could fight with everyone of them proficently if I so desired. If I wanted to fight and still make my own small crafting empire and become a filthy rich buisnessman I could do so. This was what made SWG so great and what made it better than anything currently on the market today. WE, the players made SWG the game it was, SOE ruined it. I am convinced that if they had simply fixed a few small bugs and ballancing issues SWG would be thriving today. It had the potential to do just as well as other sandbox games such as Lineage 2.
Since SWG was destroyed I have not found a game that has kept my attention for over 6 months. I can not stand WoW because its so simple a 10 year old can play it almost as well as a 20 year old. I knew many people that left SWG to try WoW when it came out because they felt the need for change.... but after a few months already being levle 60 they would have come back to SWG since they were bored out of their mids.... but SOE did not leave them a game to come back to. I played WoW witha friend for a shirt while and got my char to 29 twinked and fucked around in the battlegrounds. After playing the game a mere month I was dominating in the battlegrounds for that level range. Whereas in WoW it took me a month to master the game and its mechanics SWG took me over a year, and that was what made it GREAT.
For those of you searching for a game that will once again satisfy you as SWG and our wonderfull community once did If you have not already heard of a private project in the works to bring back our joy, our love, send me a PM and I can point you in the right direction. We have waited long, but our time will soon come again.
Well... your column is nothing, if not timely... I mean, talking about design concepts from 3 years ago that had already been eliminated 12 months ago, boy, you really hit the mark... /sarcasm off...
While SWG made a mistake by not running parallel sandbox, skill based systems with thriving content... please don't come at me with WoW. There is no argument that it is popular. It is. But so much about WoW is just lame.
1.) A portion of the market hates "fantasy" genres. Please no more elves and goblins...
2.) I think there is an intellectual player base that the WoW game style is literally offensive to... "Kill X number of macklocs for fins, rinse repeat, then be led by the ring through your nose to the next zone which is identical, run the same quests but everything is "one higher" and then we'll cap it off with a dungeon." hooray! Your reward is to go do it again until you cap!
3.) I know my mythological intelligent player base is smaller, but wants more intricate game design, which is more expensive to develop, but the player base is smaller, Catch 22, so these games are not made.
SWG has made so many mistakes and failed in many, many ways, but at least it thought big, it tried to go big in concept. It may be marked by the most failures, but it should also be noted for aiming the highest.
SWG tried to go gourmet in a McDonalds world. WoW gave everyone their Chicken McNuggets... WoW has the most players, but then again 60% of Americans are morbidly obese also...
Altre Monserrat - MBH/MP Aaden Monserrat - Elder Jedi Starsider - <DFC> - Dark Force Clan
I think what was great about SWG can be best summed up with an excerpt from the most common conversation I had standing around the newb starting area.
Me: Hi there are you new?
Newb: Yeah I just bought the game.. but what do I do now?
Me: What do you want to do?
Newb: Uh.. what?
Gamers have become so used to being led by the nose by games on rails the concept of choice is completely foreign. I might as well have been speaking gibberish.
By comparison the people who have never played an MMORPG are usually immediately recognizable because instead of confusion you get an immediate "What are my choices?".
However what went horribly wrong with the game can be seen in these excerpts:
"My vendor ate another sunriders today"
(For you WoWers thats the equivalent of saying "the auction house deleted the purples I had for sale")
Or my personal favorite:
Player A: "Haven't played in a while what is currently bugged?"
Player B: "It would be a shorter list to just tell you what's working"
Comments
SWG pre-cu :
You give a young person (probably 15 and under) a round trip ticket to Italy. What would happen? Well, he/she would probably say "cool", and hop on the first plane. When he/she arrives there he/she says, "wow, this is awesome." after roaming around for a day or 2, he/she realizes he/she no speaky the lingo. He/she is unable to do much, sees a couple sights and gets bored fast cuz he/she has no idea what Italy really has to offer him/her. So the next day he/she takes the first plane back home, tells his/her friends it was cool but it was no big deal.
You give an intelligent adult (notice i said intelligent) the same ticket to Italy. What would happen? Well i am positive that he/she would get excited as well. But prior to leaving he/she would go and research the country online, talk to some friends that have been there, try to learny the lingo and plan out his/her stay with maps and guides. When he/she arrive there, he/she is happy to see that the research paid off big time. Being that its his/her first time there, it takes awhile to adjust. But he/she does adjust. Why? Cuz he/she learned the lingo, what to say and not to say, who to talk to and who not. He/she has a wonderful time in Italy going where He/she wants, doing what he/she wants to do. He/she visits all the great landmarks, travels throughout the country meeting new people and finding new places to go. After making some new friends he/she get offered a new job working there. He/she decides to move to Italy, take the job and become successful.
SWG, NGE :
Same deal, a round trip ticket to Italy (15 and under) What would happen? He/she jumps on the first flight. After arriving there, he/she finds a tour guide. The tour guide takes he/she on a tour of Italy and shows him/her everything there is to see. But the guide knows he has to increase the population of Italy. So the guide carefully plans out his/her daily tours, gives him/her money and anything he/she desires to keep him/her there. The guide introduces him/her all kinds of people, which in turn give him/her anything he/she wants, and learn to speak his/her language. They cater to his/her every need, and soon he/she think that he/she are the best thing to happen to that country. Why? cuz they gave him/her everything on a silver platter, like he/she was something special. All the while, the guide and his friends got what they wanted, his/her trust. So he/she follows them around and does whatever they tell him/her. He/she stays there cuz he/she is getting the royal treatment. Why go home? He/she likes it here.
Now for the intelligent adult. (notice again i said intelligent) What would happen? He/she does the same as before and does his/her research. During the research he/she finds that there are some strange things going on over there. But with confidence he/she flies to Italy ready to take in all the challenges head on. When he/she arrives, a nice tour guide helps him/her out as well. He takes him/her on the same tour he gives everyone else. He/she says to the guide, "Excuse me but I didnt want to go there, and I didn't want to do that." Of course the guide ignores him/her and continues with the tour. He/she has some fun and gets to see the sights, but he/she is a bit disappointed cuz he/she has not been able to do anything he/she want to do. The guide, being a pain in his/her ass, won't leave his/her side and continues to push him/her to do things he/she doesn't want to do. Finally after a few days he/she gets mad and decides to fly back home. When he/she gets home he/she tells his/her friends that it was fun, but the guides there are very annoying and you had no freedom to go anywhere or do anything he/she would have liked to do.
What maybe fun for some may not be fun for others. The veterans of SWG were happy with the first scenario. The freedom to go where and when you want, and to be whomever and whatever you wanted. To personalize their experience in the game. The NGEr's are happy with the same old, same old linear experience like in other games. SWG still has a lot to offer everyone. It has gotten better since the release of the NGE, but understand that the veterans will never get back the experience they lost. It was a very original game back then. It was also broken. I think SOE has been doing a great job trying to get the game on track and make it a game for all to enjoy. Unfortunately the game is still broken with lots of bugs and problems that should have been fixed years ago. Gamers are in it for the game. RPGr's are in it for the world and experience. I am sure that world RPGs will be the wave of the future. Second life has a huge following but theres no content or story. When MMORPGs can learn to combine worlds with story and content we will all be happy. Its a tall order and will be a huge challenge to devs. But i am sure that this too shall come to pass.
But it should be noted, a portion of the post above seems to have suggested that EQ II was released after WoW. Not true.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Anyway what killed the Star Wards feel for me was when I found out, hammers, polearms, and swords were actual player weapons with their own combat styles. A sword is equal or better than a blaster? I can accept Jedi using hand to hand weapons even though really its stupid (rig some explosives and they are toast), but hammers?
I'm sorry but as a casual player, I have to totally agree with the original writer that SWG was a HORRIBLE casual game. Now say what you will about casual players and their expectations, but SWG didn't come close to meeting any of them.
Here are my observations having played an average of 20 hrs/week for 3 months after launch.
1. Economy and gear: Casual players shouldn't expect the best gear, but they should be able to get decent gear and participate somewhat in the crafting system. In SWG, the economy was dictated by the better crafters - whose prices usually were way above what any casual player could afford. Furthermore, the crafting system was fascinating as a business sim but required huge amounts of time/experience to get anything out of. Once again, not casual friendly.
2. Things to do: Casual players want at least a chance to do some fun missions or feel like they've made progress in say an hour or two of play. Casual players would be hard pressed to do basic maintenance on harvesters or pay rent on their house in a two-hour SWG play session, much less take a hunting trip to Endor.
3. Community interaction: Casual players know they'll never be guild leaders but they still want to have decent relationships with friends and other players. This is much easier to do in a storydriven game (hey all - who wants to go run blah blah dungeon or do so & so quest) than in a sandbox. In a sandbox environment, you get a lot of deep player politics and behind-the-scenes scheming that may be fun for hardcores but will never be accessible to casual players. You'll just never be more than a tourist at best to quote Elvis Costello.
4. PVP: At least in GW and WOW, casual players can participate and slowly build up rewards by putting a few hours in a week. In SWG, I found I never had a chance against the hardcore jedi or bounty hunters. Besides that, there was almost no reason to PVP except for EPEEN points, which of course is why very few well-adjusted adults actually participated after the first month or so.
So please don't flame the original author or accuse him of wanting spoonfed idiot content. He's writing from a casual gamer's point-of-view, and believe it or not there are many MMOGs out there that are very accomodating to people who don't want to make an MMOG a full-time job. SWG was not one of these - and the author is 100 percent correct in saying it offered almost nothing to casual gamers.
Which when you look at it is a tragedy, considering Star Wars is one of the most pop culture friendly, "casual" Sci Fi franchises ever created.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player. Now that SWG has been downgraded i am now a casual player again. You obviously don't know anything about economics. The crafters didnt run the economy, we all did. An economy is stimulated by the exchanging of money for product or services. This happened quite freqently by non crafters that performed vital services to the community. I would list them, but you would not understand how such professions worked. Probably cuz you never played them. I admit there was a bit of unbalance to the game with regards to jedi and BH. But i also remember killing off both of those profs many times as a carbineer/medic. There was a great balance in the game for hardcore and casual player, thats what i liked most. Most of what you said is counteracted by one word. Community. I hate to assume, but your unfounded babbling above suggests a lot. You must fall under the heading of, i like linear mmorpgs, i need a guide to show me where to go and what to do next, i just want to do what im told and kill shit along the way. In what skill do you build XP? oh you dont, you use it to build a lvl. In SWG i could tell you exactly what skill i was using and where my XP went. Nowdays you get XP to run from one place to another. Talk to this guy ill give you XP and money. XP no longer stand for experience, its money to buy yourself a lvl. I use to have specific skills that i earned experience in, no lvls. NVM..... the only people who understand, are the vets that left the game in the first place. Im tired of all the narrow minded points of view from people who believe that if its not like every other game, then its not a good game or it wont work. SOE had a great thing going for them and they blew it. It's that easy. If they gave the original game the same time they spent on making the NGE it would be the best MMO out today. Sadly they made a WOW clone. OH wait, dont get me wrong now. I dont mean content, i mean the game system itself.
Cities attacking each other, destroying bases, watching gun fights in the cantina.
I played from the original release up to the CU.
The CU broke the game for me literally. I couldn't play because lag was at about 0.5FPS on my comp. after the CU.
So eventually I went to WOW and in under three weeks I had literally everything maxed in WOW including running end game raids. 1 Week later I said wow, this is way to easy and boring.
So after I heard of the NGE I tried that for 6 months and couldn't believe how bad it was. They might as well called it SWG for the mentally impaired. It was easier than WoW. The end game I was soloing everything and hardly even getting touched. PVP lasted about 5 seconds at max. with a bunch of whinny kids.
So I made a crafter ground it out in just a 3 day time period only to realize you can't actually craft anything that sells due to drops off low end mobs being better than the highest crafted items in game.
Loved the original, hated the NGE as it was nothing but a dumbed down version of WoW which I thought could never happen from any game. WoW handed everything to you on a gold plate. Original SWG not only did you have to find your food you had to make the plate as well. NGE hell they just feed you the food too, what a waste.
I won't get dragged into a WoW vs SWG vs UO debate, I'll let you all do that.
I will say I agree with the OP comment that you can't design a game with the hardcore players in mind. Doesn't matter what the level cap is in any game you WILL find someone who will burn through the levels and hit the cap before anyone else. Level 70 in WoW in 28 hours for example. In EQ1 the first expansion Ruins of Kunark upped the cap to 60. Now, EQ1 had a vastly steeper leveling curve then than it does now, estimated that the xp for 51-60 would take longer than 1-50. Officially SOE said they expected it to be several weeks before people would hit the new cap of 60. Well the "months" on Brell Serilis turned out to be 16 days as a Necromancer was our first 60 and she wasn't even the fastest server wide, a ranger hit 60 a few days before her (don't remember the server).
I can tell by your post that you never really played SWG as a whole. All of the things you just pointed out are 100% wrong, and guess what, I am a casual player myself. Turned me from a casual player to a much more hardcore player. Now that SWG has been downgraded i am now a casual player again. You obviously don't know anything about economics. The crafters didnt run the economy, we all did. An economy is stimulated by the exchanging of money for product or services. This happened quite freqently by non crafters that performed vital services to the community. I would list them, but you would not understand how such professions worked. Probably cuz you never played them. I admit there was a bit of unbalance to the game with regards to jedi and BH. But i also remember killing off both of those profs many times as a carbineer/medic. There was a great balance in the game for hardcore and casual player, thats what i liked most. Most of what you said is counteracted by one word. Community. I hate to assume, but your unfounded babbling above suggests a lot. You must fall under the heading of, i like linear mmorpgs, i need a guide to show me where to go and what to do next, i just want to do what im told and kill shit along the way. In what skill do you build XP? oh you dont, you use it to build a lvl. In SWG i could tell you exactly what skill i was using and where my XP went. Nowdays you get XP to run from one place to another. Talk to this guy ill give you XP and money. XP no longer stand for experience, its money to buy yourself a lvl. I use to have specific skills that i earned experience in, no lvls. NVM..... the only people who understand, are the vets that left the game in the first place. Im tired of all the narrow minded points of view from people who believe that if its not like every other game, then its not a good game or it wont work. SOE had a great thing going for them and they blew it. It's that easy. If they gave the original game the same time they spent on making the NGE it would be the best MMO out today. Sadly they made a WOW clone. OH wait, dont get me wrong now. I dont mean content, i mean the game system itself.
A few rebuttals:
1. When you say I know nothing about economics, I completely beg to differ. I have friends who were master crafters who spent countless hours organizing expenses/profits by spreadsheet, searching for the best research nodes, overseeing inventory and cataloging materials, etc. Obviously, they charged top credit for their gear. As I said before - great business sim, but not very causal friendly. While some people (myself included) relied on a "frontier" economy where as a lower level ranger I traded crap skins and you make me a crap underpowered flashlight I mean blaster, the good stuff always remained completely out of my price range. By the time Jump To Lightspeed came along, critics from IGN, Gamespot and PC Gamer all agreed the cost of ships were obscenely high for all but the most hardcore players.
I guess I could have rolled a Twi'lek dancer and performed "vital services" like cybersex, but that's just not my style.
2. You accuse me of wanting everything spoonfed to me, that all I want to do is kill shit and be told where to go. Well, in one sense you're right. I work 50-70 hours a week at a Fortune 100 company, I really don't need a second job where I have to "make" my own fun. And I do enjoy games that have strong storylines and interesting plot-twists, even if those storylines are linear. In future MMOGs I'd like to see multiple ways to do the same quest or branching story arcs where your decisions can open up new quests or keep you from going down certain roads. And let's face it - SWG was all about telling you where to go and where to kill stuff - that was the whole point of the mission terminal system.
3. Community - ahh such a double-edged sword. You accuse me of not getting it, even though I'm still in contact with close friends who I first met in SWG. The only thing is we all moved on to better games a long, long time ago.
The thing is, I don't want to rely on community to make all my fun, any more than I want to play a game where there is no community. Having a completely player-run sandbox creates a lot of problems, including:
A. Player created content usually equals total drivel. For every cool roleplayer with a great backstory, there's five people who want to cry on your shoulder because "their entire family got wiped out by the Imperials!"
For every smuggler who takes great pains to play the role of self-respecting citizen by day and smuggler by night, there's a wannabe yakuza/mafioso who rolls around town going "you talking to me?" and spamming you to duel him over some minor slight. For every Imperial or Rebel player who actually cares about the grand struggle on their server, there are even more who just want to get off on a power trip as a jackbooted thug (Imperial) or sociopathic anarchist (Rebel).
B. Forced community involvement. I don't like raid schedules, which is why I don't belong to uber-guilds in WOW. But in SWG, I was expected to go to town hall meetings and discuss zoning laws in order to be considered a "good "citizen. I can see some people may be excited about the chance to "run their own towns!" in a game, but I play games to take a break from reality and relax with friends, not have to deal with even more stupid rules or social obligations.
C. Way too much politicking/scheming. In my short time in SWG, I saw all the usual drama of cyberromance fallouts and friendships gone bad taken to new extremes. Just like in real-life I try to stay nuetral in things, but what do you do when the owner of the town cantina refuses to serve you because "your siding with her ex-boyfriend", i.e., I still go on missions with the guy? In our town, a lot of nastiness went down when a rival faction set down stakes and tried to take the community over politically. The old mayor - a guy who had spent the entire beta planning out the perfect community - got voted out simply because the imperials brought in more people, which in turn led to a coup attempt by the old mayor's friends. By the end, real-life death threats were being exchanged and somebody hacked and brought down the community web forum.
4. Believe it or not I agree with you that I'd like to see the same level of character customization and skill progression in future games. I hate having to have the same spec as a million other mages in WOW because there are only 2 or 3 viable ways to use your talents. Hopefully, the next game that tries to do such a system won't include the ungodly grind SWG required.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I'll agree about the content lacking for players just joining the game, and it being a bit too confusing at start. They fixed the with the starter station in the NGE, However, and content that previousely existed before the NGE was either borken or didn't even provide XP in the NGE leveling system.
Your end statemant is a joke at best, the content they are putting in right now is just content that was previousely in game..... so for your post you get a 1 out of 5, just for effort
We lived the saga! Just the curiosity of the world and exploring the universe was bigger than any game.... still to this day. The vastness of the game preCU all the possibilities you could choose from had not been seen before and not yet since.
There WAS endless of ways to find means to entain yourself without a plottet line....
Ever since they ruined SWG ive missed it and still miss it. My friends and foes.. the community.. They'll allways be a fond memory... even remember the best and "worst" of them like Gallow, Rayen, Namaar, Morlock, Rac, Jonaga, Amie and many many more..and this is years after i left the game at preCU launch. Cant remember the names of 10 people in WoW and im a fulltime hardcore addict.
SWG was not all about content.. entertainment you could find for yourself... it was all about the people in the game.
I'm not an expert but isnt that what Role Playing Game is all about?
Wumi
Wumi - SWG - Bloodfin - Cancelled
Wumi - WoW - Eu-Kazzak - Cancelled
Bulldozer - Aion - Eu-Kahrun - Cancelled
Wumi - Rift - EU-Riptalon - Cancelled
I stoped reading after half the crap. Swg wasnt anythig for this guy. He never understood the game, but still he feels that he is the Guy to explain what was wrong with it.
So go killing some creatures from a random spawned mission is pointless, but to go kill that orc boss who dont bother anyone as far as you dont go and seek him up, is meaningful, just becasue its handcrafted content? You dont really beleave what that static npc told you, about how you had to go kill that evil boss to save the world. For people in swg it was at least som kind of point in hunting -i had to kill that animal to reach my harvestor, or to get hides for my armor crafting. It mattered if i killed stuff or not. Random spawns was also a soruce for creature handlers looking for pets to tame. I never felt that anything i did in swg was pointless, witch on the other hand was a big problem for me in wow.
Its not really a problem with too many games on the market as swg (the original swg, not the cunge-crap). Still there actually is some pople out there who liked swg, and want a game like that. No matter how wrong this guy thinks it is with games like swg, or how much he try to explain it, i just se a guy that fail to understand that not everyone like it the way he wants it.
(excuse my bad grammar and typos. Second lanugage)
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's been said so many times its almost painful. SWG wasnt about being in the movies. It wasnt about you defeating the emperor by throwing him down a big hole. SWG was about living and fighting during the GCW. It was a place for you to make your own reputation. People just dont seem to get that. What story did you all want? Im sorry but you couldnt be the Ultimate Hero or Villian in a story line that would effect 1000's of other gamers. It just wasnt possible nor wanted by most of the players. That is what single player games are for. No one in any MMO achieves that why was SWG supposed to be different? What kind of quests were there supposed to be? Go kill the wolves that are not even bothering anyone? Bring me back some rat ears? It amazes me that people dont really understand what SWG was about.
SWG was about choices and freedom. The SWU was just the back drop for what was supposed to be the greatest story ever told..your own. Remember that? Problem was a lot of people didnt know what to do. People like to be told how they are going to play a game and what they are supposed to do. SWG had tons of things to do. Infact I dont think I ever got bored because I could do what I wanted to do.
In the end it doesnt matter. The masses have spoken and open ended games are not what they want. The market is filling up with WoW clones. Everyone wants a linear game where your choices are more or less made for you. Your direction is very clear from the moment you create a character. Im not saying it makes the game easy or less fun. It all depends on what you are looking for I guess.
Steve Wilson writes:
"Cantinas weren't the dangerous places of the films but a place for strippers (frequently men behind a female toon) to shake their grove thing for a handful of virtual coin and socialize with emotes."
That's the biggest load of rubbish I've heard today and it's extremely disrespectful to many players who play entertainer characters in the game.
Firstly, SWG dancers aren't strippers. Not only do dancers NOT get paid for removing items of clothing, I've been playing since the first month the game went live and not once have I seen a dancer strip in the game. Heck, it's not even possible to get naked - the toons have non-removable underwear on. I'm not saying that lewd conduct never goes on, but the tales of it are much more common than the behaviour itself.
Secondly, Mr. Wilson may be surprised to know that this is a role playing game: real life males play female characters and real life females play male characters. There's nothing at all 'wrong' with that. On the contrary, roleplaying is actively encouraged in every MMOG I know. Heck, real life humans even play wookiees - how sick would Mr. Wilson think that was? I mean they're entirely different species. I suppose it would be okay in Mr. Wilson's book if a male human was playing a male wookieee - I mean it's okay as long as the differences are only in terms of species, but heaven forbid if the toon has different sexual organs.
Honestly, grow up! I mean I expect to see juvenile rants in the game forums, but to see such nonsense make its way into a serious review is ludicrous. Whoever is hiring Mr. Wilson needs to look at their hiring practices and possibly child labour laws. It is illegal to hire children without certain safeguards being in place. However, I'm not sure about child labour laws where only the mind of the employee is under age.
As to why SWG failed, it's not because the developers chose 'world over game' as Mr. Wilson suggests. Sandbox games can be made to work if they are bug-free and adequately supported. SWG was neither. As others have said, SWG failed because the game was six months short of being finished when it appeared on the shelves and the people behind the game were so clueless that it took another three years (and two turnovers in development staff) to even begin to fix it. Finally it's on the right track, but at this late stage the game is a shadow of what it could have been and any improvements made now may be a case of too little too late.
They never knew what the problem was, they never knew what people wanted....
MMORPG should use people who actually played the game, next time.
Since SWG was destroyed I have not found a game that has kept my attention for over 6 months. I can not stand WoW because its so simple a 10 year old can play it almost as well as a 20 year old. I knew many people that left SWG to try WoW when it came out because they felt the need for change.... but after a few months already being levle 60 they would have come back to SWG since they were bored out of their mids.... but SOE did not leave them a game to come back to. I played WoW witha friend for a shirt while and got my char to 29 twinked and fucked around in the battlegrounds. After playing the game a mere month I was dominating in the battlegrounds for that level range. Whereas in WoW it took me a month to master the game and its mechanics SWG took me over a year, and that was what made it GREAT.
For those of you searching for a game that will once again satisfy you as SWG and our wonderfull community once did If you have not already heard of a private project in the works to bring back our joy, our love, send me a PM and I can point you in the right direction. We have waited long, but our time will soon come again.
Well... your column is nothing, if not timely... I mean, talking about design concepts from 3 years ago that had already been eliminated 12 months ago, boy, you really hit the mark... /sarcasm off...
While SWG made a mistake by not running parallel sandbox, skill based systems with thriving content... please don't come at me with WoW. There is no argument that it is popular. It is. But so much about WoW is just lame.
1.) A portion of the market hates "fantasy" genres. Please no more elves and goblins...
2.) I think there is an intellectual player base that the WoW game style is literally offensive to... "Kill X number of macklocs for fins, rinse repeat, then be led by the ring through your nose to the next zone which is identical, run the same quests but everything is "one higher" and then we'll cap it off with a dungeon." hooray! Your reward is to go do it again until you cap!
3.) I know my mythological intelligent player base is smaller, but wants more intricate game design, which is more expensive to develop, but the player base is smaller, Catch 22, so these games are not made.
SWG has made so many mistakes and failed in many, many ways, but at least it thought big, it tried to go big in concept. It may be marked by the most failures, but it should also be noted for aiming the highest.
SWG tried to go gourmet in a McDonalds world. WoW gave everyone their Chicken McNuggets... WoW has the most players, but then again 60% of Americans are morbidly obese also...
Altre Monserrat - MBH/MP
Aaden Monserrat - Elder Jedi
Starsider - <DFC> - Dark Force Clan
Me: Hi there are you new?
Newb: Yeah I just bought the game.. but what do I do now?
Me: What do you want to do?
Newb: Uh.. what?
Gamers have become so used to being led by the nose by games on rails the concept of choice is completely foreign. I might as well have been speaking gibberish.
By comparison the people who have never played an MMORPG are usually immediately recognizable because instead of confusion you get an immediate "What are my choices?".
However what went horribly wrong with the game can be seen in these excerpts:
"My vendor ate another sunriders today"
(For you WoWers thats the equivalent of saying "the auction house deleted the purples I had for sale")
Or my personal favorite:
Player A: "Haven't played in a while what is currently bugged?"
Player B: "It would be a shorter list to just tell you what's working"