Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
SWG Most enjoyable first day I have had in an MMORPG!
vegasni
Member Posts: 17
I have been playing VSoH for about the last month and finally realised that I was getting angry more often than actually having any fun. But this post is not about VSoH.
Therefore as I do every so often, I started hunting around and looking for what is up and comming and what I might try out next etc. Thus far I have played EQ2, Eve, WOW, Ryzom, VSoH. The one I stuck with the longest was EQ2 but it just was not immersing enough.
So I thought I would give the 14 day trail of SWG a go. I am a Star Wars fan. I have read many SWG forum posts over the years and I am aware of he NGE and CU updates that caused soo much controversy etc. This post is not to discuss those either as I know nothing about them.
So after leaving my machine on overnight to take the updates about 12 hours worth on an 8mb adsl line I was finally ready to log in and create a new toon. I created a Bounty Hunter on the Chimaera server (hope I got spelling right).
What can I say I had the most fun I have ever had on the first day playing an MMORPG. On the first day you get equipment that doesn't look crap because you are a noob. You blend into the Star Wars universe. It feels very Star Warsy. There where some very good fun missions that actually made me feel like a bounty hunter. You get a land speeder and even a basic ship to do some space combat in. This is excellent you don't have to play for 5 months before you get what I would consider essential items.
There are go and kill 8 of these quests, but what they do is actually have some quests updated while your in the field so you kill 8 and then a transmission comes in telling you to move on saving you having to trek back to the city. Also I think I only had about 3 quests to kill animals, e.g. beetles etc. The majority of killing is against humanoids which I like.
The town of Mos Eisley on Tatooine where you get dropped is lively and feels every bit the scum town it should do. I have heard of empty servers but this server doesn't seem to be. The town was buzzing. I had to go through a cantina to get to the privateer pilot trainer and couldn't believe the amount of people in the cantina. A lot where afk and many seemed to be running scripts that had the scantily clad dancers continually asking for tips. That might sound a bit crap but to be honest it really added to the atmosphere. If you go ino a cantina your not going to expect everyone there to be pleasant. Infact you really should feel like a fight is going to break out or that a person is really annoying, it really adds to the immersion.
Some bad points imo:
The default movement setting seem a bit strange
Too many jedi's running around, but this didn't detract from immersion too much.
Towns are a bit laggy
Broker could really do with better filtering options.
Some of the game mechanics could be explained better.
OK I have rambled enough. If you don't know what to play and want some immersion I strongly reccommend the SWG trial. I wll defo be setting up a sub. Now I await all these posts about the NGE etc. I never knew the game then so they will be meaningless for me.
Therefore as I do every so often, I started hunting around and looking for what is up and comming and what I might try out next etc. Thus far I have played EQ2, Eve, WOW, Ryzom, VSoH. The one I stuck with the longest was EQ2 but it just was not immersing enough.
So I thought I would give the 14 day trail of SWG a go. I am a Star Wars fan. I have read many SWG forum posts over the years and I am aware of he NGE and CU updates that caused soo much controversy etc. This post is not to discuss those either as I know nothing about them.
So after leaving my machine on overnight to take the updates about 12 hours worth on an 8mb adsl line I was finally ready to log in and create a new toon. I created a Bounty Hunter on the Chimaera server (hope I got spelling right).
What can I say I had the most fun I have ever had on the first day playing an MMORPG. On the first day you get equipment that doesn't look crap because you are a noob. You blend into the Star Wars universe. It feels very Star Warsy. There where some very good fun missions that actually made me feel like a bounty hunter. You get a land speeder and even a basic ship to do some space combat in. This is excellent you don't have to play for 5 months before you get what I would consider essential items.
There are go and kill 8 of these quests, but what they do is actually have some quests updated while your in the field so you kill 8 and then a transmission comes in telling you to move on saving you having to trek back to the city. Also I think I only had about 3 quests to kill animals, e.g. beetles etc. The majority of killing is against humanoids which I like.
The town of Mos Eisley on Tatooine where you get dropped is lively and feels every bit the scum town it should do. I have heard of empty servers but this server doesn't seem to be. The town was buzzing. I had to go through a cantina to get to the privateer pilot trainer and couldn't believe the amount of people in the cantina. A lot where afk and many seemed to be running scripts that had the scantily clad dancers continually asking for tips. That might sound a bit crap but to be honest it really added to the atmosphere. If you go ino a cantina your not going to expect everyone there to be pleasant. Infact you really should feel like a fight is going to break out or that a person is really annoying, it really adds to the immersion.
Some bad points imo:
The default movement setting seem a bit strange
Too many jedi's running around, but this didn't detract from immersion too much.
Towns are a bit laggy
Broker could really do with better filtering options.
Some of the game mechanics could be explained better.
OK I have rambled enough. If you don't know what to play and want some immersion I strongly reccommend the SWG trial. I wll defo be setting up a sub. Now I await all these posts about the NGE etc. I never knew the game then so they will be meaningless for me.
Comments
Hi
yea i tried SWF a while ago aswell i thought id try it out with the station pass ( i once had rip of price now)
I really liked starting out to thought it was pritty cool on the space station then the first planet your
but i got fed up there about 50 million un used player house's scattered everywhere it just ruined the entire game for me
i got fed up being lost and surrounded by so meny house's ! and i found the map was useless for navigating aswell.
but that was just me but i did enjoy leveling while i did with my bounty hunter.
oh really? so youre having fun and the servers are busy?
good, what about the fucked up economy with players who got more than 750 million credits on their accounts?
15 million credits for a weapon with nice stats lol
what about the diversity, aesthetics and beautiness this game onced had? everyone running arround in nasty and ugly looking clothes like a bunch of punks...
and 10 - 15 people standing in mos eisley is not busy for me...
and you know what the saddest thing is? youre posting all of this how nice the game is and how you enjoy it,
I give you 5 - 7 days and you will realise how much boring and messed up this game is when all of your quests are done and you find yourself alone with the NPC's, because noone is arround to interact with and that the stuff you put up in your stores won't sell because of the low server populations...
oh and I forgot the fucked up and instable user interface plus the commands and a lot of pre-cu shortkeys don't work anymore..
NGE-Star Wars Galaxies ist just ugly and a waste of money...
The only ones who can safe this game are we, the community and that will never happens as long we read "Sony Online Entertainement" on that game..
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
Things that need to make SWG better:
Housing purge: too many ghost towns
Server merge: servers are way too empty
content upgrade: spread out the levels, all level 80's shouldn't have to go to mustafar just to level, this should also mean that little communities should build up on each planet after a server merge would happen, because you could find a place to go at level 90 on a newb planet that was difficult
more instances: I know they have the corvette are there any others?
I am going to stop there, this game doesn't have the staff available to actually do what really needs to be done. The economy on some servers seems to be extremely screwed up too. In its current state, its not a half bad game, if it was released 4 years ago in the current state, the game might have been "successful".
checkout his post numbers and the date he created his mmorpg.com account...
oh and by the way:
my mother was considering buying a digital camera last week and asked me what I suggest her to get, she was considering a Sony camera and I told her to avoid everything with "Sony" on it, because sony products are like this: you can colorize shit to pink, it looks nice, but underneath the color its shit..."
she ended up buying a nice Canon Lixus Series cam...
you won't fool us anymore Sony, we will tear your fuckin brand to shreads...
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
look at me, why do I spread all of this hate about SOE products? why would I do that, if I would be a satisfied customer? why would hundrets of tousands of people write exactly the same as I do?
we all got a reason to write stuff like that and the simplest reason is that we got a responsibility to tell everyone else how Sony Online Entertainement treats its customers...
else companies like SOE would cheat on its customers over and over again...
imagine the Allies in world war II never stopped adolf hitler, in what kind of world would we live today?
sometimes you have to fight against something that just aint right...
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
I also have not poured hours into the game to feel that it was ruined so I do not have that emotional attachment. The only reaosn I posted was because I really was taken back by my first day playing the game.
Oh and my account is sooold becuase I used it for a 14 day Eve trial that was available through this site at the start of my time playing Eve.
Im glad you enjoyed your first day in SWG. Being new to the game you never had to deal with all of the garbage the vets did. I envy you. Starting the game from a fresh perspective would be cool. Hope you enjoy it for a long time.
BTW saying things like Star Warsy makes me wonder if your post isnt just flame bait but Ill give you the benefit of the doubt.
I didnt meant to personal attack you, it was all against SOE...
maybe you can report after your play phase in star wars galaxies how you liked the game overall and why you will or won't keep on playing or subscribing to that game..
your neutral perpective is pretty interesting for me...
this would give new players who have no experience with this game a first impression of what they can expect in this game...
and I'm really curious what you would write and how you liked the current state of NGE:SWG
sorry for sounding aggressive but as you can see, we veterans got a lot of anger in our hearts....
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
If you are having fun, that is all that matters.
Do not mind the personal attacks you will be getting from the "oh so high and mighty" SWG vets. THEY DONT MATTER, only thing that matters at the end is YOUR personal enjoyment and not some hyper-glorified stories of how grand the game was as opposed to now.
The sadest part is, the minute you open your mouth to say hey i try swg and i realy liked it you will have them on your back insulting and biting like a swarm of frenzied piranhas.
So your best bet is, keep off the MMORPG forums and just play the game- plenty of nice people still playing and there is no need to throw yourselves to the wolves here.
I mean geez, it is a game, move over allready and stop whining how SoE is the devil.
edited for typos.
The new player experience they put in back in nov 05 is really good I have to admit. The space station is quite over the top, but its fun(I get to sit in the millenium falcon! and fire the turrets! YAY!). I actually think I would have enjoyed them creating an original story though. Like say KOTOR, and have hints and cameos of the famous characters show up.
The "Space station" was probably some of the best content they put in the game, it is an extremely well-polished adventure. The past new player content was extremely pisspoor. When I got dropped into Mos Eisley, all I got was a green droid. And no real explanation of what to do.
Another good New player experience, is WoW. its cool because it slowly reveals things, same with EVE. Now, SWG didn't have a good New Player Tutorial till the NGE. Which I think hurt them more than anything.
Ask any old vet if they still have their melons.
it used to be a world of its own...
oh and yes I have a reallife and a girlfriend and playing with her is more fun that any mmorpg I ever had :P
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
Compared to other games, swg is quite good as it stands. Alot of cool weapons and vehicles and the space combat. In the NGe you live the star wars saga. Interact with ppl from the movies, do quests for Jabba, hunt rebels for vader etc. But in the old SWG you were nothing but a citizen of the star wars universe.
I understand that you might enjoy the game at first, with all the new stuff you get. However, the first few days you get ALL new stuff and there's nothing left but some upgrades for skills, abit faster vehicles, abit better armour and abit more powerful ships.
I've been playing on Chimaera for more than 3 years and the population has only been lower once, and it was right after NGE hit live. Just outside Coronet starport used to be hundreds of players, atleast 50 in Bestine and both cities cantinas were so full of ppl that you hardly could see the floor anywere.
And all the abandoned houses you see are results of soe's dreams of vets returningso they refuse to delete them.
But as I said, compared to other games,SWG is still a good game. Compared to WoW, the quests are better, the community is better, traveilling is better, fighting is better, crafting is better. However, it's not even close to being as fun as it once was. The best game ever was turned in to one of the pack.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
hmm
DFon't flame the poor guy guys. I mean he dosn't know.
Back before Sony screwed the whole game up by doing the NGE and CU, the game was funner then it is now. First, you couldn't walk 3 steps without running past SOMEONE, two, the towns had a mroe lively feel, not a WoWsy lively feel with tons of people selling crap, but a homy feeling. Three, you had to work to become a jedi, and thats what made people mad when NGE came around, they opened jedi to noobs, when originally you had to work very hard. I was mad too, since I was level 16 and force sensitive, and also halfway through the quests, when most people were level 60-70 doing them. Also, you could multiclass, which you can't do now. I was a Scout/entertainer (Musical)/Teris Kasi master, and i was really good at managing my skill points, still NGE came around.
Anyway, its not that its not good, even though the players dropped from over 1 dozen million to about a million. Its just it made people mad and it turned into a kids game, so many people left for WoW or CoH.
Back in the day there was far more classes, and a huge variety of different people and everyone had a different job and function. Seeing a Jedi was rare and everyone got excited and kept asking for the Jedi to turn on his lightsaber. Now, it's like there's 6 classes and the majority of the population is Jedi.
Ok, it is hard to take anyone seriously when they compare someone/something to Hitler. :P
At any rate, anything they do to improve the game or bring in new subscribers in the short term will hopefully lead to a more complete SWG2. I still think this world has some promise...it might require starting over...but it has promise.
Maybe it'll be worthwhile telling some of the new and potential SWG players a little of the history of the game and SOE.
I followed SWG since 2 years before launch. They seemed very community orientated back then. I remember Q-3PO, the Community Relations manager, being a regular on the forums. Those were the good days.
Some of the more interesting aspects of the original game were the three pool metre, which contained Health, Action and Mind dictated by six additional stats such as stamina and constitution etc which controlled things like resists and regeneration. To incapacitate a player or NPC you only had to drain one of those pools and using special attacks actually consumed your own pools as well, so it was a bit of a balance. Pistol and Fencer centred around Health, Carbine and Polearm on Action and Rifleman and Swordsman on Mind, as in specials used and attacked these pools.
There were little to no certifications on armour and weapons, however at that time armour drains your stats so much you had to have some very powerful doctor buffs to wear a full suit of anything decent. In fact, buffed up and decently geared players, specifically Rifle and Swordsmen, could solo Krayt Dragons.
They also have a good profession system, where you could mix and match from the different trees to make your character. Basically, each profession started with a Novice box, split up four specilist trees and finished with a Master box. Players started with a set number of skillpoints to invest and, along with earning the required XP type and quantity, went up the professions as much or as little as they want. I started out Scout and Marksman, with a touch of Artisan for crafting.
Anywho, come CU armour gained certs and, in an effect to vary the use of armour and remove the dreaded 'compy clone' syndrone different armour got different bonuses and damage types were reduced to two to fit. Recon was best against energy, Assault was best against kinetic and Battle was the medium. However, if you wer a Rifleman, you could only wear Recon which had shit kinetic resists so you would often get owned by a player using a kinetic weapon or any of the melee mobs in the game who for the most part only did kinetic damage. The opposite happened with Assault armour however one of the big issues for me was that Bounty Hunters used Assault but our Jedi marks weapons dealt energy damage.
The 3 pools stayed but only Health was damaged, the other two were reduced to a purely 'mana pool' type. Also, buffs, healing, DoTs and persistant effects were reduced noticably and many items such as weapons and armour were altered, often negatively, to fit hte new system. I dealt with the CU.
The lastest expansion, The Trials of Obi Wan, introduced the planet Mustafar (or Mustyfarts as many players dubbed it early on) which was probably 1/16th the size of other planets, barring Kaashyyk. Apart from a few minor items, such as the jedi cube dealy which was a clear rip off from Diablo, the expansion was well recieved. Now we introduce the NGE. It was like a week or two since ToOW went live that they sprung the NGE on us, without any prior warning. The NGE completely removed the tree system for professions and replaced it was the standard linear level system akin to so many other MMOs. Every player became class clone overnight and many people, suich as myself who was a Bounty Hunter/Combat Medic, lost a great deal of thier usefulness in return for a complete forced change of thier playstyle, up to the point of forcing people to choose between combat or crafting. This profession change also had the effect of removing a few classes, premier of which was Creature Handler, which was completely removed. However, they added in Jedi which you could choose from the start. After forcing people through Mastering almost every class just to open a jedi Pre CU, and running them though an incredibly long quest and grind series post CU, they granted Jedi to anyone.
They changed the combat system into something akin to an FPS, where manual targeting was needed and actions were no longer used from the function keys but by the mouse. Meaning you had to select a new ability, then right click to use it, and change it again to use another. This also had the effect of mistargeting a fair deal. The cursor was rather indescriminate and any mob or player that got within your firing cone copped a shot or two. It was difficult not to draw extra mobs and often led to player death.
Along with that, all of the commands changed too, so all macros would no longer work and it was difficult to create new ones, especially for crafting. However, the space game was unchanged by the new system and macros would still work aboard starships, leading to a mass exodus and the creation of many orbital crafting yatchs.
Basically, every component of the game was changed overnight without player consultation or even a heads up, about two weeks after releasing and accepting the money for a paid expansion. Then, SOE had the nerve to deny people refunds for ToOW. It took a great number of legal action threats and more then a few cancelled credit transactions before SOE opted to refund players. Somewhere in the mist of it all most of the senior staff of SWG were replaced and one of them had thier parting post on the forums deleted because she hinted towards the reason for her being fired. In fact, SOE did a good job of cleaning the forums. It got to the point where SOE would simply delete posts regarding the NGE because of mass negative comments. A friend and I were actually banned from the forum for a week for posting what we thought of the NGE.
I think SWG lost at least 50% of thier subs within the first month of the NGE. I hung around for quite a while and soon I was lucky to cross paths with anyone in an hour of playing. During peak hours two months after the NGE the most populated server was around 200 players. By then you're looking at about an 80% loss of subcribers, mine was one of them.
Since then SOE has continually praised the NGE, which stands for New Game Enhancements if you appreciate irony, never admited it may have been a mistake and completely refused to roll back even to post CU. Also since the NGE they've introduced the 'expertise' system which is a complete copy of WoWs talent trees. In fact, during a forum post Smeg refered to them as talent points but the post was edited within the hour. They've also began reimplimenting aspects of the Pre NGE game and prmoting them as further advancements. However, since it's old game material being put into the new game system it's always buggy and awkward, leading many to call the game a paid for beta test. One of the current 'advancements' they're planning is the reintroduction of Creature Handler, but as an expertise choice for existing professions. All in all you'd be hard pressed finding any interesting or useful aspect of the game post NGE that wasn't there, in the same or better form, pre NGE.
In a nutshell, SOE turned SWG into a Sci Fi WoW clone, did a bad and half complete job of it, sprung it on players only after they paid for the next expansion, refused to refund players until threatened with mass law suits, reintroduced Pre NGE aspects as if they were new and has forever refused to apologize or even admit the NGE was a mistake.
Now, it shouldn't be hard to see why vets of the game are so pissed off. I dont care if you play the game or if you manage to actually like the game but consider yourself forewarned, you are nothing but a paycheque to SOE and thier ego and greed will forever be more important to them then your enjoyment of the game.
You will now find me in WoW.
I played SWG at launch, and up until the CU hit. I personally dont like the new game, but you dont see me on forums bitching about it every 5 minutes like basiaclly everyother person that played Pre-cu does. Learn to move on.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett