Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
I know this has been said a thousand times...
LLCoolJD
Member Posts: 27
...but I'm amazed at how much some of you had invested in Star Wars Galaxies. I played SWG the summer of launch in 2003, and played for another 6 weeks in early 2004 after the 6-month itch got me. Occasionally, I still have an urge to hop back on to a pre-CU server and mess around. The game was flawed but it had its moments, no doubt.
That said, why are so many people in such dire straights about the loss of this game? The posts I encountered on this forum are absolutely astonishing. It's as though people's lives were turned upside-down. You should've known that, with an ordinary roll of the dice, your lives would outlast whatever escapism SWG was providing. It just ended sooner rather than later. A bunch of digital 1's and 0's are never going to be a satisfying replacement for real life relationships. Yes, I know you were interacting with real people, but if you were truly friends, then you shouldn't need the game to keep you connected.
Sorry to proselytze; I just can't get over what I've read here. FWIW, I was a crafter myself (architecture) and enjoyed it a lot while it lasted.
p.s. A "legacy" SWG server would probably earn SOE a nice bit of extra cash, but what do they know?
Comments
I'm still a wreck from SW:G, it destroyed my life!
I never even played it live. I played up until the end of Beta, where I realized that the game was flawed to such an incredible extent that it'd have to be completely redone-- thus, it would never be fixed.
After crying for several years I still have my moments where I curse the heavens for doing this to me. My hopes, dreams, future.. all ruined!
Okay. Anyway, I did quit before the game went live because it was flawed.. but I got over it pretty quick. I still miss the idea of a Star Wars MMO and would love for it to be implemented. An actual Star Wars MMO, not a POS rendition of some Star Wars elements thrown into a game without the atmospheric feel.
I pretty much quit every MMO, even if its good, after playing it for about 1 year or before. That shows them whose in control!
-SGC Special Ops
http://stargate.mgm.com/specialops/link.php?urlid=48&id=7871
http://stargate.mgm.com/specialops/link.php?urlid=49&id=7871
I think it just has to do with the fact that the game was wrapped around the Star Wars IP. Star Wars is (in my opinion, and many others) one of the greatest stories ever told, and to have that embodied into an actual interactive atmosphere where thousands of people can experience that greatness is pretty heavy. When an incident occurs like what we have seen with SWG, it does kind of create resentment (and rightly so) towards the entity that instigated greatness (as if a tease) only to turn it back around and destroy it.
Good point.
I started playing SWG because i was in love with Star Wars at the time... and the final part of the installation has always gotten to me about how great the game was.
It was flawed... ohhh yes.. had alot of problems.. but so what? Look how big of a success it was? It was on the top of the market for a while there.. then WoW hit and took the entire MMO market at gun-point. sneaky sneaky. So they changed the game to try and get those members back.
What devastated me wasn't that they destroyed the game itself. It was that they destroyed the community. When the NGE hit... the community became void. People quit left and right and my friends list holding about 100+ users.. went from 70+ on daily.. to a mere 2 on daily. How sad is that? I lost contact with people who.. if SOE hadn't done what they had.. i'd still be enjoying my game-time with. I enjoyed my experiences with those players. So what if it was over a game. They were friends of mine, and anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves. I invested alot into SWG because.. despite all its flaws... i saw it as perfect. I enjoyed the game. I loved the game. Since its launch in '03 i spent my days up until the NGE coming home from work and school to play... Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided.
They had a great thing going.. it was origional... setting aside the "Star Wars IP" i mean.. and it sank deep into the hearts of social butterflies, Star Wars fans, and RPG-enthusiasts.
It was truly a great game.. one i believe deserves a spot in the hall of fame.
What happened... happened. Nothing we can do about it, though.
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic
This should be the stock answer to anyone who asks this particular question from now on. To the OP, thanks for not being a condescending idiot in your post- most of these type of posts are. It is astounding to me that people can't understand the dedication of Star Wars fans (short for fanatic) even if it is just a game. Criminny, people were dressing up in character when the last craptastic trilogy where released! Yes, most hardcore fans have no lives. SO, sorry awesomely interesting people with exciting and meaningful real lives, who just happen to pop into the SWG veteran refuge forum, but it is true. Well, gotta go, I am picking up my supermodel girlfriend in my private jet so we can fly to Rome to have dinner. Ciao.......
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
MMOs are longer term investments because of the pay-monthly subscription system. There's more emotional investment in that and the time spent playing the game as a result. (People who paid monthly for SWG for 3 years shelled out ~$195/year for the privilege)
I equate it to paying rent on an apartment. With the NGE, your apartment got redecorated by the Queer Eye guys whether or not you wanted it to, and your only options were to suck it up and live with it or move. Not entirely a fair prospect either way.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
In response to the OP and this is just my opinion.
You can't really look to much at what people said right after the NGE. That's a lot of emotional response... probably not so much the logical response of what the issue was. There are still people today (obviously) that can't really put throughts out without an attack etc etc
I honestly didn't play SWG because it said "star wars". Oh and I was pretty into it as a kid... I mean beyond when EP4 came into theaters. The first xmas that the sears catalouge actually had the Star Wars toys... zomg.. (I was 8 when EP4 came out as a reference in 1977).
Anyway..
See I'd gone through that already with Ultima Online. Having played single player Ultimas on my Commodore 64.. I was like.. ooo cool I can play Ultima with a bunch of other people.
Going out of britannia up to the grave yard to fight some skeletons... was a true experience into what other people thought UO was about. So going forward... no to me I played SWG.. because Raph Koster had worked on UO as well.
I was already bored crapless with every level/class based MMO I ever tried (lucky to make it past the 30 day mark).
So to me if SWG being changed was a big deal it was quite simple..
1) It was now cloned into almost every other MMO
2) I can't stand level based MMO's
By a design perspective levels in an MMO are a fundemental flaw... and it would take more text on the subject then anyone probably wants to ever read... to explain why.
So basicly that's it.. with no flames or attacks... it just became another level based game and I don't pay for those.. period.
Other people enjoy them which is great! for them (I mean it really is). Just if it was sold as a level based game I wouldn't have bought it to begin with.
That's about as honest an answer as I can give from my personal perspective.
Here is the real question that SOE/LA should have pondered heavily before going through with the NGE...
IF SWG had been released in 2003 using the NGE format they released November/2005, would it have been successful?
I honestly don't know. I have my doubts as the NGE just simply lacks much depth. Having played WoW for several months and playing SWG off and on for years, there are fundamental differences between the NGE and WoW, though the NGE is an obvious attempt by SOE to wrip off WoW code...
1.) WoW is just a BETTER game. It plays better, simply. In 3 months I encountered ZERO bugs in WoW. It is a very, very, very, VERY, smooth game. Blizzard did/does a GREAT job of bug detection/correction.
2.) WoW has BALANCE. I played several classes and though different, they all balanced out quite well. SWG has ALWAYS had balance issues.
3.) FUN. WoW is just more fun to play. It's a combination of all of the above that makes it so. No problems, no lack of balance, it's easy to play, it's just more fun than a buggy/laggy/poorly done NGE.
So SWG: NGE vs WoW...
I personally believe that if SOE had released the NGE upon the launch of SWG in 2003 and we NEVER got to play the Koster/Sandbox version that it would still have failed because SOE simply isn't as good at online gaming as Blizzard.
SOE never understood the need to heavily market the Asian population like Blizzard has either.
It is just painfully obvious that the major miscalculation made by SOE (among SO many miscalculations) is that Blizzard simply put out a BETTER overall product. People play it because it works and they trust Blizzard to keep it working. SOE has never been able to give its customer base the same level of confidence.
Somewhere Mr. Smedley forgot that quality is what people seek.
SWG when released was unpolished and had quite a few bugs, due to the fact of the legions of Star Wars fans the game succeeded. They were just happy to get in there and RP a rebel or Imperial, most people did RP actually even if that meant you walked by someone and called them Rebel scum.
The community was outstanding and still is but the real draw for me to this game was the sandbox environment in which it was created. You could do anything in game and almost nothing was scripted, no levels and an amazing amount of professions kept you busy for a long time. Also, it was a Sci-Fi game and at the time I really wasn't into the whole 'finger waving' wizard and goblin crap so it suited my gamestyle even more with that aspect.
After awhile SOE slowly started screwing up, Jedi became incredibly numerous. Instead of adding more planets/content/quests they just decided for the playerbase that the only 'endgame' was going to be to unlock Jedi. Not only did that shortchange all the people that could care less about a Jedi but it was also completely incorrect according to the 'in game' timeline. I won't even cover the NGE era because those issues have been well covered.
After SWG I graduated to EQ2 during its rocky start and I'm very happy to say that its probably the best overall game out there right now. I played WoW coming up on 2 years now but both of those games obviously are not sandbox style so I feel a bit 'trapped' in having to do stuff that's laid out for me.
The funniest thing about the last few years in my MMO gaming is that I did download the SWG trial a couple times now and used my own account. I actually found that I even after all of SOEs problems and just plain crappy decisions I was enjoying SWG still even more than I ever did enjoy EQ2 and WoW.
With all the wizard and goblin crap 'cookie cutter' games out SWG still has the uniqueness to it, the only question is can you the player get past your old hate of SOE.
Yeah. The bugs in WoW seems intended like when someone actually asked me to fear them into ZulGurub. So they wouldn't get into the real instance.
Or when people enjoyed the get stuck on the boats loading screen.
Or when people shot through walls.
And those that nvm. Let's say the bugs on WoW are not bugs it is working as intended(tm).
I never saw any less whine on bugs or server lag in WoW then in any other game.
Yet. It is stated by alot if not all players that WoW is intentional unbalanced, rock, scissor, paper and warlocks.
Rogues for that matter. For a time being Shadow Priest. I think one can say they pass the god mode round and round.
Think it is more about that time they released then it is about the most fun or 'best' game.
I can't play WoW particular well on the lowest recommended PC for WoW, same goes for a friends Mac. Running through MC was not possible without running settings at lowest on a medium specced PC for the game. Ask those guys over at curse-gaming what lag is and why they left Stormscale(EU).
The bad part is the word 'persistant' in MMO games... then see what NGE did. And how many did expect a game to have 9 million concurrent subs.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Are there any games coming out soon that will be like SWG, the way it ws when it first came out? The combination of having so many professions, the ability to hybrid any of them together, the player cities/bases, and the nearly player only economy are what made it my favorite game. Anything coming soon that is going to be similiar?
Spot on with the Queer Eye guys analogy... hehe actually made me chuckle when I read that.
Ha, yeah, I made an effort not to sound like some too-cool-for-Star-Wars troll. Actually, upon further reflection, I think I was overstating the number of "extreme" cases of SWG-withdrawal.
You know why it annoyed me?
Because to this day SWG PreNGE was the only game that didn't have a set course for you to complete and move on. You were thrown into a universe that was AWESOME (10x as good for Star Wars fans). You didn't have to kill Y for X, or log on at 10am to kill X for Y. You did what ever you wanted to, how ever you wanted to, whenever you wanted to and whoever you wished to do it with. This in itself is what MMORPG's should be about, they shouldn't be Singleplayer games with an end that take 1 year to finish. They should be about playing the game itself, exploring all that's out there to be explored and doing it the way you want to. You should be able to log in and not think about "I hope I get some loot in tonights raid", instead you should be thinking "Oh I can't wait to log on and have some fun with my guild mates". Having the freedom to do this made SWG so great for many people like myself who didn't want to sigh when wiping 50 times on a boss, or spending their whole day grinding a single mob.
Aswell as having the universe at your finger tips, the community SWG had was by far the best i've ever seen and probably will see if games continue to end up like WoW. Topics weren't filled with trolls and lame attempts to hijack your posts, they had long and meaningful information that everyone needed. You had guilds organizing their player-made events so people like ourselves could enjoy the game even more then we already were. This was awesome, they also had people for each profession (class) who listened to the community because they were also apart of it. Unlike World of Warcraft where the developers might play 1 or 2 hours a week, but yet they're making decisions that effect MILLIONS of people. Unfair, uncalled for and unwanted (by the community) updates that should never be published in the first place.
Did I mention the game was Star Wars?
WoW does NOT have balanced classes. Shamans are still the best class by far ... they overtake everybody else in PvP.
My best gaming experiences were in 2003-2004 SWG. My best real life experiences happened as a result of the people I met in SWG, it is a shame I didn't have the opportunity to meet more Star Wars fans in real life. I would still be playing if it were not for the CU. I will never forgive Sony, they injured my quality of life.
For me, SWG not only was the first MMO i ever played, but it was the most original and fun.
There hasnt been another mmo that boasted a completely player based crafting economy,
32 proffesions.
Space travel, missions and dogfights between planets!
player controled cities with player controlled shops.
Mix and match proffesions to suit yourself.
Wow is nothing compared to the old SWG. But it appealled to other people who werent just swg players, but non-mmo players, or players from other mmo's.
Ive played Wow, and i cant get into it, i get bored of being the same proff and havent completed lvl 42 yet let alone lvl 60-70 lol.
ive played other mmos, there pretty much all the same.
ok SWG was FLAWED. Balance was a joke, jedi should never of been implemented because they are all powerful, and making jedi otherwise goes against the movie foundations.
It was bugs galorie, and broken skills, but those could of been fixed if sony might of concentrated on that.
plus the quests were boring, needed audio dialouge, cgi cinematics, more indepth missions.
The content was the crafting and combat proffesions, and sony got rid of it, so of course people who spent years building there very own player cities/economy empires were annoyed.
People who had spent hundreds of thousands of hours grinding all the 32 proffs just to unlock jedi, play in solitude incase of perma death and xp loss with there jedi will be annoyed.
etc etc,
but for me i find the bad memories are mixed with the good, and perhaps ppl cant let go of the bad feelings without loosing the good ones too. i dunno.
To end all of our pain, Bioware needs to announce KOTOR MMORPG or LucasArts needs to let someone make a totally new SW MMORPG, kill SWG once and for all! I used to be a SWG pre CU player as well.
I agree, But who would really want to try and make another licienced MMO with lucas arts?
No-one but the campanies themselves truely know where to shift the majority of the blame, but some have speculated it to be LA.
So problems would still arise even if a different company bought the licience off LA. LA would still want its say in things.
Plus speaking of KOTOR I and II, LA pushed both releases of the game, which had a worse effect on the Sith lords, as the game wasnt finished and had some serious bugs within the code. If you look hard enough there are websites that even have the audio speech files of what would of been the final scenes of the game, but obdisan ran out of time because LA forced there hands.
There was going to be a droid planet also to destroy HK factory, probably other features that were also left out.
The Sith Lords was a very unpolished game compared to the first KOTOR, it was shorter, I had major freezes problems on Dantoonie, where i could move a frame ever 10 secs
So really, I believe that even if a KOTOR version was to be made for MMO, Bioware would not do it, they have even said in interviews that they would never work on another licienced game again, only there own titles.
Obidisan might be making a KOTOR 3 though, there has been speculation, i hope so
It would most likely be a green dev company wanting to make a name for themselves. I still feel that a new SW MMO will be an inevitibility though.
From all the ranting X-SWG players put on the boards i have become interested in SWG preNGE. The game just sounds fun. If,and this is a big IF, SOE somehow remakes the game to what it was. I would try it. Only because people said how good it was.
Ha, yeah, I made an effort not to sound like some too-cool-for-Star-Wars troll. Actually, upon further reflection, I think I was overstating the number of "extreme" cases of SWG-withdrawal.
I don't think you are overstating the extremes, it is, IMO, a matter of timing. The vast majority of players quit after NGE was released. Some stayed longer and still pop here posting with the same venom many of the earlier people did- it was just delayed. Now, there are a few of the regulars here that I even think, "Jesus, guys, let it go already", but I usually keep it to myself because I have no clue what people go through in their lives. They really might only have had SWG. While some people call that pathetic, I call it different than my life and, since, I don't have to walk in their boots, it is none of my business
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
I disagree. Although I like WOW a lot I think EQ2 is along the same quality. Very different game but it is SOE's best game by far.
Amen, brother.