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SWG strategy guide - worth buying after latest upgrades?
docminus
Member Posts: 717
since I am planning on getting SWG I thought I might as well get the strategy guide since there is so much info (and you can read "offline").
With the new upgrades implementet - is it worth it?
While I am at it: when do I get the expansions? right away? after I get bored with the standard content?
thanx in advance.
Comments
They've changed too much
scientology
I just started playing in January to join some of my RL friends have played since launch. A couple of them have the book, it's now completely worthless. They didn't do a patch, they made a new game. It's now EQ2 with a star wars skin (though still with EQ2 animations and icons). Do NOT buy the guide, unless you like to play alone you should want to reconsider buying the game too.
Being fairly new I was still pretty enthusiastic about the game until the CU (Combat "Upgrade"). Not anymore, they turned it into a button mashing game with a garish, illogical interface and people are quitting in the <B><U>thousands</U></B> again after already losing thousands to WoW. If they market well with the new movie and coming expansion pack they may get enough of an influx of new people to keep a few servers running for another 6 months but the writing is on the wall. It was already a bit of a ghost town when I started but now entire guilds are leaving for other games enmasse. Mostly to Guild Wars but quite a few to WoW as well. Across the board though it's a matter anyone but SOE for who they buy their next game from.
Crafting and the economy were some of the most unique aspects of the game and have been almost completely destroyed, some more than others. Armoursmiths in particular, on my server I only know of 2 that were planning to stay in that role.
The CU release date was changed twice from May 5th,(it wouldn't have been ready by then but they had to as it's incorporated into the expansion which comes out then. Evening on the 24th they announce it was changed to the 25th, people began to work overtime to get things ready in-game. 25th they push it back to the 26th. Still staggering the servers over the course of the week. Late on the 26th they start, early on the 27th they decide to scrap the staggering and do them all at once. Many hours late the first servers start to come up and immediately start crashing. They seem to have them stablized within a few hours and brought the rest up. No sooner were they done then they took 2 down that hadn't converted items properly. They apparently don't know the importance of doing a backup before a major patch so they rolled one back to the 25th and the other back to the 22nd meaning all players on those servers lost all their preparation. They both came up again today but the second one has been taken down again until tomorrow for yet another rollback to the 22nd for the same reason.
While testing they had daily polls for the testers that got 75-80% negative every day. I'm not going to get into how inferior the new system is or the many reasons why. Most people, despite not liking it might have stayed and lived with it, just because it's Star Wars. Not anymore, SOE completely mishandled things and have created a customer relations disaster of staggering proportions and they're not finished yet. Anyone speaking against the CU, no matter how politely or constructive the post, in the official forums quickly has their post deleted and receives a forum and ingame ban of 4-7 days. But so many people are so angry the post against it keep coming faster than the moderators can /delete /ban.
In short, don't buy the book, don't even buy the game, I'd go so far as to recommend avoiding anything SOE touches.
The combat upgrade made the game better in my opinion. Before the CU characters were easier the max than by a factor of...alot. It was sad how easy it was to get a character through an elite combat profession.
The CU brought players back into balance. Sadly, the people who can't see that armor that resists 80%+ damage combined with 100% stat buffs are bad are the ones complaining.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
The book was useless 2 years ago, its even more useless now ... not up to date. Too much has changed.
And I like the Combat revamp. Made the game harder, but more interesting. And many more profession combos and equipment (especially armor) work. PvP gets a full revival. Also pets.
Have fun
Erillion
-----------------------------------
Combat Revamp was never announced for 5th May, the Wookiee expansion was. So the statement that they brought it earlier is false. However, it would have benefitted from more time in test center, just like any patch.
-----------------------------------
The often quoted 70+ % negative is taken from one forum thread poll that the CU critics have been feeding with clicks since CU was on Test Center. It was their holy grail. From playing on TC for a lot of time before CU went live and listening to planetary chat, it was clear that not everyone liked CU and there were and are still a lot of things to balance and fix. But there never was that overwhelming negative mindset that people claim with the poll .... it was always a "lets get it done, found a bug, lets report it" mentality.
If you dont like it, leave. Meanwhile we who stay will help make it a better game.
Have fun
Erillion
Wow - I can sense .... anger.
seriously, looking at some of the SWG forums here and elsewhere and the replies to my post, there seems to be a lot of ambivalence....
I guess I can't help it, I am a SW fan and I (finally) got into MMOPRGs, so I guess the only thing to do is to go ahead and try it myself.
If you are talking about the Prima guide, that thing was worthless the day the game was released. That was the biggest waste of money. The only good thing in there was the waypoints to all the trainers (had a heck of a time finding the Pistoleer trainer when I first started), and now everyone knows where they all are, so if you can't find them just ask.
/agree
I could not of said it better.
At this point not only would I avoid the book and the game You might even want to eyeball that new Sony tv you were thinking about buying. After the CU they might start designing the power button to face inward.
The best bet is to try it for yourself definitely
I would never recommend the game to anyone, not even my worst enemy, anymore. Not because the combat upgrade is inherently wrong, but because SoE has the absolute worst customer service I have ever seen and the developers do not communicate with the customers. I've been in other games where the developers actually take part in discussions with their customers. In SoE, they often ignore customers or give arrogant, flippant answers to concerns.
The combat upgrade could be ok with A LOT more fixes. At this time there are so many bugs and inbalances that it's hard to say it's good. Add to that, they still have bugs and inbalances that have been in the game since day 1 of launch, you are buying one of the most bug filled games there is on the market today. You have SoE's insincere promise that the bugs will be fixed over many more months in live... I say insincere because of my previous comment about bugs that have been in game since first day
As for the person that said they fixed pets.... you are definitely wrong. As a rare pet collector, I found that all my rare and beautiful pets I got from pre CU, were made into generic creatures. They also no longer can tank for their masters. Not to mention, my other profession of dancer was completely destroyed by the CU.
buying a strategy guide is weak.....theres SO much information from fan sites and forums about any popular game out there; especially swg.
well, thanks for all the answers - as I said, it would have been interesting for "off-line" reading (in the bus, at work, at a family gathering
)
the customer service part though troubles me a bit - if I read all the complaints here about the new CU... Matrix Online at least they took back their "exp-nerf" after only a few days to the original system after receiveing tons of complaints.....
Another thing you might want to consider is the new expansion for SWG, Rage of the Wookies, only just began it's beta testing last week (maybe the week before) and it's due out May 5th. So, maybe 2 and a half weeks at the most of beta testing. Considering SoE's track record with bugs and pushing things to release before they are finished... SWG is shaping up to be even more bug filled with the new expansion.
If you are looking for an even slightly "involved" developer team, SWG is not the place to look for it. The usual response to any nerf is to simply, nerf more. Or they take the extreme and don't test enough, causing something to become too powerful... which is why the combat upgrade was needed. They never tested armor and buffs enough to figure out that through working around the system people could become "god like".