Originally posted by Slickinfinit well I am one of the players who did solo kil everything, I killed jedi kights as a meele stacker and just recently made jedi so i absolutly hate the cu. I sold my 2 noob jedi accounts and vowed never to buy a sony product again, the cu completely screwed the vet players over people had rare and uber weopons that became useless ,crafters resources went into real bad conversions , swg is lost all uniqueness, no longer fun to even log in any more and soe will lose 5 accounts from me. Before cu I thought swg was the best game ever, I had 5 accounts !! in the good ole days I didnt mind havin to get doc buffs u just needed an alt or knew where to look! Plain and simple the dumbed down swg u play today is not my swg its some horrid ugly eq2hybrid
Your post reflects why SWG was allready headed to the shitter. The CU only increased the speed at which it was heading there. If by unique.....you meant the same un original 1 week at most melee stack to become uber then yes this game was heading to the shitter. This game allready sucked and veterans should have seen this before this stupid Cu. When a noob player can start this game and become as powerfull as someone playing for months and years in only 1 week....something is wrong with the system.
The problem with SOE is there insistance on trying to stick with this allready horrible system of proffessions.
I like the CU - and let me tell you why. I played a few months when it launched, then a few months later when the vehicles, mounts, and player cities were introduced, and again when Jump to Lightspeed came out. I've popped in here and there for a month, but I never stuck around. SWG always seemed to be a brilliant, but exceedingly flawed game that just got worse and worse over time. I've played pretty much all the major MMORPGs out there, and many of the other ones, and yet somehow, the potential in SWG always made it my favorite.
When the CU hit, I came back - but I started over. I had lost most of my items that were in a house I didn't pay upkeep on for like a year. I'm hardly a hardcore fan. Since I was starting from scratch and hadn't played the game in months, I didn't lose anything. I would've had to relearn the game anyway. I've had more fun with the CU than I did before. There are some issues, like trying to figure out exactly when you are going to go up a combat level with the early skill boxes, and the fact that there aren't enough skill points to take on an elite crafting class and still get to level 80 (at least Everquest 2 lets you do combat AND crafting, though you do need to be more specialized). But, on the whole, I find combat to be more interactive and strategic. I really didn't like combat before. It's still SWG. I'm still running around Naboo in my swoop, taking missions out in the forest. The changes, to someone who never bothered to memorize the most minute details of every profession, have been relatively minor when they weren't flat out improvements.
For new players who don't start at level 80 and haven't lost any uber loot, the game's combat system is fairly perfect. There are bugs, and there are a few things which need better explanation (like a weapon cert list that doesn't require using the knowledgebase to search for it), but these things will be ironed out over time. SOE patches the game consistently, and since the restructure in December, I think they've actually been a lot better about it. They finally fixed the bug that caused characters to slide off their seats. They've put out two expansion packs very quickly, and I expect we'll see more expansions coming now that they've finally got space in the game.
As for SOE not listening - I disagree completely. I've played games where the developers didn't listen, and SWG is not one of them. If anything, it's that they listen too much, frequently changing the game in negative ways due to the absurd complaints of the playerbase. They don't always agree with the playerbase, and frankly, I'm glad. The game that many of the CU haters want to play is not the game I want to play. It's not the game than anybody who has never played SWG before wants to play - and they need new players if they want more subscriptions. People that left the game because Squad Leader was useless aren't going to just come back due to some rebalancing. The CU was a huge nerf, but it had to be. It was intended to be. Lots of people got screwed compared to how it was before, but in the long run, it means a better game. The bugs will get fixed, but the foundation is solid enough that they have something build on. They'll get to the entertainers and crafters (whom I don't think need any help, as merchants practically own the game as it is) eventually. What's important is that the foundation is here and over time it will be improved.
I do have a suggestion though. To those of you who absolutely hate the CU and have left, I recommend checking out Saga of Ryzom. It is a similar skill based game (though with no skillcaps - you can level everything) that has a similar feel, just without the Star Wars license or the distinct professions.
Hey, I liked the movies, but I didn't start to play this game to become a jedi.
I find first person shooter games to be boring...and I don't have the fast twitch reaction time I had when I was 13. After awhile, they are all alike, just different skins in a comic book. The PvP in SWG is only another version of first person shooter.
What I like in SWG is the roleplay and the complex economy. I would like to see a little more variety in the abilities of non-combat professions. A crafter who goes out to gather resources on a frontier type planet wouldn't have a bodyguard like some high-level politician, he would learn to shoot. A pretty entertainer, traveling in the seedier spacer quarter near a spaceport, also wouldn't have a bodyguard like some rockstar...she would have knife wielding or spray-can, not swords or rifles. Neither one would have the extra credits to pay a bodyguard nor the time to develop a martial art to it's highest level.
I like the new icons for dancer, I can tell at a glance which dance I want to change to. The new icons for fencer are not so glance-able. The ones I use all the time are programmed in my reflexes, but in the heat of battle, when the need for one of the seldomly used icons is urgent, I have to read the title of the two or three potentials. (yes, I know that this problem will be solved by time, not Dev intervention)
However, I'm a little worried about the future of entertainers. I know that in real life, entertainers are not really needed. Unfortunately, they are not really needed in game, either. Already, entertainers are becoming a bit scarce in Gorath. The adult veteran players recognize the need to tip entertainers, and they are generous. But we still have a great many players who treat the non-combat players the same as NPCs, thanks to the buffbot legacy.
Newbie players who want to become entertainers will soon find that their skill points will be taken up by the other professions that they will need to develop just to have a enough credits to get a house, costume changes and instruments as well as travel money. Plenty of the master dancers and musicians have already made that same discovery and have respec'ed to other professions. Master IDs are already scarce, and I have heard no one voice any desire to become one.
That was a good read, and my guess is you have not played SWG for very long, I have been playing SWG about 1 year, I mastered 9 professions in that time and was done with my FS grind so i would like to think i knew the game pretty well.
What i believe everyone that has played the game for more then 6 months is angry about is that SWG was very unique, you had doctors, combat medics, armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, chefs and more who had to work their tails off grinding up hours and hours of crafting XP to become a profession of this nature, this made them unique in the sense not everyone wanted to grind up all that crafting XP, I was a Master combat medic and a Master doctor at one time and i was proud to wear the tag.
Melee professions were not as unique as others since most players perfered TKA, combine that with fencer and one other defensive profession and well you have a great tank, or melee stacker, but not everyone melee was a tank, you had a very broad choice and the choices you made, made it so you could play the way you wanted to play IE: PVP you may choose to defence stack, or you may want to do heavy damage as a Swordsman, the point being it was unique, different styles of play made it unique for each person playing, you had to learn how to migrate stats and from what i could tell, the way i migrated my stats may not work for someone else since they my not play the same as i did, armor was not all the same, looks yes but stats no, this made hunting down a good vendor important, business was unique, food, weapons, armor, these all played very important roles in the game,
Watching your mind stats was hard everyone was attacking the mind, which made PvP combat so much harder, but that made it more fun and challanging, now PvP is who gets the best hit off first and has the hardest hit, the game has slowed down 40% or better, I hit F10 wait hit F11 to fire off another special and again i wait, yes i can hit them over and over queing up more specials but still it is slower, before the CU you had to play along time and have some very good guildmates teach you all the ropes and even then the game was a challange.
What SOE did was remove everything that was unique about this game, Ham system which was hard to understand but once learned was much more fun and unique than this simple and borning ham bar now, I miss grouping with a master dancer and chatting while i got mind buffed, even though 50% of the time they may have been AFK. Everyone keeps talking about groups and how great this is and how it will force players to group up, News flash; I DON'T WANT TO GROUP UP EVERYDAY! Not everyone wishes to be in a group, I just had a bad day at the office and i want to hunt and kill a bunch of critters by myself with no one bugging me so i log in and hunt down a doctor, get buffed go to cantina get mind buffed and i'm set (yes I liked that part) now i am off to hunt.
I think from everything i have read that the SWG project is going to be in trouble if the CU does not draw mmorpg players from other games since many of the older players seem to be leaving, of course only time will tell if this is the case.
One question I would like to ask is, why would i leave WoW or EQ2 to play SWG if its just the same ol game? I really miss the old system and helping new players learn how to migrate stats to help them be better tanks or doctors whatever. SWG is just another mmorpg that is in need of some serious bugs fixed, the sad part is they expect there paying customers to help me find bugs.
I've played SWG since about one month after launch with my main character started on Tempest server the day it went live in August '03. I loved the variety and complexity that SWG offered, something I'd never seen in an on-line game before. It's the only one I've actually played although my husband has played a number of them so I am familiar with other games. I do not like the CU for many of the reasons that so many people have described in detail. The icons and particle effects that for many people destroy the Star Wars feel of the game, the level system which leads to the artificial and severely restrictive feel of combat, and the devastating effects to the non-combat portions of the game just to hit the highlights.
I originally developed a MDoc/MFencer who I gradually shifted to non-combat picking up Musician for awhile then settling into MArtisan/MDE/Merchant/Pikeman/Politician. I was mayor of a large city and maintained a resource and loot co-op for our guild. I missed the action of the MDoc/MFencer so eventually started a second account to recreate that template. I enjoyed being able to fight solo, fight and heal in a group, fight lower level content with my lower level crafter with limited combat, work on crafting, run a small shop, run a city, do quests, just explore, interact with friends and guildmates or just about anything I felt like doing on any given day. That variety is what kept the SWG so involving and interesting. My main concern with the CU is the apparent shift away from the old model of a rich, complex on-line virtual world to a simpler, combat-focused game. It appears that SWG is headed toward becoming another version of the other games out there just with a Star Wars theme. The CU has changed combat and the expansion has changed new content to more linear, series of quests and missions without the open feel of the origina. I didn't start playing this game for Star Wars, I started playing it for it's complex, diverse society and open exploration and possibilities.
This is my first experience actually playing an on-line game extensively. I'm well aware that these games can and will change over time. SWG had already changed a great deal since launch and the veterans have adapted to those changes. I'm also aware that SOE has not had a great track record of communication with it's playerbase and that the game has been full of bugs from day 1. But in my experience, nothing they have done in the past compares to their handling of the CU and RotW expansion.
I've cancelled both my accounts, one has run out and the other has a few weeks left. I keep trying it hoping for some reasons to keep playing but I don't have much hope. My husband has also cancelled but is considering reactivating when his account expires because it's hard to give up on a Jedi character that has finally completed his template after almost 2 years of work.
What I've found very troubling is the fact that SOE/LucasArts and most long time on-line gamers these drastic changes, absolutely pathetic customer service and almost unplayable state of this 'upgrade/expansion' as just what is to be expected from an on-line game. I was shocked when talking to someone in game that's been playing on-line games for awhile. When we said we were quitting because of the appalling state of the game and the attitude of SOE his response was that we should have seen Ultima Online when it first started. Doesn't it say something that the state of this upgrade leads to comparisons to the very first on-line game when it first started? I would think that would send a shocking wake-up call to this industry as a whole that with as far as on-line gaming has come over the years, a game could put out an upgrade, 2 years after launch, that calls up comparisons to the first on-line game at launch and people just shrug it off as what is expected in this industry. That's like complaining about the condition of your 2 year old Ford Explorer after getting it back after a recall repair and having someone tell you that you should have seen the problems with their first Model T.
This isn't just a game, it's a business. This entire industry hides behind their EULAs that state that game content and system requirements can change at any time and that they don't guarantee servers to be available at all times. This is their excuse for why it's ok to replace the core mechanics of an existing game and calling it an upgrade. Where do you draw the line? I know things change but if we had logged in to find ourselves actually logging into the EQ2 servers I would hope someone would see that is being fundamentally wrong. How about logging into an on-line version of the Lego Star Wars game? It could still be called Star Wars Galaxies if they wanted but it certainly wouldn't be the same game. Where is the line between normal game changes and a fundamental change to a different game? We entered into a legal contract with SOE to provide a service they advertised and represented as having specific features that many people feel have now been changed and/or removed so that it is no longer the service they signed up for. And many of these people have been encouraged to pay months in advance to take advantage of reduced subscription rates but are now told those fees are non-refundable. I think this is an issue the entire on-line gaming industry needs to address.
SWG attracted a different playerbase than most of the other games out there. Yes there are plenty of the usual gamers playing it, but I think the core of the crafting/ non-combat/ support community that this entire game relied on to function were made up of these older, more dedicated players that invested a lot of time and money into SWG by way of multiple accounts paid for month after month. You cannot play the crafting/merchant game without dedication and some degree of long range planning. A crafter/merchant can't just decide to not log on for awhile and expect their business to continue. Their game was the robust player run economy, a well advertised feature of SWG. Whenever I knew I was going to be away for a few days I spent hours before hand making sure my vendors were stocked and pulling items off my vendors and relisting them so items wouldn't delist and be unavailable while I was gone. I just had a small shop which was just one of many things I enjoyed in the game. For some people this was their entire game.
The CURB effectively devalued months of work by changing schematics so resource values were decimated. Inventory items were converted from what were once valuable, top of the line products to mediocre, low quality items that are essentially worthless, despite promises that items would be converted to items of comparable value. The list goes on of items that were drastically devalued. We all knew that changes were going to be made to the combat system but no one ever said the skills based system was going to be replaced with this fundamentally different level based system. Even with the published changes to armor and meds, which were only published about 1 month before the CU hit Test Center, we were not told of the extent to which the basic crafting system would be changed, let alone the specific changes to chef, weaponsmith and DE. There was little time to prepare and actually no way to prepare since we didn't know what the changes would be. Actually we still don't since we've had no feedback on the many outstanding, many raised early in testing, that we still don't know if they are intended changes or bugs. Other than selling BH droids, virtually all of DE is now either broken or obsolete thanks to the CU.
This attitude of SOE that this is not a serious enough issue for them to address and apparently an acceptable risk of investing in an on-line experience is what is unacceptable to myself and many others in the veteran community that have interests other than combat. Especially since SOE recently announced the upcoming Station Exchange that will allow players on certain servers in some of their games to buy and sell items outside of the game. We have all known for some time thanks to E-Bay that these ingame item resulting from our time and effort have real life monetary value. Now SOE has formally acknowledged that. I'm afraid they may have opened the door to a legal liability to protect those investments. Their sudden change in the underlying SWG system has seriously decreased the real world value of many player's ingame time and effort. This could very well have ramifications for the entire industry.
I wish someone in the online gaming media would make a serious effort to investigate these issues. Just what does constitute a game? How far can a system be changed before it truly does become a different system? Can a company make changes that completely devalue months or years of investment any time they wish with no consequences? Can a company get away with pushing an upgrade onto it's paying customer base when they acknowledge it's not fully tested? Can poor service in terms of repeated down-times, players totally unable to log in or completely unable to play their characters due to game-breaking bugs for a week or more at a time go uncompensated? Let alone disabled players, namely the color-blind who could play the game just fine before but log in after the CU to find they can no longer play do to UI changes.
I doubt there are many industries where companies regularly get away with this level of poor service and it's considered not only acceptable but expected. If this industry wants to mature and expand into a wider audience it needs to mature and act like a responsible, legitimate industry that provides consumers with a reasonable expectation of a reliable product instead of this poor quality excuse for service I've seen here.
Congratulations on the well written post Zenae. I agree with every word in it.
There seems to be a lack of ethical and legal responsibility in the PC games industry. Bugs and consecutive patches have often been accepted in PC games due do the hardware variation when compared to Console games.
Now most of the bugs are not related to hardware interaction, they are just simply design and implementation flaws.
Can we start a class action law suit? I have at least 10 signatures for it. Although I have no knowledge on how to even start the process.
Well put Zanae. A very well thought and formulated response to SOE.. HAve you posted it on the SOE forums??? If not would you mind if it was put on them??
the upgrade caused me to leave SWG. things i could once kill now killed me in a few hits. and leveling up with friends who arnt your level was no longer possiable with the stupid new system. it ruined the game more than it helped. i liked the new HAM bar and i liked the new content but beign forced to always grouped was insanely dumb. i played the game with my gf for along time it was a way to relax. then the upgrade came and beacuse she was a lil higher than me i coudlnt get xp while grouping with her.
rip the mic , rip the stage , rip the system i was born to rage against'em - ratm
At least author brought out the bad and contrasted with the good
Serious issue still for me is color handicapped, there is a huge thread on this in game disscussion on the boards, one possible solution would at least bring back choice of ole ui to help out those of us that have color related issues and just plain cannot see them. The hotkeys fading in out merging into each other eeek oh my
Respec is fine if u can, many players have gotten the ill informed bug and have not had one sucessful /respec due to bugs, unlike other mmorpgs that clicky on trainer boom its done its convaluted in such a way that "losing skill points" is geared to encourage more grinding
Solo is doable ( barely) but forced grouping is for the win now. Mele has horrid issues post cu from "invalid target< target not seen, Too far all the while the mobs can do whatever they want to you from 60 meters away
Spawn o meter broke on some planets, garages working inconsitantly at best , with mobs having a metal fetish makes it expensive to try and repair bikes * if u can find a garage that is working*
Equipment gesh all combat based new players will have trouble distinguishing what they can use and what they cannot, and most likely can't afford much of the new weapons any way
Server population on many servers struggling, with the exception of perhaps Azaih and bria, unless you go to the known grouping spots ( lok mining) it may seem like a huge empty world with ghost town cities
unlike other level based games healers can heal every member of the group not so in swg with combants, and other things get you "invalid target" the heals are on timers now ,so even if you have a medic paying attention with lag spikes , a heal may not come off in time , not due to player not paying attention, but lag spikes
mixed feelings on the "new swg" the bugs are very slow to fix, same bugs reported repeatedly and very few patches for fixes since cu, time will tell if game breaking issues (creature handlers exp caps, not being albe to level, smugglers slicing impaired are even addressed at all............
I have to wonder what type of payment plan SOE worked out with you? Your "review" sounds pretty much like the shiney coated public relations crap SOE has been dishing out to thier customers for years. As a long time player of SWG and many other online games I can tell you honestly that the Combat Upgrade is no upgrade at all. It made a unique styled game into the same boring hash crap that is prevelent in the online game community and it bent over it's player base for another screw from SOE. Here's my experience with SWG.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...
As a 9 year old child I watched those words for the first time scroll across the screen. Since that time Star Wars has been a major part of my life. The movies and toys and books all fed the imagination and let us all be a part of what Lucas created. When the SWG game was announced, my excitement can not be described. I was going to be able to actually interact in the SW universe. Yay!
I made it into beta and hurridly started playing. It was buggy as all get out and several of the professions were not even finished but who cared, we were in Star Wars! As time went on however it became very appearant that I was not playing Star Wars but a hacker version made by SOE. I dutifully made my beta reports hoping to help things along but saw little changing. Then, out of the blue, we were told the game was going live in two weeks. SOE was warned repeatedly that it was not ready for live yet but the beta testers were ignored. This was behavior by SOE that would become the standard.
It went live on schedule to one of the buggiest openings ever. SOE got what it wanted though, money.
See I remember the days when the Smuggler skill tree was empty (yes on the live game), Bounty Hunters didn't work, no one had ever heard of a buff, and you had a CS rep from SOE contact you live in game within 30 min of sending in a ticket. Ah the good ole days. Well, I played for a year and finally got so fed up with SOEs deaf ears that I finally canceled my subscriptions.
In December of 2004, after playing EQ2 and hating it, I reactivated my SWG accounts and found that not only did I enjoy SWG but I actually LOVED it. See I am a soloer. I don't feel a sense of accomplishement when I'm in a group of 10 people. What did I do but simply add to a massive amount of damage already being done? In real life we call that a gang and it's usually frowned upon . So, everday I packed on my armor, got my buffs, and went out to slay Rebels and grind my force skills. I was in heaven until...
My guildmates started talking about this Combat Upgrade thing that was due to come out. I didn't ask about it much but knew that some big changes were due to come. I kept plugging along though having the time of my life. And then the CU happened. I was out of town the week the CU went live so I didn't have any idea what to expect. I logged in as usual and got the respec box but declined it at first. Why respec? I was good as I was right? WRONG! Now out of my 20 weapons I owned I could only pick up and use 1. That's right, 1. Oh, my armor was now useless as well along with all the spares I had invested in. The armor respec did nothing since my armor was high end stuff so it still encumbered me so badly I could hardly move. All told over 5 million credits worth of equipment was now useless to me.
I just sat and stared at my screen. All I could think of was that my time was over. To be fair I did respec and set out to try the "upgrade". After a day of repeated attempts at fighting and either dying or gaining no experience I gave up. Here was a character I had invested literally months of play time (average 12 - 18 hrs a day 7 days a week) into and now he was useless. My character was not upgraded in any way. He was brutally raped by SOE who once again ignored every suggestion given by the players of what they wanted to happen in a once fun game. I couldn't cancel fast enough.
For those that like it, have fun on your empty planets and ghost cities. The population will rise after Episode III and it will be filled with first person console game kids who are looking to wield the Force and grief all who come near. All I can say is may the Force be with you because real players won't be.
Originally posted by Illydar For those that like it, have fun on your empty planets and ghost cities. The population will rise after Episode III and it will be filled with first person console game kids who are looking to wield the Force and grief all who come near. All I can say is may the Force be with you because real players won't be.
Thanks.
Only that the planets are not really empty and the cities are the same as pre-CU.
And the new players ... lemme see ... half a dozen new players recently joined my guild post-CU.. and all of them are in their 20-30ies, most having played multiple MMORPGs before.
And some more want to join, but cannot do that yet as the game is currently sold out in just about every shop (online or otherwise) .. so they had to pre-order. You can see the thread about that over in the SWG section of this forum.
So yes, many have left, yes, SOE should work on their customer relationship skills and management skills , yes, there is still a lot that needs bug-fixing and balancing, but no, still "real players" are playing it and more "real players" are joining or re-joining the game, and no, this is not the end of SWG.
Guys honestly this article doesnt show anything about real issues with game atm, i recently stopped playing swg (after 8 month quest). The game wasnt well balanced there were to strong players and it was possible to solo anything and lots more issues... but what about now? now if u want to do a bit of soloing its not possible anymore, it will take ages to get 900k xp which took 3 hours before. They removed very good thing from the game called action que. So now you have to put up with a new team all the time which would not be great all the time so you will surely get into troubles, furthermore they started complicating the weps and armor stats which have ruined the "advanced simplicity" of the game which was so good. So in my point of view the name of the article of is true but the article itself is just not covering the major problems.
javascript:insertemote(''); Cry I originally supported the CU- Then I played it. My characters were completely borked - Armor- weapons - xp.
They broke it. Plain and simple.
We warned them in TC and they deleted our posts and rushed the product.
Yesterday, their latest "patch" broke an entire server and crashed several players PC's. Quite badly from what I heard.
No compenstion was given by SOE for lost skills, lost equipment, or lost grinding time. It was as though they were giving their player base the proverbial "finger." Most of us left. Those that stay are rewarded by empty promises of a fixed and balanced game, poor customer service, and refusal to address game breaking issues. like broken professions and lack of solo content, incorrect xp, deleted xp, overpowered mobs, and an overall ignorance to what the players actually want out this game.
They went so far as to HIDE their cancel subscription button on some obscure page in the SOE store. Cowards.
The truth is that they have all but ELIMINATED solo play, as well as MOST of their userbase.
Those who honstly tell this company that the CU is just plain BROKEN had their accounts banned and their posts deleted from the community forum or they are just plain ignored. We are belittled by the company and the minority of MMORPG griefers and told the we are just a "few angry veterans" or that we're "crying because someone took our ball away." or "if we don't like it, just wait." We've waited nearly a month and this game is UNPLAYABLE! We're paying for a product on live servers, which shuld rightfully still be in an ALPHA phase of development. We're paying to WORK for SOE as game testers.
But SOE won't refund for gamebreaking bugs of downtime, even if it's their fault. Their customer relations are laughable, at best and MOSTof use doubt their inelligence and their integrity.
Only that the planets are not really empty and the cities are the same as pre-CU.
And the new players ... lemme see ... half a dozen new players recently joined my guild post-CU.. and all of them are in their 20-30ies, most having played multiple MMORPGs before.
And some more want to join, but cannot do that yet as the game is currently sold out in just about every shop (online or otherwise) .. so they had to pre-order. You can see the thread about that over in the SWG section of this forum.
So yes, many have left, yes, SOE should work on their customer relationship skills and management skills , yes, there is still a lot that needs bug-fixing and balancing, but no, still "real players" are playing it and more "real players" are joining or re-joining the game, and no, this is not the end of SWG.
Have fun
Erillion
100% agree
all these whiners here....
SWG is now the game it should be, a guild-based Game, not a game where people can hunt high-level mobs alone because they have exceptional Weapons. Now you have to be in a group and everyone can get the good stuff.... I love to hear the "low-skilled" "exceptionl-weapon" user crying and whining..... Today we was hunting on Kashyyk with 5 People of our Guild and it was real funny... We was 5 hours hunting and it was great to play without looking if the "buffs" runs out or something like that.... Finally i can say these new changes was the best was SOE can do.... I dont whine for People who go because for every people who go there will be come 2 new Player...
AND ....
If you go please go silent, try another game and profit of your experience you collect in SWG... But dont talk shit about a Game you played a few month with fun.....
I fully agree with zenae, when is enough enough? why and even the writer hasnt acknowledged this. why do we have to put up with games that are always buggy? when are places such as this site gonna ban together and say you know? enough with the buggy code fix it.
honestly on the cu im neither here nor there on it. i personally find it very slow combat wise. i have my keys set up but still find myself glancing at them to make sure they are loaded for the next shot.
i shouldnt be drawn to the UI to play a game, i been playing these things since the advent of pong. and never had i had to glance so much at a UI before to get things done.
Since we had the horse icon installed and we all saw it doesnt that say something about how some other game with a horse icon in it was simply cut and pasted to this one?
Can someone please explain the voodoo dolls, potions, tombs and anything else NOT invovled in star wars?
I watched EP3 specifically for these voodoo dolls potions and tombs never saw them. Did i miss it?
is it just me? or did speed tree get used alot on kash? Those trees are junk compared to the ones on naboo.
Why restrict movement ok fine i can see the web weaver level being restricted i have no problems with that we are walking on tree branches. but kachiro? why is that nessacary?
Why after almost 3 years now are we back to square one on the bugs? why do we continously have bugs?
Why do we always have to suck it up? i dont remember having to suck it up when i need my car fixed, i dont recall having to suck it up when i find i bought bad meat at the store. badly tailored clothes. wrong medication. no not that type .. yet. i bought a boat recently am i supposed to suck it up if the engine blows to a buggy injector and kills half my family?
why does the gaming community continue to let this go on? it is getting worse every day. i know we had our bugs in the past with games but dammit people after at least a month the suckers worked right.
Three years later we still dont have a working system. i spent alot of my time finding ways around the bugs and helping out others get past them I dig people out of holes in imp prisons help them get there star fighter to advoid a bug. im not playing star wars im on a crusade now to make sure people get past the buggy CURB. I am on shadowfire pretty much keep to myself save one other person and my wife.
i get tired of leet speak moronic people who get there butts handed to them so ceased alot of socializing due to that and pvping along time ago. now i help those who need it when asked work on the crafting thing to keep prices under control,best i can.
now my days concern bug reports which during alpha testing, i wouldnt even count that as a beta, i submitted a hell of a lot of them, was doing the same up til a few days ago since its been out. reason i ceased is i found a major major hole in the game that can be exploited to death and did not even get so much as a "can you show us" message back. or thanks.
i also realised i am putting in waaaaay to much time trying to "fix" a game i pay to play. I dont pay to fix this. thats their job. not mine. I dont mind helping out . but this is seriously out of control.
Now we have pub 17 coming out. which should have alot of bug fixes in it. do we? no we have more crap coming in that isnt gonna be addressed "i know i been watching having seen so much as a sneeze yet for a response to the few that are still trying to help out.
p-17 should involved a host of fixes. if they are infact in there they should least let us know what is going on. we do pay to play this. like the fact or not mr writer. we do, infact, deserve to be told.
It would be nice if someone actually took the time that has the ability to report to take on s.o.e and say it like it is . NOT, simply accept it an go well im having fun. so thats good enough for me.
from everything i have read up to this point all i ever see is . well deal with it if you dont like it or quit.
why should i deal with it ? because you say so ? why should i have to quit? why can't i simply get the game i signed on for? mainly bug free. it can be done i used to do it. Dont feed me a line it cant be done.
I fully back those players that are raising absolute hell about this. I am not talking about how one was once uber now they are not . im talking about the basics of the game.
Why can i not play a game and not worry about the bugs more than playing?
Why do i and others not deserve this fundamental basic aspect. I would love to see this address in a serious way.
Finally what absolute astounds me to no end is how can this PARTICULAR GAME, only has 250,000 subscribers. when really, considering that the movies inspired petitions to make jedi a real religion, has affect every last aspect of the planet in some form or another is always mentioned in other movies even in an off hand remark not having a thing to do with sci-fi.
Why is this game on the low end of the totem pole with subscribers?
I can tell you why.
It is because even die hard SW fans get sick of shabby ill thought out lazy programmers and their counter parts up top, to create a game that is bug free and not always going thru a redesign because someone cant pick up a book and read it and pull content from it.
Instead they have to copy the likes of EQ, have reviewers back them and who dont have the guts to help the community they write to simply ask the question.
Why after three years are we still in beta? you know beta? where you polish the software and prepare it for market so that it is in at least 95% working order. That beta. This game.
im not irratated at the changes, im irratated, that i have to spend so much time trying to get around buggy systems listen to people think its ok to have said buggy system and that its somehow ok. Its the straw. People.
I play this game still for one reason. that buddy of mine on the other end. he is a blast to be around and i have a good time joking and kidding with him and can actually carry on a real conversation with that doesnt need leet speak to convey his thoughts. That is more refreshing to me than you all will ever know.
If he decides to leave ill be gone right behind him. Since the people who ... work? on this game can give two sh.. a care about my enjoyment i could totally care less about them and their problems with this game anymore.
Actually that goes for all games, really.
It is really getting old. and i do hope that My fellow players keep raising the hell they have been til the much needed CHANGE is implemented and we get games that work the first time.
^^^^ Like some popular American rapper would say... WORD!
It is the principle that matters. The customer base is being abused and people continue to bend over and take it for corporate America. If some should speak out against this practice then those that have been brainwashed by the corporation into humiliating themselves will ridicule those other people because they are too afraid to admit how degraded they have become.
Only that the planets are not really empty and the cities are the same as pre-CU. And the new players ... lemme see ... half a dozen new players recently joined my guild post-CU.. and all of them are in their 20-30ies, most having played multiple MMORPGs before. And some more want to join, but cannot do that yet as the game is currently sold out in just about every shop (online or otherwise) .. so they had to pre-order. You can see the thread about that over in the SWG section of this forum. So yes, many have left, yes, SOE should work on their customer relationship skills and management skills , yes, there is still a lot that needs bug-fixing and balancing, but no, still "real players" are playing it and more "real players" are joining or re-joining the game, and no, this is not the end of SWG. Have fun Erillion
100% agree
all these whiners here....
SWG is now the game it should be, a guild-based Game, not a game where people can hunt high-level mobs alone because they have exceptional Weapons. Now you have to be in a group and everyone can get the good stuff.... I love to hear the "low-skilled" "exceptionl-weapon" user crying and whining..... Today we was hunting on Kashyyk with 5 People of our Guild and it was real funny...
'we were' Maybe? Unless you are multiple people, I guess you could say 'we was' like a mix of 'I was' and 'we were' ... I am not sure. This is very complicated for me.
We was 5 hours hunting and it was great to play without looking if the "buffs" runs out or something like that.... Finally i can say these new changes was the best was SOE can do.... I dont whine for People who go because for every people who go there will be come 2 new Player...
So since I am one of the people who went, I became 2 new players there? Where? Would it be in WoW and Guildwars? Yes that is true.
AND ....
If you go please go silent, try another game and profit of your experience you collect in SWG... But dont talk shit about a Game you played a few month with fun.....
Silence is not the intention of a discussion forum.
just my 2 cents
Two cents are worth nothing, low quality post, from a low quality player. /addignore darkcloud
Originally posted by TarkKarlos ...can MMORPG.COM find out and publicize, how much has SWG's playerbase turned over, rejoined, or departed? Thanks,
Tark
I'd be interested to know if the Staff here are able to find this out for us to. I just want to see what the MMORPG staff numbers are. Lets see who is partisan to who?
Look, I dont even have the game yet, but im getting it. i played the 14 day trial a year ago, and i enjoyed the game. i had no clue what this CU thing was, but after i read this, i know. it does not seem that bad! i think that all of the changes are logical enough. a rifleman and a docter should not be doing the same things, and what would be harder anyway, you vs a rancor, or you and 7 freinds vs a rancor? I have seen alot of people bellyaching about this thing and i think it will be fine.
maybe if they just stop complaining on message boards and go on and DO something on the game, it wouldnt be that bad!
Then again, i am a psyco star wars fan who has and loves most if not all star wars games out to date.
but thats not the point..... ...my point is that it will still be an awesome game that lets you shape your destiny.... in the Star Wars world!!!
so to all of you who wont SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR ISSUES WITH THE NEW SYSTEM i have something to say:
GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and if you are going to quit to go to another mmo, why? if swg is turning into other mmos, why play an mmo that has that system?)
Thank you for your time and i hope to see you TRUE star wars fans on when i get my copy
the main reason i left was from the way they continue to "nerf" the ranger profession it was the only profession in the game that i actually had any fun playing and this week they took a whole tree that costs (about) 14 skill points and gave it to everyone else for free..
of course im talking about the camo kit tree they think its going to resolve problems with crafters getting killed by flies hitting them while riding swoops because theyre combat lvl is so low EVERY creature will pretty much 1-hit kill them and its almost the same for ranger ranger is the only profession in the game now that u have to master another profession to get novice u dont even need master medic to get novice doctor anymore
and rangers have a weak combat lvl so they pretty much CAN NOT hunt anything worthwhile to get any exp or resources (meat, hides, bone) go find a group u say? thats BS there isnt going to be ppl that want to hunt creatures u need to kill u would have to ask guildmates for help and they will get tired of ppl always asking them to hunt high lvl stuff that prolly doesnt get them much just for someone else to get some recourses to try to make a little cash since everything else rangers do is pretty much worthless
and dont even say theyre fixing anything they havent even thought about a ranger revamp and telling rangers that they will get one after SL and smugglers?? even if it isnt just a diversion to get the rangers out of their hair just imagine the kind of time that would take.....smuggler revamp isnt near done (or started for that matter) SL (squad leader) revamp is pretty much just a post on the SWG boards and ranger isnt even progressed this far... even if smuggler and SL revamps come very quickly just imagine the bugs the game will have just like any other updates they do.....bug city
so yeah thats pretty much why i left because SoE only wants to listen to ppl like bounty hunters that want to have everything in the game directed to them and they only want to kill jedi...but what happens when jedi r all gone? they will all start complaining again and the game will either die or have another POS revamp which brings more bugs and cancelled accts. SOE can only ride the EpIII wave for so long before all those people that joined the game quit anyway because it is nothing like Lucas arts and SOE made it seem...
pfft become a jedi....more like become a padawan and then u can get millions of negitive exp because the game is so overflooded with BHs and because your combat level will be so low u will be lucky a bee sting doesnt kill u.....
Originally posted by Coming-Evil Look, I dont even have the game yet, but im getting it. i played the 14 day trial a year ago, and i enjoyed the game. i had no clue what this CU thing was, but after i read this, i know. it does not seem that bad! i think that all of the changes are logical enough. a rifleman and a docter should not be doing the same things, and what would be harder anyway, you vs a rancor, or you and 7 freinds vs a rancor? I have seen alot of people bellyaching about this thing and i think it will be fine.maybe if they just stop complaining on message boards and go on and DO something on the game, it wouldnt be that bad! Then again, i am a psyco star wars fan who has and loves most if not all star wars games out to date.but thats not the point..... ...my point is that it will still be an awesome game that lets you shape your destiny.... in the Star Wars world!!!so to all of you who wont SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR ISSUES WITH THE NEW SYSTEM i have something to say: GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(and if you are going to quit to go to another mmo, why? if swg is turning into other mmos, why play an mmo that has that system?)Thank you for your time and i hope to see you TRUE star wars fans on when i get my copy DARN YOU AMAZON.COM!!!!!!!!!!
hmmm why go to another mmo? heres some reasons....
a) OTHER MMOS DONT RELEASE UNFINISHED MATERIAL i got GW a few weeks ago right after launch and there seem to be almost NO bugs compare this to swg and it makes sense to go there
b) Better costomer service- 'nuff said
c) Better content-SWG HAD some amazing content but with the CU they pretty much made it a guildwars and everquest 2 clone even the new planet of kashyyyk is zone-based (like guildwars)
also guildwars is free to play monthly and theyre still adding zones for FREE and they arent fixing bugs because there just arent any they actually made a full and complete game unlike SOE
and talking crap about TRUE starwars fans it would be different if this game had anything to do with starwars in it... the GCW(galactic ciivil war [imperials vs. rebels]) is a joke i dont even know why there are melee professions except for jedi most weapons and items arent even in the movies or books cant fight unless u have like 3 combat professions no PvP for the GCW and if u do its because ur assaulting a base and even then the turrets have to be combat lvl like 1000 cuz b4 the CU they pwned ppl and imagine how it would be now? prolly like 1-hit kills
so dont say all this crap about seeing TRUE star wars fans because the game is now everquest with a space skin on it......
Comments
I like the CU - and let me tell you why. I played a few months when it launched, then a few months later when the vehicles, mounts, and player cities were introduced, and again when Jump to Lightspeed came out. I've popped in here and there for a month, but I never stuck around. SWG always seemed to be a brilliant, but exceedingly flawed game that just got worse and worse over time. I've played pretty much all the major MMORPGs out there, and many of the other ones, and yet somehow, the potential in SWG always made it my favorite.
When the CU hit, I came back - but I started over. I had lost most of my items that were in a house I didn't pay upkeep on for like a year. I'm hardly a hardcore fan. Since I was starting from scratch and hadn't played the game in months, I didn't lose anything. I would've had to relearn the game anyway. I've had more fun with the CU than I did before. There are some issues, like trying to figure out exactly when you are going to go up a combat level with the early skill boxes, and the fact that there aren't enough skill points to take on an elite crafting class and still get to level 80 (at least Everquest 2 lets you do combat AND crafting, though you do need to be more specialized). But, on the whole, I find combat to be more interactive and strategic. I really didn't like combat before. It's still SWG. I'm still running around Naboo in my swoop, taking missions out in the forest. The changes, to someone who never bothered to memorize the most minute details of every profession, have been relatively minor when they weren't flat out improvements.
For new players who don't start at level 80 and haven't lost any uber loot, the game's combat system is fairly perfect. There are bugs, and there are a few things which need better explanation (like a weapon cert list that doesn't require using the knowledgebase to search for it), but these things will be ironed out over time. SOE patches the game consistently, and since the restructure in December, I think they've actually been a lot better about it. They finally fixed the bug that caused characters to slide off their seats. They've put out two expansion packs very quickly, and I expect we'll see more expansions coming now that they've finally got space in the game.
As for SOE not listening - I disagree completely. I've played games where the developers didn't listen, and SWG is not one of them. If anything, it's that they listen too much, frequently changing the game in negative ways due to the absurd complaints of the playerbase. They don't always agree with the playerbase, and frankly, I'm glad. The game that many of the CU haters want to play is not the game I want to play. It's not the game than anybody who has never played SWG before wants to play - and they need new players if they want more subscriptions. People that left the game because Squad Leader was useless aren't going to just come back due to some rebalancing. The CU was a huge nerf, but it had to be. It was intended to be. Lots of people got screwed compared to how it was before, but in the long run, it means a better game. The bugs will get fixed, but the foundation is solid enough that they have something build on. They'll get to the entertainers and crafters (whom I don't think need any help, as merchants practically own the game as it is) eventually. What's important is that the foundation is here and over time it will be improved.
I do have a suggestion though. To those of you who absolutely hate the CU and have left, I recommend checking out Saga of Ryzom. It is a similar skill based game (though with no skillcaps - you can level everything) that has a similar feel, just without the Star Wars license or the distinct professions.
Hey, I liked the movies, but I didn't start to play this game to become a jedi.
I find first person shooter games to be boring...and I don't have the fast twitch reaction time I had when I was 13. After awhile, they are all alike, just different skins in a comic book. The PvP in SWG is only another version of first person shooter.
What I like in SWG is the roleplay and the complex economy. I would like to see a little more variety in the abilities of non-combat professions. A crafter who goes out to gather resources on a frontier type planet wouldn't have a bodyguard like some high-level politician, he would learn to shoot. A pretty entertainer, traveling in the seedier spacer quarter near a spaceport, also wouldn't have a bodyguard like some rockstar...she would have knife wielding or spray-can, not swords or rifles. Neither one would have the extra credits to pay a bodyguard nor the time to develop a martial art to it's highest level.
I like the new icons for dancer, I can tell at a glance which dance I want to change to. The new icons for fencer are not so glance-able. The ones I use all the time are programmed in my reflexes, but in the heat of battle, when the need for one of the seldomly used icons is urgent, I have to read the title of the two or three potentials. (yes, I know that this problem will be solved by time, not Dev intervention)
However, I'm a little worried about the future of entertainers. I know that in real life, entertainers are not really needed. Unfortunately, they are not really needed in game, either. Already, entertainers are becoming a bit scarce in Gorath. The adult veteran players recognize the need to tip entertainers, and they are generous. But we still have a great many players who treat the non-combat players the same as NPCs, thanks to the buffbot legacy.
Newbie players who want to become entertainers will soon find that their skill points will be taken up by the other professions that they will need to develop just to have a enough credits to get a house, costume changes and instruments as well as travel money. Plenty of the master dancers and musicians have already made that same discovery and have respec'ed to other professions. Master IDs are already scarce, and I have heard no one voice any desire to become one.
That was a good read, and my guess is you have not played SWG for very long, I have been playing SWG about 1 year, I mastered 9 professions in that time and was done with my FS grind so i would like to think i knew the game pretty well.
What i believe everyone that has played the game for more then 6 months is angry about is that SWG was very unique, you had doctors, combat medics, armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, chefs and more who had to work their tails off grinding up hours and hours of crafting XP to become a profession of this nature, this made them unique in the sense not everyone wanted to grind up all that crafting XP, I was a Master combat medic and a Master doctor at one time and i was proud to wear the tag.
Melee professions were not as unique as others since most players perfered TKA, combine that with fencer and one other defensive profession and well you have a great tank, or melee stacker, but not everyone melee was a tank, you had a very broad choice and the choices you made, made it so you could play the way you wanted to play IE: PVP you may choose to defence stack, or you may want to do heavy damage as a Swordsman, the point being it was unique, different styles of play made it unique for each person playing, you had to learn how to migrate stats and from what i could tell, the way i migrated my stats may not work for someone else since they my not play the same as i did, armor was not all the same, looks yes but stats no, this made hunting down a good vendor important, business was unique, food, weapons, armor, these all played very important roles in the game,
Watching your mind stats was hard everyone was attacking the mind, which made PvP combat so much harder, but that made it more fun and challanging, now PvP is who gets the best hit off first and has the hardest hit, the game has slowed down 40% or better, I hit F10 wait hit F11 to fire off another special and again i wait, yes i can hit them over and over queing up more specials but still it is slower, before the CU you had to play along time and have some very good guildmates teach you all the ropes and even then the game was a challange.
What SOE did was remove everything that was unique about this game, Ham system which was hard to understand but once learned was much more fun and unique than this simple and borning ham bar now, I miss grouping with a master dancer and chatting while i got mind buffed, even though 50% of the time they may have been AFK. Everyone keeps talking about groups and how great this is and how it will force players to group up, News flash; I DON'T WANT TO GROUP UP EVERYDAY! Not everyone wishes to be in a group, I just had a bad day at the office and i want to hunt and kill a bunch of critters by myself with no one bugging me so i log in and hunt down a doctor, get buffed go to cantina get mind buffed and i'm set (yes I liked that part) now i am off to hunt.
I think from everything i have read that the SWG project is going to be in trouble if the CU does not draw mmorpg players from other games since many of the older players seem to be leaving, of course only time will tell if this is the case.
One question I would like to ask is, why would i leave WoW or EQ2 to play SWG if its just the same ol game? I really miss the old system and helping new players learn how to migrate stats to help them be better tanks or doctors whatever. SWG is just another mmorpg that is in need of some serious bugs fixed, the sad part is they expect there paying customers to help me find bugs.
Wow....I really hope SOE paid you good money for that report. Can you say sell out?
I've played SWG since about one month after launch with my main character started on Tempest server the day it went live in August '03. I loved the variety and complexity that SWG offered, something I'd never seen in an on-line game before. It's the only one I've actually played although my husband has played a number of them so I am familiar with other games. I do not like the CU for many of the reasons that so many people have described in detail. The icons and particle effects that for many people destroy the Star Wars feel of the game, the level system which leads to the artificial and severely restrictive feel of combat, and the devastating effects to the non-combat portions of the game just to hit the highlights.
I originally developed a MDoc/MFencer who I gradually shifted to non-combat picking up Musician for awhile then settling into MArtisan/MDE/Merchant/Pikeman/Politician. I was mayor of a large city and maintained a resource and loot co-op for our guild. I missed the action of the MDoc/MFencer so eventually started a second account to recreate that template. I enjoyed being able to fight solo, fight and heal in a group, fight lower level content with my lower level crafter with limited combat, work on crafting, run a small shop, run a city, do quests, just explore, interact with friends and guildmates or just about anything I felt like doing on any given day. That variety is what kept the SWG so involving and interesting. My main concern with the CU is the apparent shift away from the old model of a rich, complex on-line virtual world to a simpler, combat-focused game. It appears that SWG is headed toward becoming another version of the other games out there just with a Star Wars theme. The CU has changed combat and the expansion has changed new content to more linear, series of quests and missions without the open feel of the origina. I didn't start playing this game for Star Wars, I started playing it for it's complex, diverse society and open exploration and possibilities.
This is my first experience actually playing an on-line game extensively. I'm well aware that these games can and will change over time. SWG had already changed a great deal since launch and the veterans have adapted to those changes. I'm also aware that SOE has not had a great track record of communication with it's playerbase and that the game has been full of bugs from day 1. But in my experience, nothing they have done in the past compares to their handling of the CU and RotW expansion.
I've cancelled both my accounts, one has run out and the other has a few weeks left. I keep trying it hoping for some reasons to keep playing but I don't have much hope. My husband has also cancelled but is considering reactivating when his account expires because it's hard to give up on a Jedi character that has finally completed his template after almost 2 years of work.
What I've found very troubling is the fact that SOE/LucasArts and most long time on-line gamers these drastic changes, absolutely pathetic customer service and almost unplayable state of this 'upgrade/expansion' as just what is to be expected from an on-line game. I was shocked when talking to someone in game that's been playing on-line games for awhile. When we said we were quitting because of the appalling state of the game and the attitude of SOE his response was that we should have seen Ultima Online when it first started. Doesn't it say something that the state of this upgrade leads to comparisons to the very first on-line game when it first started? I would think that would send a shocking wake-up call to this industry as a whole that with as far as on-line gaming has come over the years, a game could put out an upgrade, 2 years after launch, that calls up comparisons to the first on-line game at launch and people just shrug it off as what is expected in this industry. That's like complaining about the condition of your 2 year old Ford Explorer after getting it back after a recall repair and having someone tell you that you should have seen the problems with their first Model T.
This isn't just a game, it's a business. This entire industry hides behind their EULAs that state that game content and system requirements can change at any time and that they don't guarantee servers to be available at all times. This is their excuse for why it's ok to replace the core mechanics of an existing game and calling it an upgrade. Where do you draw the line? I know things change but if we had logged in to find ourselves actually logging into the EQ2 servers I would hope someone would see that is being fundamentally wrong. How about logging into an on-line version of the Lego Star Wars game? It could still be called Star Wars Galaxies if they wanted but it certainly wouldn't be the same game. Where is the line between normal game changes and a fundamental change to a different game? We entered into a legal contract with SOE to provide a service they advertised and represented as having specific features that many people feel have now been changed and/or removed so that it is no longer the service they signed up for. And many of these people have been encouraged to pay months in advance to take advantage of reduced subscription rates but are now told those fees are non-refundable. I think this is an issue the entire on-line gaming industry needs to address.
SWG attracted a different playerbase than most of the other games out there. Yes there are plenty of the usual gamers playing it, but I think the core of the crafting/ non-combat/ support community that this entire game relied on to function were made up of these older, more dedicated players that invested a lot of time and money into SWG by way of multiple accounts paid for month after month. You cannot play the crafting/merchant game without dedication and some degree of long range planning. A crafter/merchant can't just decide to not log on for awhile and expect their business to continue. Their game was the robust player run economy, a well advertised feature of SWG. Whenever I knew I was going to be away for a few days I spent hours before hand making sure my vendors were stocked and pulling items off my vendors and relisting them so items wouldn't delist and be unavailable while I was gone. I just had a small shop which was just one of many things I enjoyed in the game. For some people this was their entire game.
The CURB effectively devalued months of work by changing schematics so resource values were decimated. Inventory items were converted from what were once valuable, top of the line products to mediocre, low quality items that are essentially worthless, despite promises that items would be converted to items of comparable value. The list goes on of items that were drastically devalued. We all knew that changes were going to be made to the combat system but no one ever said the skills based system was going to be replaced with this fundamentally different level based system. Even with the published changes to armor and meds, which were only published about 1 month before the CU hit Test Center, we were not told of the extent to which the basic crafting system would be changed, let alone the specific changes to chef, weaponsmith and DE. There was little time to prepare and actually no way to prepare since we didn't know what the changes would be. Actually we still don't since we've had no feedback on the many outstanding, many raised early in testing, that we still don't know if they are intended changes or bugs. Other than selling BH droids, virtually all of DE is now either broken or obsolete thanks to the CU.
This attitude of SOE that this is not a serious enough issue for them to address and apparently an acceptable risk of investing in an on-line experience is what is unacceptable to myself and many others in the veteran community that have interests other than combat. Especially since SOE recently announced the upcoming Station Exchange that will allow players on certain servers in some of their games to buy and sell items outside of the game. We have all known for some time thanks to E-Bay that these ingame item resulting from our time and effort have real life monetary value. Now SOE has formally acknowledged that. I'm afraid they may have opened the door to a legal liability to protect those investments. Their sudden change in the underlying SWG system has seriously decreased the real world value of many player's ingame time and effort. This could very well have ramifications for the entire industry.
I wish someone in the online gaming media would make a serious effort to investigate these issues. Just what does constitute a game? How far can a system be changed before it truly does become a different system? Can a company make changes that completely devalue months or years of investment any time they wish with no consequences? Can a company get away with pushing an upgrade onto it's paying customer base when they acknowledge it's not fully tested? Can poor service in terms of repeated down-times, players totally unable to log in or completely unable to play their characters due to game-breaking bugs for a week or more at a time go uncompensated? Let alone disabled players, namely the color-blind who could play the game just fine before but log in after the CU to find they can no longer play do to UI changes.
I doubt there are many industries where companies regularly get away with this level of poor service and it's considered not only acceptable but expected. If this industry wants to mature and expand into a wider audience it needs to mature and act like a responsible, legitimate industry that provides consumers with a reasonable expectation of a reliable product instead of this poor quality excuse for service I've seen here.
Congratulations on the well written post Zenae. I agree with every word in it.
There seems to be a lack of ethical and legal responsibility in the PC games industry. Bugs and consecutive patches have often been accepted in PC games due do the hardware variation when compared to Console games.
Now most of the bugs are not related to hardware interaction, they are just simply design and implementation flaws.
Can we start a class action law suit? I have at least 10 signatures for it. Although I have no knowledge on how to even start the process.
Well put Zanae. A very well thought and formulated response to SOE.. HAve you posted it on the SOE forums??? If not would you mind if it was put on them??
SWG RIP 4/26/05
rip the mic , rip the stage , rip the system i was born to rage against'em - ratm
At least author brought out the bad and contrasted with the good
Serious issue still for me is color handicapped, there is a huge thread on this in game disscussion on the boards, one possible solution would at least bring back choice of ole ui to help out those of us that have color related issues and just plain cannot see them. The hotkeys fading in out merging into each other eeek oh my
Respec is fine if u can, many players have gotten the ill informed bug and have not had one sucessful /respec due to bugs, unlike other mmorpgs that clicky on trainer boom its done its convaluted in such a way that "losing skill points" is geared to encourage more grinding
Solo is doable ( barely) but forced grouping is for the win now. Mele has horrid issues post cu from "invalid target< target not seen, Too far all the while the mobs can do whatever they want to you from 60 meters away
Spawn o meter broke on some planets, garages working inconsitantly at best , with mobs having a metal fetish makes it expensive to try and repair bikes * if u can find a garage that is working*
Equipment gesh all combat based new players will have trouble distinguishing what they can use and what they cannot, and most likely can't afford much of the new weapons any way
Server population on many servers struggling, with the exception of perhaps Azaih and bria, unless you go to the known grouping spots ( lok mining) it may seem like a huge empty world with ghost town cities
unlike other level based games healers can heal every member of the group not so in swg with combants, and other things get you "invalid target" the heals are on timers now ,so even if you have a medic paying attention with lag spikes , a heal may not come off in time , not due to player not paying attention, but lag spikes
mixed feelings on the "new swg" the bugs are very slow to fix, same bugs reported repeatedly and very few patches for fixes since cu, time will tell if game breaking issues (creature handlers exp caps, not being albe to level, smugglers slicing impaired are even addressed at all............
I have to wonder what type of payment plan SOE worked out with you? Your "review" sounds pretty much like the shiney coated public relations crap SOE has been dishing out to thier customers for years. As a long time player of SWG and many other online games I can tell you honestly that the Combat Upgrade is no upgrade at all. It made a unique styled game into the same boring hash crap that is prevelent in the online game community and it bent over it's player base for another screw from SOE. Here's my experience with SWG.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...
As a 9 year old child I watched those words for the first time scroll across the screen. Since that time Star Wars has been a major part of my life. The movies and toys and books all fed the imagination and let us all be a part of what Lucas created. When the SWG game was announced, my excitement can not be described. I was going to be able to actually interact in the SW universe. Yay!
I made it into beta and hurridly started playing. It was buggy as all get out and several of the professions were not even finished but who cared, we were in Star Wars! As time went on however it became very appearant that I was not playing Star Wars but a hacker version made by SOE. I dutifully made my beta reports hoping to help things along but saw little changing. Then, out of the blue, we were told the game was going live in two weeks. SOE was warned repeatedly that it was not ready for live yet but the beta testers were ignored. This was behavior by SOE that would become the standard.
It went live on schedule to one of the buggiest openings ever. SOE got what it wanted though, money.
See I remember the days when the Smuggler skill tree was empty (yes on the live game), Bounty Hunters didn't work, no one had ever heard of a buff, and you had a CS rep from SOE contact you live in game within 30 min of sending in a ticket. Ah the good ole days. Well, I played for a year and finally got so fed up with SOEs deaf ears that I finally canceled my subscriptions.
In December of 2004, after playing EQ2 and hating it, I reactivated my SWG accounts and found that not only did I enjoy SWG but I actually LOVED it. See I am a soloer. I don't feel a sense of accomplishement when I'm in a group of 10 people. What did I do but simply add to a massive amount of damage already being done? In real life we call that a gang and it's usually frowned upon
. So, everday I packed on my armor, got my buffs, and went out to slay Rebels and grind my force skills. I was in heaven until...
My guildmates started talking about this Combat Upgrade thing that was due to come out. I didn't ask about it much but knew that some big changes were due to come. I kept plugging along though having the time of my life. And then the CU happened. I was out of town the week the CU went live so I didn't have any idea what to expect. I logged in as usual and got the respec box but declined it at first. Why respec? I was good as I was right? WRONG! Now out of my 20 weapons I owned I could only pick up and use 1. That's right, 1. Oh, my armor was now useless as well along with all the spares I had invested in. The armor respec did nothing since my armor was high end stuff so it still encumbered me so badly I could hardly move. All told over 5 million credits worth of equipment was now useless to me.
I just sat and stared at my screen. All I could think of was that my time was over. To be fair I did respec and set out to try the "upgrade". After a day of repeated attempts at fighting and either dying or gaining no experience I gave up. Here was a character I had invested literally months of play time (average 12 - 18 hrs a day 7 days a week) into and now he was useless. My character was not upgraded in any way. He was brutally raped by SOE who once again ignored every suggestion given by the players of what they wanted to happen in a once fun game. I couldn't cancel fast enough.
For those that like it, have fun on your empty planets and ghost cities. The population will rise after Episode III and it will be filled with first person console game kids who are looking to wield the Force and grief all who come near. All I can say is may the Force be with you because real players won't be.
Thanks.
Only that the planets are not really empty and the cities are the same as pre-CU.
And the new players ... lemme see ... half a dozen new players recently joined my guild post-CU.. and all of them are in their 20-30ies, most having played multiple MMORPGs before.
And some more want to join, but cannot do that yet as the game is currently sold out in just about every shop (online or otherwise) .. so they had to pre-order. You can see the thread about that over in the SWG section of this forum.
So yes, many have left, yes, SOE should work on their customer relationship skills and management skills , yes, there is still a lot that needs bug-fixing and balancing, but no, still "real players" are playing it and more "real players" are joining or re-joining the game, and no, this is not the end of SWG.
Have fun
Erillion
Hmm...my guild was 64 people strong with no one under 18 years of age. There are now 3 people active.
I don't know, must have been a rotten egg laid down somewhere that scared everyone away.
As far is it being sold out...you ought to be kidding me...I can still pick up a 'special edition' SWG box at my local Gamespot store for $29.99.
If you stayed in SWG, that is fine. If you are having fun that is all that matters. I was not, so I quit.
Guys honestly this article doesnt show anything about real issues with game atm, i recently stopped playing swg (after 8 month quest
). The game wasnt well balanced there were to strong players and it was possible to solo anything and lots more issues... but what about now? now if u want to do a bit of soloing its not possible anymore, it will take ages to get 900k xp which took 3 hours before. They removed very good thing from the game called action que. So now you have to put up with a new team all the time which would not be great all the time so you will surely get into troubles, furthermore they started complicating the weps and armor stats which have ruined the "advanced simplicity" of the game which was so good. So in my point of view the name of the article of is true but the article itself is just not covering the major problems.
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Cry
I originally supported the CU- Then I played it.
My characters were completely borked - Armor- weapons - xp.
They broke it. Plain and simple.
We warned them in TC and they deleted our posts and rushed the product.
Yesterday, their latest "patch" broke an entire server and crashed several players PC's. Quite badly from what I heard.
No compenstion was given by SOE for lost skills, lost equipment, or lost grinding time. It was as though they were giving their player base the proverbial "finger." Most of us left. Those that stay are rewarded by empty promises of a fixed and balanced game, poor customer service, and refusal to address game breaking issues. like broken professions and lack of solo content, incorrect xp, deleted xp, overpowered mobs, and an overall ignorance to what the players actually want out this game.
They went so far as to HIDE their cancel subscription button on some obscure page in the SOE store. Cowards.
The truth is that they have all but ELIMINATED solo play, as well as MOST of their userbase.
Those who honstly tell this company that the CU is just plain BROKEN had their accounts banned and their posts deleted from the community forum or they are just plain ignored. We are belittled by the company and the minority of MMORPG griefers and told the we are just a "few angry veterans" or that we're "crying because someone took our ball away." or "if we don't like it, just wait." We've waited nearly a month and this game is UNPLAYABLE! We're paying for a product on live servers, which shuld rightfully still be in an ALPHA phase of development. We're paying to WORK for SOE as game testers.
But SOE won't refund for gamebreaking bugs of downtime, even if it's their fault.
Their customer relations are laughable, at best and MOSTof use doubt their inelligence and their integrity.
100% agree
all these whiners here....
SWG is now the game it should be, a guild-based Game, not a game where people can hunt high-level mobs alone because they have exceptional Weapons.
Now you have to be in a group and everyone can get the good stuff....
I love to hear the "low-skilled" "exceptionl-weapon" user crying and whining.....
Today we was hunting on Kashyyk with 5 People of our Guild and it was real funny...
We was 5 hours hunting and it was great to play without looking if the "buffs" runs out or something like that....
Finally i can say these new changes was the best was SOE can do....
I dont whine for People who go because for every people who go there will be come 2 new Player...
AND ....
If you go please go silent, try another game and profit of your experience you collect in SWG...
But dont talk shit about a Game you played a few month with fun.....
just my 2 cents
Darkcloud
Elwan-Naboo
Europe-Farstar
OH
I fully agree with zenae, when is enough enough? why and even the writer hasnt acknowledged this. why do we have to put up with games that are always buggy? when are places such as this site gonna ban together and say you know? enough with the buggy code fix it.
honestly on the cu im neither here nor there on it. i personally find it very slow combat wise. i have my keys set up but still find myself glancing at them to make sure they are loaded for the next shot.
i shouldnt be drawn to the UI to play a game, i been playing these things since the advent of pong. and never had i had to glance so much at a UI before to get things done.
Since we had the horse icon installed and we all saw it doesnt that say something about how some other game with a horse icon in it was simply cut and pasted to this one?
Can someone please explain the voodoo dolls, potions, tombs and anything else NOT invovled in star wars?
I watched EP3 specifically for these voodoo dolls potions and tombs never saw them. Did i miss it?
is it just me? or did speed tree get used alot on kash? Those trees are junk compared to the ones on naboo.
Why restrict movement ok fine i can see the web weaver level being restricted i have no problems with that we are walking on tree branches. but kachiro? why is that nessacary?
Why after almost 3 years now are we back to square one on the bugs? why do we continously have bugs?
Why do we always have to suck it up? i dont remember having to suck it up when i need my car fixed,
i dont recall having to suck it up when i find i bought bad meat at the store. badly tailored clothes. wrong medication. no not that type .. yet. i bought a boat recently am i supposed to suck it up if the engine blows to a buggy injector and kills half my family?
why does the gaming community continue to let this go on? it is getting worse every day. i know we had our bugs in the past with games but dammit people after at least a month the suckers worked right.
Three years later we still dont have a working system. i spent alot of my time finding ways around the bugs and helping out others get past them I dig people out of holes in imp prisons help them get there star fighter to advoid a bug. im not playing star wars im on a crusade now to make sure people get past the buggy CURB. I am on shadowfire pretty much keep to myself save one other person and my wife.
i get tired of leet speak moronic people who get there butts handed to them so ceased alot of socializing due to that and pvping along time ago. now i help those who need it when asked work on the crafting thing to keep prices under control,best i can.
now my days concern bug reports which during alpha testing, i wouldnt even count that as a beta, i submitted a hell of a lot of them, was doing the same up til a few days ago since its been out. reason i ceased is i found a major major hole in the game that can be exploited to death and did not even get so much as a "can you show us" message back. or thanks.
i also realised i am putting in waaaaay to much time trying to "fix" a game i pay to play. I dont pay to fix this. thats their job. not mine. I dont mind helping out . but this is seriously out of control.
Now we have pub 17 coming out. which should have alot of bug fixes in it. do we? no we have more crap coming in that isnt gonna be addressed "i know i been watching having seen so much as a sneeze yet for a response to the few that are still trying to help out.
p-17 should involved a host of fixes. if they are infact in there they should least let us know what is going on. we do pay to play this. like the fact or not mr writer. we do, infact, deserve to be told.
It would be nice if someone actually took the time that has the ability to report to take on s.o.e and say it like it is . NOT, simply accept it an go well im having fun. so thats good enough for me.
from everything i have read up to this point all i ever see is . well deal with it if you dont like it or quit.
why should i deal with it ? because you say so ? why should i have to quit? why can't i simply get the game i signed on for? mainly bug free. it can be done i used to do it. Dont feed me a line it cant be done.
I fully back those players that are raising absolute hell about this. I am not talking about how one was once uber now they are not . im talking about the basics of the game.
Why can i not play a game and not worry about the bugs more than playing?
Why do i and others not deserve this fundamental basic aspect.
I would love to see this address in a serious way.
Finally what absolute astounds me to no end is how can this PARTICULAR GAME, only has 250,000 subscribers. when really, considering that the movies inspired petitions to make jedi a real religion, has affect every last aspect of the planet in some form or another is always mentioned in other movies even in an off hand remark not having a thing to do with sci-fi.
Why is this game on the low end of the totem pole with subscribers?
I can tell you why.
It is because even die hard SW fans get sick of shabby ill thought out lazy programmers and their counter parts up top, to create a game that is bug free and not always going thru a redesign because someone cant pick up a book and read it and pull content from it.
Instead they have to copy the likes of EQ, have reviewers back them and who dont have the guts to help the community they write to simply ask the question.
Why after three years are we still in beta? you know beta? where you polish the software and prepare it for market so that it is in at least 95% working order. That beta. This game.
im not irratated at the changes, im irratated, that i have to spend so much time trying to get around buggy systems listen to people think its ok to have said buggy system and that its somehow ok. Its the straw. People.
I play this game still for one reason. that buddy of mine on the other end. he is a blast to be around and i have a good time joking and kidding with him and can actually carry on a real conversation with that doesnt need leet speak to convey his thoughts. That is more refreshing to me than you all will ever know.
If he decides to leave ill be gone right behind him. Since the people who ... work? on this game can give two sh.. a care about my enjoyment i could totally care less about them and their problems with this game anymore.
Actually that goes for all games, really.
It is really getting old. and i do hope that My fellow players keep raising the hell they have been til
the much needed CHANGE is implemented and we get games that work the first time.
There... got that out of my bloody system.
Carry on.
^^^^ Like some popular American rapper would say... WORD!
It is the principle that matters. The customer base is being abused and people continue to bend over and take it for corporate America. If some should speak out against this practice then those that have been brainwashed by the corporation into humiliating themselves will ridicule those other people because they are too afraid to admit how degraded they have become.
100% agree
all these whiners here....
SWG is now the game it should be, a guild-based Game, not a game where people can hunt high-level mobs alone because they have exceptional Weapons.
Now you have to be in a group and everyone can get the good stuff....
I love to hear the "low-skilled" "exceptionl-weapon" user crying and whining.....
Today we was hunting on Kashyyk with 5 People of our Guild and it was real funny...
'we were' Maybe? Unless you are multiple people, I guess you could say 'we was' like a mix of 'I was' and 'we were' ... I am not sure. This is very complicated for me.
We was 5 hours hunting and it was great to play without looking if the "buffs" runs out or something like that....
Finally i can say these new changes was the best was SOE can do....
I dont whine for People who go because for every people who go there will be come 2 new Player...
So since I am one of the people who went, I became 2 new players there? Where? Would it be in WoW and Guildwars? Yes that is true.
AND ....
If you go please go silent, try another game and profit of your experience you collect in SWG...
But dont talk shit about a Game you played a few month with fun.....
Silence is not the intention of a discussion forum.
just my 2 cents
Two cents are worth nothing, low quality post, from a low quality player. /addignore darkcloud
Elwan-Naboo
Europe-Farstar
Zimba
FINBAR
-------------------------------------------
Look, I dont even have the game yet, but im getting it. i played the 14 day trial a year ago, and i enjoyed the game. i had no clue what this CU thing was, but after i read this, i know. it does not seem that bad! i think that all of the changes are logical enough. a rifleman and a docter should not be doing the same things, and what would be harder anyway, you vs a rancor, or you and 7 freinds vs a rancor? I have seen alot of people bellyaching about this thing and i think it will be fine.
maybe if they just stop complaining on message boards and go on and DO something on the game, it wouldnt be that bad!
Then again, i am a psyco star wars fan who has and loves most if not all star wars games out to date.
but thats not the point.....
...my point is that it will still be an awesome game that lets you shape your destiny.... in the Star Wars world!!!
so to all of you who wont SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR ISSUES WITH THE NEW SYSTEM i have something to say:
GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and if you are going to quit to go to another mmo, why? if swg is turning into other mmos, why play an mmo that has that system?)
Thank you for your time and i hope to see you TRUE star wars fans on when i get my copy
DARN YOU AMAZON.COM!!!!!!!!!!
1 more thing, the people that are makeing the 'mass exodus' are stupid for turning their back on a great game that we all need.
were else am i gonna see sexy alien chicks dancing with little to no clothes on, let alone hold a blaster.
the main reason i left was from the way they continue to "nerf" the ranger profession it was the only profession in the game that i actually had any fun playing and this week they took a whole tree that costs (about) 14 skill points and gave it to everyone else for free..
of course im talking about the camo kit tree they think its going to resolve problems with crafters getting killed by flies hitting them while riding swoops because theyre combat lvl is so low EVERY creature will pretty much 1-hit kill them and its almost the same for ranger
ranger is the only profession in the game now that u have to master another profession to get novice u dont even need master medic to get novice doctor anymore
and rangers have a weak combat lvl so they pretty much CAN NOT hunt anything worthwhile to get any exp or resources (meat, hides, bone) go find a group u say?
thats BS there isnt going to be ppl that want to hunt creatures u need to kill u would have to ask guildmates for help and they will get tired of ppl always asking them to hunt high lvl stuff that prolly doesnt get them much just for someone else to get some recourses to try to make a little cash since everything else rangers do is pretty much worthless
and dont even say theyre fixing anything they havent even thought about a ranger revamp
and telling rangers that they will get one after SL and smugglers?? even if it isnt just a diversion to get the rangers out of their hair just imagine the kind of time that would take.....smuggler revamp isnt near done (or started for that matter) SL (squad leader) revamp is pretty much just a post on the SWG boards and ranger isnt even progressed this far...
even if smuggler and SL revamps come very quickly just imagine the bugs the game will have just like any other updates they do.....bug city
so yeah thats pretty much why i left because SoE only wants to listen to ppl like bounty hunters that want to have everything in the game directed to them and they only want to kill jedi...but what happens when jedi r all gone? they will all start complaining again and the game will either die or have another POS revamp which brings more bugs and cancelled accts.
SOE can only ride the EpIII wave for so long before all those people that joined the game quit anyway because it is nothing like Lucas arts and SOE made it seem...
pfft become a jedi....more like become a padawan and then u can get millions of negitive exp because the game is so overflooded with BHs and because your combat level will be so low u will be lucky a bee sting doesnt kill u.....
hmmm why go to another mmo? heres some reasons....
a) OTHER MMOS DONT RELEASE UNFINISHED MATERIAL i got GW a few weeks ago right after launch and there seem to be almost NO bugs compare this to swg and it makes sense to go there
b) Better costomer service- 'nuff said
c) Better content-SWG HAD some amazing content but with the CU they pretty much made it a guildwars and everquest 2 clone even the new planet of kashyyyk is zone-based (like guildwars)
also guildwars is free to play monthly and theyre still adding zones for FREE and they arent fixing bugs because there just arent any they actually made a full and complete game unlike SOE
and talking crap about TRUE starwars fans it would be different if this game had anything to do with starwars in it...
the GCW(galactic ciivil war [imperials vs. rebels]) is a joke
i dont even know why there are melee professions except for jedi
most weapons and items arent even in the movies or books
cant fight unless u have like 3 combat professions
no PvP for the GCW and if u do its because ur assaulting a base and even then the turrets have to be combat lvl like 1000 cuz b4 the CU they pwned ppl and imagine how it would be now? prolly like 1-hit kills
so dont say all this crap about seeing TRUE star wars fans because the game is now everquest with a space skin on it......