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What was so good with PRE-CU?
IG-88
Member UncommonPosts: 143
When i first bought and installed SWG, it was my first MMO, in fact, there were jsut not that many MMO+s around,mostly due to the fact that not many people had broadband.
I never got hooked on it back then, it seemed too confusing.
Some years later i returned, just to see what it was like and this was after NGE.
This time i got really hooked, played like 8h/day to the end.
But all the while, people was whining about PRE-CU and that "everything was better then".
So, what was so good about PRE-CU?
All i know is that it was sort of a classless system, instead of the level/expertise system later on.
But what else made it so good that players even today dont spare any hate for NGE or the players ?
Oh, and please keep it civil,shall we...
Comments
still raging about nge i see
QQMOAR
Personally it was the virtual world aspect.
It was a living, breathing world with a crafting and eoncomic system that works (because items perm decays, and crafted items are a lot more powerful than looted items) and it is less about loots but more about player-based production, so it actually feels like the world is alive for me.
Freedom to change career was just one small aspect. The world aspect is a lot more attractive imo.
@ OP
It's late here, but this is what stuck out for me.
1. Persistent World - it changed daily due to the playerbase which made the up the content since there was little of at the time
2. A multitude of 32 playable classes
3. The BEST and I mean BEST crafting system ever in a MMORPG (different stats on harvested mats)
4. TRUE Player Housing system that existed in the playable world (of course this was in NGE as well).
5. Factions that were always at War on a Open World Environment (You had a choice whether to fight or watch as players combatted each other all over different planets). Not for loot, but for bragging rights
It was a different time in the MMORPG gaming history, one I don't see repeating itself anytime soon unfortunately with all these themepark mmo's.
Now time for bed...
I played SWG from launch and about one year past the introduction of NGE. As a "game", NGE was ok. However, what it took away from what SWG was previously was freedom. There was just so much more freedom in building a character YOU wanted AND that was interesting. Characters created after NGE were nothing but cookie cutter shadows of what they had been. Add to that the fact that crafting was no were as interesting post-NGE as pre-CU, and the game was just not as interesting. Sure, those that never really got into the game or those that never really experienced it would feel the game was fine for them. Those of us that knew the game before just could not stomach what the game had become.
I should also point out that SWG is dead to me. It was long before it was every shut down.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Interesting reading.
The reason i created the thread was that it really baffles me that people who played PRE-CU and quit playing with the NGE, still to this day (6-7 years later) still express an enormous rage and hate towads not only the NGE, but players who enjoy it as well.
I mean, it could just be as simple as walking away and thats it.
Anyway, i hope the future will bring back both playstyles in separate realms for everyone to be happy.
Well the "enormous rage" towards NGE/SoE was more because of the fact that SoE was very dishonest with their practice, if you knew the whole story.
1. No one was forewarned about the decision to go to NGE from the existing system. If I recall correctly it was less than a week's notice.
2. They actually released new (I think was it Mustafar?) expansion pack based on the OLD gaming system 1 week or something prior to the introduction of the NGE, and all along they have been giving info about the new expansion pack based on the old system, and did not have any indication that there was any plan changes to the game system.
And also because a lot of the stuff that was in that expansion is tied to the old system, some things in the new expansion became useless/pointless with the NGE. Thus people felt ripped off/short changed.
3. Although there was no needed to on their part, still there was no consultation with the playerbase, or even acknowledgement, at all on this change. Many doubt why it was even necessary as the playerbase was still thriving.
So their hate was never directed on the "system" of the NGE itself, but rather how it came about.
It is just as if in 1 night the they changed Warcraft from a real-time strategy game to a first person shooter.
Yes, all understandable at the time, but 6-7 years later?
I was there when the NGE happened, and was affected by it all, and didn't really play the game properly for about a year or two afterwards, but one day I just realised the NGE was here to stay, and just made the most of it, especially when I tried every MMO out there, and still found the NGE version the best MMO for me. They then just kept adding to the game, and it just got better and better, other than the fact it only had 9 professions. If it had the full 32 it would have been awesome. Although after trying the other unofficial version, I just found it unplayable, as just gotten so used to the NGE version, that pre-cu was not all that great after all.
The NGE on Day 1 in 2005 was horrendous, but by the time it closed in 2011 had come a long long way since then. If the NGE version stayed like it did from Nov 2005 and they did not add to it, like what Bioware are doing with SWTOR ie nothing, SWG would have been closed by 2006 or 2007
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@ OP Question:
Because if people bitched in REAL life like they can / do on the internets, no one would ever talk to them. Internet allows people to bitch and complain constantly without any real consequences.
Also, if you haven't noticed, the MMORPG.com community is pretty large, but reall only a small group of its members are so vocal about things. You'll hear like 10-20 people complaining about how they hate something... Just remember there are 100's of 1000's of others who either don't care or are happy with whatever it is.
Well personally I am not even upset about it, so I wouldn't know how the ones that are feel. I've tried it after NGE, feels like it was no different from WoW, and so ended up playing Anarchy Online instead (at least the skill system in AO was different).
But I do know that it was an opportunity lost because SWG really had a good thing, as it was an actual virtual world with Star Wars theme. Not many games does that then and no successful game did that since really.
Also SOE really tarnished their reputation after that.
It had a loyal fan base, and it wasn't CU/NGE
Yeah no thanks to Lucasarts.
Julio Torres was the producer for SWG up until the NGE, and he was the one who discussed the NGE in delight on Attack of the Show and on the official forums for the first which was reposted by someone on these forums and Gamespy
Julio Torres was also producer for KOTOR 1 and The Force Unleashed. He was a Lucasarts employee, temporarily working for SOE. So quite easy to mistake SOE for the bad guys.
After the NGE did not live up to their expectaions, the Producers that followed were SOE employees, with Tony "Teesquared" Tyson being the last one.
At least SOE improved the game from Nov 2005, and added tonnes more to it, which was more than what Bioware is doing for SWTOR - which is virtually nothing, hence the poor retention of players.
SOEs bad reputation should not be for the NGE which was mostly by LA, but their general incompetance in everything they do. The Latest thing being the transition to ProSieben for EU players. It has been going on for over 8 months now, and DCUO transition was a mess, which resulted in other games being halted in trasnition which is a good thing, and still no solid plan. There is absolutely no confidence whatsoever that the transition will be any good even once they have sorted things out.
They always do stuff, wait for any outcry, and then adjust things as necessary. Why they do not have the intuition to get things right within themselves without relying on customers complaints is beyond me.
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So, the biggest problem with NGE, wasnt NGE itself, but rather the way they did it, without consulting the playerbase, if i get i correct. And, perhaps PRE-CU was more appealing to the "hardcore" gamers, while NGE was more appealing to the "general gamers".
I do think SOE had a good connection to the players during the years i played, through the senator system.
Still to this day, i just cant find any MMO that appeals to me like SWG did.
It didnt have the most content, it didnt have jaw dropping graphics, it didnt have alot of anything substantial aside from bugs.
Yet it had two things that made it the best mmo experience ever, the comminity where your reputation mattered a million times more than your gear/class and freedom to do whatever you wanted.
In no case was SWG the 'best' MMO ever, in reality it was a buggy, laggy mess at times. Yet it hit the nail on the head so hard in the two points above you didnt give the slightest shit.
1. Persistent world unique to your server.
2. 32 classes that you could mix and match up to a total of about 2.2 classes
3. Citys
4. Social areas with social professions that forced traffic
5. Legendary and exceptional items
6. Crafting and good crafters could become forever remembered
7. Stores
8. Rescources, Rescources would come into shift and remain for short periods of time.
9. Mobs that could take up to an hour to take down (krayts for eg)
10. Great PVP that would spontaneously kick off at any time.
11. Jedi in reculse but powerful.
12. Community - no game before and no game since fostered a community that pre-cu did due to an ability to be completely unique, specialise to an area, I could name you the best crafters, PVP's, hunters, miners, entertainers etc on Eclipse 8 years after the fact, I can bareley name 33% of my guild in GW2.
13. No 2 players where the same though appearance, gear, class and what they did some specialised in PVP others to crafting others to entertaining. I know entertainers who never even touched a weapon, I pesonally specialised in killing Krayt there was not a stone I did not know of the Krayt graveyard I could probably still draw a complete map of it to this day and anyone on Eclipse knew if they needed something that a Krayt could drop then I was one of the people to see. I then took my profits to Bru or Sanu for weapons, Selandria and her crew for entertaining, J'akara for armour and if I wanted to PVP I would make sure I had the guys of Webel near me. If I needed other items I would head out to Zeus mall just NE of Coronet to visit one of the many vendors there.
SWG Pre-CU was the only MMO to me that was truly a living breathing world rather than just a game. I didn't play Itreh Wirne the crazy Krayt hunting Pikewoman, I was Itreh Wirne the crazy krayt hunting pikewoman.
I'm not one of these who holds a grudge to SOE etc I still enjoyed the game for 7 more years post CU and NGE but neither iteration had that same charm of Pre-CU and Pre-CU will probably go down in my history as the greatest game to ever exist.
not quite sure how you came to that conclusion, the biggest problem with the NGE wasnt the lack of consulting, it was that the NGE itself removed a massive portion of the games functionality and flexibility, entire classes were removed from the game, not to mention the combat mechanics themselves were disrupted to such a degree that the games animations began to look ridiculous. And no, the NGE was not appealing to general gamers, if anything it was the reverse, only the 'hardcore' Starwars players, stayed, which sadly represented about 20 percent of the original playerbase, SOE were never able to reconnect with the players after the NGE, though this was something that really began with the CU, after the NGE was released, the playerbase was mostly actively hostile to SOE, this is something that has not significantly changed to the present date.
but agreed, no other MMO had the appeal that SWG did, but that does not include the NGE, few indeed are sorry to see the back of it.
In regards to the perception of low content, I would agree if one where to simply play the game in the typical Eq / WoW themepark way. However pre NGE I always felt the game effectivley had endless content due to the players creating content, such as bustling cantinas, decorated houses, player cities, player shops / malls, player military bases. To me it just seemed like there where endless things to do and see when you approached it in a non hand holded way.
I also thought at the time, and still today to an extent in regards to the EMU that the graphics were the best at the time, the vast terrain, huge cities, the models and textures were first class. But more than this each planet maintained a specific cultural identity that allowed the player to become easily immersed in the enviroment, I think SWG is unique in this regard, as all other MMOs fail to maintain that immersion be it with unrealistic terrain, terrain textures, unrealistic creatures and flora. So when you were on endor for example to zoom into first person, all the plants, animals, terrain, the realistic SCALE and sounds all combined to make you feel that you were there, that it was not designed or created, it was as it would be what you would discover if you had actually landed on Endor.
what you call call "confusing" i cal diversity and complexity and lively.
Everything got dumped down with the NGE. What was left was a shallow unplayable abortion.
SWG did offer content for lots of playstyles eplorer, crafter, PvP, RP etc and had 300k subs. After the NGExitus it went down to 10k. That says all.
NGE was a monstrosity that need to be shown to any future developer to avoid with such experiments and keep them in laboratorys at best but not release to public ro cause havoc.
PRE / CU was the golden age highlight of MMORPG's devlopement it was almost perfect and barely a MMOPRG did rehash what PRE CU had to offer even a decade after.
Skill system, crafting, playerhousing, pet system all novelties of that time that are still not matched by any other game today .
ALL MMORPG's should start at the point of SWG PRE / CU and expand from there.
Sure some MMORPG's of todays have 1 thing probs better like faction wars (Galactic Civil War was one of the few missed areas of SWG) or Ryzom's ecosystem but the overly worldy feeling still remains unmatched.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
Actually thanks for shreding light on that info I wasn't aware of that before you mentioned it.
I think SOE seems to only been able to do 1 game good and maintained it - Planetside series.
Actually I can agree with that first part of your statement.
SWG was really the only game that even tries to merge land based mmo with Elite or X style space game - which means it is pretty much the only sci-fi mmo that tried to give players a holistic space-with-planets experience to the players so far.
A lot of the "Anti-NGE Crowd" seem to gloss over or outright miss this point.
Julio and Nancy were the biggest detriment to SW:G in 2005.
And yes...SOE made huge mistakes wiht the way they communicated the game play change from CU to NGE....but I'm willing to bet that the lack of communication in late October 2005 and the first 7 days of november were the result of a Lucas Arts NDA over the NGE changes.
MMO History: 2528 days in SW:G
I think you are right in saying there was an unusual amount of rage regarding the NGE, for numerous reasons.
For one thing, I think SWG (Pre-CU) was able to really grab people BECAUSE of the afformentioned freedom (that many may have mistaken for complexity... which is truly sad). I personally have never felt an attachment for any of my MMO toons as I did for my Pre-CU Zabraki wanderer. That micromanagement and nuance is what made our characters different and special, and they truly felt special. It should be noted that the community was awesome Pre-CU, and that 'complexity' is a large factor in the interdependancy that made the community awesome. I personally enjoyed learning and teaching new aspects of the game very much. Which all went poof on NGE day.
Another factor in the rage, is that (at least to my knowledge) the NGEwas the first epic betrayal a well known IP MMO had ever been a victim of. The first cut is the deepest as they say (which also may be a factor in never being fully attached to another MMO toon since).
Pre-CU had 32 professions you could mix around. And the crafting was the best I've seen in an mmorpg, ever.
NGE condensed these classes into 9 iconic professions. They got rid of item decay and added dungeons with loot drops and trading card game loot.
That one-two punch to the game basically ripped the soul out of swg. The irony is even after the game was gutted, it still had way more freedom and options than any of the current themeparks these days.