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Rose Colored Electrobinoculars condition: 243/1000
Archlyte
Member RarePosts: 1,405
I am an SWG zealot. It was my first MMORPG and has ruined every MMORPG for me since it came down with the NGE sickness. I now play on an SWGEMU server and my friends have joined me. It is the old SWG where you have to make sub-components of quality, where there are Bio Engineers and where you get xp from sitting in a camp in the wilderness.
SWG is a leviathan in game design, and I learn something new nearly every week, sometimes daily (because I forgot a lot of what I used to know :P). There is interdependence, consequence form death, time sinks, open world, open world housing, non-combat professions and activities.
But
I am racking up a list of things that really kind of annoy me, or at least make me wish for an upgraded feature.
1) No Appearance Tabs: You want to go into endgame combat? You like the other people around you will be wearing Composite Armor just like my avatar. It is the best armor that there is and nothing really comes close. Clothing is varied and player made, but will get you killed if you try to wear it while fighting Krayts or Nightsisters. In old SWG what you have on is what shows, period. No hide helm, no hide backpack. Faction armor (Stormtrooper or the quite bad Rebel Armor) is substandard and so even that armor is not really viable for adventuring. As my friend put it, pre-cu SWG took place during the Composite Armor Clone Wars.
2) Melee Professions are King: Well duh Jedi, but no, that's not what I am talking about. The real Alpha class of SWG was the Teras Kasi Master (TKM). A TKM is basically a Star Wars Monk, and like in other games, the Monk is an unbalanced mess of a class that allows you to outperform other classes with less concern for gear. I love that TK is a good way to have a guy that can do a non-combat job but still survive (TK/Doctor, TK/Bio Engineer), but stat-wise TKM and its Melee brethren (Pikeman, Swordsman, & Fencer) are survive-able classes while all of the ranged classes are more DPS or as some like to call it, "support."
There are Knockdowns (and position change, and Stopping Shot) in the EMU, but no roots or snares. Everyone moves at the same speed in cities or flat terrain (unless you hit Burst Run but that hits you for stat damage) which means that if you are melee you catch anything you want to catch easily. I hate stun lock or overdone roots, but small roots and some minor snares would have been great. It's Star Wars FFS, I didn't have a toy Gaffi Stick as a kid I had a toy DL-44. Melee are tougher than ranged, have nearly all the same toys (bleeds, debuffs) have the only effective debuff and stun (Warcry/Intimidate) and few of the disadvantages. The ruleset basically favors melee and incentivizes melee play. I find myself wishing it were more of a game of blasters.
3) Vertical Limit: No vertical axis or Physics. ONe of the coolest moments in ESB for me was Luke using that grapple gun to zoom 30 feet into the air and put that grenade in an AT-AT. Jedis can jump and fall from great heights, airspeeders speed among high rise buildings, ships take off and break free of the atmosphere. Because of hardware limitations, the procedural design of the world, and time/money the game did not get a vertical axis of movement. You can't so much as jump over a log because Jump is just an emote. Your character is always on the heightmap or in some rare cases on a secondary level of a structure on which you cannot fall off. The one thing from EQN Landmark I loved was the grapple hook. If SWG had a vertical axis and a less powerful version of that hook I would be in nirvana.
4) Some of the iconic weapons are low-tier: Advancing up the lines in professions grants certifications for weapons by individual model. My beloved DL-44 is a low tier Energy damage type pistol with no Armor piercing, whereas the republic blaster from episode 1 (looks like someone glued a handle on a Co2 cartridge) is energy with AP1, which means it has no damage penalty when used against player armor. I guess maybe they did this so that everyone wasn't inclined to use the DL-44, but they had no such reservation about Comp Armor being ubiquitous. I wish they had made schematics for some of the lower grade weapons being able to be made top tier.
5) Smuggler, Mercenary, and Hero Missions: Bounty Hunter in SWG has a cool mission system that allows you to pull missions for NPC marks or Player Jedi. It's great fun and has a personality. I wish some of the other classes had been able to have something similar, especially smuggler. I know that you could possibly smuggle something if you had a Guild War active between a Smuggling guild and a Bounty Hunter Guild, but it would basically just be role-play. Would have been better to have a special Inventory Item of Cargo (acquired from NPC's or Players) be ferried by Smuggler from point to point with differing outcomes on the ends (swindled, job well done, double-cross, new ally, new enemy). Mercenary missions could be multi-step combat missions, and Hero Missions could have been little instances created by players (kind of a mix of the heroics from NGE and Storyteller from NGE).
Even with these issues SWG is still the game I play, because the gameplay and freedom in the game has no equal. I watch the twin suns rise and fall, and find new adventures every day in game with my fellow players.
If you play/played SWGEMU/SWG what are some things on your wishlist?
SWG is a leviathan in game design, and I learn something new nearly every week, sometimes daily (because I forgot a lot of what I used to know :P). There is interdependence, consequence form death, time sinks, open world, open world housing, non-combat professions and activities.
But
I am racking up a list of things that really kind of annoy me, or at least make me wish for an upgraded feature.
1) No Appearance Tabs: You want to go into endgame combat? You like the other people around you will be wearing Composite Armor just like my avatar. It is the best armor that there is and nothing really comes close. Clothing is varied and player made, but will get you killed if you try to wear it while fighting Krayts or Nightsisters. In old SWG what you have on is what shows, period. No hide helm, no hide backpack. Faction armor (Stormtrooper or the quite bad Rebel Armor) is substandard and so even that armor is not really viable for adventuring. As my friend put it, pre-cu SWG took place during the Composite Armor Clone Wars.
2) Melee Professions are King: Well duh Jedi, but no, that's not what I am talking about. The real Alpha class of SWG was the Teras Kasi Master (TKM). A TKM is basically a Star Wars Monk, and like in other games, the Monk is an unbalanced mess of a class that allows you to outperform other classes with less concern for gear. I love that TK is a good way to have a guy that can do a non-combat job but still survive (TK/Doctor, TK/Bio Engineer), but stat-wise TKM and its Melee brethren (Pikeman, Swordsman, & Fencer) are survive-able classes while all of the ranged classes are more DPS or as some like to call it, "support."
There are Knockdowns (and position change, and Stopping Shot) in the EMU, but no roots or snares. Everyone moves at the same speed in cities or flat terrain (unless you hit Burst Run but that hits you for stat damage) which means that if you are melee you catch anything you want to catch easily. I hate stun lock or overdone roots, but small roots and some minor snares would have been great. It's Star Wars FFS, I didn't have a toy Gaffi Stick as a kid I had a toy DL-44. Melee are tougher than ranged, have nearly all the same toys (bleeds, debuffs) have the only effective debuff and stun (Warcry/Intimidate) and few of the disadvantages. The ruleset basically favors melee and incentivizes melee play. I find myself wishing it were more of a game of blasters.
3) Vertical Limit: No vertical axis or Physics. ONe of the coolest moments in ESB for me was Luke using that grapple gun to zoom 30 feet into the air and put that grenade in an AT-AT. Jedis can jump and fall from great heights, airspeeders speed among high rise buildings, ships take off and break free of the atmosphere. Because of hardware limitations, the procedural design of the world, and time/money the game did not get a vertical axis of movement. You can't so much as jump over a log because Jump is just an emote. Your character is always on the heightmap or in some rare cases on a secondary level of a structure on which you cannot fall off. The one thing from EQN Landmark I loved was the grapple hook. If SWG had a vertical axis and a less powerful version of that hook I would be in nirvana.
4) Some of the iconic weapons are low-tier: Advancing up the lines in professions grants certifications for weapons by individual model. My beloved DL-44 is a low tier Energy damage type pistol with no Armor piercing, whereas the republic blaster from episode 1 (looks like someone glued a handle on a Co2 cartridge) is energy with AP1, which means it has no damage penalty when used against player armor. I guess maybe they did this so that everyone wasn't inclined to use the DL-44, but they had no such reservation about Comp Armor being ubiquitous. I wish they had made schematics for some of the lower grade weapons being able to be made top tier.
5) Smuggler, Mercenary, and Hero Missions: Bounty Hunter in SWG has a cool mission system that allows you to pull missions for NPC marks or Player Jedi. It's great fun and has a personality. I wish some of the other classes had been able to have something similar, especially smuggler. I know that you could possibly smuggle something if you had a Guild War active between a Smuggling guild and a Bounty Hunter Guild, but it would basically just be role-play. Would have been better to have a special Inventory Item of Cargo (acquired from NPC's or Players) be ferried by Smuggler from point to point with differing outcomes on the ends (swindled, job well done, double-cross, new ally, new enemy). Mercenary missions could be multi-step combat missions, and Hero Missions could have been little instances created by players (kind of a mix of the heroics from NGE and Storyteller from NGE).
Even with these issues SWG is still the game I play, because the gameplay and freedom in the game has no equal. I watch the twin suns rise and fall, and find new adventures every day in game with my fellow players.
If you play/played SWGEMU/SWG what are some things on your wishlist?
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Comments
On the melee professions, I feel this only holds true for PvE but disagree that TKM was the best, in fact, I'd say it was the worst of the 4 melee professions. It was certainly the easiest to play and the ability to meditate was very useful, however the lack of weapons and lack of mind attack really hurt it in pvp. Much better to go swordsman for massive mind damage (plus speed sliced scythe in pve), fencer for damage types / avoidance or pikeman for crazy mind dots. I personally had a swords template with soft-capped defensive stats plus a bit of medic/doctor for high end pve. Was an epic tank and was still pretty good in pvp.
Ranged professions....you're relying on kiting and self-heals in pvp. However, good ranged players seriously kicked ass and as a melee player, riflemen were my bane! Just continuous kiting + mind shots would wear me down quick enough, all they really needed was the occasional knockdown to get them out of a bad situation. Only time ranged really sucked is solo pve when you got penalised for shooting point blank, but im assured there were enough ways round it. Close friend of mine had master rifles / master doc template for a while and could solo some epic stuff so can't be all bad!
As for the rest, yeh, pretty much agree. SWG was a great starting point, if only they'd taken it further and developed systems / classes more, such as smuggling, bounty hunting etc.
It depends on the server. The main server (Basilisk) has really high pop but its set to get wiped with final build release. My server has a pretty bad economy to be honest because of low pop and server old timers having a monopoly on materials. You might want to look on Reddit for the listing by population, but keep in mind how long it takes to build up a bank of materials in SWG. I resorted to buying some subs from existing crafters so that I could make stuff sooner.