Star Wars Galaxies

Originally posted by Hadean

Put yourself in the shoes of the developers during the creation of SWG for a moment. You are discussing how to put Jedi in the game and are given carte blanche on how to implement it. As you are brainstorming several problems present themselves.

 

1) No Jedi: Nothing to grind for. Player Jedi are non-existent. Canon is absolutely preserved. Bad from a marketing point of view.

2) Alpha Class: Very long grueling grind to achieve Jedi. Rarity somewhat high and canon is more or less preserved. The Jedi are powerful. Bad from a marketing point of view.

3) Easy Jedi/Starter: Simple Jedi attainment, rarity is low and canon is not preserved. The strength of the Jedi is lowered for balance issues. Good from a marketing point of view.

 

It seems to me that developing Jedi for this game was doomed for failure. How do you make the game marketable without shredding canon to pieces and ending up with Jedi running rough-shod over the galaxy during a time when the central tenant of the story says they are almost extinct. I can only come to one conclusion. You must either say to hell with Canon, or to hell with Jedi.

 

I would like your opinions on how you would have implemented it if you were in charge.

  Simple,as it was realy early on,it's mind numbing hard to become one (holo grind,usualy need to grind atleast 12 proffesions) ,perma death + BH system (if you die,you start with novice jedi,all previous trees are reset) ,you are very powerfull (alpha class).You barerly saw any jedi till the village,most jedis stayed as hidden as possible to avoid BH etc.

 The only problem with this system was that people whined that it is too hard to unlock jedi (you have whiners in every game,basicly kids crying they cant be jedis from the get go)

Jedi should be an alpha class but they need restrictions or they unbalance the game, the perma death thing in SWG worked great but people whined to much about it, so from a marketing perspective a bad thing. What about introducing a massive restriction on items/loot and attainable objects. This would fit in with believable jedi lore, ie not being allowed to own possessions, without taking away from the original sci-fi self aware samurai ideal. People ultimately want the power to show off in game, this would address the balance a little and would encourage more people to add more accounts as they tried to appease their love for power - Jedi class, and love for trinkets - other classes, good for game balance and good for marketing.

Option 2 (Alpha Class) was marketed pretty heavily.  So bad for marketing it wasnt.

Option 4- change the darn setting of the game to accomodate the Jedi lovers.

Option 5- Set it prior to Episode 3 and in January 2004 introduce an episode, Order 66, ie Darth Vader comes hunting you down to permadeath your FS character as was originally mentioned in the marketing of the game.  Oh the backlash!

Originally posted by Aogos

Jedi should be an alpha class but they need restrictions or they unbalance the game, the perma death thing in SWG worked great but people whined to much about it, so from a marketing perspective a bad thing. What about introducing a massive restriction on items/loot and attainable objects. This would fit in with believable jedi lore, ie not being allowed to own possessions, without taking away from the original sci-fi self aware samurai ideal. People ultimately want the power to show off in game, this would address the balance a little and would encourage more people to add more accounts as they tried to appease their love for power - Jedi class, and love for trinkets - other classes, good for game balance and good for marketing.

 With the exception of taking out the perma death to me that helps keep the jedi in the shadows as per the cannon. Basically Jedi should only be able to own their saber, robes, a single house, and modest furnishings for said house,

I rarelly post on this forum... but this is a good topic...

permadeath, the BH system and lightsaber TEF/visibility was, in theory, a great system. You were incredibly powerful, but in a way always fearing your own shadow. that is the closest thing to canon "SW Real life" (i know it is a weird expression, but bare with it) possible.

But there is a drawback.... you don't have a connection lost, or a client crash or go loading on the starport in canon Sw.... I personally took down 9 jedis when the permadeath system existed and jedi coul use composite armor. I did not took them in a fair fight. I got them while loading or logging in .... It is not really very fair for the guy that unlocked the jedi was it?

Now in their place, what  I would have done, was something somewhat simpe. the system to control the jedi population was in place already. it just needed to be made really operational.I would have buffed BH's in way they would become balanced with  the jedi when fighting the jedi.. Special armor with LS and force resists, somekind of force lockdown field, .. it is not like it is hard to figure something that would make BH's powerful vs jedi and at same time, didnt alter BH's power vs the rest of the population. T. zhan got the yasalamari (?) out of this hat, and , voilá, some second rate smugglers could overpower Luke Skywalker....

there would be a lot of whines from the jedi community of course but who cares. If a jedi played smart it would take a lot of time to get on the terminals. If needed , you could take jedi visibility off while grouped, what allowed the jedi players to grind in a moral social way.... but that visibility would kick in if seen by non group players... there were so many ways to solve the thing....

in the end SOE took the , to a point righ approach, jedi's starting profession, slightly better in many aspects others in some areas, but nothing really special--- sadly with that canon and imersion took one directly in the groins.... we have cantinas full of jedi fighting one another while stormtroopers pass 5 m away... 

People will hate my idea for the system, well I had two ideas both of them no one would have liked.

1)No Player Jedi, however a Player "Force Sensitive" Profession.

The idea behind it is this, you have no true "Jedi" running around. Rather the Player would unlock a Profession that would allow them some very minor force powers and the use of a Lightsaber. For the most part it would just be another Melee Profession. You would still have to craft a Lightsaber (One Handed, Two Handed so on) It just wouldn't be "Alpha" for the most part.

For the most part the Force Sensitive would be like Luke when he was just starting out. It wouldn't be anything bigger then all of that, maybe some new skills and specials could be add'ed down the road if and when the timeline was bumped up.

People I feel would have been unhappy as many people feel Jedi = Uber. However the idea behind doing it this way is to keep some form of game balance in. Lightsaber Damage wouldn't have gone in, rather Damage would have been based off the type of Color Crystal in the Saber.

2)Jedi is rewarded and unlocked, by a GM and for Players who have helped the game out in someway.

Now this idea many people would have hated, however I feel this could have worked out somewhat better not just for SWG but MMO's as a whole.

See one of the faults MMO's tend to have is they tend to reward people doing things that well... Don't help the game out imho. Back in my UO days I remember one of the Galhads (Two Players well known for being looters and pk's) talked about how he found that he was much more rewarded by being a jerk and being 'evil'. One of his coments was also about how most MMO's never have any real way to reward "good" gameplay and never really anything too harsh for those that do act up.

This idea would come down to having the Dev's and others pick out Players well known for doing things on the server they play on. Putting on really good events, helping newbies out, doing Role Played Storylines and what not. If the Dev's or those running the system in this way feel a Player has shown good gameplay, they reward him for it. And Jedi is a good reward... One good thing that could come out of a System like this is you would show that if you are going to be nice, helpful and not run around like an ass whenever you get in game you can get rewarded for it.

The fault with this system is well it would have never worked. You would have gotten tons of people posting about how "they" should be unlocked. Or how Player A shouldn't have Jedi unlocked cuz all he did was make some stupid story about how him and his friends killed a Krayt.

The idea kinda falls under something they did in UO, Blessing Player Run Inn's and what not (Blessing was a GM came and add'ed things that Players are unable to make or get in game also those items cannot be picked up, deleted so on.) It ended mostly due to people screaming about how unfair it was.

Really over all whatever SOE did with Jedi in SWG wouldn't have worked, and hasn't worked. I feel whatever system they put in would have just ended up in some kinda mess and with Players throwing fits about it. Be it about how it doesn't belong in the game due to canon, how the whole Jedi vs BH system needs to go, so on and so forth.

SWG just showed that an Alpha Class just does not work. And is not heathy for the games long term.