MMORPG.com Star Wars Galaxies Correspondent Jef Reahard writes this article on crafting and the recent crafting changes that have come with Update 5.

The crafting game within-the-game of Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies was easily the most complex, rewarding, and intricate MMORPG economic system this side of EVE Online, and it was one of the great tragedies of the infamous New Game Enhancements (NGE) that this sublime system of resource management, trade, and customization was nearly blown away in an attempt to appeal to a larger audience. Happily, all is not lost, as the current Star Wars Galaxies development team has been taking baby steps in the general direction of recapturing the magic of the old system, despite runaway server inflation and the misgivings of some players weaned on the simplistic auction house systems of other games.

Read it all here.

I played Star Wars Galaxies for close to three years. In the beginning the game was beutiful. It had lots of great features that many other online games did not had, but which really set the game above everyone else, with items like housing and a true crafting profession, and the decay made the profession useful! Jedi where ofcource my main goal. Or rather a Dark Jedi. After 1,5 years of dedication I reached my goal! It wasnt easy, and it wasnt pretty, but in the end i got there, to the envy of many!

For a while the game was fine. There where something for everyone, and each class had a true depth in it. Crafters could really sink into the profession to the smallest details. jedi where a true power and hated. So hated that we had truly dedicated Bounty Hunters who hunted us. It created a nice PvP system! Want to be a jedi? Well, the price is: you get hunted! Then we had other professions which had just as much immersion and depth as the allready mentioned classes. For a while, it was nice! Not perfect but nice!

Then NGE where supposed to be launched\ under a cloud first of secrecy. In the beginning no word leaked out, so we where not really asked what we wanted! And one day it smashed on live server. Jedi where now more common then the sand on the desertplanet Tattoine. Crafters where told to stick it. Completely shafted. Complete new stupid control mechanism - to a new system I LOATHE with passion! so many things changed! And nothing to the better! Worse: SOE proved they did not listen either! LOADS out of outcry on the forums. Result: people got banned. The insurrection spread into the game. We had huuuuge demonstration outside most of the cities. SOES answer in the end: ban the players! So much for the listening.

I am usually a very patient player. I am an adult and I know that if you want to get things through the system you present your arguments in a calm manner! But when we got told to stick it litterally my last words to a SOE DEV where. F**K YOU SOE! F**K YOU ALL! F**K OFF YOU DEVS AND MAY YOU ALL GO TO HELL AND TAKE YOUR GAME WITH YOU!

My words still stand.

I got banned efcource with so many others. We had one things in common: we loathed the totally ignoranse of SOE. And their arrogance to their playerbase!

I had spent so much time in this game to accept such a complete screwover! Even worse not being listened to at all! Heck, there where thousands who demostrated in the weeks following the NGE! But they told us in diplomatic wordings: STICK IT!

Those demonstrations where the last time I have seen the cities crowded.

In the time following I got banned and left the game I have got 5 please return mails from SOE. The first two offered me free 7 days trial. The third a 14 day trial and the fourth and fifth a whole month!

All have been ignored.

Just as I ignore all the games from SOE

Good bye SOE and good riddance

"Finally, the new update features a radical change in the resources required for munitions trading, with an eye toward starting all prospective smiths on relatively equal footing and negating any advantages enjoyed by folks who've been hoarding rare resources for years. "

What's the point then?  I was one of those crafters (Armorsmith) who had to start with just any junk resources.  I still sold my stuff because it was cheap...but eventually I had great resources.  It took 6 months before I was making the best armor on the server.  If everyone starts out on equal footing, what's the point of being a long-term crafter?  How could you possibly differentiate your stuff from any one-day-old crafter if everything you produce is the same?

Im not bitter about the NGE.  I loved SWG, gave the NGE a couple of months, then quit.  It's SOE's game, they can do what they want to with it.  If they would truely bring back crafting to the point where though hard work/play you could make stuff better than your competition, I would probably come back.

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all is not lost, as the current Star Wars Galaxies development team has been taking baby steps in the general direction of recapturing the magic of the old system

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More like Mycoplasma genitalium steps, It's 2008 now and the NGE happened in 2005 I think, yeah, that development team is on top of things. Maybe after their done looking at crafters they can start looking at what really happened to the Mary Celeste.

Good article, heavily biased in both directions.  Regardless of what Archemedes thinks, the crafting system is onyl as good as the game behind it, though.  An awesome crafting system bolted onto a trainwreck of a game such as the NGE is a crafting system wasted.  I understand the thrust of the article was to point out that particular facet of the game, but in all reality, reintroducing what was torn away with crafting without reintroducing what was torn away with the rest of the game would only appeal to savants.  Complex mechanics in a game designed to be so simple a lobotomized monkey could play it just seems so counter-productive.

SOE: Reintroduce the 32 professions, make Jedi an alpha class that you have to role-play to keep (and make it extremely difficult to obtain), pay no attention to the duelists who complain, and concentrate on mass-scale PvP battles.  Oh, and might as well get me a mocha latte while you're at it; I know that's about as likely to happen.  But all of the above would improve the world we live in.

The crafting game within-the-game of Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies was easily the most complex, rewarding, and intricate MMORPG economic system this side of EVE Online, and it was one of the great tragedies of the infamous New Game Enhancements (NGE) that this sublime system of resource management, trade, and customization was nearly blown away in an attempt to appeal to a larger audience. Happily, all is not lost, as the current Star Wars Galaxies development team has been taking baby steps in the general direction of recapturing the magic of the old system...

This is a perfect example of how mismanaged SWG was and still is.  I'm not applying blame or negativity against the corespondent; but rather using the statement as another supportive measure.

According to the management, SWG was too complex and required too much reading...

Cripes.

There's still no decay.  There's still a simplistic, poorly implemented ripoff of WoW combat system, with the added stupidity of the default pseudo-FPS interface that is totally inappropriate for a game only played over the Internet.

The NGE is still there.  The NGE is utter garbage.

The game was destroyed, and the pathetic attempts to bring back the "old game" will be futile as long as you have overt levels and rigid classes.  Crafting is as dumbed down now as it was when the NGE took away all the tradeoffs in crafting that there were under the original game.

Do not get me started on what a pathetic mess Beast Master is compared to CH or BE.

Just don't.

Is it fear i smell, insert new BioWare SW mmo, or the other guys SWG. It's not only a little to late for SOE to be making statements that they are trying to bring back the old magic, but it is retarded for them to think they can stay with the NGE format and think people will be falling over themselves trying to resub with this new crap of a patch.

SOE can screw up a iron ball, and will continue to do buisness as usual on all other games they create. In actuality, do they really seem like a company that gives a rats ass about this particular product. If they did, they wouldn't have changed it in the first place and or would have seen the mistake shortly after the change and changed it back.

It's kinda of funny how they can boast their advancements of SWG, yet are still forcing people to pay for a transfer off one of the 20 out of 25 dead servers, without feeling one bit of guilt.

Does crafting matter in SWG? Not as long as the uber items that are obtained off the the instance boss is still in game, as well as no deacy on anything.

So what that a WS can make a great weapon and it's a bio-link item. Without decay it will last forever and all it really does is keep inflation sky high.

SWG is shot and they know this. They know that their days are numbered and are trying to grasp for anything to keep the little players they have and bring a few more on board until that time comes.

Originally posted by musicmann

Is it fear i smell, insert new BioWare SW mmo, or the other guys SWG. It's not only a little to late for SOE to be making statements that they are trying to bring back the old magic, but it is retarded for them to think they can stay with the NGE format and think people will be falling over themselves trying to resub with this new crap of a patch.

 

To be clear, Sony hasn't said any such thing, those are my words, and I am in no way affiliated with them other than paying my $30.00 - $45.00 a month since launch. The new dev team isn't stupid, they know that they're on a sinking ship, or at best, a very small ship catering to a niche audience, but the point is that this hasn't stopped them from trying to work with what they've been given and improve the game.

For that, they are to be commended, not ridiculed. I have as much reason to hate SOE as any of you, perhaps more (given the amount of time and money I have invested in SWG since beta), but the hate in this thread is misdirected, since nearly everyone responsible for the NGE is no longer there.

The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.”

Its funny, that the thing that went untouched front he NGE (except in regards to the final items, the process and mechanic is still the same) Is the best part of the game, and only thing worth talking about...still.

Originally posted by jedijef

Originally posted by musicmann

Is it fear i smell, insert new BioWare SW mmo, or the other guys SWG. It's not only a little to late for SOE to be making statements that they are trying to bring back the old magic, but it is retarded for them to think they can stay with the NGE format and think people will be falling over themselves trying to resub with this new crap of a patch.

 

 

To be clear, Sony hasn't said any such thing, those are my words, and I am in no way affiliated with them other than paying my $30.00 - $45.00 a month since launch. The new dev team isn't stupid, they know that they're on a sinking ship, or at best, a very small ship catering to a niche audience, but the point is that this hasn't stopped them from trying to work with what they've been given and improve the game.

For that, they are to be commended, not ridiculed. I have as much reason to hate SOE as any of you, perhaps more (given the amount of time and money I have invested in SWG since beta), but the hate in this thread is misdirected, since nearly everyone responsible for the NGE is no longer there.

The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.”

Wow, sorry for ruffling your feathers. Smedley is still in charge and that's enough of a reason to not ever play a SOE game again. I feel sorry that you are such a NGE fanboi that you can sit and defend all the wrong doing that SOE still does to it's current customers.

Sad but SWG is a dead game.

Would it have a real FPS system NGE would have been successful.

Now it isn't an FPS, socialisation is dead, crafting isn't as good as it was even merging the servers would not help as it only takes 3 days to bot-level a char to 80.

Pre-CU servers could attract some players but would be the death of SWG.

Now the word is out, Bioware is indeed making a SW MMO, every SW fan is looking towards it.

SOE is just milking the players as much as they can.

As any others I don't want any business with a compagny that treat their customers as SOE did, that's why I will never ever buy a Sony product anymore, either console, game, TV, MP3 player, you name it.

God I loved the crafting in this game, there was nothing else like it. Too bad that game is gone. Oh well, moving along, these are not the droids I'm looking for.

Originally posted by musicmann

Originally posted by jedijef

Originally posted by musicmann

Is it fear i smell, insert new BioWare SW mmo, or the other guys SWG. It's not only a little to late for SOE to be making statements that they are trying to bring back the old magic, but it is retarded for them to think they can stay with the NGE format and think people will be falling over themselves trying to resub with this new crap of a patch.

 

 

To be clear, Sony hasn't said any such thing, those are my words, and I am in no way affiliated with them other than paying my $30.00 - $45.00 a month since launch. The new dev team isn't stupid, they know that they're on a sinking ship, or at best, a very small ship catering to a niche audience, but the point is that this hasn't stopped them from trying to work with what they've been given and improve the game.

For that, they are to be commended, not ridiculed. I have as much reason to hate SOE as any of you, perhaps more (given the amount of time and money I have invested in SWG since beta), but the hate in this thread is misdirected, since nearly everyone responsible for the NGE is no longer there.

The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.”

 

Wow, sorry for ruffling your feathers. Smedley is still in charge and that's enough of a reason to not ever play a SOE game again. I feel sorry that you are such a NGE fanboi that you can sit and defend all the wrong doing that SOE still does to it's current customers.

You didn't ruffle my feathers at all, I just wanted to be clear on the fact that I said those things, when your comment attributed them to Sony.  As far as me defending them, that's comical, but I forgive you for not knowing me well enough to know how laughable that truly is. 

Cheers.

The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.

Very nice article and I will give you credit, you are 99% correct, except people will never come back!!

As a vet from day one, 5 accounts purchased in the first month, 3 master crafters running one of the best known armor crafting and clothing service on Flurry in the old days, I cry for those days back.  Few side notes though..

everything that has been added in the last 3 years are what was in the system prior but working corrrectly now.

MOD bits-  SEA's in the old system  (100% working better now)

Creature handler=  (grind fest now to get them up to level, but I like that you can make what you want) 50% better in some way I say.

Heck - we could put our pets on display PRE CU (i had a crayte head in my large house), now we can stuff pets........  WOW.. but it was in 5 years ago..

Mods to guns-  WOW we had that 4 years ago.  Remember killing Kraytes for pearls before JEDI for tissues......

I agree the new game is just now getting awsome and has some very nice things.   However 2 problems will allways make it so that the old players (well most ) will never come back.

1-THE CLASSES HAVE BEEN GUTTED!!!-   How can I play 1 of 9 classes now when prior I could make 1 of 32, and I could have even one box from all 32 classes if I wanted.  (SORRY but the versatility of char creation is about 1% of what it was)

2- SOE/SWG staff LIE!!!-  Sorry but I stayed around and payed for almost 2 years after it was junk, and I even went to 3 BS sessions.  I drove 6 hours each way the last one, just to hear them tell us it would get better...  I was told that weapon smiths was going to be next upgrade IN LA 2.5 years ago, and again in vegas more than a year ago.  They made collections and EPIC encounters .. WOW.. (sorry but they never cared about anything we said at those meetings)

It took them 3 years to fix the loot system-  Ill be their are still tons of items that are usless (broken quests)..   How about the parts of a printer (that use to make a killer poster)   They still have junk dropping but took away +to HP Peko Peko (spelling) feathers 3 years ago..... (heck they are least work but dont drop!!)

3.5 years to fix weapon smiths.  SOrry I watched a major upgrade to every other fighting class twice at least before they fixed it.  

HELL it took them 3 years to make a armor re- die kit.  (that was asked for when color was added to armor 4 years ago when we still had HAM)

SWG with advertising could of beaten WOW hands down, if they had put the polish on the system like they have been doing now to the original 32 professions.  ..  WOW would be a word for SWG.....

Just my 2 cents.. take it or leave it..

"skinning has been added"  they are still a WoW wannabe

"the scatter pistol may return with capped stats" why the capped stats?

as long as decay is out (or you dont loose items like in EvE) this crafting system shall forever be a useless pile of crap.  bring back the decay and that will solve so many problems

I agree, I wish decay would return as well, but unfortunately those of us that feel that way are in the minority. People are now weaned on easy mode it seems, and it's practically unthinkable for a game to come out that has consequences like breaking equipment.

Given that, this new system is about the best you could hope for if you're still into SWG crafting. No, its not as good as the pre-NGE system, but its quite a bit better than it has been, which is good enough for folks that either a) love Star Wars enough to stay, or b) love the sandbox/roleplay/virtual world elements enough to stay.

As a side note, all of the folks who are mentioning the Bioware SW mmo as the second coming, I'd say don't get your hopes up. Given the current market, there's very little chance that that game will be anything other than a WoW/LotRo style themepark (which is not to say it won't be successful, I'm sure it will be, but it will not recapture what SWG once was).  I would be very surprised if it has even half of the sandbox elements that made pre-NGE SWG unique. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.

Originally posted by edgehead

God I loved the crafting in this game, there was nothing else like it. Too bad that game is gone. Oh well, moving along, these are not the droids I'm looking for.

QFT

This sight has a swg correspondent? Did you just pick names out of a hat?

Let me spell it out for you, anyone possessing the knowledge neccessary to really give you an in depth insiders perspective concerning anything in star wars galaxies quit playing this game years ago. It is a blight on the face of the genre and completely tarnishes any value found on this website by association.

Don't Subscribe to the Lie.

Honestly, whats the point of tweaking the crafting?  I don't know anyone or any old guild members that play this game.   With a new SW MMO in the works, who is gonna give a rats ass about a crafting change.   I just don't understand who is playing this game still .  It boggles the mind this game isnt dead yet.