Ok, first of all, you’re an employee of this site and shouldn’t be keeping a scarcastic flame war going. That said…

SWG was a truly Amazing experience for me, and my friends. It truly immersed you in a world that you SO wanted to be a part of since childhood, and was the funnest game you could ever play. Then, it was destroyed. I often find myself daydreaming about pre-CU/NGE, with that euphoric feeling, go look at the site/forums, and get SLAMMED back to reality.

There were a few awesome things about this article:

1)      The people responsible for NGE are gone. Thank God. They ruined the game.

2)      “Recapturing the magic of the old system”… all their doing is scrambling to fix the überest mistake in the history of online games. Seriously, they need to stop trying, they will never fix it. Even IF they brought back EXACTLY the same game as at launch, bone armor and all, a rare few would come back. They’re already over it, and wouldn’t want to deal with SOE, nor give them their money or time.

3)      The great thing about even the “broken” items was what people did with them! Creating statues or decorations inside your house/guild hall was awesome! Remember there were competitions for decorating. Players would join guilds simply because they knew how to make an extraordinary guild-hall.

4)      AS/WS – I have to say, I do like the skinning idea, but decay def needed to be a factor.

5)      Why are they starting people over… again!? This is another point-in-fact that they DO NOT care about veterans of the game, people who kept their company going from the beginning, and even those crazy die-hards who still play now. Other MMOs REWARD veterans (e.g. - CoX/Eve-O), and care about their input, even appointing representatives from the player-base to help make development decisions (remember this started to happen briefly on SWG forums, but it was a huge lie as nothing was implemented, and NGE swooped the rug out from under it anyways).

6)      EVE-Online is the closest thing there is to the crafting/player-run economy of this game, and thus there are sO many SWG refugees on that game, including myself.

7)      I only pray that before Bioware installs the original discs of SWG, and takes a LOT of notes. Then reads every forum post ever written on SWG on the web (that will give them an idea of how much hype and amazement there was to that game… and then how much disappointment and hatred), and takes more notes. Then read every fan-site with suggestions/wishlists for SWG, and take even more notes. – Take the lead of Blizzard with Starcraft2 development, but not with World of Warcraft game mechanics or ideas.

8)      I hope George Lucas understands how Bastardized his storyline was by NGE SWG… And I’ll be very surprised if he allows (2) games of the same type to co-exist with each other in competition with each other, especially while one is completely non-canonical.

9)      I’m sorry but I must completely disagree with your statement to commend the developers. As individuals, perhaps they are doing the best at their job description, and bringing home paychecks for their families. As a whole, they have utterly failed and taken the game in BUNK directions, consistently. As a company, the direction to the developers has been obviously horrendous. No matter how much you improve a sinking ship, it won’t look any better at the bottom of the ocean. In fact, all you’ve done is wasted effort on what will soon be junk, effort which could have created a splendorous new ship for people to enjoy for future to come.

10)  I also do not believe that the responses on this forum represent the minority of SWG-enthusiasts/MMO gamers however. Why do you think there is NO_ONE on the SWG servers these days…? Any have you seen one comment in support of the anything SWG on this site as a whole? … tell me who the minority is then, and tell me to whom SOE has been catering?

11)  PLEASE do not spend anymore company time publicizing or reviewing a dead game! Not only is it dead, but it is an now an embarrassment and learning lesson for all MMOs… don’t give them fuel to keep going. Instead, spend this time investigating what your users really want to know about: Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Add it into your lists of games under development, create a forum for it, work hard to influence the development of the game toward the liking of your users. Then this website will actually be a useful resource and voice of the gaming community instead of a promoter of CRAP like [dead]NGE-SWG.

</rant>

I apologize if I have offended anyone, this post has just been 3+ yrs in the making now.

 Not sure how to catagorize this thread.  Certainly have to disagree drastically with the OP.

Without item decay you still have a fancified FPS.  How absurd to think that this MINOR change makes anything different.

Just because the copied Wow's method of attaching weapons to the avatar does necessarily make a good crafting system.  Wow's crafting system is probably it's weakest link.

I love this quote:

 "I can say without a shadow of a doubt that crafting in SWG is the best crafting system I have ever encountered."

Not since NGE.  The existing crafting system in SWG is pretty much the laughing stock of the industry.  I even think DAoC's crappy system is far better.

Sorry to the OP, but you are living in a very surreal world, time to get back to reality.

Oh and by the way, Smedley, the original NGE architect is still there, does not matter if no one else is, he was the one responsible for the NGE debacle, he put the team together that created the NGE mess and told them what he wanted.  So let's just ignore that "the original team left" comment because it too is a silly observation.

Originally posted by surfsk8snow

Ok, first of all, you’re an employee of this site and shouldn’t be keeping a scarcastic flame war going. That said…

 

He is not an emplyee of this site.

Let me quote Craig:

Originally posted by Admin

Correspondents are not official staff members.  They are fans and regular site members like you that we ask to contribute articles to give resources to players.  When they post in the forums it is not part of their role as a correspondent.

Heh, I felt the original system was hideously complicated for no good reason. Tiny stat modifiers? Useless.

Hundreds of materials of various qualities? Stupid overkill. Hasn't anyone here ever heard of "refining"? I should be able to take that low quality ore/leather/whatever, and refine it to make it better... sheesh. That way, I have ONE stack of it in my limited inventory space, instead of 100.

I find it humorous that the original author thought that the 2nd slot is a big negative to crafters. Not so.

It let more people do it, rather than just the people like my good friend who had 6 accounts and borrowed three others to dominate the rare materials on his server and utterly control the weaponsmithing profession.

Yeah, it was so great one guy controlled his server's weaponsmithing... great for the casual player who wanted to play one. Try to sell something? He'd undercut and drive you out of business.

He did pay for his college education and rent with the money he made ebaying the credits, however.

This crafting change is huge, there is now not 1 loot drop weapon that holds a candle to player crafted weapons. You can even "de-construct" some of the loot drop weapons and use their appearance and select your own elemental damage type.

I just had another Nym's carbine redone by a weaponsmith

It was 908 dps 31 acid elemental

It's now  1120 dps 50 heat elemental, with a socket an additional 225 health, and +25 to crit

Which one would you prefer?

Although I most admit this change is a step in the right direction, it is not enough to bring me back to the game I once loved so much. I will be keeping my eyes on it in the next few months though.

I agree with the majority of posters on this thread that this crafting change is all in vain.  SWG died when the NGE came out.  Now the SWG Emulators are closing to launching a lot of old pre CU vets are looking to play that(for free for the good pre cu  version of the game, unless you make a donation) and with the devolpment of KOTORO I dont see this making ANY difference at all in this game.  So the answer to the OP, does it matter....perhaps if the game was flurishing, but it's been dead since the NGE so no it doesnt matter at all!!!

Originally posted by BigBlackWook

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.

Eh, sorry, but that's incorrect. I've been playing since beta, and have likely forgotten more about the game than the quitters ever knew.  Thanks for your keen insight though. 

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

As far as me keeping a flame thread going, that's not my intention at all. I joined this site a couple of years ago because I enjoy forum discussions, which is all that is going on here. Sure some people are venting their Sony anger, that's to be expected, but I've not taken offense to anything said, and I hope no one else has either.

Additionally, you guys who are claiming that SWG is 'dead' are off the mark. Is it in good health? Who knows, Sony doesn't publish subscriber numbers (and Woodcock's numbers are guesses). However, many thousands of people still play it, and so if the powers that be decide its worthy of coverage, who are you to suggest otherwise?

Yeah the Bioware game is coming, and I'll obviously be playing that as well, but SWG continues to be one of a very few mmo's that has sandbox elements, in addition to being the only current SW game, and it will therefore keep its niche audience until they decide to close down the servers, regardless of whether or not angry former players claim that it is dead.  If it doesn't appeal to you anymore, I totally respect that, but don't assume your opinion carries weight with anyone other than you.

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

A better title for this news discussion should have been:

Star Wars Galaxies: Correspondent - Does SWG really matter?

Answer:

No.

Nothing to see here, move along.....

Originally posted by jedijef
<snip> Fortunately, the developer(s) responsible for this crafting dumb-down have moved on <snip>

Sadly so have the people with real passion and creative flare that created the basis for this game.  What is left is a small team that can only clone concepts from other games and rehash small bits of game play when they are able to figure out how it works. 

Also there is nothing I see as commendable from SOE even if the team is a group of interns making the best of a dead situation.  It is still just a group of people giving false hope.

"it's not great now but we plan to make it better" was the games theme since SWG launched too early.

"it's not great now but we plan to make it better" was the games theme when the CU was announced.

"it's not great now but we plan to make it better" was the games theme when the NGE dropped.

"it's not great now but they plan to make it better" has been the overall theme of this FIVE year old game since day ONE.

It comes as no surprise that a SWG correspondent has typed something which should of been titled ""it's not great now but they plan to make it better"

So... crafting is almost back to where it was three years ago? Huh. I guess that's something.

Originally posted by Tolkemec

So... crafting is almost back to where it was three years ago? Huh. I guess that's something.

And what's worse is it is heralded as some kind of triumph!

This game has been nothing but 10 steps back and one forward, all the while a handful of people singing in chorus "the game is getting better every day". I suppose that by some miracle the game returned to what it was 3+ years ago the same people would still be singing the same tune - only this time they'd be right   ; )

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

 

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.

player housing?

I find it funny that SOE takes 100% of the criticisms for the failure of SWG when Lucas Arts had their hands in it as well.  Please believe me when I say, "Nothing went into SWG without LA's eyes on it first."

Nothing is ever said about the focus groups they held that said "An FPS would be better" and  "Make it more like KOTOR."  I am also someone that was hurt by the NGE, but I believe the hate should be shared between the two companies that guided the changes to the game.  

I hope the new company has some creative control over the project.

"but SWG continues to be one of a very few mmo's that has sandbox elements"

How about providing some supporting evidence of such?  From my point of view, all the sandbox elements were removed with NGE and I have not seen any added.  This crafting change just implements something Blizzard put in their games 4 years ago, it really does not change crafting in SWG much at all.  I never found crafting tedious in pre NGE SWG.  It is most certainly tedious now.

You want sandbox, look at Eve.  You want a FPS, look at SWG. 

Hopefully the Kotor people will be aware of this fiasco and avoid all the mistakes that were made. 

As to the current state of SWG, I have a station account and occassionally log into my characters in SWG.  All of those servers are dead.   I am shocked if I see another player and I usually try visiting several cities when I play.

I rolled a crafter and really enjoyed the process. Even with the simplified process it took time and effort to get the best resources possible to make gear people wanted to buy.

The problem with changes like these is they are impacting an increasingly small number of players and it makes it harder and harder to come into the game or even catch up.

For example, my main was a BH, occasionally a mando,  and had many millions of credits in the bank, largely obtained through crafting some of the best ship-parts on my server. I took a little break from SWG shortly after the RE system for ground-based loot came in. I cam back a few weeks later to find I was now significantly disadvantaged in pvp - a major part of SWG gameplay nowadays. Even in PvE and in instances, I needed to get the best possible mod bits to be useful to a group. So I turned my trader to making the mods. It does take a long time to craft the trash parts to RE into a +35. Enough time in fact that I could barely begin to make some of the collections.

IT sounds like that situation has been remedied a little as there are now so many +35's going around they are much more affordable. But making more exclusive items, weapons etc., is surely only going to roll things back.

I'm not a against leet-loot. Its good that that there are some things that are harder to get than others. But when the population of servers is as small as SWG's typical galaxy it puts anyone just coming into or returning to the game at a significant disadvantage. Populations are so small they are easily dominated by long-time players. In a massavely populated game like WoW for example you can pretty much avoid imba players due to the sheer statistical unlikeliness of coming up against them in pvp. But in SWG - you're gonna get owned all the time until you can buy/loot enough credits to get level.

Originally posted by Velsha

I find it funny that SOE takes 100% of the criticisms for the failure of SWG when Lucas Arts had their hands in it as well.  Please believe me when I say, "Nothing went into SWG without LA's eyes on it first."

Nothing is ever said about the focus groups they held that said "An FPS would be better" and  "Make it more like KOTOR."  I am also someone that was hurt by the NGE, but I believe the hate should be shared between the two companies that guided the changes to the game.  

I hope the new company has some creative control over the project.

 

Where did you pull this way of thinking, out your ass. First, SOE admitted that they were the ones who came up and designed the NGE, then sold the idea to LA. Second and i don't even know where you could have come up with this, but SOE never made the NGE to play like KOTOR.

KOTOR was developed by BioWare, and they are the dev company that is making the new SW mmo, and are partners with LA in this project.

Originally posted by jedijef

but don't assume your opinion carries weight with anyone other than you.

 

this guy needs to take his own advice.

FYI I got banned for posting 'Don't Believe the Lie' in this thread. I've had several accounts banned on this site, for attacking the travesty that is star wars galaxies in posts. The biase on this website is so pathetic they've even gone as far as to hire trolls to defend these criminals. These guys are the same ones that post at the oboards, and on every other site that brings up the huge mistake that was the CU/NGE.

It's whatever, these people cant ever accept being wrong and aren't happy unless they are making someone else miserable with their lies and cronyism. I hope I keep getting banned. I never cursed, or threatened anyone or anything other than offer my opinion, if somewhat heatedly, and you just can't stand that can you?

Well I guess the truth hurts.

You don't even need to bother to respond. Just delete this post. That will solve everything. Thank goodness for people like you who insist we play mediocre mismanaged mmos.