http://www.swgalaxies.net/guides/jedi/

Just reading about how the jedi use to work before they dumbed it all down, it's incredible. That's a kind of game I would have played, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't waste my time considering how they would have erased all my hard work.

I imagine pursuing an alternative path as a jedi to use in everyday situations for advancement, hiding your true powers while training them in secret in a secluded location, or even hermiting yourself like Obi-wan. The price of discovery is a a bounty hunter stalking you, waiting for you to reveal yourself and flag yourself as attackable. You may not know who to trust, but the permadeath may also force you to reveal your powers in combat during a critical moment, then your teammates are like "holy shit, bob, you've been a jedi this whole time?!". Of course the later would work better if the game were more PvP oriented and you could just be some cook or crafter who moonlights as a jedi, then suddenly during an imperial aligned player raid on a town you are forced to defend yourself as a jedi in order to escape alive (thus all the more to seclude yourself in a smaller and less populated area)

I'd love to see a new MMO incorporate this basic system as a way of introducing really powerful classes that have a associated risk which keeps their numbers low, and makes really powerful ones even harder to come by. For instance, the original idea of Horizons for Dragons to be special and extremely powerful but difficult to play, although their system was totally different it sought the same basic goal, and it was one of the things I looked forward to most before they scrapped everything that made the game interesting.

One of the problems I've had with MMOs is that it's difficult to let people be exceptional, the reason we can't be wizards in LOTRO, without completely rendering every other class powerless in comparison. But a system like the Jedi, awesome. It not only captures the sense that jedi must hide themselves from imperial oppression from a lore perspective, but that they can also turn battles single handedly if they are powerful enough.

Sorry I think how they originally implemented Jedi was horrible.

I know id love to have all of my hard work nullified by going linkdead.

I followed the game for a while when it was in development but hte nerd rage wars between the EU and movies only people made me scream and I ended up just forgetting it

Switching from permadeath to skill-loss, by itself, would have been fine (if it were still harsh) because the same paradigm remains in place - It's all the other changes which really destroyed the interesting aspects of what use to be jedi. And ultimately even the skill-loss went out the window with it.

The fact that so many are working hard to bring back pre-CU says a lot about the uniqueness of the world. They also recognize that it's the kind of game that would never be allowed to be created again, especially with such a high budget. The new star wars game is just going to be an even dumber version of the existing game, a sci-fi WoW.

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

Originally posted by rikilii

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

The basic idea of SWG was good but it was simply too ambitious for what SOE could deliver.  They went with a very broad sandbox approach but it ended up being extremely shallow since they did not have the resources to fix the bugs and expand the content at a pace that was needed to keep things from imploding.  Once people went through the coolness of the intial setup and skilled up the character they wanted, they realized that all they had left was grinding the same stuff over and over. 

The problem with the jedi was that it was the ultimate cool thing SOE could use to keep otherwise bored players interested and they simply threw it out there and put one of the most pointless grinds possible in front of it. 

Life lesson for players:  just because the description of something sounds cool does not mean that the implementation will not blow chunks. 

even for all the flaws pre-cu had, which was A LOT, probably the most unfinished, buggiest, least updated and uncared for professional game i've ever seen... it's still by far the best mmo i've ever played

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by rikilii

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

 

"The basic idea of SWG was good but it was simply too ambitious for what SOE could deliver.  They went with a very broad sandbox approach but it ended up being extremely shallow since they did not have the resources to fix the bugs and expand the content at a pace that was needed to keep things from imploding. "

For the most part this is right, except they could've easily kept up, and could have provided the necessary fixes and content to make it a great game. Instead, whoever was pulling the strings decided to redo the game, as i'm sure you know, TWICE. The resources required to accomplish a complete restructure of a game could have EASILY went towards content and fixes. Why they didn't? Never know..

If SOE had spent their time fixing bugs and adding new content to the game instead of revamping the combat system and later on the entire game, SWG would eventually have become a great game.

SOE/LA got greedy when they saw how successful WOW had become and wanted some of that for themselves....and destroyed SWG.

I can't believe everyone complaining about the original SWG release gave the game more than the free month as it was likely the greatest sandbox environment I've ever seen.

I mastered multiple professions, built houses, started an incredibly successful business complete with vendors & advertising, amassed millions of resources with the involved prospecting / mining system and used those resources to build a sprawling player city.   I completed the Jaba theme park, fought Rancor’s, Dark Jedi and Ewoks across huge seamless worlds, tamed mounts, financed other entrepreneurs in their own business ventures & watched one of those players become the most successful businessman on Starsider. I made close friends, fought other players & huge AT-ST pets, captured & destroyed player built bases, and role-played my way out of being apprehended by several Empire players when they came looking for me.  Even the cantina's were amazing social scenes filled with people looking to role play in a familiar setting that we all know and love!

The game had it's flaws, but they were getting fixed.  If they'd never released the first expansion & changed how the skill mechanics worked, SWG would be remembered with UO & EQ as redefining the genre.

Originally posted by MystaIV

Originally posted by Torik 

"The basic idea of SWG was good but it was simply too ambitious for what SOE could deliver.  They went with a very broad sandbox approach but it ended up being extremely shallow since they did not have the resources to fix the bugs and expand the content at a pace that was needed to keep things from imploding. "

 

For the most part this is right, except they could've easily kept up, and could have provided the necessary fixes and content to make it a great game. Instead, whoever was pulling the strings decided to redo the game, as i'm sure you know, TWICE. The resources required to accomplish a complete restructure of a game could have EASILY went towards content and fixes. Why they didn't? Never know..

I do not want to make excuses for SOE but from my own experience working with and designing computer software systems, there sometimes comes a time where instead of patching and 'hacking' a flawed complex system it is more prudent to just go back to the drawing board and replace it with a simpler, more robust system. 

From what I saw duing my time playing pre-CU SWG, their entire game system was breaking apart on them.  Game balance was all shot to heck, plenty of professions had broken mechanics and gear.  Whenever they patched something, it would break something else.  The problem was not that a few things were broken but that everything seemed to be held up by string and duct tape. 

IMO SOE were not have the resource and/or were not competent enough to fix what was broken with SWG.  As such restructuring to a more manageable, robust model was the 'smart' way to go.  However, they bungled that too so their 'smart' play went bad on them.

SWG was a great idea.  However, ideas are easy.  SOE should not have taken on the project in the first place since they simply were not capable of implementing it properly.

OP< what's really more disturbing is that we havn't had MORE games like pre-CU.

I blame WoW, of course. Everyone was chasing after that mainstream audience that they forgot what a fucking MMORPG even was.

FINALLY, we are starting to see some devs have the balls to make games with depth. Problem is, with no one willing to finance them, most are probably going to be released un-finished, and end up dead as a result.

Will the industry ever recover??

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Will the industry ever recover??

If Blizzard decides to actually make a MMORPG in the spirit of UO or Everquest then perhaps.  I've given up on MMORPG's but there's a couple of MMO games in different formats which have spiked my interest.  Hopefully their betas don't disappoint.

Originally posted by KalTheo

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Will the industry ever recover??

If Blizzard decides to actually make a MMORPG in the spirit of UO or Everquest then perhaps.  I've given up on MMORPG's but there's a couple of MMO games in different formats which have spiked my interest.  Hopefully their betas don't disappoint.

well, I'm in a couple of interesting betas right now actually...there's potential there for some good, deep sand-boxy games.

I'm just worried that they may not be polished enough at release to hold a crowd...but then I guess if there are enough people who see the potential of these games and stick with them, they might pull through.

I honestly don't expect Blizzard to do anything but milk their cash cow to death, and I can say that i would almost certainly never play a Blizzard game. Just not my thing.

The proving factor for SWG is that it was one of the buggies most flawed games to ever be released. Yet it was also so good, so deep, and so open that people still talk about it daily. I can't begin to imagine how successful a clean version of the same type of game would do if a bugg filled mess can be so memorable. Any other game with that many launch issues would have been left for dead in a month, see AOC for ex. But what it did right it did so well people are still begging for a clean relaunch of it today. Some day, with the blessing of the force a company like Blizz will take the same mechanics, and produce them with a clean game, and the industry will take a leap forward.

Originally posted by MystaIV

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by rikilii

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

 

"The basic idea of SWG was good but it was simply too ambitious for what SOE could deliver.  They went with a very broad sandbox approach but it ended up being extremely shallow since they did not have the resources to fix the bugs and expand the content at a pace that was needed to keep things from imploding. "

 

For the most part this is right, except they could've easily kept up, and could have provided the necessary fixes and content to make it a great game. Instead, whoever was pulling the strings decided to redo the game, as i'm sure you know, TWICE. The resources required to accomplish a complete restructure of a game could have EASILY went towards content and fixes. Why they didn't? Never know..

They saw a dramatic downturn in subscriptinos after CU. And for some reason they thought the solution to that problem was NGE, which effectively killed the game.
 

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

OP< what's really more disturbing is that we havn't had MORE games like pre-CU.

^this.

Anyone have Raph Koster's Phone number? That guy needs to build more mmorpgs.

EDIT: SWG's history, for people who are reading this thread and thinking "wtf is a swg?"

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-viii-star-wars/38466

Originally posted by Trenchgun

http://www.swgalaxies.net/guides/jedi/

Just reading about how the jedi use to work before they dumbed it all down, it's incredible. That's a kind of game I would have played, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't waste my time considering how they would have erased all my hard work.

I imagine pursuing an alternative path as a jedi to use in everyday situations for advancement, hiding your true powers while training them in secret in a secluded location, or even hermiting yourself like Obi-wan. The price of discovery is a a bounty hunter stalking you, waiting for you to reveal yourself and flag yourself as attackable. You may not know who to trust, but the permadeath may also force you to reveal your powers in combat during a critical moment, then your teammates are like "holy shit, bob, you've been a jedi this whole time?!". Of course the later would work better if the game were more PvP oriented and you could just be some cook or crafter who moonlights as a jedi, then suddenly during an imperial aligned player raid on a town you are forced to defend yourself as a jedi in order to escape alive (thus all the more to seclude yourself in a smaller and less populated area)

I'd love to see a new MMO incorporate this basic system as a way of introducing really powerful classes that have a associated risk which keeps their numbers low, and makes really powerful ones even harder to come by. For instance, the original idea of Horizons for Dragons to be special and extremely powerful but difficult to play, although their system was totally different it sought the same basic goal, and it was one of the things I looked forward to most before they scrapped everything that made the game interesting.

One of the problems I've had with MMOs is that it's difficult to let people be exceptional, the reason we can't be wizards in LOTRO, without completely rendering every other class powerless in comparison. But a system like the Jedi, awesome. It not only captures the sense that jedi must hide themselves from imperial oppression from a lore perspective, but that they can also turn battles single handedly if they are powerful enough.

 

  I agree.

But woah with the wizard talk.  There are only 5 wizards in the LOTR,  hence why you cant be one.

Originally posted by rikilii

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

I strongly disagree, I played on the day it launched and I quit the day CU went live.

i remember how horrible the servers were on launch day, how laggy and unstable and how I had to wait 5 hours to download everything (patches) and finally got on.

It was amazing, as a player coming from UO and EQ this game was totally unique.

Too bad they killed it, oh well.

Originally posted by Laughing-man

Originally posted by rikilii

SWG was so full of fail from day one, I can't even begin to imagine why anyone is pining away over it, and that's coming from someone who played it for 2 years from launch.

 

I strongly disagree, I played on the day it launched and I quit the day CU went live.

i remember how horrible the servers were on launch day, how laggy and unstable and how I had to wait 5 hours to download everything (patches) and finally got on.

It was amazing, as a player coming from UO and EQ this game was totally unique.

Too bad they killed it, oh well.

0 x 0 Tattooine.

Walking.....everywhere....

"HOW long does the shuttle take?!!?!!?"

Getting your ASS KICKED by a Kreetle....

trying to figure out why you can't wear your armor...

walking into the med center or cantina with black bars...

Tumbling

ahh....the good ole days.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

http://www.swgalaxies.net/guides/jedi/

Just reading about how the jedi use to work before they dumbed it all down, it's incredible. That's a kind of game I would have played, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't waste my time considering how they would have erased all my hard work.

I imagine pursuing an alternative path as a jedi to use in everyday situations for advancement, hiding your true powers while training them in secret in a secluded location, or even hermiting yourself like Obi-wan. The price of discovery is a a bounty hunter stalking you, waiting for you to reveal yourself and flag yourself as attackable. You may not know who to trust, but the permadeath may also force you to reveal your powers in combat during a critical moment, then your teammates are like "holy shit, bob, you've been a jedi this whole time?!". Of course the later would work better if the game were more PvP oriented and you could just be some cook or crafter who moonlights as a jedi, then suddenly during an imperial aligned player raid on a town you are forced to defend yourself as a jedi in order to escape alive (thus all the more to seclude yourself in a smaller and less populated area)

I'd love to see a new MMO incorporate this basic system as a way of introducing really powerful classes that have a associated risk which keeps their numbers low, and makes really powerful ones even harder to come by. For instance, the original idea of Horizons for Dragons to be special and extremely powerful but difficult to play, although their system was totally different it sought the same basic goal, and it was one of the things I looked forward to most before they scrapped everything that made the game interesting.

One of the problems I've had with MMOs is that it's difficult to let people be exceptional, the reason we can't be wizards in LOTRO, without completely rendering every other class powerless in comparison. But a system like the Jedi, awesome. It not only captures the sense that jedi must hide themselves from imperial oppression from a lore perspective, but that they can also turn battles single handedly if they are powerful enough.

 

That is bad design. The means most of your customers will never see the content. The trick of successful MMOs is to make everyone FEELS special, but not really special in reality. It is the illusion that sells.

  Original SWG the jedi system was awesome..

  Made it hard to be a Jedi since it was random when and if you were picked to be a jedi, stuck to the story and timeperiod of when SWG was taking place.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Trenchgun

http://www.swgalaxies.net/guides/jedi/

Just reading about how the jedi use to work before they dumbed it all down, it's incredible. That's a kind of game I would have played, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't waste my time considering how they would have erased all my hard work.

I imagine pursuing an alternative path as a jedi to use in everyday situations for advancement, hiding your true powers while training them in secret in a secluded location, or even hermiting yourself like Obi-wan. The price of discovery is a a bounty hunter stalking you, waiting for you to reveal yourself and flag yourself as attackable. You may not know who to trust, but the permadeath may also force you to reveal your powers in combat during a critical moment, then your teammates are like "holy shit, bob, you've been a jedi this whole time?!". Of course the later would work better if the game were more PvP oriented and you could just be some cook or crafter who moonlights as a jedi, then suddenly during an imperial aligned player raid on a town you are forced to defend yourself as a jedi in order to escape alive (thus all the more to seclude yourself in a smaller and less populated area)

I'd love to see a new MMO incorporate this basic system as a way of introducing really powerful classes that have a associated risk which keeps their numbers low, and makes really powerful ones even harder to come by. For instance, the original idea of Horizons for Dragons to be special and extremely powerful but difficult to play, although their system was totally different it sought the same basic goal, and it was one of the things I looked forward to most before they scrapped everything that made the game interesting.

One of the problems I've had with MMOs is that it's difficult to let people be exceptional, the reason we can't be wizards in LOTRO, without completely rendering every other class powerless in comparison. But a system like the Jedi, awesome. It not only captures the sense that jedi must hide themselves from imperial oppression from a lore perspective, but that they can also turn battles single handedly if they are powerful enough.

 

 

That is bad design. The means most of your customers will never see the content. The trick of successful MMOs is to make everyone FEELS special, but not really special in reality. It is the illusion that sells.

 

yes and thats why AOC worked so well lol...... I dont want to be "the one" or "special" i want to be just another person in the crowd who sets himself apart through my actions. That is how all MMORPGs should be, and what you described is a design flaw. Its only usefulness is in singleplayer games where ..... there is really only 1 player who can be special

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

That is bad design. The means most of your customers will never see the content. The trick of successful MMOs is to make everyone FEELS special, but not really special in reality. It is the illusion that sells.

 

NO NO NO NO NO!!!

This is the kind of SHIT we're trying to get away from. This "no one can be special" crap just means that everyone must be mediocre.

Bullshit. If I put the effort in to be awesome, goddamnit I earned it, and I expect to have it. If Joe Blow can't do it, then he doesn't get to.

Life's not fair, why the hell should a virtual world be any different??

You're talking like one of LEC / SOE's  "Focus Groups", and we see what THEY can do with a game, right??

I'll take a game where I have goals, and aspirations of greatness over a game where I'm just another fucking clone of "Class X".

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

That is bad design. The means most of your customers will never see the content. The trick of successful MMOs is to make everyone FEELS special, but not really special in reality. It is the illusion that sells.

 

 

NO NO NO NO NO!!!

This is the kind of SHIT we're trying to get away from. This "no one can be special" crap just means that everyone must be mediocre.

Bullshit. If I put the effort in to be awesome, goddamnit I earned it, and I expect to have it. If Joe Blow can't do it, then he doesn't get to.

Life's not fair, why the hell should a virtual world be any different??

You're talking like one of LEC / SOE's  "Focus Groups", and we see what THEY can do with a game, right??

I'll take a game where I have goals, and aspirations of greatness over a game where I'm just another fucking clone of "Class X".

  Im with you... I hate playing games where im a warrior (for example) and and caster class can take me down.. That is trash.  I hate the balancing of classes.  They are different for their own reasons.  I guy with a gun will kill a guy with a sword, but a guy with a sword can kill an unarmed guy.  Thats how these games should be set up.  Makes people who go these weaker classes different.  Which in my op is what MMO's need..

  SWG in the olden days no one was a jedi.  Except for the vary few who got lucky.  and thats how it should have stayed.  None of this " lets let everyone have a shot" crap.

Complex does not equal smart.

In fact simple but powerful/well made is often a higher order of inteligence.

The way the original Jedi stuff worked was dumb.  They did not "dumb it down" it was already dumb.  It was flawed on many fundamental levels.

I do lament the lack of real choices and tradeoffs and interesting character progression in MMOs in the last 4 years.  But old-style SWG Jedi sucked.  Even worse than the current lack of imagination in most DIKU MMOs