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.  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. 

Lol, they didn't have the resources to fix the bugs but they had the resources to change the whole game twice and both times equating to less subs (less money/customers)??? It was more like they got caught up listening to people who didn't have the creative bones to play a sandbox style player ran MMORPG. And then add that to SOE watching Blizzard put out a game with less depth but more polish and so they tried to dumb SWG down so they could try and match or surpass Blizzards sub count. That is why it ended up being such a big failure.
But even still they are making money with the dumbed NGE version and to date pre-CU SWG is one of the most widely missed MMO's of all time. Must be something to it to be so popularly missed.

Once people went through the initial coolness as you put it, those who didn't have a clue how to play a sandbox pvp MMORPG ran to the forums crying their asses off claiming the game sucked while hundreds of thousands kept playing and making their own content. Player made content far surpasses what any company has been able to produce...well for those who know how to create player content. But for the IRL unsociable's, I suspect they reflect that same attitude in MMO's and therefore “don't get it” and maybe they never will <shrug>.

The Jedi-BH system was awesome fun from both ends but you would have never known it if you went into the game at every turn looking for an NPC to tell you what to do and not interacting with the community and experiencing an MMO as it really should be experienced. This is why they make single player games....for the homelies with no social graces who don't understand why MMO's were created in the first place. (no offense)

Your “life lesson” doesn't really apply in this case, cept to those who are just like you and that's not me.

Jedi were the beginning of the end for the original SWG.  Once that first idiot unlocked, all the powergaming grinder tards had to have one too, and the hologrind resulted.  From that, you had basically the entire player base mindlessly grinding 30-odd professions to get the one they really wanted, and in effect completely ignoring everything else there was to do in the sandbox.

In addition to being completely overpowered in combat, Jedi also existed outside of the player-driven economy because they were entirely self-sufficient and didn't need to depend on crafters like everyone else.  Sure, given Star Wars lore, they should have been massively powerful, but they also shouldn't have been in the hands of players, or in the game at all unless they were hiding from Darth Vader at the ass end of space, rarely, if ever, seen by another living soul.

I miss pre-CU SWG a lot, but I don't miss the player Jedi at all.  They're part of the reason the game no longer exists.

Originally posted by Torik

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.

For all it's depth and complexities the game had tons of things that worked fine. Fact is with what? 36 proff's (about 6 times the class depth of other MMO's) SOE might have done allot better and made the game more profitable by simply spending a fraction of what they probably spent to refashion a code by hiring another top end coder who could have handled the job. This of course would have took some time but it would have been more profitable for them I'm sure.

If SOE had put some more consideration into not wasting the players progress and kept some of the things pre-CU had to offer they might have actually had a huge success with transferring the game to a simpler coded system. In the end it seems what has already been said, in that it most likely simply came down to greed.....people make mistakes.

Originally posted by veritas_X

Jedi were the beginning of the end for the original SWG.  Once that first idiot unlocked, all the powergaming grinder tards had to have one too, and the hologrind resulted.  From that, you had basically the entire player base mindlessly grinding 30-odd professions to get the one they really wanted, and in effect completely ignoring everything else there was to do in the sandbox.

In addition to being completely overpowered in combat, Jedi also existed outside of the player-driven economy because they were entirely self-sufficient and didn't need to depend on crafters like everyone else.  Sure, given Star Wars lore, they should have been massively powerful, but they also shouldn't have been in the hands of players, or in the game at all unless they were hiding from Darth Vader at the ass end of space, rarely, if ever, seen by another living soul.

I miss pre-CU SWG a lot, but I don't miss the player Jedi at all.  They're part of the reason the game no longer exists.

Couldn't agree more. I have always had the opinion that it is exactly the jedi that ruined the game and they should have never put those in.

Fist bad step were jedi, second CU and then the NGE was the complete death blow to an immensely unique game. Yep, plenty of flaws and bugs, but the game itself was unique of its own. Shame they didn't want to seriously continue the selected course they had when they launched.

swg was horrible from release on the only difference between then and now is they actually found a way to make it worse

SOE never did a single thing right with that game. I think what people are remembering fondly is, not the gameplay/game mechanics itself, but the community. It was the players that made the game enjoyable. That's one of the great things about sandbox games; developers will always make mistakes when releasing content but players always know what they want - so let the players make the content.

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.

that means you liked it but got bored..............

here's how Jedi should have been handled in SWG:

As GM / CSR played characters. A long (and hidden) questline, which would eventually lead to the location of the Jedi's hiding spot. Rebel and Imperial each have their own line, and chance to dicover him. Once the Jedi was discovered, the rebels could try to cover him to the nearest spaceport, while the Imperials were trying to kill him, in a fun-as-fuck PVP event, ALL IN LINE with the canon.

Kinda like the old "Deadeye" questline in Bestine, but taken a few steps further.

But mark me....player jedi should NEVER have been allowed in the game.

Originally posted by Stellos

Actually after reading that it makes me really miss the orginal idea of SWG.  That sounds like a freakin blast!  A jedi just can't run around without a bit of fear.  It truley held the ideals of the Jedi by making them have to remain humble and not as flashy as they became in the SWG we have now.  It would make bounty hunting a freaking blast, and for those who leveled their jedi up high enough, well, they would be a tough character to take down.

What a great idea that ended up going soar!

Pre-CU (original version of SWG) was fun from the second you started the game.  You could do anything.  100% skill-based, almost NO restrictions on what you could do.  No game since the original UO could offer so much freedom.  It was very unique.

I actually think Jedi is what killed SWG.  I had more fun walking around with my dueler (pistoleer/fencer hybrid) and fighting Teras Kasi's and Bounty Hunters than I ever did trying to roll a Jedi toon...

SWG was a much better game before everyone decided to try to unlock their Jedi.  No game has even come close to matching the SWG economy as it was back then. 

Now SWG is a joke, arguably the worst MMO on the market.  The original version was buggy and incomplete, but it was a very cool game.

Originally posted by Vrazule

I didn't like SWG before CU or NGE and it was because thousands of people like me were leaving the game that they even came up with the changes in the first place.  Your holy grail didn't and doesn't appeal to most of the player base.  Not sure why you people keep toting it around and shoving it in our faces every chance you get.

Just returning the favor since you fanatics can't seem to leave SWTOR forums alone with your constant vileness.  Going back to the forums of a game that actually appeals to me.

So the original SWG was too difficult for you...  I guss that is why the eliminated all the "reading" from the game and dumbed it down to the degree they did.  The problem is that for every 1 of you there were 100 who liked the more difficult version.

Jedi in original SWG were one of the game's flaws. Both Jedi as a class and how a player become one had terrible effects on the game.

Originally posted by abbaba

Jedi in original SWG were one of the game's flaws. Both Jedi as a class and how a player become one had terrible effects on the game.

The original system was great where it randomly unlocked and let you play how you want to. However then they added in holocrons and it became a grind and didn't let you play professions you liked. Then they got rid of Permadeath and TEF and you saw Jedi about everywhere.

SWG started out with a great idea and then SOE fucked it all up over time and wouldn't admit their mistakes.

Originally posted by Persephassa

SOE never did a single thing right with that game. I think what people are remembering fondly is, not the gameplay/game mechanics itself, but the community. It was the players that made the game enjoyable. That's one of the great things about sandbox games; developers will always make mistakes when releasing content but players always know what they want - so let the players make the content.

There may have been a lot of things wrong with it - I don't really remember. All I  remember is my little horsy faced scout guy who spent all his time crawling around long grass hunting mobs and building traps and camps. It was so cool sitting in my little camp after a day doing aimless stuff then ocasionally heading into town to a cantina which felt like you were in a film. It was even cooler when I got myself some kind of giant ostrich thing to ride. You felt no pressure to actually *do* anything and my guy just bumbled along gradually getting better at scout stuff.

So they did some things right.

Then they changed it so you couldn't be an aimless horsy faced scout guy on a giant ostrich and I quit.

I know this game sounds good at times, but it is only remembered as being great because Sony changed it, and made a mess of it. So the people who where against the change kept on saying great things about it, but only because it was originally better than the mess they turned it into.

The game in it's original state was a long grind fest with boring repetitive quests and a crafting system that had you run around for weeks gathering up materials and making loads of the same items to level up a bit. You even had to wait on people to level up there skills before you could go further.

There was nothing revolutionary about this title, the reason they changed it was because the subscribers where always complaining about how boring it was. Plus more people where leaving than coming. There was literaly nothing to do apart from grind.

Oh but you could dress up as a Star Wars character so that was kinda fun.

Bone armor FTW. No one wanted it but I had to make about a million sets of it. Woot woot.

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'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.

 

I hate to break it to you. It is a GAME. Any work is mere illusion. It is not "hard" or anything to grind grind and grind.

And if the developer sent a huge amount of resources to create the class, why would they want to keep the numbers low. It is like doing all the work and only a small % of the customers can see it?

best mmorpg game I played was pre-CU SWG.  No other game compares.  I was a crafter and a ranger.

Originally posted by irish97

I know this game sounds good at times, but it is only remembered as being great because Sony changed it, and made a mess of it. So the people who where against the change kept on saying great things about it, but only because it was originally better than the mess they turned it into.

 

No you're wrong, it didn't "sound good because it was screwed up" it was good.

Originally posted by tupodawg999

Originally posted by Persephassa

SOE never did a single thing right with that game. I think what people are remembering fondly is, not the gameplay/game mechanics itself, but the community. It was the players that made the game enjoyable. That's one of the great things about sandbox games; developers will always make mistakes when releasing content but players always know what they want - so let the players make the content.

 

There may have been a lot of things wrong with it - I don't really remember. All I  remember is my little horsy faced scout guy who spent all his time crawling around long grass hunting mobs and building traps and camps. It was so cool sitting in my little camp after a day doing aimless stuff then ocasionally heading into town to a cantina which felt like you were in a film. It was even cooler when I got myself some kind of giant ostrich thing to ride. You felt no pressure to actually *do* anything and my guy just bumbled along gradually getting better at scout stuff.

So they did some things right.

Then they changed it so you couldn't be an aimless horsy faced scout guy on a giant ostrich and I quit.

lol, yeah it was truly a sandbox.  Games suck these days.

Originally posted by abbaba

Jedi in original SWG were one of the game's flaws. Both Jedi as a class and how a player become one had terrible effects on the game.

That's when I quit, when I noticed everyone I use to hang out with dissapeared into the holocron grind.  Somehow I knew the game was going to die from then on.

Originally posted by thexrated

I left SWG after closed beta. I felt it was a crap game and that SOE just kept lying to their customers about the content and features that it was supposed to have.

There was a long writeup at the beta forum before the release where someone actually listed the content that was promised and what was actually delivered at release. It was like 30% of the promised content.

6 months later, it was still at 30%. It was time I gave them to deliver and pretty much forgot about the game after that.

I understand many feel nostalgic about SWG and that for some it was their introduction to MMOs. However, in my opinion, it was never a good game, which to me means that it needs to be fun to play. It was average game at best, hiding behind well-known IP.

 

What do you mean there was no content?!  In Pre-CU there was wall to wall player cities in some places, and each house was carefully decorated by each player.  Each player structure served a purpose as decoration, storage, commerce, and resource gathering.  There was more content outside one town then on an entire server in a WOW clone.

BS man.