Going to drop 15 before September 15 and check out my old server: Chilastra

I still remember logging on June 26, 2003 around 11PM with connection errors due to the servers being overwhelmed.

It will be bitter sweet for me and just glad I got to meet some fantastic players that I still keep in contact with since this game was released.

Originally posted by wizyy

Maybe it's needed for them to see how many would return if they ever made pre-CU servers,

and

HOW MUCH MONEY THEY LOST BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DO THAT.

Why give those bastards at SOE your time and money anyways?

Not I said the fly, hopefully I'll be enjoying a new Star Wars game by then.

Originally posted by Aethaeryn

The server will likey crash anyway.

This is EXACTLY what I think will happen too.

Originally posted by wizyy

Maybe it's needed for them to see how many would return if they ever made pre-CU servers,

Would you honestly return to SWG, run by SOE, on a pre-CU, sub based server?

I'm not sure many would mate. SOE made it clear years ago that you pre-CU folk meant nothing to them - if anything, they seem to resent your type.

Could you really pay them $15 a month and invest time into a character knowing they will do what they like, when they like, no matter what you think?

Originally posted by RansomDenton

I will be I have to be there when the conn goes dead. I was there before pub 7 and I must be there when the lights go out. Does anyone know why they did not go F2P?

Why didn't it go F2P?

Because LA said it wouldn't be feaible due to all the Work that would have to be done to make it a F2P MMO.

Originally posted by bigsmiff

Originally posted by hipiap

Originally posted by Troneas

Anyone tempted to log in one final time on Dec. 15 to cry out "PRE-CU FTW!" 

I'm in the Pre-CU game right now...I'd forgotten how Barren of CONTENT it was.

I agree with this statement 100%. People forget about that. I for one don't like neverending grinds. The NGE was bad at first, but now it is actually really good.

The ANH project looks more promising than the current Pre-CU version. One of the ANH dev's is in my Starsider guild AoF.

They are shooting for Pre-Cu at around the time of Mid-2004 to March 2005. More Content and Space than what Flightless Bird is doing currently.

I dont know about anyone else but Im having fun paying SWG.  I was bloodfin vet, so bloodfin is still kicking it.  I dont think ill be resubing though before sep 15th.

I was there one day #1 and I did enjoy playing for quite a few years. Of course the CU soured me on the game and NGE broke my heart, but I did have a few 'come backs' during the NGE where I did enjoy my time. Each attempt at getting back into the game ended the same; in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

$15 isn't a lot of money. I can spend that on the chance those final days will be entertaining. Otherwise I could see myself regretting that I didn't. Wouldn't be the first time i squandered money on that game.

Even though in December I will be playing BF3, Skyrim, Saint's Row 3, and SWTOR (hopefully), I can spend a few days running around on the official servers.

A couple weeks ago, I used the 45 days of free game time and logged into my account, only to find my main toon's galaxy had been destroyed and he just stood in the character selection area in his underwear (I couldn't transfer him to a playable server). My highest playable toon ended up be converted to level 26 or something. I uninstalled.

Originally posted by djmtott

I was there one day #1 and I did enjoy playing for quite a few years. Of course the CU soured me on the game and NGE broke my heart, but I did have a few 'come backs' during the NGE where I did enjoy my time. Each attempt at getting back into the game ended the same; in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

$15 isn't a lot of money. I can spend that on the chance those final days will be entertaining. Otherwise I could see myself regretting that I didn't. Wouldn't be the first time i squandered money on that game.

Even though in December I will be playing BF3, Skyrim, Saint's Row 3, and SWTOR (hopefully), I can spend a few days running around on the official servers.

I have to ask..

Pre-CU....What Depth?

Low to No Content...

Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds

Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.

Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.

No FRS until Jedi got added.

Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......

Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

Originally posted by hipiap

Originally posted by djmtott

in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

I have to ask..

 

Pre-CU....What Depth?

Low to No Content...

 

Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds

Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.

Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.

No FRS until Jedi got added.

Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......

 

 

 

Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

Depth... like hunting for Krayts for tissues and pearls. Although pearls were still in demand the lack of a market for tissues was a reduction in depth of the game. The Ranger tracking skill was removed, so hiring a Ranger to find Krayts went away. Spider Venom was also made useless when HAM poisons and diseases went away with Combat Medic. Scores of high-valued resources were made pedestrian because Doctor buffs and stims were removed.

Camps were removed with the NGE, and although they weren't of a lot of use as far as game mechanics went they were huge for the community. As a Master Ranger, seeing the profession being removed along with trapping, camps, mask scent, etc was definitely a loss of depth.

NGE removed Creature Handler and baby critters. Players had hours of fun scouring the planets for certain baby critters and the extremely rare ones.

Back to my experience as a Master Ranger when the NGE came about, even if I stuck with my same playstyle with one of the 9 NGE classes, there was a serious reduction in critter resources needed because of the elimination of the Medic/Doctor/Combat Medic craftables.

Overall, to me depth is not about the content/quests in a game. A game with a million quests is not a game with depth. Depth comes from the different things you can do in the game. The old version of the game with full cantinas (eisley, Coronet, Theed) of dancers/musicians, hunting for resources/enhancers, PvP basebusting (in the days of TEF),  the different combinations of weapons and professions, and more, absolutely provided a depth to SWG that the NGE eliminated.

Clicky collections and themepark quests is not depth. Going from 32 professions to 9 classes doesn't increase depth. Eliminating a large number of craftables doesn't increase depth. Reducing the number of important resources doesn't add to depth. So if you're making these changes that don't increase depth you're actually taking it away.

And this is just from my experience.

PS: The big three cantinas were always active in pre-CU. The Med Centers were active at the beginning of the game as well, and as time went on they did decrease in activity, but the buffing Doctors would heal your wounds.

I can see it now, Dec 15 closing ceremony... *chirp chirp chirp*, a ghost town it will be.

---

Originally posted by hipiap

---

Originally posted by djmtott
I was there one day #1 and I did enjoy playing for quite a few years. Of course the CU soured me on the game and NGE broke my heart, but I did have a few 'come backs' during the NGE where I did enjoy my time. Each attempt at getting back into the game ended the same; in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.
$15 isn't a lot of money. I can spend that on the chance those final days will be entertaining. Otherwise I could see myself regretting that I didn't. Wouldn't be the first time i squandered money on that game.
Even though in December I will be playing BF3, Skyrim, Saint's Row 3, and SWTOR (hopefully), I can spend a few days running around on the official servers.

---

I have to ask..
 
Pre-CU....What Depth?
Low to No Content...
 
Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds
Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.
Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.
No FRS until Jedi got added.
Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......
 
 
 
Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

---

Jedi was added without FRS for a year, and even then it took a while to enter the FRS because the trial took a while to figure out.

Corpse runs existed in beta, they ditched that on release. After perma death was ditched, Jedi had random skillbox decay on death and then negative XP on death after publish 9. Skillbox decay I think was the best method, you couldn't keep Guardian 4444 if you died, you'd have to grind another 4.5 million xp to get that last box back.

How long have you been playing SWG? AFTER 2005?

Originally posted by djmtott

Originally posted by hipiap

Originally posted by djmtott

in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

I have to ask..

 

Pre-CU....What Depth?

Low to No Content...

 

Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds

Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.

Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.

No FRS until Jedi got added.

Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......

 

 

 

Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

Depth... like hunting for Krayts for tissues and pearls. Although pearls were still in demand the lack of a market for tissues was a reduction in depth of the game. The Ranger tracking skill was removed, so hiring a Ranger to find Krayts went away. Spider Venom was also made useless when HAM poisons and diseases went away with Combat Medic. Scores of high-valued resources were made pedestrian because Doctor buffs and stims were removed.

Camps were removed with the NGE, and although they weren't of a lot of use as far as game mechanics went they were huge for the community. As a Master Ranger, seeing the profession being removed along with trapping, camps, mask scent, etc was definitely a loss of depth.

NGE removed Creature Handler and baby critters. Players had hours of fun scouring the planets for certain baby critters and the extremely rare ones.

Back to my experience as a Master Ranger when the NGE came about, even if I stuck with my same playstyle with one of the 9 NGE classes, there was a serious reduction in critter resources needed because of the elimination of the Medic/Doctor/Combat Medic craftables.

Overall, to me depth is not about the content/quests in a game. A game with a million quests is not a game with depth. Depth comes from the different things you can do in the game. The old version of the game with full cantinas (eisley, Coronet, Theed) of dancers/musicians, hunting for resources/enhancers, PvP basebusting (in the days of TEF),  the different combinations of weapons and professions, and more, absolutely provided a depth to SWG that the NGE eliminated.

Clicky collections and themepark quests is not depth. Going from 32 professions to 9 classes doesn't increase depth. Eliminating a large number of craftables doesn't increase depth. Reducing the number of important resources doesn't add to depth. So if you're making these changes that don't increase depth you're actually taking it away.

And this is just from my experience.

PS: The big three cantinas were always active in pre-CU. The Med Centers were active at the beginning of the game as well, and as time went on they did decrease in activity, but the buffing Doctors would heal your wounds.

Camps were reintroduced and work like before.

In the place of creature handler there is now beast master, that lets any profession be beastmaster. Which turns it into a hybrid profession. Also entertainers and crafters can be one. The crafting system that was introduced for bioengineering and mutations, is very involving. Which is an improvement over creature handler. But to be fair, it misses taming, something players kept asking for. The hunting is now for DNA, for which players still have to find the specific lairs and critters.

There is now a city invasion system that totally trumps any basebusting. It also involves entertainers and crafters, both during preperation phase and invasion phase. Basebusting is shallow in comparison.

Majority doesnt want TEF anymore. That has been polled loads of time, with every time the same result.

The weapons crafting system offers now way more variety then before. All looted gear can be recrafted to provide a slight bonus. So the looted stuff is mainly about looks. And more important, crafters are always involved.

Reducing the number of important resources, bollocks. That has been changed back long ago. Food, droid engineering, bio engineering, munitions, spaceship components, these all require very specific named resources in high quality. Especially weapons crafting. The amount of different droids for example you could craft during preCU is nothing compared to now.

Vets like you always compare to NGE just after the change. Current NGE offers a lot more depth and variety then SWG ever did.

I do agree that the collection system is meh though. But they were already changing back from that. My main beef with current SWG was that collection card system with all its unique loot.

The only thing that preCU had going for was the skillsystem. But even that, which sounds nice on paper, suffered from the same flaw as AO's skillsystem (actually I think that AO's skillsystem works better). Everyone used the same few cookiecutter builds. So in practice it was just a few professions.

Dont get me wrong, the idea of a skillsystem is something I prefer over restricted classes. But so far it always comes down to minmaxers that find the few viable builds.

As for the rest, current SWG offers a lot more features then it ever did before. Sure, I would love to have current SWG with a skillsystem. But not preCU skillsystem. Both now and back then I hated the groundcombat. Back then it was superslow and now its shallow as it can get and the engine just cant handle it. And both were bugged like hell. So any other combat system could only improve ground combat.

Space combat is fine however. Ill really miss that. And the city invasions for that matter.

EDIT: No, I wont return on dec 15th. There was no reason to kill off SWG, so no way Im going to put more money in it now. Fuck LA.

Originally posted by someforumguy

Originally posted by djmtott

Originally posted by hipiap

Originally posted by djmtott

in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

I have to ask..

 

Pre-CU....What Depth?

Low to No Content...

 

Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds

Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.

Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.

No FRS until Jedi got added.

Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......

 

 

 

Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

Depth... like hunting for Krayts for tissues and pearls. Although pearls were still in demand the lack of a market for tissues was a reduction in depth of the game. The Ranger tracking skill was removed, so hiring a Ranger to find Krayts went away. Spider Venom was also made useless when HAM poisons and diseases went away with Combat Medic. Scores of high-valued resources were made pedestrian because Doctor buffs and stims were removed.

Camps were removed with the NGE, and although they weren't of a lot of use as far as game mechanics went they were huge for the community. As a Master Ranger, seeing the profession being removed along with trapping, camps, mask scent, etc was definitely a loss of depth.

NGE removed Creature Handler and baby critters. Players had hours of fun scouring the planets for certain baby critters and the extremely rare ones.

Back to my experience as a Master Ranger when the NGE came about, even if I stuck with my same playstyle with one of the 9 NGE classes, there was a serious reduction in critter resources needed because of the elimination of the Medic/Doctor/Combat Medic craftables.

Overall, to me depth is not about the content/quests in a game. A game with a million quests is not a game with depth. Depth comes from the different things you can do in the game. The old version of the game with full cantinas (eisley, Coronet, Theed) of dancers/musicians, hunting for resources/enhancers, PvP basebusting (in the days of TEF),  the different combinations of weapons and professions, and more, absolutely provided a depth to SWG that the NGE eliminated.

Clicky collections and themepark quests is not depth. Going from 32 professions to 9 classes doesn't increase depth. Eliminating a large number of craftables doesn't increase depth. Reducing the number of important resources doesn't add to depth. So if you're making these changes that don't increase depth you're actually taking it away.

And this is just from my experience.

PS: The big three cantinas were always active in pre-CU. The Med Centers were active at the beginning of the game as well, and as time went on they did decrease in activity, but the buffing Doctors would heal your wounds.

Camps were reintroduced and work like before.

In the place of creature handler there is now beast master, that lets any profession be beastmaster. Which turns it into a hybrid profession. Also entertainers and crafters can be one. The crafting system that was introduced for bioengineering and mutations, is very involving. Which is an improvement over creature handler. But to be fair, it misses taming, something players kept asking for. The hunting is now for DNA, for which players still have to find the specific lairs and critters.

There is now a city invasion system that totally trumps any basebusting. It also involves entertainers and crafters, both during preperation phase and invasion phase. Basebusting is shallow in comparison.

Majority doesnt want TEF anymore. That has been polled loads of time, with every time the same result.

The weapons crafting system offers now way more variety then before. All looted gear can be recrafted to provide a slight bonus. So the looted stuff is mainly about looks. And more important, crafters are always involved.

Reducing the number of important resources, bollocks. That has been changed back long ago. Food, droid engineering, bio engineering, munitions, spaceship components, these all require very specific named resources in high quality. Especially weapons crafting. The amount of different droids for example you could craft during preCU is nothing compared to now.

Vets like you always compare to NGE just after the change. Current NGE offers a lot more depth and variety then SWG ever did.

I do agree that the collection system is meh though. But they were already changing back from that. My main beef with current SWG was that collection card system with all its unique loot.

if the NGE truly offered more depth than the Pre-CU version, then the game wouldnt have failed as hard as it did, call it what you will, but you can't change the fact that the NGE still represents a shallow experience compared to what was there before the game was 'modified' and so many things removed from the game. the NGE was a mistake, a poorly thought through one that alienated the vast majority of the playerbase that was... if it had worked, then frankly, we wouldnt be having this discussion, and SWG wouldnt be closing in december. As for the rest.. the ones who were alienated most from the NGE were the crafters, hard to imagine how SOE failed to recognise just how large a percentage of the games population the crafting community represented, as was the Entertainment community.. or as i prefer to think of them, the 'social' gamers.. SWG catered to crafters, it catered to Socialisers, and it catered to explorers, it also catered to the combat centric players, but it did so fairly equally.. .. the NGE on the other hand.. didnt. and still.. doesnt.. 

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by someforumguy

Originally posted by djmtott

Originally posted by hipiap

Originally posted by djmtott

in that without the pre-CU depth and 'hooks' the game couldn't keep me interested consistently.

I have to ask..

 

Pre-CU....What Depth?

Low to No Content...

 

Only 'depth' was Profession Template Grinds

Oh sure....you could run Terminal Missions for Credits and XP all day. Or hang out in a Cantina or Medical Center and Hope someone was online to heal Fatigue and Wounds.

Until JTL launched you didn't even have that Content pre-CU.

No FRS until Jedi got added.

Perma Death for a while....then Corpse Runs......

 

 

 

Oh yeah...TONS of Depth pre-CU.

Depth... like hunting for Krayts for tissues and pearls. Although pearls were still in demand the lack of a market for tissues was a reduction in depth of the game. The Ranger tracking skill was removed, so hiring a Ranger to find Krayts went away. Spider Venom was also made useless when HAM poisons and diseases went away with Combat Medic. Scores of high-valued resources were made pedestrian because Doctor buffs and stims were removed.

Camps were removed with the NGE, and although they weren't of a lot of use as far as game mechanics went they were huge for the community. As a Master Ranger, seeing the profession being removed along with trapping, camps, mask scent, etc was definitely a loss of depth.

NGE removed Creature Handler and baby critters. Players had hours of fun scouring the planets for certain baby critters and the extremely rare ones.

Back to my experience as a Master Ranger when the NGE came about, even if I stuck with my same playstyle with one of the 9 NGE classes, there was a serious reduction in critter resources needed because of the elimination of the Medic/Doctor/Combat Medic craftables.

Overall, to me depth is not about the content/quests in a game. A game with a million quests is not a game with depth. Depth comes from the different things you can do in the game. The old version of the game with full cantinas (eisley, Coronet, Theed) of dancers/musicians, hunting for resources/enhancers, PvP basebusting (in the days of TEF),  the different combinations of weapons and professions, and more, absolutely provided a depth to SWG that the NGE eliminated.

Clicky collections and themepark quests is not depth. Going from 32 professions to 9 classes doesn't increase depth. Eliminating a large number of craftables doesn't increase depth. Reducing the number of important resources doesn't add to depth. So if you're making these changes that don't increase depth you're actually taking it away.

And this is just from my experience.

PS: The big three cantinas were always active in pre-CU. The Med Centers were active at the beginning of the game as well, and as time went on they did decrease in activity, but the buffing Doctors would heal your wounds.

Camps were reintroduced and work like before.

In the place of creature handler there is now beast master, that lets any profession be beastmaster. Which turns it into a hybrid profession. Also entertainers and crafters can be one. The crafting system that was introduced for bioengineering and mutations, is very involving. Which is an improvement over creature handler. But to be fair, it misses taming, something players kept asking for. The hunting is now for DNA, for which players still have to find the specific lairs and critters.

There is now a city invasion system that totally trumps any basebusting. It also involves entertainers and crafters, both during preperation phase and invasion phase. Basebusting is shallow in comparison.

Majority doesnt want TEF anymore. That has been polled loads of time, with every time the same result.

The weapons crafting system offers now way more variety then before. All looted gear can be recrafted to provide a slight bonus. So the looted stuff is mainly about looks. And more important, crafters are always involved.

Reducing the number of important resources, bollocks. That has been changed back long ago. Food, droid engineering, bio engineering, munitions, spaceship components, these all require very specific named resources in high quality. Especially weapons crafting. The amount of different droids for example you could craft during preCU is nothing compared to now.

Vets like you always compare to NGE just after the change. Current NGE offers a lot more depth and variety then SWG ever did.

I do agree that the collection system is meh though. But they were already changing back from that. My main beef with current SWG was that collection card system with all its unique loot.

if the NGE truly offered more depth than the Pre-CU version, then the game wouldnt have failed as hard as it did, call it what you will, but you can't change the fact that the NGE still represents a shallow experience compared to what was there before the game was 'modified' and so many things removed from the game. the NGE was a mistake, a poorly thought through one that alienated the vast majority of the playerbase that was... if it had worked, then frankly, we wouldnt be having this discussion, and SWG wouldnt be closing in december. As for the rest.. the ones who were alienated most from the NGE were the crafters, hard to imagine how SOE failed to recognise just how large a percentage of the games population the crafting community represented, as was the Entertainment community.. or as i prefer to think of them, the 'social' gamers.. SWG catered to crafters, it catered to Socialisers, and it catered to explorers, it also catered to the combat centric players, but it did so fairly equally.. .. the NGE on the other hand.. didnt. and still.. doesnt.. 

No matter what implementation of SWG, the engine is just crappy and dated. AO suffers from the same problem. Both these games would never become very popular anymore. PVP will always be laggy, there will never be a working collision detection, so groundcombat will always be poor compared to any newer MMO. It was crappy to begin with. Everyone knows by now that the numbers were going down already before NGE. NGE was just a very stupid decision trying to combat that decline.

But that doesnt say anything about current SWG in comparison with PreCU. In terms of variety in features, it offers more then ever. Especially for crafters. They are now involved in every looted gear. If the combat player wants to have the best out of his loot or reward, he needs a crafter with top resources and crafting environment to recraft it. At the same time they are dependant on combat centric players for junk and looted gear (for reengineering).

As for the socialisers, they came up with the chronicle system for players to create their own content. But some things havent changed. Most players approach everything as a grind (just like spingroups in the old days), so this chronicle system is just another grind in their eyes to tackle.

Only a minority actually uses SWG to rp, socialise and as sandbox. The majority just has to grind everything to max as fast as possible. So no changes there :p

Even the city invasion system gives entertainers and crafters a role now. This wasnt the case at all with the basebusting. I think more then ever that all combat players,  entertainers and crafters are catered for.

I have enough of SWG, enough of my share of fun.  The world and the community has changed so much, there is nothing for me to go back for.  I will let my rifleman/CH RIP forever, including the baby creatures he just tamed right before I log out for good.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa no!