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Star Wars Galaxies Dev Journals: Game Update 9 Journal - Housing Updates
Jaskell from Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies writes this developer journal looking at housing updates in the game's Update 9.
By Guest Writer on May 15, 2009
Hey gang, this is Jaskell checking in with a behind-the-scenes look at some of the excellent new features coming with Game Update 9.
Being a Star Wars Galaxies home owner myself, I was excited to be assigned the task of adding new structures to Game Update 9. I had heard that the art team was going to add structures with windows as well as exterior color customization and was impressed that they were taking on such a bold task since these are both exciting new features never attempted before in Star Wars Galaxies. As you might imagine, taking large, multi-room structures and cutting holes in the geometry, then attaching a palette where one never existed, presented a few challenges. Ultimately the art team was able to overcome these challenges and successfully created eight windowed houses with exterior color customization, two of which were completely new structures.
Once the windows were in I went through each of the buildings myself to identify any design challenges. Each of the houses had to be checked for misplaced structure terminals, proper hanging and standing sign placement, and proper footprint (i.e., the number of lots they consume compared to their physical size and storage capabilities).
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Once the structures were complete a method for allowing the player to 'paint' them had to be created. The paint kit is created via draft schematic so that it may be mass produced and sold by Structure Traders.
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But Structure Traders weren't the only profession to receive attention. The Domestic Trader had a series of issues that were also addressed through the profession Top 5; a list of the top five requested changes that are compiled by players on our forums. Fiasco worked on increasing the food and drink buff attributes, art added colors to the palettes of some wearables and I addressed some of the high profile defects and change suggestions.
An example of a change coupled with a defect fix was the revamp of the Starshine Surprise schematic. To begin with, Domestics Traders were not encouraged to craft the Starshine Surprise buff because the effect it produced was not useful. I decided to fix that while simultaneously addressing an issue that was on the Domestic Trader Top 5 list; milking creatures was too difficult.
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The newly revamped version of the Starshine Surprise buff in Update 9 not only increases the amount of milk produced by the creature, it reduces the amount of milking required, has a possibility of paralyzing the creature (so that they don't run away while being milked) and increases the chances of gaining the exceptional milk collectible which players have reported as being too rare.
These changes, and many others, are on their way to you in Game Update 9. I hope you enjoy Update 9 as much as I enjoyed working on it! I'm off to decorate my new house...
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Can you see outside these windows Seamlessly? That would have been useful back in the Bounty Hunter days when they used to wait outside your house lol.
Is this the patch that brings back the pre-nge game? :P
Probably not, hence: who cares?
The only reason I still follow SWG's updates is because then I get to imagine what pre-CU would've been like with them.
La la la. :)
I wonder how many people still play it. I tried the trial a few years back, didnt see a single player.
I would invest a lot of time into it if only they updated the graphics and made the game how it was befire that update, I ve read a lot about that,
There is no reason why MMO can not just be updated and evolved. Look at WW2 ONLINE, has been going for something like 9 years and they are currently updating its gfx engine and there is no sign of it dieng, devs just keep evolving and evolving it.
I notice SOE keeps giving me like 2 week free periods every couple of months to go back and try it, I dd a few months ago and I played for a week and then stopped because it was just terrible. For something as huge as Star Wars, there shouldn't be the option to release crap content or change the game so much that 75% of your player base quits on you just because you wanted to copy WoW. I play WoW and sometimes it sucks and you want to get into the star wars universe and just have fun like we used to. Ehh, heres hoping that bioware mmo won't be just hype.
Sorry i just dont see whats challenging about adding transparent blue.
yea but then the bounty hunters can see in too. Has this game really upgraded their graphics much since it first came out? I havent played in years. How are the numbers. Server populations pretty high? thanks much for any info.
1. Not really.
2. Terrible.
3. Nope.
All-in-all, it's been nothing but a horrendous disappointment since the CU. Welcome to the SoE MO.
With all the moaning and groaning you guys do, I find it funny that SW:TOR is being developed with the same devs as SWG had at launch. People are going to be so disappointed when that game launches. Really think, what lessons did that crew learn from the SWG experiance of game design? The only lesson they got was not to change a "Sandbox" for a game. Just make the "Game" in the first place.
Someone wrote that "WOW is the death knell of the MMORPG..." Looking at the AAA Market of today, I can see thier point.
From inside the house you can see everything outside just as if you were standing out on the front porch.
From outside the house you cannot see people or items inside the house - unless you've already seen them outside the house, or unless you yourself were inside the house earlier.
In other words, a private house with windows looks empty unless you happen to see the owner entering it.
I don't think it's funny; I think it's massively disheartening.
I just hope that they don't make the same mistake, again; otherwise, it's simply another SW game that I avoid like the plague.
Honestly it's a neat feature and I wish it was the same in all MMOs.
I hope it's showing the way to others studios.
Sad thing is the sate of the rest of the game is... well, you know it.
/sigh....yet again the dev team of SWG updates something trivial instead of making the game GOOD again like it was pre-CU. SOE will NEVER learn....that's why I will NEVER play another SOE game again!!!
I find it funnier still that you think you have a point to make, most people here have actually said they liked the game at launch so what would be bad about having them as the devs on this product?
I for one never thought the talent of the devs was/is the problem with the game it's ass hats like Smedley who use deceptive business practices in a highly personal customer service industry like mmo production.
Lot's of people make stupid statements about wow doesn't make it true or relevant. Todays AAA market mostly attempts to copies wows design but hardly is able to match it's quality or it's mass appeal.I think all this really says is that we are at a point in mmo developement where companies are going to have to try and fail to find their success as Blizzard did.
I guess you haven't followed the whole timeline of SWG but I, along with anybody who complains about the NGE, would play *any* game developed by SWG's original dev team. The original development team had nothing to do with ruining the sandbox.
I guess you haven't followed the whole timeline of SWG but I, along with anybody who complains about the NGE, would play *any* game developed by SWG's original dev team. The original development team had nothing to do with ruining the sandbox.
When TOR comes out, let me know how that sandbox is like.
When TOR comes out, let me know how that sandbox is like.
Yes there is not going to be any sandbox in SWTOR, DEVS said so i their blog when they announced the game. From their words they are going more for WoW formula, unless you consider that sandbox *rolleyes*
you guys really need to stop comparing every mmorpg to WoW, it's not like it was the first one to use quests for leveling....not like any of its features are new to the genre.....
From inside the house you can see everything outside just as if you were standing out on the front porch.
From outside the house you cannot see people or items inside the house - unless you've already seen them outside the house, or unless you yourself were inside the house earlier.
In other words, a private house with windows looks empty unless you happen to see the owner entering it.
Private houses should have curtains or blinds then lol.
You forget how much WoW has advanced the Genre even if the genre has yet to catch up because developers are creating games that arn't as good. For example UI's before WoW were all very clunky and WoW set a new standard and WoW set a standard in character movement and combat. Also pre WoW the quest based leveling wasn't that great and it was mostly grinding. However WoW brought quest based leveling and made it really popular and refined the quest mechanics so they're fun.
WoW also put good PVP with good PVE and proved that you need a good balance of both to be popular.
Yes and no.
WoW UI was a good one but not for the original delivered in the box but for the addons.
You might be surprised but I really liked SWG Pre-NGE UI. Not only it didn't clutter the game screen but it was very efficient and fitted the sci-fi setting. Even today I wish some games did as well as SWG team did for their game.
Also there were 2 very good things that are still missing in all games now:
The aliases: you could /say hello %TT% => hello Zoid. It was very powerful.
The command lines shortcuts: you could execute any command with the very first unique letters. So no need to type /invite Zoid, /inv Zoid or even /inv %tt% would do the same. Some others examples : /follow = /fo, /dragIncapacitatedPlayer = /dra
After a few hours of playing you would have memorized the most used commands and that was really handy.
For the record both the above features still aren't in WoW ;)
Problem is the original UI looked like it was a placeholders one and done with programmer art or something. People I tried to get into the game hated the look of it like how the icons were hard to remember what they were just from looking at them. Where as if you had a picture like the ones in WoW then you instantly know what they are. Sure the veterans of the game and I was fine witht he old UI and it's better than the new one but it wasn't very Star Wars and it could have been a hell of alot better.
Also I never memorized any command in the game throughout the years of playing. I couldn't be dealing with macros and putting my own things on the tool bar because I don't wanna have to work out what all these /slash commands do. I wish'd they streamlined it all down and got rid of macros personally and I was never a fan of macros and felt they were like cheats or a tool to bypass tedious parts of the game that needed fixing.
Final point is you can't customize the UI in SWG where as in WoW developers have full access to the tools they need to create mods and host them and you can do all sorta of crazy stuff with the UI that you can't do in SWG. All because LA felt that somehow changing the UI to something better would ruin Star Wars some how.
...only in the sense there are a bunch of 'kids' running around, on a consistant basis, kicking sand in other peoples' faces, thinking it's funny and generally being obnoxious. :P *snrk*
You can dynamically include names into macros/commands with '%t' and have been able to do that since very early vanilla-WoW. There are also various other %-tokens that include gender, race, faction, etc. and more than one AddOn exists that extends WoW's internally supported list, quite extensively.
Invite can be shortened to /i (since release). Any command can be shortened, if you add the shortened version to the command-list and I wrote an addon years ago that did exactly what you describe (without needing to add stuff manually).... because I missed that functionality from SWG. *cough*
I find it funnier still that you think you have a point to make, most people here have actually said they liked the game at launch so what would be bad about having them as the devs on this product? The Devs in question are mostly if not all Lucas Arts members. With SWG, LA is responcible for Packaging, Approving, Recording, Continueity, Marketing and most of all Market Research. They will conduct the same role with TOR. SOE Developes and Runs (servers) the game. Who has the most power over the product? These are the same guys that agreed to Jeff Freeman's pitch of the NGE. Absent from LA is Jim Ward, J. Torres and Nancy MacIntire who were the key people in promoting. SOE catches all the blame for the NGE as they are contractually obligated to. SOE is not blameless, however, as they continued old practices of releasing the game too early and tried to finish with early sub money. The Game at launch was totally unfinished as Raph Koster has stated -2 of 7 features were ready for the release-. Posters and vets remember Pre-CU with rose colored glasses. There were huge bugs, few dynamic quests, unbalanced classes, weak GCW and heavy on time-sink grind mechnics. Strip the Star Wars skin from it and you had a typical MMO of that generation. BTW, at launch, there was no mounts or vehicals, no space, no player houses or cities and Jedi was a dream. Crafting was and is still the best system out. The skill based progression(though unbalanced) was really fun and organic. The UI, I had no problems with until they started changing it. I later learned from a SOE Producer there are some legal issues(copy right) with the UI that warrant the change pushed by LA. Like most of the NGE, it was rushed.
I for one never thought the talent of the devs was/is the problem with the game it's ass hats like Smedley who use deceptive business practices in a highly personal customer service industry like mmo production. Smedley takes the abuse with a frown but doesn't say truly whats on his heart. He is the last "face" of the NGE and based on his SOE/LA contract will continue to be damned for it. You say "ass hats" as if there is more than one? I gave you four more names above but you seem to know more. Who and what company (SOE/LA) are they with?
Lot's of people make stupid statements about wow doesn't make it true or relevant. Todays AAA market mostly attempts to copies wows design but hardly is able to match it's quality or it's mass appeal.I think all this really says is that we are at a point in mmo developement where companies are going to have to try and fail to find their success as Blizzard did. Having never played WOW, from my readings they did one thing that seems to have not been done before in the AAA market that propelled them to the front. It wasn't thier game machanics as most had been done in other games with moderate success. Though good, it wasn't thier easy to learn and adjust UI. It wasn't the semi-reconizable and adaptible IP or casual friendly upfront target demographics. WOW success is from its launch, a completely polished, functioning, few bug ridden product that came out the gate in full run. AOC failed at this as did WAR. Blizzard waited but tackled the total of WOW to be complete and polished from its get go.
All that said, its my opinion. As my Pappy said "Opinions are like assholes. Everyones got one and most of them stink."
The new structures are a welcome change to the landscape. However, the new "Watchtowers" popping up are getting a bit much on my server. I wish they had done a new "Bunker" in a Tatooine theme or a new Corellian style.
No but WoW is a benchmark for those types fo games. Just like UO is considered a benchamark for sandbox games. This may change ofcourse, but for now...
JYCowboy, you obviously know nothing of what you are talking about.
1. SWTOR is not being made by the same dev team that SWG had at launch, it may a few of it's members, but not the entire team. And so what if it was? That is actually a GOOD thing, means the game could actually be good for once.
2. The NGE is 100% SOE's fault, one of the lead devs or w/e he was, even admitted to how the entire concept of the NGE started like 2 years ago. There was even a article on this site about it. They had a secret dev team working on the NGE while the other team was working the actual game, they also had no clue that the NGE was coming out. Hence why they were talking about Squad Leader changes on the way with the next patch, yet little did they know SL was to be taken out of the game in a few weeks.
3. WoW had one of the worst launches of any MMO. Servers were down for days, if not a week at a time. Its was no where near polished, or bug free. Infact AoC had one of the best launches out there, people's problem with the game was the lies the devs told and their incomptence to fix anything meaningful.
4. You fail.
No but WoW is a benchmark for those types fo games. Just like UO is considered a benchamark for sandbox games. This may change ofcourse, but for now...
I'll have to say SWG is the benchmark for sandbox games now, pre-CU and NGE that is. SWG at awesome PvE, PvP and the best crafting system I've ever seen. It's the only MMO I actually crafted in since it was actually fun.
1. SWTOR is not being made by the same dev team that SWG had at launch, it may a few of it's members, but not the entire team. And so what if it was? That is actually a GOOD thing, means the game could actually be good for once.
Have to agree with this, a good majority of the team are bioware people. Bioware has been known for good games, but then has never done a MMO and we all know lots of examples of good companies that have failed that test.
2. The NGE is 100% SOE's fault, one of the lead devs or w/e he was, even admitted to how the entire concept of the NGE started like 2 years ago. There was even a article on this site about it. They had a secret dev team working on the NGE while the other team was working the actual game, they also had no clue that the NGE was coming out. Hence why they were talking about Squad Leader changes on the way with the next patch, yet little did they know SL was to be taken out of the game in a few weeks.
More like 50/50 when it comes to responsibility for NGE. LA was putting a lot of pressure on SOE to better compete with Wow and to simplify the game. It was SOE's design though that we got NGE even though LA signed off on it. SOE was solely responsible for releasing early the bug ridden NGE, especially right after a major expansion and update. So both the NGE design and the early release are completely in Smedley's corner. Trying to relieve Smedley of responsibility in this morass is just absurd. While most of the swg team did not know about NGE, Koster most certainly did. You just can't keep something like that from your lead designer.
3. WoW had one of the worst launches of any MMO. Servers were down for days, if not a week at a time. Its was no where near polished, or bug free. Infact AoC had one of the best launches out there, people's problem with the game was the lies the devs told and their incomptence to fix anything meaningful.
As to Wow release problems, that is urban myth. Sure some servers were down for part of a day sometimes, but never for days. Wow was quite polished on release, besides the minor server problems, there were very few problems and mostly at the high end where only a few of the dedicated players reached. AoC was a huge joke on the MMO community. Worse client in the history of MMO's did not help it one bit. Because it allowed players to level so fast they got to high level content fast. Which was unfortunate, because most of it did not work.
Bioware with TOR will be fine as long as they understand what a Persistent World means unlike SOE in regards to SWG.
You forget how much WoW has advanced the Genre even if the genre has yet to catch up because developers are creating games that arn't as good. For example UI's before WoW were all very clunky and WoW set a new standard and WoW set a standard in character movement and combat.
I agree, WoW has a nice UI, and very nice character control and movement.
Also pre WoW the quest based leveling wasn't that great and it was mostly grinding. However WoW brought quest based leveling and made it really popular and refined the quest mechanics so they're fun.
WoW also put good PVP with good PVE and proved that you need a good balance of both to be popular.
Ok, what WoW were you playing? I have never seen the WoW that you speak of. WoW's quests are incredibly dull, boring, repetitive, and grindy. I absolutely can't stand them. I quit solely because the quests sucked so much and I didn't want to be forced to quest just to play the game again. I would much MUCH rather do SWG mission grinding than WoW's quest grind any day, as mission grinding was just as boring and grindy as WoW's quests, but I got to do them with other people, which made them way more fun.
Also, good PvP? Where? I really enjoyed my attempts at Open World PvP in WoW, but Blizzard has pushed Arena's and BG's like crazy, and their classes are far too imbalanced to make Arena's viable.
Back on the topic of SWG, I get the feeling this update probably wasn't that hard to implement if the skeleton team currently working SWG was able to do it. A cool feature, yes, and yet another thing that could have made Pre-NGE that much better.
What is funny is how they did not add a controlable pvp abjective in space. I mean I might even consider comming back if there is a reason to fly, but no we get weak content that does little for actual fun. SOE should just give it up.
Devs should stop watching starwars movies and actually play their crap game and see how it sucks first hand. How do they expect us to tolerate it if they don't even tolerate it. It just seems that they don't have a clue or any vision at all. But I bet it is the morons at SOE corperate makeing bone head desicions for things they know nothing about. That's usualy how it works in my expirience.
I wish you people would abandon the misconception that TOR is going to be some trip to the past of SWG Sandbox style gaming. It's not going to be that at all. While Bioware does make very good games, they also make them very linear with the perception that it's not.
It's going to be very cookie-cutter like everything else we have been seeing all these years, only with a Bioware flavor.
Please people, don't get your hopes up.
I wonder what would increase subs more, updated housing or removing NGE?
Really why does SOE even bother doing anything with this hollow shell of a once great game?
I agree they need a completely new game engine. It is seriously painful.
The irony in hearing this.
There are a lot of people that play SWG right now, actually, contrary to popular bitter belief. While I'm not one of them, I do happen to know out of sheer logic that most simply enjoy the game for what it is now.
It's funny how all the vets of the past demand that they trash the game and bring back Pre-CU/NGE. Yeah, right.. Fuck the people who play now, do to them what SOE did to us.
Time has passed, you hardcore SWG vets give yourselves too much credit. Even if they brought back the old days of SWG, there would hardly be 1/10th of the players who played back then, if that.
It's like saying when Funcom releases the graphics update for Anarchy Online that they were supposed to do a year ago, that all the old players will come back. Hardly...
Not the same thing, but pretty close. The point being that everyone has moved on, time to let it go.
poor SOE they have killed another game ... sigh i love star wars but cant stand the wicked ways of the online game just cant seem to get into it.
maby next time they will leave PvP to what it should be (un-controlable)
The irony in hearing this.
There are a lot of people that play SWG right now, actually, contrary to popular bitter belief. While I'm not one of them, I do happen to know out of sheer logic that most simply enjoy the game for what it is now.
It's funny how all the vets of the past demand that they trash the game and bring back Pre-CU/NGE. Yeah, right.. Fuck the people who play now, do to them what SOE did to us.
Time has passed, you hardcore SWG vets give yourselves too much credit. Even if they brought back the old days of SWG, there would hardly be 1/10th of the players who played back then, if that.
It's like saying when Funcom releases the graphics update for Anarchy Online that they were supposed to do a year ago, that all the old players will come back. Hardly...
Not the same thing, but pretty close. The point being that everyone has moved on, time to let it go.
"alot" is pretty subjective isn't it? I mean they HAD to do server merges/transfers to get even a few servers populated.
The vast majority of vets only request a single pre-CU server and do not wish to NGE the NGE'ers. I wonder which server would have the highest population if they ever did that?
Lol, thanks for the highlight. Now I feel dumb ;)
Funny I played WoW at launch, was a big fan of the addons and never knew about yours.
It's simple math, they had more subs before NGE. If you want to cater to someone, cater to the majority. The majority current players would probably prefer the pre-NGE game as well.
Yeah, a Pre-CU server would be a very reasonable thing to do. They probably never will, but maybe considering the upcoming release of TOR, they might consider it for a little subscription defense.
You'd have to step into their shoes for a moment. I'm not talking about Smedley or anyone responsible for the decision way back. The people now however, can't consider spending the money to reverse engineer a working product, and let alone put on a life support what is basically a whole new game, completely separate of the current model.
They just don't have any solid reasons to as a business decision, to shell out that much cash and manpower.
It would be loyal and faithful to the customers, but it's not a business thing to do and it's far from graceful at this point, so much time has passed..
They have to reverse engineer things now to get things added...they admitted it themselves not too long ago.
Which is why they're not going to setup a new team to reverse engineer a completely different product.
Which is why they're not going to setup a new team to reverse engineer a completely different product.
They wouldn't have to...they have access to the pre-CU code. They are lying if they say they do not. They will not do a pre-CU server because:
1. ego...it would more than likely be the highest pop server they would have.
2. brain drain...most of the devs who know the code have moved on or were canned.
3. if a game breaking exploit popped up they would not have the resources to fix it...not that they ever fixed things anyway.
4. more bad press
Private houses should have curtains or blinds then lol.
John, it's SWG (sorta), not Second Life!
I've just seen some of them............ did their art team die? They look terrible, just like everything else that has been added which isn't TCG since the NGE.
The player house system is one of the best player house systems in Western MMORPG's. It is about time the crafters were not getting the shaft from the card game and had new craftable homes.
4. Wrong, we both fail as no company has the guts to see two different MMO models (Game & Simulator) and champion the one desired by hard core players with Blizzards standard of success. Polish, Complete, Bug Free and Directed.
A joke right?
SWTOR is going to be heavy with instancing. They say some areas will be populated, but the rest will be pretty much a single player game. How else do you think they would beable to do this with out instance A B C D to infinity. It would look like the nightmare in SWG after the NGE, 30 or more people waiting for a spawn to finish a quest. SWTOR is going to look like AOC and more than likely have story lines like AOC, go to point A; kill 30 snakes and return to mission giver. Or its going to be like Diablo II, story A, finish, start story B.
But to this topic of new houses, its about time they added a new house you didnt have to buy. The Devs for this game do try and are still coming out with new content. The only problem with this game is the lack of support from LA, which makes new content slower than a snail race. That and the other main complaint against the NGE is that the game has become a single player half baked first person shooter. People would come back and I think a good deal would also join if they returned to a more difficult game play. SWG needs consequences, that is why the galactic war fails; thiers no point to it, no real gain or loss. And why the sandbox is broken no decay no penalty for death. This forced people to interact, and interacting is what I consider a good mmo.
Yay! More features for the SWGemu Pre-CU community!
Too late :(
It's been a damn long time since I've seen SWG on the front page though...
I wonder WHAT would happen if they said 'We're rolling back the servers to PRE-NGE and appologize.'
they would get 10k people to come back for two weeks. They would lose the 40-50k people that play now and the 10k who did come back would quit in 2 weeks when they realized that by todays standards, the PRE-CU is a joke. I no longer play SWG, but my kid does. He loves it. I need more pve in my life, but for a sanbox mmo, it gives him what he wants.
SWG now is what you make it. There is 5-6 6man instances to run for gear, there is pvp areas and pvp rewards but the meat and potatoes of every person I talk is the fact they can create the things they want to do. For example, my son in an all imperial guild "patrols" mos eisly in his troop. They do events with story teller tokens, they do server wide events and he has a blast. Ive tried to get him into EQ2, WAR, DAoC, and multiple other games but the one thing that keeps bringing him back to SWG is the community.
For me, like I said earlier, the pvp is pretty decent. But the PVE is like Warhammer. a few 6man instances and thats about it. Grind away endlessly for tokens to get gear to help you pvp better, yea same concept as any other game but the fact remains a game like eq2 has 10x the amount of content. WoW has less overall content then eq2 but tons more then SWG. But in the end, if SWG had the pve content I wanted, or at least more of it like things of the hoth, and ISD nature I would go back in a heartbeat.
I played PRE-CU, I played CU1/2 and Quit with the NGE, but the game isn't that bad now. I would rather have the old class system sure, but the base game isn't the issue anymore. It has so much more content then it did in PRE-CU that I would play it over that anyday. I just feel as though right now it doesn't have the content to keep me going compared to current other games that combine pve and pvp.
they would get 10k people to come back for two weeks. They would lose the 40-50k people that play now and the 10k who did come back would quit in 2 weeks when they realized that by todays standards, the PRE-CU is a joke. I no longer play SWG, but my kid does. He loves it. I need more pve in my life, but for a sanbox mmo, it gives him what he wants.
SWG now is what you make it. There is 5-6 6man instances to run for gear, there is pvp areas and pvp rewards but the meat and potatoes of every person I talk is the fact they can create the things they want to do. For example, my son in an all imperial guild "patrols" mos eisly in his troop. They do events with story teller tokens, they do server wide events and he has a blast. Ive tried to get him into EQ2, WAR, DAoC, and multiple other games but the one thing that keeps bringing him back to SWG is the community.
For me, like I said earlier, the pvp is pretty decent. But the PVE is like Warhammer. a few 6man instances and thats about it. Grind away endlessly for tokens to get gear to help you pvp better, yea same concept as any other game but the fact remains a game like eq2 has 10x the amount of content. WoW has less overall content then eq2 but tons more then SWG. But in the end, if SWG had the pve content I wanted, or at least more of it like things of the hoth, and ISD nature I would go back in a heartbeat.
I played PRE-CU, I played CU1/2 and Quit with the NGE, but the game isn't that bad now. I would rather have the old class system sure, but the base game isn't the issue anymore. It has so much more content then it did in PRE-CU that I would play it over that anyday. I just feel as though right now it doesn't have the content to keep me going compared to current other games that combine pve and pvp.
QFE
and
The community is wonderful and as far as an MMO, whatever drives me back to the game...even if I'm guildless in SWG sometimes and my friends are taking a small break...is the diversity of the content. Although it doesn't have cool content quantities, it has it enough where it counts.
And the game IS evolving as it goes. The population is going very good and very steady and people on their new servers are loving it. I see NO sign of it dying whatsoever...even when SW:TOR comes out. There will be different things there, and different things in SWG.
I like SWG above things like Vanguard or Conan sometimes because the controls, graphics and general movement is so simple and do - able...and fun. you don't have to worry about a lot. When I play those other games, I'm just personally not a fan of graphics so complex and freeform along with the right clicking of my mouse to move and look around easily while I'm pressing W.
In SWG, I press Q, W, and E and just move the mouse around...no clicking involved...the engine is so simple, but fun at the same time. I move (not click) my mouse to rotate the camera WITH my person moving along with it to look around and move around. And I talk to NPCs by clicking on them...and doing options with the ~ key. The best simplest controls in MMOs ever.
The Graphics are fine... i don't care if it's not godly realistic unless its done good and right and actually makes you feel that way in that simple gamey way instead of pushing real life obstacles into it. Could it use some touching up to make it smoother? yes but as long as i can see/visualize a world that isn't entirely polygons, i'm completely fine.
i used to do that with my bounty hunter lol. wiating for jedis to exit lol. awww man im sad now, remembering those fun days of bounty hunting, going to the bh terminal, picking out a juicy unknown target, using my tracker bot, finding where he or she is onthe planet with the bio sig then tracking them down to the spot they are at. then id slowly creep up on them hoping they didnt see me, then pounce on them, or end up with a huge chase across dantooine or what have you until they got to their house (if they made it). i remember a huge fight i had with a stormtrooper clad commando, aced him in a 30 second fight with my guardian lightning cannon making 1.86 million credits. fun day, or others where you kill a jedi and they lose like 200k-400k xp per kill lol. those were the golden days. now being a bounty hunter sucks pretty much useless if they are on reutuss pvping. but oh well such is life, joy comes and goes, its a fleeting moment to enjoy it as you can :).
i got to also admit swg was the only MMO in which i got a trader class to max level :) he was my droid engineer :) ended up making some snazzy driods due to having such high end ore, crystal, and gases :) time consuming to find but so worth it when you have top of the line droidekas with killer health and dmg output or entertainer droids :)
/newbmode_on
Could someone explain to me what happened after this 'update' a few years ago and what the 'update' was?
Cause I heard alot about it and always wondered what it actually changed to the game...
Wow, lots of lipstick on this pig lately. Polishing the turd shiny bright.
The game is still alot of fun. I have played off and on since release and though it is not pre-nge it is still a very good game.
I play on Starsider gallaxy and the server load is Extremely heavy 90% of the time. To put it into perspective, Mos Eisley( Starsider server) is more crowded than Stormwind on a heavy load WOW server during prime times. I say this from experience and if you think I'm lying then download the trial and when you finish the Nub instance and shuttle down to Mos Eisley you will see what I mean.
WoW is to MMO evolution what the fall of Rome was to the advancement of civilization.
(i.e. a step backwards)
Pre-CU even without apologies and no jedi player? I would certainly make usage of my credit card.
But we all know it won't happen ever.
The biggest change with NGE was the dropping of a skill based character progression system to a class based leveling system.
Under to old system you could develop any skills you wanted and build your character to be what you wanted it to be. There were professions like doctor or bounty hunters, but you built your skills up to meet the requirements to become those professions. Even when you reached a profession, you still has skills within that profession to build to master the profession. You could develop enough skills to master one profession and still be able to dabble into another profession. So you could build your own class, ie bounty hunter / creature handler. There were no levels, just profession mastery.
This system of character building and the sandbox nature of the game is what made it unique and such a great game. SOE and LA decided to abandon this system for a WoW type system, because hey if it's not like WoW it can't be good right?
Star Wars Galaxies was NEVER a good Star Wars game.
But it was a good sandbox game.
And it was very much a Space Western scifi mmo.
Its... still playable, but its like a patchwork quilt of unrealized dreams and uninspired ideas. Ontop of that its extraordinarily dated now.
WoW is to MMO evolution what the fall of Rome was to the advancement of civilization.
(i.e. a step backwards)
LOL! To true!
without raph koster, its not the same thing. this was raph's design. thats like saying that the plumming guy that once worked on a frank lloyd wright when he was a kid is now capable of designing the next falling water.
without raph koster, its not the same thing. this was raph's design. thats like saying that the plumming guy that once worked on a frank lloyd wright when he was a kid is now capable of designing the next falling water.
I hope that Raph's new company can refine and produce his concepts in a quality and finished release, some day.
Do people still play this game? Seriously?
This type of patch doesn't do anything to really bring anyone back to the game, tbh. But, it's apparently something the current SOE/SWG community wanted and asked for.
Personally, I would've hoped for some more significant changes to gameplay, but fluff like this is what keeps coming.
...
The issue with SWG was that it was 'too complex' for new players to get into and figure out... supposedly. So, SOE/LA revamped the game and thus the CU/NGE.
Players apparently want to be 'spoon-fed'. 13,000,000 players can't be wrong, eh?
Yes, the original flavor of SWG had a lot of bugs, but TBH... it was a workable system that is very different from anything on the market today. Players had a lot of freedom to pick, choose, and play the game their own way.
Sure, I play WoW now, but that is only after SWG has been botched up so badly.
I started playing SWG four months before the CU and I had zero problems getting into the game figuring it out. Players were asking for balance tweaks and bug fixes and we got a retarded level system with the CU and a completely new game with the NGE. SOE was motivated by greed and certainly not by any desire to make the game better for their players.
Also, stop inferring that LA was responsible for the NGE. They were putting pressure on SOE to increase subscriptions but the NGE was *all* SOE.
If i just read an update about "milk" and animals being "milked" then SOE / SWG has some real serious issues to work out. They should question why they are even bothering with waking up in the morning: "Honey, gotta go, that virtual mob milking quests/ collection really needs some work!"
WTF happened to SWG??!?!?!?!
they would get 10k people to come back for two weeks. They would lose the 40-50k people that play now and the 10k who did come back would quit in 2 weeks when they realized that by todays standards, the PRE-CU is a joke. I no longer play SWG, but my kid does. He loves it. I need more pve in my life, but for a sanbox mmo, it gives him what he wants.
SWG now is what you make it. There is 5-6 6man instances to run for gear, there is pvp areas and pvp rewards but the meat and potatoes of every person I talk is the fact they can create the things they want to do. For example, my son in an all imperial guild "patrols" mos eisly in his troop. They do events with story teller tokens, they do server wide events and he has a blast. Ive tried to get him into EQ2, WAR, DAoC, and multiple other games but the one thing that keeps bringing him back to SWG is the community.
For me, like I said earlier, the pvp is pretty decent. But the PVE is like Warhammer. a few 6man instances and thats about it. Grind away endlessly for tokens to get gear to help you pvp better, yea same concept as any other game but the fact remains a game like eq2 has 10x the amount of content. WoW has less overall content then eq2 but tons more then SWG. But in the end, if SWG had the pve content I wanted, or at least more of it like things of the hoth, and ISD nature I would go back in a heartbeat.
I played PRE-CU, I played CU1/2 and Quit with the NGE, but the game isn't that bad now. I would rather have the old class system sure, but the base game isn't the issue anymore. It has so much more content then it did in PRE-CU that I would play it over that anyday. I just feel as though right now it doesn't have the content to keep me going compared to current other games that combine pve and pvp.
Community and class system is the key words I noted in Your post. Like so many other ppl have said b4. "It's too little and too late" Yes, they have added alotta nice new stuff. Still only minor changes compared to how the WoW giant adds new dungeons, raids, crafting, zones, class change and classes. From my point of view all the people moaning about us old SWG´ers still in hurt after being torn apart, they just dont know any better. Imagine the WoW gamer that logs on after a patch finding his game changed to Guild Wars style UI/combat. Ultimately making all his friends and foes leave the game and every major city a ghost towns. All theese years has passed and old SWG´ers are still here... hoping to get the feeling of a greater past back, the sence of being in a thriwing community once again. I personally play WoW in the lack of better. No reputation-, level- or honor grind can equal the preCU jedi grind. Which maked it so much more worth it.
The class system is getting more and more complicated in WoW but still not as unique as SWG was preCU.
Crafting in WoW is getting more and more wast but still so simple and every items has same stats. PreCU every item was unique and crafting took skill and efford beyond addiction for the very best.
Why keep comparing the MMO's some say. Cuz SWG is no longer unique and a poor clone of WoW. I say again, I still havnt seen any grind in any MMO compared to the time and efford it took to make a jedi in preCU. 1st Get glowy from proffession grind or hologrind even longer back. 2nd do the four village phases that stretched over A YEAR needing help from friends and guilds (best business deal for any MMO i say) 3rd start the force sensitive grind and not untill after THAT start grinding a jedi getting 1/4 of the xp pr. kill and needing 10x the xp than any other class. I say those of us that made it that far, We earned the right to be grumphy!
Today any 7yr old can make a jedi from day one.
I'm still around and grumphy all theese years later cuz I got hope to live the saga once again.
ofc they can "roll back" and make SWG a great game again. They have a huge name Star Wars all civilized people around the world know. There IS so much potential in the MMO. The lack of guts in SOE management and a poor handling from LA whom by the way should keep their hands off MMO and let the experts do their job.
A dream is not a dream if You have the will!
As for the window patch /shrug... I think the house itself is unique to any MMO but worthless if the MMO is dead
Pre-CU even without apologies and no jedi player? I would certainly make usage of my credit card.
But we all know it won't happen ever.
Well we did get the plaque for our house, a robe and a crystal. 1 year plus of grind well rewarded dont you think?
Well we did get the plaque for our house, a robe and a crystal. 1 year plus of grind well rewarded dont you think?
lol!
Not to say the glowy thing, the elder title, robe and buff.
LOL,
You mean you don't condone the "Uncle Owen" experiance?
I really don't get your "WTF Happened" because we moved away from this game play. Now you question shifting back?
What I can infer from your post is "Where is the Star Wars experiance?" which has always been lacking in any version of SWG.