Profile: MindTrigger
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• • OMFG ITZ NOT SWG2.0 WTFBBQ and the grafix??? meh

  • The reason that escapes the OP for why he loved pre-cu SWG was the community that was built due to the sandbox nature of the game, bolstered by rich non-combat and social systems.  The non-combat systems and classes were every bit as rich as the combat systems.  I have no problem remembering what it was about SWG that I loved.  It was the people, the community, which was enabled by the game's ability to let them truly forge their own path in the game. 

    By comparison to today's (few) polished MMO's, the game itself was completely incoherent and broken.  We all knew that.  There were few quests, many of which were bugged, and the whole game was mostly grind.  What kept people playing for *years* was the community. I had more fun having random player driven adventures in SWG than I have on any scripted or non-scripted quest in modern games.

    Let me list a few things I did in SWG that I can't really do in any other game.  I am an outdoorsman in real life, so when I realized the flexibility of SWG would let me mimic this in the game, I was all over it.  It didnt even really seemed like role playing to me, because it was just natural.  The game had a tendancy to put players in character in their heads, so the rest would come out naturally.

    1) I created a toon who's job was owning/running  "Back country" stores that sold stuff to people who were out in the middle of no where, hunting or questing.  My shops were themed and decorated to give one the feel of walking into a mountain store where things like camping/hunting gear were sold (camps, food, pet food, fishing bait, meds, etc).  Since I could place my shops pretty much anywhere I wanted in the game world, I would find quiet place out in the wilderness  (yes SWG had wilderness)  where I knew people liked to grind certain mobs. I would make my vendor NPC look like he was dressed for a fishing trip, and when he talked to you, he was in-character.  People *loved* my stores, and even though I didnt' make a ton of money off of them, the atmosphere I brought to to the game, and the friendships I made through selling and buying things from other crafters to sell in my shop were amazing.

    2) To go along with my back country shop owner, I wanted to create a hunting toon that could supply hides and other things I needed for the shops.  I rolled a Master Ranger / Master Rifleman.  I would get on the SWG forums and post advertisements as a Ranger for Hire.  Through the skills and flexibility of the game, I was able to create a toon that was something similar to a survivalist.  People would hire me to lead expeditions to find Krayt Dragons, or some other mobs they knew where hard to find.  Other crafters would hire me to do contract hunting for rare materials they needed to make great gear. I built a lot of relationships with other players, and had too many fun adventures to count.   

    Sometimes I would just be sitting out in the middle of nowhere at my campfire / tent and some other players would stumble upon me.  I would offer them to join me for some food and chat, and sometimes they would go on their way, or ask me to join them on an adventure. No matter what happened, the fact that you could stumble upon a player in the middle of nowhere (SWG is HUGE), and have an interaction such as this was incredible.

    3) My large house was a "Hunting Lodge" open to the public.  People may not know this if they didnt' play the game, but nearly *everything* you could have in your inventory in SWG had a real 3D model, and could be dropped in your homes or shops.  SWG had a clunky but flexible system to allow you to arrange, oveylap and place these items pretty much any way you wanted in your home.  The results of this are player-created themed creations such as Cantinas, lodges, temples , general stores, gun stores, restaurants, hotels, hospitals and even just elaborate, awe-inspiring homes. Your imagination was your main limit here.

    Going along with my outdoorsmen theme, I created a Hunting lodge and made my sign outside so people would know to come in and take a look at it.  I spent many, many of hours over months to get this place set up the way I wanted it, and the result was awesome.  I would get random messages from people in the game who saw my sign and stepped in to see that I had created. They would compliment me and tell me how awesome it was.  Some people used it as a lodge and came back frequently.

    -----------------------------------

    I want to say something again that I touched on above.  I am not really a roll player.  I don't have anything against roll playing, but it has never been my thing.  SWG's sandbox game play just made it easy and natural to step into the shoes of your toon.  I wouldn't call what I was doing roll playing in the traditional sense, but I definitely was in-character most of the time. 

    I know I did a horrible job above of explaining what I did in SWG. I only scratched the surface of the true experience.  The main point I want you to take away from the above was that combat was only a potion of what I did in the game.  It was essential to me because I love killing stuff too, but it was only part of my whole experience.  There were days I would just hunt and quest, and there were days I would craft, or gather resources, or just interact with other players.  What mmo today offers a rich experience outside of combat and questing?

    My 'outdoorsmen' experience was mine.  You can talk to countless other people who made their own path through the Star Wars universe that was completely different, and equally as deep.  We weren't stuck playing one of a handful of done-to-death arch classes like we are today.

     

     

     

  • Posted: 11/29/08 3:46 PM
    Star Wars: The Old Republic
• • Why the instance hate?

  • Originally posted by Swiftblade13
    

    Originally posted by MindTrigger
    

    I don't hate instances where dungeons, special quests or even buildings are involved.  What I hate is the system AoC uses where all the "open" zones are small instanced little islands onto themselves, and you have no feeling of size to the world.  You port everywhere, and it feels claustrophobic. 

    I also don't like the concept of handling server population by launching multiple parallel instances of zones.  I guess if you have a small game world like Conan, you have no choice, but it is no substitues for large open play areas.

    
     

    I wholeheartedly agree about the AoC style thing... Even EQ2 had these two features which I hated. 

    Like I said, as far as instancing/open world goes I think WoW is perfect.

     

    I'm not a huge WoW fan.  I did roll a hunter to 70, and had a decent time.  I do give them props for having a HUGE open game world.  Actually, LOTRO's is too.  Small game worlds are an instant turn off for me before I even notice anything else.

  • Posted: 11/14/08 6:50 PM
    General Discussion
• • Why the instance hate?

  • I don't hate instances where dungeons, special quests or even buildings are involved.  What I hate is the system AoC uses where all the "open" zones are small instanced little islands onto themselves, and you have no feeling of size to the world.  You port everywhere, and it feels claustrophobic. 

    I also don't like the concept of handling server population by launching multiple parallel instances of zones.  I guess if you have a small game world like Conan, you have no choice, but it is no substitues for large open play areas.

  • Posted: 11/14/08 6:11 PM
    General Discussion
• • Sandbox MMO?

  • If you haven't already, check out Earthrise.  It's in development, but is a major departure from the used up old concepts in mmos today.  It has some features similar to the original SWG game, including a complex crafting system, and skill based character progression instead of levels.  Looks pretty cool so far, but only time will tell if it will live up to the feature list.

  • Posted: 11/14/08 3:08 PM
    General Discussion
• • WOTLK Is Amazing

  • Originally posted by donjn
    

    Originally posted by MindTrigger
    

    Originally posted by donjn
    

    Originally posted by MindTrigger
    

    Originally posted by donjn
    

    Originally posted by MindTrigger
    

    Sounds like someone has been playing too much wow, and just needed some new content.  I doubt the gameplay has changed at all, and I know they did nothing to enhance the social features or crafting, so it's still the same old game.  The expansion might be pretty, but it's still just WoW.

    Nope. Been playing AoC, Warhammer, Ryzom for free, etc, etc. I am not a hardcore WoW player at all.

     

    You obviously have a level 70 toon though, right?  So did they enhance the game play at all with new concepts?  Did they add more social or non-combat features.  Did the expand their weak excuse for a crafting and resource system?  If not, it's all just visuals.  The shine will wear off after you get used to it.

    Name a game out there right now with a better social system, non-combat features, crafting and resource system. DONT mention one category, your example must be better than WoW's in ALL above mentioned categories. Yes WoW has some failings in those areas, but no-one can do all of those things perfectly.

     

    You just illustrated my point.  WoW has very little in the way of social features, non-combat systems, and the crafting is pathetic.  Every game that has come out since WoW is trying to carbon copy WoW's success suffers from the game lack of innovation.  Games that are 90% combat and 10% everything else will always bore me and many other people to death.  WoW is my main example of what is wrong with MMO's today.

    I played through to 70, then left.  I had a decent time, but it certainly wasn't a memorable experience.  I found the whole game to be shallow, and everyone was sort of disconnected.  All the other new MMO's are the same way.

    Yet you didn't answer my question.

    Look up the theme song from "The Spy Who Loved Me"...

    You asked me to name a current game that is better than WoW in those categories.  Everything to come out in the past few years has either failed outright, or is a clone of wow's gameplay.  They are more or less the same. This doesn't  make wow the best game out, it makes it the pioneer in yawn-inducing mmo play.

    SWG still, even in its currently torn up state, has better, deeper, and richer crafting and non-combat gameplay elements than any other game on the market, WoW included.  This is still true now, even though most of the game was *removed* when SOE tried to turn SWG into a WoW-clone.

    The fact that they removed so much from SWG to make it more like WoW speaks volumes about the depth and gameplay of WoW by comparison.  Imagine a game with 26 (!) professions/classes that gives you the ability to mix and match skills from mutiple classes to create your own path through the game.  None of the current game developers have the ballsack to even break out of the standard archtypes, let alone create 26 of them.  Many of the non-combat professions in SWG were complete gameplay paths that were independent of combat.  Show me a game like that today.

  • Posted: 11/14/08 2:47 PM
    World of Warcraft