Future Plans for SWG? 99
Warcry has a short article with impressions from someone who was asked to participate in a Star Wars Galaxies focus group. The moderator evidently presented several options, and the group responded. From the article: "The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups."
Please move along. (Score:5, Funny)
No, seriously, please. Just move along. For the love of the Force, our dev team has been raping your childhood memories like a Gungan on crystal meth for over three years now, and the only thing we've done that was even remotely cool was sending 1200 donuts [penny-arcade.com] to Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] last week.
And you're still here?
Please. Move. Along.
Cautiously optimistic? Don't make me get Ackbar out here.
Re:Please move along. (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Please move along. (Score:2)
As in "Wow, Star Wars is a cool movie. Wouldn't it be great if I could go to Tatooine, fly an X-Wing or use a Light Sabre?" For people who haven't played Star Wars Galaxies, thinking about that would lead them to imagining just how good it would be.
People who have played the game are stuck with remembering just how dull it was, and that sucks all the fun out of it.
So, yes, the new release did indeed destroy, or at
Re:Please move along. (Score:2)
SWG is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
The game is butchered, just let it die. The amount of bad mainstream press (Washington Post, CBS et al) it got, it pretty much guarantees that Joe Average probably has heard of it and staying away from SWG.
EQ with very loyal fanbase wasn't able to recover from the clusterfuck of Gates of Discord (and it was far less in magnitude than NGE of SWG), SWG with revamp after revamp won't be able either. SOE already tried saving EQ by inviting uberguild leaders to a weekend in San Diego, baseball game and al, focus groups of course. Result: server merges, continuous population decline.
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:2)
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
About as often as I've seen commercials for World of Warcraft on television. Zero. Yet WoW has reached the 6 million subscriber mark.
Word of mouth has to count for something, and apparently people just aren't telling their friends about Planetside.
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:1)
WOW has received tremendous publi
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:3, Informative)
-Jar.
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:2)
Oh I wish that were true. I stopped playing because the game got too rediculous, LIU runs, these shielded capitol bases, etc. Hell, I remember when there was no lattice. When the game was simple it was fun, you could jump on, find a hot spot, HART in and kill some NC/TR scum. But because of all this extra junk it just became stupid.
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:1)
As far as programming goes, it just feels cumbersome. It's a huge memory hog. It's 15x faster (literally, 20s instead of 5 min on my system) to alt tab out and kill it when you want to q
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:2)
Re:SWG is dead. (Score:1)
Rollback... how far? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I liked the game best sometime after Publish 10.. I liked the Combat Upgrade. Right about then was when my interest in the game peaked. And the very next patch I cancelled.
Maybe an option not explored in the focus groups would be the "sunset" of SWG, and the development of its replacement.
Re:Rollback... how far? (Score:2)
Re:Rollback... how far? (Score:1)
And next time? (A) Enforce the (expletive deleted) Terms of Service, and (B) whenever someone insists that you make it more like Everquest, tell them to go play Everquest.
And that right there is SOE's problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? Well at least with the holo grind people were doing different things while grinding. The holo monkeys gave the rest of the galaxy a constant supply of fresh meat. People needing newbie weapons, needing groups to survive doing from melee to ranged.
Or did the rot set in earlier when they added the doc buffs that allowed the so
Wish I knew what got into SOE lately... (Score:2)
That pretty much sums up the last year at SOE: making broad-sweeping changes to their games, and
Re:Wish I knew what got into SOE lately... (Score:2)
EQ2's theme has been stripping down things that are boring. Long, boring travel times across terrain you've passed a million times. Long, boring steps to craft a final product that doesn't make it harder or more complicated, just a giant pain in the butt. Long, boring grinds with
Re:Wish I knew what got into SOE lately... (Score:2)
As I was saying, I'm at the moment not discussing whether it actually is more fun or not, nor passing judgment about the mental illnesses (e.g., in your words, "obsessive compulsive grinder") of those who like X instead of Y. The argument about EQ2 crafting being somehow superior, however, did get posted all over the place, and even managed
And now to address the crafting itself (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with crafting is this: over-simplifying it won't make it more attractive to those who weren't in that category, since it just replaces one boring grind with another equally boring grind. If anyone can make 10,000 swords a day by just clicking a "make sword" button, limited
Re:And now to address the crafting itself (Score:3, Insightful)
Its time for this game to... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Its time for this game to... (Score:2)
Yeah, but this time, take 20 or, if you can't afford the time, at least 10.
Re:Its time for this game to... (Score:1)
Sony needs to kill it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sony needs to kill it (Score:1)
Re:Sony needs to kill it (Score:1)
SWG (Score:1)
Unfortunately, its about the last thing that will ever happen. Can't have mgmnt admitting to mistakes...
SWG Last Rights (Score:5, Funny)
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Requim aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Ok, the prayers have been said IN LATIN, so lets stop beating this dead horse and let it die.
Re:SWG Last Rights (Score:2)
Re:SWG Last Rights (Score:3, Funny)
City of Jedi (Score:5, Insightful)
Every player character is a jedi. You can totally customize your race, appearance, and style of force use. In fact, you don't even have to use the force if you don't want. But you start out with force potential. And the players can go around the Star Wars universe being good or bad guys, doing quests and unlocking new force powers and crafting interesting weapons.
The reason I say this, is because it makes every player feel like an important part of the action. I can only reallly speak for myself, but I'm not going to pay money for a game just so I can experience the simulated thrill of eeking out a living as a dancer, or a baker or some crap. I want a gun, a lightsaber, and directions to the nearest enemy. I want to be a part of the Star Wars adventure and kick some ass. I don't need to meet Han Solo every ten minutes to remind me I'm in Star Wars, but neither do I want to spent 345 hours farming pubic hairs on some remote moon in the yadda yadda quadrant.
I've never designed a game so my opinion amounts to approximately ass, but I just feel like Star Wars Galaxies was designed by people with no concept of human psychology or game design theory. [shrug]
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
Stormtroopers, Fighter Pilots, Smugglers, everyone can be all that, and having the universe be primarily combat oriented is fine. But 10,000 assclowns runing around named "1337j3d1" swingin their lightsabers around is not Star Wars.
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
On the other hand, those 10000 clowns are the best reason for Senator Palpatine to build an army of clones to whipe out the Jedi. Your comment explains a lot about Starwars 1-3 (chronologically).
Re:City of Jedi (Score:1)
Re:City of Jedi (Score:1)
Maybe you didn't see Attack of the Clones. =D
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
Sorry, seems like it needs to be done:
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
People say this stuff all the time, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.
1) There are these things called "NPCs". The devs can put in as many as they want. The NPCs can be the pubic hair farmers,
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
2) This isn't that part of the continuity. And you know very well that I wasn't talking about the story arc specificaly. The universe has a feel to it, and you wreck that feel by having too many assclown jedi where none should exist.
3) You
Knights Of The Old Republic (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll notice that the most successful games set in a given universe step outside the timeline that confines them. KOTOR is one example, but maybe World O
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2, Insightful)
btw, I really miss JTL. Any good online space sims out there?
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
It was the same with combat. The ideas that were there at launch were interesting, but executed so poorly. People say that that pre-cu combat was more
Re:City of Jedi (Score:2)
I love the NGE! (Score:5, Funny)
- Smed
Re:I love the NGE! (Score:1)
Re:I love the NGE! (Score:2)
He suckered a me and someone else he played WoW with into trying it out.
What can I say, no character customization, seriously whacked out combat, buildings that pop up after you've driven on top of them, no apparent player population. I wasn't impressed. The space combat is pretty cool although seriously repetitive.
My friend is known to be extremely critical and have very picky taste. Apparently Sony has hit on the formula that is
Re:I love the NGE! (Score:1)
Notice there is no handle; only posted as Anonymous Coward. How appropriate.
Everyone Loves the Jedi (Score:1)
Said for the 1,000,001th time (Score:4, Insightful)
I cancelled soon after the do-gooders with the glowing swords started showing up by the truckload.
Sure, there are a plethora of other things to pick on, but the whole atmosphere of the game is ruined by the presence of lightsaber-wielding freaks every 10 feet. According to the films, there were two known Jedi in the entire galaxy at the time this game takes place. In-game, there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands.
Change rules, change professions, change and publish whatever... unless the amount of Jedi are cut back by 99% the game will never have the proper feel.
v.m
The rollback (Score:5, Insightful)
-Eric
Re:The rollback (Score:1)
I want you guys with tech degrees and movie editing props to try something tonight. Take Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3 - and cut out EVERYTHING except the lightsaber fights. Paste all that together, and tell me Lucas wouldn't have been much better off just publishing this.
Re:The rollback (Score:2)
-Eric
Re:The rollback (Score:1)
Re:The rollback (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
As I posted (pointlessly, to a thread from last Wednesday, where nobody will ever see it) this is the same forum where another game which makes
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's entertaining to watch what's going on with SWG from a safe and comfortable distance.
Why do you think people go to stock car races? Hint: it's not to see cars turn left.
That's productive.
Nope, that's slashdot.
Biased (Score:2)
Anyway, you make a rather stupid mistake, you think that the people who decry sony are the same who defend blizzard. No way.
Blizzard if anything is a far worse
Re:Biased (Score:2)
I'm no SOE fanboi, nor am I a Blizzard fanboi. I played WoW for nearly a year before I gave up on it. I played EQ2 for about 2 months before I was sure how bad it was.
I will say this, though, from my experience. SOE patched EQ2 nearly daily. SOE has nearly doubled the size of the "world" in EQ2. Blizzard patches monthly, and only hotfixes bugs that benefit the player. Blizzard hasn't added much of anything to its game,
Re:Biased (Score:2)
Good. Credit Cards are another filter for the obnoxious kiddies. It's not foolproof by any means, but if you *really* don't want to pay via credit card you can go to any gaming shop and purchase timecards with cash or check.
Ah, the nerdy knight to the rescue. Welcome (Score:2)
See, it takes a nerd to take one detail out of con
Fool me 24 times... (Score:1)
Or... (Score:2)
Or...because knowing Lucas and Sony...those bastards are probably planning on releasing a SWG Classic edition that you'll have to shell out another $50 for....
Re:Or... (Score:1)
Pros/Cons? (Score:1)
Re:Pros/Cons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then at level 20 you are supposed to get you final class. Except it is prediced. The only difference that the titel is now based on your alignment. Monk (good) Brawler (bad) unarmed fighter.
So how closed is this? Well, at no point do you choose say something like your stat points. Meaning every half-elf brawler level 18 is EXACTLY the same. Because of the way equipment works you will probably also be using pretty much the stuff.
Now they added some minor choices that make you character slightly unique but in EQ2 you pretty much now exactly what a well played shaman is and isn't capable off. Player X will have the same spell list as player Y.
SWG on the other hand left it totally open how you developed your skills. In fact with a new character most players would dabble in ALL the disciplines, being a medic, ranger and melee combat, a dancer and a crafter with a bit of scout for good measure.
Depending on your style and if you weren't a template stacker you could have some unusual mixed. A medic with a sniper rifle , a doctor jedi. Whatever!
To an extent, it allowed a great deal of freedom. Crafters with a sideline in rifles so they could safely clear their harvesters of nasty critters. Dancers with a sideline in cutting peoples heads off.
In SWG you never knew exactly what the other guy was capable off.
SWG is GTA
EQ2 is Need for Speed.
One is freedom, the other is on rails.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Re:Pros/Cons? (Score:1)
If all they did from release was fix the broken things (like chef, squadleader, some harvesters, some recipes), balance the combat professions and armour properly (get rid of mind bleed, and burn, and crazy CH pets etc etc) and add some GOOD pve content (not stupid pve content) they would have had a
I'd go back to the good old days (Score:4, Interesting)
People at that time actually experimented with professions and once they found something they liked, they kept it! there were people in the cantina's, we had real people vendors making stuff, rangers hunting, BH's weren't doing much but had cool weapons, etc. This was when the game had an actual economy, people created pseudo corporations and made a killing!
The game started to go into the shitter once they gave everyone holocrons as a christmas gift. That started the real grinding evolution. A friend of mine actually did 32 professions to get his Jedi. The whole jedi thing didn't outright destroy the game because ppl still played it and worked together to grind out those professions (and some actually discovered hey i actually enjoy this profession, screw jedi). But there was still a need for the interdependicies between the professions. Armorsmiths still needed to get minerals to grind out their profession, which meant they needed architects to build the factories and the miners needed the extractors so everything worked out quite well(I used to be an armorsmith which is why i used this example).
BUt now, they have completely destroyed everything all of the pre NGE players created, everything was scaled back from 32 professions to 9 "iconic" professions (If i hear iconic, or whatever the hell word they kept using i'll puke) . It actually appeared to be the work of lazy ass people. Maybe they fucked up the game so bad that the only way to undo everything was to have this wonderful NGE.
And who the hell made the call to let everyone be a jedi. When the game first came out they said "yes you can be a jedi but it'll take you a long time to figure it out" and they kept up with it for a long time.. I think it took almost a year for the first jedi to appear and now everybody and their grandmother are a jedi.. crap!
I'd go back to the game only if I knew the same players returned, which is highly doubtful because they've probably found a new home in World Of Warcraft.
I've never seen anything in my entire life managed so poorly from a software deployment/change point of view. Hell, MS has a better track record than these clowns. And this game has totally ruined the star wars experience for me. I don't think i'll ever try another starwars game again!!
MrJynx
Re:I'd go back to the good old days (Score:1)
Originally I felt that Lucasarts did a really great job at controlling their license and making sure it turned out quality products. Tie Fighter remains my favorite PC game of all time and for a long stretch I always felt confident purchasing the latest Star Wars title. Rather than de
Nothing to see here (Score:1)
Kill it, start over, change the timeline (Score:2, Insightful)
What amazes me is that lucas arts let sony do SWG the way they did. Now Sony, having EQ, you would think we'd have seen everquest in space, if that had been the case (something half way between EQ and EQ2 in terms of technology) it might have been quite successful, maybe not WoW successful, because that didn't have the Sony name attached (the Sony customer service reputation is of course a disaster, although the ticket system in SWG was a huge improvement). Unfortun
Re:Kill it, start over, change the timeline (Score:3, Interesting)
Poof goes the article (Score:3, Interesting)
So, literally, nothing to see here.
Re:Poof goes the article (Score:2)
> pulled the comments based on the NDA.
OMG, NFW.
Chris Mattern
the article (Score:5, Informative)
I still remember... (Score:2)
Episode I? (Score:1)
Rollback the current SWG to pre-NGE and keep it in Episode IV timeline. Start a new SWG in the Episode I timeline. Give creative control to George Lucas and let him generate ideas for plot, quests, events, etc. Because if George could use his genious to create something as awesome as Episode I...
Sorry. I couldn't keep a straight face and keep typing. I seemed to have left my sarcasm switch on.
I played SWG in beta. That's all. It was uninteresting and boring then. I cannot imagine how mind-n