Is Star Wars Galaxies any fun at all?

[Darksider]

I know we have (or at least, had) a few people who played this here, and since testing is a wasteland of slaughtered threads (and also because I want an actual answer instead of spam and chan bullshit) i'm posting this here.

I've been looking for something to get with my abundance of best buy gift cards I never seem to use, and it looks like the complete online adventures is pretty cheap.

Is SWG any fun at all? are there any fun quests to do? If I create a rebel soldier character, will I be able to fight the empire from the get go or will I be able to level up with countless useless fetch quests and "kill X number of useless creatures" bullshit before I get to do anything interesting? I doubt i'd do PvP at all, so are there any interesting quest chains or storylines?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Are you trying to make people cry? Is that what you want, Darksider? Do you feed on the suffering and misery of others in some sadistic display of schadenfreude?

SWG was very cool (if often crippled by bugs and fucked up development direction) when it came out, for about a year or so. Then SOE completely fucked it in the ass. With a laser chainsaw. They turned it into a godawful abomination of its former self bearing little to no resemblance to its original design.

It is now, and has been for a very long time, a miserable, wretched pile of steaming shit which should not ever be played be anyone, and for the sake of those who used to play it (such as myself), should not ever be mentioned or seriously put forward as a viable means of entertainment.

[Darksider]

really? Everything I read about the NGE actually looked pretty interesting. Supposedly they've changed the combat style from the typical MMO click on enemy to attack to one that actually requires input from the player. As for the lost character classes, I doubt I would've been anything other than a soldier anyways. Certainly not an entertainer or whatever the hell they called it. Exactly what did the NGE do to the game that was so horrible?

EDIT: The fact that someone had to kill tattooine critters to level up their "blaster XP" is the whole reason I avoided the game like the plague in the first place. NGE actually made the game sound better to me.

[Mr Bean]

really? Everything I read about the NGE actually looked pretty interesting. Supposedly they've changed the combat style from the typical MMO click on enemy to attack to one that actually requires input from the player. As for the lost character classes, I doubt I would've been anything other than a soldier anyways. Certainly not an entertainer or whatever the hell they called it. Exactly what did the NGE do to the game that was so horrible?

EDIT: The fact that someone had to kill tattooine critters to level up their "blaster XP" is the whole reason I avoided the game like the plague in the first place. NGE actually made the game sound better to me.

No before the NGE the game was pretty much the only major skill based MMO. You were a YOU, you were good at some things and crap at most things. There were four base classes to work through each leader to a pair of super-classes or a single class. Granted the social classes never really caught on and old SWG admitted that forced player interaction lead to people having an alt booted to take care of the mental drain. In fact before the NGE it had been reduce enough you only have to visit a Club once a week if you played heavily and then for only about ten minutes. Or if you died twenty times in a row.

So NGE kept that social class idea(And made it even less useful) but on the flip side managed to kill crafting in the trade. As SWG had the only crafting system worth a damn with actual complexity (Or way to much in Bio-Engineering's case) where the quality level of the material mattered. Where the quality of the tools mattered and where you own skill mattered. There were no real limits before the NGE, want to try building a rocket launcher on day 1 of weapon smithing? Good luck that sucker's going to blow someone up the first time anyone uses it. Or a mine that either does not go off, goes off several seconds(Or minutes) later or if your bad enough with crappy enough materials, one that will go off as you try and plant it.

SWG was a game that had several great ideas and did nothing with them aside from putting them in game. Yes there was blaster XP, but you could train past that from another player if you wanted. Also it did not require much effort. You could do a skill wipe, untrained every skill and be a grand master something within a day or two. The NGE killed many things. Before SWG was about two months of content and after that your making it up as you go along. NGE has about ten hours worth of content since they killed 3/4's of the classes and broke the economy.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

NGE neutered an original, unprecedented and frankly brilliant game design (which admittedly wasn't necessarily executed very well in practice). The game was incredibly open and sophisticated... NGE turns it into just another bad MMO, one which the SWG engine isn't really optimized to handle. It's like some shitty bastardization of WoW and Tabula Rasa, with the worst elements of both and the best elements of neither.

You could make your own content in the game, and I loved it for all its flaws. For the first few months of the game, I hardly even set foot off of Rori. Basically myself and a handful of friends were the only Imperial dudes around on that little corner of the galaxy (at least on our server), against quite the collection of Rebels on the other side of the moon. We regularly conducted guerilla raids against Rebels who thought they were safe running missions against Imperial NPCs, and guarded the primary spaceport to make life difficult for any Rebels trying to get to their base on the moon.

When we got our Stormtrooper armor it just got all the better.

[Gramzamber]

I enjoyed SWG during the early months, though it had some stupendously bad design in places and the horrible MMO trap of "elite" mobs. No, I do not expect a "Rebel Ensign" to have 50k health and take an entire team of players to take down.
It also had a the worst of all MMO nerf/buff cycles with it's classes, which was rather hilarious at times. It seemed like every couple of months SOE would pick a class to be God, it would reign supreme in pvp, only to get nerfed to hell later.

Despite the inept handling it was still fun.. until the NGE of course.
I hear there's a private SWG server out there running a pre-NGE build with a decently large community though.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Oh yeah, SOE badly, badly, badly mismanaged the live development of the game. No doubt about it. Hell, SOE wrote the fuckin' book on "hilariously incompetent mismanagement". The PvP balance was fucked in a way not even the cheapest prostitute could ever comprehend. The entire game was rife with more bugs and bugs-within-bugs than a flea circus. Every fix only worked halfway and just introduced two new problems. Every nerf rendered something utterly useless beyond sensibility, every buff deified it (PROUD PRE-BUFF COMMANDO, fuck all you bandwagoneers). Crafting became completely fucked up beyond all recognition - ultra-hardcore crafters would have all the best mining facilities built on the best minerals as soon as they shifted and would flood the market with ridiculously overpowered armor and weapons. 'Pre-nerf' items became hot as old overpowered items remained in circulation (having not received retroactive nerfs), exacerbating and obfuscating existing issues into a completely indecipherable miasma of shit.

[Mr Bean]

ultra-hardcore crafters would have all the best mining facilities built on the best minerals as soon as they shifted and would flood the market with ridiculously overpowered armor and weapons. 'Pre-nerf' items became hot as old overpowered items remained in circulation (having not received retroactive nerfs), exacerbating and obfuscating existing issues into a completely indecipherable miasma of shit.

I had forget about that(Or repressed the memory) when for a time, there was a bug where if you destroyed and rebuilt a mining facility on swapland on Rori you have a chance to get bugged materials with the equivalent of "10" in all categories. Items made from it were insane in terms of damage and they had to spend two weeks tracking down all the Blaster +10 that became Blasters +1,000 because of this.

Still it was fun for awhile as all the elite mobs became cake since these weapons worked badly with some class combination to the point where even DoT attacks in PVP could do three times your life bar in damage... per tick.

[Darksider]

well, it seems they're offering a 14-day trial on the galaxies website, so I figured i'd try it out. Gaius, what you said about ambushing rebel PCs on missions has me worried. The few times i've played WoW on a friends account, I despised PVP. am I going to have to worry about getting bushwhacked on a mission for the rebellion or something?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

No. That was back when the game was cool.

[Mr Bean]

well, it seems they're offering a 14-day trial on the galaxies website, so I figured i'd try it out. Gaius, what you said about ambushing rebel PCs on missions has me worried. The few times i've played WoW on a friends account, I despised PVP. am I going to have to worry about getting bushwhacked on a mission for the rebellion or something?

Engaging in PVP. IE as a Imperial Soldier shooting up Rebels, or as a Rebel shooting up Imperials will flag you for PVP, or used to. Don't know if NGE changed that. However Imperial and Rebel NPC's give better and more rewards. It was one of SWG few good ideas. Sure you as a Rebel could start shooting up Stormtroopers in the Mos Elsie Spaceport but be warned that other Imperials could join in against you.

As a rebel unless you were flagged you were an "unknow" Rebel. And the status lasted a decent amount of time before you went back to PVE.

[RogueIce]

well, it seems they're offering a 14-day trial on the galaxies website, so I figured i'd try it out. Gaius, what you said about ambushing rebel PCs on missions has me worried. The few times i've played WoW on a friends account, I despised PVP. am I going to have to worry about getting bushwhacked on a mission for the rebellion or something?

After they made Jedi a selectable character class (in the OT for crying out loud, but I guess fanboy whining is greater than respecting the mythos of the setting) I heard there were Jedi Death Squads. Basically PvP dickheads ganking people. I don't know if that's still around or whatever these days.

By the by, the whole "Jedi as starting class" thing is what totally turned me off of buying the game. Maybe in KOTOR or some NJO timeframe or whatever. But the OT? Yeeesh. Apparently it used to be some long quest chain or whatever, which was slightly better though not perfect (as I'm sure those with no lives would just grind their way to it).

[Darksider]

No. That was back when the game was cool.

I don't suppose you know how PvP works now? I'll admit, at first I was worried about getting ambushed by some level 90 asshole with no life while I was in the middle of a mission to blow up some imerial doohickey or kill grand moff something or other, but i'll admit, getting ambushed by someone who I could actually fight would be interesting enough. Could turn a routine mission or quest into a furious battle.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I have no idea what (if any) PvP there is now. As far as I know it's mostly contained to re-purposed "skirmish zones".

Back in the day, you did have a chance against almost anyone else (balance issues aside) because there were no levels. It was a pure skill-based character progression, albeit heavily gear-dependent.

[Darksider]

I have no idea what (if any) PvP there is now. As far as I know it's mostly contained to re-purposed "skirmish zones".

Back in the day, you did have a chance against almost anyone else (balance issues aside) because there were no levels. It was a pure skill-based character progression, albeit heavily gear-dependent.

Well, I suppose i'll be able to figure out how the game works in thirteen hours when my download finishes anyways. And if the game itself doesn't entertain me, I'll at least be able to amuse myself by making you cry by telling you how crappy it's become

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I am aware. I have logged in on free welcome back trials out of some masochistic desire for pain.

Interestingly, all of my stuff, including my house and everything in it was still intact... except for my precious, painstakingly-collected Stormtrooper armor.

[Darksider]

I am aware. I have logged in on free welcome back trials out of some masochistic desire for pain.

Interestingly, all of my stuff, including my house and everything in it was still intact... except for my precious, painstakingly-collected Stormtrooper armor.

How do you get military armor anyways? I'm going rebel, so I doubt Stormie armor is available to me, but I was wondering how i'd get some decent (obviously not highest end, since if the game sucks as much as you say I doubt i'll be playing past the 14-day mark) weapons and equipment. If I raid an imperial base as part of a mission, will the stormtroopers there drop E-11s? Credits so I can buy shit? Wookiepedia is curiously absent of information in this regard.

[Mr Bean]

How do you get military armor anyways? I'm going rebel, so I doubt Stormie armor is available to me, but I was wondering how i'd get some decent (obviously not highest end, since if the game sucks as much as you say I doubt i'll be playing past the 14-day mark) weapons and equipment. If I raid an imperial base as part of a mission, will the stormtroopers there drop E-11s? Credits so I can buy shit? Wookiepedia is curiously absent of information in this regard.

In order
Make it, No it's not, No, Yes, Yes Wookiepedia is absent of information, go check SWG forums.

[Stark]

For those who played SWG in the very early period, how much of the now-common ragging is valid? I understand the game had a lot of bugs and balance issues, but BCG seems to suggest that the actual structure of the game was fine. Is this the case?

[Gramzamber]

Back when I played armor was either:

a) Completely worthless (sadly including Stormtrooper gear)
b) Rarer than the fraking holy grail (Mandalorian)
c) Composite

In other words everyone wore composite which was this generic Robocop-ish armor set and nothing else so everybody got to look exacty the same.
I suppose that's realistic in a sense, but terribly dull stylistically.

Of course that was in 2005 so I'm certain it's different now.
I remember logging in 2 years ago or so to take a look, and encountering a really fat guy in clonetrooper gear.
I'm not sure which is better.

[Gramzamber]

For those who played SWG in the very early period, how much of the now-common ragging is valid? I understand the game had a lot of bugs and balance issues, but BCG seems to suggest that the actual structure of the game was fine. Is this the case?

It was to an extent, but this is SOE we're talking about. As has been said, if they found numerous ways to fuck up the game's balance and content long before NGE.
They also treated the community like crap, resulting in incidents like the infamous teleporting of player characters protesting against people unfairly banned for credit duping (they were innocent) into space.

Edit: Bah meant to edit this into the above post, sorry for the double post.

[Mr Bean]

For those who played SWG in the very early period, how much of the now-common ragging is valid? I understand the game had a lot of bugs and balance issues, but BCG seems to suggest that the actual structure of the game was fine. Is this the case?

No, SWG was always Good ideas in a crap outline.

Examples
Player Controlled Cities outside main Cities-Which served no in-game purpose but decoration and as a randomly generating mission hub
Skill based combat-Flavor of the month was terrible, Gear applied multiplers to damage and resistance so having crap gear meant you fought at
Planets-Were fine, pretty but empty except for a tiny hotspots
Space combat-Broken on launch
Missions-No story, no content, terrible rewards, Grade level mission goals, go here and kill person X, new mission go here and kill person Y
PVE Combat-Either you were going to die or you could fight off ten of them with your arms tied behind your back.

Oh and SWG the only MMO were they ever had to roll back servers a WEEK because things were so buggy and fucked up, not because of loss of data.
At the end of the day SWG was an MMO that always promised more, sometimes accidentally delivered, but each new patch always broken one part of the game. Always.

[Gramzamber]

I remember rumors of Lucasarts actively threatening SOE that they were going to pull the licence given how badly they were cocking things up.
A shame they never followed through on that. In the hands of people with actual functioning brains it might have been something special.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

That's the real tragedy of the game: so much potential, all pissed away in a dizzying display of incompetence and idiocy.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I hear there's a private SWG server out there running a pre-NGE build with a decently large community though.

You are correct, the problem is, it's also Pre-CU.