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Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Ships
TJPile writes "After months and months of beta testing and years of waiting, the Star Wars version of Ever-crack is now shipping. Order your copy today. There are already plans for an expansion pack in 2004 that will feature more character races, worlds, and even the ability to buy, fly, and fight in your own spaceship. The game will set you back $50, come on 3 CDs, require Internet access, and will cost around $10 a month (service subscription fee). Right now it's Windows only." Yep, I'm hoping to play as the Pit of Saarlac: The Ultimate Camper.
You have entered Cantina_1
You are struck by force for 15 points by Da4th_Vad3r_P1mp
You have been slain by Da4th_Vad3r_P1mp
Da4th_Vad3r_P1mp says: kekekeke
Pit_of_sarlac5116: roooaaar *chomp* *chomp* *digest*
Machine9dotNet
And of course the famous question
...
does anybody know if there's a linux version planned like NWN?
if so, then even I might get addicted
/me watches as productivity around the globe grinds to a screeching halt
And I thought we were in a recession now..
I think I'm going to go to the local EB and pass out some NA cards along with the game... looks like my cigarette vending ice-cream truck business will finally pick up..
I can't wait to see the look on Sony's faces with hoards of new subscribers turn their servers into a steaming pile of goop... *puts tin foil hat on* time to start playing, unibomber status
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I don't care what anyone says I've already preordered my copy and it should be arving within the day(or 2).
Besides you have to buy it, if not just for the fact that it is Star Wars.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Take it from someone who has played it since November.
This game is excedingly boring, even for an EQ clone.
Not to burst anyones overhyped bubble on this one, but this game is really, really boring. And, the only people who are goign to do good at it, are the huge guilds who have dolled out jobs and will be working together to become the powerhouses in the game VERY fast over people who are not.
I killed jarjar many times in beta, i think thats good enough~
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
"Right now it's Windows only."
Don't get your hopes up for a native linux erh I mean GNU/Linux version, SWG uses DirectX.
Let's hope winex can run it...
The only ppl i spoke to that think this is a great game are the kind of ppl you can sell a dog turd, with a SW sticker on for $ 500
Can you please get me in touch with those people? I might have some business proposals for them..
...the REAL, BETTER and more LOGICAL episodes 1 - 3 in form of a MMORPG? Maybe a movie doesn't suit Star Wars anymore as media format? I wan't my childhood Star Wars memories back. Maybe that game can give me what the movies failed to do. snif..
So I went out and picked up the game yesterday at my local EB...they had apparently been selling it since the 24th, which came as a bit of a shock....was nice to see that I got one of the last copies as apparently all but 2 had been pre-purchased or reserverd (the guy next to me said his kid had asked for it for his birthday 2 YEARS AGO)...
:(
Of course, imagine the utter disappointment of getting home and fniding that I could only create my station login and couldn't get a little jump on everyone
(Oh well)
I can't wait for this to go live today...should be really exciting (in a "i'm so lame, i have another life online which spends more time interacting with women than I do" kinda way)...again, disappointing that the addon won't come until 2004, but I imagine all the dedicated Star Wars nutters out there will find ways to keep busy until then...
Now I wonder how long until the Mac OS X port (now that EQ has finally arrived for Mac)
"Life ain't interesting till you blow something up" --Anonymous
The monthly fee, I believe, is going to be $15/mo. A new high for MMORPGs.
Having been in the beta for a long time, I'm going to suggest staying away from this one for at least a few months. Even in the last two weeks, servers have been going up and down daily an most things still don't even appear to work correctly. The game is not nearly completed.
From what I did play, though, I had fun with... I just won't be picking it up for a while. Besides, I've still go DAoC to keep me busy.
subscription rates are closer to 15 a month. They offer packages that allow pay more months up front, get a discount, all the way down to 12.00 a month for 1 year.
However, there are flaws with this game... look for a post further down...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I wonder if the game is logged well enough that Lucas will use it as a source for story ideas.
Hmm, maybe I should patent that idea.
Or maybe I should patent the idea that I thought of that idea.
Or#Y($(HJbnkHkjhgb ek7y732924283925
NO CARRIER
Sony appear to be banning thier beta testers who privately gave out about the game.
5
This link below has a really good review of what to expect, yet the person was banned and removed from the beta program.
http://www.swgpvp.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=19
Also the price of the game is a lot higher then $10 month afaik.
I participated in Beta 3 and I can tell u the game is not yet ready. There were some major patches in the past 2 weeks and there was no way near enough testing of those patches. Balance needs major tweaking in some areas, some of the elite professions have had some major issues, immersion is lacking, missions are lame and content overall is weak. However, the grafx are beautiful (if u got a top of the line machine) and the devs have been very communicative with the beta players so hopefully they will get their act straight when paying customers start complaining. Also, pricing ranges from $12-15 a month depending on how many months you purchase in advance.
...and now something better than EQ could have ever been(for me) comes out. My core group of friends are all big star wars geeks, and we pretty much quit EQ together, got girlfriends, etc. Now, with this coming out, we are going to have to band together and not get this as a team, lest we fall prey to our baser(geekier) desires.
But shit man, a wookie dark jedi.
(me to girlfriend)Baby, you know I love you, but I need some me(starwars) time, you know, to sort things out(become dark jedi). I'm glad you understand(please dont sleep with anyone else).
Love, Nadadogg(Sith Lord Grwararar-bacca)
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
If you sit down for drinks with Han Solo ...
Shoot First!
The monthly price is actually higher than the 10$ listed in the blurb. For a single month, you're paying nearly 15 bucks, though I believe you can knock it down to 12 bucks by paying a year at a time.
... some folks say it's a lot of fun but not a traditional MMORPG, others feel like it's too much of a traditional MMORPG and not enough like Star Wars.
:)
Varying rates plans apply depending on your subscription.
I've heard really mixed reviews of this
Personally, I'll play the "wait and see" game. With NWN SOU just being released, I have enough game content to fill up my spare time
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Will it work on Wine?
Disclaimer, I haven't played the beta at all, simply going on comments from others, and I fully realize gaming forums aren't the BEST place for opinions. I'll probably wait for a buddy to pick it up and check it out then... in the meantime, I'll stick with Dark Age of Camelot.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
how to release a massmog that underpromised, overdelivered and was reasonably stable at launch.
I mean, cmon. -microsoft- of all game developers has done it right -twice- now with the Asheron's Call series, and hitherto unknown Mythic Entertainment pulled it off with Dark Age of Camelot.
in my unprofessional opinion - this game is not going to strike a fire in the casual gamer market like they hope. any casual gamer will immediately be turned off by having their wookie bounty hunter continually chased all over tatooine by some fscking crab smaller than his head. the casual gamer doesn't want to spend 100 hours getting to the point where he can hunt banthas or dewbacks or sandpeople. they want to do fun stuff now.
not to mention travel. everything was laid out assuming you'd be able to get your own speeder bike or landspeeder, or bum a ride from someone. but now player-vehicles are out until god-knows-when, and the result is that the town to town running makes EQ's seem reasonable.
if star wars was an action game like planetside, that could maybe catch on - if only sony wasn't pricing it out of the realm of reasonability. $12/mo for a FPS?
SWG looks like a market dissappointment in the same vein as Sims Online.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
According to the LucasArts website "the game is intended for play only within North America". Is there a European or worldwide version?
That's priceless! Would that be the original or special edition version, then. :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
May the force be with you...
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Wasn't so long ago I heard that the people who beta tested the game got so fed up with this game because it was real crappy? They said that the game had no spirit because the worlds were completely random, and that there is nothing to do because you have no specific goal to aim to when you play. And according to my vocabulary -- it sounded like they were pretty experienced MMORPG gamers. So my guess is that this is the years Hyperware: Hyped up game that's highly expected with big sales the first week 'till reviews and word of mouth kicks in that the game sucks.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
I regret to inform you that I cannot praticipate in this travesty. I will only participate in the merchandising for good movies. Episodes I and II fail to qualify. The tought of you recieving any money for those is too horrible for my participation.
I've beta tested SWG for several months now am I am just one of the MANY beta testers who are really suprised to see this being rushed so badly. This game may be going on the shelves but it will be in beta for a very long time to come still.
Does it run under Wine, or is this one of those 'Dual Boot or Don't play' situations?
The name is The Sarlacc in the Great Pit of Carkoon.
official lore here
I suppose that there would be other Sarlaccs in less famous pits, if you don't manage to camp Carkoon, which is like the beverley hills of pits.
Look, I'm all for a good star wars mmorpg... but this isn't it. I've played in the beta.
It looks and feels like Anarchy Online. It's actually a pretty boring game. So far, it's been plagued by the same kinds of problems Everquest had, including the same lack of customer support and generally shoddy game design. They've had several patches that were nothing but nerf-fests and introduced more bugs than they fixed. You've got about a one in one thousand chance of ending up with a force-sensitive character, so forget about ever playing a Jedi.
Sure, they'll iron this thing out eventually. Once a lot of people start playing it and player communities take hold, it'll probably be fun. Once they get the 100 or so feautres they left out of the initial release added, it'll be a better game. Once the playerbase beats them into submission and forces them to make a few obvious, common sense design changes that should have been in from the beginning, it'll be a better game. It'll also probably be 2007.
If this game ends up being fun, it will be in spite of Sony, not because of Sony. Just like Everquest. Remember that this is not truly a LucasArts game.
Honestly I'd hold out for Worlds of Warcraft. Blizzard will treat its customers far better than Sony does.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
After all, it's a Star Wars(tm) product. It's not as though we care about the quality. Lucasarts know they've got our money no matter how much it sucks. We've shown them that time and again.
Alternatively, we could calm down, read some reviews, and decide whether it's worth investing the time and money in a game that seems to have everything we want... except a half decent implementation.
Well, I'm no star wars fan, but I have enjoyed beta testing this game for the past month. As I've only seen negative opinions so far, I thought I'd say that the game is quite fun, and potentially a huge time sink.. which is the only reason I'm not buying it currently, have too much work to do! Yes, there are bugs but I believe all game breaking ones have been removed, some of the upper tiers of the professions need to be polished, but unless you're a power gamer you're weeks/months away from hitting any of those, and hopefully they will be fixed by then.
The whole crafting system I find quite interesting, and appeals to the RTS gamer in me.
The Dev's have been VERY responsive in the forums, and listen to comments people say, even the flamers.
"âoeItâ(TM)s not like theyâ(TM)re gonna make you spend hours hitting Wamprats with a stick.â Oh irony, thou art a harsh mistress. "
Man I love those guys.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
Did you ever get this starwars name algorithm in your emailbox?
It's the answer to all your problems.
Of course rules 7 and 9 mean that you'll be condemned to being a petty bougois bystander in the great galactic civil war who amounts to nothing in history. Just like your parents always said you'd be.
After 1.5 weeks of training he is supposed to work 12 hour days (including weekends) for the next couple of weeks due to the launch... then he shifts to a 9am-6pm PDT schedule.
One thing that he told me that I was very surprised to learn was how these games are specifically designed to be intensively psychologically addicting. (They are subscription-based games so they want you to keep on playing.) And many people do take the games extremely seriously... There have even been suicides over previous games like Everquest, and the Techs/Game Masters routinely get death threats, etc by the players. This was all brought out in his training...
One thing I never understood about these games is that if it is going to be over $10.00 per month, why would they still charge $50.00 for the software? They will cite server maintenance and bandwidth as the reason for the subscription, but I think we all know they will make a huge profit on the subscription alone. There is no way that cost is just to cover one person's bandwidth needs. Normal games cost that much and they don't have subscriptions, most even offer free services that users can connect to to play online (Blizzard's battlenet, for example). If the software is useless without a subscription.. they should just flood the market with CDs like AOL does or offer to mail you one. I guess the market will pay that much, but I would think that you could make more money in the long run by just giving away the software and charging for the service. That might also draw more people in that wouldn't consider buying this because of the subscription requirement.
Lets start with the Good, because there are Good things about this game.
1) Its pretty. The graphics are very well done for the most part, for a while you will really feel like you are "on a Star Wars planet".
2) I've never played MMORPGs prior to this, but from what I hear, the character customization blows the others away. I was fairly impressed when I got to choose my toons eyeshadow and nose size.
3) It sounds good. The blasters sound like blasters, Stormtroopers talk ('move along') as you walk by, jawas chatter.
Now the Bad.
1) Its not Star Wars. Its EQ in Space, only there is no Space, so its basically EQ with Wookies. Let me clarify. When I think of Star Wars, I think of sweeping adventures, romance, intrigue, blaster fights that get my heart pounding, SPACE. The battles in SWG are bland, and consist of little more than spamming you're best special attack until the creature is daed. The thing that bothered me most was that the Brawler (hand to hand) had more varied moves than the Marksman (pistol, carbine, rifle user). I found that I actually used 3-4 moves with the Brawler and just Bodyshot 2 (yes, thats the actual name of the attack) with my Pistoleer. Combat consists of fighting enemies such as "diseased Nunas", "tusk cats", crazed butterfly like things, ape like "squalls", and swooperless swooper gangs. You could pop off one of the gang members and the rest of them would generally just stare at you. Weee...
2) Roughly 90% of the world that isnt in a city is random. Compeltely random. It changes almost hourly, based on mission spawns, and rarely changes "back". Not very immersive, I'd say.
3) No loot (well, very little). Very little incentive to go out and fight stuff, other than XP. Well, if thats my sole motivation, then why bother? I mean, I could kill a womp rat 1,000 times 10 feet out of town and level up or I could walk 45-60 minutes to get to one bigger creature (more often more than 1 bigger creature) that I have no chance to take and get about 10 more XP points. Okay, so its not quite THAT bad, but there is little incentive to go out and hunt, after the first "I just want to see it" hunt.
4) Classes not finished. Classes such as the Commando were not properly tested because resources crafters needed to make thier weapons werent avaialable in the beta. That means they will probably be totally unbalanced, which puts them in with the other classes. Note there were hundreds and hundreds of topics about the Medic class having severe issues (any of you who buy this game, go medical forage and tell me if you can make a StimA) and they were never addressed.
5) Its not very innovative. Right now, we're already looking at one expansion (space due 0-18 months from now) to provide features that should have been there since day one, vehicles. Its just a MMORPG, with a Star Wars skin. If I wasnt in town, I would have never known I was in the Star Wars world. Except for the Womp Rats and Dewbacks, there were very few Star Wars feeling moments in the wild.
6) Get ready to hoof it. It takes about 20-40 minutes to get from town to town (or town to mission, one way) if you dont take a shuttle, and at the moment there are no land vehicles (and shuttles dont go everywhere). So you hit autorun and point.
I wont go into the roleplaying features, because we could role play here if we so choose. Roleplaying, while part of the game, is only part of the game as much as the players want it to be.
SWG was a huge disapointment, I look forward to WoW.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
You know, I just mentally pictured a game with all these characters in it... and it was awesome.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
...Watch out for trolls.
Dear editors,
Could you please use terms that are relevant to a story in the body of your text so that it is understandable to non-gamers.
Thanks.
Signed,
Everyone
A 24-hour a day, 15,000 person, lightsaber-wielding melee over who gets to buy the Millennium Falcon.
Sounds great.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Drizzt
"Drizzt?!" "Drizzt" is a "Fantasy-oriented name that is easily recognized from popular existing media" in the same class as Gandalf, Pikachu, and Godzilla?
That's an over-the-counter nasal decongestant, that's not a name!
"Drizzt?"
"I AM DRIZZT! Kneel before me, lest I smite you with my +3 Sword of Nasal Membrane Leakage!"
"Drizzt?" "Elric of Melnibone," "Thulsa-Doom," "The Gray Mouser"... now *these* are Fantasy Names! "Drizzt" is a sound-effect. Or, at most, a Silver Age superhero team's cute alien mascot.
Sorry for the rant; guess I'm just feeling a little "old-school" today...
Don't judge a game by what the beta testers say. ESPECIALLY an MMOG.
/. story that covered EVE.
In general, unless you're looking to get a headstart on everyone else and don't care about bugs (Most people value a headstart over bug-free gaming), don't buy any MMOG until at least 2-3 months after release.
Everything said by these beta testers was also said about EVE Online beta testers - In the last two weeks before release, a LOT of the problems in EVE were fixed. Yes, there are still a lot of problems, and CCP is still rebalancing the game, but all of the real nasties have been fixed. EVE has come a long way in the past month and a half since release, and the future looks bright. (CCP is planning to "kick off" the storyline of the game within the coming weeks now that most players have settled and become comfortable in the universe.)
FYI, I didn't play SWG beta, but the complaints of all the beta players look identical to the compaints of EVE beta testers in the one
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Well, as some others who have posted, I participated in Beta 3 also. I had been looking forward to Star Wars Galaxies for quite some time now and couldn't wait to get into it. After playing for about a day or two I found SWG to lack in overall depth and to be extremely similar to Everquest (another SCEA MMORPG for those of you who somehow don't know ;) ). All I was able to do was run around and shoot small bunnies or flies only once did I see anyone shoot something bigger than a bug (or furry animal) and it was taken down somehow with one shot. The best thign about the game that I have found thus far is the ability to pick the skills a player would like to see their character have, rather than being confined to a specific set of skills if you picked a class in say EQ. Unfortuantely, any other novel things in the game held little interest after a day or two of playing. It'll be interesting to see how the implementation of Jedi affects the overall gameplay experience, but I don't see it being enough of an improvement to warrent buying SWG immediately. Essentially it seems that the game was made for the Star Wars fan and not the gamer in mind. For the fan you've got tons of beautiful graphics, and the Star Wars creatures, etc. (not to mention jedi), but for the gamer there really isn't all that much to do. Even the randomly generated quests (which is somewhat of a touted feature) seemed to give mostly mundane quests (it's possible I could be wrong here just because I haven't tried out TONS of the generated quests) . In the end I'll probably be waiting for a few months so they can iron out all the kinks before I purchase SWG, and I suggest people who want to really experience it to do the same.
On another note, I'm seriously starting to question the motives of SCEA at the moment. It would be dumb to think that Sony wasn't trying to make oodles of money, but at what cost? Do they really care so little about the users that their willing to put out a (very) buggy game while actually raising the staple MMORPG monthly price? I think at their current pricing, if I wasn't satisfied with the game (which I wouldn't if I bought it today) I would probably contact the Better Business Bureau and figure something out. A question I'd like to also ask my fellow Slashdotters would be, what are the more in depth and fun MMORPG's out there to play? I've played EQ and some Dark Ages of Camelot and the latter seems to have the most depth of any RPG right now. But, I don't know if I have unrealistic expectations but I just don't want to have to be sitting just pressing 1 button constantly like in EQ and I don't want to be killing small rodents forever. Essentially I guess I'm looking for something close to Dialbo II when it comes to MMORPG's, hence I guess I'll wait to see what World of Warcraft is like.
... how do they breed? I mean - they are stuck in a pit!
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
It is the Pit of Carkoon!
The Sarlacc is the creature at the bottom of the pit.
What kind of non-Star Wars geek are you anyway?
Even the much touted expansions never fixed the fundamental faults in the game choosing instead to put uber gear to keep hardcore addicts playing but ignoring the mid game and low level experiences, or doing much to fix the disasterous RSI inducing UI. One expansion in particular actually was so disasterous (Luclin) that it killed performance and was bugged for months even for people who didn't buy it but who had to upgrade to the new engine.
Now online games don't have to be like this, so perhaps Verant have learned from experience. Or perhaps they haven't. Once bitten twice shy? Perhaps. Star Wars may become a wonderful game, or it might be eye candy wrapped around a compulsive (and not in a fun way), flawed design as EQ. Given there is already a plan for expansion pack in the works (Verant feebly justifies it as benefitting players to have less features in the basic game to give them time to explore their reduced world) and given it takes months to establish a mature world, perhaps its better holding off to see what the story is. Fools rush in as they say.
So what the game may end up being is a place where casual gamers can go to chat about the day and to relax and kill a few things, but that the game is not ready for people to play to win. There are many other reasons people feel the game is not ready for release. You can read some of then at the thread on the subject HERE.
I do security
Go to Mos Eisley Cantina: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Go to Mos Eisley Spaceport: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Go to Aunt Beru's kitchen for some blue milk: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Hide from stormtroopers in the Millennium Falcon's hidden bay: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Go to appeal to the Imperial Senate for trade rights: mass of people randomly firing blasters
Jump in the X-wing to defeat the Death Star: fly through a trench filled with a mass of people randomly firing blasters to fire proton torpedos.
(Three months later, after everyone becomes a Jedi, replace "firing blasters" with "waving lightsabers")
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Amen to that
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
...that I could pay to be a beta tester. What? $15/month? $12/month if I subscribe for a year? Sure! I will pay for the honor of helping you guys find all the bugs in your software because I because I am a Star Wars fanboi!!!
I can't afford a sig!
I was chosen for beta testing of this game. I had huge interest in it, until I got past the character creation screen.
I pity the stupid fools who actually go out and buy this game. It is nothing short of boring, spend most of your time crafting stupid things, tending to house maintenance, running around endlessly in a random world.
SWG = Utter flop.
Gabe of Penny Arcade posted his thoughts, as well as a comic.
I was looking forward to playing SWG too and have been waiting for a MMORPG to truly immerse myself in since I was too late to join UO and EQ. I had high hopes for SWG and I was surprised Sony lifted the NDA before the game was actually released. Once the NDA was released I checked out the Sony Station boards for SWG which already had some reviews posted by the beta testers.
The beta testers' reviews of SWG weren't complimentary at all. There were a lot of negative posts and the most damaging evidence of that is how Sony has removed access to the old message boards (http://boards2.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars). However, forums at SWG fan sites have preserved some of these original, honest reviews. Check it out: SWG Fan Site with Honest Review Deleted by Sony. My compliments to Stratics.com. And I'm sure other SWG fan sites will have honest reviews too.
Rangers Lead the Way!
2. Kids: Military school. Check.
3. Dog: Euthanized. Check.
4. Cats: Who cares? Check.
5. Friends: Gone. Check.
6. Phone: Disconnected. Check.
7. Doorbell: Ditto. Check.
8. Food: $500 worth on Top Ramen in pantry. Check.
9. Breaks: 10 cases of adult diapers. Trash can with lid next to computer. Extra liners. Check, check, check.
10. Power bill, ISP; Paid ahead for the year. Check, check.
11. Job: Hmmm. Reconnect phone. Dial. Ring. "Hi, Dave? It's me. Yeah. Yeah. Listen. I quit. No, no time to explain. Do whatever you want with the crap on my desk. Later." Re-disconnect phone.
Well, that's about it. Time to rip open that CD. Good-bye cruel world and all that. Hmm, I wonder if /. karma erodes due to lack of use. Guess I can check that in a couple of years.
Mycroft Kenobi, Obi-Wan's smarter (and better looking) brother is about to kick the Force's ass!
Don't you think the Star Wars universe has suffered enough since 1997? Must we inflict this final indignity on it too? Can't we let it just rest in peace rather than repeatedly summoning its ghost just to give it a force wedgie and steal its wallet one more time?
And this has at LEAST 3 months before its worth the $15 a month. $12 a month for a full year though which is pointless because its a casual gamer version of EQ with blasters. Instead of spending 30 hours killing rats and butterflies you instead spend 10 hours killing rats and butterflies. That enables the casual gamer to make a decent character faster.
The engine/world is the best part. Wait for 3-6 months though for them to fix the thousands of bugs, put in the features they cut out to ship it early, and perhaps wait until the space expansion which will make it a full game instead of this hacked down overpriced one.
Also, like I said this game isn't like EQ where you could play it for a year and not see everything. I imagine that in 2-3 months you will see just about everything and have a complete character. So when you decide to buy try to think of how complete of a game do you want.
A purchase right now will get you a game that doesn't have a space, vehicles, player cities, some cut professions, less worlds, no space expansion, and THOUSANDS of bugs that you will be reporting left and right.
A purchase at Christmas should get you everything above.
Think about it.
I enjoyed the game. I have heard a lot of negative opinions, particularly from other beta testers, but I truly believe it is squeaky-wheel syndrome. I know many other people, including beta testers, who enjoyed this game.
It's not a perfect game, but I found it to be consistently fun and immersive. I'm not a hardcore MMORPGer, and in fact this is my first MMORPG, but I'm excited about it. Don't let the naysayers dominate; this game is ready for launch. IMHO.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
I'm gonna a fat wookie dancer.
Everyone seems to agree that it sucks ass right now, but if we all buy it, pay $200 for the first year of play, then pay for an upgrade containing all of the things they ripped out of the beta, then it might begin to suck just a little less.
Sorry, hate to burst your delusioned bubble, but AC2 is STILL not doing well. The launch was horrible, the game still has problems with CHAT being unstable so you have a 30% chance of being able to talk to people that are not on your immediate screen. Doubt me? Ok, check out: http://www.accmty.com and look in the ac2 boards. Or look at the number of people that are logged into the game during peak hours. Or look at the fact they're combining two game servers in the coming months because the population on both is so low that it doesn't support group game play. Seriously, you're WAY off base on your description of AC2. Hopefully it will be in a good position in another year, if it survives that long. Unfortunately, it had less than a year of Beta testing, and quite honestly a huge percentage of the problems should have been caught then but weren't.
For what its worth, about 3-5 weeks ago Q-3PO one of the lead developers (I think I forget all their positions) had to come up with a list of "whats the point of the game" because so many people complained that there was nothing to do.
The list included....
learn the game so as to not look like a newbie.
master your class
visit all the planets
do a theme park on every planet (theme park = mission generated by someone like "jabba")
there were others, but (and this is quote from the Beta boards)
"in a product designed for my amusement, I shouldnt have to go looking for fun."
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I guess what I'm saying is, I agree with half of what you're saying, and disagree with the contradicting parts. :-) Note; I'm not a SWG beta player either, but I also beta'd EVE and holy shit was that game screwed leading up to release. Yes they fixed a lot of the bugs, but I found the problem with EVE wasn't the client stability (was pretty good on my system actually, better than most) but the entire game itself. Great concept, fucking boring execution. That being said, I'm still keeping my eye on it to see how(/if) it grows.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Just like most MMORPGs these days Sony/verant releases SWG a little too soon without many of the features that players where looking forward to.
:P
As well if you join now you get to be one of the lucky paying beta testers as the rest of the bugs, server problems, exploits and imbalances come to light. You'll laugh you'll cry you will yell nerf when that bounty hunter ganks you and your friends..
This game has alot going for it.. it just needs a bit more time to be polished.
Don't get burned and wait a while...
oh and
a_stormtrooper_01 says "You Wookies have destroyed your lands you shall not destroy mine!"
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Hyped up prior to release, "Enter The Matrix" is the worst game I have played in a long time on the PC. It began with the HUGE bug of not working on a display with greater than 85Hz refresh rate (no patch for that). I mean come ON, it's 2003 for pete's sake! Talk about your sloppy programming! After finally changing my refresh rate down from 100Hz to play the damn thing, it then turned out to be a boring and bad looking third person shooter with the worst AI I have seen in a long time! If that is all the Matrix can muster, us humans won't have too much trouble when push comes to shove!
Now I know why there was such a veil of secrecy and no reviews permitted prior to launch - if there HAD been reviews then no one would have bought the damn thing! I learned one valuable lesson though - from now on, wait at least two weeks after a game has come out before buying it, unless there have been lots of favourable reviews PRIOR to release from reputable gaming sites.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
apparently this rather interesting mod for BF1942 gets its first alpha launch in a week or two http://www.swbattlefield.com - I think thats perhaps where I'll get my star wars kicks until the Space expansion for SWG is available.
bwahahaha. that was the best commentary ever. my two favorite sub-paragraph (the second being quite accurate as to the mmorpg genre) is "Tycho had talked me into playing my first MMORPG and I told him that if he ever did that again Iâ(TM)d kick him right in his cream and crackers. After an hour or so of hitting spiders with a bat I was ready to write off the entire genre."
Cream and Crackers is without a best euphemism for a man's private area EVER!
Oh yeah, mad props to MAUS
I don't think I'm the only one that thinks this way, why don't they adopt the cell phone model? give out the game for nothing when you sign a one year contract. I'm not paying $50 and then paying each month.
Because these games suck so much that they need to sucker those first $50 out of their customers. If one could actually test the game without paying (or for a very low fee) then the internet would be flooded with negative opinions (probably well deserved) from people who actually played the game (which means their opinion will matter) and (this is key), don't have the need to justify their purchase to themselves and everyone around them.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I can see that the Beta posting trolls, being denied access to the SWG:Beta boards, have migrated over here now.
.. it was all constructive. It wasn't until the last phase of beta when they let all the shitheads in.
w ith-(their character class)[dozens of !'s].
..ill just tuck *THIS* one away for later.'
.. finish it.'
/. *TESTING*
I was in beta pretty much from the beginning, and while there were naysayers from the get go
The people you hear griping about this game, while allowed their opinion, are also the people who were more intent on *PLAYING* the game in beta instead of testing, were the ones who would complain *BITTERLY* about the constant character wipes, and the folks who would *WHINE* on the development boards about how the Developers were hell-bent-out-to-get-them-by-ignoring-this-issue-
In the last 4 weeks of beta I saw *SO* many posts along the lines of 'if you don't do X, I'm not buying the game.' This was from the folks who when discovering a flaw in the game, would say 'hmm
In all honesty, SWG has the feel of Ultima Online more than EverQuest. Its open ended, there is no defined way to 'WIN' the game. It, like the theory behind ANY MMORPG exists so its fun to *play*.
Saddly, many folks were taught that level based games like EverQuest were the mold. And unless you have 'SuperSword, AwesomeArmour, and UberSkillX' your simply a looser.
Does SWG have bugs ? yes. Will they be fixed ? yes. Will new ones pop up ? yes. However the developers for this game have been more open and upfront about Star Wars Galaxies than in *ANY* other beta I have participated in. [And I have been in almost every MMORPG beta except Meridian59] They care about this project, most of them are HUGE fans of the films themselves, and they have been pulling 24 hour days ever since Sony Online Entertainment announced 'You have no more time
All these sour grape X-Beta posts you are reading, are people who lost track of what they were supposed to be *DOING* in beta. Something im shocked to see people admitting on
How can you form an opinion of a game thats not finished ?
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Agreed. Nothing is more irritating than pretentious elitist who use thesaurus.com way too much. I guess they attract the sort of fans who like their intelligence to be in(as)sulted.
NMG
I'm stuck here in england with out my comp for the next 6 months. All i got is my crappy work comp. By the time I get home and Galaxies fired up everyone is already going to be uber Darth Vaders. I will just be rebel scum.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
One thing I never understood about these games is that if it is going to be over $10.00 per month, why would they still charge $50.00 for the software?
Welcome to business 101
Maybe they want a nice big front load on their investment? The life of a game is maybe 3-4 years if they can keep up the interest with âaddedâ(TM) features and expansion packs. Yes at $15 a month for maybe 48 months times the average of however many players they get to play the game through its life. That is a lot of cash. The rub is that lot of cash just covers the server and bandwidth costs plus some to keep the updates for the content and code maintenance going with a sliver of profit left over.
Think about it. How much do you pay just for your internet connection? I pay $40 a month for my cable modem. The servers have to have a connection to the net too. They have to pay by the amount of bandwidth they use and pay at a lower rate than you or I could get.but they have to pay access fees for 30,000+ users at a time for years.
SOE spent a couple of years developing the game engine, gameplay, and visual and sound content of the game. 90 percent of the cost of a good game is gameplay and content development. Gameplay means testing the balance of every aspect of the game and making tweak after tweak after tweak. This takes time and time is money. Content is paying an art department to make model after model and texture upon texture. That takes time and time is money. They have several million dollars invested in that development. Their investors want that money back plus a nice rate of return. So they ask you to shell 50 clams up front.
That's not only amazing, but pretty cool to boot... The only problem is that it is sooo late in coming that it might not sell as much as if they released it at the very beginning of the whole EQ craze...
However, I could be very wrong. I hope that it works, because then they can point and say..."Oooh, Mac games do sell! Perhaps we should make a Mac client of SWG straight away!"
(Which would only increase the possibility of a Linux port as well...)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
$10 is going to piss a lot of people off when they buy the game and find out its $5 more.
I only breifly played the beta. I'm more of the mindset that if it reviews well, I will probably buy it, and develop a character I can keep.
Besides, I'm so addicted to Dark Age of Camelot that I'd rather spend time playing my druid than beta a different game.
After playing a really high-quality mmorpg like DOAC, I'd have to say that the only real reason I would leave it is to go to a better mmorpg. It would have to be different, but I wouldn't want to lose things like player vs player gaming, or good questing/story lines, or beautiful large worlds with lots of monsters to kill (and reasonably easy to get to those hunting grounds), or grouping with other players... etc.
I bet most gaming customers feel that way. Some would settle for less just to try something different, but for the most part would rather spend their time in a really good game.
Especially for MMORPGs. Buggy, lame, boring, unfinished, poorly balanced.... All of these games are released in the same basic state: crap.
There's a reason most beta testers for these games quit when it comes time to pony up the cash.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Sad but true.. just take alook at MMORPGs in general.. from first to the last.. unfinished and buggy is what you pay for and you get to beta test the rest of it once it goes live.
Shining example.. Shadowbane..
for a game that took forever to develop and was in beta for just as long the finished product was buggy, imbalanced and unpolished.. even the most rabid of fanboys have began to shy away.
Daoc was somewhat the same.. unfinished dungeons and non itemized monsters.. unfinished incredibly unbalanced "uber" classes (some of which still remain)
Companies are going to have to stop releasing games before they are finished.. the "oh we can patch that later" mentality is really getting old.
sigh... I guess I can't really blame them tho.. considering the consumer still buys the games en-masse...
all I can say about SWG is don't buy it right away.. wait until they polish and add in the features that were suppose to be in the game months ago.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Welcome to public beta, everyone! I was in Beta for the past month and a half or so and I can agree with the rest of the beta testers warning everyone here: give it time. I'm not planning on buying the game, but if I do, I'm not going to get it for a few months. There are certain aspects that need to be ironed out and certain features that need to be implemented (player cities) before it's worth $15 a month. It's a fun game for about a month until you realize there's nothing left but PvP. I'm hoping the roleplaying community adds a new life to the game.
As a beta tester for SWG, my advice to everyone is to wait a month, AT LEAST, before trying this game.
1) A lot of people have been saying it, and believe it or not, it's true: This game is not ready for release. Can you play it and have fun? Yes. But there are innumerable problems that should have delayed release for a few weeks at least. These include stability issues (they just got to 1 day of uptime in the last 2 weeks), class/balancing issues (many have not been tested thoroughly), and, of course, bugs. I know that any MMO that's released, or any game for that matter, is going to have bugs. SWG just seems to have a large number, including several that have been around for weeks without being fixed.
2) The price! $15/month is, IMHO, outrageous. SOE feels that because their game is "Star Wars", that intitles them to charge more than other MMO's. I think we, as consumers, need to send the message that this is not true. Unfortunately, there's enough Star Wars zealots out there that I think they will never get this message.
Is it a waste of time to go out and buy this game right now? Absolutely not. It is fun to play, as long as you keep one caveat in mind: it's not quite done yet. This was easy to do in Beta, especially since I didn't have to pay for it (except for the cd's, and shipping). Be prepared for a game that's going to go through many bug fixes and balancing adjustments in the first couple months.
...on how much wine you have. Just don't go home with any strange Wookies.
This is why I stopped playing the beta. I'd log in to this game, and wander out into the desert of Tatooine, and suddenly be surrounded by impossible to kill lizards. I'd run, but the lizards would always be right with me. I'd stop, but there would be MORE lizards suddenly around me than I thought chasing me. It's like a bad lizard nightmare. I'm sure you could replace the lizard in my example with any other ridiculous and easy sounding monster such as a Womprat. Another fantastic thing about the SWG community is when I would complain that this game was intolerably boring, and that there were no features compelling enough to want me to spend any more time on it whatever, I got told that I sucked, and I obviously would enjoy this game if that weren't the case. Well then...
This game, in a word, sucks. If it decided to play itself, it wouldn't have any fun either. I would rather leave my house with a dollar bill in my hand and go troll for hobos to chase me for it than play this game for another second. I didn't even want to play this stinker when I was playing it for FREE. Keep in mind that I love Starwars, but this game is to games what Phantom Menace was to Star Wars. Fortunately, when I was beta testing this disaster, I also got into the Planetside beta, and that game rocked house.
Do not but this game. Spend your money on food, or perhaps a book, instead.
Clones never work. The things that made ever-crack so good was the subilties in the game, the nice rates, basicly, it was a all-around kick ass game. This clone however I would not buy even if it got good reviews, why? Simple, clones SUCK! I have yet to see a clone that comes out that is worth me dropping my Diablo 2 or StarCraft. Do we all remember Star Wars Galactic Battle Grounds? Ouch, that was a horrible, money sucking game that was made solely so they could squeeze the last amounts of money from the name Star Wars. Star Wars Galactic Battle Grounds (for those who don't know) was a game clone of the RTS games like Command and Conquer and StarCraft. The problem is that SWGBG didn't have a plot, bad graphics (starcraft has better), controls were "clunky", and most of all it didn't have balanced, well developed teams. After that much of a dissapointment and from the post saying the beta sucked, I would not even want to look at the game box for it defiles the sacred name EverQuest!
I can't believe you're comparing a product from Sony who continuously releases rushed and buggy products out the door to a game (EVE Online) that wanted to break the mold. You never even played the beta, yet you're adament that its bug free and complete.. PUHLEEEEEESE... You're going to kicking yourself when you boot this sucker up.
I was thinking about giving this game a try, but I'm having an extremely hard time finding anyone with positive things to say. Did anyone like it?
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
The _only_ thing to do in a MMORPG is to run around beating rats with a stick (or goblins with a sword, or whatever), to hopefully level up in the next 6 months. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseam. Only the next level-up will require even more hours of beating bigger rats with a bigger stick.
It's repetitive, it's boring... and generally it's not a game, it's _work_. Only I'm supposed to pay for the privilege of doing boring repetitive stuff each day, instead of being paid for that.
What's the point? Do my actions advance the plot? No, because there's no plot and no story. Does it exercise my gray cells by requiring some cunning and strategy? Well, no, because you only need to click on enemies. Repeatedly. That's the only strategy involved. Ever. Does it require reflexes, accuracy or some other skill? Well, no, because the "skills" are just a bunch of numbers on your character. As long as you can click on a rat, that's all the skill you'll ever need. Etc.
The _only_ MMORPG so far which I could somewhate enjoy was Ultima Online. And you know why? Because I could ignore the MMORPG part. The UO interface makes it wonderfully easy to communicate with people, even in the middle of combat.
So basically you can treat it like a glorified chat room with graphics. And predictably it had attracted a lot of social people, who actually used it as a glorified chat room with graphics. It was fun.
That is, until I realized that I could just go back to IRC and save the 10 bucks a month fee.
So here's my proposal. You want some online life having to do with Star Wars? Well, go find an IRC channel about Star Wars. It's free, it's got a less lot bugs than a MMORPG, and generally a far more rewarding online social experience. And it doesn't make you hit rats 50 times with a stick, either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Uber fanboy no less.
Is he gay? Yes. Does he pee his pants when an admin is on and acknowledges his +10 saber? Yes. Does he live with his parents? Yes. Is he over 30? Yes.
"The game is intended for play only within North America"
Hello? LucasArts? Anybody home?
It's an ONLINE GAME. Nobody cares where people are in reality.
Morons.
TC - My Photos..
they should have made a goal like crushing the rebellion or destroying the empire. Realistically this game will only be played maximum 1.5-2 years. Put that as the time limit or something and have everyone working for one side or the other or going alone or something. That would be cool.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
And come play Eve Online instead. It's a lot more fun and best of all there are no rats or crabs.
I've beta tested for close to a month now, and I have no previous beta testing or MMORPG experience. I think I represent the mass of people out there who will be attracted to this game just because it's Star Wars.
Let me say that as a n00b to this whole genre I think this game is awesome. Sure there have been some bugs and glithces, but wth? it's been beta! There are supposed to be bugs and glitches and the beta testers find them and the devs fix them. And that is what has been happening.
Don't believe the negative hype from beta testers who are pissed that they are going to have to start paying for a game they have had for free for the last several months. The game is what you make of it and I'm dying for the CD's to arrive tomorrow so I can get back in.
See you on Corbantis,
Lasugod
The $50 fee up-front may turn some people off. If these subscription-based games are meant to be addictive, wouldn't they acquire more players if the game was a free download or a $5 in-store CD package? More people would try it out, then become addicted and send Sony their $10/$15 every month.
If you, like me have been waiting for SWG for a very long time and have been dissapointed by their release status, I suggest you come take a look at Planetside
I'll play SWG next summer when they've had a chance to fix things.
The way they were designing the game at first (ie for the casual gamer) was what they should have been shooting for. I'm sure this game will attract a lot of players who aren't interested in MMORPG's usually. I'm also sure they will be turned off by the fact that becoming a Jedi is random, combat is boring from what I hear, and the quests aren't very good. The idea of Force Sensitive characters suffering perma-death is a good one. It shouldn't be random as to when you can become a Jedi, but it should be damn hard instead. Make them suffer perma death, and give other professions a bonus for killing them. I think the casual gamer (ie 3-8 hours a week) would accept this. Also, the PVP is lame, Star Wars is about well WARS. It's more like Star Wars:Care Bear edition the way it is now.
i think he knows who drizzt is; just ranting that the bastard is way overrated. like this post. :>
and drizzt is not at all in the same league. give it a few decades and us old-schoolers will re-consider...
ed
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...
I started playing on the original Star Wars Mush. It was fun an I had a great time helping to develop it and code useful objects. As an avid table top gamer, I was very interested in the advantages of online play. I eventually helped to lay the groundwork for the system to enact "The Force" in the game.
Further exploits in the world of mushes/mucks/muds as player and admin resulted...
I ended up at grad school with little time for anything and that all came to a crashing halt. Oh well. During that time SW:G was announced and I eagerly awaited the day I could play it. When looking for post grad school employment I even pursued a position as a world designer for SW:G. I didn't get the job. Boo Hoo for me.
Anyhow, my point: I think they've spent a awful lot of effort on the visuals but I really wonder what they've done for the game system. I admit I'm out of touch on the progress as the delays, delays, delays have forced me to look elsewhere. (Sorry if this next comment is flame bait..) The Episode 1 failed because too many people expected it to be something radically different that what it was. I think SW:G may follow the same path because so many of those that are going to want to play it have such strong ideas as to what it should be that they are going to be sorely disappointed with the product.
My 2 cents.
'nuff said
I don't mind reading a beta tester's oppinion on this game, but what I am tired of is reading a huge rant containing stuff like "EQ in space", only to later read it is their first MMORPG. HTF do they know it's EQ in space, or worse than other MMORPGs if they never played them?!
StarWars.com says:
So, pit of Carkoon: Place. Sarlacc: Creature. Pit of Sarlacc: something you just made up.
And can we please get some "Star Wars is dying." trolls?
-Peter
I fully intend on buying the game. To help offset some of the common fears of the MMORPG gaming experience, let me offer these tidbits:
Graphics - DAMN THAT'S PRETTY. Skies from Morrowind, landscapes that I cannot compare. And the detail on the Avatars... WOW. The different planet land scapes will blow you away. This game is an upgrade retailers' dream! Get RAM. Get video card. GO NOW!
Name filter - No lame '1337' names, no 2,000 'Han Solo' characters runnin' around. Sure, there are some creative names out there (one guy I met and ran around Tatooine spanking the Imps with was named "Thisgame Isnotready"... He was crazy tho!)
Missions - In beta they were a little redundant. Destroy this, or deliver that... That was the purpose of beta however, live there promises to be monthly special mission events, theme parks, like the Rebel HQ and the Emporer's Retreat, will be a little different evey time you go there.
Camping MOb's - STAY AWAY FROM MOUNTAIN SQUILLS. Trust me. Krayt dragons, evil force sensitive NPC's (random MOb, not named characters), they will all hurt you bad. Camping is not an option since most spawns are random based on who is in the immediate area. Even if you did want to camp, you really couldn't... I'd tell you why, but I'd rather see the campers suffer! Muhahaha!
Single Charater Servers (SCS) - No mules. One character per galaxy (server cluster). Intended to cut down on greifing and bad behavior. You're never trapped in that one character, profession-wise, as you can sell back skills you don't want on the fly. Handy for all those bounty hunters that'll have a change of heart and want to become Creature Tamers without losing their mansion(s)!
Pets - Sweeeet. Have 3 Stormtroopers be your beeyotch, or find a baby Rancor and feed it Stormtroopers! Can't say enough about pets, try it, you'll love 'em!
"Sims" Style professions - Underestimated by ALL of us Unreal Tournament vets! Dancing, singing, and playing instruments, Image Designer (Plastic surgeon/hairstylist) are all very well implemented into the game. And you'll be THANKFUL that there are players in those professions... If you don't become one yourself!
I'd love to tell you all more, but CompUSA just opened, GOTTA GO!
it is the joke i wanted to make
I remember surfing the SWG official site a couple of months ago and, while reading the FAQ at this time, I suddenly realized that this game was going to suck like hell! The expansion they now seem to market with the personnal starfighter and etc.. wasn't going to happen like this. The expansion would introduce only personnal planetary vehicles and travel ships from which you buy a ticket, sit down and enjoy the ride.
So ? Is this a marketing move with false promises ? Or, could it be that Lucas realized no one would ever play a Star Wars game without the X-wings and Tie Fighters everyone loved in the previous Star Wars games. No matter what it is, if i'm a dev and i hear my boss say that the expansion will have to offer the star fighting feature, and that wasn't expected a couple of months ago, i'm either a very good developper for cutting down dev time or i'm already searching for a new job.
IOW: I'll believe it when i see it and i will play it only when starships with multiplayer crews are available. Going for anything less, would be a lack of respect for the Star Wars universe IMHO.
A spokeslawyer for SonyLucasarts announced a "firing first" lawsuit against the bnetd project. When asked what bnetd had to do with Star Wars, the spokeslawyer replied "You know when all you little pissants were buying your Han Solo and Luke Skywalker figures? I bought forty Greedos. That guy was my hero.". When pressed further he replied "You want some too, Mr 'I had friends at school'? Do you want some?"
The spokeslawyer went on to detail the grounds under which defamation suits would be brought. Prohibited phrases include but are not limited to "Progress Quest with Wookies", "Rogue for GeForce 4" and "So dull it even sends bot clients to sleep".
Grand Moff Lucas could not be reached for comment. Skywalker Ranch has been lost and sustaining damage in an asteroid field since 1997. Observers report that much of the renowned polish on its outer hull has been tarnished, and that only outgoing communications seem to be possible. Garbled transmissions from junior officers indicate that Moff Lucas has become increasingly detatched and disinterested in administrating the Empire directly. They beg for news from the outside world, and are particularly keen to hear how The Jar Jar Project was received.
I thought this was fantastically insightful. I've got all the Karma I could ever need, but I'm sure this would be considered Whoring. Either way, this rang true to me.
This was written by Gabe, the artist (not the tracer) a few days ago
Now that the NDA is no longer hanging over my head I thought I would elaborate a bit on why I wonâ(TM)t be purchasing SWG right away.
I do not personally feel like SWG captures the look and feel of the Star Wars universe as well as Iâ(TM)d like it to.
I decided right away that I wanted to be a bounty hunter and so with blaster in hand I began working my way up that particular skill tree. This involved a lot of shooting of rats, bugs and crabs. At one point on Tatooine I was standing next to a mission terminal waiting for my turn to use it when I saw a large wookie run past me firing wildly over his shoulder as a tiny crab no bigger than a dinner plate chased him through town. How sad I thought to myself. I spent countless hours wandering the hillsides in search of new rats and crabs to shoot. Sometimes I would inadvertently stumble upon too large a rat and be forced to high tail it back to town. I placed my character in auto run and pointed him at the nearest town. As I sat there staring at my Trandoshan bounding across the uneven Tatooine landscape with some kind of super rat closing in on him I thought to myself âoeThis is not how I want to play in the Star Wars Universe.â As I sat there watching this rat slowly gaining on my character my mind flashed back to a conversation I had with Tycho months and months ago.
Tycho had talked me into playing my first MMORPG and I told him that if he ever did that again Iâ(TM)d kick him right in his cream and crackers. After an hour or so of hitting spiders with a bat I was ready to write off the entire genre. He said âoeWhat about Star Wars Galaxies?â At the time I told him that Galaxies would be different because it was Star Wars. âoeItâ(TM)s not like theyâ(TM)re gonna make you spend hours hitting Wamprats with a stick.â Oh irony, thou art a harsh mistress.
The more I think about it the more I think that there may very well be nothing wrong with Star Wars Galaxies. This just isnâ(TM)t my kind of game. I think Iâ(TM)m just better off getting my Star Wars fix from games like Jedi Knight and Rogue Squadron. Maybe some day a developer will combine all the best stuff from games like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and Jedi Knight into one game that doesnâ(TM)t involve the poking of rats with sticks. Essentially my fantasy has not changed. I still want to play in a fully realized Star Wars universe. I want to fly a ship I own through space smuggling goods and outrunning Imperials. I want to land that ship on the planet of my choosing and do battle with storm troopers and rival smugglers. I want an action game because the Star Wars movies to me are action movies. Thatâ(TM)s why I never liked the Star Wars RTS bullshit. Star Wars for me is not about running around Naboo shooting bugs in order to build up my blaster XP. It is about adventure and I donâ(TM)t feel like SWG delivers that.
Even after youâ(TM)ve reached a level where you can take on larger adversaries the battles still arenâ(TM)t any fun. You click on the thing you want to shoot and then you select from your menu of different attacks. There is no strategy required. You simply choose your best attack and cue it up a couple of times and then wait while your guy shoots the target. If the target comes after you just run away until it stops chasing you and then turn around and repeat the steps above. Stirring Star Wars music plays during a battle and is intended to make the event seem more epic I suppose. The classic arrangement blaring as you take pot shots at a lizard who seems oblivious to your attacks just makes an already absurd situation all the more laughable.
Iâ(TM)m not go
That's a much better explanation than the other one I heard about which basically involved a barnacle-like mating solution and a sea squirt-like motile phase.
There is commentary at the bottom, but here is the important part:
Top Ten Reasons:
Why YOU donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
10. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot fight Darth Vader so you can show youâ(TM)re l337, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
9. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot play a Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker or some other SW character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
8. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot jump âoefor real,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
7. If you ordered the game âoeagainst your better judgment,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
6. If youâ(TM)re mad because you are choosing to pay $15 a month, but you live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford to spend $144 for $12 a month, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
5. If youâ(TM)re mad because you have to give up lower skills to attain higher ones thus preventing you from having your uber-ultra-hella-mule-bounty-hunter-survey-medic character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
4. If youâ(TM)re mad because you may or may not get your game on the 26th because of limited quantities, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
3. If youâ(TM)re mad because you did not like something in the beta, vented on the board, but refused to saying anything âoebecause of the NDA,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
2. If youâ(TM)re mad because the server you decided to join will not be up in first batch of galaxies and all your friends are dumping you to join other servers (hence really arenâ(TM)t your friends), then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
And, the top reason why you shouldnâ(TM)t be playing SWGâ¦
1. If youâ(TM)re so mad over a frickinâ(TM) videogame, because you have so little perspective on life, that you have to vent your rage on a web page, you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
Two friends of mine were in the beta and I wish I had been. I'd go over one of their houses and watch, play and talk about the mechanics of the game. The one thing we all always walked away thinking was how refined the game mechanics are compared to UO. Here are some important points:
1. Combat is "real-time, turn based." Having the fastest connection with a machine at 270 fps is no better than one with 15 fps. If you're smart, though, you'll use the MULTITUDE of combat moves to appropriately shift your stance for range, weapon, defense, etc. You don't have to be fast, you have to be smart about your combat and you will have to interact as teams to take down big creatures or goals.
2. You cannot have an uber-character. Another cool thing is that you have to give up lower skills to continue to gain higher ones. The days of all the characters you have making you self-sufficient and having no reason to interact with lower characters is gone. You will have to interact with lower characters to continue your trade.
3. The skills are interwoven such there isnâ(TM)t an unimportant trade. You can heal yourself, you can learn new skills and you can get things you need yourself, but to do it well and fast requires other people. Dancers to remove battle fatigue, combat medics to support you in combat, artisans to make better weapons (there are no lootables on creatures as far as weapons, shields, etc), leaders group squads and, of course, combat specialists in hand-to-hand, pistols, rifles and carabineers. You will have to interact with other characters to get things done.
4. There are NO NPCs that can sell goods. Players must craft all goods and there are taxes on various things. The rampant inflation that is common on other MMOGS, in theory, should not happen because it will based on the actions of the players. It will not be forced up people using tricks in the game to force up generation of money, plus the richer you are the more you have to do to support tha
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Another horrible levelling treadmill of a game. Terribly inferior gameplay when ranked against something like Shadowbane.
How dare you disgrace the names of Tellah and Edward by associating them with a MMORPG!
You're a pathetic loser with no life. "In reality, I work at McDonalds, but I'm a SUPAR JED EYE NITE in CYBARSPACE!
Just do it, Sony/Verant. Your subscription rate will triple, guaranteed.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Actually, it's the "Pit of Carcoon" the Sarlacc creature lives inside it. I think the idea may have come from a creature called an "antlion" but just added tentacles for fun.
Strangely it seems, the spelling of "Carcoon" has at some time in the past 20 years (1983!?) been changed to "Carkoon" (check google). I know this happens from time to time in the starwars universe...
you can get more info about the Sarlacc here:starwars.com
Don't bother with SWG. If you want a space adventure, try Eve Online. There's no FPS component to Eve, but from the complaints I've read on SWG that's not a bad thing. Like all other games Eve was released a little to early, but they have done a spectacular job in crushing the major bugs. It's stable enough now that I don't worry about crashing to desktop in the middle of a heated battle. I've found that EVE is really what I was expecting SWG to be in the first place. SWG won't allow you to fly ships for another year or so. Even then you'll have to buy another 50 dollar expansion pack. Originally Eve was pretty boring because it's foundation is built on player actions. Now that there's over 4000 users on at most hours of the day, there's plenty to do. There's a PK group that has become a very serious blockade. The game has a full blown market with company stocks and trade goods. The potential of this game is unreal. Another reason I really beleive in Eve is that it was developed by a crew that can be considered a mom & pop development shop. Like any business arena I think it's important to support the little guys.
Dump SWG, try Eve.
WURD!!
I was beta testing this game and two things, one the graphics are very nice/clean. Second the music is just awsome.. But the games sux :( I was very disappointed.
At first the setup is very cool, and then after you get your guy made you get off your ship wich has been takena way from you and sold then the moeny is giving back to you...any who you shoot this guy then after that there are 3-4 men standing in a halway depending on who you talk with will deside your skill/profission. After yu pick what you want, you goto another planet were you are dropped off. Here you get no help have no idea what to do. I found a shop machine and will you can buy thnigs you must bid for a item, so if someone out bids you, well your out of luck on the items.
The game play was not thought out well at all, you move you hold down the right mosue button this is crap, and to mvoe around you sue the mouse. You cant rmap the keys if you do this then it screws up all the chat functions etc.. and you will need these...
Just my two cents, not a great game 2 out of 5
He appears in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2; in fact, he can help you out in BG2 against a powerful enemy.
You mean I can't live out my dream of being a Bounty Hunter named Godzilla??? Well, that just ruins it for me!
Seriously, I was hoping this MMORPG would take a hardline approach against the SwordSlayer1923's of the world! If they're going to say "you can't be Harry Potter" then they should also enforce this numbers rule as well.
When Blizzard did this with Diablo II the forums were FILLED with posts from people like "SuperNova2000" and "Death2191" all trying to argue why they should be able to use their AOL screen name.
This may seem ludicrous, but I predict that SOE will suffer harshly from it's overwhelming interest in the MMO* games. The notion of getting people to pay for a game on a monthly basis seems good but there's a huge problem with it: market saturation. If I'm paying up to $15/month to play a game I'm only going to play that one game. I'm not going to accumulate multiple subscriptions because I only have time for one game.
Eventually Sony is going to dump huge money into some MMO game and it's going to be a disaster. They'll blow huge amounts of money on some great idea and then nobody will show up to play. The only way they can achieve revenue growth in MMO games is by getting subscribers they don't already have and by jacking up fees.
Furthermore, with everybody rushing to make new MMO games, there's going to be increasin competition for these subscribers. So you'll see the subscription base fragment, thus making it even harder to make a buck because you'll have effectively less subscribers per game. So you either have to scale back the games or raise the prices.
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I'm trying to register my account right now... I just finished installing, but I get a 403 error on their site. Anyone else having this problem?
EverQuest has been out for over four years and still has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Ultima Online has been out for even longer and still has a lot of players.
One or two years and the big-name MMORPG is apparently "just getting started."
which one of these buttons calls your mother to come pick you up?
Yes, technically you can play it wherever you want to, but a statement like that does give support a convenient out when someone from Korea or Australia or Germany or what have you calls and complains about the network latency or support staff availability.
Oooh, let's put it in space this time, and add ships instead of characters! or lets base it off of star wars, to rape fanboys for their money!
Time for some remedial english classes, umrgregg. P-A shows about as much evidence of a thesaurus as slashdot does of a spellchecker.
It may very well turn out to be more of an MMORPG than "Star Wars", but which Star Wars? It will probably be very much more Star Wars than episodes 1-3 but not as much as the original trilogy.
The role-players are going to be going primarily for original flavor so it may very well balance out.
I just feel sorry for those poor 9-year-olds who'll make a jar-jar character over and over only to be killed and ridiculed by 99% of the server population every night.
Anyone who actually took the time to read the SWG forums before they were switched over saw plenty of both Pro AND con posts from beta testers. There was no overwhelming consensus on either side and all comments were generally well thought out. :P
Of COURSE the boards were not taken offline to avoid the criticism being spread. They were being switched over to a new system that was read only for non-subscribers. That's all, end of story, no conspiracy. It was well publicized in the forums prior to the switchover.
I for one found the beta testers comments to be very encouraging. I don't care about PvP, don't care about being UBER and power-leveling so it looks like this is the game for me.
Like anything it will not appeal to all people: how could it? But as usual one must sort through all the misinformation and stupid comments posted by ignorant boobs with no actual interest inthe subject.
"Forcing" companies to develop for Linux, by an actual pledge to contribute to said company's bottom line. The likelihood of a sustainable and viable Linux desktop marketplace will come to fruition, albiet slowly and perhaps not all that steadily.
However, it will be faster then the current endless belief that, "Linux will be viable desktop operating system this year." Which everyone says EVERY year, but still hasn't quite happened EVERY year it is stated.
One BIG thing that Linux is missing is a good gaming base. Games have done more to push the consumer PC marketplace then any other application type, besides online services like AOL (blech), MSN(Blech) and Compu(aol)Serve (blech). With a strong list of Linux gaming titles, that are current and well advertised, Linux would be poised to increase "known" marketshare over its current percieved marketshare.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Along come the clones, some from Magic's maker Wizards of the Coast. There were some very interesting games early on - Spellfire (an AD&D game from TSR who was bought later by WOTC), Middle Earth-the Wizards from ICE, ShadowFist, NetRunner (an excellent 2 player game) and many, many more suddenly appeared on store shelves. The only problem is that many people who play these games are on a limited budget. Hmmm, I have boxes of MtG cards and people to play with, do I buy ShadowFist cards and try to get my friends to play that game too? Well, some of these people bought the cards, but found that their friends were unwilling to shell out the cash to join them. Result, boxes of never-used cards from games that will never see the light of day again. There must have been 30-40 games out between 1994-1998. How many are still around? Magic is, can you name another?
The same thing is happening to MMORPGs. The success of Everquest has deluded executives and others into believing that there is a vast untapped legion of people waiting to play these games. The reality is that most of the people out there are already playing EQ and have invested heavily in it over the past 4 years. It took me a year and a half to convince my friends to try EQ. Then they were hooked, some even getting two computers and accounts. Think these people are going to be easily swayed into starting a new game where they can only have one character on a server when they have 12 on one now and a very mature game to boot? Just to kill rats for another 20-40 hours, I don't think so.
So where is your player base going to come from? I think the average gamer has a budget and way too many choices. And what is Sony thinking anyway releasing PlanetSide and SWG so close together? It seems like bad, bad marketing. And in a couple of months they will have EQ2 on the shelves. Do you really think all those EQ players are going to play SWG while they are waiting for that? Get real.
There will be an extreme shakeout of these games very soon, just like there was in the CCG market. Only companies with a lot of cash will be able to put out a game, and there will only be a few left standing. EQ will remain. They are adding some new content that sounds fantastic. But will any of the others? They will have to appeal to a whole new market because there is only so much time and money a person has to spend on these things. It will have to be something like SEX - THE MMORPG. Now you would get people crawling out of the woodwork for something like that I bet.
I was originally all excited to play SWG but the more I hear about it, the less I want to play it. Can anyone recommend a game out there that features substantial character development instead of just hack-and-slash? UO was pretty close: I liked that one could be a fisherman and do as well in the game as a wizard or fighter. I'm looking for something similiar to that.
Thanks!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
That Blizzard charges about $10 more per title than everyone else, so you're already paying up front for cash that is going for maintainance of a server that is certainly less complex than what it takes to run multiple ORPG servers
i agree....... I mean geeze at least we can expect blizzard spy on out computers ;)
is there any better customer treatment than that....
First of all, you might not like EverQuest now, but it seems as though the tweaks Sony has made to the system haven't discouraged its legions of existing users from subscribing. So, despite your unhappiness with the Year 2 and on state of affairs, it would appear as though Sony did the right thing, from a business standpoint.
Second, you're assuming that Star Wars Galaxies is going to be any good from Day 1. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the masses think...........
Genius! Maybe I'll use that in another game.
Geeez, you'd think from the talk on this message board that this game was worst thing since Ebola. Well I was there with the rest of them, and yes its a bit rough right now. But NO MMORPG ever released without issues, I guess the closest would be DAOC and still people bitch. This game is about a magnitude more complex than DAOC. If you wanna go through the level tread mill, camp the friggin Fins for too freakin' long and fight over the same piece of golf course in Emain, be my guest. There are so many cool things in SWG that it would be difficult to actually go through them all. Design your own creatures, make your own droids, build your own structures, houses, mines, gardens, factories etc, travel to other planets, meet exciting new fauna and kill them or hell, go get a baby one and tame it and make it a pet, cool weather effects, neat things to build (examples: fireworks, weapons upgrades), join a faction, get troops to command, buy/sell with the bazaar. I could go on, but I really need to actually get some work done. So, sure bide your time, wait till they sand down the sharp edges. Right now it IS rough, but the potential is immense. I will hopefully be on for the first time in retail, tonight.
Assumption: Sony is going to want this game to work, because if it doesn't they lose money.
That assumption alone tells me the game is going to be improved. Recommendations will be given and if enough people request the enhancement they will *have* to deliver. If they don't then people will stop playing and they will lose money.
Its obvious this game isn't for everyone and it suits persons best who have the "EQ" type patience (or stupidity). It would suck to *not* buy this game now, wait six months only to find out LOW AND BEHOLD its a pretty slick game now... and I'm six months back with some useless toon name like "EggsOverMyHammy."
Get in now, save your name, learn the interface, and explore the world. The rest will come later.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
here, y'are - after months of beta testing here's my definitave guide to playing SWG.
Guide to Starting out solo in Star Wars: Galaxies, by
an_anonymous_eq_player00
Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) is a group based game, but it is possible,
and possibly more enjoyable for the casual gamer to make some progress
without banging too hard against the numerous artificial time sinks in
SWG.
Character Creation:
Even if you are planning on creating a combat based character (killing
things is why most people seem to play these games, a thought
seemingly lost on the design team), it's best to start out as an
artisan or medic in order to receive the crafting station and
surveying kits. It's important to note here that the starting stats
for the various profession templates are vastly different, so first
make a combat profession character (brawler/marksman), write down the
stats - then back up and select medic or artisan.
I chose medic when I started, mostly because I received the white
jumpsuit rather than the rather bland artisan clothing. Also the
medic starts with a wholly inadequate supply of stimpacks, which are
helpful in reminding you how annoying it is to play a medic in this
game.
Create your character, and BEFORE you select the travel terminal to
select a starting planet, take advantage of the free stat migration to
return your stats to the ones more suited for blasting or whacking
things, which you wrote down in the step above.
First thing you'll need to do in the game is find the trainer of your
craft of choice and train the profession you really want to play
rather than the almost as fun as paint drying selection you have made.
Quick overview of the available professions at starting time:
a) Medic - contrary to the name of this class, medics don't actually
heal people very much and as a rule are not terribly needed in
fights. As a medic you'll spend most of your time either a) looking
for resources to craft medicine or b) crafting said medicine. Sure,
medics heal people - but usually by standing around in a hospital
begging for the solo player to pay them to continue their main task,
being crafting.
b) Artisan - the true soloers of the game, the artisan is the
profession which is the least dependant on the other professions. If
you really enjoy watching paint dry, this is the profession for you.
They gather their own materials for crafting (the only class capable
of doing so), usually as a result of long repetative macros which
allow a player to Survey through the night unattended. After mining
plants to death, the artisan then spends their time making shoes,
1,000s of necklaces, and 100s underpowered newbie weapons in order to
advance to their true goal - placing structures on top of your
favorite hunting grounds. If you see an artisan, the best thing to do
I find is help them out by ensuring that their profanity filters are
working properly.
c) Entertainers - somewhat similar to artisans in that they can be run
by macro's or with the assistance of a group - entirely while AFK.
The only difference is that they can act out lesbian porn much more
accurately. They also require people standing around watching them
while they go afk. Thus making them remarkably slower to level.
d) Scout - the scout is not really a profession in the standard sense
in that you can't actually advance in it unless you receive other
training. Scouts advance by harvesting resources from dead creatures,
which it turns out, are awfully hard to come by unless you have a
reliable method of making said creatures into the dead state that they
need to be in. As a result, the entire scouting profession is used
near exclusively by people like yourself who want to kill things, get
frustrated by the utter lack of objects which appear on the corpses of
the things you kill, and pick up scouting. Scouts can technicall
One other thought occurs to me on this. Could the sales of MMO games cut into the sales of the other one-time purchase games. That is, if I'm paying $15/month for a game I feel compelled to play, and I not paying $50/month on games for my PS/2, etc?
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I know when I was playing EQ, I didn't spend a dime on other games. Once in a great while I'd download some shareware puzzle game or something to play when servers were down or if I just needed to take a breather.
I'd guess most hardcore EQ addicts see it this way: It's not that you're paying $10 a month so you're compelled to play EQ and not buy other games...it's that you're compelled to play EQ so you don't have TIME to play other games. The $10 is irrelevant.
I don't think I'll be buying galaxies...it took me a long time to break the EQ habit, getting into another game just like it is going to ruin my GPA. I don't have the time to play a MMORPG anymore. That's why I like Planetside...some of the charm of an MMO, but without the huge time investment to start having fun.
It boils down to time:
Pick Two:
School/Job
Girlfriend
MMORPG
Hell, for some people I know, pick one =P
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
I would be willing to play this if I didn't have to shell out 50 bucks - why not offer a d/l ver that I can install and just begin making my monthly crack payments.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
It's a trap!
Triumph the insult comic dog vs. Star Wars nerds
A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
So it's not just me then? I played in Beta 3. I take it the NDA has now been lifted so here's my mini Review. LordYUK's post further down this thread covers most of the points I'd make to be honest - but here's my $.02:-
The game is totally amazing to look at. Once I logged on and found 10 or so players just watching the Suns set on Tatooine. It really was amazing - the light actually looks like that of a sunset, and even the players' facial features cast shadows on their faces etc. I stood watching a bush blow in the breeze on Naboo for 10 minutes. When I first began to play, I spent 5 minutes fiddling with the brightness before a realised with a "doh!" that it was friggin night time.
The Character creation process is a joy - messing with all those sliders to change your appearance (from height, belly size, build, and age to eybrow shape, bushiness, nose lengh, width, protrusion, eye angle, colour, hair colour, style etc etc etc etc)
The sounds are authentic Star Wars from the inquisitive whistles of passing R2 units to the sounds of doors and blasters. I also really liked the way the game scans what you are saying to surrounding players and generates gestures to match - so saying "hi" for exmaple, will cause your avatar to wave, or typing "LOL" actually causes you to clutch your sides and er.. LOL.
The inventory system is quite nice allowing you to drag and drop items to put them in either hand.
I'm not sure I "get" this game though. Either that or it really is completely boring. As LordYuK said - this aint Star Wars. I mean, why, for example, are the inhabitants of the SWG world all expected to display a pathlogical dislike for passive grazing animals (or any animal life come to that) ? At first I thought - "that bloke's barmy - he keeps shooting at the local wildlife" until I realised that this was, bizzarely, the way your character advances - by shooting wamp rats and the like. "But I'm a friggin Scout ffs!" I thought. You seem to spend most of your time trudging about, shooting at furry animals that were minding their own business, and running errands for NPC's. I wanted to join the rebellion against the Empire! I wanted to team up with other rebllious players and smuggle guns, take out imperial installations, steal secret plans, fly an x-wing and all that. Not tame wamp rats, and manufacture cheap jewellry...
On one early session I had met up with 3 other new guys on Naboo and we'd wandered about a bit and murdered a few animals for no reason. We came across 2 storm troopers and an officer an went into a huddle. We decided after much discussion that we'd try having a firefight with them, so formed a plan and spread out in the surrounding bushes. We all leapt out.... only to discover you're not *allowed* to attack stormtroopers. Hmm not very free form then.
As a regular Quake/UT etc player I was also a bit frustrated that I didn't do the shooting myself. Choosing to attack some unfortunate creature causes your character to do the work - not you. This would be fine - but well - they suck at it! My avatar would generally not dodge incoming fire, but just spam it out with the opposition (which is usually biting your ankles) I found it bizzare that I frequently died from being repeatedly bitten on the big toe by a hamster that I'd shot 6 times with my blaster. Characters in the films were action heroes - I wanted to do all the acrobatics, blaster in hand and so on. What you atually end up being is a tourist in Sony's "Star Wars World" yeah sure you can go find the Pit of Carkoon and get your picture taken next to it, watch the twin suns set, visit the Royal palace on Naboo, or the shipyards of Corellia. Buy the t-shirt and send a postcard. Just being in the Star Wars world can keep you amused for quite a while, but evemtually, you want to actually do soemthing..
I've not played any other MMORPG's so as I said - maybe I just don't get it - but I didn't fancy being the guy who grows carrots. I mean - when you were a kid and Star
It takes time for the copyright issues, server load issues, and financial infrastructure issues to be hammered out from one country to the next. Starting off with Canada, America, and Mexico should provide enough of a revenue kick to fund bringing the game to the rest of the world.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They'll just use it to pay their lawyers as they continue to support the MPAA and RIAA assault on freedom (DMCA, etc).
MORTAR COMBAT!
In Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II, he exists to be killed. Too bad Elminster wasn't targettable... he needs an asswhoopin real bad.
I never got into the UO experience, because I was still a FPS player when that game was around. Then my friends freshman year of college got me into EQ, which I played for about 2 years, with a couple 2 month breaks. Eventually, it finally dawned on me that no matter what class/race combo I decided to play on EQ the game was always painfully the same:
Click on mob, hit series of buttons, loot.
The exp was painful, the graphics were boring, and there wasn't anything to really do but level. Even tradeskills were painfully tedious and problematic.
Then I moved on to DAOC. I played it for a few weeks at launch, then swore off MMORPGs and went back to FPS, mainly a matter of 'why am I paying $13 a month to sit around and whack stuff with a stick'?
So to make a long story short, I'm back with DAOC, and here's why I'm not going to play SWG. First of all, I am happy with DAOC: the gameplay is great, player vs. player interactions are awesome, and the professions are actually quite different from each other which makes alt characters a different game for the most part. SWG, I'm not sure if it still is, was planned to be a 1 char. per server game, which I can't stand. I love alts, I play a ton of alts, I can't get enough alts. I have about 20 chars spread across 3 servers of DAOC. One char per server just encourages people to get multiple accounts and be power players (gaming holy war commence). Second, the player driven economy is just going to encourage inflation. Think about it, there are NO merchants. What does that mean? There are no monetary sinks in the game. All of the money ever made will continue to be circulated amongst the player base. None of the money will ever leave circulation! That means rampant inflation and people trying to be uberly rich.
Combine it with the majority opinion that the game has nothing to do (which was a compaint of mine in EQ where all there was to do was level), and it seems like the game will just be a Star Wars mod for EQ. Hence I'll stick with DAOC, where the leveling is relatively fast, the money isn't the important part, and the gameplay is varied and superb.
"But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" - Dennis Miller
The main problems right now are that the economy is poor, with items being sold at a fraction of cost just to get rid of them, so no one can really make a living crafting yet. And the biggest problem is that combat in this game sucks bad. It is very, very boring, and this is coming from someone who has played many a MMORPG.
I'd wait until the space expansion comes out before thinking about buying this game. Maybe then they'll have fixed most of the problems.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
I always like the Mean Bean Machine. :-)
The release date for SWG was supposed to be today, I didn't reserve online for the fact I could get it faster buy running out to Best Buy when they open and be home and playing before the mailman got there. I get to Best Buy today and find out they're not putting it on the shelf until next Tuesday. When I went to Circuit City just down the road, they're doing the same thing. I had to go to a shitty computer store in the mall to get it, what the hell is up with that?
A bunch of sweaty geeks, making their online characters dance.. Man, go for a walk, go to a real dance.
"What's the point? Do my actions advance the plot? No, because there's no plot and no story."
I'm currently involved in an ever-growing plot cenetered around a vile alliance oppressing the server. They call themselves The Black Watch, and have bribed allies in most of the world.
We struggle against them daily, fighting the good fight, knowing that one day Evil shall Fall.
Sound like a plot? Sound like story?
That's a brief glance at the Dread server. The rise and fall of cities, nations, and empires is the bread and butter of Shadowbane.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
1. There is no plotline that you are advancing. Yes, sometimes, just like in your actual life you have the opportunity to participate in interesting things. But, also just like in your actual life you will spend the majority of your time doing tedious and boring tasks which have to be done if you want to be around to and be in a position to do these interesting things should the opportunity arise.
2. The primary, nearly sole predictor of how far your character will advance and how powerful your character will be, is the amount of time you spend doing these tedious and boring tasks.
3. These tasks include:
- pressing a button to see your character hit a rat with a stick
- pressing a button to see your character hit the advanced 'sewer' rat with a more advanced stick with a nail in it
- pressing a button to see your character hit the mighty 'plains' rat with a cluster of sticks, each one of which has a nail in it
- pressing a button to see your character hit the elusive 'tundra' rat with a really big frozen stick
- using special 'stand in place and press this shiny button' powers to kill multiple rats at once and from a distance
- carrying on intelligent conversations about rats and the sorts of sticks you use to kill them
- carrying on intelligent conversations like just like the intelligent conversations you participate in on IRC, er.., um, wait.
4. The only other significant factor is luck; most probably bad luck, and despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely nothing short of being the 'significant other' of a Game Master that you can do to affect your 'luck'.
5. That you do well is not an indicator of your intellectual or even social prowess. No skill, intellectual, motor, social, or otherwise is required to 'master' and 'own' the game that is not already possessed, or can not as easily be mastered by the lowest common denominator of potential customers.
6. In other words, it is just like most other games, but even more boring, even more tedious, and with many other people -- the majority of whom are boring, tedious, and childish -- to having boring and tedious experiences and 'relationships' with. Oh, and occasionally you see a new gigantic and speckled rat on your screen. That's good. However, you spent the past 34 hours of your regular weekend tedious and boring task marathon trying to make it appear on your screen.
\hushed-voice{...that's bad}.
Read a technical article for the purpose of learning something new and interesting.
Learn to do something that you couldn't do before to become more effective, more efficient, and happier that you have the opportunity to be alive.
Read an interesting book or work of literature: there are nearly 2500 years worth of them available freely.
Help someone else to be happier that they have the opportunity to be alive.
Help someone else have the opportunity to stay alive past the age of 20.
Lobby your government to fix itself.
Try to help others to find happiness in doing these things, and in not playing a MMORPG.
...unfortunately pretty true. Although those same people are usually not against paying for a game, since they feel justified in paying for the content (graphics and story elements) that comes along with the game. They might just grumble that the game engine isn't "free" or Open in any way.
However, there are a significant number of Linux users that would love to see such games hit the Linux market and there is a decent number of Linux users starting to come out of the whole Wal-Mart Linux PC deal...
So, a Linux gaming market could likely begin to rise as time progresses.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Beta-testers can't talk because of the NDA.
NDA lifts and lots of people slam the game.
Official board moderators lock and/or delete threads criticizing the game.
The game defenders insists that anyone who doesn't like the game has a problem.
Game has a lot of potential but is largely crap.
That's what many subscribers are saying. It appears SOE/LucasArts didn't think that the game would be popular, so everything is totally bogged down right now. The website/forums are iffy at best, new users are taking hours to register the game. Things are in a pretty horrible state right now. Just more evidence supporting the "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME YET" advice.
Don't click on items in the "Download List"
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
This is not the MMORPG you're looking for. *waves hand*
Seems like they are putting this one out early. But I don't find this to be a trend in just MMORPG, but in ANY game being released these days. BF1942 is still releasing patches, and 'expansion packs', and on the singleplayer side of things, so is Civ3, which took over 6 months to release the final patch (which is still buggy). What happened to the good old days of rigourous in house testing and beta release? I guess those days are long gone, bound for nostalgic recollections of old school gamers...
Hate to admit it, but I am a MMORPG fanatic. I have played every major release to date (except AC1). Each game had it's strengths and weaknesses. SWG biggest weakness is it's extremly boring gameplay. While Shadowbane might have bugs galore and mearly adequate graphics, the game is exciting. SWG has the eye candy a plenty, but I speant way more time in SWG beta trying to log into Shadowbane than in playing SWG. Hopefully Verant and co. can make this game more compelling, but for now, why pay $50 and %15/month for a yawner when I can be bored for free.
Why? Because time after time publishers ship that same unfinished game. You cannot name one that was finished or offered the exerience printed on the box. They've exceeded their development budget and now have to start charging or cancel. As for beta testers being amongst the worst of the whiners I have to agree. It's hard to have a fun time among such people who are constantly vocal about it in-game. There's also the flip-side, people who shout, "It's beta shaddup! You're here to test not have fun." This however is not quite true. The dev team needs and wants to know what isn't fun, if they can't fix it before it ships it flops. They honestly aren't expecting a written report from each of 5000 testers either. The bugs are found by stress testing the system and seeing what breaks, and from the core group of testers they do get written reports from. The bugs are catalogued numbered and progress and mutation tracked.
Why? Because time after time publishers ship that same unfinished game. You cannot name one that was finished or offered the exerience printed on the box. They've exceeded their development budget and now have to start charging or cancel.
As for beta testers being amongst the worst of the whiners I have to agree. It's hard to have a fun time among such people who are constantly vocal about it in-game. There's also the flip-side, people who shout, "It's beta shaddup! You're here to test not have fun." This however is not quite true. The dev team needs and wants to know what isn't fun, if they can't fix it before it ships it flops. (Anarchy Online, AC2) They honestly aren't expecting a written report from each of 5000 testers either. The bugs are found by stress testing the system and seeing what breaks, and from the core group of testers they do get written reports from. The bugs are catalogued numbered and progress and mutation tracked.
As a game programmer who also plays and beta's MMOGs I assure you this is how it's done.
There's a newer MMP game out there called Everquest that you might want to try. It's just come out of Verant. I hear they are some really good and commited people..
...hold everything, CANCEL THAT. I was thinking of something that might possibly have been fun.
You become a part of a world of cunning, intrigue, and high fantasy. You embark on epic quests with groups or whole armies of indidviduals who will endear themselves to you with their charm and wit and commitment to pursuing excellence in furthering the unique atmosphere of the world of Norrath. You will advance grand and sweeping plotlines with your every adventure. Oh what strange wonders and twisted evils await you!
Wait, no,
Now, has anyone seen a rat or 1000 around here? I have a stick with a shiny new nail in it that is just itching to bore me to death.
Hurrah for tedium!
I think not.
Too many people underestimate the sheer fun factor of randomly firing blasters.
I dont know why projects such as PlaneShift dont receive more publicity.
Perhaps it is just that the people who complain about the cost of these games aren't coders (well, that'd be a surprise wouldn't it...)
I've been playing MMORPG's since '97 and I'm a huge (albeit mostly closet) Star Wars fan so I was excited to get in on the beta quite early.
It'll be a good game and certainly one of the best MMORPG's out there when it's finished. But I've seen the rate of progress, how far it has come and how much is left to be done. It's just not finished. There are several easy and well known exploits and vulnerabilities and entire skill trees remain untested and therefore unbalanced. It's a bunch of nerfs just waiting to happen and I won't pay for that.
Basically instead of an open beta, they've rushed it out unfinished and the die-hard fans will doubtless be happy to pay for the game to be completed. And they'll tolerate the bugs, cheats and losses in the meantime.
Maybe I'll check it out in a year or so but I'd advise everyone to not spend a cent on it until then.
Personally, I think I'm now more interested in some of the fresh young hopefuls like Roma Victor [www.roma-victor.com].
I played this in Beta for about 2 months... The servers constantly crashed and reloaded, the Login Interface was troublesome, and once actually playing it is not really that enjoyable. Since about 10 p.m. last night the server have been dead.. the Registration server had a "hardware failure" sometime last evening as well.. Why pay 14.99 a month for this service. I thin I will log back into Dark Age of Camelot and wait or housing lot prices drop to where i can afford them. Late, J
It's easier to write of $10 dollars as a waste than $50. If you have just shelled out $50 for a game that sucks you will make damn sure you play it a lot in the first month or so just to a) make sure it really does suck and it's not just you being impatient, and b) make yourself feel that you at least tried to get "your money's worth". That period gives you more time to get into the rhythm of the game and makes you more likely to get hooked.
I have been playing non-stop since this morning! The game is so immersive and beautiful! It runs very smoothly even in hi resolution. I had only one problem in the last 6 hours of play (got stuck somewhere) petitioned for it and received a respone within a minute! Can you believe someone responded and helped me in a minute in a game's first day that probably had 10s of thousands of players with problems. THis is indeed a true mmorgp along the lines of UO and clearly will not satisfy powerlevelers. I can see how it will evolve in 6-12 months. I just ordered my second copy :)
Don't believe the negative comments, SWG simply rocks!
SnowCrash