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Pile On Star Wars Galaxies?
Thanks to GameSpy for their new feature called Star Wars Galaxies: Pile On!, where-in a multitude of GameSpy employees, and not just editors, either praise or trash their personal experiences playing Lucasarts' PC MMORPG. As the intro says, "We pretty much agree that Galaxies was the most ambitious MMORPG since Ultima Online. What we can't agree on was if it was released too soon, whether it's the second coming, or a big empty planet of bugs and tedium." The game doesn't seem to be getting any less controversial as time goes on, does it?
Content is as fresh as it is for most other MMORPG's, and certainly as "fresh" as it is for EQ, which is inviting most of the comparison.
:-)
I also don't find the action slow moving, nor the cost unreasonable.
And I hate Star Wars. I've disliked EVERY film (strangely, except for the most recent one, which I found tolerable), but I like the MMORPG.
Get the game. Play it. If you don't like it, sell it to a buddy or a Star Wars geek. Heck, they might even be the same person.
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I've been playing SWG since it came out. I've only taken one day "off". I have a few observations...
1. The server caps are at 3500. If 3500 people are on a server then you can't log in and access your main character. I've found no way to transfer my character from a populated server to a less populated one.
2. Even When around 3500 people are logged on to a server, some of the planets/towns are empty. Most people hang out in the same main towns (Anchorhead, Mos Eisley and Bestine on tattoine) for example.
3. There are plenty of bugs other than the disappearing house. I've had things randomly disappear from my Inventory...Including a Vibro axe I bought for 2/3rds of my credits I've had my corpse disappear for hours and thought all my items were gone. There are parts of the map in town that you should be able to run through but can't (ie an invisible wall). If you use the "burst run" command in combat, your character will still stop and get into a battle stance when attack. So you try to run away, and a monster melee attacks you, your avatar will stop so the nice monster can get closer and kill you. On that note, monsters can melee attack from very far away for some reason while you can not.
4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.
5. You are totally dependant on other players to have your wounds healed. So if you go into a hospital and there is only one medic there and 10 players you are in for a wait. Same thing goes for weapons. For example I am at "level 3" on the melee brawler skill tree. My weapon certification is for a "vibro axe". I need to find a artisan (crafter) who is at "level 8" (there are only 9 levels up) Once an artisan reaches "level 4" on the tree they can choose between 4 different elite professions, Droid Engineer, Architecht, Weaponsmith, and Chef. Then in the sub tree of Weaponsmith they can pick from 4 different branches, melee weapons, firearms, munitions and crafting techniques.
Since there are a lot more firearms users than melee, I had a lot of trouble finding that axe. Basically only two people were selling it, if that. The player driven economy is a fun idea, but having to find a level 8 artisan to get a level 4 weapon is a bit shortsighted. This might work out where there are hundreds of high level artisans running around months from now, or maybe not.
6. The missions are really boring, they come in two themes "destroy" or "deliever" They are pretty generic and mostly the same outside of the theme parks.
7. The grind. It takes forever to get anywhere, or gain any experence.
8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny. Let me tell you some of the things that are out of the "time period" in SWG.
We've seen 1 "creature handler" in the movies, in the game, I run into them all the time. We've seen once Rancor in the movies, all of the creature handlers I see are toting around 3 of them.
This is the one that bugs me the most..Here are some of the weapons in SWG: Stone knife, sword, dagger, heavy axe, lance, survival knife, curved sword, wood staff, metal staff, Fragmentation Grenade, flamethrower, ROCKET LAUNCHER...
Yes, that is right a rocket launcher in SWG. Welcome to Star Wars: Quake Strikes back.
Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit? Did I miss the scene where Darth Vader yells "Who's your daddy" at Luke and fires a rocket launcher at Luke? What is more out of character for the Star Wars Universe? 100 Jedi running around with different color lightsabres like attack of the clones, or 100 people running around mos eisley with rocket launchers and three rancors a piece yelling "N E ONE WANT 2 GO HUNTIN"?
I'll take the Jedi, thanks.
9. The lack of PvP support. It's such a pain in the butt to PvP and y
They have said that the same client will be used everywhere, so check the official boards and you can find a company that will ship the product to you.
There are a couple of servers that have Euro based guilds, so you could check them also.
I play from Germany and lag is not a problem.
I forgot where exactly I saw this, but this comment was cut-n-pasted from somewhere else. Please do not reward this plagiarism.
4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.
:-) It forces you to interact with other characters. If you don't want to interact or travel to a more populated city with better doctors, then learn to become a medic and heal yourself, it's your choice. If you want free instant healing from an NPC with each town visit, play a different game.
No arguments here, although it shouldn't move as fast as other games do (since it's so complex it'd be wrong to rush past things and experiences).
5. You are totally dependant on other players...
That's the idea, and it makes it the most pure MMORPG to date
8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny.
It's not a scam. Jedi's just aren't as cheap and boring and common as they have been in other Star Wars games. Too many games (diablo II comes to mind) make it way too easy to become an uber-elite character in just a few days. I think it's great that the only Jedi in the game will be people who really care and work very hard to become one.
10. The inventory is horrible, you can't sort it in anyway, and it seems to move stuff around by itself.
You can sort it...click Change View to get a spreadsheet style view (as opposed to the standard Icon style view), then click the column titles.
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There could be factions vying for the control of the galaxy - but it would be ongoing. Players would choose their faction and work to move it forward. A dark jedi could walk into a bar and start attacking people - if it brought points to his faction.
Uh..That's why it's called "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided". You can choose to be part of the rebellion or the empire (or a bunch of other factions like Thugs, etc.). These give you FACTION POINTS that determine PVP combat, etc.
Learn more about the game before you criticize it.
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The post in your first link is from beta and there is a nice chunk of things listed which are fixed or never where a problem to begin with.
for example.. the bazaar. lists way more than just 100 items (its called hit the next page listing) you can search for items in your city.. other cities and other planets.
there is more but I don't feel like listing them all.
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