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?

Comments

Bloody release schedules

[darylp]

I'll just be happy to see it over in Europe. By the time it gets over here, the Jedi code will have been hacked, and the servers will be inundated with double-saber wielding nonces going by 'humourous' names such as 'Luke A55reamer' and 'Hung So-low'.

When IS the UK release date anyway? Amazon have it listed as 26th December, but that's just piss taking.

Re:Bloody release schedules

[will_die]

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 haven't played the game yet ...

[trevorrowe]

but I am not sure I want to. It seems like all the those who play and review the game are excusing the mediocrity every other sentance, example: "The missions may all be the same, but I really enjoy going on them with my friends." (made up example)

Its not just a few bugs either, players complain about the lack of fresh content, slow moving action, the cost (initial and monthly), etc. I am getting the feeling that player are only playing it for 2 reasons: 1) they forked out 50 dollars and so they are going to play their first month through, 2) its Star Wars, period

Re:I haven't played the game yet ...

[Chasuk]

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. :-)

Re:I haven't played the game yet ...

[Chester K]

It seems like all the those who play and review the game are excusing the mediocrity every other sentance, example: "The missions may all be the same, but I really enjoy going on them with my friends." (made up example)

That exactly describes SWG. It's an excellent game saddled by a piss-poor implementation (or, more accurately, an implementation forced out the door a year too early by overzealous executives looking to boost profits for the quarter).

A lot of people enjoy the game, myself included, despite the flaws; but it's not a game for the cynical or easily frustrated. It reminds me a lot of Ultima Online's early months with strange, inexplicable bugs; not total breakage like the release of Anarchy Online.

Re:I haven't played the game yet ...

[u-238]

yeah they basically nailed it.

missions are obnixiously tedious, the only motivation to bear through them would be the upgraded professions they unlock...

too bad the majority of them end up yielding even more tedium.

for example, the bounty hunter profession was widly advertised throughout development as the ultimate answer to the boba fett wanna be, it was supposed to impliment a method in which any player could place a bounty on an enemy of theris who, say, broke a contract and ran off with some delivery goods. the bounty could be accepted by a professional bounty hunter, who would proceed to hunt down the player on one of the 9 planets on the galaxy (each a scaled 15 square kilometers large).

alas, upon the announcment of the ship date, they inform us that these bounties will be dynamically crafted missions in which you hunt NPC's (aka bots).

If I wanted to hunt bots, I'd buy Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.

Pathetic.

Re:I haven't played the game yet ...

[The Evil Couch]

there's a good reason why many people that bought it are disappointed: they never played a persistent world game.

the thing is that everyone that hadn't played one before grabbed the game and expected to be Luke Skywalker or someone of equal importance or power. with a couple thousand players per server, that just can't be. you can't be a bad-ass. you're a person within the Star Wars mythos. you may end up as a pretty powerful person, but you're not going to foil the Empire or crush the Rebels.

as far as people bitching about missions all being more or less the same, I invite them to look at any other persistent world RPG. every mission is the same. there is very little variance in them. take object X to person Y. go to person Z and kill them.

what makes SWG fun in my eyes is that it's pretty well balanced between play styles, unless you're using a macro to do stuff while you're AFK (ie artisans using macros to mine ore while they're asleep or at work) if you don't exploit, all professions progress at about the same rate. you also are pretty much unrestricted in the number of classes and specialization that you can do.

if you want a character that is proficient in many of the basic tasks; a jack of all trades-type, you're more than able to. and if you want to excel in a specific type of trade, you can do that, too. if you decide that you screwed up, you can drop the skill/class and backtrack.

it's a fun game and allows for a good deal of adventure, simply by virtue of its customizability. it's open-ended enough that you can work to become an underling of a major character if you really want to. you may never have an impact on the "real" Star Wars story, but with SWG you can live in that setting and carve out your own story, which is basically what people are really looking for in persistent world RPGs.

SWG:Trash it....

[JavaLord]

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

Re:SWG:Trash it....

[y0bhgu0d]

Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit?

not to pick nits or anything, but in episode two right at the beginning a rocket launcher is used to destroy a ship...