Slashdot Mirror
Star Wars Galaxies - No Crushbone Factor?
Tark writes "Over at Warcry.com, there's a new column from Warthog discussing his post-launch impressions of the PC MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, a month after official release date." This opinion piece is from the writer whose entertaining review we featured just after game launch, and it's interesting to see how his opinions have changed over time - he still says SWG lacks the "Crushbone Factor", referencing a particular area of Everquest which "..had quests... unique monsters... cool, level appropriate loot drops... [and] personality."
The problem is that content is expensive. The hand-crafted feel of EQ's zones (and the game I work on, Meridian 59) take a long time to create. It takes specialized people with a good eye to create those cool level, to write up the quests, to create the cool items that drop off the monsters.
SWG had to go toward randomly-generated content in the world because they simply could not generate all the needed content by hand. Especially with more modern players expecting a wealth of new content at launch and on a regular basis. New games have to compete with EQ's content, which has been added to over the years.
In the end, content is expensive. Generating some of the content randomly helps create more content that doesn't feel repetitive, but it loses a bit of soul in the process.
My view on things,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Dead? Hardly. Warthog's main beef is that it isn't everquest. And he's an idiot. Many, many of us do not want everquest. We do not want ph4t l3wt drops off mobs. We don't want to camp Crushbone for weeks till we can ding so we can go camp crocs in Oasis until we ding again. Everquest was designed as a game, SWG was designed as a world. I'm sick and tired of seeing all the little pellet chasers that Everquest brought to the genre trying to turn every game into the next everquest. The fact I can log in, play at my leisure and log out whenever I feel like it and not feel guilty about "only putting 6 hours in today" is great. I can play one or two hours a day and still make progress with some of my online friends. SWG was made for people who have outside lives and are more socially adapt than a paperclip. I like it that way...Don't turn it into another Everquest pandering to the catasses who play 70 hours a week.
You want Everquest? Go play Everquest and stop trying to turn every other game into a Everquest clone.
the "Crushbone Factor", referencing a particular area of Everquest
Great. We refer to part of Everquest to measure how good a game is?
That's like complimenting a game by saying it has the "root canal" factor.
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
His "main beef" is that it's missing the "crushbone factor". This isn't "I want Crushbone in space with Jedi", this is "I want a story, a big dungeon, and interesting items with side quests to back it up".
He spent quite a while explaining the Crushbone Factor. Perhaps if he named it "The Content Factor" you would have less to complain about. Perhaps you would have spared us your mini-rant about how much you hate Everquest, and your insults to mmorpg players.
I'm sorry, this is definitely news to me. SWG was made as a world, not a game. Of course, it all makes sense now! It's not a game in anyway! That's why it's not marketed a replacement for this world, Eart- oh, whoops.
It's obvious that you like the SWG. Please, write up a rebuttal designed take apart Warthog's main argument, the lack of content. Don't segway off and bitch about Everquest. When your rebuttal is written, post it... I'd like to read another article that shows SWG in a more positive light.