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Star Wars Galaxies To Revamp Jedi System
JasdonLe writes "In a move that significantly changes the game's goals, I just saw on the official Star Wars Galaxies site that plans are in the works to 'revamp' the entire Jedi system, including removing Jedi permadeath." The plan is to "rebuild the Jedi system to be quest-oriented; and to include the familiar elements of Force Sensitivity, Jedi-oriented quests, as well as many other elements the developers and the community feel should make up the process of becoming a Jedi." SWG Stratics also has word that the holocrons, previously needed to be come a Jedi in the PC MMORPG, "won't be in the new system", but may still have value as rare in-game items.
maybe now the path to becoming a Jedi will be based on skill, and not mastering random professions told to you by a magic cube...
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
When various MMORPGs came out, I would complain about the initial outlay, considering you have to pay a monthly fee. I would usually get modded 'troll' or 'flamebait' or, at best, someone would argue that it was to pay for development. Now, how much development was actually done by Sony and LucasArts prior to release of the game? Since release, there's been several very large patches, major revamps to several professions, and now a total revamp of the Jedi system. So, again, why would I pay $50 up front?
Hope this new system gives folks what they want.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
just the utter lack of skill required to do so. All it is is a repetitive level grind which makes no sense in the context of a Star Wars universe, and is completely at odds with the what most people consider fun.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
As someone who's been playing SWG for less than a month, I'm very torn about this revelation. I'm still rather early along in any skill progressions, and haven't gotten anywhere near aquiring even a single holocron, so I was nowhere near being a Jedi. But because the game is still pretty new to me, I've been enjoying it a lot. Even without the prospect of becoming a Jedi any time in the near future, I've enjoyed running Rebel missions and exploring the Star Wars galaxy (excuse the pun).
But I can see the grind of leveling getting old and the feeling that some gamers might have, of their 'right' to become Jedi in a Star Wars game. And as a gamer, I can relate. Part of the fun of almost every Star Wars game has been the excitement of being a Jedi. But as a Star Wars fan, I have to agree with other posts: the universe of the origonal trilogy was almost entirely devoid of Jedi. The Empire was hunting them down and killing them, one by one.
And even outside the origonal trilogy, even at the HEIGHT of the Jedi Order, we're talking a couple thousand Jedi, tops. Even with tens of thousands. Even (and this is just silly) MILLIONS of Jedi. In a galaxy populated by billions and billions of sentient beings, that's less than one percent of the population.
So I don't think it's unreasonable that it's hard as fuck to become a Jedi, and it's kind of a bitch to be one once you've achieved it. That's consistant with the rules the origonal trilogy laid out.
I know some people may say, "Yes, but it's just a videogame." But it's a videogame set in a specific universe with specific rules that it has to follow to be able to truely claim it's in the Star Wars universe. And if it doesn't follow those, then I don't know why I would want to bother playing it. There are a number of other MMORPGs out there, and have their own cool sets of rules and characters and stories, without having to conform to an already existing background universe. But SWG has chosen to constrain itself within specific boundaries, and I expect it to do so.
I guess I'll have to wait and see. I've been having a good time, but have also been annoyed with certain things. For example, the Rebel mission terminals are sitting out in the open. Even though certain systems may be doing a better job than others resisting the Empire, I think it's fair to assume a Rebel standing in the middle of a public square yelling "COME WORK FOR THE REBELLION!!!" would be killed rather quickly...
And it's one thing to get a repeating mission to go deliver something or go kill a lair of some beast, but to get a mission to kill a specific person, and then to get it again? With the same mission description? So what did I do the first time?
These aren't complaints on the game mechanics, just on the implimentation. And a sign that maybe the creators don't care about keeping true to the SW Trilogy as much as I'd like. I'm waiting to pass judgement on the revamped Jedi system, but will be extremely pissed off if there's a new Jedi Mission Terminal in every city and you can get force points by completting them.
If I wanted to play a game where I could get magical powers simply by leveling, I'd have chosen something else. An inherent nature of the Jedi is that they're more powerful than pretty much anyone else. Maybe that's an impossible thing to achieve in an MMORPG, and I know there's no "accurate" way to portray The Force in a MMORPG, but I really hope they can do a little better than having mission terminals or some such shit.
-Trillian
They really screwed up from the start. What kind of crackhead came up with a system where you spend hours upon hours building up a character that you will quit playing as soon as you unlock the force slot? If they want to make players happy AND make them stick around for a long time, they should make the Jedi class available to everyone from the start. BUT, make it really hard - through both time involvment AND ability/knowledge, to be a good jedi. That way every weenie who wants to be a jedi gets their wish, but only the ones who take time to develop their character actually get to be the kind of jedi that we saw in the movies.
Since release, there's been several very large patches, major revamps to several professions, and now a total revamp of the Jedi system. So, again, why would I pay $50 up front?
Let's not forget the fact that, despite these large patches, the addition of vehicles, not only are the players paying fifteen dollars a month to play, but inevitably there will be an expansion pack, which will be yet another twenty to thirty dollars; which doesn't include a free month of play (seeing how they've already hooked you). It's bad enough that the patches for some of these games are already enormous (Final Fantasy 11's install, anyone?) and are often adding significant amounts of content (vehicles in Galaxies), but often MMORPG expansion-packs come off as glorified patches. After all, in order to keep parity with the players who have bought the expansion, there is often a rather sizeable patch for the un-expanded players, just so they can see others using what they didn't buy. To me, that's considerably more insulting than the initial fifty-dollar payment for the game.
Those 'players' are 'customers'. Piss them off, and they'll go elsewhere. Heck, even just disappoint them, ignore them, or don't meet their expectations, and they'll go elsewhere. This isn't Sony's little sandbox (nor is it the private sandbox of the people who have the time to jump through the hoops to become a Jedi). If they want to make a profit, they have to 'deal' with players and their expectations.
Real life is boring and tedious. Why should I pay $50 plus $15/month to play an imaginery boring and tedious person?
Players *did* figure out the secret. And many people said 'WTF does *that* have to do with becoming a Jedi?' Heck, even random choice after a character is alive for X weeks would be more entertaining than 'go camp the widget'.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Thats why you build up another class before venturing into it. Thats like trying to learn how to drive a tank through a warzone before learning how to drive a car downtown.
The use of the term 'wizard' is not a fair argument since 'wizard' is a general term and has already been done in games. How about the term 'Dark Knight'? (From FFXI)
If becoming a Dark Knight was easy to obtain, say 1 month work for a non-hardcore gamer, then why the hell would you play a game where you're already the number one force (no pun intended) in the game?
Guess what? This works. Just because its a game doesn't mean you're always gonna get things served to you on a silver plater. YOU may want to run around town lobbing heads off left and right with a double bladed lightsaber, but when you play with other people you play by the same set of rules and restrictions. The whole point of a RPG is to build up and develop a character, not to have a watered down game where your role is too similar to someone else because its too accessable.
Their vision was that hardcore gamers, being the insanely clever people they are, would unlock the Jedi slot within the first 3 months of release. Considering the fact that there are people who have fully mastered over 3 different classes on one character in the game at this moment of posting, the idea of SOMEONE SOMEHOW stumbling upon the secret beforehand is not outrageous.
The one class that is even remotely special, the one class every wants to play, is an accomplishment in itself just if you can actually even try to play that class.
Isn't that the whole point? Why would you want to play as a class with unique skills, unique abilities, unique weapons, unique RULES; if so many other people could unlock it easily? Unless the majority of SWG players are looking for ego trips, if the Jedi slot was easy to open I'd rather play as a bounty hunter turned Jedi hunter. My character would certainly be more interesting than your "Good Jedi" "Bad Jedi" character.