Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed Launches

If you already play the Massively Multiplayer Game Star Wars Galaxies, you're undoubtedly already aware that the Jump to Lightspeed space expansion officially launched today. For the rest of us, there are some details on the developer side regarding the ramp up to release available on the official site. Details on the experience of the new expansion is available at Gamespot and PC.IGN. More ... colourful analysis can be found on Grimwell's boards, and N3rfed has a post discussing the fact that the rest of the world has to wait until November 5th for their space-goodies.

Comments

Cool

[stratjakt]

Does the game not suck now?

Re:Cool

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

I'm doubtful that they could do much of anything to help that game...

Re:Cool

[Tackhead]

> Does the game not suck now?

"I'm told by a very good source that SOE developers are currently working on, and very excited about the possibilities for the upcoming SWG:FTS - Failure To Suck - expansion pack, still in its design phase.

Until then, we thank you for your business and hope that you continue to enjoy SWG and SWG:JTL!

- SWG Slashbot Community Relationship Mangler."

Sony Online Entertainment: When we say "service the account", we mean it's your fault that you didn't understand that "service" is something what a bull does to a cow.

Re:Cool

[H310iSe]

I'm trying to form the Church of the Coming Combat Upgrade (waiting 6 months or more for them to fix the incredibly unequal combat system which was promised, repeatedly, in early 2004 and, like the Second Coming of the Big J., has yet to materialize). I'll not consider JTL until they fix the first game. Hrm, I wonder if Microsoft and SOE hang together, they operate in some of the same ways.

Re:Cool

[banzai51]

The Coming Combat Upgrade will arrive soon. We're waiting on some guy named Godot to deliver it.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

but now is sucks at LIGHTSPEED......

Re:Cool

[fitten]

I thought it was the SWG:WSSN - Will Stop Sucking Now - expansion pack...

Re:Cool

[Surlyboi]

Well, let's say it sucks less.

I beta tested this puppy and while there's some really promising aspects of it, it's still got a bit of a ways to go.

Some of that blame can be laid soley at the feet of the "flavor of the month" PvP template making l33t dudes who stood around on the ground dueling anyone that walked by and shouting j00 sux0r reble!!!11lol. (or the opposite if they were rebels who'd just beaten down an imp.) But some of the blame can be laid at SoE's "Don't actually add all that much interactive content, just throw some really hard mobs at the players and let them beat their heads against that proverbial wall" approach as well.

That being said, the added twitch element makes the game a lot more interesting and it doesn't feel as bolted on as I thought it would.

Time difference

[FortKnox]

How long between when SWG was originally launched until now?

I wanna know how long its been for SWG to become everything people EXPECTED out of the game before it was released.

Seriously... how long have people played this 'StarWars' game without the main element?

Re:Time difference

[JeffTL]

Since July or August of 2003, longer if you include the beta.

Re:Time difference

[Anonymous Coward]

._O

It hasn't been over a year already, has it?? Holy crap.

Re:Time difference

[MaineCoon]

I wanna know how long its been for SWG to become everything people EXPECTED out of the game before it was released.

That is misleading. You are implying that the expansion meets the original expectations of the game, which is, sadly, still not true.

Some people actually expected something enjoyable, balanced, and not bugridden... who knows when THAT will occur.

Re:Time difference

[Trejkaz]

What I want to know is how it was launched "today", yet been "actually" out long enough for dozens of players to get sick of it already, and go back to the original game.

I assume that people who actually play the game had access to the expansion earlier than everyone else.

Re:Time difference

[Lord_Dweomer]

" Since July or August of 2003, longer if you include the beta."

That implies that it actually finished beta-testing...

Re:Time difference

[DJerman]

We're still waiting for that. But it's closer now, after about 16 months.

Re:Time difference

[KDR_11k]

Of course. They call it "gamma-testing".

... but not if you're European!

[darylp]

Due to a genius marketing decision by Activision, the European distributors, players in the Old World don't get to see the expansion until November 5th at the earliest. The latest date predicted is November 19th.

It's almost as if they WANT the players to move onto WoW.

Re:... but not if you're European!

[LilMikey]

It's almost as if they WANT the players to move onto WoW.

Of course they do. Essentially, the first month of any MMORPG you have to pay up front for is $50+. That's a f'n racket if you ask me: Asking an up front cost and then expecting a monthly payment. What are they trying to sell, Windows?

Re:... but not if you're European!

[Nicholas Evans]

Try everquest. You *need* a couple of the expansion packs if you expect to play. Like Plains of Power. I played without it for a few months, and the handicap I had was *incredible*. Everyone would say 'k, meet you at so and so in a minute' and run to the local book to get there really fast. I had to take about an hour to run across the bloody continent to get there. Talk about assrape.

Re:... but not if you're European!

[_xeno_]

Think of it as pay-back for the fact that the FFXI Chains of Promathia expansion came out 5 days earlier in Europe than it did in North America.

Well... almost. In a sign of just how important Europe must be to the manufactorers, the version that came out there was a new "European version" and was incompatible with the version that Europeans who had imported the game had been using for months. So new European players could get an expansion they couldn't use since you needed to be basically level 20 or higher and they'd be starting at level 1, and existing players had to wait for the North American ship date anyway (along with the export delays).

So... um... yeah.

(Even better was that before the release, some customer service reps told some European players that the European version would work with the North American version... The best part of all this is that even with the European release, European players still need to pay in US dollars using Visa or Mastercard. Can't you just feel the love?)

Re:... but not if you're European!

[Jugalator]

It's almost as if they WANT the players to move onto WoW.

No, because Vivendi is thinking the same thing.

In other words, WoW might be ready around that time, but for USA only.

So Euros will still, with this delay, get SW JTL before WoW.

Re:... but not if you're European!

[Jugalator]

Oh, and forget about getting around this by pre-ordering WoW since it seems the realm servers will be forced. You might not be able to order and play a US import version of WoW since you're not allowed to play on their servers...

Shipping and Stores

[bassakward]

I can understand that publishing all over the world on the same day is a little rough. While it would be nice to just download the software and pay the developers the fee, there are stores to keep happy. There has been so much bad press about this game, and the expansion. I don't understand most of it. The game is pretty decent, and lots of people have fun with it.

Re:Shipping and Stores

[darylp]

It's worse than that. UK stores such as Game and HMV have it in their storerooms already.

They've just been told under contract that they're not allowed to sell it yet.

Re:Shipping and Stores

[Mac Degger]

The flight model sucks and JTL is like EQ in space...what more do you need?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: had they just updated Tiefighter vs Xwing, plonked some RPG hooks in there, added bigass spacestations and a stardestroyer you could dock and walk around in (kinda like the aircraft carriers in Battlefield1942), they would have had a winner...hell, they'd have the flightsim crowd in there faster than something very fast, and have a game which anyone else just digs because it makes sense and works.

But no... instead they don't differntiate between the ships except to the extent how many parts a ship can carry (goodbye to a-wing being the space-space fighter, xwing multipurpous and b-wing being the bomber and hello to 'it's whatever you put in it, and the b-wing can be filled with the most'), add shields to Tie's and no in-space refueling (you actually have to go to the ground-game to get restocked on missiles etc! Which does mean that you have all those nice loading screens to look at :( )...whilst they do have in-space repairing!

Re:Shipping and Stores

[freqres]

Hell, I would buy just an updated X-Wing vs. Tiefighter game. Just as long as they took out those missions that had you protecting some weak ass shuttle with a compliment of retarded wingmen, I didn't care for those.

Re:Shipping and Stores

[codeguy007]

no in-space refueling (you actually have to go to the ground-game to get restocked on missiles etc!

If you only know what you were talking about maybe someone would listen to your crap. You can reload in space, you can even replace parts once you have reached a certain skill level.

MMORPG

[echocharlie]

YAMMORPG... One could argue Slashdot is one also. It's certainly addictive like one.

Re:MMORPG

[Tellarin]

Yes, it's addictive.
Especially the parts about improving your character's karma and fighting trolls.

Re:MMORPG

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Yah, we all roleplay rabid linux zealots.

Who at /. plays Star Wars Galaxies?

[YetAnotherName]

Given that there's a plethora of links, the posting's not in italics, and there's no mention of "so-and-so writes," it must be Zonk himself!

Come on, Zonk, 'fess up!

OMFG

[Locdonan]

OMFG! STAR WARS!

Enough already. Star Wars was good. Lucas made a good movie. Then Lucas killed his own project.

I wish I had the lyrics to the Ewok song though...

Re:OMFG

[stratjakt]

From "http://tribute4tasha.50megs.com/ewok_song.html"

Ewok Version

Yub nub
eee chop yub nub
ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene
g'noop dock fling oh ah
Yah wah
eee chop yah wah
ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene
g'noop dock fling oh ah
Coatee chah tu yub nub
coatee chah tu yahwah
coatee chah tu glowah
allay loo ta nuv
Glowah
eee chop glowah
ya glowah pee chu nee foam
ah toot dee awe goon daa
Coatee cha tu goo (Yub nub!)
coatee cha tu doo (Yahwah!)
coatee cha tu too (Ya chaa!)
allay loo ta nuv
allay loo ta nuv
allay loo ta nuv
Glowah
eee chop glowah
ya glowah pee chu nee foam
ah toot dee awe goon daa
Allay loo ta nuv
English Version

Freedom
we got freedom
and now that we can be free
come on and celebrate
Power
we got power
and now that we can be free
it's time to celebrate
Celebrate the freedom
celebrate the power
celebrate the glory
celebrate the love
Power
we got power
and now that we can be free
it's time to celebrate
Celebrate the light (freedom!)
celebrate the night (power!)
celebrate the fight (glory!)
celebrate the love
celebrate the love
celebrate the love
Glory
we found glory
the power showed us the light
and now we all live free
Celebrate the love

Re:OMFG

[ebooher]

Ahhh.... Indeed, your cut and paste kung fu is better than my dragon style typing

Re:OMFG

[Lumpy]

Exactly.

This looks like less fun than the almost aincent nettrek game. Not to be a slam on nettrek, it's addictive as hell and insanely fun for something that is a game I remember playing back in the 1.2.x kernel days.

But this "expansion" lacks goal and drive. in nettrek you are to capture planets and there is a great amount of teambuilding and roles and tactics that can be used. people will take risks in order to attain the goal. anything where you are a single player and you die that player dies, is always full of people that are overly cautious and or do nothing but increase wealth in the game.... whooptie doo.. I want combat, good space combat!

I always wondered why the developers of nettrek and parsec dont get together and make a combination that would kick the living arse of games like starwars:light speed

lol! rofl!

[darylp]

That'll teach me not to RTFA. Mark down with extreme prejudice, Slashboteers!

And everyone else, read that n3rfed link! Although it fails to mention that the European release date has been set at 29th October for the past few months. It was only 'rescheduled' yesterday.

If they'd known there would be delivery problems, then the very least they could have done was not lie to the customers about it.

This is nothing more than a reward the hoarders

[utahraptor]

Ship building will be a joke for anyone without millions of credits and or resources. The same goes for buying a ship.

Re:This is nothing more than a reward the hoarders

[jmays]

Bullshit. The loot system is good enough to support your ship needs except when you need the absolute BEST. At least in beta it was.

Re:This is nothing more than a reward the hoarders

[Kazrath]

LOL agreed. I was selling about 20 mil creds a week on Ebay before I quit. Ruff estimate of my assets when I quit was aobut 250mil in resources/finished goods.

But running 4 accounts with 10 BER 14 harvies a matching 40 stationary structures became too time consuming and my girlfriend I somehow picked up during the breif 15min episodes of leaving my computer broke me of my addiction.

Re:This is nothing more than a reward the hoarders

[wickedj]

Oh come on, it can't be that hard? The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy was won in a simple game of Sabacc.

Re:This is nothing more than a reward the hoarders

[nuclear305]

" Ship building will be a joke for anyone without millions of credits and or resources. The same goes for buying a ship."

That's what credit dupes are for! You didn't really think those were exploits did you?

One or the other

[Sheetrock]

Expansion packs are bad enough when you're buying a game for $50, but why do people put up with it with MMORPGS where you're paying a monthly fee as well as the initial cost of the software?

If it's about combining the social thing with your gaming, there's gotta be a good MUD out there somewhere. MMORPGS are basically MUDs with chrome and a billing system.

Re:One or the other

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

Have you ever tried a *good* one? (Not SWG)

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you recommend?

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

That's besides the point. WTF do people pay full price for a shrinkwrapped game and then pay again for the service needed to use it...then pay again a third time for expansions. I thought the monthly fees were supposed to cover developing new stuff to keep the world interesting.

I'm really trying hard to decide if I should buy WoW. I'd pay the monthly fee without hesitation, but the fact that I have to pay $50 just for the priviledge really turns me off.

Re:One or the other

[Elsebet]

The monthly fee is a fairly trivial ($10-15 normally, $40 for EQ Legends) for potentially a month's worth of entertainment. You could play 24/7 and never be billed more than your fee. When my boyfriend and I go out drinking it's at least $30-40, more if we go for dinner first.

I used to play MuD's and enjoyed them back in 1996 or so. However now my opinion is, if I'm going to spend a considerable amount of time levelling up a character I'd prefer it have pretty textures all over it than be an @ or pile of text. :)

Re:One or the other

[samberdoo]

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try. -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822.3. Uh I think that was Yoda.

Re:One or the other

[LilMikey]

Peh... where do you think Yoda got it?!

Notice the ears... can anyone say 'ancestry'.

Re:One or the other

[Tarrek]

World of Warcraft is the only one that currently exists (Although unreleased) that I would call good.

Ultima Online *WAS* good, a long, long time ago, in a different era of MMORPG gaming, but, it's long since hit it's internally mandated expiration date.

To clarify that I'm not just saying things were better in the good ol' days, Merridian 59 wasn't all that good.

Everquest never was, and never will be good.

SWG never was, and never will be good.

Ascherons Call 1 was novel and interesting, but "good" is an overstatement.

Shadowbane was and is not good, *unless* you enjoy massive PvP and politics with 14 year olds.

Re:One or the other

[corsican]

SEE!! SEE!! There ARE girls on /.!

At least, I HOPE it's a girl...

Re:One or the other

[ThomaMelas]

I've found FFXI to be pretty good. I like the way it handles PvP, as a sport between nations, fought in a certain setting and prearanged. PvP for those that want it, none for those that don't.

Re:One or the other

[operagost]

Look at the salutation ... can anyone say "confused a sci-fi character with a child psychologist?"

Re:One or the other

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

Dark age of Camelot was incredible. I haven't been in it for over a year though, and can't say if it's fallen apart or is still as good as it used to be.

Personally, I'm waiting for World of Warcraft before I try another MMO..

I hated SWG, so that really turned me off of the whole idea... And I played City of Heroes for a month or two and got a bit bored..

Re:One or the other

[ferat]

Paying for the box covers development costs.

Monthly fee covers bandwidth (which is considerable) , customer disservice, and general maintenance.

Large addons that take a large development crew a long time to create are paid for to cover the development costs, and are optional for the casual gamer (for most power gamers they are "required" for newer and more powerful bling).

For a good MMORPG, the costs are well worth it. Unfortunatly there really haven't been that many worth paying for of late.

Re:One or the other

[bleckywelcky]

Trivial?

I'm sorry, but $40 a month is DEFINITELY not trivial. Even $15 a month is a tidy sum and not to be considered trivial. Unless you happen to be another one of these snot-nosed little rich daddy's kids.

At $40 a month, plus the $50 for the original game and $50 every 6 months for the latest expansion, that's $580 a year. Even at $15 a month, that's $280 a year. For one, simple, freaking, game. A game you can play a max of probably 2 or 3 hours a day during the week (if you want to waste every day in front of your computer); and maybe another 6 or 7 hours a day each weekend (again, if you want to waste every day away in front of your computer).

Sure, if your parents spoil you, pay for all your little toys, and have a maid to wipe your butt, fine. But when you work 50 hours a week, and have 50 bazillion other responsibilities to take care of, you can only afford maybe 5 hours during the week and another 8 hours on the weekends, total. And that's only if you don't have any other hobbies - building rockets, fiddling with electronics, etc (like most geeks do).

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying for the box covers development costs.

I doubt it.

For a good MMORPG, the costs are well worth it.

I think you missed the "IMHO" bit there.

I agree with the original post - if they want to sell me boxed software, don't expect me to shell out money to keep using it. If you want me to shell out monthly, don't charge me up front.

Re:One or the other

[Methuseus]

I'd liek to know what a good one is. Just asking, since I've beta'd a few and never liked one yet.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not questioning weather the costs are worth it that's debatable, but for the sake of arguement, say they are.

I'm involved with the boardgame industry, so I have a pretty good idea where most of that retail pricetag goes, and I'll guarantee you the amount that goes into Blizzard's pocket is a lot less than the "free" month of service they include in the box. They'd be ahead financially if they let you download the game and didn't give a free month of service, and they'd have a lot more customers.

I suspect what they really want is for you to be out 50 bucks so if decide you hate the game, you'll probably still try it for a few more months because "it's only $13 more for another month and I'm already in for $50", so they have a greater chance to hook you. Most of the $50 is lost in the retail channel, but they'd rather have it wasted than stay in your pocket so you don't feel as bad about leaving after one month.

Re:One or the other

[Rinikusu]

1) It's their game. if they want to charge me $50, plus $30 for expansion packs, plus $10/month and I still want to play, it sounds like they're making money to me. And frankly, when I'm playing a game, such as Everquest, that I enjoy, it's a *small* price to pay.

2) It's their game. If you want to play, you have to pay.

3) It's their game.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

That has nothing to do with the fact that,

1) You're a retard if you want to pay that much for a glorified IRC application.

2) You are a complete tool.

3) You are a complete tool.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but $40 a month is DEFINITELY not trivial. Even $15 a month is a tidy sum and not to be considered trivial. Unless you happen to be another one of these snot-nosed little rich daddy's kids.

$15 a month most certainly is trivial. You see, some of us are actually adults with real jobs and real incomes. We are not all snotty know-it-all teenagers shoving RAM into customers MoBos in the backroom of Best Buys for minimum wage. Most MMORPG's are targeted to males in their mid twentys to whome $15 isn't much.

Re:One or the other

[PhrackCreak]

Damn straight. That's why you should try SecondLife. One time fee unless you are actually using server space. The whole thing is much more of a social game than a game of pouring more money into a publisher's pocket.

Re:One or the other

[sgant]

I would say that there was a "Window of Goodness" in EQ back like around 6 to 8 months after it was released where it was a fun game. This is before I understood that it was only a treadmill game, but it was fun exploring, and meeting people and raids etc etc. It was a pain in the ass to get anywhere, but that was part of the fun. Back then it was also a real challenge if you were one of the evil races to get around...but now of course being an evil race means nothing. I kinda liked it then. But that little window of goodness didn't last long.

Now of course, it's just a treadmill/money making machine for SOE.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

Your number are a bit off.

I play FFXI, and since their launch (2 years ago) they have had two expansions. One was bundled with the American release, but for the sake of argument lets assume that it wasn't.

The going rate for an expansion pack is not $50, but rather $30. Also the monthly fee is not $40 but $13. $13 is a fairly typical monthly rate for an MMORPG.

So that would add up to $186 a year plus $50 to start up, additionally discounting the free month you get from purchasing the game.

Now if I had no other hobbies or life outside of FFXI, except for real-world responsibilities, I could play the game for 24 hours on the weekend and 5 hours per working day, assuming a 40 hour work week. So thats around 50 hours per week, or 200 hours a month, assuming I'm a total loser and do nothing else. In reality, your average player and I play a LOT less than that.

Lets take your numbers for example and assume we're only playing for 8 hours on the weekend. So thats 32 hours per month, or 384 hours per year. So you're paying 384 hr/$186 or $0.50 per hour of entertainment.

Now compare that to how much you'd pay to go out to a movie. Or to pick up a normal console game, which usually don't last for more than 40 hours, for $50.

And then think about how much you spend on other things. You can spend a good $40 a month on internet service, or getting cable TV. In my case, my FFXI gaming replaces cable TV, so I'm actually saving money by playing an MMORPG.

And I'm a graduated student, working a full time job. Now how is that a rip-off?

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a tool because he's paying for a game that he enjoys playing, and is probably a better-hours-of-entertainment-per-dollar value than a lot of other activities?

Oh I forgot, we don't pay for entertainment around here. Better get back to downloading that warez and MP3s.

Re:One or the other

[Damana Mathos]

Personally I found the movement in SecondLife a bit too clunky ... wasn't as smoothe as most MMORPGs and that hindered me getting into it. Apart from that it looked pretty neat, though. :)

Re:One or the other

[BleemZ]

Uh, I work 55 hours a week. Thats 11 hours a day, and I make pretty good money. 15$ IS trivial to me, and 40$ is too.

I have all the typical responsibilities and I pay for everything I do, consume, use, enjoy etc.

As for playing time; I left the house this morning at 7:30, I just got home 5 minutes ago and its 7:45. I was up until 2am lastnight playing BurnOut 3, I starded shortly after 8 lastnight. See, thats what real gamers do, forsake sleep for their hobby. There goes your time estimates.

Just because you can't swing it doesn't mean everyone that can is a spoiled rich kid.

Suck it up and either quit your bitchin or get a better job.

Re:One or the other

[bleckywelcky]

Yeh, I'll laugh when you die of a heart attack before retirement from chronic sleep deprivation. Sorry if I believe in good health, but I can feel smug over here knowing that it sucks to be you. And as far as the money is concerned, I earn more than the yearly cost of the game in 1 day (which isn't exactly on the rich-and-famous level, but enough to be comfy). But that $280 is better spent on an investment, or perhaps 6 different fun games in a year, not just 1.

Re:One or the other

[Sentry21]

Hear hear. I spend more in two days' of eating out than I do in a month of playing FFXI. When I got FFXI, I went from debts going UP every month (by $100-250 depending on my activities) to debts going DOWN every month (up to $500/month) - because I had something to do at home, so I didn't have to go out to fill my time, saving me hundreds of dollars a month.

--Dan

Re:One or the other

[DerekLyons]

Expansion packs are bad enough when you're buying a game for $50, but why do people put up with it with MMORPGS where you're paying a monthly fee as well as the initial cost of the software?

Many people put up with it because they have the wit to understand that the box cost and the monthly cost cover different things. (Kinda like you have to refill your cars gas tank and your refrigerator.)

Re:One or the other

[snuf23]

Yeah it sucks but...

The first month is included in the game box, so I guess you could call it $38 or $35 or what for the game and $13-$15 for the first months service. Or if you don't buy right away you can get the cost of entry down - I think I spend $40 on City of Heroes.
I really wish they would let me just download the isos and play - but I guess thats not going to happen. I think some of the struggling mmos do this already.
The weird thing is that since I started playing a MMORPG, my monthly gaming habit expenses have actually gone done. I've bought 3 games since I started playing City of Heroes in June rather than my usual 2 or 3 a month.
And yeah you could say well that I've just missed other great games being stuck on the treadmill. Which is true, but the real appeal of the MMORPG is adventuring with other people. When you get a good group going you get enjoyment out of their company and watching your characters progress.
Logging into a pickup game of an FPS feels oddly lonely afterwards. Of course if you clan in online FPS then the same thing applies.

Re:One or the other

[sqrt(2)]

Oh yeah, 15$ a month is a king's ransom! This new business model will never get off the ground.

Re:One or the other

[code_nerd]

City of Heroes is, in my opinion, good. Stable, fun gameplay, regular free content drops, a monthly free comic book, and devs who take keeping the game fun as their mantra. It is less popular with EQ/UO uberguilds and catassers, though, because the game does not really reward massive time investments and/or giant guilds that monoploize content (almost everything is instanced). You can solo all the way to max level, and you can have a really good time in teams (groups of up to 8).

By the way, the new content is not limited to new zones. Players have so far seen new costume options (multiple costumes, capes and auras - particle effects unique to a costume), new gameplay systems (the exemplar ssytem that allows you to reverse-sidekick so that you can play lower level missions, in addition the already-extant sidekick system). The upcoming content releases will include a new skill system, new archetypes, and new power sets (sonic, magnetism, bows, staves, shields). Given that the game was already pretty enjoyable, with involving, fast-paced combat, patching in even more fun (as opposed to trying to patch in the fun that was originally intended to be there a la SWG) is a novel approach.

Of course, if the steady stream of new content stops then I will probably lose interest. But so far so good!

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when faction mattered (and it was difficult to survive as an evil race), it was almost a game in itself to play an evil race. And not always an easy one.

Because of the difficulty, you really had to *want* to play that evil race to put up with being kill-on-sight everywhere, having to travel large distances to find a friendly (or at least neutral) shop keeper. Whenever you left your home town, you were usually stocked with enough provisions for 3-5 days worth of play.

Any evil race player over level 30 was pretty much a guaranteed friend-for-life, simply because it was someone who had stuck it out and survived the hardships. Most posers and troublemakers gave up by level 20.

You would travel to "good" zones, kill the guards and terrorize the newbies for fun. Or you'd pay a newbie to buy you drink and food at the local merchant and end up tipping them with whatever copper and silver you had collected. You could sit at a remote spot in a "good" newbie zone and end up as a tourist attraction because the newbies had never seen an evil race.

Because of your hated status, you had to learn all of the back alleys and hidden passages in order to get from the town entrance over to where you could get on the ship at the docks.

'twas a real PITA to play prior to SoL/PoP, but because of the difficulty, you had a greater feeling of accomplishment.

Such a pity that they nerfed all that completely with Planes of Power with instant teleport between cities, neutral zones where you could buy/sell and faction didn't matter at all. Folks now play evil races just because it's "cool".

As a result, the game servers are now filled with whiners and instant-gratification addicts. Shallow victories, shallow satisfaction.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like this game is not for you then. What is your problem?

Re:One or the other

[rvw14]

$15 a month most certainly is trivial. You see, some of us are actually adults with real jobs and real incomes.

And some of us have families with mortgages, car payments, kids school tuition etc. After paying for medical insurance, contributing to my 401k, and taxes my net income is considerably less than comfortable.

Expansion...

[achacha]

This is the expansion where you get the quest to prove that Chewbakka is really from Endor.

Re:Expansion...

[darth_MALL]

He may well be...but Chewbacca is from Kashyyk.

Re:Expansion...

[achacha]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_Defense

Of course he is from Kashyyk, but he lives on Endor, does that make any sense? Of course not, therefore this expansion must be awesome!

Re:Expansion...

[darth_MALL]

Very well...you win this round...but you haven't seen the last of ME! AAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHA *urp*

What did you do in the original?

[Moby Cock]

I have never played the original release of SWG. I'm not a big fan of the online RPGs. But I understand why they are so popular. I have a couple of questions about this though.

1) If the expansion allows you to move around in space, what the hell were people doing before this? Was the original game restricted to one planet?

2) If you bought the first, do you have to buy the upgrade? If you don't have the upgrade can you still play?

Re:What did you do in the original?

[jmays]

1. A starport system was used for planet hopping. Basically, a loading screen,

2. Yes. Yes, but there are some limitations.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[Anonymous Coward]

No....and yes.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were automatic 'shuttles' which would instantly teleport you to another planet. But yeah, everything happened planetside.

Pretty sure it's like any other MMORPG, you dont have to buy the expansion - you just wont get the additional content.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Yes.

2) Yes. More than likely but you don't get the new stuff.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[VGPowerlord]

1) If the expansion allows you to move around in space, what the hell were people doing before this? Was the original game restricted to one planet?

You were restricted to buying shuttle tickets to move between the game's 10 planets: Corellia, Naboo, Tatooine, Rori, Talus, Dantooine, Lok, Yavin IV, (the forest moon of) Endor, and Dathomir. Transitions were handled by annoying load screens. Of course, transitions to space are handled by annoying load screens too...

2) If you bought the first, do you have to buy the upgrade? If you don't have the upgrade can you still play?

You can still play, but you can't access the space areas or create Ithorian and Sulustan characters. Which is dumb, since the models for those character types are downloaded to your system anyway.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[stanmann]

I think Planetside is a different MMORPG from Sony.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[Mac Degger]

"Of course, transitions to space are handled by annoying load screens too..."

Man, that's evidence of real bad vision. It could have been so cool: you get in your ship on the ground, lift off and have a view of the sky. This image is screen captured (or generic or whatever) and serves as loading screen, progress being shown by the sky's texture palette slowly being rotated towards black. When loading is complete, the sky is totally black, the stars pop up and you're in space!

Come on, that would rock...it would look cool and be immersive: for the first time loading actually helping immersion by representing the time it takes to get to space.

Re:What did you do in the original?

[beowulfcluster]

It might be cool the first few times but after you've done it 50 times it'll be just as bloody boring as staring a normal loading screen is.

Well, you asked for them.

[ebooher]

Yub nub, eee chop yub nub
Ah toe meet toe pee chee keene
G'noop dock fling oh ah
Yah wah, eee chop yah wah
Ah toe meet toe pee chee keene
G'noop dock fling oh ah

Coatee chah tu yub nub
Coatee chah tu yah wah
Coatee chah tu glowah
Allay loo ta nuv

Glowah, eee chop glowah
Ya glowah pee chu nee foam
Ah toot dee awe goon daa

Coatee chah tu goo (yub nub!)
Coatee chah tu doo (yah wah!)
Coatee chah tu too (yachaa!)
Allay loo ta nuv (x3)

Glowah, eee chop glowah
Ya glowah pee chu nee foam
Ah toot dee awe goon daa

Coatee chah tu goo (yub nub!)
Coatee chah tu doo (yah wah!)
Coatee chah tu too (yachaa!)
Allay loo ta nuv (x4)

Does it matter?

[filtur]

Does it matter with World of Warcraft coming out?

World of Warcraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of MMORPGs...

Any idea when WoW will be gold? Amazon is taking pre-orders with a ship date of Nov 15th and the beta website has been saying they'll signups for open betas any day now for weeks.

Re:World of Warcraft?

[Tarrek]

They haven't announced an official date.. According to my sources, open beta hit a snag when some of their hardware was more damaged by the tornado than they previously thought, but that won't impact release.

As for the *unofficial* date, they've distributed promotional materials to a variety of game purveyors indicating a Nov. 16 launch, BUT, such posters and promo gear have in the past been recalled before display at the last second, so, we'll see.

Suffice to say, the team is scrambling like mad.

Re:World of Warcraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Recalling posters and stuff has got to be expensive.

A disappointing game...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a hardcore Star Wars fan, I gave this game a year to become fun. I tried many of the different professions, I did their content based stuff. This game is just a boring, grinding treadmill. Just sit there all day killing stuff or using macros to repeat crafting.

The Jedi system was awful and clearly not well thought out. The new ship system is difficult to use without a joystick. This game really feels like EQ in space. The "Star Wars-y" feel isn't there. I was their target audience: a hardcore gamer who also is a Star Wars fan. Yet they failed miserably.

When WoW and EQ2 come out, they'll lose a ton of subscribers. Maybe then they'll finally try to figure out what went wrong, but it will be too late.

Re:A disappointing game...

[TheSpoom]

If you're looking for a game that doesn't involve a level treadmill or involve doing the same thing over and over without anything fun, try Puzzle Pirates. The name may sound odd at first, but I have played many MMORPGs and it is, by far, the best one I have ever played. The community is great (it's very rare to find the sorts of lamers that inhabit other games in YPP), the game is fun, the economy is entirely player run (and works in a sane manner that involves puzzling to craft things and automated labour, so you don't do the same thing over and over), and there are MANY different ways to play the game.

Re:A disappointing game...

[SkankhodBeeblebrox]

I betatested JTL, and it's quite easy to control your ship with a decent optical/laser mouse (tho I imagine it would suck with an ball mouse)

I agree that the devs have continually revamped/reb0rked the jedi system...

However, you fail to realize that SWG and EQ/EQ2/WoW don't really have the same target audience... SWG != EQ in space... There are no elves, there are no dwarves, there are no clerics or mages... It's a game specifically designed for Star Wars geeks, and no-one else...

Re:A disappointing game...

[davew2040]

Star Wars isn't about being a professional, it's about being a hero. And in the real world, not every Tom Dick and Harry can be a heroic Jedi or a legendary rebel commander (or in many cases, even a tick less than completely obnoxious). It really shouldn't be any surprise that SWG is a colossal disappointment to most Star Wars fans; especially those who come to realize they're more of a bantha herder than a Jedi knight.

I'm no SWG player, but I've heard there's talk of removing the Jedi capabilities. I think this is probably a great idea. It'll give players some icons to respect, rather than assuming that they'll be an online conqueror of worlds if they just play a little more. The game should really just be interesting enough that gamers are content just to be participating in the action going on around them.

Jump to lightspeed?

[neuro.slug]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Star Wars spaceships supposedly go beyond the speed of light, thereby making this a rather silly marketing-induced name?

I'm not a big enough Star Wars geek to know this...
-- n

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[SpiffyMarc]

This probably comes from Han using the phrase "make the jump to lightspeed" in the movies.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[nizo]

It was either that name or a game called "Even more money goodness for Lucas to roll in" but for some reason the lightspeed title won out with the marketing folks.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[miller701]

lifted from http://www.blueharvest.net/scoops/anh-script.shtml

HAN: Watch your mouth, kid, or you're going to find yourself floating
home. We'll be safe enough once we make the jump to hyperspace.
Besides, I know a few maneuvers. We'll lose them!

EXTERIOR: SPACE -- PLANET TATOOINE.

Imperial cruisers fire at the pirateship.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT.

The ship shudders as an explosion flashes outside the window.

HAN: Here's where the fun begins!

BEN: How long before you can make the jump to light speed?

HAN: It'll take a few moments to get the coordinates from the
navi-computer.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[jimmcq]

No, that's Star Trek that has Warp Speed. Star Wars only has light-speed travel.

(god, I'm such a geek)

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[megan_of_wutai]

So the star systems are ridiculously close together?

Or else they spend several years in stasis in those cuts between scenes.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[DrEldarion]

Well, I'm not a big enough Star Wars geek to know for sure either, but considering how quickly they can travel between systems, I guess they pretty much have to be able to go beyond light-speed, hm?

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[lawpoop]

Yes, the first one. And also sound carries in space in the Star Wars universe.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[bar-agent]

(god, I'm such a geek)

Not yet, you ain't. Star Wars has hyperspace, in which communication doesn't work (though there is FTL comm in the form of the Holonet).

Hyperspace appears to have mass shadows, and there is very little correspondence between the length of a safe hyperspace route and the corresponding real-space distance. You need dedicated equipment to compute hyperspace routes. FYI, that is one of the main reasons for sticking an R2 unit in an X-Wing. R2 units can act as a navi-computer.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[Minna Kirai]

but don't Star Wars spaceships supposedly go beyond the speed of light,

Yes, but to go faster than a speed, you first much reach that speed.

They use "lightspeed" as a key threshold velocity, rather like the speed of sound. Some planes can travel at mach 3, but breaking the sound barrier is still a somewhat notable milestone in each flight (different areodynamics afterward, etc).

Back when there were supersonic passenger jets, I suppose the crew gave an announcement when you hit "soundspeed", just like Han does for "lightspeed".

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[Minna Kirai]

So the star systems are ridiculously close together?

A long, long time ago... the universe hadn't expanded very far yet.

Re:Jump to lightspeed?

[lazyl]

The Millenium Falcon can make .5 past light speed.

my thoughts

[theMerovingian]

I've been playing SWG awhile, sometimes more than I probably should have been. The ground based game is pretty fun, although it can get a little repetitive.

My biggest complaints:

1) There aren't enough dungeons or cool things to do besides run around and kill stuff and hope for loot.

2) The path to becoming a Jedi takes a filthy, sick amount of time. You pretty much don't have a girlfriend, wife, friends, or job if you can sit there for the required amount of time to make it all the way to jedi.

I've played on the JTLS beta, and overall its pretty fun (but not very challenging). Once I figured out that you can target specific enemies by pressing the TAB key (this isn't immediately obvious), then it was a breeze to kill the enemy ships.

I'm probably going to cancel my account soon, the game just doesn't have much to offer me after 3 or 4 months of playing. I made millions upon millions of credits, I've had most of the cool loot, and it just gets boring after awhile. The only thing I haven't done is make it to jedi, and I'm not about to invest 200+ more hours in the game.

I think if you've been wanting to try out SWG, this is a good time to start. It's somewhat fun, but all the cliches about MMORPG's definitely apply. After my 3 month experiment, I just figured out that I play video games BECAUSE I'm antisocial - not because I want to be around people more often.

Re:my thoughts

[lashi]

>2) The path to becoming a Jedi takes a filthy, sick amount of time. You pretty much don't have a girlfriend, wife, friends, or job if you can sit there for the required amount of time to make it all the way to jedi.

Patience, young Jedi. The way to the force is a long and difficult one. - (some crap I made)

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

2) The path to becoming a Jedi takes a filthy, sick amount of time. You pretty much don't have a girlfriend, wife, friends, or job if you can sit there for the required amount of time to make it all the way to jedi.

So pretty much everyone on slashdot is a Jedi?

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Jinx Kurai was the only thing that made the game worth playing after 6 months. Buddhas bless her spirit between the worlds.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, are you?

Re:my thoughts

[TrollBridge]

"After my 3 month experiment, I just figured out that I play video games BECAUSE I'm antisocial - not because I want to be around people more often."

Truer words have seldom been spoken! Here's to hoping that dating will break the last ties that bind me to Everquest.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's got /rude.

That alone is worth the $30.

Re:my thoughts

[Zork the Almighty]

Are you dating someone in Everquest, by chance ?

Re:my thoughts

[stratjakt]

A Jedi knows not anger, nor hate, nor love.

Especially the last one! Sounds like they were going for the authentic experience.

Frankly, I wouldn't much care for sitting around on Degobah listening to Yoda's mangled english fortune cookie horseshit.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

> > You pretty much don't have a girlfriend, wife, friends, or job if you can sit there for the required amount of time to make it all the way to jedi.

> So pretty much everyone on slashdot is a Jedi?

This is a formal fallacy: "A if B. A. Therefore B." In other words, no.

Re:my thoughts

[theMerovingian]

Hah, the only thing an SWG Jedi knows is Carpal Tunnel syndrome :)

Well, that and how many mountain dews they can drink without having to go to the bathroom.

You just basically run around and kill stuff to get experience points. Once you reach the maximum amount you can hold, you have to fly all the way out to a remote village on Dathomir to exchange them for "Force-sensitive" experience. It takes millions upon millions of regular XP to get enough force XP to become a jedi. I estimate that it's literally about 200 hours to finish it all off with travel and load time.

After all that, you become a padawan, which is a wimpy jedi. You have to get millions more experience to advance to jedi knight, which is what a normal person thinks of as a jedi.

It's pretty twisted...

Re:my thoughts

[Xugumad]

Y'see, I've always liked the idea of seperate limited-time servers for MMORPGs. Something in the region of 40 hours/month would suit me, but have characters on the server progress much faster.

Those of you with time to burn can go play the slow servers, those of us trying to work, have a life, and play MMORPGs can play on the fast servers (and 40 hours/month is probably more time than I'd be able to easily free up, anyway).

Unfortunately, the wanting to play continously group apparently hates this idea, and also apparently are where most of the money is. Ah well...

This is the same reason I rarely play multiplayer games (Quake, UT, etc.) over the Internet. Having neither the time or desire to polish my shooting people in the head skills to near-perfection, I'm essentially cannon-fodder to other players. While not quite bad enough to be the worst in a server, I'm frequently in the bottom 2-3.

So I'll be over here with my single player games and LAN parties against my not-obsessively playing friends :)

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

You pretty much don't have a girlfriend, wife, friends, or job if you can sit there for the required amount of time to make it all the way to jedi.

This just proves how faithful they are to the Star Wars universe! Old Republic jedi seemed to have the same life; one of dedication to service, and not allowing ones emotions to interfere. Of course they were the ultimate badasses, while the jedi in-game are just sad nerds who have never seen the sun. Kinda puts it into perspective.

Re:my thoughts

[Sheepdot]

I'm probably going to cancel my account soon, the game just doesn't have much to offer me after 3 or 4 months of playing. I made millions upon millions of credits, I've had most of the cool loot, and it just gets boring after awhile. The only thing I haven't done is make it to jedi, and I'm not about to invest 200+ more hours in the game.

I continue to keep my account simply because I have it run macros in the background to generate millions in credits, which on my server sells for approximately 5 dollars a month per million.

I've expanded on this to provide even more services, now I have a hospital with a doctor inside buffing automatically throughout the day, I have another guy using a personal exploit to mine without a mining installation (must be logged in) and a third computer with a trial account killing meatlumps outside coronet for rug pieces and extremeley rare loot (one every four hours or so).

I figure I'm probably making about a hundred a month off of this, of which, 30 goes to pay for my accounts, and another 15 or so goes to pay for electricity. A physically handicapped guy I know has been using this method to get about a thousand to fifteen hundred bucks a month playing MMORPGs. And it's funny too, cause players in the games he participates in call him "ruthless" and hate that he would "take advantage of poor Ebayers" by giving them what he wants.

As you can imagine, he's a hardcore Libertarian now. Used to be a hardcore Democrat.

Re:my thoughts

[Sentry21]

Amen to this. I tried out the two-week trial they had a few months ago, and it was pretty interesting. Here's basically how it went (I'm not exaggerating, I did exactly what I said I did, no more, no less).

Day 1: Started off, didn't know what to do. Went through the tutorial, then logged off. (took about an hour and a half since I did the tutorial twice with two characters)

Day 2: Got a rifle, shot some stuff. Made a tent. Logged off after about two hours.

Day 3: Shot some more stuff, talked to a friend that had switched to SWG from FFXI. Shot some stuff, used my tent. Watched a Jedi kill a lot of people.

Friend invited me to go hunting, so he sent me some credits, and I flew off to the planet he was on. In the space of half an hour, I had gained 2 levels in most of my oft-used marksman skills, and I had more credits than I could hold (literally; I maxed out at 50k for the free trial).

Day 4: On the way back to tatooine, I bought a wardrobe worth of clothes, got a set of armour, a few different weapons, a speeder-bike, and pretty much everything else I wanted that I could use. Went back to tatooine, shot some stuff. Went to Jabba's Palace. Took forever to get there. Shot some stuff.

Day 6: Went back home from Jabba's Palace. Took forever. Shot some stuff.

Got a quest from Imperials to clean out sand people from an outpost. Got my ass kicked. Logged off and never logged back on.

A few things to note from my experience:

1) My first MMOG was Final Fantasy XI, which has had two years of development and polish. The controls are tight and responsive, the worlds lush and inviting, and everything seems real. SWG feels like playing a game, but more importantly, the game has a sluggish interface, responds slowly, and lacks anything to make it stand out. Worlds are generally flat and uninviting.

2) There is not much to SWG. I like the way it does things, with huge massive worlds that you can traverse without zoning, skill-based advancement instead of level-based, player cities, and so on, but when it all comes down to it, there's no compelling gameplay. I played it for a week, then realized I just don't care.

In SWG, I can run around and kill things, but there's no motivation for me to do so. In FFXI, I want to gain levels, so I can do the Missions and advance the storyline, and then go and explore the higher-level areas. In SWG, I have no interest in exploration because the terrain is pretty much consistantly boring (but the water is nice).

3) After I was done the 14-day trial, I had to go out and buy the boxed version, even though the only reason I'd want it is for the CD Key. There was no option provided to pay $10-20 less and just upgrade my trial key to a full-version key. And it's not like it was because I'd need the full version for content, I'd installed from a friend's full-version CDs.

Basically they were telling me to go out and buy a boxed version just to open it up and read the CD key off the case, instead of just selling me one online (or letting me just pay the monthly fee from that point on).

SWG is like a reference implentation for different skills and ways of making a game. It has excellent features, but no content, while FFXI has a lot of content and the features are great-but-not-excellent, but implemented well.

SWG might be great if you don't like any of the other MMOGs, you have lots of friends who play it, and you like SW a lot, but if not, it's a waste of time after the first week.

--Dan

Re:my thoughts

[ebrandsberg]

Check out Eve if you like this. The way the skill system works, it keeps people that sit online all the time from advancing much faster than those that have real jobs and have other things to do outside of the game. The game is also very deep in content, although you may not even realize it until you have played for a week or so.

Re:my thoughts

[mog007]

That bit about buying the game is why I've never really gotten very deep into SoE's MMO games. I beta tested Neocron, but my computer couldn't handle the game at the time. By the time I was able to handle it they had started to offer a free 3 day trial of the full game, and if you liked the game after the trial, they let you just start paying the monthly fee and get right in. The only disadvantage is that I didn't get a free month with it, but that's better than dropping 30 bucks.
I tried the SWG trial, but they wouldn't let me do that. I was also part of the Planetside beta, but again, lack of tough enough hardware prevented me from signing up right there. Eventually I decided to play it, so I found the game on eBay for 10 bucks. The free month that's included was worth that. If Galaxies were a fun game, and its monthly fee was less than 15 bucks I'd grab a copy from eBay.

Re:my thoughts

[toriver]

2) The path to becoming a Jedi takes a filthy, sick amount of time.

There should not have been a path in the first place.

Sony, which part of "when gone am I, last of the Jedi you will be" was too hard to understand?

Re:my thoughts

[beowulfcluster]

If you want to play a MMORPG and make progress while still having a life, you'll probably like Progressquest. Best of all, it's free.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Yoda had a girlfriend?

MOD UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, if I had mod points I'd use em ;-)

Freedom

[CRepetski]

MMORPGs should be free. Anything where they charge you to live is a ripoff.

Re:Freedom

[glowimperial]

MMO user fees represent the ongoing costs of developing and operating a service, not "being charged to live." It costs a lot more to maintain and operate a MMO than to develop one.

Re:Freedom

[Rallion]

Taxes?

Re:Freedom

[bleckywelcky]

Yeah, I'm sure they're not taking your $15/month, pocketing $10 of it, and then pumping the remaining $5 into development of a new expansion for you to buy.

My point is: fine, it takes money to keep the servers up, to provide the bandwidth, make minor performance improvements, etc. But it doesn't take $15/month. I did an extensive cost analysis back before SWG came out because I thought the MMORPG costs were ridiculous (and I might have even posted it to /. - I'm not which forum I did it in) and I was able to determine that $3 per month was a very liberal estimate (in the developer's favor) for the costs of keeping up an MMORPG system.

Double that number to allow for profits, and you've got $6/month ... $72/year ... much more reasonable than today's prices.

Re:Freedom

[Number 110]

Huh. Interesting, since Mulligan and Patrovsky estimate that most companies would lose half of your estimate simply on the credit card transfaction fees, credit card charge failures, expired cards, fraud, and free month. (Their estimate is 10% of what is being charged never reaches the company.)

You can look this up on pages 26-27 of Developing Online Games.

Then of course you have bandwith charges, utility bills, server amortorization, rent, and of course the salaries that are paid to customer service and the technical support staff.

This doesn't neccessarily mean they are right of course. Even experts make errors, however given that they are pretty much showing their math and basing it off of practical experience unless you wish to publish your numbers I would have to suspect theirs are more accurate.

Re:Freedom

[bleckywelcky]

"Huh. Interesting, since Mulligan and Patrovsky estimate that most companies would lose half of your estimate simply on the credit card transfaction fees, credit card charge failures, expired cards, fraud, and free month. (Their estimate is 10% of what is being charged never reaches the company.)" lmao. If that really were true, it would apply to any company, right? There's nothing unique to someone developing MMORPGs when it comes to charging credit cards. So 1/2 of that number would be $1.50, 10% of the $15 they get. If your average small retail business lost 10% of their monthly revenue right off the bat, they would go under in a year. But that doesn't happen does it? No. In fact, over 80% of new businesses stay open for at least 2 years (check the US Census data). The estimates used by Mulligan and Patrovsky and probably including menial expenses used in other areas of the company. That, or they're inflating their numbers due to gaming studio woes (they're not exactly what we would call an "unbiased" source).

Re:Freedom

[Number 110]

Actually, since the company pays a base 4-5% to the credit card company just to accept the charge (all retailers pay that much in order to accept a charge) I don't have that much difficulty believing there is another 5-6% that comes from the other incidentals that I mentioned. If your average player plays for 20 months that is another 5% right there (they only pay for 19 months since the first month is free).

I understand that you might feel that they are biased (though there is no reason for them to do so) and I have admitted their numbers may be flawed, but again I am giving you their numbers, which seem accurate even against your statement, and you have not given any in return.

Re:Freedom

[jeff4747]

There's a flaw in your analysis. You assume no significant ongoing development. MMOs these days put out significant changes and newly developed areas without releasing an expansion. The monthly fee has to cover those ongoing development costs.

For me, the math is more simple. I could easily complete one or two single-player games in a month. That's $50-$100 per month. At $15/mo, SWG is a bargin as long as it satisfies my gaming needs.

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true.
In software engineering class, a staggering stat was dropped stating that 60% of the cost of software development is spent on SUPPORT!
Thats 60% of the budget for typical user support, like a user calling in to ask where the save-file button is or a small patch released quarterly.
MMOs are dynamic software that constantly grow and change. MMOs are nothing but constant support phase software projects.

Re:Freedom

[bleckywelcky]

Actually, I was basing my statements on the fact that I am a retailer on the side, and I know how charging CCs work and how small business economics work. A base of 4% to 5% is ridiculous for anyone, even the smallest of companies just starting out. Just look around online for merchant accounts and you can see what the real costs are. The writers of that book are just plain lying to you.

And, I would hope that any company like Sony, Blizzard, etc, would be able to leverage their buying power to negotiate a much lower rate. In fact, my particular business would probably get the worst rate of any type of business based on the types of charging I am doing. My average charge is around $10 and my average monthly volume is less than $3000 a month. And, I only charge from online purchases (another factor that raises the rate, versus charging in a physical retail location). Even then, my total base rate is still only around 2.5% of the charge. Sony, etc could do bulk charging where they charge 100 people at a time, and their average charge would jump up to $1000. And they would probably do at least $150000 in sales a month (10,000 users). With those numbers, and the rest of Sony's, Blizzard's, etc buying power, I would be suprised if they couldn't negotiate a rate under 1%.

Look at the numbers yourself, research merchant accounts, you can see they're just straight out lying to you.

Re:Freedom

[Number 110]

Well, in about 2 minutes of research I came across this site:

CCAvenue

The rates given there vary between a little over 5.5% and 7%, so it would seem there is at least some basis for Patrovsky and Mulligan's numbers. However I will also go on to say that researching other sites shows those numbers to be high.

Doing a bit more research I was able to find a rate as low as 1.59% plus $.20 which would render a charge of 2.88% by the time the charge is actually completed. Naturally I agree that SOE with its corporate muscle could push the rate down a bit more but I find it very hard to believe they would be able to get the actual rate down to less than 1%

So from my standpoint I think it is probably no more fair to say that Mulligan and Patrovsky are lying in their statement of 5% then it is to say that you are lying in your statement of less than 1%. Both parties have reasons for believing their numbers to be good, both of them are probably a bit off the mark, and in fact probably by close to the same multiple (around 2.5). I have noticed other numbers they have thrown out that I consider somewhat suspect but they are not so far off as to render their entire estimates invalid. This is why I have encouraged you to post your own numbers. They seem to provide a good Fermi approximation that equates to around a cost of $9 per customer per month to keep the game running, 3 times your estimate.

My suspicion is that the truth lies somewhere in between the two numbers, most likely in the range of $6-7 a month per customer. I believe that Mulligan and Patrovsky are using large numbers for credit card rates, salaries, rent, and equipment, shortening the lifespan of the equipment, and otherwise making their estimates high in a sort of 'worst case' scenario. You on the other hand are probably glossing over minor charges such as bandwidth and health care benefits that add up faster than you think and are coming up with a low estimate in a sort of 'best case' scenario.

Re:Freedom

[bleckywelcky]

Well, if I could find the forum where I posted my numbers, I would show them to you, but I can't. Perhaps this sounds convenient for my argument, and maybe it is, but that's the fact. I was extremely liberal with my numbers and padded most of them an extra 100%, most technical people in the forum also agreed with my numbers based on their experience as IT managers, system operators, etc.

Those CCAvenue people are out of their mind for retail business, perhaps they are customized for some specialty sector. If not, I'm surprised that they are even in business.

Your 2.88% number doesn't take into account bulk charging as I mentioned above. Basically, you collect all of your charges for the day and actually charge them all together at the end of the day as a bulk charge. You still check that funds are available at the point of sale, but you don't complete the transaction until you've collected all the charges for the day. (Many gas stations do this when you pre-pay at the pump, and that's why you'll notice a hold on your card for mybe $100 for 2 weeks after the fill-up even though it only cost $25.39 or whatever.) Then, you can use a bulk charge rate instead of the $0.20 rate and the effective charge-per-transaction is much less ... closer to $0.02 or $0.03 per transaction. Which would make the rate 1.79% for $0.03 on $15.

And if someone is offering an UP-FRONT rate to just ANYONE of 1.59%, what makes you think they won't cut that in half for someone willing to do millions of dollars in business with them? Sorry, but you're being a bit naive here. My total base rate runs around 2.5% and I am an ant compared to Sony or Blizzard, etc. Common sense begs you to believe that the price any of them pay is AT LEAST less than half of what I pay.

Re:Freedom

[Number 110]

Yes, I recognize that the bulk charge would be considerably lower than the individual charge of $.20. However, the credit card companies will realize the same thing and will adjust their rates. the 1.59% rate is based around the fact that the credit card company knows it will be getting an additional $.20. In fact the same company I got the 1.59% rate from does have other programs for internet retailers where they do not have the individual charge per card and the rates go up to closer to 2.5%.

As for the notion that Sony can get the credit card companies to give them a rate that is less than half the rate you can get I will have to remain skeptical on that without better information. The reason for this is because I to have been a store owner and I know that we paid roughly 50% of the list price to our distributors for the items taht we sold (books). I also know that they paid roughly 50% of what they charged us to the publishers. In general the markup for any item is roughly 100%, and yes, this is a gross generalization and I am sure there are specific incidents where it is not the case but it is extensive enough for my use. There are always cases of luxury goods and new services where the rate will be higher until new competition causes the market to adjust but credit cards are so prevalent in society that I doubt they fall into either of those camps.

If we assume that the credit card companies have a 150% markup on the 2.5% that they charge you, which is a very good rate, we find that the credit card companies need about 1% of the finance charges just for survival. Giving Sony half your rate means that the profit margin for the credit card company has just dropped from 150% to 25%, so rather than only half the applicable profits the credit card companies are making one sixth the applicable profits.

Will a credit card company slash its profits this badly for a company with around half a million customers? Probably not, because those really aren't big numbers for them. While most companies do not post the number of customers they have we can make some quick Fermi calculations based on quarterly earnings.

Walmart, which I admit is a big company, reported sales of about $75 billion in the first quarter of 2004. If we assume that the average sale is $50 then we end up with a total of nearly half a billion sales per month, 3 orders of magnitude higher than SOE. Now in a case like that you might get the credit card companies willing to cut their profits that severely but I doubt they would regard a company like SOE as big enough to do something like that.

Re:Freedom

[bleckywelcky]

Keep in mind, the credit card companies, merchant account companies, and merchant account banks are all completely different entities. I wrote up a summary (leaving out a few details) of how this works here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=125307&cid=105 04929

" Yes, I recognize that the bulk charge would be considerably lower than the individual charge of $.20. However, the credit card companies will realize the same thing and will adjust their rates. the 1.59% rate is based around the fact that the credit card company knows it will be getting an additional $.20."

The companies know about bulk pricing, it isn't a secret. In fact, they created the bulk pricing system as an alternative for certain types of retailers. They aren't going to "realize" anything and adjust their rates. People have been bulk charging for the last 15 years (perhaps even more).

As well, this is not a product being offered, so your notions of mark-up don't apply in the same way as they would apply to a book. The companies actually pay next-to-nothing per credit card transaction. That's why they charge as a percentage of your sale. Let's say you do a $5 sale and your rate is 3%, you pay $0.15 for that transaction. Now, let's say you do a $500 sale and your rate is 1.5%, you pay $7.50 for that transaction. The banks, CC companies, and merchant companies don't care how much the transaction is - it's all the same work for them. The amount of money to be handled is just a variable passed along with the CC info. The fact that they charge one person $0.15 for a service and another person $7.50 for the same exact service should be proof enough that their cost of doing business is practically nothing. Even if all you did were $1 transactions, you could still get a rate of 4% or 5% with no transaction fee. That's $0.04 or $0.05 per transaction, and everyone is still making a profit - the merchant account provider, the merchant account bank, the CC company, the middle man, everyone.

All they have to pay for is some bandwidth each month (CC info is extremely small, no more than 100 bytes required to store all the info), a tech support and management crew (largest cost here: say 100 people @ $100k/year = $10mil/year ... $833k/month which is nothing for them), and some hardware and property costs (rent, power, etc). Their business is almost a pure profit business. Where they lose money is in other financial endeavors ... making loans to people who default, bad investments, etc.

WooHoo!

[LilMikey]

... a little more polish on that turd!

Re:WooHoo!

[corsican]

What; no reference to sweat, snot, or saliva? What about puke; you forgot puke. Oh, and sebaceous oils...tears...uh, can't think of anymore.

So how about another X-Wing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The engine certainly looks beautiful. Would it be too much to ask them to take it and make another game in the X-Wing series?

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[dabigpaybackski]

Or an updated version of Tie Fighter? I probably wasted more adolescent hours playing that game than any other.

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[NMerriam]

Oh yeah -- the space combat sims were the best ever.

Hopping in an A-wing, all power to the engines and rocketing around like everything else was standing still.

I'd jump at the chance to pay $50 for an updated version of X-Wing or Tie Fighter that ran at 1600x1200 with great lighting effects and massive texture detail.

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[Bodhammer]

Try playing the updated source code version of Freespace 2: http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/fsscp/links.php

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! Now the fsscp forum server has been slashdotted too!
I'd guess because the fsscp pages are halfway updated, and they haven't updated the "getting started page", making everyone halfway interested in trying out fsscp go to the forums...
( Warning: mysql_connect(): Host 'dynamic4.in.gamespy.com' is blocked because of many connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts' in /usr/home/freespace/cgi-bin/hlp/imports/database.p hp on line 26 )

Hmmm. Seems quite a few ppl are actually interested in an Xwing remake...
I wonder how robust theforce.net's server is.. There's a fairly nice X-wing remake or two there.. eg The Battle Of Endor, for starters.

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[hibiki_r]

Did you try X-Wing:Alliance? It was more of the same with prettier graphics and some Corellian Transport missions.

Re:So how about another X-Wing?

[Bodhammer]

No, I don't think it was a slashdotting, they are have other troubles: http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/

Wonder if this was a Slashvertisement?

[James Hetfield]

Anyone want to bet this was a paid Slashvertisement?

SOE is taking out Huge ads for SWG:JTLS, and my bet is it will win tons of awards thanks to industry payola.

Re:Wonder if this was a Slashvertisement?

[Rallion]

Seems to me that if it weren't an ad, it would have mentioned that the original game is such crap.

Re:Wonder if this was a Slashvertisement?

[James Hetfield]

touche.

To answer the second question...

[darylp]

Yes, you can still play. However, patching the servers to handle all the extra JtL content has overloaded them to the point where severe latency problems make the game nigh on unplayable. Delays of up to several minutes for chat and even simple actions such as looting corpses are now the norm.

The Customer Service Response to this server side performance issue has been to suggest that customers disable Pixel Shading.

Too busy doing San Andreas missions

[HarveyBirdman]

I'm too busy jacking fucking cars and picking up crack hos with my fucking homeboys in GTA:SA. Gimme a fucking machine gun over a pansy-ass, phallic symbol light saber.

I wouldn't find popping a fucking cap in the ass of some cocksucking dancing wookie, though. Or maybe I can pimp that bitch out to some fucking Star Wars fanboy. You know they'd fucking pay for that shit.

Man I love being a fucking adult. These vulgar games have no gadamnned effect on me whatsofuckingever.

Re:Too busy doing San Andreas missions

[LilMikey]

I can tell you're full of shit 'cause if you had been playing San Andreas you'd be addressing everyone as 'nigga'. :)

Re:Too busy doing San Andreas missions

[HarveyBirdman]

I can tell you're full of shit 'cause if you had been playing San Andreas you'd be addressing everyone as 'nigga'. :)

Well, in intellectual company, one does have to maintain a certain level of fucking decorum. ;-)

A certain je ne sais cocksucker.

Actually, I'm picking the game up after work today, along with Katamari Damarcy. How's that for a double feature. I may start trying to jack cars and roll them all up into a giant ball.

Re:Too busy doing San Andreas missions

[Nick of NSTime]

I called a hooker a bitch and she shot me to death.

BIASED OPINION

[SSR]

It Rules, Ontinarri Roe, Master Artisan, no Imp Killa' in Space!

Eclipse

No thanks!

[dswensen]

I'll wait for the super-special-edition box set of the game to come out! This time my character gets to shoot first!

Hyuk! Hyuk! Hyuk! ....sigh.

It sucks

[Sheepdot]

As a beta tester, I can tell you right now, I don't know what the reviewers were smoking when they said this game was so cool. I'm sorry, but the fact that you can use a joystick does not impress me. The fact that it *looks* pretty does not impress me. The fact that I can't do anything of even the slightest importance in space *does* effect me. It makes me not want to enter space with my character, and thus I did not.

For those of you who purchased the Planetside "underground" expansion (you can tell what kind of an effect it had on me based upon the fact that I cannot remember its name) you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. JtL introduces a new area that everyone will enjoy for 48 hours, and then they'll go back to the real economy of the game.

Speaking of which, "2500+ buffs! 3.0 hours! 15k!".

Re:It sucks

[josteos]

That would be Core Combat. Yikes. Oddly enough, Core Combat was delivered to address a specific desire voiced by Planetside players: urban-style combat (ie. fight in cities). The Core is beautiful to behold. Shiny rocks hither & yon. Nifty little zip lines to move you around. Too bad it sucked soooooo badly. People went to the Core only briefly. I consider it a chore, nay - a punishment! - to go to the Core. I've never quite understood why Planetside never took off. As a FPS, its awesome. Huge, complex, multi-layered battles take place every single day. Varied terrain makes each conflict different. Like tanks? Got tanks. Like planes? Got planes. One thing about planetside I appreciate is that history buffs who think they would have handled a war better really get their chance to do so. By leading squads players eventually get abilities to help lead their factions assault. Some of them really are good leaders. Too bad many of them demonsrate the truth behind the saying "crap floats to the top" I think maybe the monthly fee scares some folks. I think the pure-FPS combat also scares a lot of MMORPG folks. Its not like EQ/CoH/SW/etc. where you just click on the victim & queue up actions; you actually have to aim & dodge & pull the trigger! The biggest problem for PS is that Sony has somewhat abandoned it. They stopped advertising it a long time ago. Even when they did advertise, they did poorly - the last ad I saw looked like a 320x320 picture blown up to a half-page magazine ad: u-g-l-y. The game was rushed out of development early because they knew people would bolt to SWG a month later. The devs have actually done a good job finishing the game and adding features. The current producer is very involved with the players on the forums, and I like his enthusiasm for the game. The latest feature added are Mechs. I like them; not everyone seems to share my opinion. They are new, so everyone is tryign them out still (its Mechside!). Eventually they will even out & find their role int he conflict. I would like to see a global win condition for the game. Something like in WWII Online where if one side wins, they reset the server. That would certainly make the game more interesting. They discussed having sanctuary strikes a while back; I'd realy like to see them instead. The game has a very steep learning curve; its not easy for a new player to just log on & start contributing. The online manuals explain the game, but they don't do so well enough for a new player to read & then jump into the game. I've thought about making a newbie guide. One day I'll find the time. They should burn a bunch of install dvd's, attach a 2-week demo key, and include them in some big magazine. But not until they make it easier (ie. "Planetside for Total n00bs") for the new folks.

I love this game

[deathcloset]

I played the beta and was very impressed.

The times I ran into lag it turned out to be client-side.

the netcode is very impressive. I think the whole design of the SWG enterprise was based around scalability. Early in the beta I was flying towards the tatooine space station and I estimated that I was rendering around 100 spacecraft flying about the station (i have a screenshot, need to corraborate that)- the netcode "view distance" was then scaled down, since this undoubtedly caused processor lag (and the netcode was likely maxxed out), nevertheless I was very impressed by that many clients being rendered in realtime.

The graphics engine is great, it's huge. it's expansive. eventually they will make an FPS with it (planetside seems to use a scaled-down version of this engine). I bought this game for the graphics engine - sometimes I just turn off the lights - turn off the games HUD and zoom in to first-person view, just to suspend my disbelief and pretend that I am actually standing in coronet on corellia.

The sounds are wonderful as well :)

I'm not a big RPGer, but I've had lots of fun playing this game. Now, I AM a big simmer - so JTL is just wonderful :)

All in all I think this game is great. Of course, that's an opinion and as we all know, it's pointless to argue tastes.

Re:I love this game

[dhakbar]

You have GOT to be an SOE employee.

Even their fan boys aren't that ridiculous.

Re:I love this game

[Mac Degger]

"Now, I AM a big simmer"

Bullshit. If you where, you'd be crying because of how JTL incorporates nothing found in a sim. Hell, they even cut out the engine/laser/shield management found in the /real/ starwars sims like Xwing/XvT/etc.
Appart from that, the JTL flightmodel sucks and is unrealistic (to the point where standing still is often the best action in a dogfight...I mean WTF?!?)...the only way you could be into sims is if you mean The Sims.

Dialogue from the new DVD set...

[dabigpaybackski]

"Luke...Luke..."

"Ben?"

"You must go the the Dagobah System. There you will meet Master Yoda. But first you must buy the new Jump to Lightspeed Expansion Pack. Preorder it now and save! Be the first in line..."

SOE following it's long tested policy

[sgant]

It's good to see SOE sticks to their guns and follows the tried-and-true policy of "release now/fix later"...and in the case of SWG fix MUCH later.

And of course, this policy is in full effect as they are about to release EQ2 almost a full year before they really should. Yes folks, this game needs at least 6-12 more months of development before they unleash it...but why do that when you have plenty of people willing to pay a monthly fee to beta-test it for you!

Good luck to you all that try them...I wish you well.

The end of the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, to my understanding, the space aspect of SWG is like any other MMPORG but worse - to get better guns/ships/etc you have to gain experience. Ok, there's nothing wrong with that - if there were 1500 models of the Tie Fighter. Now correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the idea of being in a ship was that it took SKILL TO KILL THINGS and not time.

This is the downfall of any MMPORG that attempts a standard system for space flight. I want some schmuck that logs on with godly pilot skills to start killing people with their pretty super ships they spent weeks getting, but of course that'll never happen because then the long-term degenerates that spent 90% of their life getting ShieldXII SuperMart Booster Plus will whine.

The gaming community needs a massively online space spim where everyone has the same grades (but different styles) of ships and it actually takes piloting skills to be decent. I want descent or X-wing vs Tie Fighter with 500+ people - the day that happens is the day I become a truly happy gamer.

Re:The end of the end

[WoBIX]

Remember SubSpace? It was only 2D but it was great fun. Especially when as a lowly newbie you managed to take out someone with an extremely high bounty value. It would be cool if someone took the Edgar Rice Burroughs book "Beyond the Farthest Star" and turned the massive air battles into a game. How they'd add depth in order to keep subscribers would be an interesting challenge.

Re:The end of the end

[Unoti]

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the idea of being in a ship was that it took SKILL TO KILL THINGS and not time.

You make a great point here. I played for a while and liked it, here's my take on it.

It does take skill. If you try JTL, you'll probably find that the game is much more difficult than other MMO's-- what you do actually makes all the difference. If you blindly go in with guns blazing, you're going to get owned. You have to actually work at this game.

It takes time, too. Not just a mindless grind, but it takes time to develop the combination of a playstyle style and a configuration of your ship that you like.

I agree with your point, though, and I think that you're touching on the principal weakness of current MMO's: we don't need the grind. We need things that challenge our skills.

There's still a grind in JTL, but it takes skill, too-- both skill in piloting and skill in deciding how to configure your ship and match that configuration with a play strategy.

Re:The end of the end

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is the long standing dream of any space sim fan. While they were lots of fun (and my personal favorite genre), they were always pretty lonely too. I think we've all at some point wanted a human in formation rather than an AI that couldn't possibly understand teamwork. I think people want cooperative play, which is why XvT failed and other mutliplayer space sims have been lacklust at best. The genre's pretty much dead now. Hopefully somebody will come up with a massively multiplayer version, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:The end of the end

[Rocky1138]

It is a bit like that. It's not like there are 6 ships and you just get a new one each time you level up. You can buy/loot upgrades for your ship and get droids to help you fight.

You can also teach the droids new tricks to fire better and stuff. It's really neat.

Re:The end of the end

[dweezil-n0xad]

you may want to check out Free Worlds, a multiplayer Star Wars Total conversion mod for Freelancer.

Re:The end of the end

[Anonymous Coward]

It would never work, because people wouldn't fly in formations. All you'd have is 500 people doing loop-de-loops and flying into each other by accident.

Re:The end of the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Though I guess some clans might make the effort.

Also stopping to type OMFG teh gay cheater"""!!!! will mean you splat into a battleship :)

Re:The end of the end

[Lord_Dweomer]

What you want is a MMOFPS, much like Planetside except well....not sucky. There is a large split in gamers where one group wants to have unrivaled abilities if they put the time into it, and one group wants their actual skill to determine the outcome.

Re:The end of the end

[Mac Degger]

Too true. And you knoww how you get that? Have a game where there is a max to stats and the only reason to play is because the actual game is fun to play!

How this would work is that you start off creating your character, spending skill points where you want...but within a reasonable time, you max out your skills to a humanly normal point. Now you have everyone within a band of skill which isn't that wide...which means the longtime players will play with the noobs, because there isn't that much difference in the actual skills, just a difference in knowledge of the game (kinda like real life, where the old dog takes the new guy under his wing).

The problem? You need gameplay which is actually fun instead of a grind, gameplay which is challenging and doesn't rely on new trinkets to keep people locked in. Basically GTA3/:VC, with lots of emergent gameplay; a fun sandbox.
My god, if I where rich I'd buy Rockstar Games and force them to build a Shadowrun-esque MMORPG using the principles above.

Re:The end of the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Try http://www.subspacehq.com/&e=1102&mr=9!1!3_D!!15!b _U:abrt_nr1m_spb3_1000 Subspace. It's free, and pretty fun.

Re:The end of the end

[Dragoon412]

You missed out on Jumpgate.

It's an MMO space sim. Yes, there is leveling, in which you can get clearance to get new weapons and ships, so it's not like everyone's flying the same thing. And while a light shuttle will be atomized by a heavy fighter in a matter of seconds, a good pilot in a light fighter can take down a mediocre pilot in a heavy fighter. And there are a lot of classes of ships; everything from light shuttles to interceptors to heavily armed transports to fighters to freighters to bombers. Equipment is all handled based on a factional system (3 factions; one emphasizes efficiency, one shields, and one firepower).

Unfortunately, Jumpgate's way past its prime. It's still around, but it rarely peaks at more than 100 players anymore. It's a shame, too, because that game has an awesome community.

Re:The end of the end

[Spider[DAC]]

Might I introduce you to Vendetta Online?

Its Twitch based FPS, you ship is your sole avatar. There is a level-grind with missions to unlock the avaiability of higher level ships (basically, lighter mass, some various tradeships that carry more cargo and so on) but its light enough that I can do it in a couple of hours.

There is even more concern that various factions in space actually have to -like- you in order to sell you the improved versions of ships, sure. anywhere where you aren't a criminal will sell you a ship. But the price might be high, and you won't get that low-mass a bit more agile and a bit improved hull version.

(And if you're branded criminal / KOS ? good luck. They'll do their best to kill you ;)

However, the game is entirely skillbased when it comes to space-combat. There is not an uberness of strike +100 vorpal rockets, nor can you buff your ship more than anyone just because you've been grinding for two days.

And you can't auto-grind either, since you actually pilot your ship in the FPS sense.

As for the games status, I've seen it change quite a bit (early tester / alpha) with a small devteam (4 people) who actually listen to the community (and partake ingame). Garage style development, with a fairly solid base.

oh. And appearantly it will go live on monday, which I rather regret. No more free game for me :(

Possible, but

[Anonymous Coward]

it's more likely they'd want people to move to EQ2, set to ship on Nov 8 in the states and I believe Europe, seeing as it's also owned by SoE. This would also have to have been a marketing decision excluding Lucas Arts if that is the case. WoW is coming out Nov 22 fyi so all of SoE's next products are shipping before it. Of course, WoW is the only one ready to play but that's another discussion.

An alternative to SW: Galaxies???

[vudufixit]

Instead of expending time, effort and energy on this game, why not work overtime, scrimp and save, and make smart investments, and with the proceeds hop onboard a real spaceflight - it looks likely they'll be available for $250,000 or so by 2010 or sooner.
Don't laugh - it's amazing what people "expend" on unproductive leisure activities, cigarettes, alchohol, and huge CD/DVD collections.

Re:An alternative to SW: Galaxies???

[Sidicas]

it's amazing what people "expend" on unproductive leisure activities, cigarettes, alchohol, and huge CD/DVD collections.

Unproductive?!?! Now listen here buddy, I've learned a lot by watching my Japanese anime collection over and over and over and over and over and over ...
I've learned all the important words in life like "oni-chan" "baka" "ecchi" "neko" and "usagi".
Not only that, but if you pick up a DVD of Spirited Away and Ah! My Goddess, you'll understand the culture more than reading any Wikipedia page.

Guild Wars release

[BayBlade]

While on the topic of MMORPGs, Guild Wars is having their free preview release this weekend.

I played some of it while they were demoing over E3--alot of potential there.

Overheard in an SOE boardroom, circa Summer 2003

[Myrk]

Board of Directors: How long before you can make the "Jump To Lightspeed"?

Developers: It'll take a few months to get the code from the navi-computer.

Marketing: Are you kidding? At the rate World of Warcraft is gaining??

Developers: Traveling through hyperspace ain't like coding dancers, boy! Without precise error-handling we could fly right through a release date or bounce too close to a complete rewrite and that'd end your little trip real quick, woudn't it?

Marketing: What's that flashing?

Developers: We're losing another thousand subscribers! Go strap yourselves in I'm going to have to delay the "Jump to Lightspeed"!

Cliches about MMORPG's?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if you've been wanting to try out SWG, this is a good time to start. It's somewhat fun, but all the cliches about MMORPG's definitely apply.

How do you want to make a good Star Wars game without cliches??

Basically, I agree with you. But keep in mind that Star Wars games are a direct effect of Star Wars movies. For example, few days ago I saw The Phantom Menace with friends. This was actually the first time I watched Star Wars since I was a kid. And let me tell you, this was a one giant cliche! I mean, underwater cities? A city that covers a whole planet? Where've we seen those before?

Well, they may be cliches, but Lucas stole them fair and square, and served them back with loads of panache, so he's forgiven. On the other hand, there are other cliches that make you moan aloud. For example: "Hey, you guys, don't you mess with me because my mom is the Virgin Mary! (At least that's what she told her folks when she came home pregnant one day.) I guess you know what that makes ME, so everybody drop down and give me 20!" Oh lord... "I think maybe he is the CHOSEN ONE ..." Oh, really? As in "Dune"? Or in "The Matrix"? Or in "Lord of the Rings"? Or "A New Hope" (the original 1977 "Star Wars" movie)? Or ... make your own list.

It will stretch for light years. "He is too old to train to be a Jedi". - Uh, Yoda? You say 6 is too old, but Luke Skywalker will be a doable fixer-upper at 20? When do you recruit novices - ripping them from the breast, like the Psi Corps in "Babylon 5"? Does the Jedi Way require complete denial of normal childhood? An odd message for a kid flick! "Oh no! There's an unstoppable robot army! Of course all we have to do is pull a master switch and they'll all shut off!" This recalls blowing up the shield projector in "Return of the Jedi" (which is achieved entirely thanks to the wookie - neither Luke nor Leia makes any real difference in achieving the Rebel victory. Think about it!).

Or a computer virus shutting down all alien shields in "Independence Day". Or Obi-Wan dialing down the tractor beam. Or the hero in "Logan's Run" shooting one computer console and blowing up a city. And so on. Yeesh! Are villain equipment-designers really that bad in every off-Earth empire? In fairness, this cliche is endemic. Ever notice how, in "Star Trek", Kirk talked five different super-computers into self-destructing? If the universe really is like this, we Earthlings are gonna kick butt when we get out there! A good machine is one that has to be hammered into turning on for you (e.g. Anakin's speed-pod, his space fighter, the Millennium Falcon, C-3PO and so on). If it starts right up, it must be evil. Some might view the pod race as a rip-off copy of the speeder bike scene in "Return of the Jedi".

Actually, I found the charioteer imagery charming. Hey, a swooping chase scene past scary obstacles is always a good thing to throw into a whiz-bang sci-fi flick! Nevertheless, having a 6-year-old slave toss together a better pod than all the galaxy's technicians can create? (Those Tatooine slave schools must have a great curriculum!) Couldn't he have had help from an old but great engineer who retired to Tatooine for his health?

That cliche would have lent plausibility. Big animals try to eat whole spaceships, yum. Where've we seen that before? An apprentice Jedi - watching helplessly as his beloved master is slain in a sword fight by a Sith Lord - screams, "No!" Where've we seen that before? (Incidentally, the angry apprentice succeeds where his calm master failed - just as Luke Skywalker does better angry than when he was composed, in "Return of the Jedi". So much for Yoda's sage advice!) But enough wallowing in small stuff. Let's get down to the Grand Champion cliche of all: "Gee whillikers, R2, the folks out there sure are in a pickle. What's that, girl? Solve the whole plot by diving my tiny ship into the center of a big bad-ass one, and set off a chain reaction to blow it up from the inside while we run awa

Re:Cliches about MMORPG's?

[PurplePhase]

Dude, he said "all the cliches about MMORPGs definitely apply".

Nothing about storytelling, just the game's mechanics/rules/possible actions/character types/levelling treadmill/etc.

Sounds like something pretty serious has been bothering you to come up with such a verbose response.

8-PP

Re:Cliches about MMORPG's?

[Minna Kirai]

Sounds like something pretty serious has been bothering you to come up with such a verbose response.

But he didn't. This is plagiarism. You're correct in noticing that this post is completely off-topic, with only a tiny thread of strained segue- that's because he's pasting an unrelated story.

Just pick any sentence from that post and search for it with google. David Brin's StarWars analysis is famous and interesting (and ancient), but someone always likes to dump it into every StarWars topic on slashdot.

Screenshots!

[Anonymous Coward]

For anyone who don't know the game, the most important thing is SCREENSHOTS:

http://images.google.com/images?q=star+wars+galaxi es+screenshots&num=150&hl=en&lr=&safe=on&sa=N&tab= wi

I must say it looks AWSOME!

JTL is fun

[Unoti]

I played JTL during JTL beta, and enjoyed it immensely. If you've tried JTL and think it sucks, you need to read this.

At first, I hated it. I thought it was difficult to control and an utter bore. Then I poked around, and saw that many other people really enjoyed. So I thought I'd give it another chance.

Two key things you need to know if you're not enjoying JTL yet:

1. You can't just attack and win, or go straight after your opponent and win. You actually need to practice, think, and use some tactics. It's much harder to play than you might expect at first. You need to stay behind your opponents so they can't shoot back at you, and you need to match your speed to theirs. If a ship is in front of you shooting at you, you need to high tail it behind them immediately. This "actually needing to play" and having what buttons you push actually make a difference is a bit of a shock to most SWG players at first.

2. The design of the ship modules and ship crafting is incredible. It gets a lot more exciting when you get your first ship upgrade, which took me a couple of nights of play.

The first non-free ship you can use has something like 13 different components on it (guns, missles, armor front, armor rear, shields, engine, booster, etc.). But there's a mass limit on the ship that's fairly restrictive. So that leaves it up to the player to decide how he's going to outfit his ship. These choices are non-trivial, and very interesting.

For example, Initially I just threw whatever components into my ship that I could scare up. I was doing OK in battle, but began to suspect I could do better with a different configuration on my ship.

The way the ship crafting system works, you can use all kinds of different strategies in equiping your ship. For example, I really wanted some bigger guns on my ship, but the big guns put it way over the weight limit. I decided to build some shields for my ship that had strong defense in the back, weak defense in the front, and lower mass. I completely took the armor out of the ship, reasoning that hopefully my shields would hold long enough for me to quickly kill the enemy. I essentially gutted my ship to make room for a big fat fun. The strategy worked! I had a great time tinkering with my ship for hours on end, trying all kinds of different things.

The crafting system for the ships lends itself to all kinds of different cooperative strategies, too. For example, you can use blaster that eat through shields but are weaker against armor, or vice versa. You and your friends might get together with a couple of shield-eater ships to soften up the opponents, and group with one ship that specializes in destroying the armor after the shields are gone. And then have another guy with you who acts like a rodeo clown: he uses all the mass on his ship for shields and armor, and carries a light, slow engine and no guns. This guy would talk a lot of smack to draw enemy fire, and even though he wouldn't have much offensive cpability he'd be very difficult to kill.

The crafting system in SWG always had a lot of promise, but it's finally showing its original promise in JTL. Not only are there lots of ship components, but every one of them can be experimented in several meaningful ways. Most items in the game have only a couple of useful ways to experiment on them. In JTL, components have 5 or more ways to experiments, each of which will be useful for various situations.

This kind of complexity where equipment can be tailored to special strategies is going to make JTL a lot of fun. Perhaps this level of thinking isn't for everyone, but many people are going to have a great time with this-- even people that aren't just Star Wars nuts.

Re:JTL is fun

[Sage Gaspar]

Mileage definitely varies greatly with the challenge of JTL. Personally, I found the AI very lacking and the combat an absolute snoozefest. Sure, the upgrade system is neat and gives you something to do, but for what? There's nothing there. And I'm not going to sit through hours upon hours of trivial gameplay to work up to something that I've been told might be challenging. No thanks, I've already had enough of that with the ground game.

So, while there are a lot of people that can and do enjoy JTL, I have to caution that it's not all roses, and certainly was not to the level I've been waiting for since launch (although, that's nothing new).

Re:JTL is fun

[Unoti]

Sure, the upgrade system is neat and gives you something to do, but for what? There's nothing there. And I'm not going to sit through hours upon hours of trivial gameplay to work up to something that I've been told might be challenging.

I understand what you're saying, and essentially agree. The problem is that as far as I know, you could say that about any massively multiplayer game. It's all lame and boring in the final analysis without a good group of friends to have fun with and goof around with. I don't know of any mmorpg that defies that statement.

If there is an MMO that's fun to play for a very long time, where the entertainment comes from the game itself and not the people in it, I'd really love to play it.

Re:JTL is fun

[Monkk]

Very good synopsis! I think you've hit the nail on the head. Both with the skill in flight and also the ENORMOUS possibilities when crafting ship components! I'm planning on doing both pilot and shipwright, just so I can fine tune my ship / components to my heart's content. :)

Re:JTL is fun

[Moonshadow]

But there's a mass limit on the ship that's fairly restrictive

...which makes a lot of sense in a frictionless, effectively gravity-less environment like outer freaking space. I'd expect decreased turning/accelerating capabilities with increased mass, but Mechwarrior-style weight limits on starships? Just another example (IMHO, naturally) of SOE's utterly horrid shortcut-style design surrounding the entire project.

My roommate and I are both ex-SWGers. He was in the JTL beta before he quit (I quit long before he did). Neither of us was impressed. I started with brilliant hopes for the game, which SOE proceeded to trash in more ways than I'd thought mortally possible. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little bitter/cynical about the whole thing.

Re:JTL is fun

[Minna Kirai]

And then have another guy with you who acts like a rodeo clown: he uses all the mass on his ship for shields and armor,

A rodeo clown? Is that what the MMORPGers are calling "Tanks" these days?

Re:JTL is fun

[unDiWahn]

A larger ship will have more structural integrity -- and thus, be able to maintain a larger mass under extreme acceleration. A lighter, weaker ship might break to pieces under the shearing forces as it accelerates.
Which, of course, still means it just needs to accelerate more slowly anyway, but perhaps there is some rational basis for it.

MMORPGs have a huge drawback-

[StM.Rawder]

I played SWG from launch until a couple months ago.
2 major drawbacks that I have found playing are:


1.Players (customers) are not happy with their gameing experience (because they suxx) and rather than learn how to play, whine constantly about getting owned and then the DEV's (in this case Sony) change the game and simplify it for the tards.


2.Errors in the code which allow for exploits of the combat system (which is understandable), but you then are at the mercy of the dev's timetables for fixing it (if its ever fixed at all). In a server-based rpg like NWN, the scripting and level design of the persistant worlds are done with their toolset and in C, so its easy to fix problems right away.

In fact, NWN is much better than SWG as far as gameplay, combat systems, and customization. Since there are huge persistant worlds out there for NWN does it really matter that you can only get 60 people on a server instead of 600?

I dont play SWG anymore - its total ass. NWN is far better IMHO and much less time consuming, I can play whenever I want and no monthly fee.

Awful

[TheM$Man]

Awful game. No content. Completely circular progression system that indunces boredom and frustration in days. Once the awe of being in the star wars universe wears off (approximately 48 minutes) you begin to wonder why you are playing. The only thing worse is the M$!

my landlord.....

[hajihill]

Seriously?!?! My landlord is an asshole!

Turn Offs for JtL

[Mr_Engrish]

I have a friend who was in the beta. The things that turned me off are:

- TIE Fighters are pretty durable - they can take more than a few hits

- Because of the way the PvP system works, rebel starships (X-wings, A-wings, etc) and imperial starships (TIE fighters) can encounter each other without being hostile to each other - which is wierd given that it is the Star Wars universe...

- No control of the deflector shield system - you can't route all power to the front/rear shields as you can in X-Wing/TIE Fighter series of games - it's a feature that's also mentioned in the movies.

Re:Turn Offs for JtL

[Unoti]

I was disappointed that you couldn't dynamically alter the shields back and forth too. I did, however, get shields custom crafted for me that were stronger in back than in the front.

Re:Turn Offs for JtL

[Rocky1138]

I agree on points #2 and #3. I was in the beta, and I found those things pretty wierd. I really enjoyed JTL though, I'm picking it up for sure. One other thing that was kind of strange was that you can't help attack something unless you're in a group. I was a rebel and I came across 3 or 4 x-wings taking down a bunch of fighters. Every time I tried firing, it would do no damage. I guess they did that to protect people's missions and make sure that they do them themselves. Who knows? Maybe they're afraid of people getting friends to help them? Wouldn't that also open up another market for people who will be paid to be mercinaries? :D

Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that the game now has some sort of plot to it? Even a weak one would be nice... there's only so much dancing I can take, and the chat isn't all that interesting...

Travelling is faster with JTL

[kherr]

Well, that and how many mountain dews they can drink without having to go to the bathroom.

Hah! I read that and thought to myself, "Mountain dewbacks? Why do Jedi need to hunt those?" Augh, I'm playing too much.

With the JTL expansion traveling is much quicker since you can use your own ship and go directly to your destination without actually loading the "space" stuff. No more waiting for the shuttle to arrive, although the waiting is a realistic experience. Now every player will have their own personal shuttle. And if you use a multi-occupancy ship everyone in your group gets sucked along. One interesting thing, however, is that your ship must have light speed capabilities or you are unable to go to to another system.

Another note on traveling is your ship remains where you dock it. So if you use your ship to go to Mos Eisley, then take the public shuttle to Theed, you'll be unable to use your ship to travel because it's parked in Mos Eisley even though you still have the ship in your datapad as a posession. That's a very nice little detail.

It's funny, laugh.... Or not... whatever

[Sidicas]

Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed Launches

How much for an escape pod?

Eye candy isn't a game

[leftie]

Who cares what it looks like if the game is unplayable?

If I want only eye candy, I'll go see an IMAX movie.... or even better. I'll go out and look at some real scenery.

this ain't insightfull

[SmallFurryCreature]

There are many things you can say about SWG and JTL but commeting that the game can't be played without a joystick is like bad mouthing Half-Life 2 because you need a keyboard wich you didn't need for wolfenstein.

No fuck duh! JTL is finally creating some twitch element in the game that was before just hitting the right buttons to perform some moves. However most people made a macro so their toon would do a certain sequence of attacks all the time optomized for their style of play.

JTL is different. It is far more based on your skill as a pilot. Two things limit your capabilties. The type of your hardware, dictating stuff like damage, speed, shield power. You also learn skills needed to things like shift your shields. But turning and keeping behind your enemy is purely based on your skills with a joystick.

Many people have complained that SWG had no twitch. Now people are complaining that JTL is twitch.

If you played any of the old Star Wars games like X-Wing, tie-fighter etc etc then you will find a lot of JTL awfully familiar except you now operate with larger planets in the background. They added some missions that are more complext then "fly to X kill Y fly back to Z" but nothing so far approaching the complexity of X-wing or its sequels.

All in all it ain't bad, just horribly bugged.

Do I recommended it? Absolutly not. If you still haven't been seduced by SWG then JTL won't do it either. I played an imperial in the beta and one of the early missions has you walking on the ground. So far space mission payout is also very low, although my ship was made out of superior looted equipment I think that will soon be adjusted meaning you will have to do ground stuff to get the cash. In the beta it would have been impossible to fly enough missions to pay for a new ship.

Personally I would stay away from the game. SWG can be fun but it is dying. The time when a new player could find a group hunt easily is gone. Wait to see if JTL attracts enough new players to become intresting again. It was fun when the 14-day trial got a load of new players who were not trapped into grinding boxes. The uptake was however very low. Many enjoyed the game itself but found that to many of the other players were to involved in a solo grind.

Fun can be had in SWG but with WoW so close, why should you bother to try to find it?

Re:this ain't insightfull

[Minna Kirai]

Half-Life 2 because you need a keyboard wich you didn't need for wolfenstein.

Erm, you needed a keyboard for Wolfenstein. In fact, the first two Wolfenstien games (2d and then 3d) were out before mice were popular.

Re:JTL is fun - Thanks, now I know not to try it.

[StormyWeather]

From your post it seems as if they make you be a tradeskiller just to fly a spaceship too. You know, I saw Han do repairs on the Falcon, but I don't remember him building it himself out of crap he ran around killing. I don't like tradeskills, and I never have. I tried playing SWG, but I didn't want to do any tradeskills, none, nada, zilch. The game is the absolute worst piece of garbage that has ever graced the earth minus the pretty graphics if you don't like grinding away at tradeskills to be a useful character.

It's not a matter of "level of thinking." I enjoy ed DAOC where I had to use team tactics and coordination vs another team of high end players. I also enjoyed Everquest where we consistently tried to take down a bigger and badder mob with fewer people and interesting strategies. Heck I even enjoyed Shadowbane because it had the best balance of any game I've ever played, and building a community that could survive wars was a neat trick of learning the fine art of diplomacy vs aggression.

Trying to equate not liking SWG with not being at a high level of thinking is kind of like saying "If you don't like hitting yourself in the ear with a ball ping hammer your not smart." I mean really, SWG is the first game I've ever seen that actually put true automatic macroing in their game because it was so damn boring to actually be in front of the keyboard, and it took so little skill that a macro could do it. Sorry, but in my opinion if your game can be automated through a macro in any way, it needs to be improved.

p.s. Yes I know if you are bright you can macro a ton of games, but I stand by my comments in that those games do need improving where you can macro them :).

Re:Not just a space sim like that

[JaredOfEuropa]

The gaming community needs a massively online space spim where everyone has the same grades (but different styles) of ships and it actually takes piloting skills to be decent. When I started with SWG, I was expecting Planetside-style combat, i.e. you buy a weapon to your taste, and your skill points increase the accuracy of your aim, but you still have to aim and fire the weapon yourself/

How disappointed I was to find that SWG, a game with guns rather than swords, still uses freaking dice rolls in what is essentially turn-based combat.

Only Light speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping to jump to Ludicrous speed.

Ob Galaxies quote

[shut_up_man]

This isn't my quote, but it seemed to sum up the game pretty well:

I don't know, Galaxies always seemed like the mmo for people who wanted to play those two guys in the background in mos eisley while obi wan and luke drove through on their speeder. The two shoveling bantha shit.

From the Shacknews forums

Re:Ob Galaxies quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Great feedback, Ace. Now tell us what MMO you play, so we can point out what kind of shit you shovel.

Re:Ob Galaxies quote

[leftie]

Pepsi... meet keyboard. Damn, that was funny.

I've never seen SWG (and most other MMORPGs, for that matter) summed up so well in so few words. I want to game my experience from SF novels and books in MMORPGs. You can't. MMORPGs are generally designed for all the non-heros in a society that will never have an effect of the grand storyline. MMORPG characters have no chance of ever affecting a storyline.

Re:Ob Galaxies quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like somebody got picked on on the playground today! 8D

If you don't care why do you care so much?

Re:Ob Galaxies quote

[leftie]

Because I wasted good money on a game that was "well-reviewed," but ended up suckage. The game is terrible, and there is no way for people to find that out other than through message boards like this. The reviews are either bought and paid for, or are so focused on eye candy, that they don't notice game play is terrible.

Re:JTL is fun - Thanks, now I know not to try it.

[Unoti]

You don't have to craft the stuff yourself; you can always buy the stuff from someone else. The most successful people, though, are going to have close relations with a shipwright and have to be constantly changing their rig for different situations.

In EQ I played casters a lot, and rolled up a warrior just for the fun of tinkering with the equipment. (At the time, at least, equipment was a lot more important and there were more interesting options available to warriors.) It's fun to tinker with equipment, try different configurations, and go for the best stuff you can afford or swindle. That's not necessarily a crafting thing, and it's not necessarily a painful or boring thing.

Re:JTL is fun... like a tax audit :)

[leftie]

You know the part where the IRS investigator orders you to produce all your paycheck stubs and receipts for the last seven years, and you have to look through every single piece of paper in your whole house? And when you finally get all those boxes of documents together, the IRS investigator tells you that he really investigating a totally different Tom Johnson?

Yeah, lots of endless tedious repetitious tasks that end up being done for no reason. Fun like that!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this is interesting stuff. Why is it moderated as Score:0?

Re:Jump to lightspeed? - I guess not geeky enough

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/hyperspace.html

Han makes reference to the millenium falcon as going "point 5 past light speed"

Not the hoarders, the exploiters.

[leftie]

There have been cash generation exploits since day one. They've never ben able to get rid of them. Many of those huge stashes of cash are from knowing the right way to press the bank terminal button and jump or position yourself just right.

Re:Not the hoarders, the exploiters.

[Kazrath]

Agreed, The exploits where harsh. Honestly though the major "Rich" people were the crafters. Weaponsmiths by far the most. I was a Doc sold med supplies. For awhile there enhancepacks would sell so fast almost no doc could keep them in stock. I was running 12 factories and it was tuff. Scary thing was. Weaponsmiths blew me outta the water. My guildmate would rack in 50-100mil creds a day. He was in the top 3 weaponsmiths on Gorath server (Davinci). After the #1 guy left he teamed up with the #1 Armorsmith and basically started racking in more creds than he knew what to do with. Farming creatures and doing zones is much more fun.. Just generally not as profitable. But unless your investing 15-20mil in equipment to harvest resources/craft. You will have plenty to play this expansion.

The part I don't get

[Schnapple]

My apologies if this is redundant, but in the movies it seemed pretty damned easy to get blown to bits and killed - TIE Fighters, X-Wings, etc. In the movies where the life of people like Porkins isn't important, this isn't a biggie. However, if your Jedi character you've been paying tons of money and time to level up gets blown to smithereens by some kid, you're gonna be pissed. Is it hard to get killed in this expansion? Is it just an accepted risk? How do they balance the "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter" dogfighter mentality versus the need to keep their long time players, um, playing?

Re:The part I don't get

[Minna Kirai]

However, if your Jedi character you've been paying tons of money and time to level up gets blown to smithereens by some kid, you're gonna be pissed. Is it hard to get killed in this expansion? Is it just an accepted risk?

It seems that you know zero about how any MMORPG works*. SWG handles death like any other game of it's genre: it's a reversible inconvenience that at most sets your character back a few days worth of grinding. Most games are in fantasy worlds and explain it as magical resurrection, but SWG calls it "cloning".

Reviving as a clone apparently only drains 1-5% of your powers. Most likely, a JTL ship that gets destroyed will be recoverable in a similar way.

* Except possibly a totally nonviolent one, like Tale in the Desert.

Re:The part I don't get

[HanShootsFirst]

For telling someone they know zero about how it works, you seem to be pretty off yourself.

Cloning in SWG for any normal profession is a minimal loss. Your armor and clothing decays a tiny bit. Jedi characters are a little different. They lose Jedi XP based on how many Jedi skills they have. They can not lose skills they already have, but their xp bank can go negative as far as 10 million.

Now, in JTLS, Jedi do not lose any XP when killed in space. The only known problem is for Jedi Knights who are perma overt, when loading back into a starport from space, they will be automatically overt without the normal 60 second covert status to prevent being killed while loading into an area. Expect a hotfix on that soon.

Re:The part I don't get

[Minna Kirai]

For telling someone they know zero about how it wors, you seem to be pretty off yourself.

How so? You said nothing to contradict me. I didn't want to go into excessive detail with someone who didn't even know that MMORPG death was nonpermanent... for a person that clueless, even the abbreviation "XP" is pushing it.

Re:The part I don't get

[HanShootsFirst]

Jedi did have permadeath many months ago. Don't talk to me like I don't know my SWG, I've logged more SWG hours than real life hours in the last few months.

For the same reason.....

[rsilvergun]

I'm not planing on vacationing In San Andreas and jacking cars for fun: I don't like doing dangerous things for real.

As for being 'unproductive', how is spending $250,000 dollars (and all the resources that money implies) productive? You seem to have consumption and production confused.

Safari?

[vrmlknight]

too bad I cant load the page in Safari i get caught in an infinite loop where it keep reloading...

Re:Safari?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to see a site about a video game on your Mac?

I think the phrase I'm looking for here is, "This isn't the webpage you're looking for!"

So how much are they paying you for this?

[Rostasan]

The game stunk. I think SWG's only chance now is to weave porn into the game somehow and maybe some adware popups.

Re:So how much are they paying you for this?

[Unoti]

I spent a lot of time playing the game, enjoyed it, and posted my thoughts in a concrete way. You merely pounded out a line of baseless drivel.

You argue I must be paid by a game company, because I enjoyed the game and posted my thoughts. I might argue that you are getting paid by an opposing game company. I'd be getting paid much more, however.

Re:So how much are they paying you for this?

[leftie]

Some people enjoy getting root canal procedures done. Some people like Slim Whitman records.

Re:So how much are they paying you for this?

[Rostasan]

It may be baseless, but I think it's the sign of the times. Companies pay people to post favorable reviews all the time. The fact that I decided to post a rebuttal is based on 3 months of playing the game. That's over $100 with tax. So I only point out that the game sucks and at some point in the future you will come to the same conclusion. That is of course IF you're not an SOE web-sub-contractor. Nice reply time BTW. 13 minutes. Lucky I didn't shut down for the day or I would have missed your little tit for tat.

No wonder I haven't leveled up yet!

[d34thm0nk3y]

We are supposed to be FIGHTING the trolls???? crap!!!

Yes

[rsilvergun]

at least for a while. They're not gonna want any more competition for this than they already have....

life in a skinner box

[gad_zuki!]

>There aren't enough dungeons or cool things to do besides run around and kill stuff and hope for loot.

All MUD-based games are like this. Essentially you are putting yourself in a Skinner box.

Repetition and the lack of "cool loot" is a feature not a bug. With so many players, there will never be rare loot you can get, and if there is someone who has been playing 23 hours a day is hoarding it. Running around and killing stuff is basically the design.

A lot of people complain about these things without realizing this is why these games are so addictive. There are simply more fun online games that dont demand all your time. The skinner-box is profitable for now, but even the implementations are weak. I played SWG for about two months and its like a generic space game with a few token star wars themes applied. The incentive is poor. Worse, they made the best character, the jedi, next to impossible to score. Compare that to all the Jedi fun you can have with Jedi Academy.

I like games that are challenging, take me away, let me be creative, let me horse around, etc. I have real life leveling to do and MUD-playing back in college did affect my grades and social life (or what was left of it). I'm really curious to see if the skinner-box profit model is going to last.

Re:life in a skinner box

[Lord_Dweomer]

For a better comparison to actual games, take a look at this essay about how EQ is a giant skinner box. Pretty much applies to all MMORPGs.

A short review of SWG and the JTL Beta

[SmallFurryCreature]

SWG is an Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game set in the Star Wars universe and extended universe. Right? Well no.

It ain't really all that massive. Perhaps it would have been if SOE had managed the 1 million subscribers they had aimed for, although how their hardware and software would have coped is beyond me. The few people that are playing are further devided over a dozen different server clusters meaning they will never meet each other. So if you start on a server you will play with perhaps a total of 1000 other players if your lucky. Or rather more accurate, 1000 other accounts. Many hardcore players operate more then one account. The number of total players must therefore be lower then what sony claims.

Is any of this important? Well yeah. SWG has a complex economy that is based on there being enough players to keep the economy balanced. Supply and demand and scale of economy. However because of the few number of players and SOE hopless balancing the player class of Image Designer can be very very very hard to find. Doctors are essential because they buff the stats and without them the fights become impossible very quickly. At times on my server the entire game grinds to a halt because no doctors are buffing the stats of players. This is ultimate the death of a lot of online games. To few people playing and to many advanced players so far ahead that many newbies are instantly turned off.

But lets say you persist. You now create a character on one of the servers hoping to find the server with the most fun community. Selecting sex is pure cosmetic but race is not. Sadly because of some stupid decisions by SOE (you will see a lot of these but nothing compared to your stupidity to pay them each and every month) humans are the best class. Armour was absent for along time for wookies making them useless in the thougher fights.

But you persist and choose a race. Now you gotta choose your starting job. Well actually don't bother. It costs 100 credits to train in a new job so any newbie can easily get basic training in every job out there (except politician I will come to this one). A smart newbie does this as early on it is really really helpfull to be able to help yourselve.

The early jobs are melee (hit things with a stick), ranger (shoot at things), medic (poke players with needles), artisan (make things to hit or shoot thing with), entertainer (stand in boring cantina listening to a 10 second music sample being played over and over again watching the same motion captured animation that is fun once twice or a hundreth times but wich you will have to watch a gazillion times) and finally scout (walk faster up hills and get resources from critters).

Well you can start as an artisan but artisan need resources to make things wich you don't have or any money to buy them with. There are crafting missions that pay you but they pay so low that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most brafe.

So we are going to be involved in some way with combat. Choosing melee means you will be running after everything running away from you while shooting at you. Ranged means you will be trying to snipe things biting your arm off.

Your character has 3 main bars. Strenght, action and mind. They could have named them anything as strength does not make you stronger and action does not make you faster. The whole deal is that you have an X number of strenght but also a value Y indicating how much strenght something will cost and a value Z indicating how much strenght you recover. Same for action and mind. For instance when a medic heals someone he uses up a certain amount of mind points. How many exactly depends on how high Y is. If Z is high enough he will recover the lost points without the main bar ever dropping. If not then the act of constantly healing will slowly deplete the bar until you no longer can take an action.

Weapon use deplets all bars but varies per weapon wich is used more. The smart people will have thought of something. The value of the main bar is of no imp

Re:A short review of SWG and the JTL Beta

[MrBigInThePants]

Great read, very long. :)
Nice to see that nothing (fundamentally) has changed since I first played this game on launch.

I also notice gamespot and IGN gave the game great reviews...man I feel so happy that they are giving us the truth about these games, otherwise I might never have bought SWG...
PS: I actually bought it because I was a SW freak... :)

Re:A short review of SWG and the JTL Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a fucking idiot

BRAVO! BRAVO!

[leftie]

I think you nailed it.

WTF are you people talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite the waste of time and money these games are.

How about a game of REAL LIFE? Sure it is good to keep you neuts in your holes at night but how about a few of you breaking out and enjoying the game of life like for instance meeting your neighbors?

This is just a terrible was of talent.

Summing up all that is wrong with SWG

[patternjuggler]

The Grimwell review had a great quote from Say Anything:

I dont want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career.
I dont want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed.
Or repair anything sold, bought or processed.
You know, as a career I dont want to do that.

Nope...

[StormKrow]

...it still sucks. It's just the ground game in space. Go from A to B, kill C. There's a great deal of potential, and the game COULD be truely great. Is it now? Let's just say I get more excited picking out socks.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why play this when it obviously sucks.

Play City of Heroes, a good Online Game

Nothing has changed, well not entirely

[SmallFurryCreature]

You see they fixed some bugs but don't worry, they added them back with JTL plus a lot of new ones.

You will have had the hologrind (if you don't know, count yourselve lucky.) We have the FS grind.

Sadly I am not as smart as you, I am still hooked. Whoever doubted the evercrack jokes, they are real. It is an adiction.

Re:Nothing has changed, well not entirely

[MrBigInThePants]

I left just as the hologrind was starting.
I learnt about it by seeing an afk wookie standing in a certain low rank, mob-path brawling humanoids over and over again. (he was "there"(afk killing) for hours) I found out he was cube collecting.
It was great for me because I would sell them for mega cash. I never was tempted by jedi, although I would have liked to be one. I just assumed from the rest of the game that they would be buggy and broken and require enourmous amounts of money, so I would wait till my char was a higher level. (I was right!)
It is sad because I really hoped the developers would pull this off. They had some great ideas - the interface design and skill system was original and very cool once you got the hang of it.
I was even slightly tempted to give it another go if this expansion was any good...but that is just not going to happen now. :)