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Star Wars Galaxies Overhaul Continues
With the combat update to Star Wars Galaxies coming up soon, you would have thought the design changes to the game would have slowed. Instead, the development team is making major changes to just about every system, with looting changes, a complete revamp of the PVP system, the addition of a Planetary Control Meta Game to the design, and for good measure a well thought out Veteran Rewards program is going to be added to the game. Criticism of the game's real or percieved flaws aside, you have to be impressed with the team's dedication to the virtual world.
Who wants to bet the developers have been playing World of Warcraft and have discovered things that work?
"Hey Bob! Check out this looting system!"
Now get to work!
I hadn't logged in to SWG in many months. I let my house and factories rot after I got frustrated because I'd worked so hard to craft unique and high quality items, and couldn't sell any of them, and many times there were bugs with the vending systems that made matters worse. On top of that, I was generally frustrated with the design of the skill point system. It's all too easy to max-out points and then have nowhere to go, and this can be especially bad if you're pursuing a dicipline that isn't in high demand. All that work for nothing.
I recently logged back into the game to check things out. It was a ghost town. No wonder they're scrambling to fix things. Based on the absence of players in game, I'd say SWG is hemmoraging revenue at this point. They need to do something fast to keep the game from sliding into the void.
I always felt that SWG had potential, but the implementation of this universe is profoundly flawed. This MMORPG suffers from many of the same ailments the worst MMORPGs have, specifically an advancement system that becomes redundant and boring very quickly, high end gameplay that becomes tedious and time-consuming to organize if it's even remotely interesting, a market system which is terminally broken, and a universe that is so heavily based on preset corporate or mythological constructs that exploration isn't as exciting because you know what to expect, and last but by no means least, a tremendous disparity between new and veteran players that serves to intimidate new players and frustrate old ones.
... Star Wars Galaxies is still just a bunch of boring planets with boring professions and no real reason to advance at all. I played the game for nine months of beta and three months of retail and all I really got was twelve months older. I've been following it for ages and I'm still not sure what the real purpose of the game is. I know MMORPGs are suppose to be less linear then they're single player counterparts, but SWG takes it to the extreme. They plop you down in an empty, boring, EMPTY landscape and say "Go!" and then expect you to have fun.
.. okay, I can't really complain about free stuff. But geez, none of this stuff really excites me, and I was hardcore into Star Wars Galaxies before beta.
Faction bases? They're exactly the same as before except some of them will have defenders! Looting changes? What loot? Crap you sell at vendor for 5 credits in a world where a new shirt will cost you 1000? PvP changes? Isn't that how covert and overt factions worked before, just without the ability to accidentally become overt? Veteran Rewards?
If it weren't for the Star Wars licence, I don't think SWG ever would have made it out of the starting gate. It's just not a fun game.
Now, World of Warcraft... Blizzard did it right.
Was that I constantly felt like I had to log on
,the weight of the world felt like it was gone.
-I needed to get on to check my factory
-I have to go one and check to see which of my items were sold
-Have I collected my resources from my farms?
Then a shared multi-guild base was razed by a bunch of 12 year olds when no one else was on.
I ended up quitting since it was affecting my relationship with my wife.
Then right after I had quit, the game