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Deep Thoughts On The SWG Revamp
The always thoughtful Terra Nova has a look at the recent Star Wars Galaxies revamp from a group with a long view on the role of Massive games. From the article: "Unfortunately, the live management team seems to have ignored another long-standing criticism of SWG by many observers: that their design and implementation process is a disastrous mess. Never more so than with the NGE: whatever it is conceptually, in practice, it's roughly on par with an alpha build of a MMOG. Or did they ignore it? It's just possible that SWG's latest flaming car wreck resulted from deliberately driving over a cliff. I'm normally deeply suspicious of conspiracy theories. In the case of SWG's NGE, though, there are really only two possibilities: that there is a deeper agenda or that the live management team is well beyond cluelessly self-destructive, out in some outer void of fecklessness. "
Gamers get pissed when things never change, but riot when they do.
Or
people get pissed when things never change, but riot when they do.
Take your pick.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
SWG's development team is composed largely of individuals who worked on Ultima Online at OSI years ago. It is they who created the horrendous messes that were UO patching and, these days, SWG patching. The similarities are striking when one looks at the two games. Both UO and SWG have had duping issues, both have had problems with player structures and guilds, both shift the hot spots for experience, money, etc. every single patch.
These guys have some great ideas, they really do. They have a problem with implementation that needs to be solved if they are to ever create a game that stays fun without having to be completely overhauled every 2 years when subs fall through the floor.
One, is that if you play an MMO, you're paying for a consistent (more or less) game world. The experience may change over time, but generally it'll be fairly consistent. Completely gutting everything ... not good.
/. Q&A with Smedley to be interesting - it was very clear that the one hand doesn't know what's going on with the other, and yet, they are still somehow managing to keep this sucker alive.
Two, is that this is pretty interesting from a game design challenge aspect. I played SWG way back when it first launched. I've sampled the Combat Upgrade, and I'm debating sampling the NGE - not because I'm interested in playing the game again, but because I'm interested in the concept of the whole MMO overhaul deal. It's kind of like how people who aren't terribly interested in getting plastic surgery done can still be fascinated by watching the procedure on a Discovery show.
From an entertainment standpoint, I think SWG is a miserable failure. One person I know said that it was a spreadsheet with a 3D interface, and that's about as apt a description as any I could think of.
From a game design standpoint, as a learning experience, as an example of what kinds of things can go right and what kinds of things can go so very, very wrong, as a window into the MMO business world, it's interesting. I found the recent
I think that, at one of those schools that's now offering a degree in game design (or whatever they're calling it) SWG would be a very fine bit of learning material.
Too bad they broke the game, though.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
As I have said here before, I believe NGE is the release of SWG 2. Instead of dividing their player base into 2 games they have to support, they are forcing you to play the new one. They saw what happened to EQ2 at AC2, both of which were assumed to be the successors, and neither of which ever exceeded the original in popularity. This time around, they thought they'd just overwrite the old game so that it's impossible for you to stay.
SOE's biggest problem is that they make very boring, tedious games that are no fun to actually play, but give the player a sense of advancement and accomplishment. When EQ players think about moving to EQ 2, they see their max level character and all they've been through to get him where he is. Doing all that again wouldn't be fun, it would be work.
So this is their new idea. It's just no surprise that it was an utter disregard for the players from the company who teleported a peaceful (and very reasonable) protest into space. Way to go, SOE.
I downloaded the 10-day trial for this game. I found it to be quite a bit of fun, except for the fact that the tutorial wouldn't realize I had done what it asked, until I quit the game and went back in. I walked up to the medical droid, and nothing happened. I entered the Falcon, and nothing happened. I destroyed all the TIE fighters, and nothing happened. All of these things were instructions from the tutorial. How can we be expected to pay a subscription fee for such a broken game?
42.
- You're not paranoid, they really are after you.
The Star Wars franchise is just too hot of a commodity to pass up. It's worth billions and has billions of people who know what it is. Blizzard can't hold Star Wars' jock. What Blizzard can do is create a much more stable and playable game.
Maybe Sony should focus on making SWG 2 and leave SWG alone. They need to let it go. Get a good new project manager and a new good software architect and start with a new team from scratch. New graphics, new gameplay, keep what worked, toss what didn't. Two years dev time and SWG 2 could be released just as WoW is getting old and stale. Ready for Christmas '07!
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Is that those changes should have been there since launch. Of course, it's quite easy to say this at this point. Too many professions was a challenge they weren't able to overcome. The big sandbox concept was a good idea but they left their players hanging with no reward and no impact on the world. The skill system was a good thing but poorly implemented with big balance issues (balance being important since the Galactic Civil War, read PvP here, was supposed to be the end game). Surely others games wanting to use a skill based system will be able to learn from SWG. I played from launch until pre-CU. I'm now looking at SWG as a brand new game. Of course, a brand new game is full of bugs, have balance issues, ... If the game survive, it will probably become a fun experience for those joining in a couple of months or 1 year after NGE. As for me, I'd really like to play in a Star Wars mmorpg but I came to see that this game is NOT a Star Wars game.
yeah! Let's argue on the Internet...
I don't expect it to be as "fresh and exciting" as day one. I just mean to say that with World of Warcraft it doesn't take very long (by MMO standards) to hit level cap. You can blast through the early game in a few months. I didn't even start playing until about 5 months after launch and I got to level 60 in about 4 months. Keep in mind I also wasn't rushing the game, my character had cooking and fishing maxed out as well as the normal skill set.
When you hit the high end game rewards become very hard to come by. Maybe there is too little grind in the early part and too much in the high end.
After 60 it goes like this:
Run the lvl 55+ dungeons to get your "set" of items. You will be looking at an average of an 8 percent drop rate for your items per run. If the item does drop you will need to roll on it with everyone else in the group who is the same class. So you can look at doing those dungeons quite a few times (at 1 to 3 hours each run). And each item is an incremental improvement over the gear you are likely to have by lvl 60 anyway.
Run Molten Core, Black Wing Lair and Zul Gurrab. These require an organized group of 20 or 40 players. Once again when that mad loot drops you will need to roll. Or you may just need to run the raids withough any gain at first in order to get "dragon kill points" before you can get any items. Being in a large guild is somewhat of a prerequisite, with all the joy that usually brings (player drama, military organization, must be available to raid at specific times get dropped from the guild etc).
If that's not your cup of tea other options include:
PVP - you can try to get honor through PVP to earn special items. If you want to get to the top ranks be prepared to spend a lot of time in game. PVP is not always active, so you may spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for a game to open up. And if you are PVPing in the level 60 bracket, be prepared to face a core team of organized players with epic gear. Better go back to doing the MC runs if you want to be competetive.
Crafting - the highest end of the various crafting skills can make some great items. You will need to earn faction with NPC groups before you can learn to make them. How do you get that faction? By running certain quests over and over again generally. And once you learn how to make the item, getting the materials to make them can take an tremendous amount of time.
As to time to move on? Yeah, pretty soon it will be. Most of the reason you keep playing is friends and guild mates in the game. Not so much the mechanics of the game itself. I recently had a handful of real life friends pick up the game, so I'm having fun playing with them for now.
To Blizzard's credit they have been adding a lot of new content over the past 6 months. I just hope we see more stuff that casual players can have a good time running. Not everyone has the time for the high end 40 man raids.
It will be interesting to see how the next round of MMOs (D&D Online, Conan, Middle Earth etc.) respond to the juggernaut that is World of Warcraft.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
All the people complain about the NGE, but I actually enjoy it. A lot. I dunno what else to say other then I enjoy it....
Yay, I have a sig.
Not meant to be a troll, but ...
Seriously, why is anyone still playing SWG?
Go out and try a new MMO. Stop running around in the same body, pounding the same keys, fretting because of the same stupid game management that launched the game in a beta state. Free yourself.
It's not that damn hard to get started again in a new game, and you know what... you'll have more fun being a newbie and seeing a fresh new world as a level 1 than you have as an uber jedi running around the same damn planets collecting more crap to put in a building that few people have ever seen.
This whole NGE situation just cracks me up cause I had a jedi in the pre-combat upgrade days. I played since launch and eventually reached the jedi status that was still rare then. It was fun for a bit but the game was old, tired and consistently buggy. I thought SWG was dying a year ago so I sold my jedi, but now I see it is truly dead. When SWG first came out myself and some RL friends had great times just exploring the worlds, trying out different professions, and eventually creating cities and milita's (milita's lasted...oh about a week). I was a Master Creature Handler with 3 rancors under my control at one point, that was sweet! But of course like everything in SWG it got nerfed. That is really the story of SWG, they nerf every cool idea down to nothing and now the people who for some reason stuck around are screwed. Thank you Ebay!!