SWG Pre-CU question

bboneheadd · February 2009

Can someone please explain what that update did. I hear peopple saying Pre-cu all the time but I'm not sure exactly what happend so I'm abit curious

arrisb · February 2009

You asked for it, so here it is.......

The words below are not mine, I have simply copied and pasted but it is a brilliant explanation of Pre-CU.

Please note that nothing "happened" whe Pre-CU was live. Pre-CU was the original version of SWG.

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"SWG started in July 2003, a whopping 5 and a half years ago! During

the run up to its release, the jedi profession was still shrouded in

mystery. On release many players that where adamant that they would

become a jedi, quickly forgot about it, and concentrated on the

immersion and shear volume of content that swg offered. However there

where still a few that vowed to become a jedi, even tho non of them

had any clue of how to do it.

Weeks and months past, players became part of the swg world, making a

name for themselves either by crafting or pvping, or just "making

their own way in the universe". However still no one had figured out

how to unlock a jedi! The jedi profession was such a selling point for

SOE's game that many questioned weather or not it was actually in the

game yet, as such, in October 2003, SOE released holocrons into the

game, that when looted, would give players a step in the right

direction towards becoming a jedi (to this day noone knows if the jedi

profession was introduced to swg, before, or after the release of

holocrons, in my opinion it was after, as I think it was still not

ready).

Holocrons where introduced and people started looting them, the first,

second, third and fourth holocron, told you to master a profession,

the fifth, told you to carry on your journey alone. You then had to

master one last profession, but you had no way of knowing which it

was. This last profession was referred to as your 'silent' profession,

there is speculation, but man people (including myself) that soe

increased the number of silent professions, in a bid to stop so many

people unlocking jedi, by the time the jedi revamp of publish 9 and

10, most people where mastering between 28 and 31 professions, before

unlocking their jedi, and noone was unlocking after 5-10 proffs, as

was the case when holocrons where first released. Once the village

came, if you had not already become a jedi, you where given a certain

amount of credit towards becoming a jedi, depending on how many proffs

you had mastered so far. If you unlocked you FS character slot between

publish 9 and 10, you had to wait until publish 10, before you could

become a jedi.

Once the first jedi came about, armour and buffs where not as

prevalent as they where at the end of pre-cu, that meant that their

job was much MUCH harder. Much like regular proffs, jedi had 2 types

of experience, lightsaber exp and jedi exp (regular proffs had weapons

exp and combat exp) when a jedi used his lightsaber to kill a

creature, he would get between 3k and 5k lightsaber exp, depending on

the creature, and 10% of that would be jedi exp, considering th jedi

needed 3x more jedi exp than lightsaber exp, this made his job quite

tough, however once he got to a certain level, he could use the force

to kill creatures and get 100% jedi exp, however he had to cope with

using more force, and taking longer to kill a creature, it was still

faster than using a lightsaber alone, and if he got himself into a

sticky situation, he could simply use his lightsaber.

The death penalty was tough in the beginning, you had to suffer exp

loss, and skill loss (no negative exp) AND permadeath (if you died 3

times, you had to re-create your FS character, meaning you lost all

skills, items and character attributes.) once soe realised that noone

could cope with the severe penalties of permadeath, they quickly

removed that idea, and opted for just exp and skill loss.

Another thing that had a hand in the jedi revamp, was the inability to

reach the summit of jedi master. The jedi proff had 3 tiers, padawan,

knight and guardian (dark jedi was dark jedi apprentice, dark jedi

knight and dark jedi master), each tier had a 'so-called' master box,

which led onto the next tier, each master box required a large amount

of exp, however once you got to jedi guardian, the master box was

titled 'jedi master' and required apprentice exp, which soe in their

infinite wisdom, gave jedi no way of getting apprentice exp, and no

jedi on any server had the foresight to get his/her apprentice exp,

prior to giving up all 250 skill points for the jedi initiate box.

This meant that anyone referred to as a jedi master pre pub 9, was

actually in reality a 4444 guardian.

The post 9 revamp brought about many changes to the jedi proff, all

for the better, although many believe it was a serious nerf, and 4444

guardians where way more powerful than any post publish 9 jedi, since

I never played jedi pre-pub 9, I cant comment on this, however I will

say that due to the inability to wear armour, post 9 jedi could not

solo many high end mobs, such as krayt dragons or nightsisters, due to

the fact that they hit too hard, however 4444 guardians could.

The main changes was the introduction of lightsaber damage which could

tear thru any armour, jedi robes which gave a force bonus but no

damage mitigation (jedi where restricted from using lightsaber

specials, and force specials, they could use the default attack with

their lightsaber, but this would result in a 50% damage loss, but due

to the lack of defences of a jedi initiate, using armour was quite

common, until a player got the novice lightsaber skill), another

change was the introduction of 5 jedi skill tress, of which only half

where available to any jedi, due to the skill point requirement, this

gave way to jedis having different templates, and variation of play

styles, the 5 skills where lightsaber tree, defence tree, healing

tree, powers tree, and force enhancement tree, many view master

lightsabers to be necessity in pvp, rather than a preference, and

healing 4004 was also needed, if you where to have a fighting chance

on the battle field. In time the skill loss sytem was removed and jedi

would only have to worry about losing exp, this meant that any jedi at

full template, had insentive not to die, and many jedi knights had 10

million negative exp. Once a jedi had 250 skill points invested in the

jedi skills, he no longer needed to grind exp and could take part in

the frs.

The frs (Force Ranking System) was a system in which jedi could

improve his/her skills, through pvp. Players could progress throught

the ranks from jedi knight to jedi council leader, each rank had a

certain amount of positions on it, so there was only so many positions

available at a time, and if the stage above you was full, you would

have to wait for a member to either progress, or drop out of the frs,

before a position became available to you. Each rank gave you more

force, more effectiveness with you powers, you got a new robe at a few

points in you progression, but not at every rank. To enter into the

frs, you needed to complete the jedi knight trials, this was a series

of 20 quests, half way through you would choose if you wanted to be a

light or dark jedi.

The unlocking system also changed from that of pre-pub 9, instead of

mastering professions, you now had to do a series of quests, the first

quest was to gain certain badges. After this an old man would visit

you and lead you up to entering the village of Aurillia, after you

gain access to the village, you then have to speak to different

villagers to train in fs (force sensitive) skills, the villagers would

then give you a quest to carry out, after each quest, providing you

have the correct exp requirement, the villagers would train u in one

of the FS skills, once you had 6 lines of fs skills (one line was 4

skills from the bottom of the tree to the top) you would be given your

exit quest (note you could only complete one quest per week, and each

quest would lead to 1 line of fs skills and since you needed six

lines, this would take 6 weeks before you could even contemplate

becoming a jedi, and that was only if you managed to get the exp

requirement, which was a lot!) the exist quest was to defeat a dark

jedi called mellachae, this was a tough mission and probably not

soloable, I completed it with 2 fully templated jedi, and one of them

died in the process, after deafeting his body guards you had to

destroy his power crystal that where healing him (all while he is

hitting you down with his big red lightsaber), once done you had to

take down the 100k HAM monster, while he is tearing thru ur armour

like butter.

Once defeated you loot his corpse, (sometimes he had a rare item on

him) and you then begin your padawan trials. The padawan trials

consist of ten tasks that you must complete before leaning jedi

skills, the last task is to craft a lightsaber, this becomes your

training lightsaber, and you are now able to get jedi exp. Lightsaber

exp was removed with the jedi revamp, and jedi would now get between

500 and 1200 jedi exp pre kill, depending on the level of the creature

he/she killed. You are given an npc to train your skills from (much

like pre-pub 9 system) however instead of creating a whole new

character that is a jedi, your main becomes a jedi, and your other

character becomes 'a normal' with the option of training him/her as a

jedi also.

That is the basic details of life as a jedi pre and post pubish 9, oh

and one more thing to add, pre-9 jedi had no lots, they where unable

to place a house. Please feel free to ask me any further questions you

may have about the prof, I will do my best to answer them, if I don't

know, ill try and find out.

P.S.

visability remained the same pre and post pub 9, however pre-9 jedi

had to cope with TEF, this came into effect when they used force

powers or lightsaber specials, and they became attackable to anybody

around them, this made sure they where alot more secretive, than the

pre-pubescent jedi running around post-9, that showed off thier

lightsaber to as many people as they could just so they could

'compensate'"

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I think that about covers it.......

arrisb · February 2009

Actually, that explains the Jedi system!

LOL

Oh well, maybe someone can do better.

Mysta · February 2009

How good it was before and after is and always will be everyones own opinion. I loved it, I loved the freedom, the tools to do what you want, the skill system, and the community.

What happened that everyone hated:

Example: You're playing a game, one day you turn on that same game, only, it's a new game, who cares how good or bad the new game is, you want the game you were playing back.

To answer your question, what changed is the entire game, nothing stayed the same except the graphics and a few class names. From 32ish professions, to .. 8? And probably worst of all, it killed the link in the community that kept what people were left.(Originally)

ketrine · February 2009

The CU was different from the NGE. The "Combat Upgrade" worked within the original system of skill trees with a finite number of points to spend to reach the top of one or several trees.

http://www.swgcharacterbuilder.com/swg-cb.php

The "New Game Experience" or NGE replaced the skill trees with levels 1-90 and eliminated many professions in the game.

bboneheadd · February 2009

Nice read, But thats not exactly what I meant, should have made that question abit more clear, what I want to know is what was the update that ruined SWG why did it make the game so horrible.

ketrine · February 2009

I added a link to my other post that shows the skill trees before.

It changed it so much that the game we had signed up to play was not the same game. Imagine if you paid money to play EQ and without warning they changed the game to be exactly like EVE instead. You would be pretty miffed, no?

here's that link again: http://www.swgcharacterbuilder.com/swg-cb.php

bboneheadd · February 2009

Originally posted by ketrine

I added a link to my other post that shows the skill trees before.
It changed it so much that the game we had signed up to play was not the same game. Imagine if you paid money to play EQ and without warning they changed the game to be exactly like EVE instead. You would be pretty miffed, no?
here's that link again: http://www.swgcharacterbuilder.com/swg-cb.php

So they changed the old skill tree to 9 new professions ?

ketrine · February 2009

Yes.

In the old game you had 250 points to spend , and you could put your points towards any skill tree even if they were not similar. For example you could master Doctor and Droid Engineer, then decide you wanted to be a Smuggler and a Chef, then change to being Teras Kasi and Entertainer. You could not become a Jedi unless you mastered a lot of other professions first.

tvalentine · February 2009

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38466.html

this has alot of info about what happened and what was SWG Pre-cu

bboneheadd · February 2009

Thanks everyone for your info, I now have a better understanding of what happend to SWG

jsw40 · February 2009

I would say the short answer for why the NGE ruined SWG is that the developers took a complex, freeform game with tons of options and tons of opportunities, and dumbed it down to a generic, run-of-the-mill MMO with the Star Wars label attached.

You could be a Teras Kasi Master, mixed with a Fencer and call yourself a melee specialist.

You could be a Pikeman, a Swordsman and a Master Brawler and call yourself the same.

Now, the closest thing to a melee character is a Jedi. There's no ability for the player to forge their own amalgam of a character. It's all preset, pre-determined and precluded nowadays.

JMadisonIV · February 2009

Originally posted by bboneheadd

Nice read, But thats not exactly what I meant, should have made that question abit more clear, what I want to know is what was the update that ruined SWG why did it make the game so horrible.

Imagine that your favorite first-person shooter is say...Call of Duty 4, and you put TONS and TONS of hours into it and had a lot of fun playing the game.

now, imagine that Infinity Ward decided to suddenly, and without warning, apply a mandatory patch to Call of Duty 4 that changed the game from a first-person shooter, into a Turn-based JRPG.

that's pretty much the equivalent of what the NGE did to SWG.

Abrahmm · February 2009

Originally posted by JMadisonIV

Originally posted by bboneheadd

Nice read, But thats not exactly what I meant, should have made that question abit more clear, what I want to know is what was the update that ruined SWG why did it make the game so horrible.

Imagine that your favorite first-person shooter is say...Call of Duty 4, and you put TONS and TONS of hours into it and had a lot of fun playing the game.

now, imagine that Infinity Ward decided to suddenly, and without warning, apply a mandatory patch to Call of Duty 4 that changed the game from a first-person shooter, into a Turn-based JRPG.

that's pretty much the equivalent of what the NGE did to SWG.

Pretty much. They castrated SWG.

It wasn't only the removal of the Skill trees for 9 boring, I mean "iconic" classes. They took out the traditional combat system for some whacked out, completely borked fps style combat system. They increased the run and combat speed to crack addict levels. They made Jedi a starter profession, something a lot of people spent months unlocking. They introduced a plethora of new bugs. They totally screwed up all the stats on the weapons, making great guns bad, bad guns good. They put a severe XP penalty in for grouping, and forced everyone to run quests in order to level.

It was a ridiculously bad decision which nothing good came from.

admriker4 · February 2009

I must be the only serious crafter here.

Lets not forget what SOE did to the largest crafting community of any MMO.

They made loot better than player crafted gear. Why bother paying credits to a crafter for armor when you could now loot better ?

Also they removed decay from the game so items never needed replacement. No decay meant crafters were totally useless now. one and done was the story now so crafters left the game in masses.

They also lumped individual crafting classes into generic trader classes. A droid engineer became a weapon crafter also. A chef became a tailor too.

They removed the effectiveness of resources. Before the NGE, stats on resources would have a major impact on th outcome of a crafted item. Now stats dont have the same effect. For example, pre-nge an item made with 975+ stats was immensely superior to one made with 750 stats. NGE changed that.

The NGE dumbed down the way you crafted and tweaked items. Before the NGE, you could put experiment points into max damage and less into speed. Or you could go max speed and less damage. For droids, I could work on health points first then invest points into damage output. Again, the NGE dumbed it down to where I could no longer effect the droid's health points or its damage. Any crappy resource I use would give the exact same stats for a droid. Before if you had played the game for 2 years and had saved the best resource to ever spawn you could make the best crafted item. After the NGE any new player could essentially make the same quality gear.

The NGE took out the interdependence with combat players and crafters. Before the NGE a combat player could loot enhancement items. These items could be traded or sold to a crafter who then could make a superior crafted item. A standard DL20 rifle could be made better with looted krayt tissues. A composite chest armor piece could be made better with gorax shards.

In short, the NGE completely DESTROYED the player run economy. Many of us hardcore crafters had built Malls with dozens of our friends' vendors in them. We negotiated deals with other players for resources and enhancement items. We built the community of SWG.

I miss it very much. Im not playing any MMO to this date as nothing compares

bboneheadd · February 2009

1 more question, obiously LucasArts knows that they made a big mistake with that update so why can't they bring back pre-cu?

nickelpat · February 2009

Originally posted by bboneheadd

1 more question, obiously LucasArts knows that they made a big mistake with that update so why can't they bring back pre-cu?

Because it's SOEs choice and SOE doesn't want to I guess

Torik · February 2009

The thing about pre-CU SWG is that it was a very ambitious design that SOE never managed to convert into reality. They put in a basic system that promised a massive amount of freedom in how you played and then failed to support it. Too many of the professions did not work right or were too limited. Once you advanced past the basic gameplay you realized that there were no tools in the game to evolve further. Your character was pretty much stuck and the freedom ended.

I guess someone at SOE took a look at how much resources they would need to fix the existing problems and add tools and content to evolve the game and decided that instead they would get rid of the troublesome parts and simplify and streamline stuff.

eagles12555 · February 2009

didnt it basically make it easier to become a jedi? when i played SWG pre-CU, i saw maybe a dozen people with lightsabers. and i always wanted one, and finally i made myself get one! and i got a blue one and then the update came and i quit

it was the best mmorpg i ever played. so much content. i remember killing krayts and getting pearls and selling them for a huge profit

Ozmodan · February 2009

Actually the combat upgrade was an improvement to the game. Prior to the CU anyone with the massive doctor buffs could solo just about any content in the game. CU fixed that, but had some issues. Instead of resolving those issues they implemented NGE which completely destroyed the open ended parts of the game.

The worst thing you can do to an existing game is change it from skill based to a level based system. That will probably go down as the most heinious crime ever in the MMO genre.

So I think most of us would rather have a pre-NGE server than a pre CU server. The game was better after the CU than before.

Elikal · February 2009

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Actually the combat upgrade was an improvement to the game. Prior to the CU anyone with the massive doctor buffs could solo just about any content in the game. CU fixed that, but had some issues. Instead of resolving those issues they implemented NGE which completely destroyed the open ended parts of the game.
The worst thing you can do to an existing game is change it from skill based to a level based system. That will probably go down as the most heinious crime ever in the MMO genre.
So I think most of us would rather have a pre-NGE server than a pre CU server. The game was better after the CU than before.

I agree. People here just mix up pre-CU, CU and NGE too often. I found the CU an improvment, and I never wanted a pre-CU server. Personally, I didnt find the entire NGE bad, it was more bad implemented, like suddenly taking away classes like CH and the like, or taking away the meaning from Entertainers. I too found the skill based system better, but I thought adding Jedi as normal class was a good thing. This unlocking thing was a total no-fun way to unlock. It was the most grindastic thing I have ever seen, and it had zero to do with the idea of becoming a Jedi. If the unlock would have been stories, moral choices, something to really have meaning, but it was just a very long grind for people with no RL. Replacing that with a fair and square class system wasnt so bad IMO.

Thunderous · February 2009

Pre-CU offered the most freedom.

CU offereed the best combat with freedom.

NGE just plain sucked, it took away freedom and added tons of new bugs, most of which still exist.

Had they stuck it out with the CU and fixed the issues SWG today would be a flourishing game for sandbox players. Instead they lied to their players and built a bad WoW-ripoff behind their backs. The game is dead and the only sandbox is EVE.

SOE/LA screwed up badly with that one.

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