SWG what did they change?

Dewm

 

I never got the chance to play it when it first came out. nor have I play'd it sinse but I see/have seen alot of people complain and talk about a update/patch that they put out, and now the game sucks.

So just wondering what did they change that made it so bad? and is it really a bad game now, or just not as much fun as it was.

 

(I ask because i am so bored right now waiting for FFXIV to come out and thinking about trying it)

(I beleive the servers are still around)

greed0104

I think the biggest one is removing almost every profession from the game. What was it 32? Now it's 9. I'm not really going to go into more detail. I got over it years ago. The game was good before but not the messiah of gaming most vets see it as. Just wait for some Vet to give you a long dramatic response.

Whipp555

A young Jedi named Darth Smedley who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Sony hunt down and destroy the Pre NGE Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your game. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Smedley was seduced by the dark side of World of Warcraft.

 

rikilii

It actually always sucked.  It had some very compelling aspects (PVP was fun and the player-driven crafting economy and housing system was pretty interesting), but overall it was and continues to be a horribly broken mess that has almost nothing to do with Star Wars other than the artwork, and it lacks many of the basic features found in most other MMOS (like an actual 3D world engine).

The biggest change was that they went from a skill-tree based profession system with no formal classes or levels to a WoW-like class system with linear levels.  In the old system, you could master one or two professions (e.g. Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Architect), or dabble in many of the 30 or so that were available.  In the new system, you have to pick a single class out of nine available ones.   Aside from crafting professions, however, there were just a few "templates" in the old system that were really viable in PVP (and there was really no measurable challenge in PVE), so the "real" difference is debatable.  In the old system, becoming a Jedi was an absurdly arduous grind, but Jedi were insanely overpowered and only vulnerable to one or two other types of characters (which changed pretty much every patch -- thus the term "flavor of the month" being used to refer to whatever was the most powerful non-Jedi template at the time).  This basically meant that you pretty much had to have no life so you could grind out a jedi or constantly regrind your template in order to be viable in PVP.  In the new system, Jedi is a starter class, just like any other.  I don't know how the balance is currently among the 8 combat classes.  When I quit, Jedi was still pretty dominant, but one of the reasons they claimed to have made the change was to make it easier to balance the classes.  Perhaps they actually followed up on this.

They also changed the typical MMO style targetting/auto attack/special attack system to a half-assed pseudo first person kind of combat system, but they backtracked on that a bit later (leaving the new system in, but restoring the old system to some extent).

Finally, they added a new, pretty extensive area for new players with tons of quests and more scripted content.  In the original version, they pretty much plopped you down in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but kill vorpal bunnies and giant chickens for xp until you were powerful enough to go to a differnent planet and kill bigger vorpal bunnies and gianter chickens for xp.  This was pretty much the only thing positive about the changes.

That's about it.  Pretty much everything else is the same.

tupodawg999

Originally posted by Dewm


 
I never got the chance to play it when it first came out. nor have I play'd it sinse but I see/have seen alot of people complain and talk about a update/patch that they put out, and now the game sucks.
So just wondering what did they change that made it so bad? and is it really a bad game now, or just not as much fun as it was.
 
(I ask because i am so bored right now waiting for FFXIV to come out and thinking about trying it)
(I beleive the servers are still around)

 

There may have been a lot of things but the only one I remember was the change to pre-set classes.

In the original system you built your character from a selection of skill blocks - rifle, scout, medical, entertainer etc which you could combine in the that way appealed to you. In fantasy terms it was like a design your own hybrid system. If you imagine a "basic" and "advanced" block of say melee, magic, healing, stealth then there'd be four choices of both basic and advanced melee/magic/healing/stealth but also basic/basic combinations of melee-magic, melee-healing, melee-stealth, magic-healing, magic-stealth and healing-stealth. And that's just with four skill building blocks. Original SWG had more than that.

There were "sort of" classes in the sense that similar minded people picked a similar collection of skill blocks but it wasn't forced and the number of blocks meant there was a lot of variation.

Then they changed it so there were nine or so pre-set classes. This might not have been so disastrous if they'd data-mined the character info and built their nine classes around the nine most common player choices but it seemed more like they wanted to pick characters from the films and then make a generic MMO class from that character e.g bounty hunter or smuggler. My little horse faced scouty guy didn't fit any of their classes and because i'd enjoyed playing him so much I had no interest in starting over.

And Sony hasn't has a penny from me ever since.

However I did try the SWG trial a while ago for old times sake and I don't think it's that bad as a kind of generic MMO with a star wars skin. A lot of the planets, mobs, armor still look ok and hopping into a space ship acts as variety from the ground game.

Interesting

If you really want to know about this chapter of the history of MMORPGs

 

You can still find the topics about it here on MMORPG.com, just use the search. Topics with over 1 thousand posts.

tvalentine

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-viii-star-wars/38466

ktanner3

Originally posted by rikilii


It actually always sucked.  It had some very compelling aspects (PVP was fun and the player-driven crafting economy and housing system was pretty interesting), but overall it was and continues to be a horribly broken mess that has almost nothing to do with Star Wars other than the artwork, and it lacks many of the basic features found in most other MMOS (like an actual 3D world engine).
The biggest change was that they went from a skill-tree based profession system with no formal classes or levels to a WoW-like class system with linear levels.  In the old system, you could master one or two professions (e.g. Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Architect), or dabble in many of the 30 or so that were available.  In the new system, you have to pick a single class out of nine available ones.   Aside from crafting professions, however, there were just a few "templates" in the old system that were really viable in PVP (and there was really no measurable challenge in PVE), so the "real" difference is debatable.  In the old system, becoming a Jedi was an absurdly arduous grind, but Jedi were insanely overpowered and only vulnerable to one or two other types of characters (which changed pretty much every patch -- thus the term "flavor of the month" being used to refer to whatever was the most powerful non-Jedi template at the time).  This basically meant that you pretty much had to have no life so you could grind out a jedi or constantly regrind your template in order to be viable in PVP.  In the new system, Jedi is a starter class, just like any other.  I don't know how the balance is currently among the 8 combat classes.  When I quit, Jedi was still pretty dominant, but one of the reasons they claimed to have made the change was to make it easier to balance the classes.  Perhaps they actually followed up on this.
They also changed the typical MMO style targetting/auto attack/special attack system to a half-assed pseudo first person kind of combat system, but they backtracked on that a bit later (leaving the new system in, but restoring the old system to some extent).
Finally, they added a new, pretty extensive area for new players with tons of quests and more scripted content.  In the original version, they pretty much plopped you down in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but kill vorpal bunnies and giant chickens for xp until you were powerful enough to go to a differnent planet and kill bigger vorpal bunnies and gianter chickens for xp.  This was pretty much the only thing positive about the changes.
That's about it.  Pretty much everything else is the same.

Well said. I never thought the old game was all that either.The bugs and lag were never fixed no matter which incarnation you're talking about.

 

The last time I played, Spies were almost impossible to hunt because they could disapear anytime they wanted and the detect cloak special almost never worked. Commandoes were probably the toughest because they hit for insane amounts of damage. Jedi was actually the easier for me of the three.

Dovregubben

What haven't they changed?

rikilii

Originally posted by Dovregubben


What haven't they changed?

 

• The housing system (except for some additions to get rid of abandoned houses with 5 years worth of maintenance on them)
• The game world
• The engine (still pretty much 2D)
• Space
• Harvesting
• Crafting

 

DoktorTeufel

Originally posted by rikilii


It actually always sucked.

 

Strictly speaking, yes, it did suck. There were so many negatives about the pre-CU game, I think it would take hours for me to list them all.

 

The miraculous thing (for me personally) is that, despite all of Star Wars Galaxies' innumerable flaws, its positive aspects actually outweighed the negatives for me... which is a miracle simply because I'm very, very picky about the games I play. I had so much fun playing Star Wars Galaxies, far more than FFXI, AO, and Ryzom all rolled into one.

 

Until the NGE, that is. I really don't have a clue how any veteran weathered that change and continued playing, although if you look back at the earliest MMORPG.com ratings for SWG from 2006, you'll see people praising the NGE.

 

God.

 

But this is Post-NGE Lament™ #25,345,964. I should stop getting worked up and quit visiting this sub-forum for a while.

BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by Dewm


I never got the chance to play it when it first came out. nor have I play'd it sinse but I see/have seen alot of people complain and talk about a update/patch that they put out, and now the game sucks.
So just wondering what did they change that made it so bad? and is it really a bad game now, or just not as much fun as it was.
 (I ask because i am so bored right now waiting for FFXIV to come out and thinking about trying it)
(I beleive the servers are still around)

 

SWG is a fun game which thousands of people all over the world still enjoy.  Download the free trial and make up your own mind.

mokoleus

there's no doubt SWG always had massive problems. the worst was when they added jedi. SOE always said jedi were in game from the begining, you just had to unlock them, but there's no doubt they were lying, and no one met the requirements to unlock the jedi slot, i think for 8 months.... stangely after a patch that morning. jedi were insanely powerful, but when they first came out, they did suffer from perma-death, and using your lightsaber in view of anyone, automactically flagged you for pvp. they were fine at first, till we found out how to unlock a jedi slot, that was the first major screw up by SOE, with just the profession grinding. that, and when they added the force village, and made us grind insane amounts xp, for something that people bitched about being overpowered. which they should have been, but it should have been impossible to get one.

basically, they took out the best thing about SWG, the ability to make a character any way you wanted, and forced you back into a standard, un-original mmo template. there used to be 32 professions, with one more called politician, that worked differently. not counting politician, you had 32 professions, each profession had four skill trees, plus the begining skill, and master skill, so thats 18 blocks per profession, so 576 blocks total, and you had i think it was 250, or so skill points to use. the skill blocks had varying costs, and certain professions had requirements to achieve them. the great thing about SWG, was the ability to make your class as you wanted. my favorite was master heavy swordsman, master brawler, master marksman, and then full flamethrower, with the rest in heavy weapons support in the commando line. anyways, here's what we use to be able to do with our character

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

this was the best system in all mmos, now it's just like the rest.