Well I re-installed it, patched it and played it.......

Stuman

And now I can categorically say that SWG as a game, is completely and irrevocably a bomb.

The movement of the avatar drove me nuts, the way the menus and UI worked drove me nuts.

I tried a fair bit of combat with a couple of respec's (even played a Jedi) and got very bored very quickly - it's still the same old, same old - but with more twitch. It was fun for about 30 seconds but after that, I found it really frustrating - and nowhere near "more Star Warsyish" (whatever that means).

Even though they have this "New Game Experience", the game to me felt very old and dated. The avatar movement was extremely annoying and I got a headache from the eratic movement of the new system (not to mention a sore wrist - something that doesn't happen to me in BF2, BFV, etc). The UI has had all of the intuitiveness taken out of it and I found the whole thing very poorly designed - and thats after spending a couple of hours playing with different setups, using the mouse only controls, etc.

Seriously, whoever designed the UI and the control system should publish their name so that future gamers can steer clear of any other games they may design. That's how bad it is.

I was pleasantly surprised to see all of my stuff was still there (as were the houses from people who left the game long before the CURB was even thought of). It gave the game a very "lived in" appearence I have to say, but it was like walking/riding through a deserted city scape. "Eerie" is a good word I could use to describe the feeling I had. "Lifeless" is probably a better word though.

Everything I had in the game was still in existance, but aside from the sparkly new decorations (that I found I couldn't target properly and hence were useless for decorations - another bug I guess) - hardly any of it was of any value. Sure most of the backpacks of resources could be used for things, I guess, but pretty much everything else was useless.

I did a bit of sight seeing around the planets and saw maybe half a dozen people in the couple of hours I was ingame on Valcyn (and this was during peak). The DWB was dead, the Geo cave was dead, ran into one or two on Dath - who commented in amazement when they saw me that someone else played the game!!!. Now I will admit that I don't have either of the later two expansions so I guess most people on the server must of been on there, but from what I would consider as signs of life (stocked vendors, decorated cantinas in player cities, etc) I saw hardly any on the base planets.

From the couple of days that I spent ingame on Valcyn, I can see that the player based economy is pretty much dead (and it should be noted that this is true on the other servers I visited and spent time on - Bloodfin, Bria & Chimerae). I know some people in here say that there are players, and more appearing daily, and they are right to a degree, but everyone I met was an alt or others like me - vets riding shell-shocked through the ruins of what was once a great game. I can remember days when visiting out of the way places like Anchorhead would mean running into literally hundreds of other players. That is a busy server.......10 people in the whole of Theed is not.

The tales of woe from the Trading community is pretty much true from what I witnessed. About the only things I saw for sale - and this was mainly on the bazaar as I could find hardly any stocked vendors - was loot and the proceeds of people grinding levels (will SOE ever get it into their heads that grinding is not "fun"!!). The lack of harvesting going on also struck me as strange. Whilst riding around I saw hardly any mineral or chem harvestors, and no fusion or gas harvs. I seriously doubt that anyone is a trader (aside from the core of pilots whose game has been largely untouched and who keep themselves supplied by alts), but considering the loot that drops, I couldn't see why anyone would bother.

Overall though, the game bored me as there was no point to it. In fact I would go so far as to say that there is no point in that game full stop. "The GCW?" I hear you cry...yeah right. What is the point in having each planet chock-a-block with bases (both covert and overt) that people can harvest faction, so that they can drop their own bases to make up the numbers? That's right, there is none. It's just another pointless waste of time dressed up as "content".

When I first played this game in beta 3, and then when the servers went live, I was amazed by the scenery and the scope of the planets. I could ride for hours and hours just exploring every nook and cranny. However, even though I know have a great video card, the graphics look very, very dated - especially compared to nearly every other game out there - and I'd include WoW in this comment much to my own surprise. Waiting a minute or so for the scenery to load everytime I shuttled into a player city was amusing for about 2 seconds and then got very tedious.

Which leads me to the games performance. Well I can't go any further without making the comment that the lag in SWG is quite frankly, atrocious!! I have yet to play a game (with the possible exception of the time a guy planted hundreds or shuttles around Jita in Eve-online and crashed a node) that performed so badly. To think that people paid good money for enduring this lag just had my head shaking.

You would think after all this time SOE/LA could fix that? Well its seems not. The amount of times I rubberbanded around empty cities - and even riding in the wilderness - was amazing. There are still a massive amount of bugs in the game, some that were around since the server went live! A case in point, I found myself stuck in a hill, I dismounted from my bike and found myself in limbo-land (log out and back in to fix that one), and another time I walked into my house, and ended up back in limbo-land unable to get out (logout and back in again)! I'm sorry but this is just one bug that has been in existance since 2003!!!.

And speaking of bugs, they are too numerous (and sometimes pathetically laughable) to mention them all. Some brought back memories of the early beta, and some I understand are being worked on - with the un-intended result of causing more bugs (hoppers self emptying at server restart anyone?).

Overall, I saw absolutely nothing that would entice me to fork over any money to SOE for their expansions, or to resub the game for the base games that I have. In fact, I wish I could somehow get them to give me back the time I wasted installing, patching and playing this complete piece of crap.

I played Star Wars Galaxies once. I played it and enjoyed it, as did many hundreds of thousands of others. This game that goes by the name Star Wars Galaxies:NGE is not that game. In fact it's not even a pale shadow of that game. In fact, the original game for all its bugs, inbalances, server downtimes and customer service problems was an infinitely better game than the twisted steaming pile Lucas Arts has foistered onto the community.

I can truely see now why this game is rated so poorly (even after LA & SOE salt the ratings) and is bleeding subscriptions. It's because quite frankly, and this is a vet speaking from my own personal experience of having spent time playing the NGE, that StarWarsGalaxies not only sucks, it sucks and blows at the same time.

There are much better games out there - its just a pity that this game is not one of them.

haxxjoo

Um... that about summarizies this games state.

Buggy, laggy and nothing to do.

scaramoosh

What drove me away is once you get to CL90 theres nothing to do :

Wish they added content tbh, that'll never happen as its never had any!

 

SWG was a game all about the community and it doesn't have any anymore.

Blister138

Definatly the worst game in the world now. I thought if some of my guildmates came back it would make it better....hells no. After convincing them to return for just a month we all realized we were beating a dead horse.

Props to SOE for completly destroying a fun community and an excellent game, Katrina couldent have done better.

Obraik

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Originally posted by scaramoosh

What drove me away is once you get to CL90 theres nothing to do :
Wish they added content tbh, that'll never happen as its never had any!
 
SWG was a game all about the community and it doesn't have any anymore.

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A number of us in my guild that have hit 90 are hunting down Glowy loot for cube combos which keeps us pretty occupied.  Every week new combos are being found, last week it was the Sher Kar entry thing and the Lava Crystal, this week so far it's been the Mustafar furniture set.  Lots of instance running is involved.   Obviously not going to be everyones cup of tea, but those of us doing it are having a blast

Aetius73

This post about sums it up. They have done a Craptacular job of screwing up the game we use to love.

I think the funniest part is gonna be when all the people with those limited attention spans this kind of game drew will drop it in a month or two once they get board with it. If the bugs have not done that already.

Odysses

I did the same thing.   I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.    I installed it repatched and I'm not really liking it.    I was never a fan of the original controls of the game.    I think the idea they were trying for was ok but it shouldn't have been used in SWG but in another game that would appeal to a different fan base of star wars that likes twitch combat.   But to uproot your existing playerbase the way that Sony did was pretty dramatic and not very cool.   

krenalor

I never tried SWG, I knew better

I never tried EQ2, I knew better

I never even would ever play an SOE game ever again. They made EQ all a raid game, and I don't trust them on anything and never will. Thats what you get when you alienate 99% of the gaming population and cater to the raiders.

stlouisarch1

EQ2 is in a much better way than Star Wars Galaxies both community and gameplay wise.. SOE Didn't screw up Everquest thankfully!

darktalez

Well said Stuman..

 ::thumbs up::