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For Those That Missed It..
RobbHood
Member Posts: 58
The games still has some fun and if you are a Star Wars fan, its not a bad place to be. But here is something I posted back when the NGE came out.
I still play from time to time. There are things to do and see.
"The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group’s “Planet Side” testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over 8-10 different games.
I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to here the accounts of things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to be a part of this.
I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The Corellian plains ands the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.
The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc…
The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.
The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.
Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.
Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went “hot” hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.
Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.
I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in a camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few new I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.
Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.
Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing, when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more “Star Warsy” scene then a fight breaking out in a Star Wars bar.
You didn’t have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert. NPC’s could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town. For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time o be extra careful. But if laying low was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun Bunker, etc… The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.
New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend’s lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.
You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours… and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.
Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.
For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm’s End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend’s list and log off.
Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times."
Comments
Very nice read. I missed those times ...experiencing the game about 8 months later. Wish i'd been there at the beginning...but then again...Glad I didn't have a game I would have loved..ruined by SOE and Lucas idiocy.
A very captivating post. You made me wish I had been there.
Sniff.....
Haven't thought about Pre-Cu for a long time....a long time. Your post made it all come back in a flash!
Coming too close to nightsisters, speeding away with the speeder on fire and my heart up my throat. Chilling with some of the coolest entertainers. Learning the medical profession from the top Docs in Theed. Squilling with joy as our yet inexperienced band of brothers saw the Tusken Executioner standing on the hill looking down at us - then screaming in terror and dying as he owned us and we realized he just obliterated 2/3 of our strike group before we even knew what was happening. The infamous Bestine-Anchorhead corridor and feud- getting our Rebel Alliance asses handed to us by some Imp players who knew their PvP
. The first camp&tent and people willing to help you and give you advice - most of them having just one rule: teach what you learn to others when you're a vet and see a newbie. I never quite forgot that rule, to me it summed up the quality of the community in those early days.
Dritzz Darkwood(ret.)
Questionable Doctor and reasonable Carbineer
55th Rebel Alliance Rifle Regiment
Tactical Deployment: Dantooine
RIP pre cu SWG
Yeah man... I started playing SWG the very very first day it came out. Definitely my favorite mmorpg then... when jedis were rare and you needed to actually work for it.
/sheds tear
Agreed, had a similar experience in EQ1. It really was about the expierence of the people and what could be in that game. Now logging back in, it just kinda feels empty. The best times you can have are with the people not the game itself. That was the true meaning of an MMO. Being able to share a world together with other people.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I (like many others) started the game when it first came out, the game was so fun with so much to do. In pre-cu SWG, you were lucky to even see a Jedi.
To this day I don't understand why SOE changed the entire game and thought it was a good idea to do so. Allowing anyone to be a jedi and getting rid of my favorite part of the game, the creature handler.
Great post, reminded me of some really good times, RIP pre-cu SWG.
Why?
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
god i miss that game. havn't thought about it for a long time. great post. i still think it was the best MMO ever made because of that diversity.
The greatest community ever in my opinion. This is the number one thing I miss about it and I can't seem to get into any mmo's today becuase of that. The new generation mmo's will never compete with the original community of SWG.
I think I just got a little choked up.
I think it ruined alot of players for future mmorpg's.
I still havent found a new one.
I bought almost everything but nothing as good.
Hopefully 2011 will be the year.
I would agree, but the problem is, games lack the social tools to allow it unfold.
Seriously, what game out there lets me run around for hours on end just visiting towns hoping to find something cool to my collection for a nice price, or something I haven't seen in a while that I wanted to get my hands on? None. I loved shopping in the game, it was fun.
Games aren't social hubs anymore IMO. They are all about Kill + Loot=big epeen. MMO's were created to make worlds that we lived and breathed in, not games that we killed and looted everything in, that was just part of it. Games do not have that aspect anymore.
I never really played SWG but what Kilun stated in above sums up the problem with newer MMOs.
You can wish for pre-CU but the issue with MMOs is post WoW.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
Err... wow! Very well written and I think represents the views of many of us from those times.
I was the 7th Jedi to ding on Eclipse... I had the support of a PA like I had never been a part of in my life. We did everything together. When I unlocked Jedi after the 4th holo and 32 professions... it was one of those gaming moments in life that actually affacted me forever. I decided to get into the gaming industry partly because of that moment and because of this game.
I fell in love in SWG, I fell in love with people, places, moments. Which was so damned silly because after all, it was just a game. But that didn't seem to matter. SWG had a way of grabbing you in and not letting go.
I'll always remember my first little house on Tat... my first profession, the nights in the Cantinas, the hunting parties on Dath. The shopping trips, the buff lines, the pvp that actually had a point sometimes. Anyone remember the story archs?
I think I'll miss the original SWG forever. I know it wasn't perfect, but it was the closest to perfect for me as a game as I've ever found and played. When CU and NGE hit, I think it literally broke my heart and I think I've only managed to go back twice. Maybe one day again but doubtful any time soon.
Juke Joint Jezebels forever!
Important Information regarding Posting and You
*sheds a manly tear*
You know, I usually avoid talking about it just because I've done it before, it's always the same and the memories are set in stone, so they are the same stories to tell. I wanted to quote someone's post here and do a kind of "I completely agree with you" statement, but I'd have to quote the whole damn thread.
See when I read posts from other vets I just can't help but realize that this is probably the most sorely missed MMO I've ever stumbled upon. I started out early, in SWG Alpha even, as I was part of a fansite team. I still got the CDs here which SOE sent me back then for that occasion. Needless to say that I loved every minute of it. I could tell tales of a thousand adventures and situations I got in, but one of my most fond memories would have to be from shortly after the launch. Forgive me cause my English isn't that good.
I was just talking to people in Bestine on lovely Tatooine ( always the planet I started and lived on, feels like home
) when we decided to go out on an expedition to Lok. We've stood in front of the spaceport and it didn't take too long for us to find a bunch of people willing to accompany us. So we set off and it was a fantastic night, needless to say a dangerous one too as we roamed the surface of the barren planet that was filled with all kind of atrocities. We had to rest - and as usual then you had someone set up a camping site, which by the way already made you feel relaxed with that little fire and those folding chairs there. There were doctors mending our wounds and dancers and musicians entertaining us as we were talking to each other and thinking about what to do next.
In the end, we'd return with a great experience behind us and exhausted from the adventure I made my way to the into the Anchorhead cantina, which was filled to the brim (even though it was such a tiny city in the outskirts) with dancing Twi'Lek and lusty customers sitting there and just relaxing a bit. I remember getting some girl to show me some moves as I tipped her and she'd ask me about my day - so I told her. I was sitting there, surrounded by noisy chatter, enjoying some nice dance moves and good tunes played by a professional band who'd perform at many occasions for a little fee, too. Just then some fellow rebels ran in and warned us of an impending raid on our city by the Imperials heading south from Bestine....
I know this was a lot of "old man story time" now, but I just wanted to show that I, too, know how dearly you guys must miss this game and everything it had to offer - and all the things it did not force you to do. I'm not a person to dislike combat or PvP, but damn, you had the choice - and that's what was so awesome about it.
I agree with the fellow saying that games like these are not made anymore, but I don't really understand it. I can only assume this is connected to the MMO market having opened up to the "broader side" of gamers many years ago on a large scale. Now 90% of all the MMORPGS I play - and I tried way too many sadly - are pretty much the same and offer nothing innovative, no chance to pursue your own dream or do you whatever you want. They're merely themeparks you grind through mostly. I spend my days idling about in Eve Online now and occasionally trying to find a new game that gets my hopes up, but to be honest I'm done being excited about anything because experience has proven that to just lead to big disappointments as another 30-40 bucks go down the drain.
It's like having tasted the best burger in the world - and now all you can find when looking for something similar is a McDonalds.
Exactly how i remember this game - No other mmo has came close to the swg experience we all remember
Well said this is what i miss most from MMO's now. I use to enjoy picking up furniture for my house in SWG. Come home from work shower change and log on and think hmmm i need a new wall piece or few guns mounted on my wall or i must re-arrange my lower bedroom. Sometimes I'd not even fire my gun for 2 days as i was well into re-arranging.
SWG i miss you
"He's no good to me dead."
... Its probably a game that will never be forgotten, the fact that it was the players that defined the game, is i think, its biggest success, the community of SWG was without doubt, the best one i have ever encountered, as varied as the gameplay was, so were the players, SOE may have created the tools, but it was the players who created the game, maybe thats why we took it so personally when they pulled the rug out from under us.. much as i would like to see the game restored to its pre-cu status, i think that the one thing that cannot be 'repaired' now is the community, like WoW, it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing, never to be repeated.. only 'echoed' ... really enjoyed the the OP's tale, have to say, the adventures we create for ourselves, are so much more rewarding, and fun, than pregenerated, prescripted, pre-whatever' storylines that try to replace originality and creativity, that are in no way a replacement for social dynamics of a truly unrestricted, game. CCP have done this very successfully with Eve, who knows, what might have been, if SOE had supported this more in SWG, than their poorly thought out attempt to boost 'sales' to WoW levels.. it has to mean something, if after all these years, SWG is still remembered, for what it was, rather than what it has become..
Ahh Those days will be missed.