The game had a very thoughtful synergy in most elements of its design that very few games can approach. The way crafters depended on those with a combative streak who then depended on entertainers and doctor and still more crafters to maximize their effectiveness. The way you progressed your character not only allowed you to pursue gameplay that you enjoyed, it let you change it up and try new things. The game managed to create very subtle dependencies that fostered community without the heavy-handed forced grouping and "LFM, need healer and dps then gtg" setup.
It was just a very inventive game whose "gaminess" was far, far surpassed by its attempt to forge a slice of life out of the Star Wars universe.
The game had a very thoughtful synergy in most elements of its design that very few games can approach. The way crafters depended on those with a combative streak who then depended on entertainers and doctor and still more crafters to maximize their effectiveness. The way you progressed your character not only allowed you to pursue gameplay that you enjoyed, it let you change it up and try new things. The game managed to create very subtle dependencies that fostered community without the heavy-handed forced grouping and "LFM, need healer and dps then gtg" setup.
It was just a very inventive game whose "gaminess" was far, far surpassed by its attempt to forge a slice of life out of the Star Wars universe.
I don't think you can sum it any better than this. Some of the best times I had in game was hunting with my pets to get the best resources, (meat, bone, hide, DNA etc) to sell to crafters. And getting all of the hunting trophies.
1. Housing deco detail (thousands of hours of fun).
2. The fact that it was a "sandbox". (That was a type of game before wow)
3. The skill tree system was great, so of course it had to go. Slowly at first with the addition of Wow's leveling system. Then a little faster with what was left of said awesome skill tree's being removed entirely for the "star warsy" addition of wow's character creation menu.
That takes us straight into
#4! And the most defining feature of SWG was John Smedley's Rolling on the Floor Laughing at his fanbase right in the games forums. Speaking of which hey Smedley, How'd that work out for ya? Anywho thanks for the refund on obi. I hope one day you get that job at blizzard you've always wanted.
If you ever need anything please don't hesitate to ask someone else first.I'm too busyactinglikeI'mnotnaiveI'veseenitall, I was herefirst. -Very Ape- Nirvana
Just the overall complexity of the game. Even after the NGE, it was still way more complex than most games out today. The Chu-Gon Dar cube and all of it's combinations is a great example of this.
There was always something to do. If you got tired of PvP, you could run instances. Tired of instances? Work on crafting. Tired of crafting? Go work on getting the DNA for the pet you want. Tired of doing any sort of combat whatsoever? Decorate your house with all of your hard won loot, or go hang out in a cantina.
I think a lot of it had to do with everyone being of the same mind in regard to how an MMORPG was played in those days. There was none of this rushing to level cap to just to PvP, or to raid, or to jump on a gear grind treadmill doing dungeons. Everyone was content living in this virtual world and engaged evenly in all of the activities and opportunities to progress it offered. Sometimes we'd craft, sometimes we'd explore, sometimes we'd fight, sometimes we'd socialize in cantinas, sometimes we'd do a few quests, and sometimes we'd all just hang around towns under the starlit skies just relaxing and chatting it up with everyone around.
It was a block party atmosphere.
It was as much about a common mindset and community, and the activities offered by the game was the the catalyst that brought it all together. The music in the game was epic as well and did so much to immerse us in the atmosphere. I can still hear the different tunes being played in cantinas by the different entertainers while a group of dancers synchronized their dances to the beat of the music and yet others customized each others appearance . Fun times indeed.
The game you are looking for requiring no PvE completion and where you can just jump in and start mindlessly shooting at people is that way - >>>>
... it's called an FPS.
Quit ruining the MMORPG genre with your constant "PvE grind" whines.
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
The game actively promoted positive player interaction as well and non-combat activities. My favorite example (of many), and it's such a small thing but it had a big impact on people interacting with each other positively, like many games, skills had to be learned, and it had a cost. When it was time to level up a skill, you had to pay to level it up. BUT in SWG, another player who knew the skill you wanted to level up, could teach it to you either for a cost less than the game rate, or far more frequently for free. Great little dynamic. This is what I point to when people talk about how games shouldn't force socialization (and I agree!) but a good game should promote it in smart ways.
I watched some H1Z1 footage and I thought, this is precisely how I remember SWG, it was like déjà vu.
I watched some swg videos and saw no one playing....it was like déjà vu. Look i can play too.
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Most likely for a game to be "home" to SWG vets, it would need to be sci-fi. There may be some SWG players that like fantasy, horror, or other themes, but the one they all had in common was sci-fi. Other than that:
-- non-combat professions that were separate from combat professions and were a necessary part of the game; in most MMOs, crafting is secondary to the combat profession one chooses during character creation, leveling crafting is many times tied to leveling the combat profession, and the stuff crafted is pretty much worthless between level of items that can be crafted is below level of player and looted items, quest rewards, or items from in-game vendor are just as good or better than what player can craft; also, very few MMOs have non-combat professions beyond crafting
-- along with that, the ability to choose how much and what type of combat to get involved in; sure anyone that ventured beyond cities risked running into aggro unless they kept a close eye on the map but a player could have lived out the entire game in a city if they chose
-- being able to master more than one profession or go up branches from various professions until hitting skill point limit whether that be all combat skills, all non-combat skills, or a combination
-- NO levels on players; that added so much to community because people at all points of character progression could group together and get more xp as a result and low players became "stronger" as a result (took less damage from hits); people didn't have to rush to some concept of "end game" in order to be able to finally be able to group together
-- large group size limit
-- choices in how one got combat xp: with the way mission terminals were designed during pre-CU, a player could completely max out xp living out the story of someone who never ventured far from home or person could explore every part of every planet and in no pre-determined order, a player could also max out xp without missions by just wandering and killing random spawns/lairs, and a person could do any combination of these things as they chose unlike the current MMOs that tend to herd players from one zone to the next depending on level
-- player economy with vendor system (system vendors AND player vendors), being able to use a vendor in a server city to search for an item and purchase it then traveling to the vendor where the item was actually being sold in order to pick it up
-- armor and "regular" clothing, and that not being a "costume" that shows up rather than armor but each serving a different purpose, but then the way SWG was designed there was "roleplaying" or enough of a reason to take a break from combat that would lead to a reason to have non-combat clothing....even if it was just to get armor repaired; along with this the wide variety of player created items
-- decaying of items
-- multiple planets, space combat combined would be nice
-- variety of stuff to kill (pve)
-- variety of species to play
-- variation in player creation....the sliders
-- Creature Handlers!
-- etc, etc, etc.....this post is getting very long
All this talk about spiritual successor to SWG, I have seen a lot of different viewpoints on what actually made SWG, well, SWG!
To me, Star Wars Galaxies had a handful of truly unique features that if I were to consider a spiritual successor to this game, they would have to include the following:
1. A dynamic resource system. Resources were always unique and in constant flux. Each had a set of unique stats that could benefits different crafters in different ways. Most of the time it was architect fodder, but it was still fun to scour the planets in search for something truly rare and valuable.
2. The Entertainers: Classes dedicated to promoting socialization. Dancers, Musicians, Image Designers. These classes were made for the sole purpose of bringing players together in a social atmosphere. This, imho, is sorely lacking in most mmos today.
3. The Bio Engineer. To me, the beauty of this class wasnt the pets. It was the fact that SWG had a class that could support other crafting classes. Bio Engineered additives and enhancers made chefs food better, doctors medicine better etc. How many mmos have support classes for combat? Now how many of those have one for crafting too? Yeah not many, if any at all.
There are plenty more but those are just a few of the big ones for me. What were some singular features that made Star Wars Galaxies unique to you?
The Repopulation has all the same features and many more as SWG once had. Just wait for that...
Reasons or Features:
1. True player driven economy, needs to have more than 5 crafting professions and Item durability so items are lost eventually.
2. Non-Combat Professions
3. Politics
4. PvP with meaning
5. Skills vs. Levels
6. Random resource spawns
7. Tons of Character/Item/Crafting/Dmg stats
8. Player driven content/events with a light sprinkle of non-forced themepark.
9. Player housing/Cities. (However, I would had done it a tad different to help keep the NPC cities alive. I would had made use of the static NPC hosing in the NPC cities to keep them alive and limit the player cities to a very small number per server/planet.
10. I could really go on all day the game was and is still ahead of its time.
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
All this talk about spiritual successor to SWG, I have seen a lot of different viewpoints on what actually made SWG, well, SWG!
To me, Star Wars Galaxies had a handful of truly unique features that if I were to consider a spiritual successor to this game, they would have to include the following:
1. A dynamic resource system. Resources were always unique and in constant flux. Each had a set of unique stats that could benefits different crafters in different ways. Most of the time it was architect fodder, but it was still fun to scour the planets in search for something truly rare and valuable.
2. The Entertainers: Classes dedicated to promoting socialization. Dancers, Musicians, Image Designers. These classes were made for the sole purpose of bringing players together in a social atmosphere. This, imho, is sorely lacking in most mmos today.
3. The Bio Engineer. To me, the beauty of this class wasnt the pets. It was the fact that SWG had a class that could support other crafting classes. Bio Engineered additives and enhancers made chefs food better, doctors medicine better etc. How many mmos have support classes for combat? Now how many of those have one for crafting too? Yeah not many, if any at all.
There are plenty more but those are just a few of the big ones for me. What were some singular features that made Star Wars Galaxies unique to you?
The Repopulation has all the same features and many more as SWG once had. Just wait for that...
The question is will 'The Repopulation' be released -- seems I've been reading about it since SWG was still live. For some reason,can't quite put my finger on it, but repop seem somewhat less than appealing? Right now I'm good with Darkfall 2 and Planetside 2.
All this talk about spiritual successor to SWG, I have seen a lot of different viewpoints on what actually made SWG, well, SWG!
To me, Star Wars Galaxies had a handful of truly unique features that if I were to consider a spiritual successor to this game, they would have to include the following:
1. A dynamic resource system. Resources were always unique and in constant flux. Each had a set of unique stats that could benefits different crafters in different ways. Most of the time it was architect fodder, but it was still fun to scour the planets in search for something truly rare and valuable.
2. The Entertainers: Classes dedicated to promoting socialization. Dancers, Musicians, Image Designers. These classes were made for the sole purpose of bringing players together in a social atmosphere. This, imho, is sorely lacking in most mmos today.
3. The Bio Engineer. To me, the beauty of this class wasnt the pets. It was the fact that SWG had a class that could support other crafting classes. Bio Engineered additives and enhancers made chefs food better, doctors medicine better etc. How many mmos have support classes for combat? Now how many of those have one for crafting too? Yeah not many, if any at all.
There are plenty more but those are just a few of the big ones for me. What were some singular features that made Star Wars Galaxies unique to you?
The Repopulation has all the same features and many more as SWG once had. Just wait for that...
The question is will 'The Repopulation' be released -- seems I've been reading about it since SWG was still live. For some reason,can't quite put my finger on it, but repop seem somewhat less than appealing? Right now I'm good with Darkfall 2 and planetside 2.
Thats cool you found something you enjoy, but the The Repop has only been announced 2 years in 2012 not 2005. It will probably go into beta invites late 2014- or early 2015. I am fine with it as it looks to be shaping up nicely.
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
Comments
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
I don't want to break any rules here, but I am having fun.
Best feature? - player cities
Thing I remember the most when I think of SWG? - How buggy it was.
The space Battles.
The Crafting,
Housing.
One character can be anything they want to be.
The game did not hold your hand.
The IP
Exploring all the different worlds.
The comunity.
When you logged in, even the opening music set the mood. It was an immersive game and I think the music had quite a bit to do with that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_7TR-X4eFYThe game had a very thoughtful synergy in most elements of its design that very few games can approach. The way crafters depended on those with a combative streak who then depended on entertainers and doctor and still more crafters to maximize their effectiveness. The way you progressed your character not only allowed you to pursue gameplay that you enjoyed, it let you change it up and try new things. The game managed to create very subtle dependencies that fostered community without the heavy-handed forced grouping and "LFM, need healer and dps then gtg" setup.
It was just a very inventive game whose "gaminess" was far, far surpassed by its attempt to forge a slice of life out of the Star Wars universe.
I don't think you can sum it any better than this. Some of the best times I had in game was hunting with my pets to get the best resources, (meat, bone, hide, DNA etc) to sell to crafters. And getting all of the hunting trophies.
1. Housing deco detail (thousands of hours of fun).
2. The fact that it was a "sandbox". (That was a type of game before wow)
3. The skill tree system was great, so of course it had to go. Slowly at first with the addition of Wow's leveling system. Then a little faster with what was left of said awesome skill tree's being removed entirely for the "star warsy" addition of wow's character creation menu.
That takes us straight into
#4! And the most defining feature of SWG was John Smedley's Rolling on the Floor Laughing at his fanbase right in the games forums. Speaking of which hey Smedley, How'd that work out for ya? Anywho thanks for the refund on obi. I hope one day you get that job at blizzard you've always wanted.
Just the overall complexity of the game. Even after the NGE, it was still way more complex than most games out today. The Chu-Gon Dar cube and all of it's combinations is a great example of this.
There was always something to do. If you got tired of PvP, you could run instances. Tired of instances? Work on crafting. Tired of crafting? Go work on getting the DNA for the pet you want. Tired of doing any sort of combat whatsoever? Decorate your house with all of your hard won loot, or go hang out in a cantina.
SWG was the one game I never got bored with.
Well for me it was the crafting, decay, huge enviroments, social aspects, skill system and it was star wars.
I think a lot of it had to do with everyone being of the same mind in regard to how an MMORPG was played in those days. There was none of this rushing to level cap to just to PvP, or to raid, or to jump on a gear grind treadmill doing dungeons. Everyone was content living in this virtual world and engaged evenly in all of the activities and opportunities to progress it offered. Sometimes we'd craft, sometimes we'd explore, sometimes we'd fight, sometimes we'd socialize in cantinas, sometimes we'd do a few quests, and sometimes we'd all just hang around towns under the starlit skies just relaxing and chatting it up with everyone around.
It was a block party atmosphere.
It was as much about a common mindset and community, and the activities offered by the game was the the catalyst that brought it all together. The music in the game was epic as well and did so much to immerse us in the atmosphere. I can still hear the different tunes being played in cantinas by the different entertainers while a group of dancers synchronized their dances to the beat of the music and yet others customized each others appearance . Fun times indeed.
The game you are looking for requiring no PvE completion and where you can just jump in and start mindlessly shooting at people is that way - >>>>
... it's called an FPS.
Quit ruining the MMORPG genre with your constant "PvE grind" whines.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
The game actively promoted positive player interaction as well and non-combat activities. My favorite example (of many), and it's such a small thing but it had a big impact on people interacting with each other positively, like many games, skills had to be learned, and it had a cost. When it was time to level up a skill, you had to pay to level it up. BUT in SWG, another player who knew the skill you wanted to level up, could teach it to you either for a cost less than the game rate, or far more frequently for free. Great little dynamic. This is what I point to when people talk about how games shouldn't force socialization (and I agree!) but a good game should promote it in smart ways.
I watched some swg videos and saw no one playing....it was like déjà vu. Look i can play too.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Most likely for a game to be "home" to SWG vets, it would need to be sci-fi. There may be some SWG players that like fantasy, horror, or other themes, but the one they all had in common was sci-fi. Other than that:
-- non-combat professions that were separate from combat professions and were a necessary part of the game; in most MMOs, crafting is secondary to the combat profession one chooses during character creation, leveling crafting is many times tied to leveling the combat profession, and the stuff crafted is pretty much worthless between level of items that can be crafted is below level of player and looted items, quest rewards, or items from in-game vendor are just as good or better than what player can craft; also, very few MMOs have non-combat professions beyond crafting
-- along with that, the ability to choose how much and what type of combat to get involved in; sure anyone that ventured beyond cities risked running into aggro unless they kept a close eye on the map but a player could have lived out the entire game in a city if they chose
-- being able to master more than one profession or go up branches from various professions until hitting skill point limit whether that be all combat skills, all non-combat skills, or a combination
-- NO levels on players; that added so much to community because people at all points of character progression could group together and get more xp as a result and low players became "stronger" as a result (took less damage from hits); people didn't have to rush to some concept of "end game" in order to be able to finally be able to group together
-- large group size limit
-- choices in how one got combat xp: with the way mission terminals were designed during pre-CU, a player could completely max out xp living out the story of someone who never ventured far from home or person could explore every part of every planet and in no pre-determined order, a player could also max out xp without missions by just wandering and killing random spawns/lairs, and a person could do any combination of these things as they chose unlike the current MMOs that tend to herd players from one zone to the next depending on level
-- player economy with vendor system (system vendors AND player vendors), being able to use a vendor in a server city to search for an item and purchase it then traveling to the vendor where the item was actually being sold in order to pick it up
-- armor and "regular" clothing, and that not being a "costume" that shows up rather than armor but each serving a different purpose, but then the way SWG was designed there was "roleplaying" or enough of a reason to take a break from combat that would lead to a reason to have non-combat clothing....even if it was just to get armor repaired; along with this the wide variety of player created items
-- decaying of items
-- multiple planets, space combat combined would be nice
-- variety of stuff to kill (pve)
-- variety of species to play
-- variation in player creation....the sliders
-- Creature Handlers!
-- etc, etc, etc.....this post is getting very long
Someone needs a cigar
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
The Repopulation has all the same features and many more as SWG once had. Just wait for that...
Reasons or Features:
1. True player driven economy, needs to have more than 5 crafting professions and Item durability so items are lost eventually.
2. Non-Combat Professions
3. Politics
4. PvP with meaning
5. Skills vs. Levels
6. Random resource spawns
7. Tons of Character/Item/Crafting/Dmg stats
8. Player driven content/events with a light sprinkle of non-forced themepark.
9. Player housing/Cities. (However, I would had done it a tad different to help keep the NPC cities alive. I would had made use of the static NPC hosing in the NPC cities to keep them alive and limit the player cities to a very small number per server/planet.
10. I could really go on all day the game was and is still ahead of its time.
The question is will 'The Repopulation' be released -- seems I've been reading about it since SWG was still live. For some reason,can't quite put my finger on it, but repop seem somewhat less than appealing? Right now I'm good with Darkfall 2 and Planetside 2.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
Thats cool you found something you enjoy, but the The Repop has only been announced 2 years in 2012 not 2005. It will probably go into beta invites late 2014- or early 2015. I am fine with it as it looks to be shaping up nicely.
I am looking forward to Repop. The guys in charge are really cool I offered up some original music and they put my name in the contributors list
Looking forward to when the game releases and I wish them all the success they can handle hehe
That is very cool, congrats btw...
This I agree with..and the pretty much itNo matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin