Can someone please explain to me why SWG was so awesome

[Littlemayhem]

<Post opinion>

<Get insulted because my opinion was obviously fact>

<Retort with the same post worded differently>

 

IMO, SWG was a good game. Even before I started RP'ing, I absolutely loved defending my Imperial cities from some rag-tag rebels with walkers. Hanging in the cantina was fun as well. However, the crown jewel of SWG was it's community. Now, inb4 'lol all u did was walk around mos eisley', no, that isn't what I meant. The economy was COMPLETELY run by the people, along with crafting and such. I was there on the last day of Star Wars Galaxies, and I must say, I was almost heartbroken when I got the message that the server had shut down. Even if you guys think the game sucked, I always saw players hanging around together, good friends that they had had from launch. What's an MMO without friends to play it with, right? So enough of my rambling. SWG was possibly the best MMO I've ever played. No doubt, this is an awesome game, but my trophy goes to Star Wars Galaxies.

 

:sy_darkside:Littlemayhem:sy_darkside:

[Darth_Urtani]

It was not a good game.

[Littlemayhem]

It was not a good game.

 

lol brony

Kidding. Mind stating reasons why?

[decuervo]

For me it was the crafting. I was a master armorsmith on Corbantis and later Bria and getting the perfect resources along with looting special items (pre nge era) to add to the armor for health boosts was a lot of fun for me. It was a sense of accomplishment to have the finest capped armor available on the server and to be able to say I made the armor a few hundred people were wearing into battle made me feel good.

 

Also the JTL expansion was great. Those are the two things I miss about SWG that I don't see ToR being able to replace.

[Malefik]

 

Also the JTL expansion was great. Those are the two things I miss about SWG that I don't see ToR being able to replace.

 

JTL was the reason I kept a sub. for 8yrs. To be competitive in PvP you had to put some time in on looting and re-eing parts. There was a whole website devoted to listing the best of the best re-e'ed parts. We took a lot of pride in our ships and piloting skills. Hands down the best space sim of its type (twitch) IMO.

[GlaDOSowen]

I only played it for a month or so, and when I hears the servers where shutting down, I couldn't play it again, I was to scared that I would be crying on the day it ended

 

 

Gonna try the SWG EMU, looks good

[TalkingDinosaur]

Honestly I never played it. spent most of my time during these years playing either Everquest or Final Fantasy 11.

 

Not sure I entirely understand this sandbox concept

 

also heard they actually had bounties and people hung in cantinas on regular basis

 

so why did a game that sounds this awesome/immersive get tossed in the trash?

First of all the game wasn't "awesome" is was mediocre at best. The game did well in it's first year, but poor decision making from SOE sent it spiraling down. The game was on life support after 2005. It amazed me how the game was still around for 8 years even though less than 1 mil people were playing it.

[TalkingDinosaur]

lol brony

Kidding. Mind stating reasons why?

Another QQ kiddie made a thread about how he thinks SWG is superior to TOR. First off: The games are very different because SWG was a Sandbox MMO, but if you want to see why the game was so bad you can easily go on Youtube and see a lot of people's reasons why they left the game. If not you can see my review of the QQ kiddie's list here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2844990#post2844990

[GlaDOSowen]

Dinosaur, you seem to post about SWG a bunch, you must be in luv with it, but are to afraid to admit it!

[Kenlonis]

Honestly I never played it. spent most of my time during these years playing either Everquest or Final Fantasy 11.

 

Not sure I entirely understand this sandbox concept

 

also heard they actually had bounties and people hung in cantinas on regular basis

 

so why did a game that sounds this awesome/immersive get tossed in the trash?

 

Cause you could be a lazy player macro dance a class to 90 in a day then charge outrageous amounts of credits to buff people

 

If you didn't want to pay the outrageous amount the fat guy playing the female dancer would cry about it and try to get you black listed for buffs

Edited February 17, 2012 by Kenlonis

[Kaptainne]

^^This Also.

 

 

ya, that. In SWG it seemed like everything you did had a purpose. You could set up a camp in the middle of nowhere and people could come there to heal up. That is just one thing. I've played MMO's forever and the Pre-CU days of SWG were BY FAR the most enjoyable gaming time I have ever had.

[FuriousJimmy]

Honestly I never played it. spent most of my time during these years playing either Everquest or Final Fantasy 11.

 

Not sure I entirely understand this sandbox concept

 

also heard they actually had bounties and people hung in cantinas on regular basis

 

so why did a game that sounds this awesome/immersive get tossed in the trash?

 

I'm not going to bother reading through all the posts that are going to tell you probably the same thing I'm about to say:

 

It wasn't that awesome. For fanboys, they adored it because it was Star Wars. I consider myself a fairly big star wars dork and I couldn't stomach the horrible amount of game desgin flaws and bugs. People complain about bugs here, that game had enduring bugs that they knew about since beta and never got fixed in the entire time it was open.

 

They had a lot of great ideas that in practice, failed to meet expectations. But the ideas they had is why, for someone who never played it, would think the way it sounds couldn't fail.

[Deewe]

Beware wall of text

 

 

As a long time SW fan, I can say I was kinda disappointed by SWG when I logged in at launch.

 

It was far from a Star Wars experience. I used to call the game CaveMan Galaxies. You know, Jantas owning a laser armed character with a stone knife and all "dungeons" being... caves.

 

The combat was slooow paced, such as you could macro it and take the time to make a snack. Although compared to "modern" MMO you could combat and chat at the same time, this without voice chat.

 

Waiting times were too long: 10 min shuttles for a hop, at least the same to get healed/buffed. It could took up to 30 min to meet someone at the opposite of the galaxy. We had to be nearby to be able to invite someone to a group.

 

Did I mention bugs? The first few days you would have you whole inventory deleted upon dying. We could get stuck in the main cities buildings calling for help so others players would kill us, freeing our character upon cloning.

 

The bosses where mostly mobs with insane resists and HP, such as you needed to be buffed to be able not ot get two shotd killed

 

It took a looong time to level, much more than the actual pace of modern MMO. Yes levels! OK not the regular stuff 1-XX but skill boxes that needed insane amounts of experience, and apprentice experience *cough* hologrind...

 

There were no directions at all. A newcomer was totally lost upon spawning in the game.

 

 

 

In the end one could wonder why some people have good memories of the game.

 

I'd say the first pillar of SW was not crafting, not even socialization and even less combat (player bounties) it was choice.

 

There was something to do for all kind of players from PvPers to Socializers through Crafters. You could create the character you wanted to play. Although the game wasn't really kind for PvErs due to the lack of content.

 

The time sinks, the usefulness of cantinas and med centers helped socialization. In that regard player cities traded a bit of the former for a feeling of ownership. I always felt players cities and housing should have been replaced by appartments in NPC cities. Both to keep socialization at peak and to avoid the mess around the planets.

 

Nobody can't deny Pre-CU crafting is still one of the best system ever made. Did you know players asked for a miner, a farmer and a herder profession? Although, surveying, managing harvesters, sorting and organizing the resources was sometimes more like a second RL job than anything else.

 

For the customer visiting empty vendors was a pain and a waste of time. Also in a galaxy far far away in the future no postman would care delivering bought items to your house. And the open market was plagued with a price cap on advertised goods. Soon the trade would move to the forums.

 

Still the lack of levels added to the size of the groups made it so anybody would be welcome to join. From the L33t maxed PvPer to the strange Cook / Fencer through the nobb that installed the game 10min ago. Only entertainers were left in the cantinas.

 

The planets were bigs, our legs smalls. Some of us, explorers, would take others players on tours to show them a crashed X-Wing, Ben's home, the Sarlaac pit, an oasis...

 

As a doc I sometimes got tells from rangers that I never heard of proposing to gather rare meat for me. And when I asked, they explained seeing my name written on top end meds. Guess they were smarter than others

 

When we were bored of crafting or killing we would simply furnish our beloved homes. And we wish we had a /roll item left|right command! Not to say option to paint walls, open windows, move walls stairs and doors...

 

PvP, well that was something! I'm not very fond of PvP nor ganking others but when you have over a hundred players shooting at each others you can't deny it's something. What was fun is afterwards we would talk to each others and sometimes we made very good friends in the opposite faction, such as some would switch sides over time.

 

JTL was a good addition to the game but for many of us it tasted sour. The UI, flight dynamics and content was far inferior than Tie-Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. And for some others it was too complex. Still it was the first game to have both space and ground combat. Though some still look for the link between the 2.

 

 

The NGE hit the game like a Tsunami. The officials didn't announce it to prevent riots. Riots indeed happened. There were many casualities, on both sides. And I still have in mind the view of Creature Handlers with their pets out for the last time. We were all very sad and they renamed their pets in ways it made us even more sad. I'd just say RIP Jeff.

 

Funny though NGE was a bit like I envisioned a SW game the first time I heard about SWG, way before the beta. A mix of Dark Forces I and Tie Fighter with many many people around. I'm pretty sure it would have been a good game: without player jedi, with a real FPS combat system and SW content. We all know how it turned out and the disaster it became TGC *cough*. Thanks for SOE and LA.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Deewe

[SkateOnTrees]

thank you everyone for your responses by the way

 

I'm starting to get a picture on what I missed for not playing SWG

 

and honestly I'm kinda sad I never played it, I would have loved to attempt becoming a Jedi when it was actually something to achieve

[Lilamore]

SWG was fun because you could have fun without actually doing anything. I had times where i logged in, got nothing accomplished but had fun in doing so. Whether it be exploring, crafting, harvesting, Talking at the ports, ect.

 

It's like Skyrim to me. I start the game up and end up Exploring looking for secrets, or just talking to NPC's and such.

 

I guess to put it simply.. Immersion.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Lilamore

[ChewiesArmy]

The game was a great game...it was SOE that sucked. Not sure if they still are, but SOE had the worst customer service when it came to suggestions from the platerbase.

 

Basically, yhe people that didn't like pre-cu were lazy. People complained so then SOE decided to dumb the game down, by making it soloable to keep up with WoW, and destroyed it.

 

it had it's problems, but every MMO does. There will never be a perfect MMO.

[TalkingDinosaur]

Dinosaur, you seem to post about SWG a bunch, you must be in luv with it, but are to afraid to admit it!

Shhh no one must learn my secret that I keep SWG under my bed for those "special" nights.

[Oscibi]

It was awful.

 

People liked it for the relationships they had while playing.

 

Also, certain Star Wars fans will love anything if you let them build a house on Tatooine.

 

It wasn't a game, it was a big, empty world with very little to do. It just happened to be Star Wars. These are the same people that like the prequels.

 

It's all rose colored glasses. SWG was terrible.

 

hmm, I played it for the pvp. which there was alot of and it wasnt ever in a war zone, or in a place designed for pvp. it was everywhere. you could customize your spec to how you wanted to play as well.

and having the ability to pvp against a guild 24/7 even if they werent overt was always fun

 

maybe you are just more of a pver and that there was little content for.

[TheLonelyTusken]

It was awful.

 

People liked it for the relationships they had while playing.

 

Also, certain Star Wars fans will love anything if you let them build a house on Tatooine.

 

It wasn't a game, it was a big, empty world with very little to do. It just happened to be Star Wars. These are the same people that like the prequels.

 

It's all rose colored glasses. SWG was terrible.

 

I've never played SWG in my life, or even seen it.

 

I like the prequels.

 

You obviously hate the prequels and SWG, so my question is, why do you associate people involved in liking each of these things as the same group of people, when they have so little to do with each other.

 

Then you complain about rose-colored glasses, you probably think the originals are the best thing in the world huh? New things suck?

[Furiso]

pre-cu SWG allowed the players to drive the content. Thats what made it such a good game.

 

You'll get people who will say it was boring but just like real life if you go to a party and don't make any effort sure you'll have a dull time. It's player driven content afterall.

 

The entire game also had a subtle way to getting people working together, which cut out alot of the abuse and crap you see today. If you acted like a spoilt kid in SWG you would be banned from cities and basically treated as a pariah, which made getting ahead very hard indeed.

 

I'm a hardcore PVPer but the community aspect really won me over because it helped give meaning to the fights. The game wasn't perfect but despite it's flaws it's still the best MMO I've ever played.

[DarylMusashi]

It was awful.

 

People liked it for the relationships they had while playing.

 

Also, certain Star Wars fans will love anything if you let them build a house on Tatooine.

 

It wasn't a game, it was a big, empty world with very little to do. It just happened to be Star Wars. These are the same people that like the prequels.

 

It's all rose colored glasses. SWG was terrible.

 

I hate the prequels, but liked SWG. It wasn't a perfect game, but I had fun in my time there.

[SentinelThain]

I miss it.I was an elder jedi on Ahazi.I never hung around at the end coz all my mates had quit and it was sad the way it just faded out.

But the memories and friends i made was what made it so great.Unlocking jedi,building guilds and cities,pvp,space,beast master,the different planets,crafting et etc.

But it was not all good.SOE effed a lot up.NGE,SWG card game,server mergers too late,lack of expansions after Musty,and generally SOE just being ****.

I would never buy another game from that mob after what they did.

 

Anyway thats my two bobs worth.But yeah I do miss it tho I'm enjoying this game too.

[DND_Druid]

I like sandbox therefore the idea of creating a story and conflict between players was brilliant. You could have wars with other guilds in open pvp the bounty hunter system was fantastic fun if you were a jedi or BH.

 

Crafting was the best system ever in an MMo where u had to hunt for the best spawns to create the best equipment which made the economy brilliant. You could get notoriety from pvp or crafting . People would travel to your player citys to use ur trade outlets making your city a living breathing place.

 

You could decorate your house with absolute precision make interesting looks and you could display anything at all.

 

Being able to mix and match your profession gave you such freedom to play with templates . Jedi defender with master marksman or Master healer with master brawler you could do anything . Brilliant

 

Going to your city cantena and getting buffs from dancers and docs before going on a guild hunt or PVP always got people talking and mucking about and that vreated comunity.

 

All in all pre cu swg was probably the best MMo for comunity interaction and adventure. It had its problems like all real MMo's because not all things suit players from casual to hard core because those players dont mix but overall you could do anything you liked in SWG . I just wish it had friendly fire that would have made it damn near perfect . It could have done with the raid ellement of course .

 

Then they killed it with the NGE.

 

SWTOR is not anything like SWG as it hasnt got the depth for the creative player therefore it wont last as long as SWG unless they put some of those aspects into it IMHO.

 

SWG was probably the greatest star wars MMO ever because no one has made another MMo with the star wars universe yet . One day someone might and actually add some freedom and depth and create a real SW MMo . I live in hope.

[Gratulor]

I liked SWG for the community and roleplay... and space combat. Wasn't much else that kept me there. Played for 3 years.

[Darth_Loki]

I miss the crafting and the sandbox. Quit when the NGE hit and never understood why people kept giving SOE money after that.

 

I look back at my days in SWG with both fondness and bitterness and if they start a new emu server with no Jedi, I would probably play it just to craft and grind out a BH just to grief new Jedi.

 

Kauri server.