What was so bad about SWG?

[TalkingDinosaur]

Wrong

 

Second life was not star wars. No empire vs rebellion. No t21 or e11 blasters. No stormtroopers. No x wings. No chance to burn an ewok village down. No chance to kill sand people settlements. No chance to fight on behalf of the empire or rebellion. No chance to be a bounty hunter to possibly have marks on actual players. No chance to have a business selling clothing, weapons, armor, starships, starship components, buildings, etc. in the star wars universe.

 

Basically no other game now lets you live, fight, and get blasted in the star wars universe like SWG did. There was no prescripted story as to what your character was about. It was entirely up to you, the player.

 

And again, SWG let you do so much, all in the original trilogy's setting. The game had many faults when I played in 2004-2005. Yet I have never found an MMORPG since that provided that kind of great experience, along with great people.

Govenrment came and took my baby. Boo hoo.

 

You want SWG again? Make a Star Wars mod for Sims and poof SWG 2.

Edited April 14, 2012 by TalkingDinosaur

[Bluerodian]

Govenrment came and took my baby. Boo hoo.

 

You want SWG again? Make a Star Wars mod for Sims and poof SWG 2.

 

Lacks other players.

Lacks crafting.

Lacks space.

Lacks different playable species.

Lacks controllable vehicles in general.

Lacks multiple planets.

Lacks PVP (see lacks other players).

 

You fail at sarcasm.

[mokkh]

It wasn't terribly terrible but (in my opinion) it also wasn't holy grail of sandboxes that some make it out to be. Combat system was meh, although the target reticle through the shoulder thing is going on in titles like dcuo now.

 

Space was the best part of my swg experience, but even it was drawn out since 75% of the time was spent getting to waypoints to set off enemy spawns. You could just launch off a planet's docking station and mess with other players but i don't remember "getting" anything out of it other than space combat kicks.

 

Questing involved picking missions with big beams of light and waypoint map arrows that showed you where to go, similar to swtor despite what the naysayers say about this game being on rails. You could go wander aimlessly for hours on end though, the pro-sandboxers are right about that. The only problem with succumbing to wanderlust was... short of being drunk and/or bored i never had a reason to. There was nothing much of note outside of cities other than abandoned player houses with trophies, vendors, and what not inside.

 

When I played the server(s) I made characters on were largely deserted outside of mixed faction spaceports on places like tattooine. Never grouped with anyone, never even got to chat with more than 1 or 2 people in the time I played. As an aside, the running jump animation was hilarious to watch/do, very stiff character animations even for games of the time.

 

There were also all kinds of lore "what the f?"s happening with Solo and the like barking orders at you on the tutorial/starter area space station. I saw what they were going for, and it just kinda came off trite in its execution.

 

Mind you all of my observations come post nge so understand its a view from that prism. Like all things man made it had its flaws but I don't regret trying it out, certainly was not the worst mmo gameplay I've come across.

 

My 2 cp.

[Naina]

It was a great game and if they hadent shut it down i would go back in a heart beat, atleast i could be a wookiee there

 

I had 5 accounts when SWG shut down. I started the first month it was out. If it were still up I would have 6 now. Ironically, I do not see myself playing SWTOR at the end of this year.

[Naina]

SWG was the game that created all others and surpassed everything previous. From Beta to December 2011 it was my personal second life... In the beginning there were no speeders, houses, no space, just alot of running from everything "red" and time consuming. At launch there was what 26 different professions where one could have 2 to choose from. And the classes gave different skills. Buggy, lag, and constant patching. After things settled down the devs made an error that changed the game with combat upgrade causing such an uproar that folks left in droves. Those that remained had to deal with the deathknell of NGE which argueably ended SWG's rein as the best MMO supplanted by WoW (a cookie cutter of SWG) but with devs that listened to their subscribers. SWG had superior crafting, space pvp where you could bring friends on your ship to man turrets, and ship controls. I was a droid engineer and a 6 time ace pilot. I did the ground game too because the planets were abundant and with constant action. At least on the server I played (Bloodfin). I miss my bunker and the 2k in items I stored mainly crafting components. I had vendors and had close to a billion credits when the game shutdown. No disrespect to those who enjoy WoW, but WoW was and never will be SWG. As someone previously said, SWTOR is a game where SWG was a virtual world. That sums up my experience.

 

 

 

Again "SWTOR is a game where SWG was a virtual world. That sums up my experience", exactly my sentiments

[Naina]

Whoever said it was a subpar game never actually played it. IT was a great sandbox game.

 

What most ppl are referring to was the CU upgrade "combat upgrade" or the NGE upgrade "new game enhancement" which completely ruined the game.

 

It was more or less had a bad dev team which ruined the game

 

Personally, while I did like the original better, I don't think NGE was as horrible as people make out like.

 

Also, I have a suspcion NGE was a prototype for the system here. Yes, yes, I know different companies but we know Lucas Arts keeps a hand in things... A narrowly defined set of professions based on the Star Wars universe makes it much easier to design something like SWG heroics around. The same goes for a cattle gated linear storyline game like this one.

 

One thing I can say, at lease SWG never nerfed using medpacks in combat <rollseyes>

[LemmingLeader]

Govenrment came and took my baby. Boo hoo.

 

You want SWG again? Make a Star Wars mod for Sims and poof SWG 2.

 

I take it you don't know what an MMORPG is...

[Sharn-]

When your watching a Star Wars movie and the camera is panning across a room or desert, what ever, and there is some random nameless unimportant guy or girl that isnt even credited to the movie for the role they played. Thats the guy you played in SWG. Edited April 16, 2012 by Sharn-

[LemmingLeader]

When your watching a Star Wars movie and the camera is panning across a room or desert, what ever, and there is some random nameless unimportant guy or girl that isnt even credited to the movie for the role they played. Thats the guy you played in SWG, the nobody the camera never focused on and wasnt credited in the movie.

 

That very basic idea of that was a lure of the game. Why? Complete freedom. There was no pre-established story that you had to follow to progress. There was no pre-established adventuring order of the planets. There wasn't even a pre-established notion as to what exactly your adventure was going to be based on the skills you picked (Pre-NGE SWG was a class-less game, it was based on the Skillpoint / Template system). The game didn't penalize you because you decided to try adventuring, living on planet C when some other game is blatantly telling you that you should be on planet D.

 

And yet, despite being an "unknown" in the Star Wars universe, you had players that became proud of:

 

* Their reputation as a good PvPer.

* The trophies and collectibles they've acquired throughout their adventures and now proudly display them in their houses and ships.

* The success of their business in either weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, chef (yes, that existed in SWG), shipwright (starcraft building and parts upgrading), architects, etc.

* Regarding the above point, crafters could take pride in their reputation on the server. Us adventurers used to argue as to exactly who the best weaponsmith, armorsmith, etc. on the server was.

* Mayors taking pride in the Player City of their charge: Making sure the city is looking/laid out decent, facilities maintained, and the politics / business side of ensuring local crafters are happy to live in and do business in your city. Because business in your player city means credits.

* For being an "unknown" you can still be a fighter on behalf of the Empire or Rebellion in the Galactic Civil War. And this Open World PvP often raged between settlements in the very same worlds the rest of the player population resided and adventured in. How cool is it for a regular PvPer to witness a PvP battle raging between Imperials and Rebels in the dunes of Tatooine or the plains of Corellia? Back and forth, in the wilds or in the cities, the Empire and Rebels fought. And if you wanted to, could have been a part of it.

* You can take pride in your ability as a Starfighter pilot. Upgrades were involved in the spacegame, but make no mistake there was alot of controls, alot of options involved in good piloting. It was an even playing field in space, and good pilots in space PvP were reknown with the other fliers on the server. Oh, and you also had multicrew spacecraft, not just things like an X-Wing or a TIE Fighter. You could have multiple players on larger craft like the YT-1200 Corellian Transport, where players can man the gun positions. Fancy that...

* Believe it or not, there were alot of Imperials that desired to be that anonymous looking Stormtrooper. I was one. We used to have Imperial trooper guilds solely wearing Imperial uniforms and trooper armors.

 

So again, despite being that "unknown" guy in the background for a scene in a Star Wars flick, SWG did a better job on letting a player live out their OWN adventures than the majority of MMORPGs did. Because the game gave the players the tools and the options to forge their own adventure.

Edited April 14, 2012 by LemmingLeader

[Bluerodian]

When your watching a Star Wars movie and the camera is panning across a room or desert, what ever, and there is some random nameless unimportant guy or girl that isnt even credited to the movie for the role they played. Thats the guy you played in SWG, the nobody the camera never focused on and wasnt credited in the movie.

 

That was the whole point. You weren't one of the big names in the Galaxy, you were one of the movers and shakers, the backbone that made the galaxy work. Did it ever occur to anyone why some of the topline Imperial armor you could get was Stormtrooper? That's because that was your role. Nameless Stormtrooper number umpteen-bajillion.

 

I liked it that way because it presented the Star Wars universe in a more grounded form. You could still have the big Movie-style experiences, but like the characters in the movies it was based upon luck or hard work.

 

Me, I was a shipwright and loved every minute of it.

[Aveon_Star]

SWG was an amazing game, that truelly was another life you lived, not just a game you played. You actually earned your place there. TOR is such a simplistic game compared to it. Now I have been in on many of the arguements over the changes, but bottom line was some changes were good and others were bad. If one could go back, I would have nge content with pre cu profs. the profs were the only good thing about pre cu.

 

But at the end of the day I would take NGE over TOR any day. but hey project swg is doing well, you should check on it from time to time, and the old ways are doing well in swgemu. they are releasing the new worked over code very soon and are close to having a stable server. If you are lacking the discs, ebay, they are cheap. Ill be playing TOR till PSWG is up and going.

[DogMeat]

Great sandbox game, right up until the NGE update.

Killed the game for me and many others.

[DeutschGamer]

Because we don't need a virtual world to lose ourselves in, that's time wasted when we could be accomplishing something in real life. A game like SWTOR with instant gratification and relatively quick learning curve is much better off for someone who has their priorities straight.

[LemmingLeader]

Because we don't need a virtual world to lose ourselves in, that's time wasted when we could be accomplishing something in real life. A game like SWTOR with instant gratification and relatively quick learning curve is much better off for someone who has their priorities straight.

 

Some want more depth and options in their gaming.

 

Just because you like staying in the shallow end of the pool doesn't mean everyone else does too.

[OceansEleven]

SWG was a game where you logged in, went to the bar, hung out, got drunk, then went off shooting people. Seriously though, it was a game where you pretty much could do anything you wanted, like you were living inside that universe. Sure, most of the features sucked, and you had either super insanely buffed or non buffed pvp, and you didn't want to be in the non-buffed crowd. But, it was fun to just be able to do anything your mind could think of.

You could actually roleplay like back in the day D&D, not what the kids call roleplay today(being in character. Thats not what roleplaying is. Roleplaying is thinking up stories in your head and playing them out like a movie.) We would make up stories and play them out. We thought up new scenarios every week, all of us would get together on vent, and we played the stories out and it was a continuis story line that each week would connect the story further. It was fun having battles on foot and in space against another guild.

[TKMaster]

Hear, hear!

 

I agree with the argument that if you are going to post negative feed back then please do so in a factual manner. We all know SWG had its faults as does every new ground breaking idea that man brings forth. Took the Americans a number of years to break the sound barrier, men died in the attempt. My point is the original SWG dev team had a game plan and it was going to be magnificent. SOE destroyed it so we ended up with second best. But even that second best was absolutely ground breaking for its day... Yes we are talking pre-WoW, pre-Second Life **spits at both**.

 

TOR is great, I am actually loving it to an extent, I usually keep away from WoWzor games and have a hard time accepting the WoWzor mentality... But TOR have something here, I agree to some extent that it is WoW (to state again I have played WoW) in a new wrapper but it's Star Wars... Let's hope the Dev's dont break what they have started and Bioware stand by the product and Dev team 100%.

 

I would love to see Bioware bring some of the old SWG specifics into TOR but I think we have to accept that SWG died and we now move on with TOR.

 

If some one re-invented SWG as it should have been I would be back over there like a shot, the EMU doesnt cut it alas.

 

Some great posts here and thanks to all, I have thoroughly enjoyed walkign down memory lane. Anyone remember the Dancer Drama wars at Theed Cantina on Bria Server? KinKi et al all claiming the cantina, folk used to flock there just to sit n watch the public chat go mental Fun times.

 

Are you really saying SWG is one of the most ground breaking ideas mankind has ever had?

 

I thought i knew fanboys but you sir are beyond delusional.

[Pathlight-]

Plenty of opinion flying around this thread, so here's another.

 

MMO's have 2 basic design styles : the theme park (as popularly originated by Everquest) and the playground (as popularly originated by Ultima Online).

 

In a theme park you turn up, get on a ride (quest), finish it, then look for the next ride. The more rides you go on the more you level up allowing you to go on more rides. The rides are more or less the same for everyone who goes on them. The strength of a theme park comes from the number of rides it has, and in order to keep players around who have been on all the rides you make it so that some of them become more intense the more times you go on them. Notable theme parks - EQ, WOW, SWTOR... basically everything not listed in the playground description.

 

In a playground you're rarely, if ever, given exact instruction of what to do. Instead you're in an environment with rides you can use as you see fit : want to jump off the swings? Go for it. Walk up a slide the wrong way? You bet. A playground's strength comes from the people in it, as the people come up with new and innovative ways to use the playground. As you use parts of the playground more, typically, you become better at using them - there's no real notion of a level, you can visit any part of the playground any time you like. Notable playgrounds - UO, SWG and EVE. That's it, there have been no more (please add to the list if there's one I'm missing, but I honestly think that's the total).

 

From my perspective the biggest difference between the theme park and the playground is that in a playground the most dedicated, creative and inventive players become famous throughout the community from their exploits - many of which are designed to engage with other players (ie the community make the content). In a theme park, the famous players are the biggest bullies : they either lead the biggest guilds, or are the most prolific at PVP.

 

SWG's creative lead, originally, was Raph Koster who had previously been a designer on Ultima Online.

 

SWG had the potential to be the greatest MMO ever made - you got to exist in the world of Star Wars! Not this (admittedly enjoyable) half-world of SWTOR, but the real one with stormtroopers and X-Wing fighters and Darth freakin Vader. Most importantly, you only had one character slot. There were no alts in this world unless you paid for a second subscription. You had one life to lead, and the freedom of the Star Wars universe in which to lead it.

 

The problem was that an awful lot of players didn't want this much freedom. Dropped into the world the first question was "what should I do?" and in a playground that's a question you need to answer for yourself, but the game built in mission terminals (badly) to appease the players and the resultant experience was pretty dull.

 

Money was very hard to come by as the game was originally designed for the players to own the economy : you needed a weapon from a crafter you earned it by harvesting hides for that vendor. Combat players didn't like that much so the dull mission terminals started paying out increasing amounts of credits.

 

These players were the combat classes, and as they gained levels the amount of PVP started to increase. Unfortunately PVP swung wildly in the nerf-boost scale and the resultant experience was pretty bad.

 

Combat players had a tendency to see the completion of a profession as "the point" where the game had been designed in such a way that every skill along the way to the completion of a profession was valuable - completing it wasn't necessary, but the killers out there went for the end above all else, by grinding.

 

Looking for a challenge beyond the grind, these players were at the front of the queue asking why they couldn't be Jedi (at a time in the Star Wars universe where there were two - Luke Skywalker and Yoda), so Jedi were introduced. Badly. So badly in fact that it destroyed the balance of gameplay that existed before, as players who so desperately wanted to be Jedi were forced to play multiple classes in order to get their kicks.

 

Meanwhile there were those of us not playing combat roles, or at least not being too bothered about combat as a whole. We were architects, dancers, weaponsmiths, musicians, image designers and politicians, and we were creating a world. Unfortunately for those players who were being creative they were dependent on there being a fresh supply of players to use their creations - whether by purchasing goods, sitting in the audience or casting votes.

 

The combat upgrade destroyed the combat experience for a lot of the killer characters, and they left. Ironic really as it was intended to appease them.

 

The the new generation experience came along, because SOE in their wisdom thought the game was failing because it was too complicated, so they dumbed it down, effectively destroying all the characters that existed, forcing them to be something that previously they weren't.

 

This drove away a large number of the remaining players.

 

Where did they go wrong?

 

They ditched Raph Koster before the combat upgrade, and along with him went his vision for how the game should be - a world populated and owned by players who, over time would gain more tools with which to define the world. In his place they started responding to the players who were making the most noise - those who weren't on-board or simply didn't get the original intent for the game.

 

Those players who were actively involved in towns, ran cantina events, talent shows, vendors, guilds or were enjoyably involved in the galactic civil war are the ones who miss it. Those with an axe to grind, and I've nothing against them at all - they just wanted the game to be something it wasn't set up for, are the ones who focused on combat and getting the the end of their profession.

 

My favourite recollections from SWG are the weekend we spent running kaddu races at our town (Gold Beach City), the evening spent watching a terrible talent show in the cantina, the moment we managed to place our city hall, the week spent decorating the town, the reactions of people to our religious cult parading through Coronet, the fact I had to be rescued from the local wildlife all the time after our relocation to Lok... there are more but you get the picture.

 

I was an architect, shipwright and politician with no combat skills whatsoever, and it remains the best MMO experience I've had - even though I played for half the time I did the game it beat to that position, Ultima Online. I never complained once about the game, never was my opinion, or those who played like me, heard in all the changes that were introduced to appease the others - the same changes that ended up driving the majority away.

 

 

TL;DR?

Don't listen to the players. They know not what they want.

 

 

I've never played SWG but this post makes me wish I had.

[LemmingLeader]

Are you really saying SWG is one of the most ground breaking ideas mankind has ever had?

 

I thought i knew fanboys but you sir are beyond delusional.

 

What was that zinging sound? Oh, it was an idea flying right over you at supersonic speed.

/facepalm

Edited April 15, 2012 by LemmingLeader

[Sniperrecon]

Because we don't need a virtual world to lose ourselves in, that's time wasted when we could be accomplishing something in real life. A game like SWTOR with instant gratification and relatively quick learning curve is much better off for someone who has their priorities straight.

 

You can have ur priorities straight and still live in a VR world. Trust me , i've been there

 

You can only work so many hours a day , so many days a week. And believe me when i say , if your wife would prefer you going out to a real bar and getting so drunk you can't/won't answer her phone call , instead of taking that 6-10 hrs a weekend night you'd usually spend at the bar , then you won't be married long anyways and you never had your priority straight.

 

I spent alot of time in a combat zone , and during my "off hours" , as if there ever were any , i lived in this VR world. "10 on , 10 off and 4 to sleep , we can catch up on sleep when we die" was out saying,

 

Instant gratification is whats wrong with the youth and this nation as a whole. Believe it or not , some of the values these people talk about are values we lack IRL and is why most the "older players" were and still are drawn to it , and why companies should listen to them/us. Its not the young ones who will end up leading the nation in the near future , its the ones who learn the values we held/hold dear. Hard work , dedication and respect , no matter if its in a VR or IRL

 

Thats just my 2 cents tho , and TBH , not worth more than anyone elses.

[TalkingDinosaur]

Lacks other players.

Lacks crafting.

Lacks space.

Lacks different playable species.

Lacks controllable vehicles in general.

Lacks multiple planets.

Lacks PVP (see lacks other players).

 

You fail at sarcasm.

[TalkingDinosaur]

I take it you don't know what an MMORPG is...

/implying SWG is a game where you play as a virtual Uncle Owen.

[Bluerodian]

 

You also fail at overused memes.

[TalkingDinosaur]

You also fail at overused memes.

No u.

[Onyx]

Alright, here goes.

 

Yes I played it. Through beta. Through the pre-CU era and into the early stages of the post-CU era, and it was a subpar game and it wasn't a sandbox title. Not in the least. It was a conventional Might & Magic clone mmo with messed up combat and a legacy of neglect that lead to a massive overhaul which alienated the bulk of the original player base.

 

In other words, you played the live game at the beginning for less than 2 of it's eight and a half years. Barely 20% of it's lifespan.

 

Many of your initial comments don't apply when actually describing much of the game--a clarification that wasn't included. The last three or so years were vastly different, more polished, and more well-rounded. Most of those comments hadn't been applicable to the game for many years. In fact some of them, such as HAVING to get buffed in order to do any PVE were never true.

 

Rather than trying to tell folks who never played that's how the game was, the truth is that you were describing how the game was in the beginning.

[LemmingLeader]

/implying SWG is a game where you play as a virtual Uncle Owen.

 

You played what you wanted in SWG. And the options were there for you. Not like many other MMORPGs, including SWTOR where there's really only combat, combat, and only combat, and nothing but combat.

 

Even the space game in SWTOR doesn't give you freedom and options to do what you want. I mean, holy jeez, you can't even pick what direction to fly.