What was so bad about SWG?

[statistx]

For me it was the same reason as many other games die out:

 

Too much space for the player amount.

Like here with the low population servers.

 

also, but that may be my own opinion only: too much grinding for stuff you wanted to play.

For example: Everyone wanted to have a lightsaber when they announced a SW MMORPG and then it was kinda just something you had to really work for. Didn't look too much into it, since i didn't stay long, so no clue if that was just the expression i got or actually a fact.

Edited April 15, 2012 by statistx

[TalkingDinosaur]

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.

Cause apparently beside combat and crafting at some level. People prefer to play a game where they can make meals, clean toilets, and paint houses. Because this is what people pay $15 for.

[Ifolad]

I came into the game after NGE and i LOVED it, the only people I ever heard complaints from was those who were pre-nge who complained that their jedi could never have aggroed the majority of krayt valley and survive. I will admit that in the last 6 months of the game it was pretty fun to go solo HK just for kicks, mind you that any LSJ or properly set up DSJ (stacking dodge and crit) could solo most things in the game with the exception of phase 2 on TK and the 4 horsemen in EK by this time. The only complaints I had was the fact that I only had the 5 heroics plus the content on musty with which to farm for tokens for jewelry sets and gear. I miss being able to create beasts and 20pt hydros with 16pt mutagen on them. It was a thing of pride when I finally got the wampa dna to drop in hoth THEN got it to mutate evasion TWICE. Put it mildly the thing could not be killed by AOE's. I miss being able to hang out in my YT-2400 and decorate it with all the latest holo's and imperial furnature I could find, not to mention I created a room within a room for a meditation chamber (yes I had vaders med chair ) I miss meditating for hours just trying to get the right buff to pop b/c it always seemed I'd get the one i DIDN'T want LOL. I miss ruining rebel base busts and causing NPC's to blow up other people's speeders essepecially when they were stupid enough to have their barge or AV21 out HAHAHAHAHA. However I don't miss the one who shall remain nameless who could run through and shoot through any wall in the game.... caugh.... adazinn... caugh... loser....caugh... haha So when I could catch him flat footed or heaven forbid out in the open i'd faceroll his sorry smug-pistolwhipping *** with one of the 2 stunbreaks you could LOOT in the game and a few timely Fury's for 15k hits a piece. I miss being able to to fly up into kash space and kill teir 9 void cruisers for practice, WITH NO MISSLES, and solo'ing level 5 spacebox's for killer space loot with which to trick my opressor JSF and Nubian out with haha. And mostly.... I miss the comradere one could enjoy with one's guild while you chilled in your OWN CITY with YOUR OWN guildhalls/hangouts/ etc. I miss my city on chilastra that was completely surrounded by water. I miss my guild pickup points and faction pick up points with which myself and anyone in my guild could abuse to their hearts content and INSTA-TRAVEL all over the place. I'm sorry those of you had bad experiences with the game, in my oppinion you didn't exploit everything the game had to offer. And those of you who are pre-cu addicts, go play swgemu if you want to skill grind, make sure to tip Lil'ith well in the eisley cantina, tell her Ifolad sent you.

[Bluerodian]

Cause apparently beside combat and crafting at some level. People prefer to play a game where they can make meals, clean toilets, and paint houses. Because this is what people pay $15 for.

 

I'm guessing you know next to nothing about SWG given your false blanket statements.

[joeypesci]

One of the big problems with SWG pre-CU and CU and with the Jedi grind, is a lot of people didn't seem to see that it was a cash making exercising, to keep the hardcore people subbing. As it would take so long to get Jedi and to level the Jedi.

[Viera]

Browsing the forums, I've noticed the name SWG (Star wars Galaxies) pop up various times during a discussion - and it's usually described as a terrible title when that happens.

 

Since I never got to play the game, I had to rely on my research (skimming through Wookiepedia's page on the game) to learn about it. Turns out it had quite a few interesting features, such as housing and player-built cities, bounty hunting, diverse space activities and the feature that impressed me the most, a third-person shooter-ish combat.

 

My question here is: why is SWG considered such a sub-par game? Was it the new features that scared off players? Was it poor implementation of these features?

 

Anyway, thanks on advance.

 

Housing, sure it was neat.

 

Player Built Cities? Mostly vacant ghost towns.

 

Bounty Hunting? Wasn't ever that interesting from what I'd experienced.

 

The space was alright, but it honestly wasn't that great. That says alot, because Space was basically my favorite part of SWG but in a way I prefer the way SWTOR's works, grinding space on SWG was extremely tedious.

[pthalio]

I played SWG for the longest of any mmo that has been out before or since. What I loved was the openness and the ability to do a vast number of things. There weren't enough quests but the ones they had were awesome. I remember when the game started doing the Jabba chain of quests and being so excited. You could also keep some really cool items from quests. I eventually became a collector and used my player housing to open a musem. I spent more time tracking down hard to find or unusual items than i did in combat. My Favorite being a stuffed bantha doll from an early quest in Anchorhead.

 

I was a Dancer/Teras Kasi (on Chilastra) so i had my combat options when i wanted and i could purely socialize as well. I became a Master Dancer and buffed for free, I never macro botted.. when i was entertaining i was at the keyboard every minute. Later on I also became an image designer ( allowing players to change their ingame appearance whenever they wanted) also for free and i managed to make enough money off tips to supply my other activties.

 

I've never been big on crafting in any game but I did dabble with a second toon and found it the best crafting system i've seen.

The customization was great and as some mentioned earlier you could pick out a toon by appearance and the clothing options were huge.

 

I had some of the best times playing a game in SWG. Once early on i was grouped on Endor (which was a 'hard' planet at the time) and i was buffing my group by dancing.. at a little campfire in the middle of nowhere and on the HUD all these dots started congregating on our spot. I started to panic thinking somehow we were pulling agro... it was ewoks.. the came out of no where.. like 20 of them and started dancing with me. It was one of the coolest things ever!

 

SWG had lots of flaws as well..the rubbernecking that some mentioned.. the whole jedi thing was handled poorly. While i loved player housing it did interfere with quests and negatively affect the landscape. Combat had lots of issues as well. I was never very good at the space combat (it often made me nauseous) The thing that ended my SWG stay way when i had to choose between being an entertainer and having combat skills.. I really loved having both. I still played well after many players left and still enjoyed it.

 

I often equate SWG to a relationship that started out great but over time went bad and i kept going back to it, hoping it would be the way it was but it was too late.

 

For all its flaws though it still has a special place in my gaming heart and i think ToR (or some other game) could take some things and improve on them if they desired.

 

My current toon is named after my sadly missed Dancer and i've made her appearance as close to the original as i could as well (despite being thousands of years in the past lol)

[TalkingDinosaur]

I'm guessing you know next to nothing about SWG given your false blanket statements.

Basically, anything in SWG that was related to PvP and PvE was an utter mess and lagfest. Got to love it when servers would crash when 11 people would start fighting in Restuss.

[TalkingDinosaur]

Housing, sure it was neat.

 

Player Built Cities? Mostly vacant ghost towns.

 

Bounty Hunting? Wasn't ever that interesting from what I'd experienced.

 

The space was alright, but it honestly wasn't that great. That says alot, because Space was basically my favorite part of SWG but in a way I prefer the way SWTOR's works, grinding space on SWG was extremely tedious.

Yeah housing was a nice aspect but it was horribly implemented. "Lush" and vast planets such as Tatooine turned into the suburb of Cairo.

[Bluerodian]

Basically, anything in SWG that was related to PvP and PvE was an utter mess and lagfest. Got to love it when servers would crash when 11 people would start fighting in Restuss.

 

Never said SWG was without flaws. I was just calling you out on your inane and blatently false blanket statements.

 

I don't wear rose colored glasses. I recognized every flaw that game had, and they were numerous both in programming and in concept. Despite them, I enjoyed the game and would rather be playing it. Before you even mention it, no I'm not talking about the EMU, the game that was dropped back in December. I played both, I preferred the later over the former as far as what was available.

[Sniperrecon]

Basically, anything in SWG that was related to PvP and PvE was an utter mess and lagfest. Got to love it when servers would crash when 11 people would start fighting in Restuss.

 

If it lagged and crashed when 11 people started fighting in Restuss , then it had to be ur computer. I'm assuming ur talking about the "Restuss pvp zone". If thats the case , less than 6 months before the game closed my guild and i were in alot of 50 on 50 pvp battles (and sometimes 50+ and 50+)

 

If ur speaking of before Restuss turned into a "pvp zone" , well before they even thought of making the stupid pvp zones , back when u actually had to /overt or /pvp , then again , i think it was ur computer.

 

Back then it was some of the best and funniest pvp i've ever seen. 75+ people sneaking up on a base to take it down. Needing a BH , Mando , Bio-eng. and a Master Doc. just to turn off the terms and blow up the base. Sneaking around thinking u've finially got one over on them and running into the base , only to see 100+ people run out of the surrounding houses and a massive battle taking place...and losing cause u actually had "spies" in the guilds.

 

Now that was some massive pvp. Pvp that would last all day. And i never lagged and the server never crashed. And i was overseas on a subpar ISP with a subpar PC....

[jarjarloves]

If it lagged and crashed when 11 people started fighting in Restuss , then it had to be ur computer. I'm assuming ur talking about the "Restuss pvp zone". If thats the case , less than 6 months before the game closed my guild and i were in alot of 50 on 50 pvp battles (and sometimes 50+ and 50+)

 

If ur speaking of before Restuss turned into a "pvp zone" , well before they even thought of making the stupid pvp zones , back when u actually had to /overt or /pvp , then again , i think it was ur computer.

 

Back then it was some of the best and funniest pvp i've ever seen. 75+ people sneaking up on a base to take it down. Needing a BH , Mando , Bio-eng. and a Master Doc. just to turn off the terms and blow up the base. Sneaking around thinking u've finially got one over on them and running into the base , only to see 100+ people run out of the surrounding houses and a massive battle taking place...and losing cause u actually had "spies" in the guilds.

 

Now that was some massive pvp. Pvp that would last all day. And i never lagged and the server never crashed. And i was overseas on a subpar ISP with a subpar PC....

 

i'm pretty sure he's talking PRE CU and NGE.

 

 

over the next 5 or 6 years they did an amazing job fine tuning that engine. But Pre CU the game engine was horrible as was PVP and PVE.

[Sniperrecon]

I keep seeing people talk about all the buggs in SWG. Think of this tho....

 

 

SWG was made/designed during the begining of the MMO hayday. Alot of the designs and ideas it had were inovative for its time , and some r still so far out ahead of anything out here now , that SWG was the first and only to do so , even now.

 

Sure it had alot of bugs. The first day the game went live , it crashed and didn't come back up for 3 days. Even then , ur toon was gone and so was everything u'd done.

 

Rubberbanding (which they did fix at the end , but was only a effect of having such large maps and having particals of info "saved" over into server boundries , meaning info for that area of the maps were slaved to certain server data stations when not in use , and during times of heavy use , 3 or 4 servers might be pulling that info at the same time)

 

Server resets and losing info , credits and such. You always got it back if u sent in a ticket , and usually with a certain prize for ur trouble.

 

The holo grind (altho i think it was one of the best ways to get people to stay off the FOTM templetes and was one of the best times of my life)

 

The pre-cu , cu , NGE back and forth debate of which was better and so on is moot. But all and all , it was a problem that effected EVERYONE.

 

and the list can go on and on. But consider this...

 

If SWG had taken almost 6 yrs to MAKE and 100's on millions of Dollars BEFORE it was even on the shelves , it wouldn't have had most , if not all of those problems.

 

As it is , SWTOR had years and years of testing and development and design with 100's of millions of $'s put into it , yet here we r. Bugs and not just a few , but a ton that they still can't fix yet and that r just as bad as those in SWG. Companions just disapearing in the middle of combat or as u turn a corner. Dying while riding ur bike for no reason. Server crashes (even with high end machines and some of the best IP's in the nation) Character crashes when u perform certain actions. Animations not working properly , weapons disapearing from hands when certain actions r done. Loot droping off high end bosses that cost 11k and up for repairs and the loot is for lvl 7 characters. Crafting broke so much so that NO profession out there is worth crafting anything other than Bio-Chem and thats only good as far as the stims the USER can use , and not much for anyone else. Economy is broke big time.

 

Already we've had a combat upgrade (cu as it was called in SWG) and skills reset and balanced. Stims reduced in combat and so on...

 

Don't get me wrong , i like SWTOR. Its a good game , but i wanted to point out to the SWTOR fanboys that speak out against SWG and speak so highly of SWTOR that it has the same flaws as SWG did. (and i truely hope they fix them and make some changes. I'd like to see this game around and doing better than SWG ever did , but thats only gonna happen if they stop listening to the crybabies who want insta-gradification and listen to the main player base who will end up being here is 6 yrs)

[Sniperrecon]

i'm pretty sure he's talking PRE CU and NGE.

 

 

over the next 5 or 6 years they did an amazing job fine tuning that engine. But Pre CU the game engine was horrible as was PVP and PVE.

 

And during pre-cu (pre patch 5) i was over seas on a below supar isp and server and a crap computer. Rarely crashed (usually when entering C-net as everyone was there , so i just waited till late at night , early morn my time) and never had a server crash except when they did maint.

 

Pre-cu (patch 5 to patch 9) i was in the holo grinds and same comp/isp/server

 

Cu and NGE was the same setup for me with teh exception of i had a better comp. During these times i saw some of the heaviest pvp ever. 100+ on 100+ over 9 planets for 18 plus hours and never a single crash. No server or character crashes at all.

 

Most the time i seen crashes server wide was right after a patch or when too many people were in c-net for a long period of time.

 

But people need to remember one thing , no other game back then had so much in effects going on in such a open world at one time as SWG did. In 1 area the size of 1 planet map of SWTOR u had 200 people dancing , ID'ing , and buffing. 200+ people crafting or buying stuff from vendors and 100+ people fighting near the SP. And on top of all that , every 10 min. , 50 more people would join the area (all this in the city of Coronet , the map size of 1 whole planet map of SWTOR) Thats alot of data x-fering to do and it had NEVER been done before. All new type of game. All new type of thinking.

 

Just saying....

[Bluerodian]

i'm pretty sure he's talking PRE CU and NGE.

 

 

over the next 5 or 6 years they did an amazing job fine tuning that engine. But Pre CU the game engine was horrible as was PVP and PVE.

 

Yeah. I've noticed that most people talk about how bad the game was, but more often than not the information they present for their argument is woefully outdated.

[DarthKhaos]

Bottom line SW:G failed for 2 main reasons:

1. Timeline-
   The game took place between Episode 5 & 6. Not much wiggle room for anything.
   
2. Average Joe-
   Say what you want the majority of people don't want to be an average Joe. They want to be "THE MAN" and in a lot of cases a Jedi. Which having em in that time period made the game feel cheep in the eyes of some.
   

Then there were other factors like the bugs, combat system. There were some nice things about the game but off the bat I could tell that it wasn't gonna be epik.

[Amaste]

 

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

 

Don't like it when history starts to repeats itself <_< I swear it must be the IP.

[RobNightfall]

Pre-CU it was pure sandbox and thus, if you like story in your game, it was pretty damn dull. The PvP was fun but otherwise not much content. Which is essentially how a sandbox should be. Jedi were extremely rare, which is it as should have been.

 

Post-CU they added content that was much more fun and encouraged grouping. They also nerfed the melee classes so Star Wars combat actually looked like it occurred in a universe with firearms. For me, this was the best time to play. Plenty of stuff to do and groups to be a part of. Jedi however, became much more common which was not in keeping with Star Wars lore for that time period (immediately after the destruction of the first Death Star).

 

And then, there was the NGE. You could damn near write a book about how bad of an idea this was. Even when the NGE was fun after they added skill trees, nearly everyone playing it thought that it was horrible in comparison to the original game. The class system, when compared to the diversity the original SWG system had, was a joke. Jedi went from being rare, to fairly common, to being everywhere all the time. SOE was extremely reactionary regarding the amount of bad press and negative reviews the game received from their player base and "independent" reviewers to the point that, much like BW is doing now, they simply ignored their player base's feedback completely. At this point, the NGE is held up as a dread example in the game industry as "what not to do."

[jarjarloves]

Yeah. I've noticed that most people talk about how bad the game was, but more often than not the information they present for their argument is woefully outdated.

 

the problem is after the game was optimized and all that it was no longer the SWG they remember ie it all happened AFTER the NGE which to pretty much everyone was what ruined the game for them.

 

People who say it was the best are always talking about how it was PRE NGE. But they always forget all the bad things then.

[Bluerodian]

the problem is after the game was optimized and all that it was no longer the SWG they remember ie it all happened AFTER the NGE which to pretty much everyone was what ruined the game for them.

 

People who say it was the best are always talking about how it was PRE NGE. But they always forget all the bad things then.

 

I noticed this as well. The memories of the game I account for when I make my posts is the game that was shut down, as it was, in December along with everything that was added to the game between the shutdown date and the NGE way back when. I didn't like the Pre-CU all that much, to be brutally honest. The leveling/character building system was stellar, but the combat was terrible and the game was really dull. Later in life it got so much better in so many ways.

 

The game that was killed off last year is the game I want to go back to playing, not the game as it was 6 years ago. The modern game had its flaws, no doubt, but so what? If the EMU devs could have put in the character building system from Pre-CU and all the content and combat mechanics from the most modern build, then I would be perfectly content to leave TOR behind for the EMU and never touch this game again.

 

Another thing. Many of the people that enjoyed the pre-CU, which I can understand, are STILL angry about it and STILL fuming over it while at the same time telling me to "Get over it" about the shutdown. A little hipocritical, don't you think?

Edited April 18, 2012 by Bluerodian

[TORPlayer]

It wasn't. SWG will always have a special place in my heart

[Alaska]

ppls dont like SWG because not enough Star Wars story and PvE

 

SWG's pvp is 10x better than this.... I cared about PvP.

[AltairTheWhite]

This is the problem with the battle between liking and hating SWG. SWG was designed to make people put time and effort into a game, it was not a relentless mission game where you got new little icons and skills every level. You had to put time and effort into your class and making sure all the skills you learned worked well for your character.

 

SWTOR nor any other MMO other then maybe EVE will have the open ended game play that SWG had, Imagine you could land on a planet and you wanted to explore, you could do this. The world was not a pre-made map where you are dictated where you went, the planets where huge and open. SWG makes SWTOR look like a WoW knock off...

 

SWG Had over 45 profession classes you could choose from, on top of the large profession system and classes you could place homes. Players could colonize together and place a city hall declaring there own personal city. This city could grown and obtain banks, garages and other city structures to help make your town its own little chunk of the game. Lots of people would put down custom vendors, yes custom vendors the trader classes could put down to sell there items they crafted. They would put tons of these vendors in homes allowing basically they construction of personal shops.

 

Decorate your house how ever you wanted, all the items in your inventory where a world model that could be dropped, placed and moved around to be put on tables etc as a decoration. Tons of furniture to choose from, the trading classes could make every and any item in the game like tons of selections of furniture.

 

Do not listen to the idiots tell you the game was bad cause they were probably around the age of 12 and there small pre-pubescent brains could not handle a game that required time and thinking since everyone at the age wants instant gratification with out hard work. SWTOR in it self could probably fit on 2 of the planets, the reason SWTOR is such a large game memory wise is cause it has a larger texture size and better graphics but I hate to break it to the world, I will play a good looking game once but a game with good mechanics I will play forever.

 

SWG Is one of the most influential MMO's ever made and will always be on top on my list, nothing like own multiple vehicles that other players could ride in with you traveling different planets, owning homes and fighting with multiple class skills under your belt. You lived , breathed and ate starwars in the game. The crowded cantinas filled with dancers and the player placed cantinas in city filled with roleplay. Nothing will beat SWG.

 

So don't listen to these fools the game is more then most can comprehend...

 

Source: I played that *********** from start in 2003 beta till close last Christmas.

[Blistrich]

Pre-CU it was pure sandbox

People need to learn what "sandbox" means.

 

SWG was not a sandbox game. It was a heavily bugged grinder.

 

The only "sandbox" feature was the housing and the harvesters, and even that wasn't very sandbox.

 

Sandbox means I can kill that NPC over there and shove his body into the mill in Riverwood after decorating my house with troll skulls while developing my character free of any class/skill/ability restrictions in lieu of doing anything constructive... like finishing the game.

 

SWG was destroyed when it was utterly revamped and most of the original player base left.

 

We didn't like having every decent feature replaced by a tawdry level 1 Jedi.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Blistrich

[Sniperrecon]

People need to learn what "sandbox" means.

 

SWG was not a sandbox game. It was a heavily bugged grinder.

 

The only "sandbox" feature was the housing and the harvesters, and even that wasn't very sandbox.

 

Sandbox means I can kill that NPC over there and shove his body into the mill in Riverwood after decorating my house with troll skulls while developing my character free of any class/skill/ability restrictions in lieu of doing anything constructive... like finishing the game.

 

SWG was destroyed when it was utterly revamped and most of the original player base left.

 

We didn't like having every decent feature replaced by a tawdry level 1 Jedi.

 

Actuallty , the term "sandbox" refers to the ability to take the sand and turn it into anything you want. A truck , a house or a person. This was SWG (even till its finial days) in the fact that when you killed so and so npc , sooner or later it droped something that you could place/make/decorate with. Your character was the same way , very few restrictions (with the exceptions of SOME of the Master classes like BH that took alot of points and you didn't have anything left over to say take TKA or Doc)You could be a Master Rifleman ,Master Creature Handler with 0400 Medic or a Master Swordsman/Master Fencer and even a Jedi/BH. Everything (even "Gray" loot) could be used for anything.

 

Anything and EVERYTHING in the enviornment could be used. Even after the NGE this was the saem with the exception of classes , but everything else was still snadbox. Even the story , pvp and pve missions.