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SWG post-CU falls incredibly short of potential

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 14 / 19
Date: June 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First, I'll say that L. Gray almost completely summed up my experience with the game, and described only a /bit/ of the post-CU (Combat "upgrade") experience.

A lot of people play this game for the opportunity to become a Jedi, which is, as L. Gray said, nothing but a tedious grind. However, you can now blast right through that grind by going out in groups and getting more xp in 2 minutes than you used to get in 20. The longest part will be, frankly, getting through the village phases (one every 3 weeks).

Once you MAKE jedi, however, you have two choices: 1. Go out with a bunch of people and kill in a group (great experience, however, you WILL get killed by Bounty Hunters about once an hour or so. 2. Go out with 1-2 friends who are ranged professions and stay a minimum of 32 meters away (the range of "visibility"), and you get your one-hit per kill in, and get the experience.

The days of Jedi fighting alone - or ANY player, for that matter- are over. It's ALL level based, group based, magic-based... and it's become a chore - and a bore :)

I LOVE Star Wars. Always have. I do not like how the game's been shifting. There /are/ some positives, such as faction armor, some new things to do... but it's gone from a skill game to a total level game, which reduces long-term enjoyability.

Too bad SOE does not care about its customers!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

You would think that a company would take into consideration the thoughts of its players. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the designers of the Star Wars Galaxies team (SOE= Sony Online Entertainment). They will charge you for expansions and then turn around and remove 80% of the professions that you have spent months developing. They do this with NO warning and will not refund money. They do not support the needs and desires of the playing customers. If there were ever an example needed of what not to do with your online customers, SOE could write the book.

DON'T BE FOOLED!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game began as a MMORPG set in the Star Wars galaxy. It had some amazing features:

- Star Wars storylines, locations and characters
- Detailed skill system where each player had a number of different choices to make their character unique
- The ability to drop skills or change professions if you decided you wanted a change of character
- Interesting and varied loot and rewards
- Detailed crafting system that supported a vibrant player economy
- Easy to use interface that encouraged social interaction and ease of combat.

In fact, it was the perfect MMORPG for mature, intelligent gamers whether they were fans of Star Wars or not. Unfortunately, there were just not enough of these gamers to keep the money rolling in for Sony. All of the above has been removed in favour of:

- Clone Wars content, there is hardly any Star Wars content in the game now.
- Nine professions with all skills decided for you, players have no input now. One 6th level Commando is exactly the same as the next 6th level Commando.
- No changing professions, if you want a change you have to start another character from scratch.
- The last two "expansions" comprised a few new areas, a handful of new creatures and incredibly boring loot. The latest expansion (Trials of Obi-wan) didn't even try to excite players, most of the loot is just new colored items already available in the game. Other MMO's would offer these "expansions" as free patches and not attempt to sell such a pitiful offering.
- If you want to craft now you can't do anything else. They did this to encourage crafters to buy another account so they can go adventuring. Remember, unlike other MMO's you can only have ONE character per server in Star Wars Galaxies. The result is an absence of crafters and no crafted goods. Not really a big deal though, as they have made their crafted goods poorer than the loot available anyway.
- Changed the interface from tab and shoot to crosshair aiming which makes small targets almost impossible to hit and creates a nightmare for characters trying to fight multiple opponents in melee. Now, he who can mash buttons the fastest wins.

So now, as I have cancelled my two year Star Wars Galaxies subscription, I felt I was morally obliged to warn Star Wars fans who may be thinking of playing this game. If you're a mature intelligent gamer who would enjoy a MMORPG set in the Star Wars galaxy DON'T BE FOOLED, this is not the game for you. This is Clone Wars Galaxies the FPS, ready to be ported to X-box.

But if you're a pre-pubescent Doom fan who thought Revenge of the Sith was a good film, then ask mommy to buy this game for Christmas, this one is made for you.

Bugs and bait & switch

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I made the mistake of buying this a month ago. A couple of days after setting up my character, updates were made (publish 24) which introduced many new bugs into the game. These bugs were ignored, and a couple of weeks later we found out why.

While they were busy ignoring customer complaints, the entire game was being re-developed. This was a complete surprise to the user base, and only 2 weeks were given for beta testing before this was pushed out to the "live" servers. Gone are 36 player professions, which you could mix & match to create a truly personalized character. You now are limited to 9 cookie-cutter professions.

They have released periodic updates to the game, such as the recent "Trials of Obi-Wan" expansion. This was opened for pre-order. A day after the pre-order was closed and the expansion was available to everyone, Sony announced the above changes being made. Fortunately, after many threats of legal action for these bait & switch tactics, Sony announced 2 weeks later that those who pre-ordered could cget a refund, though it remains to be seen if they follow through with this.

Some on the SWG gaming forums have theorized that Sony has dumbed-down this game so dramatically in order to make it easier to port to a console gaming system, such as an X-Box. Sony has yet to confirm or deny this. The changes that have been made in the past month result in a severe gutting of the game, from a true massively-multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) into a simple multiplayer first person shooter.

Take a look for yourself what the players think of these changes, and how little the customer support staff respond to user issues. There is a reason that so many of the players have left SWG in the past 6 months and have gone to World of Warcraft instead.

Based on these experiences, this will be the first and last Sony multi-player game that I ever purchase.

As a final note, it's important to remember that this game was brought to you by the visionary minds behind the Wookie Holiday Special, and was developed by the technical geniuses behind the Sony DRM Trojan.

Short but sweet

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I feel compelled to write and tell people looking to buy this game to stay away from it. Also, I intended to write this keeping the amount to read as small as possible.

The company that you would be dealing with uses unethical, illegal, dismissive, uncaring and calloused approaches when dealing with you and the community as a whole.

The game has recently undergone massive changes, fundementally corrupting anything you would read on the box.

The game is currently in a period of development. It is not complete, starting the game now even if you don't agree with what I write is a bad idea. If you despretely want to play a star wars MMO wait a couple of months. This game will either be over or stable at that point.

I could write a whole lot more, but these 3 reasons I feel are things everyone should take in to account before considering this. The game is average, at best. An untrue representation of star wars. I played the game when it was perfect and Star Wars, but the customer service was always pathetic. Avoid like the plague.

Boycott Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played Star Wars: Galaxies for 782 days according to the /getvet command. I have purchased all of the expansions out to date. I was considering creating a second account. As of 11-17-05 my account is cancelled. The New Game, also known as the Starter Kit, is the third version of SWG and it is riddled with bugs and incomplete. It is a far inferior product to its previous versions as well. The NG was released after being kept secret for an unknown period of time and allowing players only a two week notice of it being published. Even less time was devoted to it being tested by sources outside of SOE. Trials of Obi Wan and the NG were released in such a manner as to call into question SOE's and LA's ethics. As represented by the employees who post to the forums SOE and LA are uncarring, glib, and/or vastly out of touch with the player community.

Most of these are not new complaints. However, with the release of the NG these problems have escalted to such a degree that the game is no longer playable. While some are content to merely switch games I am not. Simply changing the direction of the flow of money to SOE and LA will not get their attention. I am boycotting all products created by Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts. I encourage others to do the same.

I do not think my actions alone with effect SOE or LA one iota. In fact, I doubt anything will change their policies. The fan base for Star Wars and other properties is sufficiently numerous to mitigate any discontent portion. While some have predicted that the NG will cause the collapse of SWG I believe otherwise. It will lose many current players but those will be replaced by SOE's and LA's new target market. SOE and LA will later use the negative comments and future subscriptions numbers to prove that they were right all along and to dismiss anyone who opposes them as being knee jerk reactionaries who are against change just because they don't like change. Because most likely the next expansion will also bring a new version of SWG as SOE and LA attempt to copy whichever game is doing better then.

Not worth $15 a month, find a different MMORPG that is

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: November 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Before November 15, 2005, Star Wars Galaxies was the most immmersive Star Wars game ever created, with a great community. Since SOE decided to completely revamp the game, and they've removed most of the things that made this game great. They removed their intricate and highly customizable 32 proffesion system and reduced it to 9 generic proffesions. They completely changed the combat system to a point and shoot system. It's hard to find people to group with to play the game now because so many people have cancelled their subscriptions. You won't find a lot of veterans helping new players, since most veterans have left SOE entirely and gone to play games from companies with much better customer support and respect, like Blizzard. Most of the things that made this game amazing have been removed, It's just too simple and generic now. Unless you're a very casual gamer, don't bother with Star Wars Galaxies. It's not worth $15 a month anymore.

Unplayable game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: December 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am not veteran of the game and have only played it for two months so I cannot criticise the CU as I have no experience of it before that. However, I found the game rather enjoyable with it's vast scope and addictive complexity.

Online gamers vary from really helpful (giving advice, etc) to complete sink plungers who aren't helpful, but this is the case for most games on the net.

The game can be quite frustrating at times (being killed by a butterfly, long dull tasks, etc), however, the game was enjoyable enough to warrant a monthly fee.

However, the revamp on November 15 (or around that time) has made the game unplayable (literally).

Before, the game lagged slightly in places (crowded environments) but was bearable. Now, the player angle has changed so it is half-third person and half-first person (not that I minded too much) but now the game is unplayable in that it not only jerks but resembles a slow slideshow. I have a Geforce 5200 fx (patched up-to-date), AMD 64 3200+, a gig of ram. Not the best PC on offer but it can play all my other online games really well. I am still in the same galaxy, but now, since the 'revamp' it has made the game sour (I can't even play it long enough to know what else has changed).

Maybe I am a one-off and other people have no problems. But, if you are not too sure, download the 10 day free trial (a sure sign by developers and producers that things are not going well) and see for yourself. If you like it, buy it and enjoy it. If you don't, then you have saved yourself a tiny fortune.

Try the free trial first and see for yourself.

The force has left this game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: July 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

About 30 days ago I bought the Total exprience package and installed it. I was hoping for a really immersive star wars expierience. Little that i know that all i got from this game was excessive lag(I do have high power rig by the way), and a level system that screams hours worth of grind to achieve anything. I will cancell before my 30 days will run out. The game is quite a dissappointment to me and I can see a lot of others see it that way too.
There are 80 levels in this game. If you want to be of any signifigance(with the age of the game player-base) you have to be past or near lvl 50 or so. The way this game is structured post CU, you have to spend endless hours of your time trying to 'level up' so you can start to have real fun and get to the meat of this game. If you are groupie kind of person things might work out good for you as this game rewards grouping..if say you can find someone higher level than you to group with than you level at their rate of xp and thus gains level fast. But if you are trying to Solo the game than you are out of luck or in for a grueling 4-6 hours daily grind trying to play cat and mouse with mobs near your own level. Forget about engaging mobs even 1 level higher than your own or prepare to do lots of runs to the cloning center. For explicable reasons i will be fighting mobs of my own level during a mission and from nowhere this high-level mob will show up and one shot kill me and i wake up at the dreaded clonning center. Sometimes i get ambushed by much higher levels mobs when i am trying to ride to my own level mission waypoint. The entertainers have almost left the game and you get noone to heal your fatigue or battle wounds in the cantina which are mostly empty...I saw many time Mos Eisley cantina completely empty...can you imagine that in a star wars universe and its supposedly one of their major selling point about this game.
In a nutshell this game is no longer designed for or supports a casual player post CU upgrade. I work full-time, attend college so I only have few hours to play and those are mostly odd hours too. I can't spend 1 hour of my total 2 hours of gameplay searching for groups. And some people like to play mmo and not neccesarily group and i beleive mmo should accomdate that too.
I intially wanted to be a Jedi but the path to jedi is an endless grind of months for the casual gamer. And i have heard that the Jedi have been nerfed a lot. So initially when they become jedi's and have to be overt that cant hold their own against score of bounty hunters sent to hunt them.
The grpahics of the ground layers is showing its age too but they still do the job of potraying star wars envoirment to a satisfactory extent. All the major cities have termendous lag most of the time. Other cities are almost deserted. I came from Wow and this game seems to be a deserted island compared to that game. Once you leave newbie areas population becomes sparse to almost empty cities in most casses. I guess lots of people have left. A friend of mine playing for couple of years and recently quit told me the game used to be highly populated but over the years and expecially post CU the population has dropped. I am BTW on a famous server called Ahazi.
The space layer though looks good with detailed ship models and fight cgi but is boring and repititive. It pales in comparsion to the earlier star wars simulators like X-wing, TIE fighter etc. For a long time until you start to reach Tier 3 you will be doing only 2 kinds of mission. Either ecort a frieghter or just midlessly keep on shooting down npc's who run around you in circles only with really bad and campy dialogue. From Tier 3 onwards you get more in depth mission but they are designed to be played with someone and take anywhere from 30 minutes to about an hour. If you plan to Solo good-luck past Tier 3. Can be done but get ready for an excercise in frustation. I have heard the final mission to get Master pilot is near impossible unless you have high level friends to accompany you. The only thing good about space layer is the good loot or components you get to sell for decent credits or use to equip your upgraded ships.
In all a severe let-down of a game. Its sad to see how SOE has squandered such an excellent concept with a sub-standard, run-of-the-mill EQ2 clone. Its sad to see how games like KOTR, Republic commando and even Battle-front has done more justice to Star wars by creating a immersive and satisfying universe with no online fees. No wonder they are selling the original game with all the expansions for less than $30 bucks. Back in its heydays two years ago, the orginal game retailed no less than 50 bucks.
Back to Jedi Academy multiplayer where i can be a dual light-sabre weilding jedi right here and now not six months down the road..........

Veterans Betrayed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing SWG for almost two years now and my wife for just a few weeks less me. We put up with the nerfing of some of our favorite classes because the game was so flexible.

You could create almost any kind of avatar, and because of the very cool skills and professions trees you could follow almost any career path.

We met many people on line and joined our share of guilds but in on fell swoop SOE and LA have made our favorite characters useless. Suddenly all the maneuvering and point balancing we've done on the skill trees to come up with characters that could hold their own in combat but had useful skills outside of combat are worthless.

Everything that made our characters unique has been trashed. Now you can choose, combat machine, sneak thief, or support, no mixing of skills.

I understand the kids who have the most money to spend for online games drive the market, and maybe most of them just want to play a commando and don't care if he has any non-combat abilities but as adults we don't have a use for this game anymore.

To future players, BE WARNED, SOE and LA don't care how many hundreds of hours you've invested in a character. They'll change the rules on you in a heartbeat that will make your character useless or eliminate there class/skills completely.

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