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Do not waste your invaluable personal time playing this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 22 / 26
Date: May 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played the previous version of starwars galaxies an Empire divided now for 1.5 years. In that time my primary player
character unlocked his jedi padawan.
Here is my advice if you want to spend your money do it elsewhere. It's $180 per year and SOE constantly ask for the entire community to wait for the bugs to be fixed. The new system is an abomination. They have ruined the jedi profession.
My entire guild, 21 players, are quitting. On their kettemoor server many more guilds are quitting outright. No matter how cheap it is to buy the original game do not get sucked in to paying $15 per month. Find another online game to play.

An insult to the Star Wars name

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 22 / 26
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As a die-hard Star Wars fan since 1976, I never thought anything could fall further below Jar Jar on the list of things that just shouldn't be a part of Star Wars, but this game has achieved that.

Star Wars Galazies, as one POSITIVE reviewer pointed out, is nothing more than "a Chat Room with all aspects of the Star Wars."

HUH? Am I paying $15 a month for a CHAT ROOM? Bascially, yes.

My history with the game? I've been playing since November 2002 in beta. I've played over 20 professions (including Jedi), mastering 12 of them. I've been guilded and solo. Imperial and neutral.

Let me just give you an idea about the game based on my "dream" of "living in the Star Wars universe" (the promise of the developers!) I always thought it would be fun to be an Imperial, fighting for the Empire as a gunfighter. Ok, simple enough. Grind out a few thousand xp as a newbie on the little lame, easily dispatched creatures near any town. Once of a moderate skill level, start taking Imperial missions from a quick but completely un-inventive mission terminal. (You'll do the same crap over and over again, with no influence on the galaxy or the civil war at all.) With all this xp and money, you need go get abetter gun. Woo hoo. Now you can kill faster.

Now you get to travel. With a great gun and some good armor, you head off to Dathomir and join with a bunch of near-clones of yourself to kill rancors en masse. That's right, rancors are not only plentiful but easy to kill. In fact, once you get to higher levels, you can kill them by youself over and over for xp!

After a week of this or less, you're a master pistoleer, have a bunch of money to buy the best guns in the galaxy. You're set for life.

Only problem is now there is nothing left to do. You can continue running missions for the empire but why? None of it matters to the game or in any way affects the galaxy. You could engage in PvP and kill actual player Rebels but unless you have incredible luck, you'll get killed every time out by either a commando, teras kasi master (an INCREDIBLY powerful martial artist who can hit you at 20m!) or combat medic. And those fights don't do anything to impact the civil war either.

So in the end you are left with a character too powerful for PvE but too wimpy for PvP and nothing in the game to do except keep killing the same stuff you already killed. Sure, you could go to run missions for Emperor Palpatine, meet Darth Vader, help out Jabba, etc. Of course, all these "theme parks" just give you a different 10-20 missions to accomplish like the terminals and then you're done. They are just mission terminals with a famous face and some nice prizes.

So the famous argument from those who give SWG 5 stars at this point would be, why don't you just change professions and find something you like? So I did, numerous times, and the answer is not in any other professions either. Quite simply, the game is so imbalanced that it really is too simple. If you want to beat up everyone in PvP then be a teras kasi master. If you want to rake in ungodly sums of money then you can either go teras kasi and sell all the uber loot you get or just be a doctor and buff everyone all day. Yes you CAN do anything but in order to have fun then you have to enjoy doing the same thing over and over again. If you think you'd love a job on an assembly line, then this is your game.

For a while, Sony was pushing a meta-plotline with the civil war and where characters actions could actually influence the galaxy somewhat but they dropped the ball on that last January. Of course, they have dropped the ball repeatedly with bugs, fixes, customer service, community support, development, follow through and a myriad of other subjects so why would content be any different. The game is full of places where the developers showed no forethought, no planning and no execution and just did whatever was easiest, whether it made sense in any world, much less a Star Wars setting. Every time they told me it would get better, I naively believed them but it's really the same game I was playing in beta. Yes, things have changed but the overall experience is the exact same. And here's the big kicker---it's Star Wars without space! I mean, spaceships are totally left out until the new expansion (Jump to Lightspeed) which is finally coming out a year and a half after release. I've been in the beta for that as well and it is the exact same flasw. Kill lame enemy over and over, repeat as neccessary. End result equals a cooler ship for you. Of course, everyone will have the same cool ship if they spend two weeks grinding.

A example of a better idea in an RPG game is the Elder Scrolls series (specifically Daggerfall and Morrowind.) There are so many concurrent plotlines running in addition to the main game story that you could get lost. Star Wars places too much in the hands of the player community for content but then gives the players none of the tools to create content. There is next to nothing for law in the game so there is little punsihment for breaking it and NO fear for getting caught. Death has little punishment, not that it's easy to die anyways as the game is far too easy. If players could take out bounties on people they dislike, create mission and such, the game would have a far richer story. If player cities could ban factions (permanently) or hire NPC militia to enforce the law of their town, it would be far more creative. If crafters could be more creative in their manufacturing, instead of simply producing their version of the same old blaster or house, it would be more original. If the meta-plotline would continue to move along, with players able to participate (if they wish) to advance the cause of one side or another (including factions other than just Rebels v. Imperials) the game would feel more like a real world. None of that happens however, and the world seems far more static than evolving.

All that is left is a chat room. A chat room that looks a like Star Wars. Sounds like Star Wars. Feels like Star Wars from time to time and can be fun in really short doses (like an hour or under a week.) A chat room with everyone wearing the same armor. A chat room where the majority of people have the same 2-3 professions. A chat room where NO ONE role plays in a role-playing game.

Of course, are you going to pay $50 plus another $15 per month to be in a chat room with some occasional fighting action where you'll die every time?

I'm not anymore.

Never ever played an MMORPG or an RPG or anything, read on..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 37 / 53
Date: June 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This review is from the beta and I hope not to violate the NDA. Let me just say that I have nearly zero experience with RPGs (an hour of Neverwinter Nights and a couple days of the Sims if that counts) and absolutely no experience with MMORPGs like EverQuest. So beta testing has been a learning experience ("What am I doing here?"). But now after playing for only 5 days, I am hooked. I was confused the first day or so but didn't want to read all the available help (and a lot is available). So I nearly just said "forget it, I'll stick to the Quake of the month FPS." Then something clicked. I don't know exactly what it was, but suddenly it all fell together and things made sense.
And then I was lost to this physical dimension we call the world. I was in the Star Wars Galaxy. Now, I understand the term "EverCrack" (referencing the addictive nature of MMORPGs like EQ). If I could I would spend all day and night in SWG. It's a fantasy world come to life. There is not enough space to describe it all (and I couldn't). Let me just summarize my last night playing:
I met up with some guys who were going to hunt big game outside the city. Eight of us headed out and tracked down the beasts we were looking for and the hunt was on. After several attacks on various herds, we set up camp and relaxed and healed. Our group leader set off some fireworks, and we all sat back and enjoyed the show. We had brought an entertainer with us and enjoyed some music and dancing and it was so like one of those Old Milwaukee commercials - Doesn't get better than this.
Then we heard rumor of a student of the darkside nearby... we packed up the camp, locked and loaded our rifles, polished our swords and headed out...
I won't go on from there. Suffice to say, if you have no idea what these types of games are about, I think it can be summed up by saying it's about meeting people, having a good time with them and experiencing adventure in a glaxy far, far away. This game is the best.

Caveat emptor

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: December 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Buying Star Wars Galaxies: $20
Installing and patching the game: 2 hours
Realizing that the manual you read during that time along with the strategy guide that you picked up talk about an entirely different SWG than the one you are playing and are thus useless? Priceless.

There are some games that are fun and rewarding to play. For everything else - there's Sony.

Sony Online Entertainment has turned this game into a severely bugged shadow of it's former self. A new first-person-combat system similar to planetside was shoved into the game, breaking the previous systems and returning the game to an Alpha-state.

If you're fine paying $15 per month for what is essentially an alpha-test on servers which are devoid of all but 10 - 15 players at a time, by all means; pick this up.

If you value the money you work for and would like to play what this game is trying to be - spend your money on Battlefront 2 instead. If you want a decent MMORPG, I suggest anything not marketed by Sony Online Entertainment.

Worst customer service ever.

Combat Upgrade... NOT!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: May 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

SOE's attempt to upgrade the combat system was in fact a total rewrite of 1/2 of the game. Made the game unplayable and extremely buggy. DO NOT BUY this game, or any expansions.

They ruined a great game!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: May 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This used to be a great game that my entire family enjoyed. It was atypical and unique. You could find an interesting niche in the game and succeed the way you wanted to. A role playing game that was more like life - you make your own goals and acheive them. They gave in to the uber gamer who wants it their way and eliminated any place for anyone else. I guess if you are an uber gamer - then this would be a substandard ripoff of just about any other game on the market. If you want to find something unique and different - this used to be the place. But not anymore.

Don't waste your money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I loved this game, but changes have recently been made (the Combat Update mentioned in other reviews) that have taken the fun out of it, and made it virtually unplayable for many, many players (including myself). Other reviews have mentioned how buggy the current version of the program is, and how it was rushed "live" before it had been adequately tested. Which is true. But the problems go deeper than that. It is evident to the majority of the players who have loved this game for the last year or two that the "Update" was ill-conceived and poorly implemented.

Bottom line: the game is no longer fun--and that is a huge step down and a major disappointment for 1000's of players who had invested time and money to develop their characters, their friends network, and their community. What a shame.

Combat "Upgrade" was a Combat Replacement

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: April 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's plain from 90% of the reviews below how this game is now.

The problems of the playerbase were not addressed by SOE at all in the Combat Upgrade patch, which has now changed the game in it's entirety.

The problems most players had with the game were thusly -

- Krayts and Rancors and Kimogilas were soloable, players wanted a bit more realism
- 'uber' combat templates were ruining the enjoyment.
- people wanted grouping a *bit* more for enjoyment, the game was nearly a complete solo-fest.
- Composite armor being king. People wanted all armor available and worthwhile in combat.
- The combat system UPGRADED and repaired, instead of completely replaced. Replacing it has meant it has effected ALL professions, even the non-combat ones.

Instead, what we got was that Combat Replacement, from a skillbased game to a level based game. It makes the game feel artificial and overly simple. The devs scraped half their combat 'tactics' ideas in it's beta, and what we're left with is a game where you have 3 hits you keep repeating every other second to fight with. And. That's. It.

Things they fixed
-----------------
UNSOLOABLE HIGH END MONSTERS
The things they addressed and fixed were the soloable krayts, rancors etc. You ARE now scared to even look at one from afar, this is good.

GROUPING now made more important. The only problem is that SOE never understand the word 'balance'. They have gone from one extreme to the other. Where it was a total solo game before, you now MUST group or be left behind. You cannot solo effectively and make it worth your while. Your often left running around planets for ages trying to find a specific number above a creature's head.

ARMOR
All armor is now useful armor, if albeit you cant pick and choose what armor you wish to wear unless you want to change your profession template, the new faction armors look great.

The Iffy Stuff
--------------
WEAPONS
This would go into the pile of 'things they fixed' but for the small fact they are level certed now instead of skill certed. There are LOTS of new weapons, and they are all really great. But my friend wanted to be an Image Designer AND a Bounty Hunter, and despite he has 3 skillboxes in Light Lightning Cannon (effectively he is 3/4 trained in it) he cannot wield a Light Lightning Cannon because his combat level is not high enough, because he chose a 2nd profession that wasnt a combat profession. Other game-breaking ideas like this are still left in the game, with the devs claiming that is 'as intended'

The Bad Stuff
-------------
UNREALISTIC AND BORING
To give an example, ill explain the game dynamics simply of what was before CU and now post CU

PRE-COMBAT UPGRADE
A Bantha creature was say, 6k in health, had an attack of 60-200 and resists of 30%. What this meant was, that when you attacked it, the MAXIMUM damage you hit it for, was reduced by it's resists to calculate the final damage. The same way when it attacked YOU it's MAXIUMUM damage was reduced by your defence skill amount and the resists of the armor you were wearing.

POST-COMBAT UPGRADE
A Bantha creature's only real set stat now is it's health, which is 6k. It's attack ranges drastically from being low if you are so many levels above it, to insanely high depending how many levels you are below it. It has no set resists either, they too change depending on the number above yours and it's head, instead of the skills you posess. The damage multiplyer wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt so extreme, but unfortunately it is. And as a result, the game not only feels artificial and pre-determined before you enter a fight with a creature, but crafters get 2 shot killed when out placing their harvesters or collecting from them, combat players spend ages looking for specific numbers above heads of mobs (and i mean SPECIFIC, not like other level games where there's a nice range of say, lvl 50-70, im talking looking for level 31, 32 or 33.) and grouping with only 8 players makes the 'epic scope' of battles and hunting events you could do before a thing of the past.

If i had to rate the game as a reviewer before CU, i would have given it 85%. It was very good, and with FIXING patches instead of REPLACEMENT patches, it could've been fixed into a *very* good game, enjoyable for solo-players, group players, crafters and entertainers.

Now it is post CU i would rate the game at 45%. It has game breaking bugs (you go out on a hunt, and a dancer cannot buff people in camps. Who releases a patch that makes grouping essential and then doesnt squish a bug in testing that stops groups from being buffed out in the wilds?) the game system is flawed and might take another 3 years of patches to work out, crafters and entertainers have had their games greatly altered for the worse, and the game now is a lot LESS tactically engaging and fun than it was BEFORE the CU. They have quite simply taken stuff out of combat instead of alter it and streamline it.

In it's present form, it is as bad and bugged now as it was the 1st week of release (3 years ago, of which i was there, i am a very sad veteran who is leaving the game) At the rate of patches and slow pace the devs of SOE go at, it will take them 2-3 years of monthly patching to get the game at where it was just a few weeks ago.

This game is broken

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It used to be a fun game until Sony Online Entertainment decided to install the combat upgrade on April 27, 2005.

As of now the game is boring and very buggy.

I'll tune in with the other reviews - save your money.

Great game! Until now :(

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Others have posted much of what is wrong with the new version, there's lots more wrong with it but I'm not going to beat a dead horse. To be fair there were some improvements, just not nearly as many or as significant as what got broken. What got broken was the entire game. Some though may still like the sound of the new system and consider buying it. They shouldn't. Star Wars Galaxies is no longer an MMORPG, now it's just an ORPG. Numbers were already down significantly because it's been out a few years and people move on to other games over time. Now they're on they're way towards 10% of peak subscribership with no sign that the death spiral of this once great game will slow down. It's no longer multiplayer as everyone is leaving turning player cities into ghost towns and the only thing massive is Sony's disgrace for destroying a once great game.

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