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Not just another Hack n' Slash MMORPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 246 / 328
Date: September 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been following the development of this game for a year and have been involved in many development discussions on the dev boards.
I am very impressed by the attention to detail that is going into this game. The developers are paying special attention to the casual gamers and gamers who were disappointed by previous MMORPGs (Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game).
If you were frustrated by the "camping" and lack meaningful player-skills in Everquest... this is the game for you.
If you got frustrated by the lack of controls on Player-Killing in Ultima Online... this is the game for you.
If Dark Age of Camelot seemed too limited to adventuring classes of players... this is the game for you.
Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) will have a very dynamic player-run economy with limited reliance on Non-Player Characters. Have you ever wanted to try your hand at being a Farmer, Miner, or Merchant in an MMORPG?... then this is the game for you. SWG will have 25+ professions you can persue besides the classic Jedi, Smuggler, and Bounty Hunter - something to interest every type of gamer.
Player-Killing (PKing) will be strictly controlled to prevent griefing players who don't want to participate in PKing while encouraging large PK battles.
Camping will be controlled by random & dynamically spawning creatures... a valuable spawn won't appear repeatedly in the same place. Thus preventing the lines of players waiting for something to appear.
Twinking (the practice of older players equiping their new characters with over-powering gear) will be limited by item decay. And the best gear will come for player-crafters rather than uber (super-powerful) creatures that are competed for by high-end players.
SWG will acknowledge the many requests & complaints MMORPG players have had from previous games. SWG won't be just another Hack n' Slash... this is the game for you!

I have a bad feeling about this...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 211 / 289
Date: July 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have 60+ hours invested in game so far and I am ready to cancel.
What is "Star Wars"- Heroic Adventures, Intense Battles, In-Depth Universe, Humor and Tragedy.
What is "SW Galaxies"- Repetition, Hack/Slash/Repeat, Mine/Craft/Delete, endless and pointless.
What "SWG" should have been- A SPACE faring RPG game featuring 100's of distinct planets each with a different personality and culture, rather than being planet-bound on 5-10 huge planets, vast and formless, culturally confused, dotted with MOBs. It should have been a chance to hop into battle vs. NPC armies or PVP squads, rather than the typical hard-to-form/find groups system to hunt down vicious snakes, butterflies and frogs. It should have featured quest-like missions personalized for character type, rather than mission terminals dispensing notes you must deliver to Grandma Ackbar reminding her to soak her head in saltwater before bed. Here are your 43 credits and 5 faction points, repeat this 160 times to make Lance Corporal.

A Galaxy Far Far Away...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 263 / 401
Date: June 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was privileged to attend E3 this year, and I was witness to the amazing new product that is Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided.

All I can tell you is this; wives and husbands that have spouses that play MMORPG's, get used to being widows/widowers. Fans of Star Wars, be prepared to live out your dreams.

This game does not just cater to the power player that just wants to become powerful and rich. This game allows a person to simply immerse themselves in the Star Wars worlds. If you have 10 minutes and just want to escape, you can come to this galaxy and just relax, there are plenty of things to do, like hang out at the local cantina, or chat with a star faring smuggler about his adventures.

Identity is amazing. The sony developing team have gone beyond the scope of any developers so far. Your characters are so customizable it's scary. Want to be a lanky Twi'lek (jabba's dancer), how bout a hulkingly fat Wookiee (too many wookiee cookies)? it's all here for you to make yourself individual and identifiable.

Welcome to a galaxy far far away.... You will be drawn in, you will want to roam the worlds and live an adventure of your own. Who knows, perhaps you too could rub shoulders with a fledgling Luke Skywalker or feel the wrath of the powerful Darth Vader....

may the force be with you

The CURB has destroyed SWG

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 36 / 38
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Don't waste your time, money, or dignity with this game. This is _NOT_ something that George Lucas has a lot of say in, and trust us when we say _IT SHOWS_. Sony Online Entertainment is utterly clueless, and they have shown it with this "upgrade".

This is the exact thing those of us, hundreds of us, maybe even more, were all stating during the Beta phase. I, and countless others like me, started testing the Beta the very day it was up on TC. Right from the beginning we stated immbalances, problems with PvE combat, problems with the new skill prequesites, problems, problems, problems.

You know what happened to our daily posts?

They were *ahem* "archived" *ahem*

Yea.. Archived right into the Trash Bin.

And now everyone is going through this garbage live. At least _we_ were experiencing things on TC, there was the (false) feeling of still having some hope that things would get better. The worst part about the experience on the TC servers was they barely let the Jedi players test things. I don't even think I saw Jedi players until the last 5 to 7 days (no, I'm not a Jedi player.). The whole Beta only last a little bit over 3 weeks. Three weeks?!? And it's on live already?!?

They needed _way_ more than three weeks. They basically ripped the entire class/level system from EQ2, tried tossing the level part of that system on top of the already-existing skill-based system, and look at the mess we've now got.

Class/Level systems _do_ work, as long as the game is designed around that functionality. Most RPG games out there are class/level. However, when you take 1/2 the system from one game, and try blanketing another entire system with it, you will break things.

While I was on TC I tried full melee-only templates, I tried full ranged-only templates, I tried combinations of the two. All-Ranged was the best. However, things in the PvE world were still whack, and of course now the rest of the people are seeing what things are like. The public is _not_ happy. I admit, there are people who enjoy it. But the negative response is utterly over-whelming.

It was over-whelming on TC, and it's even more-so now in-live. Just look at the reviews at Amazon.com: Clicky

Lack of developer input. Lack of customer consideration. Lack of good judgement. Lack of taking to heart, all the brilliant customer feedback us that helped test things were dishing out on a dialy basis.

I posted copies of some of my more detailed TC Forum posts, just in case things were "archived" as they were, here: Clikity Clakity

Many of us who helped out on TC really tried to stop this mess from happening. We tried to help get them to produce and release a balanced, playable, fun, new-user attracting, veteran-player keeping product. And not only did they ignore those who helped test (most of us almost every day right until the very end), but they even pushed everything, in all it's buggy glory, to the live servers EARLY.

You wanna find a nice MMORPG to play (and not worry about a monthly subscription, which ROCKS!), check out Guild Wars instead.

Ambitious? Yes. Intriguing? Yes. Successful? Hardly.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 56 / 73
Date: October 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I should make one thing clear before I kick off this review: I do not like MMORPGs. I have never played a MMORPG that I liked, however I always go into these games with an open mind, so understand that this is not MMORPG bias i'm basing this review on.

It had to happen sooner or later: Star Wars as a MMORPG. I was very hyped up and very interested in this game for about 5 or 6 months. Since I harbor such a strong dislike for Ever Quests, I dismissed this game initially as EQ in Space, but as I read on about all the features Star Wars would have, I was generally intrigued. I bought the game on launch day, and the disappointment began. The launch day problems were rampant, which is to be expected of course, since so many people were trying to get in that the servers were overloaded. I was able to finally register and log in about a day after I got the game.

Character Creation was decent...you can edit alot about the character, from body type to facial construction. You choose from a few base classes, and then go on from there to expand the class and branch off into a more advanced class, such as Bounty Hunter or Weaponsmith or Commando. What is good about this is that you can take a little bit from every class and mix and match it to design your very own unqiue character. However, level progression is very slow, and it becomes necessary to teach your skills to others in order to progress. Interesting concept, if a little flawed. There are no Jedi's running around yet, simply becuse the method of becoming a Jedi is a 'secret' which players have since discovered, but it is still difficult to do. Thankfully this limits the Jedi population and keeps balance.

As for the game itself, it just wasn't really that interesting. The world is huge, but devoid of life. Lots of quests require you to hump your way all the way across the planet for pathetic rewards and little experience points. Other quests require you to destroy objects, like dirt mounds or junk piles, which creatures spawn out of. What's bad is that these quests cannot possibly be undertaken alone, since attacking one of these mounds causes a tremendous group of creatures to gang up on you and tear you to pieces, and if you do manage to fend them off, there are other creatures healing the object, making your effort useless. There are some quests unique to sides, if you join the Imperials or Rebels, which is a decent change, but its still the same: Find and Kill soandso, bring this item here, etc. etc.

Items in the game are all made by players, which is utterly ridiculous. There are no shops in the game at all, except for one Bazaar that holds player auctions. Since everyone is making the same stuff, the same items appear over and over. There are no unique items anywhere. One of the problems with this is that making weapons and armor is a career for some players. Funny, but that sounds like nothing more than a job to me. I'll go to my real job if I want to be productive, thanks. I'm sure many other players will begin to realize that too, and the items in the game will start becoming scarce.

The game is just very monotonous, but I should expect no less from the makers of EQ. Sure, its fun for the first few hours, when you're exploring and getting familiar with everything, but the experience degenerates quickly. When I got this game, I was hoping to be surrounded by Star Wars nerds role-playing their characters...but I forgot that Role-Playing is not allowed in MMORPGS. Try role-playing your character for one minute around other players and watch your text screen fill up with people screaming 'St0p r0lE PlAyinG j00 n00b!' and garbage like that. Hence, the 'Wow, i'm in Star Wars' feeling wears off extraordinarily quick.

The realization that this is just another online game and the fact that no one cares that its Star Wars becomes evident quickly, when you see players running around with names like 'Potthead Smokey' or 'Do0bi3 Sm0k3r' or 'L000k3 Skyywaalk3rrr123441' (all of which were names I actually saw). Its the idiots like that which completely take away from the game experience. You can barely understand what anyone is saying, because everyone talks in '1337 speech' or whatever the popular term for it is among the little kids. Overall, I found the rampant childish behavior and boring, pointless gameplay to be a huge turn off. I was off the game 3 days after getting it. I really, really wanted to like this game, but in the end the boring gameplay just got on my nerves, and the immature players didn't particularly help much either. This game was clearly just very over-hyped, and I was extraordinarily disappointed. Luckily I didn't get slapped with the rather high (over $15) monthly fee since I was off the game in 3 days.

If you want a great Star Wars Role Playing game, then I suggest checking out Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for XBox, or waiting for it to come to the PC. Its a much better game, and well worth the money. Since Galaxies doesn't really seem to qualify as a role-playing game, you're better off saving all the money you would waste on the hefty monthly fee. A nice try, but i'm not impressed at all. Just another run-of-the-mill Massive Online Game ruined by childish players and boring gameplay.

EverQuest in Space

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 58 / 77
Date: June 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I think SWG is a missed opportunity. It's not fun. It's not innovative. It's not really even Star Wars--it's a generic level-treadmill RPG overlaid with Star Wars graphics textures, names, and sound effects.

Take EverQuest. Replace the races with Star Wars races. Replace the monsters with random beasts and a few Star Wars critters like Womp Rats, Ewoks, Banthas, and Rancors. Replace the cities and continents with Star Wars cities and planets like Mos Eisley and Naboo. Replace the classes with general skill groupings with names like "Scout".

That's Star Wars Galaxies.

What's missing, then? Anything that even remotely *feels* like Star Wars. There's no adventure. No excitement. Jedi may not crave these things, but I sure do. I want to blow up Imperial bunkers. I want to race speeders. I want to defend a hidden rebel base from Imperial Walkers. I want to blast Stormtroopers as I dash into my ship, then roar into space and pull a few maneuvers to lose pursuing TIE fighters. I want to use the Force.

SWG does not deliver these things. Alas.

I think Mike Krahulik (Gabe of "Penny-Arcade") said it best:

"At one point on Tatooine I was standing next to a mission terminal waiting for my turn to use it when I saw a large wookiee run past me firing wildly over his shoulder as a tiny crab no bigger than a dinner plate chased him through town. How sad."

How sad indeed.

Poor customer service

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 28
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I would have previously rated this game 4 or 5 stars. Unfortunately I am no longer able to play due to a 27 hr download via dial up for a recent patch that I am unable to make(DSL and Cable are not available in my area). Poor planning by Sony to inconvenience paying customers, especially in a shrinking market now dominated by XBox and PS2 gamers. It would have been so much easier to add this new patch to the upcoming Wookie expansion due out fairly soon. I'm disappointed to cancel an account that I've had for almost 2 years. I've got to spend my gaming $$$ elsewhere now.

SWG no longer playable

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 30 / 33
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Save your time, money, and dignity. Play something else. This was the greatest game ever, then they "upgraded it". Now I'm canceling 4 accounts and apologizing to my friends and family for wasting my time on it.

Disapointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 30 / 33
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It was a sad day 26 April 2005. Sony totaly destroyed this game and what it was like. Don't bother buying the game. If you dont believe me or other commets posted here just do a search and you will have no problem finding others that are disapointed/mad/hurt. If you purchase this game you will be back purchasing another. Sony is going to go down for this. They dont listen and dont care, and this will eventually be thier downfall.

What are the minimum requirements?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 36 / 43
Date: May 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Computer
100% DirectX 9.0 compatible computer
Operating Systems
Windows 98 SE, Millennium, 2000, and XP

CPU
Required: Intel PIII 933 MHz or AMD Athlon 900 MHz
Recommended: Intel P4 1.5 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+

Memory
Required: 256 MB RAM
Recommended: 512 MB RAM

Graphics Card
Required: 32 MB 3D Graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability
Recommended: 64 MB 3D Graphics card with Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader (VS/PS) Capability

Sound Card
Required: PCI, USB or Onboard Audio Device

CD-ROM
Required: Quad Speed CD-ROM drive

Input Device
Required: Keyboard and mouse

Connectivity Requirements
Required: 56K modem or faster Internet connection

DirectX
Microsoft DirectX 9.0 is included on this CD. NOTE: DirectX may require the "latest" updates for your operating system. This may also include the latest drivers for your particular motherboard, sound and video hardware.

Installation
Installation requires 2.0 GB of free hard drive space. It is recommended that you have at least an additional 500 MB of free space available after installing the game for the Windows swap/page file and additional patch downloads.

Supported Chipsets at the time of release:
ATI Radeon 7200/7500
ATI Radeon 8500/9000
ATI Radeon 9500/9700
Matrox Parhelia
NVIDIA GeForce 256
NVIDIA GeForce 2 family
NVIDIA GeForce 3 family
NVIDIA GeForce 4 family
NVIDIA GeForceFX family

Additional Chipsets supported.

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