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To Whom It May Concern:

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 63 / 86
Date: July 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have been a player of LucasArts / Sony Online Entertainment's MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies since October of 2003. I quickly became enraptured by it, and purchased additional copies of the game, so that I could have multiple accounts to experience all that the game had to offer. Not having been involved from launch, I thought I was doing the smart thing, because I'd be avoiding any bugs or growing pains typically associated with such a game's startup.

I was wrong.

My issue with Sony Online Entertainment is not that Combat isn't working, even though it's not. I have a crafting character on one of the accounts, and am largely unaffected by Combat matters, though my other two accounts go largely unfulfilled as a result.

My issue with Sony Online Entertainmnet is not that the Galactic Civil War has been shut down indefinitely, even though it has, and it was the entire reason to set the game between Episodes 4 and 5.

Likewise, my issue with Sony Online Entertainment is not that they've dedicated too much of their time to perfect the Jedi class within the game, even though the Jedi are supposedly extinct during this time period. They have, of course, and there are now hordes of Jedi trolling starports for overt players to murder, and because of their recent rebalances, they cannot be killed. But again, I can avoid that aspect of the game for the most part.

My issue with Sony Online Entertainment is the breaches of trust between development team and players they've committed since I first signed on.

In November 2003, we were that the team was developing a Combat Balance, and that this Balance was a priority with the developers. Over the next few months, these plans were restated, alluded to, and hinted at, with no real information other than the fact that they were being worked on. This continued through FanFest this summer, when the developers once again professed the Combat Balance as a priority. On the online message boards, 80% of player concerns and questions were answered with the catch-all "Wait for the Combat Balance."

A few days ago (7/15/04), Community Manager Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl made the announcement that the long-promised Combat Balance was going to be pushed back until after the Jump to Lightspeed expansion pack's release. The Combat Balance, so essential to the game, and such a priority to the team for over nine months now, was going to take at least another six months to be addressed.

(http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=39804)

Again, I don't much care about the Combat Balance myself, because I have a character who can get by without fighting. I am, however, highly offended at the disrespect Sony Online Entertainment has shown to us, its loyal fanbase.

Players were assured on the message boards that the Jump to Lightspeed expansion would not affect the ground game's development at all, because there was a separate team working on it. Yet in Thunderheart's announcement, he cites the need to delay the Combat Balance till after the expansion's release because "to deliver on these major features, we will need the full development team and re-assembling the team isn?t going to happen until after the upcoming Jump to Lightspeed expansion is shipped," which would indicate that the development team was, in fact, split, and that the expansion was, in fact, affecting the ground game's development.

Just like we were told wouldn't happen.

In practical terms, the monthly subscription fees I was paying to play "An Empire Divided" were not going to the team that was fixing and improving "An Empire Divided" to ensure my satisfaction. Instead, my money was paying for the development of "Jump to Lightspeed." An expansion pack for the broken game was delaying the repairs on the broken game. I was paying for Sony to produce a new product, while not getting the promised repairs on the product I was paying for.

This kind of questionable business practice is highly offensive to me as a customer.

Thunderheart's original announcement was met with 60+ pages of outrage, account cancellations, and demands that Jump to Lightspeed be pushed back until the current game is fixed. That thread was locked and archived, and a new one put in its place. The current thread currently has 25+ pages of the same. Over 85 pages of dissatisfaction, outrage, hurt players, and cancelled accounts, all since Friday, and the list and discontent are only growing. Sony, in response, has opened the Jump to Lightspeed beta, the ultimate shiny object to distract us.

Expansion sales will net Sony more profits than monthly fees; they'll likely net enough to offest the loss of the cancelled accounts. But such a callous disregard for the demands of the customer should not be allowed to continue. Customers might not always be right, but they should never be made to feel unheard.

Broken game, Broken Promises, Lies abound

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 25 / 30
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Hundreds if not thousands of people waited in great anticipation for the release of Star Wars Galaxies. Beta came and those of us fortunate enough to test the game diligently went about our duties testing and making bug reports. Soon it became apparent that not everything was being fixed or the bugs would crop back up in later releases.

Day of the announcement came that the game was to be released and almost unanimously the Beta Testers cried out for more time. The game was not ready. We were not listened to.

Bugs, broken professions and shoddy customer service from Sony Online Entertainment plagued us from the very start. Combat Professions were broken to the point that only 1 or 2 of them were viable in PVP combat. Yet we were told by the CRM that we had to be patient, that the Combat Revamp would fix all. That was in November of 2003.

Patiently we waited, The Jedi class (which should not even be in the game at the present) was created and revamped. "Now it's our turn" thought the Galactic Warriors on both sides.

Not to be

SOE has decided to devote all of it's programming resources to making JTL (Jump to Lightspeed) which is an expansion, instead of fixing the core game first. WE and YOU can look forward to a MASSIVELY broken game that as far as we can tell will never be fixed.

SWG was great in concept and alot of us looked forward to many years of playing.

After 3 months of beta testing and over a year of playing, this is one hard corps gamer who will never buy another thing from Sony Online Entertainment.

The game is not worth the money, and I refuse to pay for a Beta Test game while getting the shaft from the company that makes it AND being lied to all at the same time.

Reason to reconsider Purchase...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 21 / 27
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The ONLY reason I would suggest NOT buying this at release, is simply because its an add on (meaning you have to also BUY the Core game Box title) to a very badly produced game.

SWG has many awsome things within it. Many Many concepts have a great deal of potential, However the implimentation of it has been far from stellar.

The biggest issue at this time is that while you may buy this expansion..you start where everyone else starts...On the ground. Players make everything...including ships. We CHARGE..so you will have to spend time making cash before being able to be in space in a craft that is worth being there in.

The CORE combat system is radically unbalanced..as such I wouldn't recommend buying this untill your sure of the Core Games Stability and Balance.

Expansion = Corporate Cash Cow, not Customer Satisfaction

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 31
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Focus on these facts...
-This is an expansion to a BROKEN game
-Past SOE promises of fixes have been blatent lies
-The customer support for the game is only for Jedi, not the thousands of other players
-The core game: Star Wars Galaxies, is still in box beta (this means you pay for the game and and a 15$ monthly subscription just to beta test for the developers, the actually game is still nowhere in sight of being ready)
-This expansion requires the CORE GAME so don't think the core game issues will not effect those who wish to only play the expansion

"If you like a fancy chat server then SWG is a perfect solution for you. Tired of those same old small picture images in you Instant Messages, why not use a new chat server like SWG so you can have a full rendered character to chat to your friends with."

To sum it all up:
Bugs, broken professions and shoddy customer service from Sony Online Entertainment has plagued us from the very start. Combat Professions, with the exception of the tons of Jedi (who according to the timeline shouldn't exsist) are broken to the point anything relate to combat is repetitious, boring and could only be found entertaining to a robot. SOE has promised and continuelly lied to the player base about fixes as to goat more money from subscriptions out of players who have been repeatedly been taking advantage of.

If your idea of a fun time is burning 15$ a month on nothing then my suggestion would be find a charity that shows some kind of progress cause this one is reminescent of burning cash in a fire/with a lighter, but without the neat looking flame effects.

SAVE YOUR MONEY AT ALL COSTS!!!

Avoid SWG like the plague.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 21 / 28
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game still has many bugs from release, over 1 year ago. The players were just informed that those bugs will not be fixed until the expansion "Jump To Lightspeed" is finished and shipped out. Know what that means, they're taking the money players have paid for over a year of service, and dumping it into financing an expansion pack.
Play this game at your own risk, but know this: The money you're paying them to play will not be used for service. It will be used to finance their next project.

Oh, and their customer service is non-existant. Always has. Always will be.

Avoid This Game At All Costs!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'll start with my summary before anything else: avoid this game at all costs! There's nothing more to it than that.

Now, the question is why? I've played Star Wars Galaxies since launch. It was a fun game. It was one of the best games I've played. There were relatively few bugs, there were quests, and there was an extensive profession system.

There was. Star Wars Galaxies no longer exists. They screwed over their customers after 2 years of gameplay. Expansions were just a means of getting more money before altering the game entirely. You can no longer switch professions, and there are only 9 professions. Jedis are now available to everyone, and they are terrible.

I could continue on, but it only goes downhill from there. Do not buy this game. They just want your money.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to see what this game is really like now, you need to read the reviews in the Star Wars Galaxies: Starter Kit and ignore the earlier ones here. A lot of these reviews are old, and that is a BIG difference. Had I written this review before October/November, I would have given it praise. If I wrote it before June, possibly 4 or 5 stars. They changed this game OVERNIGHT (In November) and right after everyone preordered the expansion! It was all one big scheme.

Don't buy this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 25
Date: July 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Jump To Lightspeed is the expansion for Star Wars Galaxies, so for the enjoyment of JTL, the basic game must be good too. And frankly, it is not good.

While the graphics are amazing and the choice and variety of professions is huge, this is not a game you would want to play for long.

The combat system is very poor, and PvP combat is broken, with only a few professions being any good. There is simply NO Star Wars feeling to this game, because no-one looks like the movies. Imperials and Rebels all wear exactly the same armor and Jedi are horribly unbalanced and it takes an eternity to get Jedi. Furthermore, melee combat characters are much stronger than ranged combat characters, which is a travesty for this kind of game really.

The Developers show time and time again they cannot keep their promises and they only go for quick fixes that lead to new bugs. Priority lies with getting new people to join by announcing various gimmicks and 'carrots' and they need that because the departure rate of current (veteran) players is very high.

Keep an eye on their forums to see if the game improves in the long run, since these kinds of games do tend to change, but currently I would not buy it.

Past performance will let you know.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 20 / 27
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok no one has played this game, but past performance will let you know.

StarWars Galaxies came out just over 1 year ago. There were some initial problems, but soon everyone was able to log in.

Since then the game has become something of a shame, with a dev crew that continues to lie to the community and push back updates.

1. JEDI - they are everywhere, this means the timeperiod means nothing, and you can count on them getting first dibs at publishes.
2. Combat - A combat balance was supposedly in the works over 6 months ago. It is now delayed until post December. Thats right this games development team hasnt fixed combat in over a year. As it stands PVP is broken along with PVE.
3. The Galactic Civil War. This was scheduled to come out this month, but has also been pushed back until around December. Thats right the Whole empire vs rebel thing is not going to be looked at until 1 yr. 6 mo after the games release.

4.The Devs are incapable of making this game work correctly 1 year after release, they wont even look at the major issues until this expansion is out. So if it will take rouphly 1.75 years to fix the first game Imagine how long it will take to get the expansion working.

5. AVOID AT ALL COST!

For the love of god DO NOT buy this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 25 / 37
Date: July 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars Galaxies has been out for over a year with endless broken content, developer misinformation and a severly broken PvP system. There have been promises non-stop from SOE and thier lackeys in the form of upcoming additions and core tweaks. Now the most important core tweak of them all, the Galactic Civil War, has been put off for a YEAR so these guys can put out a space expansion. This expansion will cause more problems than it solves and is only being pushed to bring in new players at a time when they are losing old ones at a rediculous rate because the core game problems are being ignored. There are 30somethig professions and recently weve had a revamp of the stupidest most underused profession ever which is Image Designer. In case you dont know, Image Designer can change the way your character looks, so you can see where the programmers priorities lie. We have been crying out in pain for a year about what needs to be done to balance combat and have been ignored 100% by the Sony Corporate Machine so they can concentrate on adding broken content to an already broken game.

Do yourself a favor and dont buy the core game, dont buy the expansion, dont buy from SOE. They will lie to you to keep your money coming in while pushing new eye candy to bring in more customers that is maybe compareable to the rate at which players are leaving.

If you do buy the game you will not see me, as of today July 16, 2004 I have cancelled my 2 accounts and am not looking back to see the ship sinking.

Can't endorse this development team

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 25 / 37
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Six months ago I was certainly looking forward to the Galaxies expansion that took us into space.

Today, there's no way I would buy another product managed by this development team. Crucial fixes to broken and unplayable systems in the base Galaxies product have gone unfixed for six months (despite constant developer assurances that these problems were being 'worked on') and customers only recently found out that key fixes to the in-game combat system and the high-end Galactic Civil War content would be delayed yet *another* four to six months while work on this space expansion was prioritized.

Just an understaffed, poorly managed development team ... very little progress on getting the game polished in the last six months, and today I have no plans to buy Lightspeed whatsoever. In fact I'm dropping Galaxies on the 26th of this month.

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