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SWG to date. A fresh look.
ElgarL
Member UncommonPosts: 191
Well I had a few problems starting the trial as updating was terribly slow, however I did finally get in.
My initial impression was one of 'oh my god this is so bad for it's era and age', but it did improve as time went on. It took a while to get the UI and controls set up so they we're useable, and once that was done it wasn't at all hard to get really immersed into the settings.
SWG has some really niggling bugs you'd really not expect to see in a game of it's age. Things like some items (mainly weapons) not having any icon at all, only a name.
Another one was some people gave you quests which you were incapable of completing. Quests like 'go rescue fred who's got lost'. You'd run out there and get the speech bubble as if you could talk to them, then when you tried you'd slice their head off. After a while you were left with multiple waypoints in your datapad which we're junk. You could return to the issuing person and quit the quest, but you were still left with the junk waypoint.
One really bad immersion breaking bug I found....
I completed a quest line for this chap who'd been poisioned in the desert. Later on I came across him again and spoke to him. He said something along the lines of "staticNPC/SWG/speech_nerf". A very bad implementation, especially as when I looked up the NPC on the web it's been in game for a long time so has no reason to be broken like that.
Another really bad and immersion breaking bug I came across was with animations. Jumping is appauling, they shoudl not even have it in game as it does nothing and the animation is terrible. Running off the edge of buildings (when you can) is laughable (no animation at all), and combat is appauling. By appauling I'm refering to certain animations used during combat....
I'd begin a fight and part way through I'd use the Jedi Shock power. The problem is you'd not see the animation for that until ages later when they fight is actually over. You'd be runnign away from the corpse and you'd get the lightning arch shooting back towards where you came from. This isn't sometimes either, it's in EVERY combat.
Monsters spawning inside other objects (rocks etc) making them invulnerable to all attacks. But my biggest annoyance with the game was that there was absolutely NO realism in movement. You could run up sheer cliff faces, yet the smallest boulder was totally impassable for you.
Some quests are really stupid and clearly have had absolutely no effort put in to create them. You'd get a quest to infiltrate and destroy some complex. When you run out there you'd find three people stood around a flag with Nothing else. You only had to kill them and then attack the flag until it explodes.
Other quests we're quite enjoyable, but there was far too much reuse of dungeon designs. It seem'd like they had half a dozen dungeon designs and that was it.
I was concerned that character advancement was a little fast. I reached level 24 in 3 days of fairly relaxed playing and the level cap is 90.
To sum up...
Over all it's a VERY enjoyable game, but there's so little community that it's effectively a single player game. It's riddled with bugs which have been there for years and there's no sign that they will ever be fixed.
Swathes of land are covered by abandoned housing from ex-players, resulting in a very cluttered and deserted feeling.
If you can get over the terrible animations, poor quality/performance and no community then it's quite a decent game.
In my oppinion it's clearly not worth the money they are asking in monthly subs, but it possibly would be IF it had a decent number of players.
Creator of ELTank and Nostalgia
Comments
An okay review, but i still live on my swg memories from the past, not the present game
List of SOE lies
I'd never played it before so I had no preconceived ides of what it should be like
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Creator of ELTank and Nostalgia
What server were you on?
I think that's a fair review, and just out of interest do you play anyother MMORPGs Obraik?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Was wondering the same
I was on Europe-FarStar. One of the higher population servers, or so the login screen said.
As for other MMO's I've played.
Asheron's Call - 7 years
EVE-Online - 3+ years
Archlord - trial
WOW - trial
DAoC - 3 months
Vanguard - 3 months
The Matrix - trial
Irth Online - 3-4 months
FFXI - 1 year
DDO - trial/beta
Anarchy Online - trial
+ a handfull of others to try out but never lasted more than a couple of days.
Creator of ELTank and Nostalgia
I have to agree with you about the combat animations...They are very lackluster and pretty frustrating to watch.
Hmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Hmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Less then half the population from what we remember is going to mean less then half the visibility of other players in game.
Of course it's going to look barren under those conditions.
Hmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Less then half the population from what we remember is going to mean less then half the visibility of other players in game.
Of course it's going to look barren under those conditions.
On the lower populated servers I guess...I honestly think we have around the same on Chilly but they are just spread out wider than in the past.
Hmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Less then half the population from what we remember is going to mean less then half the visibility of other players in game.
Of course it's going to look barren under those conditions.
On the lower populated servers I guess...I honestly think we have around the same on Chilly but they are just spread out wider than in the past.
Well sure, if you're on one of the lucky 6 servers.
There are what, 19 servers that are light to very light. Hardly acceptable in my opinion, particularly when we were sold a MASSIVELY multiplayer online game.
Undoubtedly SWG is long overdue for server merges, and it seems to not even be on the radar for SOE. Instead subscribers are given collections and rewards rather then what's really needed.
Hmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Less then half the population from what we remember is going to mean less then half the visibility of other players in game.
Of course it's going to look barren under those conditions.
On the lower populated servers I guess...I honestly think we have around the same on Chilly but they are just spread out wider than in the past.
Well sure, if you're on one of the lucky 6 servers.
There are what, 19 servers that are light to very light. Hardly acceptable in my opinion, particularly when we were sold a MASSIVELY multiplayer online game.
Undoubtedly SWG is long overdue for server merges, and it seems to not even be on the radar for SOE. Instead subscribers are given collections and rewards rather then what's really needed.
Well it's a tough call. If they offer a one-time free transfer it would decimate the already lower populated servers. They need to figure out how to actually get maybe the lowest 10 moved somewhere else. One of the big problems is the resource system because each server has its ownHmm...that's odd that you thought the server was dead though. I think some people come back to the game (not you, but older players) and forget that there is space, 2 new planets, a crap ton of instances with quests, etc. in this game now.
Everyone isn't huddled up in Cnet for doc buffs anymore or in Anchorhead PVP'n....this is a damn big game. I really do wish there was a way to consolidate some of the lower population servers though.
Less then half the population from what we remember is going to mean less then half the visibility of other players in game.
Of course it's going to look barren under those conditions.
On the lower populated servers I guess...I honestly think we have around the same on Chilly but they are just spread out wider than in the past.
Well sure, if you're on one of the lucky 6 servers.
There are what, 19 servers that are light to very light. Hardly acceptable in my opinion, particularly when we were sold a MASSIVELY multiplayer online game.
Undoubtedly SWG is long overdue for server merges, and it seems to not even be on the radar for SOE. Instead subscribers are given collections and rewards rather then what's really needed.
Let's not forget that aside from WoW, SWG has more servers then most other MMO's typically do - more then EQ2's even, which is supposebly SOE's biggest game. I disagree though that Merges should be top of the list - new content should be of the highest priority, at least for now.As for the Euro servers, Chimaera has the highest pop of the 3 servers and often hits a Heavy load during Euro primetimes. However, due to the nature of the beginning game, don't expect much group action as it's designed to be played solo. It's not until you get to the higher levels will you be involved with grouping and required to interact with crafters.
Agreed, and one of the biggest problems facing SOE on this is how to not piss off those customers being affected by a forced transfer.
SOE can't afford to anger a fragile player base by shafting those who stand to lose out in a transfer. It's for this reason that I believe any kind of merger is not even on SOE's radar, and that is the most troubling thing.
They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. And that leaves the player base in limbo.
Reminiscing, I still wish they'd bring back Battle Fatigue and Wounds. Sure it was technically forced socialisation, but in a healthy way. Gave people a reason to hang around with other people and see sides to the game they might otherwise miss.
SOE just came out with too many servers and I agree are in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation
And this is the thing.
SOE needs to communicate their intentions with their customers. If nothing is going to happen they need to inform those affected, instead of leaving them in some kind of vague limbo because it seems to me many people really want this and there is a certain expectation for it.
And this is the thing.
SOE needs to communicate their intentions with their customers. If nothing is going to happen they need to inform those affected, instead of leaving them in some kind of vague limbo because it seems to me many people really want this and there is a certain expectation for it.
I think they already confirmed that there are no server merge plans in the near future.
And this is the thing.
SOE needs to communicate their intentions with their customers. If nothing is going to happen they need to inform those affected, instead of leaving them in some kind of vague limbo because it seems to me many people really want this and there is a certain expectation for it.
I think they already confirmed that there are no server merge plans in the near future.
Really?
I usually keep an eye on things on the official forums and I've not seen that. That's rather unfortunete then for those 19 or so servers that need something done badly.
However I still say it sounds rather vague when they say "no plans". It kind of implies that the potential is there in the future and that the player base should remain positive about the prospect. Again, it's leaving people in some kind of limbo and that I believe only works in SOE's favor.
I say they need to state absolutely and unconditionally that there will be no server mergers or free transfers if this is their intention.
And this is the thing.
SOE needs to communicate their intentions with their customers. If nothing is going to happen they need to inform those affected, instead of leaving them in some kind of vague limbo because it seems to me many people really want this and there is a certain expectation for it.
I think they already confirmed that there are no server merge plans in the near future.
Really?
I usually keep an eye on things on the official forums and I've not seen that. That's rather unfortunete then for those 19 or so servers that need something done badly.
However I still say it sounds rather vague when they say "no plans". It kind of implies that the potential is there in the future and that the player base should remain positive about the prospect. Again, it's leaving people in some kind of limbo and that I believe only works in SOE's favor.
I say they need to state absolutely and unconditionally that there will be no server mergers or free transfers if this is their intention.
They've outright said no merges for 2007 but they'll have another look at the situation next year. Before they can do merges, they need to come up with solutions for the resource, city and datapad issues.
I'm wondering how long it's going to be before they simply shut the game down.
I don't mean this as a rant, just an observation. It takes a lot of time and money to add content to a game, write patches, answer player questions and problems and maintain hardware. If the server populations are as light as people indicate, I don't see this MMO surviving to much longer. Am I missing something?
I would be very surprised if SWG was shutdown anytime in the next few years. On servers such as Bria, Bloodfin, Chilastra, Chimaera, Gorath + more, the populations aren't that bad at all. However, SWG has always, IMO, had more servers then it needed and as I mentioned earlier, the only other MMO that I can find that has more servers then it is WoW.
What players should do (or what I would do anyway) if they play on lower populated servers is make a few toons on a higher populated one. Play a while and see if it would be worth paying for a transfer. I myself still love the game and a transfer would be worth it to me
Oh...and when you do this make Chilastra priority 1
I personally don't think that's fair to the current subscribers.
SOE has been doing a good job over there with new content. After chap 8 they NEED to focus on the core issues. What the new player sees most often is bad because of all the left over junk still borked.
As a vet player ITV's that bug for days or specials that dont fire or action bars that stop working is just pitiful. I love SWG but the gamebreaking stuff is VERY gamebreaking. Fix the bugs or give it up sony. Stop trying to make it look like your fixing things when with every patch you had more bugs!!