I have to chime in and say that all this talk about SWTOR having no players is exaggerated. There are dead servers unfortunately, but they have also made it very cheap to transfer servers(if you sub the cc you get is enough for it). Make sure you join a populated server like The Harbinger. My queues do not take NEARLY as long as some have said and I am standing in a starter zone right now and there are 66 people here.
I did not say it had no players, I said it didn't have 500,000.
SWG was rather far from a perfect game but it did offer a unique experience for it's players. When it started to loose players to Wow Smed panicked and decided to make it closer to the competition but what he really should have done was fixing up the game instead. What really lost SWG players was how buggy it was, not it's unique mechanics. If the game would have run as well as Wow and had as few bugs it would certainly have kept it's players better.
And the sub numbers dropped even faster after the NGE, the drop started really a while before Wow launched but we can clearly see that the game faded into obscurity rather fast once the NGE had hit.
That was my experience as well. My server has some great communities but they all started to die even before JTL. Wow was not live yet so people were leaving for EVE or City of Heroes. The game was buggy and so grindy that I was getting cramps in my mouse hand . The sandbox was nice but rather shallow in everything except the most involved crafting. The game engine was weak which severely limited certain gameplay styles. eg playing as a sniper type was pointless since the range of rifles was essentially the same as pistols.
The game was also way to bot-prone. Many of the actions were so grindy that the only way to get anything done was to write a bot in the internal scripting language. Pretty much 99% of the doctors or dancers you saw were bots.
The CU and NGE were not hte right things for the game but the game needed to change or it would have died anyway.
Alot of people are starting to realize that one, which is way they move to the NGE server that has 100 times the content, plus all the old content. The original is 100 times more grindy too, people still do bot, but its alot less grindy. It took me a literally like 50 hours of doing nothing but sending my pet in to attack animals, kill them all with a round house kick, and do that over and over and over and over. New age you can do a lot more to level than just hit the same creatures over and over for hours, although you can still level that way too if you want. I don't really see all that many people leveling that way though.
Since I only tried each of the three for a short time (6 months or less), I'm really giving an outsider's perspective here. None of them were perfect games.
Pre-CU had a terrible interface and a steep learning curve. Thankfully people there were friendly and someone helped me get started in crafting. I wasn't there long enough to build any notoriety but I was having fun without having a combat character. As others said, It was extremely player driven in those days and crafting felt like it mattered. It felt rewarding to see friends using the items I crafted.
The CU caused my crafting mentor and many of my friends stop playing so I did too. I decided it was time to dedicate more time to my other game, Anarchy Online, where I still had friends to play with. So unfortunately my only memory of the CU was my friends quitting the game because of it.
Later on I tried NGE while I was playing The Matrix Online because it was included on SOE's station pass. Again I tried to be a crafter (engineer I believe). The crafting didn't seem to be as fun or useful as it was pre-NGE. Since I was already established in MxO since it first came out, I just stayed there and learned to code (craft) almost every craftable item there instead.
Then came SW:TOR. I was impressed by the story (aside from The Secret World there is really nothing that comes close) but unfortunately that's all it had for me. It felt like a solo story RPG that happened to have other people in it. No sense of community at all.
If these games were good or not differs from person to person. Everyone likes games for different reasons. Some love combat and pvp, others want a great story, some want a great community while others like to solo everything. One person's "best game ever!" is another's "I hate this **** game!"
As I found out after a game I played shut down, even among players who all loved the same game they all enjoyed it for very different reasons. Now, three years later, I'm still in contact with my clan from that game but we still haven't found a new game we can all agree to play together because of our different tastes in games.
It doesn't matter what everyone else likes or thinks is a good game. What matters is what you like. If you find a game you really enjoy stick to it and spend as much time there as you can. You never know when it could end.
Dont see why you think crafting doesn't matter in NGE. It is the same thing, the only difference is things dont totally brake. Everything else is the same, random resources, experimenting with resources, multi resources to have a end product that is different from some one else, but there are a lot of usable items that do get used up.
Since I only tried each of the three for a short time (6 months or less), I'm really giving an outsider's perspective here. None of them were perfect games.
Pre-CU had a terrible interface and a steep learning curve. Thankfully people there were friendly and someone helped me get started in crafting. I wasn't there long enough to build any notoriety but I was having fun without having a combat character. As others said, It was extremely player driven in those days and crafting felt like it mattered. It felt rewarding to see friends using the items I crafted.
The CU caused my crafting mentor and many of my friends stop playing so I did too. I decided it was time to dedicate more time to my other game, Anarchy Online, where I still had friends to play with. So unfortunately my only memory of the CU was my friends quitting the game because of it.
Later on I tried NGE while I was playing The Matrix Online because it was included on SOE's station pass. Again I tried to be a crafter (engineer I believe). The crafting didn't seem to be as fun or useful as it was pre-NGE. Since I was already established in MxO since it first came out, I just stayed there and learned to code (craft) almost every craftable item there instead.
Then came SW:TOR. I was impressed by the story (aside from The Secret World there is really nothing that comes close) but unfortunately that's all it had for me. It felt like a solo story RPG that happened to have other people in it. No sense of community at all.
If these games were good or not differs from person to person. Everyone likes games for different reasons. Some love combat and pvp, others want a great story, some want a great community while others like to solo everything. One person's "best game ever!" is another's "I hate this **** game!"
As I found out after a game I played shut down, even among players who all loved the same game they all enjoyed it for very different reasons. Now, three years later, I'm still in contact with my clan from that game but we still haven't found a new game we can all agree to play together because of our different tastes in games.
It doesn't matter what everyone else likes or thinks is a good game. What matters is what you like. If you find a game you really enjoy stick to it and spend as much time there as you can. You never know when it could end.
Dont see why you think crafting doesn't matter in NGE. It is the same thing, the only difference is things dont totally brake. Everything else is the same, random resources, experimenting with resources, multi resources to have a end product that is different from some one else, but there are a lot of usable items that do get used up.
Can you please stop being full of shit. Crafting was NOT the same, it was nothing near the same. The process may still have been the same but the outcome and influence is NO where near the same. Did you just play an EMU and think you are now part of the good ol days? I'm not sure your angle...
Almost everything was useful, more than 90% of crafted items from the Pre-CU times have either been removed (along with the professions that made them), made useless, or not as good as loot items. Player crafter items were the basis of everything, in NGE you could play with full loot gear at only a minimal disadvantage.
It was not possible for the dedicated crafter to mine or harvest enough materials to keep supplied. People were hiring hunters and miners, again COMMUNITY. Everyone had a place in the crafting system, even the full combat guys that would pull weapon/armor supplements/components from the highest end creatures. Smugglers could alter stats on gear.
With no decay and loot weapons/armor/structures/vehicles/ships being available, the primary crafting professions are barely relevant.
Your tools were the effectiveness of the outcome, a true crafter to combat relationship, NGE it didn't matter.
I remember when the Krayt Dragon was the king of all beasts, it was hard as hell to kill as a group and even the most elite could not solo such a thing.
NGE they were turned into weak things that could be soloed
Let's not forget the HAM system, being able to be incapacitated in 3 different ways, including using all your mind by fault of your own. It was interesting and highly dynamic, created unique combat situations and duels instead of your HP 0 you die now... Turning into an HP system wasn't a bad idea but it was a huge change.
I was on Valcyn on the eve of June 26th 2003 after upgrading my HP Pavilion's Memory so I could play the damn thing and it eventually was turned to dust on Oct 2009 when it was shut down completely, thought it didn't matter it was a ghost town after NGE. Though no matter what we say you will say differently. 12 servers in total were obliterated that same day. Dropping the server count from 25 to just 13.
NGE hit Nov. 2005 and I continued to play and tried to like what was forced on to us, but I couldn't after a month I was gone. I returned years later while my main MMO was LOTRO to see how my server was doing and explore a few planets, look at old inventory etc. Just seeing all the ghost towns killed me and there was only one other person on at the time I was. I understand there were servers still populated of people who enjoyed NGE, mine however was not one of them.
You call Pre-CU broken, I call it a masterpiece that needed refinement not an overhaul. History is history, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we all fall down...
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
I agree, the CU needed refinement, I was getting used to it and thought I guess this isn't so bad". People I knew who had left over it just started coming back and then they did the NGE, and everyone who tried it on test center was like, nope and left for good. As for Krayt I was able to solo those as a Master BH in the CU, of course the pearl drops where borked a bit, but still. They should have given the CU more time.
Here is a story many of you may or may not remember. You might remember when Thunderheart mentioned something about the timeline moving forward in a random post on the SOE forums. Based on what I was told by an asset artist who worked on SWG, WoW and a few other games; the nge was supposed to be SOEs showcase of what they could do with the game to make it more "fun". He had a portfolio site with some assets he was tasked to create that never got used in the game, which included some ships and other items. Don't remember his name but there is a thread about it here somewhere.
Story goes that while SWTOR was being created BioWare had shown Lucas Arts what they had, LEC didn't like the the direction or the progress made so they went back to SOE to see what they had. BioWare almost lost the licensing contract to make SWTOR. Originally SOE was tasked with recreating SWG as SWG2, which was supposed to be an advancement in the timeline. After the NGE failed Lucas Arts pulled their usual stunt and went back to BioWare and put their full support into that game and all work on the newer version of SWG halted. This all unfolded here actually years ago and the post about it might still exist if you dig for it. Some of you folks might also remember a particular survey only a few of us got from Lucas Arts asking about aspects what we would like to see in a new SW MMO, followed by a huge post on SWG forums detailing a Star Wars game that did not and never has existed to our knowledge, turns out it was a purposeful leak.
Fast forward to today, word around the campfire these days is that there may be a revival of sorts of a SWG type MMO since for the most part SWTOR has stagnated and Disney is looking to capitalize off all aspects of Star Wars gaming; meaning there has been rumors of an new Star Wars MMO in the works. This rumor I'm not allowed to provide proof for so take it how you want.
I agree, the CU needed refinement, I was getting used to it and thought I guess this isn't so bad". People I knew who had left over it just started coming back and then they did the NGE, and everyone who tried it on test center was like, nope and left for good. As for Krayt I was able to solo those as a Master BH in the CU, of course the pearl drops where borked a bit, but still. They should have given the CU more time.
Here is a story many of you may or may not remember. You might remember when Thunderheart mentioned something about the timeline moving forward in a random post on the SOE forums. Based on what I was told by an asset artist who worked on SWG, WoW and a few other games; the nge was supposed to be SOEs showcase of what they could do with the game to make it more "fun". He had a portfolio site with some assets he was tasked to create that never got used in the game, which included some ships and other items. Don't remember his name but there is a thread about it here somewhere.
Story goes that while SWTOR was being created BioWare had shown Lucas Arts what they had, LEC didn't like the the direction or the progress made so they went back to SOE to see what they had. BioWare almost lost the licensing contract to make SWTOR. Originally SOE was tasked with recreating SWG as SWG2, which was supposed to be an advancement in the timeline. After the NGE failed Lucas Arts pulled their usual stunt and went back to BioWare and put their full support into that game and all work on the newer version of SWG halted. This all unfolded here actually years ago and the post about it might still exist if you dig for it. Some of you folks might also remember a particular survey only a few of us got from Lucas Arts asking about aspects what we would like to see in a new SW MMO, followed by a huge post on SWG forums detailing a Star Wars game that did not and never has existed to our knowledge, turns out it was a purposeful leak.
Fast forward to today, word around the campfire these days is that there may be a revival of sorts of a SWG type MMO since for the most part SWTOR has stagnated and Disney is looking to capitalize off all aspects of Star Wars gaming; meaning there has been rumors of an new Star Wars MMO in the works. This rumor I'm not allowed to provide proof for so take it how you want.
Very cool, thanks for the share, I knew some of the history of how SWG evloved through the suits but not as deep as you described. I believe CU was when Kryat was possible to solo, but not pre-CU I may be mistaken.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
How come no one played both SWG old, and SWG NGE? Give a opinion based on that, instead of 15 year old memories. Most people can't even remember what they did last weekend at 10 am, let alone what a mmo was like 15 years ago. Maybe I should of made the title clearer, the state of SOE SWG matters not to me, because its gone forever, the 2 emulators arent, and I think SWG NGE is the best of the 3 star wars mmos by alot.
I mean I just got invited to live in a cool city in the middle of the desert on LOK, now you can do that in both SWG EMUS, but SWTOR, you aren't living in anything other than some instances garbage that feels about as realistic as climbing under your bed, and setting up some lego men and saying you have your self a army.
The things in NGE are so much more convenient, and no one yet has said anything as to why, forcing some one to sit at a robot for 4 mins to get to a new planet is a good idea. Why having instant travel in a space ship game is a bad thing. I dabbled in both crafting systems, more so in the NGE one, but they are basically the same, so I dont see what the problem is. Old you still had to grind to get boxes, it just takes longer, but the experimenting and resources are there which is what made the crafting good, not a long grind.
I have seen more groups in the NGE than I ever did in the old swg emu, I mean there are groups there, but I don't call that grouping. They literally just invite you, so you can get the higher mission, and every one does their own thing, so yeah that is pretty much like what happens in all modern mmos. In NGE emulator, people ask for groups all the time to do things together, especially space ship missions.
Most people in the old swg emu are anti social also, not that there are not anti social people in NGE, but I don't get how you guys think that having machincs to force people who are anti social to be social is a good idea..... It justs makes them mad, and than people find ways to not be social. The social people will be social either way.
So the only thing I have got out of this conversation, since obviously I am the only one here that actually plays SWG now. Is the only thing people have about SWG is some emotions, that are either good or bad, but personal emotions that they want to spew, not a discussion about which is better now.
Back in the day I used to group with my droids for higher missions if it was late and guild members weren't on, no need for random people.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
Back in the day I used to group with my droids for higher missions if it was late and guild members weren't on, no need for random people.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
So there is another person who is saying that you really dont like SWG, you just played it because it was the cool thing to do among your friends, and when they all left you didn't want to play it any more. None of your friends from bloodfin play it so it isn't fun for you.
Guess I am the only one here that actually likes SWG and the game that it became. Sounds like the majority of people only liked it cause their friends thought it was cool.
Back in the day I used to group with my droids for higher missions if it was late and guild members weren't on, no need for random people.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
So there is another person who is saying that you really dont like SWG, you just played it because it was the cool thing to do among your friends, and when they all left you didn't want to play it any more. None of your friends from bloodfin play it so it isn't fun for you.
Guess I am the only one here that actually likes SWG and the game that it became. Sounds like the majority of people only liked it cause their friends thought it was cool.
Dude you are playing an emulator... think about that for a second, I'll let that sink in
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
Back in the day I used to group with my droids for higher missions if it was late and guild members weren't on, no need for random people.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
So there is another person who is saying that you really dont like SWG, you just played it because it was the cool thing to do among your friends, and when they all left you didn't want to play it any more. None of your friends from bloodfin play it so it isn't fun for you.
Guess I am the only one here that actually likes SWG and the game that it became. Sounds like the majority of people only liked it cause their friends thought it was cool.
Now you're just trolling. You still don't get it. We didn't like SWG because of all the neat content. There was boo for content if we're honest. What, a few themeparks and some points of interest? No. It was about the relationships we made with other players. SWG for us was Second Life before Second Life was Second Life, only with Star Wars and not all the furries and weird shit. The reason we all bring up detailed memories from over a decade ago is because when a community is as tight as the SWG servers were, it becomes meaningful in ways that the NGE version couldn't touch. What you're doing here is virtually the same as trying to convince a bunch of OG EQers that EQII is better. You'd fail miserably at that for mostly the same reasons. Once again, I'm thrilled that you get to enjoy your favorite version of SWG, and I agree with you on SWTOR, but you're literally the only person I've ever met that thought pre-CU was crap compared to NGE. Only one of two possibilities exist here. Either you're flat out trolling, or you only ever experienced Pre-CU on the Emu Server.
Here is one thing I forgot that I just remembered, Old SWG has no way to search the bazaar, the new one has a text search.
Use the bazaar? Why would you do that!? No the great thing about the pre-cu version was you would develop a relationship with vendors and buy your weapons from X here and armor from Y there etc..... The saying 'Special Orders don't upset us' had meaning.
And I don't remember ever having too many problems when I did use the bazaar. You went to the area you wanted and scrolled down. No more difficult than using the one in LotRO. It does has a search function, but if you don't get the wording juuuusssst right it's worthless.
There was 1 way to level in old SWG, you got in a group, which was mostly bots. Got buffed, and ran the same mission over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Sorry don't agree with that, I got together with my guild once a week for animal hunts. We'd each take 5 missions from the terminal and than go do the quests and no one were bots. We'd get XP and our city would get funds.
I leveled to max taking mission terminal quests, storyline quests and grabbing all the quests from the random NPC's. Yes you had to check all of them as they weren't marked, but they were there. And once I got into space I took all those from the space stations too.
There was 1 way to level in old SWG, you got in a group, which was mostly bots. Got buffed, and ran the same mission over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Sorry don't agree with that, I got together with my guild once a week for animal hunts. We'd each take 5 missions from the terminal and than go do the quests and no one were bots. We'd get XP and our city would get funds.
I leveled to max taking mission terminal quests, storyline quests and grabbing all the quests from the random NPC's. Yes you had to check all of them as they weren't marked, but they were there. And once I got into space I took all those from the space stations too.
In old SWG (pre-cu) the quests didn't give XP as they did in the CU and NGE era...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Back in the day I used to group with my droids for higher missions if it was late and guild members weren't on, no need for random people.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
Yeah even the Bloodfin server doesn't feel like bloodfin, it's nice seeing Heat and crew running it and all, but beyond that it's a totally different atmosphere. Then again that could just be because -Fight- doesn't have a big presence there
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I've played all 3 in their original forms. Did Pre-CU have bugs and gliches? Oh heck yea, but it was fun never the less. And like a bunch of people have said it was about community. Be it the guy that just wanted the 'Uncle Owen' experience or a hunter for the vendors or even just being a vendor. One of the things that kicked the legs out of the community experience was when they took away the weapon decay and mind damage. Those 2 items really hurt the entertainer and vendor professions. You didn't need to go visit them as much so you ended up with more bots just auto healing and vendors not looking for repeat customers.
It also changed how we played the game. No more worrying about screwing up a quest since it was no foul or penalty, you just popped back and kept throwing yourself at the mission until you won.
With the exception of taking away all the professions you used to be able to do (and granted there were some that didn't fit the SW universe like swords and pikes from the middle Ages) NGE wasn't too bad. I think I respected through all of the choices except Doc just trying them out. They were OK, but nothing like my carbine/entertainer/doc I had before.
I thought NGE went down hill when they started bring in the Clone War stuff and than the horror zombie stuff. But would I still play it if it was still offered ...... sure.
SWToR now. That's a slightly entertaining pew-pew game. Stick your companion on heal and there's only about a .0000000001% chance of being defeated, so there's really no challenge in the game. Are the stories interesting? The professional and planet story arc's sure, but all those random ones ......... I think EA / Lucas even figured that out when they changed it so you didn't have to do those to level.
I will say this to end; nothing and I mean nothing was as much fun as the Sunday afternoon (my time) weekly Space Pvp get togethers.
In old SWG (pre-cu) the quests didn't give XP as they did in the CU and NGE era...
You're right, very low XP (in the hundreds or less) and maybe a reward of 34 credits if you were lucky, so sure I guess that would make leveling grindy, having to do ALL those missions, but it was fun. Some of the best 'reasons' for the quests were on those out of the way ones.
I once did a space mission cuz the npc sold an imp some hair cream that made his hair fall out and he wanted revenge. Was it a stupid quest reason? Sure, but still more fun than go kill 15 rats.
You're right, very low XP (in the hundreds or less) and maybe a reward of 34 credits if you were lucky, so sure I guess that would make leveling grindy, having to do ALL those missions, but it was fun. Some of the best 'reasons' for the quests were on those out of the way ones.
I once did a space mission cuz the npc sold an imp some hair cream that made his hair fall out and he wanted revenge. Was it a stupid quest reason? Sure, but still more fun than go kill 15 rats.
I do agree, I was stoked the day I found Jabba's palace (my first goal when setting out in the game) and got to work for all of the characters in the "tales from jabba's palace" novel I'd read as a kid.. Seeing those names from the book, just brought on the feels haha. SWG was an EU lovers paradise back then.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
I did not say it had no players, I said it didn't have 500,000.
Alot of people are starting to realize that one, which is way they move to the NGE server that has 100 times the content, plus all the old content. The original is 100 times more grindy too, people still do bot, but its alot less grindy. It took me a literally like 50 hours of doing nothing but sending my pet in to attack animals, kill them all with a round house kick, and do that over and over and over and over. New age you can do a lot more to level than just hit the same creatures over and over for hours, although you can still level that way too if you want. I don't really see all that many people leveling that way though.
Dont see why you think crafting doesn't matter in NGE. It is the same thing, the only difference is things dont totally brake. Everything else is the same, random resources, experimenting with resources, multi resources to have a end product that is different from some one else, but there are a lot of usable items that do get used up.
Can you please stop being full of shit. Crafting was NOT the same, it was nothing near the same. The process may still have been the same but the outcome and influence is NO where near the same. Did you just play an EMU and think you are now part of the good ol days? I'm not sure your angle...
Almost everything was useful, more than 90% of crafted items from the Pre-CU times have either been removed (along with the professions that made them), made useless, or not as good as loot items. Player crafter items were the basis of everything, in NGE you could play with full loot gear at only a minimal disadvantage.
It was not possible for the dedicated crafter to mine or harvest enough materials to keep supplied. People were hiring hunters and miners, again COMMUNITY. Everyone had a place in the crafting system, even the full combat guys that would pull weapon/armor supplements/components from the highest end creatures. Smugglers could alter stats on gear.
With no decay and loot weapons/armor/structures/vehicles/ships being available, the primary crafting professions are barely relevant.
Your tools were the effectiveness of the outcome, a true crafter to combat relationship, NGE it didn't matter.
I remember when the Krayt Dragon was the king of all beasts, it was hard as hell to kill as a group and even the most elite could not solo such a thing.
http://i.imgur.com/TKiEFi6.jpg
NGE they were turned into weak things that could be soloed
Let's not forget the HAM system, being able to be incapacitated in 3 different ways, including using all your mind by fault of your own. It was interesting and highly dynamic, created unique combat situations and duels instead of your HP 0 you die now... Turning into an HP system wasn't a bad idea but it was a huge change.
I was on Valcyn on the eve of June 26th 2003 after upgrading my HP Pavilion's Memory so I could play the damn thing and it eventually was turned to dust on Oct 2009 when it was shut down completely, thought it didn't matter it was a ghost town after NGE. Though no matter what we say you will say differently. 12 servers in total were obliterated that same day. Dropping the server count from 25 to just 13.NGE hit Nov. 2005 and I continued to play and tried to like what was forced on to us, but I couldn't after a month I was gone. I returned years later while my main MMO was LOTRO to see how my server was doing and explore a few planets, look at old inventory etc. Just seeing all the ghost towns killed me and there was only one other person on at the time I was. I understand there were servers still populated of people who enjoyed NGE, mine however was not one of them.
You call Pre-CU broken, I call it a masterpiece that needed refinement not an overhaul. History is history, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we all fall down...
Here is a story many of you may or may not remember. You might remember when Thunderheart mentioned something about the timeline moving forward in a random post on the SOE forums. Based on what I was told by an asset artist who worked on SWG, WoW and a few other games; the nge was supposed to be SOEs showcase of what they could do with the game to make it more "fun". He had a portfolio site with some assets he was tasked to create that never got used in the game, which included some ships and other items. Don't remember his name but there is a thread about it here somewhere.
Story goes that while SWTOR was being created BioWare had shown Lucas Arts what they had, LEC didn't like the the direction or the progress made so they went back to SOE to see what they had. BioWare almost lost the licensing contract to make SWTOR. Originally SOE was tasked with recreating SWG as SWG2, which was supposed to be an advancement in the timeline. After the NGE failed Lucas Arts pulled their usual stunt and went back to BioWare and put their full support into that game and all work on the newer version of SWG halted. This all unfolded here actually years ago and the post about it might still exist if you dig for it. Some of you folks might also remember a particular survey only a few of us got from Lucas Arts asking about aspects what we would like to see in a new SW MMO, followed by a huge post on SWG forums detailing a Star Wars game that did not and never has existed to our knowledge, turns out it was a purposeful leak.
Fast forward to today, word around the campfire these days is that there may be a revival of sorts of a SWG type MMO since for the most part SWTOR has stagnated and Disney is looking to capitalize off all aspects of Star Wars gaming; meaning there has been rumors of an new Star Wars MMO in the works. This rumor I'm not allowed to provide proof for so take it how you want.
Very cool, thanks for the share, I knew some of the history of how SWG evloved through the suits but not as deep as you described. I believe CU was when Kryat was possible to solo, but not pre-CU I may be mistaken.
I mean I just got invited to live in a cool city in the middle of the desert on LOK, now you can do that in both SWG EMUS, but SWTOR, you aren't living in anything other than some instances garbage that feels about as realistic as climbing under your bed, and setting up some lego men and saying you have your self a army.
The things in NGE are so much more convenient, and no one yet has said anything as to why, forcing some one to sit at a robot for 4 mins to get to a new planet is a good idea. Why having instant travel in a space ship game is a bad thing. I dabbled in both crafting systems, more so in the NGE one, but they are basically the same, so I dont see what the problem is. Old you still had to grind to get boxes, it just takes longer, but the experimenting and resources are there which is what made the crafting good, not a long grind.
I have seen more groups in the NGE than I ever did in the old swg emu, I mean there are groups there, but I don't call that grouping. They literally just invite you, so you can get the higher mission, and every one does their own thing, so yeah that is pretty much like what happens in all modern mmos. In NGE emulator, people ask for groups all the time to do things together, especially space ship missions.
Most people in the old swg emu are anti social also, not that there are not anti social people in NGE, but I don't get how you guys think that having machincs to force people who are anti social to be social is a good idea..... It justs makes them mad, and than people find ways to not be social. The social people will be social either way.
So the only thing I have got out of this conversation, since obviously I am the only one here that actually plays SWG now. Is the only thing people have about SWG is some emotions, that are either good or bad, but personal emotions that they want to spew, not a discussion about which is better now.
As far as currently playing SWG, I did for a few months this last fall, but it's kinda of like walking through a cool museum, nothing to keep me playing though. People are nice and helpful but It's not Bloodfin, so it never really felt like "home" to me.
So there is another person who is saying that you really dont like SWG, you just played it because it was the cool thing to do among your friends, and when they all left you didn't want to play it any more. None of your friends from bloodfin play it so it isn't fun for you.
Guess I am the only one here that actually likes SWG and the game that it became. Sounds like the majority of people only liked it cause their friends thought it was cool.
Dude you are playing an emulator... think about that for a second, I'll let that sink in
Now you're just trolling. You still don't get it. We didn't like SWG because of all the neat content. There was boo for content if we're honest. What, a few themeparks and some points of interest? No. It was about the relationships we made with other players. SWG for us was Second Life before Second Life was Second Life, only with Star Wars and not all the furries and weird shit. The reason we all bring up detailed memories from over a decade ago is because when a community is as tight as the SWG servers were, it becomes meaningful in ways that the NGE version couldn't touch. What you're doing here is virtually the same as trying to convince a bunch of OG EQers that EQII is better. You'd fail miserably at that for mostly the same reasons. Once again, I'm thrilled that you get to enjoy your favorite version of SWG, and I agree with you on SWTOR, but you're literally the only person I've ever met that thought pre-CU was crap compared to NGE. Only one of two possibilities exist here. Either you're flat out trolling, or you only ever experienced Pre-CU on the Emu Server.
Use the bazaar? Why would you do that!? No the great thing about the pre-cu version was you would develop a relationship with vendors and buy your weapons from X here and armor from Y there etc..... The saying 'Special Orders don't upset us' had meaning.
And I don't remember ever having too many problems when I did use the bazaar. You went to the area you wanted and scrolled down. No more difficult than using the one in LotRO. It does has a search function, but if you don't get the wording juuuusssst right it's worthless.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Sorry don't agree with that, I got together with my guild once a week for animal hunts. We'd each take 5 missions from the terminal and than go do the quests and no one were bots. We'd get XP and our city would get funds.
I leveled to max taking mission terminal quests, storyline quests and grabbing all the quests from the random NPC's. Yes you had to check all of them as they weren't marked, but they were there. And once I got into space I took all those from the space stations too.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
In old SWG (pre-cu) the quests didn't give XP as they did in the CU and NGE era...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yeah even the Bloodfin server doesn't feel like bloodfin, it's nice seeing Heat and crew running it and all, but beyond that it's a totally different atmosphere. Then again that could just be because -Fight- doesn't have a big presence there
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It also changed how we played the game. No more worrying about screwing up a quest since it was no foul or penalty, you just popped back and kept throwing yourself at the mission until you won.
With the exception of taking away all the professions you used to be able to do (and granted there were some that didn't fit the SW universe like swords and pikes from the middle Ages) NGE wasn't too bad. I think I respected through all of the choices except Doc just trying them out. They were OK, but nothing like my carbine/entertainer/doc I had before.
I thought NGE went down hill when they started bring in the Clone War stuff and than the horror zombie stuff. But would I still play it if it was still offered ...... sure.
SWToR now. That's a slightly entertaining pew-pew game. Stick your companion on heal and there's only about a .0000000001% chance of being defeated, so there's really no challenge in the game. Are the stories interesting? The professional and planet story arc's sure, but all those random ones ......... I think EA / Lucas even figured that out when they changed it so you didn't have to do those to level.
I will say this to end; nothing and I mean nothing was as much fun as the Sunday afternoon (my time) weekly Space Pvp get togethers.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
You're right, very low XP (in the hundreds or less) and maybe a reward of 34 credits if you were lucky, so sure I guess that would make leveling grindy, having to do ALL those missions, but it was fun. Some of the best 'reasons' for the quests were on those out of the way ones.
I once did a space mission cuz the npc sold an imp some hair cream that made his hair fall out and he wanted revenge. Was it a stupid quest reason? Sure, but still more fun than go kill 15 rats.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
I do agree, I was stoked the day I found Jabba's palace (my first goal when setting out in the game) and got to work for all of the characters in the "tales from jabba's palace" novel I'd read as a kid.. Seeing those names from the book, just brought on the feels haha. SWG was an EU lovers paradise back then.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson