Hey fellow druids

I recently was given a copy of SWG from this temporary roomate and have been hearing several conflicting stories about the content in the game. Some people rave about it, others are like 'eh, its okay.'

Is there really anything to go 'raid' and take out in the game to get armor/weapon upgrades? Or is it basically you just choose a profession gain xp in certain categories and up those skills?

I have yet to actually play the game because I am waiting on the account info so I can log in and change the billing and password over to me but have any you played it and enjoyed it. I live for raids, I love to just get the whole guild up and go kill something big, if thats not in SWG I am not so sure I could play it that long.

Admittedly, I didn't play it that long, but in the 3 weeks I tried it out, I never really got into it.

EQ hooked me in the first few hours I played and never let go (I'm experiencing similar reactions to a game I'm in beta for now - can't tell you which one or I'd have to kill you :) ). SWG just never had that hook for me.

I think part of it is that when you finish training, you can pick a planet and just port there. EQ you had to find your way around, exploring as you went (especially at first when there was nobody porting :) ). If I was just starting EQ now, with the PoP portals the way they are, I might feel the same way about it that I did SWG.

If you're looking for EQ in the Star Wars universe, this isn't it.

A friend of mine had very good things to say about it. He seemed to think it held more value for casual players than EQ does.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm experiencing similar reactions to a game I'm in beta for now - can't tell you which one or I'd have to kill you[/quote]

You are in Horizons beta aren't you? I DIDNT MAKE IT ! (afk to cry :( )

My roomy keeps telling me my last day of EQ will be when Horizons comes out, I might have posted this before but this is <strong>the</strong> funniest article ever. <a href="http://horizonsvault.ign.com/features/editorials/july03/doe3.shtml" target="top">HERE</a>

Read it, laugh a little, enjoy your snickers cuz it will be a loong time before you read an article like this again.

One of my old guild rogue friends, the kind of guy who played 8hrs every day, no matter if there was a raid or not, gave up EQ to play SW:G with his friends. He hasn't come back to EQ since. I think that says something. He's a big league gamer too, owns all the consoles, and pretty much all the new games. He's the type that simultaniously played Warcraft 3 and EQ so he wouldn't miss anything.

I'm playing SWG and IMHO it lacks a lot of things.

There is no loot. All usable loot is made by players. That, whilst allowing you to have the best of everytihng in every slot, lacks a sense of accomplishment like taking a big dragon down and being able to show off to your friends what you had won.

The world is too big, way too big. I never thought I'd say that, but hell, it just is.

Gameplay is not as exciting as it is in EQ, at least for me. I log on, decide what skills I want to try and reach the next level of, and just find mobs, kill them, get XP points for the skills I used, then train in them and get my new set of skills to be able to keep on killing the same creatures easier and for less exp... or else I could try running across country, find aggressive mobs, and die in some obscure part of the planet and never find my corpse again :P
Or I could select missions, complete them, get credits, and do that about 200 times and be the richest guy in SWG... not!

Whilst I still play to try and find SOME reason for it, I do miss EQ A LOT when I'm shooting at a rat with my laser pistol...

Content isn't developed all the way yet. Right now if looking for end game type raids no SWG doesn't have much there. I do expect the content to develop similarily to other games over a period of time.

The main thing is SWG is not a loot driven game, nor is it a level driven game. It is a player economy and skills driven game. Very different from EQ, which is why I like it, others don't.

As for Horizions it sounded good 5 years ago when I first heard of it. Even if it is finally to beta I'll still consider it vapor ware till the day it goes gold.

I have a year's subscription...I haven't played in 6 weeks. I want to - I just never get around to it.

I liked it in beta when mobs couldn't hit you. Could they bring that back? =)

I like SWG. It's the perfect game for a casual gamer such as myself. I can log on whenever I want, run around and do what I want to, and log off. I'm not required to log on for six or more hours to achieve any goals, nor am I required to log on five or six days a week to be able to fully enjoy the game.

SWG is not for achievers/killers. It is for socializers and explorers. Maybe it's because it is Star Wars... or because it is science fiction, but there is a helluva lot more role playing in SWG. I don't have to look for people to roleplay with... it just happens naturally most of the time.

A far, far more enjoyable experience for me than my first days of EQ. As for the grinding of skills and such... don't grind. I have a pistoleer/medic I play and her skills are coming along nicely just from exploring. There's a nice spot on Lok that has flocking birds in the sky that skim low over the terrain. I spent some time just watching them.

I knew at the end of beta that SWG wasn't the game for me, but did buy it and play it live for a month to see if I would feel any differently, and to play with friends there.

In the end, it just isn't the right genre for me. I enjoy spell casting rather than shooting at things. My friend, who was a melee character in EQ, still plays SWG and is enjoying it but the other caster and I cancelled.

The character creation was above any of the other games I have played to date, including one I am beta testing now. And being able to have an image designer change things about your appearance once you are ready for something different is a nice feature. The clothing you could tailor was varied and interesting. The crafting had some nice touches as well. You could be purely social and dance in the cantina or craft exclusively and own shops with vendors to sell your wares.

However, unless it has changed, being a healer in the game was a royal pain :) . I didn't enjoy the mechanics of the fighting in the game. The crafting and exploring kept me busy for a bit, but then when it came time to group and fight I wouldn't enjoy the gameplay. I also like a little instant gratification, and the lack of much good loot drops on the mobs (at the levels I was able to reach at least) was a disappointment.

I liked the idea of the game and the graphics were really pretty. I loved the crafting and that you could buy a house, decorate it, change your appearence, etc. But, the system requirements were just to much for my computer to handle. I crashed out of the game a lot and the video lag was unreal. Being a college student I can't afford to upgrade my computer at the moment. So, I cancelled my subscription.

I played it for a long while and quit. As a master creature handler / master rifleman / medic and before that as master architect / master rifle / medic.

Both got super boring super fast. The lack of loot and really the overall lack of content killed it for me.

I found very little to do besides repeating the same boring mission terminal quests over and over. Use terminal, run to waypoint, kill nest, repeat.

Sure they had long elaborate quests but the rewards were beyond retarded. Like imagine a quest comparable to VP key quest but the reward is a newbie lantern like you can buy from the vendor at the gates of Qeynos.

I finished the rebel theme park quests for example. Admiral ackbar gave me a crappy jumpsuit and luke gave me a broken holocron fragment that has no use at all and doesnt even look cool; just looks like a tiny pile of trangle chunks of rusty crap.

PvP in the game was a lot of fun, for about a week, then you realize it's just a b ig paperr scissors rock game based on this skillset beats that and so on.

You're better off playing Ultima Online for free like I've been doing! http://www.novusopiate.com cool pvm, cool pvp, cool people, cool trade skills, cool houses, PK'ing is possible but not too easy and doesnt spoil the fun for newbs most of the time but rather adds to the realism and intensity.

Sorry hehe I'm going off but I like it and want to spread the word! hehe

Unlike other MMORPGs people have a definite idea of what "star wars" should be like...

1. Spaceships/Starfights
2. Very fast vehicles... Landspeeders/Speeder Bikes
3. Lightsaber Combat!
4. FORCE POWERS
5. Epic feeling.. Feel like you are a person who will be remembered in history.

In all of these points, "Star Wars: Galaxies" has failed.

1. Spaceships/Starfights

Answer: There is no spaceflight till the first expansion, so Point number 1 is not existant.. And judging from the way the previews are showing it a character will have to put a LOT of his/her skill points into one of the Pilot trees to get to experience most of what spaceflight can offer.

2. Very fast vehicles... Landspeeders/Speeder Bikes

Answer: They did put in vehicles... but unfortunatly they go about 25-30mph...(scale miles) This is faster then running, but feels like a moped.. not like a speeder.

3&4 Lightsaber Combat! / FORCE POWERS

Answer: This is their worst mistake. The only way to be a Jedi is to "activate" your jedi slot... which means you have to master 6 "specific" jobs. But they do not tell you which ones... You can use expensive holocubes to find out 3 of these jobs, but then you have to "guess" the final three.

What if Obi-One had told Luke "I will teach you the ways of the force.. but first you must learn to be a chef." Huh?

Once you do get to be a Jedi.. you must constantly worry about PvP and being killed. You must spend millions of credits on armor and lightsaber components. And you must gain a tremendous amount of "jedi" xp (more then any other job class).

Finally you only have a few deaths.. and if you die too many times.. that character is deleted for good.. and you must create a brand new jedi in your jedi-slot... all the expensive gear is GONE.

5. Epic feeling.. Feel like you are a person who will be remembered in history.

Answer: At no time do you feel like an important person. You do not ever feel like the rebellion/empire is winning because of your efforts.

Sure you can go visit important NPCs like Leigh, C3P0, Luke... but in the end it is anti-climatic and you realize that nothing you do effects the world around you..

Unlike Luke.. you are still the idiot farmboy, destined to kill rats and ewoks and never be remembered.

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Finally, there is a few GLARING FLAWS... Yeah I know.. you would think I would be done already.. No, I am done telling you what it "should have been".. but now I have to tell you a few things that "it is" but should not be.

1. LAG LAG LAG!!!!!

If there ever was a killer for the emersment of this game it is the lag. I have seen this game played on 5-6 computers, all of which had Cable/DSL connections and better then the "recommeded stats". All of them suffered from terrible lag when 1 of 2 things happened. First, when more then 10 people are in a small area the system frames-per-second fall to single digits.. it becomes a slow slideshow. Second, when you are traveling and the world has to create/draw the textures as you travel.. when you hit a big area (like a city) the frame again drops to single digits and your vehicle usually crashs into a wall (doesnt damage it, but irritates you.)

2. the "All I get is this lousy T-Shirt" effect.

Answer: You finally get master Teras-kasi artist, and then you get great armor, and then you get vehicles and stuff.. you go to Lok and defeat nasty creatures...

And about a week later you realize... there is nothing new to do..

So then you start randomly mastering character classes to activate your "Jedi" slot.

The end is just abrupt and baren. Now new players enter cantinas to 10-20 people AFK playing insturments to get xps to master jobs/get jedi slot. Noone even WANTS to play at this point, they just want to master the class to get a jedi slot.

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It is a clunky system, full of exploits and bugs. Enormous number of AFK key clicker applications to let people play for hours not at the PC. No realism. No emersion. No epic feeling.

EDIT (Additons 6/8/2004)

Addition:

In all, after thinking about it a bit further.. Their biggest mistake was making the timeline between the movies.

Think about it... To place this between Episode 4 (origional Star Wars) and Episode 5(Emipire Strikes Back) is to completely GIMP this game.

To make the game in this period, makes it so that having a lot of "jedi" doesn't make sense at all. Because Yoda/Obi-One said that jedi are all but extinct.

To make the game during this time also makes it so that none of the players will ever be the "movers and shakers" of the universe.. Those positions were already taken by people like Luke, Leigh... etc..

If they had just made the game a thousand years before Episode one they could have had a million people be jedi, and the players could have created their own legacy without living in the shadow of NPCs who have already stolen the glory.

Honestly, Time line was their biggest mistake... Followed closely by a very buggy system/too-early release. Finally the flaw of not having space combat at the onset (and part of the original price of the game) was the cherry on top of all the mistakes.