Since I never could get Shadowbane to run after 2 weeks of trying every suggestion I could find, I've expunged my hard drive of that foul game and sent a nasty letter to Ubisoft...

Now, on to other games :)

I'm looking for some good honest opinions of Star Wars Galaxies. How does it compare to EQ (both good and bad)? Is it worth playing? I know there were some server problems at launch, but haven't heard much other than that.

Thanks :)

I just tested it out myself last night and I actually found it fun. If you're looking for an eq style game though, you'll be disappointed. It's definately what everyone says about resembling a shoot-em-up game rather than a rpg.

Anyway, issues I had with it:

1. lost connection atleast 3 times in 4 hours.
2. crashed to desktop atleast 4 times in 4 hours.
3. the server my friends were on was full, so I had to wait until some people logged on before I could actually log on myself.
4. sounds stuttered in cities

Those seem to be common problems everyone is complaining about. The sound stuttering has to do with my being on a lower end system for the game. Video lag and jerkiness is pretty bad in the cities.

The crashing to desktop and lost connections might be a router issue, although I'm not sure yet.

Some other problems I had with it was that the original keyboard controls were really strange and changing them to something that I'm used to and that would work with the game wasn't all that easy. I still don't have it completely working right.

Combat, scenery and character creation are all pretty cool though.

The bazaar feature is more "high tech" than it is in eq. In other words, you don't have to go to a zone to see what's for sale. You can look up the bazaar on little stations located in cities and buy and sell from there.

I like how everything is player made.

It's the type of game where you can get right on and do something instead of sitting around lfg or camping spawns like you do in eq. That alone made it really enjoyable.

I'm not sure how much staying power the game will have with me, and I don't have a lot of expectations but for now it's a nice change of pace.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's the type of game where you can get right on and do something instead of sitting around lfg or camping spawns like you do in eq. That alone made it really enjoyable.[/quote]

The problem, according to people in my guild, is that you won't eb doing this for very long before you max out your current abilityies, and all you've done is PVP and tradeskill up. Limited high-end content, there's nothing to keep the game going right now..

I talked to a friend of mine who is playing it. One thing we both didn't like so much in EQ is the emphasis on raiding and how it takes so much time. I asked him if he thought SWG might go in that direction and he thought it very possibly could.

As a casual player he's building a character that can solo well and he's enjoying it.

Neither one of us wants to prioritze our lives around a game so any game that goes in the direction EQ has gone is probably not gonna be a good choice.It sounded like with the emphasis on tradeskills and such that it might be a better game for a casual player than EQ. But it's early still in the life-cycle of the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Those seem to be common problems everyone is complaining about. The sound stuttering has to do with my being on a lower end system for the game. Video lag and jerkiness is pretty bad in the cities.
[/quote]
Actually you can have the greatest system in the world and the cities still net you about 7-10 FPS.

I was only in the Beta for SWG. It had its good points and its bad. But for me the bad points far outweighed the good.
It will and has appealed to many people, but it is a case of you'll have to try it yourself to see if your one of those people.

I suppose my dislike was the game was in I thought was a good position for me, then the nerf bat was swinging hard and fast in the last week of beta. I could list all the bad things they did in that last patch but I believe ezboard most likely has a limit to how long these messages can be.

Ok, I decided to try for myself. First the good news... the game installed and ran without crashing (a rare thing for me lately - see other threads :) )

The game looks great, but after just a few hours of play time, I'm bored with it :( I can't see it having much staying power, but I'll stick with it for a bit to make sure.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Actually you can have the greatest system in the world and the cities still net you about 7-10 FPS.[/quote]

I have a P4 2.8 ghz, with 1G ram and an ATI Radeon card. I can't run with all the video options turned on without it lagging. Now, this system is way above the recommended system on the box. What does it take to run this game smoothly?

I was only getting around 15 fps in the countryside. Didn't stay in the city long, so forgot to check it there.

My system is way lower than yours and there were some options (like draw distance) that can be turned right up without lose. The big hitters in FPS and the shadows and the radial flora and characters etc.

Just as an FYI, the game engine is CAPPED at 29 FPS. So even if you get the highest end system you can find, you will not get any better performance that that.

Ok, I turned off some of the fauna and I'm getting 29 now. Still it sucks that a high power system can't run the game without turning off some features. :(

Of course, the game may not keep my interest that long any way :)

Brienna,

I agree. Even with setting turned down I am still getting a lot of jerkiness in the Cities. I know they are working on it, hope they get it straightened out soon.

For the original poster...

When they Beta ended I decded not to play, then I go a Collectors Edition for my Birthday, but decided to hold off a little longer. on the 14th the last of the original planend servers went up so I decdied to take advantage of a last opportunity for a fresh server for a while. it is definately progressed a lot since the end of Beta. I have had a good time the past couple weeks.

Frankly the bugs can still be a bit overwhelming, and some days you do feel like you are pretty much stuck in a Sea of bugs. i tend to try and play around them, but it is very frustrating.

The one thing they have done that is just a lot of fun are the Battlefields. They are the best PvP experience I ahve had in any game to date, I am pretty sure I tried them all. There are PVE battlefields as well, and if they are half as much fun the game will really be a blast once more of the kinks are worked.

Almost every profession has major issues right now, I will gurantee you most of those will still be there a couple months from now, even though they could have been fixed by now if release had been pushed back 2 weeks.

Having rambled on long enough I will say, despite it all, it is a lot of fun.

I've been playing since release and so far this is a game I'm sticking with.

If you want EQ with a Star Wars theme this is not it don't try to compare.

They have been constantly updating the server stability. In the begining I would ld about 2 or 3 times a night currently I haven't ld'd in 3 days.

You can get in a play immediatly missions are keyed toward your skill with the weapon you have equipped you just need to be a bit aware of the types of monsters on your planet and look for a mission that works best for you. Grouping is still kinda buggy HAM bars don't always update properly but now that non mmo veterns have been playing awile there are less of the communication problems than there were at first.

You aren't locked into the type of character that you started as if you start out as a fighter and develop your character for that but after a few months decide you want to give crafting a try you can not only drop and add skills but you can rearange your stats accordingly.

Community is important in SWG. The economy is completly player based and you must be on good relations with your local medical and entertainment staff. You have to teach others your skills in order to gain master titles.

Some cities are still laggy and the added lag from 100 rancors that novice creature handlers own don't help but they are being balanced so hopefully some of that will clear up.

I'm extremely biased due to previous experiences in UO with this team but the development team is wonderful. They are very communacative and not only look for feed back from the community but act on it.

My biggest problem is that I don't know what to do. I made a character and started a mission. I was supposed to go rescue some animals from a nest, or kill them and bring back their collars.

I found the nest (in about 5 minutes), but have no idea what to do with it. There are no creatures around it and I can't seem to manipulate it in any way.

Then I couldn't find my way back to town so I'm just wandering lost in the wilderness right now :)

Check out the radar, if there's little yellow or red squares on it, then those are the mobs you generally need to kill around the nest. If you don't see any, attack the nest and the mobs will come running. Kill those then finish killing the nest - end of mission.

If you get lost, use the map and double click on cities, pick the one you want to go to and right click and select creat waypoint. Then right click that and activate it. Little blue arrow will show up guiding you back to the city

There are two types of missions delivery and destroy. The info on missions doesn't mean much just the type. They will always build some type of story for why you have to go do whatever.

On a destroy mission (lair type) you follow the waypoint to the lair and you destroy it. Strategy for doing this so as not to be overwhelmed by adds. Example a Naboo gnort lair (easiest type of lair to take out lowest mobs on Naboo so good for beginners)
1) take out all wandering gnorts connected to the lair within the immediate area (use your radar set it at lowest to get approximate spawn area for the lair). Use your tab button to target what's in the area.
2) once you can no longer see any gnorts outside the lair target the lair and hit it once. This is similar to knocking on the door yoohoo anyone home?
3) as soon as you have hit it once hit peace and stop attacking. Any gnorts that pop up while you are attacking will be agro so you want to stop attacking as soon as you have made contact in order not to be swarmed.
4) depending on the lair the initial knock will bring out 1-10 new gnorts keep killing them till once again there are no gnorts outside the lair. As long as you are not in the process of attacking their home they won't pay you much attention.
4a) Depending on the mob type some mobs are agro (red named) some mobs will assist each other for this example I was using gnorts they are like bunnies and you can keep knocking them over the head forever.
5) rinse and repeat till your knocking doesn't bring a response or until the lair is destroyed.
6) once you have destroyed the lair you will get a message that you have completed the mission and your reward has been placed in your bank.

Delivery missions are mail routes you get a waypoint to one npc in the area talk to them then get a waypoint to another npc and have to go talk to that one to complete the delivery. The small reward deliveries (around 70cr) will be in the same town. Larger rewards (300-900cr) will be in other towns and you will want to factor in time or shuttle costs before taking those.

You can only have 2 missions in your datapad at a time so the best way to do either type of mission is to find 2 that will end up in the same area and do them back to back (in the case of destroy) or simultanously (in the case of delivery).

Delivery missions are good fast cash that can off set the cost of a shuttle trip if you want to see the world or if you are non combat. Destroy missions offer the best bang for the buck for both cash and experience in fighting skills. As you improve in fighting skills the reward for destroy missions increase. Currently at only level 3 pistol my dancer averages 2k per destroy on easy targets withing 2000 klicks from town.

Best recommendation for a beginner is to pick up both novice scout and novice medic along with whatever other skills you have. With the scout skill you can harvest hides, meat and bone from animal mobs that can be sold or crafted with and with novice medic you can craft and use simple health/action stim-a's.

If you are lost use the world map Ctrl-V on the default keymap leftclick the town nearest you and select set waypoint then leftclick the waypoint and select activate waypoint. With a starting character a waypoint for your starting town will always be placed in your datapad just select that and select ativate then follow the blue arrow.

If you are looking for a certain location in town get to know the /find command it's a lifesaver :) Typing /find and the name of the building /find cantina will set a waypoint to the closest cantina. If you don't know what exactly you are looking for or can't seem to get the name right just typing /find will get you a list of options to look for.

Thanks for the help :)

This review swg.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_section.phtml?site=13&id=18 (http://swg.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_section.phtml?site=13&id=18) is a nice summary of my opinions on SWG.

Expected myself to leave EQ for SWG, played beta till release, refused to buy the game.