Played from the first day til now and just thought I should warn everyone that the game is dreadfully boring once you max out your character(which can be done in a month).

There is pretty much zero high-end content, virtually no dropped loot at all aside from a few trade skill ingredients, money and junk. There are far more good loots in Guk and Sol B than there is in all of SW:G.

The dozen or whatever planets are all pretty much identical except cosmetics. Giant rectangular zones.

Combat consists of almost totally random outdoor spawns. The few static dungeons that do exist tend to be a 35 minute run from the nearest shuttleport and have virtually no rewards to offer.

The game has a VERY unfinished feel to it. IMO it should have stayed in beta another 6-12 months while they worked out the hundreds of HUGE bugs (millions of credits worth of items vanishing, corpses with all items vanishing to the point where they had to eliminate player corpses from the game, etc.)

Basically I'm posting this to warn people and because I'm mad at myself and SOE for wasting several months of my life, hehe.

y plan now is to go pick up ldon and try that out while I give the SW:G team half a year or so to finish their game. hehe.

Now that I'm a Bounty Hunter you tell me!

Bah!

Three of our most skilled players abandonded us for SW:G. They think its the greatest thing since the invention of civilization itself. So much so that they actively tried to get other guildies to leave EQ and go play with them.

I generally stay away from games that are licensed from movies.

EQ sucks too dude, just most of the people here are too addicted to it. There might be more to do at the high-end game in EQ, but even then it gets pretty stale after a short while. Spend too much time playing any video game and you will feel unfulfilled. EQ has addictive properties though, because you always hope to be fulfilled, even though it never happens. From what I understand about SWG, it doesn't even give you that hope.

This weekend I played Thief, Thief 2 and tried out the new Civilization 3 expansion.

In addition, I went outside to walk the arroyo behind my house, drove downtown just to get out and ate a chile dog.

Too much EQ is bad, the only reason I play now is because of my friends. I do enjoy being able to take, now 130 unique accounts, who not long ago thought they couldn't do any of the high end of the game, and show them they can take charge of their own lives both in and out of game and accomplish what they previously thought impossible. Now there is something I bet the developers never thought of.

The word "addicted" is applied too liberally now days to hold any significant meaning anymore.

>>>Now that I'm a Bounty Hunter you tell me!

Well don't feel too bad, at least you chose what most people think is the best /most fun class.

Best because they rival commando in destructive power and most fun because not only do they have those unique bh only missions but now you'll be able to hunt force sensistive players for 150 k a kill via special missions given at the bh terminals.

The light lightning cannon is a devatasting weapon, I've seen it hit for over 1100 dmg in PvP so that's like 4500 dmg PvE.

yself I'm a master rifleman/master creature handler/ 4-4-0-3 medic and it was a lot of fun until I realized there was very little to do besides the same terminal missions over and over to rack up credits:/


>>>Three of our most skilled players abandonded us for SW:G. They think its the greatest thing since the invention of civilization itself. So much so that they actively tried to get other guildies to leave EQ and go play with them.

Don't worry, odds are they'll be back. Unless they really into mega-unbalanced PvP there is nothing to hold a high-end player's attention for long.

There is the current rush to unlock your force sensitive character slot, which requires you to master as many as 8 different professions and luck into completing several other objectives, all of which are hidden and you have no idea what they are for your character. Oh and regarding mastering those diffferent porfressions, keep in mind that you only have enough skill points to master 2 or 3 at a time, and some of them have such pre-reqs that you can only master one at a time, so basically it's like you have to level up to 50 8 times from scratch and the only way to know which classes you have to level is by camping holocrons which are more camped than l guk pre-kunark. (for those who remember guk with 80+ people every night).

So for people like myself who maxxed out their character and have nothing to do but persue the force sensitive slot, it means we have to drop all the skills we worked up over months to begin persuing randomly assigned classes. A master bounty hunter on the boards mentioned that after a solid week of all day campfests he finally got his first holocron which told him he needed to master chef.

What kind of crap is that? What if Luke arrived on Dagobah and Yoda was like "he's too old to begin the training PLUS he hasn't yet mastered bio-engineer, architect, armorsmith, scout, musician, and fencer!"

Ya basically SW:G makes EQ look like paradise.

Today is the big patch day though in SW:G they are allegedly adding player cities and rideable creature mounts today. From reports on the test server both have major problems but a while ago I decided to give it til this patch to see if things would improve. If the servers ever come back up I'm gonna log in (bloodfin, exedor) and mount-train my kaadu, dewback and brackaset. I highly doubt they will make the game fun again but at least I'll give them a try before I cancel my account and head to the store to pick up ldon and a 90 day EQ card.

SW:G is developed by the former Ultima Online crew. Notice the *MANY* shared elements with Ultima Online? Fuxxored PvP, learnable "skills", skill caps, ability to "un-learn" skills, and other parallel concepts?

Also remember that UO sucked, for the most part? And had no End-Game at ALL? And that there was almost always a generally-accepted "uber" skill combo, like Archery+something else and so on?

It's not surprising that these (bad) characteristics also exist in SW:G.

Attempting to compare SWG to EQ or even UO is like comparing apples to oranges. The games are not developed for the same playstyles and personality types.

If you thought UO sucked I'll grant you may very well dislike SWG for similar reasons however many people loved and still love UO for the very reasons you disliked it, and many people most likely dislike EQ for reasons you may enjoy it.

I'm glad that all MMORPG's are not cookie cutters of each other why play EQ with a StarWars theme? What would be the point?

I enjoy SWG, granted just like every other MMORPG that's ever been released, it was not released with fully fleshed end game content. Aren't we glad that MMORPG's are ever changing environments that become more challenging and add more content as time passes? I know I wouldn't have wanted to play EQ for 3 years if the only thing I had to look forward to was killing Vox and Naggy and camping SolB. /Shrug games grow that's the way they work. Deal with it :)

Exedor, yea, I have a lot of firepower, but BHs are, for lack of a better word, kinda broken :P
Our missions beyond Investigation 1 are so expensive they're not worth doing. These tend to be off-planet, and the cost or an Arakyd (sp) driod to find what planet it is on, then taking the spaceship to that planet, then releasing another seeker droid to find it, makes the final bounty not worth the effort or. And we have close to no defense skills, and all our work is solo, against normally red conning NPCs.
But what is funny is I have found my kiting skills as a druid to fit in perfectly with being a Bounty Hunter. Time for me to boast my skills:

I was doing one of the Rebel Dynamic missions (rebel coordinator missions: contact Dr. Vacca) and had to travel to Lok (a very desolate and dangerous planet - moon actually but who's counting) for the last two parts. I got to the commander who then said I had to take over an Imperial Relay station to send a message to this Dr. Vacca. The station was manned by 6 Stormtroopers (white cons to me) and a commander (yellow con). If I attacked one they would all start firing on me and come running. I asked my guild and everyone had always done this part accompanied by at least 3 other people plus their pets. But as I was gonna die anyway (at least I thought so), I said "What the heck" and tried something out. So I attacked one and ran off. after a while that one lingered behind the ones returning to base, so I soloed it, and then picked them all off one by one doing the same. It was really funny. No one believed me that I had soloed that part.. :P

So my leet skills aside, Bounty Hunters do have some issues, and killing force sensitive players will not be as easy as you think. They have a lot of power, and it will most likely take a group of 3 or 4 to kill one.
Needless to say I am playing more SWG atm than EQ. It really all depends on the person.

I hear ya Araxx. I think part of the frustration you're feeling is the fact that players cannot tank at all in sw:g. A tough pet is almost a must for anyone who plans to solo a lot; which is something a lot of us dislike. Makes the game into PetWars.

With yesterday's patch they have allegedly massively improved the tanking abilities of the melee classes but whether they can take the place of a pet tank or not remains to be seen.

As far as soloing the Vacca's Allegiance quest, that's pretty impressive considering you had no pet, myself I just sent in my 2 graul maulers and it was a breeze. The only opponent's I've come accross that I couldn't solo with pets tanking and myself blasting away with my t21 have been dark jedis on dathomir, but I managed to find ways to kill them with cheap tactics, hehe. Krayt Dragons and AT-ST's are easy to solo compared to those dark jedi, hehe.
The Krayts dont require any spice but to solo an AT-ST I have to use Muon Gold:/

As far as comparing SW:G to other games. I really enjoyed both UO and EverQuest. They both kept my interest far longer than sw:g; even though I'm a huge StarWars fan. So I have to assume it's just this game with it's lack of content and cookie-cutter planets/missions.

Yesterday they also added player mounts (rideable creatures similar to horses and lizards in EQ). They definitely make getting around a LITTLE bit faster but they have more drawbacks than even the horses in EQ :(

Player Cities were also added and I can see how that is very appealing to some people but it's not gonna keep me playing:/

Oh well, maybe LDON will be fun. I still haven't picked up a copy but I probably will within the next month or so, after my sw:g subscription runs out.

A friend of mine, who likes SWG, wrote up a pretty good review of it.

I think it is quite fun. It has many good points, and some bad ones.

A short review of both:

GOOD
=====
* The character system is first rate. The best one around in my opinion. It is strong in two ways: the ability to customize your look and the ability to customize what you can do.

For example, my main character has developed into a master dancer and master martial artist, with a dash of medic and some modest scouting skills. She uses the scouting skills largely to harvest animal hides, which she trades to her tailor for free clothes. As a result, she owns about 40 articles of clothing, which she mixes and matches to make new looks. She usually carries about 20 just to have outfit changes to match to her various dance styles: a little black dress for club dancing, formal gowns for formal dances, something form-fitting for exotic dances. Plus a traveling outfit or two. She has 5 hot keys just devoted to shoes (3 of which are various shades of red pumps). For a real change, she occasionally visits a hairstylist for a new hairdo.

The character system lets you blend from about 20 different professions. About a half are combat professions and about half are not. The only limitation is on the total number of skills you choose (different skills cost different amounts). You have enough "skill points" to master at least two professions and dabble in a couple others. If you get tired of what you have, you can drop skills to start learning new ones. Very flexible, with just enough limits to force you to make real choices.

There are no arbitrary limits on classes. My martial artist is perfectly free to wear armor, for example, though there are reasons she may not want to. She can use a gun too, though very badly.

* Non-combat classes. The game really takes the idea of doing things other than combat to heart. For example, my dancer just dances. This has no value in combat (compared, for example, to an EQ bard). Dancing is valuable because it heals something called "battle fatigue". This is something you worry about it later, after the hunt. This encourages players to visit the town cantinas so they can watch the dancers and listen to the musicians and just relax. Makes for a lively town life and doesn't feel like just a title (e.g. "bard") placed on a combat class. If I want to go hunting, I break out my martial artist skills. But some players forego combat completely. Experience is earned by doing class-appropriate things. For example, you level up as a dancer by dancing.

Other non-combat skills include image design (e.g. hairstyling), bio-engineering, politician, doctor, merchant and creature handling.

The other big non-combat area is crafting. There are weaponsmith, armorsmith, architect, tailor, droid engineer and chef crafting professions. Plus doctors do some crafting too. This leads to another good point...

* Player-driven economy. When I first started playing, things were going slow and I was so excited when I finally got enough cash to go buy a better weapon. But, I couldn't find any stores. I was mystified at first, because the tutorial taught me all about how stores worked. Well, it turned out I couldn't find any stores because none of the players were sufficiently advanced yet to open a store. What this means is that all of the stores, and nearly every item in the game, is made by players. This is both interesting and it virtually eliminates camping for items.

Now things are thriving and there are shops all around. Specialized organizations such as mining consortiums and hunt clubs supply the raw materials that the crafters use to make the items that the merchants sell in their shops. Raw materials change every so often, which changes the quality of the items made, and sometimes eliminates the ability to make certain items altogether until a new source is found. This allows for speculative resource hoarding.

* Housing. You can own your own house and furnish it. There are several designs of houses and lots of kinds of furniture. All made by architects. Very recently, the ability for the players to make their own cities was added, along with a new profession (politician) to manage them, set boundaries and public spaces, build starports, set tax rates, etc.

* Combat. The combat system is pretty good. Not amazing, but interesting. Most professions have several useful 'moves' they can learn and you can queue these up in a 'combat queue' if you want. My martial artist has several she uses regularly depending on circumstances: improved hits, head hit, body hit, leg hit, spin attack (multiple targets), knockdown, dizzy, stun, blind, berserk, full defense, intimidate and warcry. Quite a few. They are all useful in specific cases, so combat is not a completely routine affair.

* PvP. This is interesting because you have the whole empire vs. rebel background. You can align yourself with a side. A lot of people are into this aspect, though I have not been myself.

* Graphics. Not jaw-dropping, but good. Good enough to show off all your different clothes :-) Also, faces and bodies respond to emotes. For example, if you "/smile", then the toon's face will smile. And "/bow", "/deepbow" and "/kowtow" are all different.

* Fixed EQ-isms. It is obvious they set about to fix a game without EQ's annoyances. There is no camping for loot (or very little of it), less downtime, minimal kill stealing, more flexibility, better chat, built-in e-mail, more customizable UI and better macros than in EQ.

* Casual play. It is easier to jump in for an hour and play, compared to EQ. There are few, if any, raid scenarios, so getting a huge group together is not needed. Also, roles are more flexible. You aren't typically stuck waiting for an enchanter or cleric to show up, for example. Soloing remains viable through all levels, but grouping is typically more fun.


BAD
====
* There is only one thing that is truly bad. While, I think, the game system is excellent, the game content is weak. In particular, there simply isn't enough things to do at the higher levels. Presumably this will change over time, but it is very clear that Sony was expecting the players to take longer to level up than they did. The game was simply released too early in its development. When people say the game isn't fun, this is probably what they are referring to.

For myself, this hasn't been a problem yet. It is just starting to become one after about 3 months of pretty heavy play. But still, the problem is noticeable and obvious. It is not that I don't have anything to do, but the variety is pretty small.

* Giant, small worlds. What I mean is this... There are something like 8 planets one can visit. This sounds like 8 continents in EQ and seems like it would provide tons of environments to visit. But it does not, because each planet is pretty homogenous. There are some variations as you travel over the surface, but not like different zones in EQ. This removes a lot of the motivation to travel. Actually traveling over them is a big deal though - because they are very large. There are a few points of interest to be found, but they are far apart and not all that interesting right now. This sort of relates to the first point about there being not enough game content.

* Jedi. Players can become Jedi, but it takes a ton of work. Basically, you have to master a whole series of professions, exactly which you uncover during the game. The process is still a little unclear as the very first have just started appearing. The implementation is stupid, counterproductive to the health of the game (since it defeats roleplaying by forcing players into unwanted professions) and is a blatant, crass attempt by Sony to cover up for the lack of content (by forcing players to do more leveling up).

* Glitches, balance and bugs. Like most new online games, this one has had its share of problems. The state of the game is pretty good now, with only a few truly annoying bugs and only a few completely busted professions. IMHO, this game has faired better than average in this regard, but still not a stellar success.

* Hardware needs. The game runs well on good hardware. "Laggy" otherwise. Having a pretty good graphics card is helpful and having 1 GB of RAM really helps a lot.


RECOMMENDATION
================
If you are interested at all, then pick it up. Even if you get bored after 3 months, you will be very entertained until then and you will definitely

That's a good review. It's a great game for crafters and creative types, maybe not so good for achievers since it's not based on achieving really. I'm into my third month and still enjoying tending my harvesters and my little furniture and pet food shop.