Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Ships 502
TJPile writes "After months and months of beta testing and years of waiting, the Star Wars version of Ever-crack is now shipping. Order your copy today. There are already plans for an expansion pack in 2004 that will feature more character races, worlds, and even the ability to buy, fly, and fight in your own spaceship. The game will set you back $50, come on 3 CDs, require Internet access, and will cost around $10 a month (service subscription fee). Right now it's Windows only." Yep, I'm hoping to play as the Pit of Saarlac: The Ultimate Camper.
worst...agme...ever..... (Score:3, Informative)
I killed jarjar many times in beta, i think thats good enough~
Correction (Score:4, Informative)
Having been in the beta for a long time, I'm going to suggest staying away from this one for at least a few months. Even in the last two weeks, servers have been going up and down daily an most things still don't even appear to work correctly. The game is not nearly completed.
From what I did play, though, I had fun with... I just won't be picking it up for a while. Besides, I've still go DAoC to keep me busy.
10 bucks a month my ass... (Score:3, Informative)
However, there are flaws with this game... look for a post further down...
Not yet ready (Score:5, Informative)
I actually overcame my Everquest addiction... (Score:2, Informative)
But shit man, a wookie dark jedi.
(me to girlfriend)Baby, you know I love you, but I need some me(starwars) time, you know, to sort things out(become dark jedi). I'm glad you understand(please dont sleep with anyone else).
Love, Nadadogg(Sith Lord Grwararar-bacca)
Re:North America only? (Score:2, Informative)
Another rushed SOE product (Score:3, Informative)
I know that it's really sad to know this but... (Score:5, Informative)
official lore here [starwars.com]
I suppose that there would be other Sarlaccs in less famous pits, if you don't manage to camp Carkoon, which is like the beverley hills of pits.
Another Beta Tester Comment (Score:4, Informative)
The whole crafting system I find quite interesting, and appeals to the RTS gamer in me.
The Dev's have been VERY responsive in the forums, and listen to comments people say, even the flamers.
My bro does SWG tech support (Score:5, Informative)
After 1.5 weeks of training he is supposed to work 12 hour days (including weekends) for the next couple of weeks due to the launch... then he shifts to a 9am-6pm PDT schedule.
One thing that he told me that I was very surprised to learn was how these games are specifically designed to be intensively psychologically addicting. (They are subscription-based games so they want you to keep on playing.) And many people do take the games extremely seriously... There have even been suicides over previous games like Everquest, and the Techs/Game Masters routinely get death threats, etc by the players. This was all brought out in his training...
Re:Correction (Score:2, Informative)
Issues with Star Wars Galaxies (Score:5, Informative)
1) Its pretty. The graphics are very well done for the most part, for a while you will really feel like you are "on a Star Wars planet".
2) I've never played MMORPGs prior to this, but from what I hear, the character customization blows the others away. I was fairly impressed when I got to choose my toons eyeshadow and nose size.
3) It sounds good. The blasters sound like blasters, Stormtroopers talk ('move along') as you walk by, jawas chatter.
Now the Bad.
1) Its not Star Wars. Its EQ in Space, only there is no Space, so its basically EQ with Wookies. Let me clarify. When I think of Star Wars, I think of sweeping adventures, romance, intrigue, blaster fights that get my heart pounding, SPACE. The battles in SWG are bland, and consist of little more than spamming you're best special attack until the creature is daed. The thing that bothered me most was that the Brawler (hand to hand) had more varied moves than the Marksman (pistol, carbine, rifle user). I found that I actually used 3-4 moves with the Brawler and just Bodyshot 2 (yes, thats the actual name of the attack) with my Pistoleer. Combat consists of fighting enemies such as "diseased Nunas", "tusk cats", crazed butterfly like things, ape like "squalls", and swooperless swooper gangs. You could pop off one of the gang members and the rest of them would generally just stare at you. Weee...
2) Roughly 90% of the world that isnt in a city is random. Compeltely random. It changes almost hourly, based on mission spawns, and rarely changes "back". Not very immersive, I'd say.
3) No loot (well, very little). Very little incentive to go out and fight stuff, other than XP. Well, if thats my sole motivation, then why bother? I mean, I could kill a womp rat 1,000 times 10 feet out of town and level up or I could walk 45-60 minutes to get to one bigger creature (more often more than 1 bigger creature) that I have no chance to take and get about 10 more XP points. Okay, so its not quite THAT bad, but there is little incentive to go out and hunt, after the first "I just want to see it" hunt.
4) Classes not finished. Classes such as the Commando were not properly tested because resources crafters needed to make thier weapons werent avaialable in the beta. That means they will probably be totally unbalanced, which puts them in with the other classes. Note there were hundreds and hundreds of topics about the Medic class having severe issues (any of you who buy this game, go medical forage and tell me if you can make a StimA) and they were never addressed.
5) Its not very innovative. Right now, we're already looking at one expansion (space due 0-18 months from now) to provide features that should have been there since day one, vehicles. Its just a MMORPG, with a Star Wars skin. If I wasnt in town, I would have never known I was in the Star Wars world. Except for the Womp Rats and Dewbacks, there were very few Star Wars feeling moments in the wild.
6) Get ready to hoof it. It takes about 20-40 minutes to get from town to town (or town to mission, one way) if you dont take a shuttle, and at the moment there are no land vehicles (and shuttles dont go everywhere). So you hit autorun and point.
I wont go into the roleplaying features, because we could role play here if we so choose. Roleplaying, while part of the game, is only part of the game as much as the players want it to be.
SWG was a huge disapointment, I look forward to WoW.
Re:10 bucks a month my ass... (Score:2, Informative)
Â1 month -Â$14.99
Â3 months - $41.99
Â6 months - $77.99
Â12 months - $143.99ÂÂ
(http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/conte
Agree 100% (Score:5, Informative)
The beta testers' reviews of SWG weren't complimentary at all. There were a lot of negative posts and the most damaging evidence of that is how Sony has removed access to the old message boards (http://boards2.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars [sony.com]). However, forums at SWG fan sites have preserved some of these original, honest reviews. Check it out: SWG Fan Site with Honest Review Deleted by Sony [stratics.com]. My compliments to Stratics.com. And I'm sure other SWG fan sites will have honest reviews too.
Re:Better work harder on your character name (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:2, Informative)
PS2 wont be able to handle the game. They might do a bastardized version with same name, but it wont be the same game. X-Box version was in the cards, but it's development was recently halted (temporarily?) - one would assume it'll come sooner or later, but...
Linux version? You must be joking
No, that award would go to "Enter The Matrix" (Score:2, Informative)
Now I know why there was such a veil of secrecy and no reviews permitted prior to launch - if there HAD been reviews then no one would have bought the damn thing! I learned one valuable lesson though - from now on, wait at least two weeks after a game has come out before buying it, unless there have been lots of favourable reviews PRIOR to release from reputable gaming sites.
Quizo69
Wrong price. It's $15/Month. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Agree 100% (Score:5, Informative)
of course they weren't! think about it this way: how many people who were really enjoying the game do you think there were who took the time to stop playing, go to the public forums and write a glowing review? Compare that to the number of people who were upset with the game and didn't want to log in anyway. Of course most of the "user reviews" were negative: everyone who likes the game was too busy playing the damn thing to come out and write a review thread for all the fanboys who sit on the forums all day every day bitching about how they aren't in beta! sheesh!
now, I (fortunately? unfortunately?) was never part of everquest, but I can say with a little confidence that the game is/was successful. But, at the same time I'll bet their message boards are overflowing with negative threads....
my advice to you is this: try the game yourself before you decide if it is good or not.
don't let people who will bash the game no matter what decide that for you.
Re:Does ANYONE like it? (Score:5, Informative)
I base this on how I felt about UO after participating in the Ultima Online beta (same head developer btw.) and how the game progressed after it went live.
I also can compare it to how I felt about everquest after the EQ beta (i was actually in that one from alpha
overall , the game is free flowing, camping is alsost impossible, and there is forced interaction between the players.
you are not 'stuck' in the profession that you pick as an uneducated new player
Personally, I LIKE the game, I
Keep in mind, that until yesterday morning when the servers shut down, most of the people who LIKED the game, were in the game play testing it. Only the negative opinioned folks were out-and-about posting.
Re:Correction (Score:3, Informative)
After being in the beta... (Score:2, Informative)
Graphics - DAMN THAT'S PRETTY. Skies from Morrowind, landscapes that I cannot compare. And the detail on the Avatars... WOW. The different planet land scapes will blow you away. This game is an upgrade retailers' dream! Get RAM. Get video card. GO NOW!
Name filter - No lame '1337' names, no 2,000 'Han Solo' characters runnin' around. Sure, there are some creative names out there (one guy I met and ran around Tatooine spanking the Imps with was named "Thisgame Isnotready"... He was crazy tho!)
Missions - In beta they were a little redundant. Destroy this, or deliver that... That was the purpose of beta however, live there promises to be monthly special mission events, theme parks, like the Rebel HQ and the Emporer's Retreat, will be a little different evey time you go there.
Camping MOb's - STAY AWAY FROM MOUNTAIN SQUILLS. Trust me. Krayt dragons, evil force sensitive NPC's (random MOb, not named characters), they will all hurt you bad. Camping is not an option since most spawns are random based on who is in the immediate area. Even if you did want to camp, you really couldn't... I'd tell you why, but I'd rather see the campers suffer! Muhahaha!
Single Charater Servers (SCS) - No mules. One character per galaxy (server cluster). Intended to cut down on greifing and bad behavior. You're never trapped in that one character, profession-wise, as you can sell back skills you don't want on the fly. Handy for all those bounty hunters that'll have a change of heart and want to become Creature Tamers without losing their mansion(s)!
Pets - Sweeeet. Have 3 Stormtroopers be your beeyotch, or find a baby Rancor and feed it Stormtroopers! Can't say enough about pets, try it, you'll love 'em!
"Sims" Style professions - Underestimated by ALL of us Unreal Tournament vets! Dancing, singing, and playing instruments, Image Designer (Plastic surgeon/hairstylist) are all very well implemented into the game. And you'll be THANKFUL that there are players in those professions... If you don't become one yourself!
I'd love to tell you all more, but CompUSA just opened, GOTTA GO!
Eve is more stable and more interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Dump SWG, try Eve.
Re:My bro does SWG tech support (Score:5, Informative)
For all you psych buffs out there, all of the MMORPGs out there now, like EQ for example are designed on the psychological principle of the Skinner Box. For an EXCELLENT essay explaining how these games aare Skinner Boxes, check out the essay [nickyee.com] at the Norrathian Scrolls website. Truly eye-opening insight into an extremely successful albeit scummy business model.
Gillette thinks they were smart by selling the razor cheap and getting people hooked on the blade refills? This makes Gillette look like a lemonade-stand in terms of a business model.
Re:The StarWars Galaxys Experience, summed up (Score:3, Informative)
Usual misinformation from trolls and idiots (Score:2, Informative)
Of COURSE the boards were not taken offline to avoid the criticism being spread. They were being switched over to a new system that was read only for non-subscribers. That's all, end of story, no conspiracy. It was well publicized in the forums prior to the switchover.
I for one found the beta testers comments to be very encouraging. I don't care about PvP, don't care about being UBER and power-leveling so it looks like this is the game for me.
Like anything it will not appeal to all people: how could it? But as usual one must sort through all the misinformation and stupid comments posted by ignorant boobs with no actual interest inthe subject.
Re:Agree 100% (Score:2, Informative)
As for the 3 CDs, I think they did use a ton of textures (not that you would have noticed if they would have scaled things back). People with top-of-the-line 3 GHz computers and 1 GB of RAM complained of framerates of 5-10 FPS in towns, and I can tell you right now that it is due to loading massive amounts of textures from the hard disk into video RAM. Sloppy.
Overall, the game felt very uninnovative and non-entertaining. I feel very sorry for the developers who were pushed by Sony to rush SWG out the door before it was 6 months or more from being ready. The developers were very...patient with the beta testers and, while they may not have listened well to complaints and suggestions, they at least communicated with the testers as a group and never gave the testers a bad attitude.
I'm sure SWG will be better in 6 months, but I really don't think the base that they'll be building on is a good one and that there will be major flaws in the game that can never be fixed (e.g. overuse of textures and associated rendering algorithms).
how to play..... (Score:5, Informative)
Guide to Starting out solo in Star Wars: Galaxies, by
an_anonymous_eq_player00
Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) is a group based game, but it is possible,
and possibly more enjoyable for the casual gamer to make some progress
without banging too hard against the numerous artificial time sinks in
SWG.
Character Creation:
Even if you are planning on creating a combat based character (killing
things is why most people seem to play these games, a thought
seemingly lost on the design team), it's best to start out as an
artisan or medic in order to receive the crafting station and
surveying kits. It's important to note here that the starting stats
for the various profession templates are vastly different, so first
make a combat profession character (brawler/marksman), write down the
stats - then back up and select medic or artisan.
I chose medic when I started, mostly because I received the white
jumpsuit rather than the rather bland artisan clothing. Also the
medic starts with a wholly inadequate supply of stimpacks, which are
helpful in reminding you how annoying it is to play a medic in this
game.
Create your character, and BEFORE you select the travel terminal to
select a starting planet, take advantage of the free stat migration to
return your stats to the ones more suited for blasting or whacking
things, which you wrote down in the step above.
First thing you'll need to do in the game is find the trainer of your
craft of choice and train the profession you really want to play
rather than the almost as fun as paint drying selection you have made.
Quick overview of the available professions at starting time:
a) Medic - contrary to the name of this class, medics don't actually
heal people very much and as a rule are not terribly needed in
fights. As a medic you'll spend most of your time either a) looking
for resources to craft medicine or b) crafting said medicine. Sure,
medics heal people - but usually by standing around in a hospital
begging for the solo player to pay them to continue their main task,
being crafting.
b) Artisan - the true soloers of the game, the artisan is the
profession which is the least dependant on the other professions. If
you really enjoy watching paint dry, this is the profession for you.
They gather their own materials for crafting (the only class capable
of doing so), usually as a result of long repetative macros which
allow a player to Survey through the night unattended. After mining
plants to death, the artisan then spends their time making shoes,
1,000s of necklaces, and 100s underpowered newbie weapons in order to
advance to their true goal - placing structures on top of your
favorite hunting grounds. If you see an artisan, the best thing to do
I find is help them out by ensuring that their profanity filters are
working properly.
c) Entertainers - somewhat similar to artisans in that they can be run
by macro's or with the assistance of a group - entirely while AFK.
The only difference is that they can act out lesbian porn much more
accurately. They also require people standing around watching them
while they go afk. Thus making them remarkably slower to level.
d) Scout - the scout is not really a profession in the standard sense
in that you can't actually advance in it unless you receive other
training. Scouts advance by harvesting resources from dead creatures,
which it turns out, are awfully hard to come by unless you have a
reliable method of making said creatures into the dead state that they
need to be in. As a result, the entire scouting profession is used
near exclusively by people like yourself who want to kill things, get
frustrated by the utter lack of objects which appear on the corpses of
the things you kill, and pick up scouting. Scouts can technicall
For those who don't get this quote... (Score:4, Informative)
Triumph the insult comic dog vs. Star Wars nerds [albinoblacksheep.com]
Not the worst, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The game is totally amazing to look at. Once I logged on and found 10 or so players just watching the Suns set on Tatooine. It really was amazing - the light actually looks like that of a sunset, and even the players' facial features cast shadows on their faces etc. I stood watching a bush blow in the breeze on Naboo for 10 minutes. When I first began to play, I spent 5 minutes fiddling with the brightness before a realised with a "doh!" that it was friggin night time.
The Character creation process is a joy - messing with all those sliders to change your appearance (from height, belly size, build, and age to eybrow shape, bushiness, nose lengh, width, protrusion, eye angle, colour, hair colour, style etc etc etc etc)
The sounds are authentic Star Wars from the inquisitive whistles of passing R2 units to the sounds of doors and blasters. I also really liked the way the game scans what you are saying to surrounding players and generates gestures to match - so saying "hi" for exmaple, will cause your avatar to wave, or typing "LOL" actually causes you to clutch your sides and er.. LOL.
The inventory system is quite nice allowing you to drag and drop items to put them in either hand.
I'm not sure I "get" this game though. Either that or it really is completely boring. As LordYuK said - this aint Star Wars. I mean, why, for example, are the inhabitants of the SWG world all expected to display a pathlogical dislike for passive grazing animals (or any animal life come to that) ? At first I thought - "that bloke's barmy - he keeps shooting at the local wildlife" until I realised that this was, bizzarely, the way your character advances - by shooting wamp rats and the like. "But I'm a friggin Scout ffs!" I thought. You seem to spend most of your time trudging about, shooting at furry animals that were minding their own business, and running errands for NPC's. I wanted to join the rebellion against the Empire! I wanted to team up with other rebllious players and smuggle guns, take out imperial installations, steal secret plans, fly an x-wing and all that. Not tame wamp rats, and manufacture cheap jewellry...
On one early session I had met up with 3 other new guys on Naboo and we'd wandered about a bit and murdered a few animals for no reason. We came across 2 storm troopers and an officer an went into a huddle. We decided after much discussion that we'd try having a firefight with them, so formed a plan and spread out in the surrounding bushes. We all leapt out.... only to discover you're not *allowed* to attack stormtroopers. Hmm not very free form then.
As a regular Quake/UT etc player I was also a bit frustrated that I didn't do the shooting myself. Choosing to attack some unfortunate creature causes your character to do the work - not you. This would be fine - but well - they suck at it! My avatar would generally not dodge incoming fire, but just spam it out with the opposition (which is usually biting your ankles) I found it bizzare that I frequently died from being repeatedly bitten on the big toe by a hamster that I'd shot 6 times with my blaster. Characters in the films were action heroes - I wanted to do all the acrobatics, blaster in hand and so on. What you atually end up being is a tourist in Sony's "Star Wars World" yeah sure you can go find the Pit of Carkoon and get your picture taken next to it, watch the twin suns set, visit the Royal palace on Naboo, or the shipyards of Corellia. Buy the t-shirt and send a postcard. Just being in the Star Wars world can keep you amused for quite a while, but evemtually, you want to actually do soemthing..
I've not played any other MMORPG's so as I said - maybe I just don't get it - but I didn't fancy being the guy who grows carrots. I mean - when you were a kid and Star
Re:easy solution through stupid chain e-mail (Score:3, Informative)
Wait until the expansion to buy this game (Score:3, Informative)
The main problems right now are that the economy is poor, with items being sold at a fraction of cost just to get rid of them, so no one can really make a living crafting yet. And the biggest problem is that combat in this game sucks bad. It is very, very boring, and this is coming from someone who has played many a MMORPG.
I'd wait until the space expansion comes out before thinking about buying this game. Maybe then they'll have fixed most of the problems.
WARNING!: Parent also contains link to tubgirl! (Score:2, Informative)
Don't click on items in the "Download List"