Star Wars Galaxies - Jedi, Vehicles, Speeder Bike Racing

Thanks to GameSpy for their interview with Lucasarts staff about playing as a Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies. The article discusses the powers granted to the newly-unlocked Jedi in this PC MMORPG ("There are over fifty Force powers, ranging from Force Lightning, Force Weaken, and Force Throw, to Jedi Mind Trick, and a variety of lightsaber moves"), and the possibility your Jedi character could be lost forever ("We have partial permadeath for a Jedi. Basically, a Jedi is allotted a certain number of deaths before they lose all progress that character has made.") Elsewhere, player-owned vehicles were enabled in the game earlier this week, and the official SWG page has information on the types, including the X34 Landspeeder, Swoop bike, and Speeder bike, and even documents player-hosted races that are being attempted, showcasing an in-game reproduction of the Mos Espa Circuit from Star Wars: Episode 1.

Jedi crap

[Drunken_Jackass]

If you don't know how the developers decided to allow you to unlock a force-sensitive (FS) character - let me give you the lowdown. The "top secret, dynamic, non-random, biological..." method they chose:

You have to master 5 random professions that are assigned at the time of your character creation. That's 5 out of 32. Sound like long odds? Don't worry, the developers thought sooooo hard on this, they figured out a way to give people a leg up. That's right, they placed Holocrons across the game as loot drops on uber characters (well, uber to casual gamers, not really to hardcore grinders) that will tell you 4 out of the 5 proffesions your character must master in order for you to unlock the FS slot.

What does that mean? Well, if you wish to unlock a FS (force-sensitive) slot, you have to grind up to a combat profession so you can solo these holocron dropping MOBS. Then you have to get a holocron (the drops are pretty rare). Then, you have to listen to the holocron on what profession you should next master.

Soooooo, imagine you become a great pistoleer. What happens if your first holocron tells you to be a master weaponsmith? Well, you start the mindless grind to a profession that you are mastering for the sole purpose of filling a randomly assigned profession, so you can be 20% closer to unlocking a FS slot.

Great.

They've basically removed the ability for anyone wanting to be a Jedi on creating a character that they've invested a lot of time personalizing and leveling, because now you have to spend your limited profession points to master wild goose hunt professions.

That's not even mentioning the fact that after you've completed four of the five professions, the holocrons you manage to pick up as loot stop giving hints and you're left blindingly hunting for the one last profession.

It totally sucks. It ruined the game for many players that thought the dev's would be a litle more caring and have a little more thought behind the end-game. It completely de-values the intent and any sense of caring that you may have thought the dev's had for the game.

Bottom line, the Jedi path is bullshit.

Just a quick mention

[aztektum]

To clarify a point that the blurb muddled (played the first couple months quit from lack of time. it's fun if u have enough friends.) anyway, to unlock the Jedi slot you have to take your regular character and get them on a specific (seemingly random from most accounts) career path.

When you unlock a FS (force sensitive) character slot, you create a character that you level up through the Jedi tree. This Jedi can die after I think 3 or 4 deaths (regular character slots can be cloned and blah blah Jedi cannot.). However you don't LOSE the FS character slot. You do however have to create a new Jedi (you start sub padawan I believe, but this is 2nd hand from Sept, it could have changed by now). Unless you reach Jedi Master, then you become a blue glowy, but what impact you can have on the game, I dunno.

I don't see a big problem with the way it works. It keeps to the idea there aren't a million true Jedi around during the OT, however I'm sure the Galaxy is full of force sensitives during the time period.

Slightly Off Topic: I was thinking of buying a 30 - 60 day game card just to check out the new features, what I'm really lookin' for is a MMORPG that players run on their own. Setup your own servers and play with friends, like NWN Persistent worlds, but gameplay more along the lines of Zelda games or FF Crystal Chronicles. Anyone know of such a thing?

Re:Just a quick mention

[Anonymous Coward]

There's always the Everquest Emulation software. It lets you play Everquest without connecting to Sony's severs or having to pay a monthly fee. The folks at EQEmu [everquestserver.com] have been doing a fine job for about 2.5 years now. It's still in development but enough is completed to enjoy playing on a few of the servers. All the code has been reverse engineered by packet sniffing pretty much everything. Just need Everquest classic which I believe is offered as a free download on Sony's servers or just about free at any software store.

Re:Just a quick mention

[Anonymous Coward]

http://eqlive.station.sony.com/support/tech_suppor t/ts_new_patcher.jsp

you will find the link on this page. just grab the exe and it will automatically download all of the files you need.

FYI, i don't believe the emulators work with the latest patch. SOE usually throws in some code that renders the emulators inoperable until they are fixed.

Re:The Grind

[YomikoReadman]

I played for 4 months, never grinded a single profession, and dropped it with 3 masteries, having completed just about all the content available to me. I'd killed a Krayt Dragon, I've killed a Dark Jedi Master. People stop playing for all the reasons the grandparent poster gave. This game simply has no content at all. There are a few buggy, half broken themeparks, a handful of quests, and beyond that, there is 35 professions, not counting the Jedi classes. That is where all the content is, and it is no substitute for a storyline or any quests.

Re:Where are the spaceships?

[Gothic_Walrus]

From what I've read, they're planning a space expansion for sometime in 2004. User owned space craft, gigantic space battles, free reign in space...the works.

Be patient, young Padawan...

Re:SWG must be revamped

[will_die]

What thier is a system called the extended universe(EU) which is the general marketing/legal system where everything from SWG, to the books, to Yoda Games and the Christmas special belong to. Since according to lucas the christmas special does not exist it is not really in thier, but some other EU items do use characters created in the Christmas special so who knows.
So along as you pay the money or get permission you are part of the EU and can do almost anything you want as long as you don't mess around with the films or upcoming offical lucas stuff.
The problem with SWG was not that it did not have room to make itself a good game, look at KOTOR, it is just that it is a very poor game and very poor MMORPG. The reason for that must be placed with the main designer Raph Koster. Now that he has been promoted and is messing up EQ2 they are now removing stuff he designed and talking about implementing whole new systems. Give them 2 more years and it will be a decent shape and out of public beta.