Post-Anniversary, Star Wars Galaxies Analyzed 58
Darniaq writes "Sony Online's PC MMO Star Wars Galaxies has been out a year, as of late last month, when the official anniversary celebration occurred. But what's new? What's different? Grimwell Online has a in-depth analysis charting what's changed, what's good, and what's not, in SWG. They argue that, for folks who played it early on and left in despair or disgust, a lot has changed. However, it's still very much a game for roleplayers and those with dreams of moisture farming." Interestingly, the author explicitly suggests: "If [you] previously got burned out or annoyed enough to quit, now's a good time to re-subscribe."
Re:Comments from a droid engineer (Score:2, Interesting)
What was said is that it will be more FPS like.
The way it works is similar to the current combat system, however instead of turning and firing at something behind you, you can only fire when the target is in front of you. This does force a more FPS type system since you need to continually manuver, however it is still turned based and the skills of your character determine hit/miss.
If is cool that players are the ones that make and sell the spaceships, provided you are one of the makers and don't mind that grind.
However if you are one of thoses people that don't want to focus on crafting then it is a major grind having get enough credits to get ship, then enough to continually repair it.
If people are looking for a FPS with a Star wars feel they are better off waiting for Star War Battlefield, which will contain X-wing, tie fighters and other from all movies.
Re:Roleplaying? (Score:2, Interesting)
He's not saying that people roleplay moisture farmers in the game. He's saying that the game is well-designed to give you that opportunity. The game is surprisingly successful at allowing you the opportunity of being one of the people in the background of the Star Wars movies, especially since its easy to find a niche in the economy for yourself. The problem is that too many people (kids?) are able to powergame and (especially now) play all day, and that winds up dominating the landscape. There are pockets of good people to play with, but given that I don't have time to be on that much, and they don't have time to be on that much, its not as easy to find them as it is to find the more obnoxious, ever-present players.
Its clear that this game isn't for everyone, especially hardcore SW fans looking to roleplay. (Jedi are just the most obvious offense as far as violating the canon. Anyone who knows their stuff will have a field day picking apart the game). But if you are willing to look past the usual suspects ruining the game, the underlying systems aren't nearly as bad as they are made out to be.
Of course, I don't know how valid my opinion is, since I like the UI!
Re:contradictions... oh the contradictions (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when I played, I honestly tried to role-play. It netted me a lot of confused reactions. The first time I encountered someone with a pet was while waiting at a shuttleport. I told the guy, "I don't think they allow pets on the shuttle," and he thought I was confused about the game mechanics.
I guess my point is that getting any role-playing done is a chicken-and-egg problem, because I can't explain that I'm role-playing without breaking character.
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am intrigued here by the paralells shown between the history of Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.
When AO launched, it was the biggest debacle in an MMORPG to date. Almost a complete flop... Including submitted credit card info over an unsecured server among a great many other problems.
When SWG launched, the first day was a complete meltdown, and only those who downloaded/used Mozilla could actually succeed with getting through the game registration. From day 2 on, things improved. People were actually able to get into the game. Things were buggy as all get out, but at least you could be in the game.
In the early AO, one would run into tons of bugs and other broken parts of the system. One would submit a trouble ticket. Said ticket would go into a black hole, and you would never hear from a company representative.
In the early days of SWG, one would submit a trouble ticket, and have it filed into a similarly-constructed-yet-Star Wars-themed black hole...
In the early days of AO, they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with the debacle of the launch that occurred, the tone of the forums went decidedly ape-$hit. In response, AO took their forums private. Access only to paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what Funcom has to hide?". As a player at that time, they had a LOT to hide.
In the early days of SWG they had public access to their forums. Then, as one could expect with a more-decent launch than AO, but with a product that significantly fell short on the promises made on the packaging of the game, as people starte to realize that the game really was not that much actual FUN, the tone of the boards turned decidedly ugly. SOE responded by making the forums private. Only paying customers. The effect on the community at large: "Gee, I wonder what SOE has to hide?". As a player at that time, they also had a LOT to hide.
AO has sinced released a couple of expansions, fixed a lot of their problems, and seen meagre retention of their player base. Others who waded through the early problems have resolved to never play AO again. (count me among them, or ever play ANY Funcom product again). Now, AO has to give away a free time period to tempt people into even TRYING the game. I think however, that they did not attempt this tactic until well after a year's worth of the game being live.
SWG has since released a couple of updates that make good on the claims and promises they made back when the game was still in beta (vehicles, player cities, mounts, etc.). They have fixed a lot of problems, encountered many more, and seen a somewhat better than meagre retention of their player base. (however, I would love to hear some real figures from SOE about subscription levels. We have not in a loooong time, and this leads me to believe that they do NOT in fact, have very impressive numbers. Furthermore, they leapt to the free-trial quite early (out of necessity, I believe, to stop the hemhoraging playerbase).
The paralells are telling for me. Both games might very well be worth the effort of a player who is not familiar to take them up. It is my hunch however, that buyer's remorse will settle in not long after the initial coolness factor has worn off.
Every single one of my friends, (realword and virtual) have left these games never to return. We have simply been so burned by them and their companies that we will not even look at another product from the companies that offered us the gold-plated turds we received.
As for myself and many, many other MMORPG gamers, SOE will not likely see another dime from us, nor Funcom. Nor I would argue should they. The marketing departments forced games to go live that were not ready, and then did not allow for the technical staff to complete what they had rushed to release, or to stabilize incredibly shaky results.
I for one s
Re:Comments from a droid engineer (Score:3, Interesting)
So I'm not playing EVE anymore. But I still recommend the game to anyone who likes: lots of PvP, a rich economy, large programs written in Python, flying around in spaceships, or strikingly beautiful spacescapes. Go check out some screenshots, EVE is a gorgeous game. And they are doing content updates and revamping the UI. There was a GUI re-write about, oh, 9 months after release with everything obviously rewritten, cleaner, and more useful.
Do note that you're hosed as a solo player, it's all about corporations. If this has changed in Minmatar space, please let me know.
I'd better shut up, I may find myself paying a subscription fee again.