SWG Combat Upgrade Final Details 32
lunatick writes "After a year and a half in the making, details for the fabled Combat Upgrade for Star Wars Galaxies are posted to the message boards. It is being met with cheers, boo's and a certain amount of skepticism. Can the game truly survive such a massive reconstruction almost 2 years into live?" From the post: "The Combat Upgrade focuses on the entire spectrum of the combat experience, combat-related professions, their special abilities, and all of the weapons and types of armor in the game. Choices players make about each of these elements will be more intuitive and be significantly more impactful in the new system. Individual profession abilities and attributes, terrain and environmental elements will take on more consequence, making combat more engaging and fun."
MMOs with actual gameplay? (Score:5, Interesting)
WoW's proponents argue for things like quests and instanced dungeons, but it strikes me as an MMO that isn't as annoying as other ones. That doesn't make it a GOOD game, it just makes it suck less than the alternatives.
SWG Has More Than Just Combat Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
The PvE system was quite messed up too. SWG was by far the most boring for leveling out of the 4 MMORPGs I have played. Like PvP, there was zero skill required and was merely about pushing the same two buttons over and over again. That and finding someone to buff you. You will not see me returning to SWG. The severe lack of support and the fact it took them until now to attempt to fix something they promised to fix 1.5 years ago will keep me out of this game forever. I looked over the changes and they are very drastic.. I just do not see this overhaul making people go back to the game. If anything, it could make the people who have stayed this long quit.
Re:SWG Has More Than Just Combat Problems (Score:4, Interesting)
A year and half is a long time and nearly 2 years from launch to redesign your combat system altogether is a big red flag. Sure their customer service blows, and yeah outside of the new combat fixes there's a lot that needs to be done...
Wait why did I decide to play again?
In their credit though, they did more than just balance a weak system, but redesigned it from nearly the ground up. I'd prefer they admit to their original flaws and take the time to do a major re-working of it rather than just bandage it up continuously.
I noticed something else this time around too. I finally realized what the game was designed to be like from the outset. It is more of a economy simulator with Star Wars graphics and combat tacked on. Taken from that view it's easier to understand why some things are the way they are. I like the approach, but their execution, to this point, is way lacking.
But like I said before, combat was my main reason to play. Being able to play with friends in a big Star Wars battle that offers more than an FPS can in terms of strategy and tactics was a big draw. I felt burned at launch though. I am willing give this a try, mostly because I don't have any other games I want to play right now. If it doesn't trip my trigger though I'll be burning my SWG discs after uninstalling it.
Test Center doesn't have the combat system on it yet. If they are gonna have this ready to go with to new wookiee expansion, I'd expect to see it there soon, at least by Mid-April.
"Playing" WoW now... considering SWG after upgrade (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:looks kinda promising (Score:4, Interesting)
There is plenty of variety of weapons in Star Wars to design a decent combat system even without getting creative or dipping into the millions of other Star Wars games. There is more than enough material to design a good MMPORPG.
Don't blame the source material: the developers dropped the ball. And they know it, and this is part of their attempt to fix things and make a better game. And more power to them for that. I hope it works out for them.
Re:looks kinda promising (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying SWG is doing any of these, of course, but there are ways to make a MMPORPG with interesting combat from the Star Wars Universe.
Re:looks kinda promising (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at KoTOR. It doesn't matter that it wasn't an MMORPG. Make an MMORPG with a few different jedi classes (warrior-tank, rogue-dmg, priest-doctor, mage-force dmg, etc...) Can easily be done. Add in a bounty hunter class, maybe a droid class (that are *just* as powerfull as the jedi classes), and you can come up with around 10 base classes to work with. More if you want to specialize (I think 10's plenty, look at WoW) into enchanter like classes (easily doable with jedi powers), monks, etc...
Now, they should have also done what KoTOR did and pick a time in the extended universe that wasn't already filled so they would have more leeway and there could be tons and tons of jedi.
Ignoring this, SWG still just had a crappy system. Wasn't like AD&D or EQ or anything. More like UO style basic combat.
Really, it's the worst designed MMORPG ever IMO. Horizon's kicked it's ass in gameplay (it just didn't have the SW name attached to it) and that's sad cause Horizons was pathetic.