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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Pile On Star Wars Galaxies? 58

Posted by simoniker from the rifle-through-his-pockets-guv'nor dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their new feature called Star Wars Galaxies: Pile On!, where-in a multitude of GameSpy employees, and not just editors, either praise or trash their personal experiences playing Lucasarts' PC MMORPG. As the intro says, "We pretty much agree that Galaxies was the most ambitious MMORPG since Ultima Online. What we can't agree on was if it was released too soon, whether it's the second coming, or a big empty planet of bugs and tedium." The game doesn't seem to be getting any less controversial as time goes on, does it?
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Pile On Star Wars Galaxies? More

Pile On Star Wars Galaxies?

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  • Bloody release schedules (Score:4, Funny)

    by darylp ( 41915 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:16PM (#6457169)
    I'll just be happy to see it over in Europe. By the time it gets over here, the Jedi code will have been hacked, and the servers will be inundated with double-saber wielding nonces going by 'humourous' names such as 'Luke A55reamer' and 'Hung So-low'.

    When IS the UK release date anyway? Amazon have it listed as 26th December, but that's just piss taking.
    • Yeah, its due here in Australia just before the return of Christ, just after everlasting peace is declared in the Middle East. On the (albeit small) bright side, at least I have more time to save for a decent comp., and maybe a lot of the problems discussed will be thrashed out by then (crosses fingers). Man, I've been using Lotus so much I just tried to press 'Shift-Esc' to save and exit.
      *sigh*

    • Re:Bloody release schedules (Score:5, Informative)

      by will_die ( 586523 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:47AM (#6459735) Homepage
      They have said that the same client will be used everywhere, so check the official boards and you can find a company that will ship the product to you.
      There are a couple of servers that have Euro based guilds, so you could check them also.
      I play from Germany and lag is not a problem.

  • I haven't played the game yet ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by trevorrowe ( 689310 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:19PM (#6457187) Homepage
    but I am not sure I want to. It seems like all the those who play and review the game are excusing the mediocrity every other sentance, example: "The missions may all be the same, but I really enjoy going on them with my friends." (made up example)

    Its not just a few bugs either, players complain about the lack of fresh content, slow moving action, the cost (initial and monthly), etc. I am getting the feeling that player are only playing it for 2 reasons: 1) they forked out 50 dollars and so they are going to play their first month through, 2) its Star Wars, period

    • Re:I haven't played the game yet ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chasuk ( 62477 ) <chasuk@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:29PM (#6457246)
      Content is as fresh as it is for most other MMORPG's, and certainly as "fresh" as it is for EQ, which is inviting most of the comparison.

      I also don't find the action slow moving, nor the cost unreasonable.

      And I hate Star Wars. I've disliked EVERY film (strangely, except for the most recent one, which I found tolerable), but I like the MMORPG.

      Get the game. Play it. If you don't like it, sell it to a buddy or a Star Wars geek. Heck, they might even be the same person. :-)

    • Re:I haven't played the game yet ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chester K ( 145560 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:49PM (#6457380) Homepage
      It seems like all the those who play and review the game are excusing the mediocrity every other sentance, example: "The missions may all be the same, but I really enjoy going on them with my friends." (made up example)

      That exactly describes SWG. It's an excellent game saddled by a piss-poor implementation (or, more accurately, an implementation forced out the door a year too early by overzealous executives looking to boost profits for the quarter).

      A lot of people enjoy the game, myself included, despite the flaws; but it's not a game for the cynical or easily frustrated. It reminds me a lot of Ultima Online's early months with strange, inexplicable bugs; not total breakage like the release of Anarchy Online.

    • Re:I haven't played the game yet ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by u-238 ( 515248 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @07:00PM (#6457453) Homepage
      yeah they basically nailed it.

      missions are obnixiously tedious, the only motivation to bear through them would be the upgraded professions they unlock...

      too bad the majority of them end up yielding even more tedium.

      for example, the bounty hunter profession was widly advertised throughout development as the ultimate answer to the boba fett wanna be, it was supposed to impliment a method in which any player could place a bounty on an enemy of theris who, say, broke a contract and ran off with some delivery goods. the bounty could be accepted by a professional bounty hunter, who would proceed to hunt down the player on one of the 9 planets on the galaxy (each a scaled 15 square kilometers large).

      alas, upon the announcment of the ship date, they inform us that these bounties will be dynamically crafted missions in which you hunt NPC's (aka bots).

      If I wanted to hunt bots, I'd buy Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. [amazon.com]

      Pathetic.
      • If you want bounty hunting, try EVE: The Second Genesis [eve-online.com]. It's not exactly a Star Wars substitute (no jedi, and you're in your ship all the time) but you certainly can put bounties on people and take those missions up for others. And the area you have to hunt them in is FAR larger than what SWG lets you play in.

        It's not an RPG (more like Freelancer or Escape Velocity online) and there's undoubtably tedium if you do a lot of mining/industrial/courier work past the initial ramp-up to getting a decent ship,
      • who would proceed to hunt down the player on one of the 9 planets on the galaxy (each a scaled 15 square kilometers large).

        WTH? Only 15x15?

        Hell, and I thought my target of 500x500 for my project was too small...

    • The people I know who play it certainly just play it because it's Star Wars and for no other reason. That kind of "loyalty" can only last so long, though. That, and Star Wars games are almost universally awful, so a game that is merely OK is worlds better than say, Force Commander, to pick a random example.
      • Star Wars games are almost universally awful


        I have to disagree with you there, for their time I've thought the following games that I have played were good...Every SW game on the Atari 2600, The SW side scrolling games on the SNES, and Jedi Knight II on the PC. Also, I've heard a lot of people praise the old tie fighter/xwing games. Keep in mind, I have played SWG and it's not on this list :)

    • Re:I haven't played the game yet ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @09:15AM (#6460511) Homepage
      there's a good reason why many people that bought it are disappointed: they never played a persistent world game.

      the thing is that everyone that hadn't played one before grabbed the game and expected to be Luke Skywalker or someone of equal importance or power. with a couple thousand players per server, that just can't be. you can't be a bad-ass. you're a person within the Star Wars mythos. you may end up as a pretty powerful person, but you're not going to foil the Empire or crush the Rebels.

      as far as people bitching about missions all being more or less the same, I invite them to look at any other persistent world RPG. every mission is the same. there is very little variance in them. take object X to person Y. go to person Z and kill them.

      what makes SWG fun in my eyes is that it's pretty well balanced between play styles, unless you're using a macro to do stuff while you're AFK (ie artisans using macros to mine ore while they're asleep or at work) if you don't exploit, all professions progress at about the same rate. you also are pretty much unrestricted in the number of classes and specialization that you can do.

      if you want a character that is proficient in many of the basic tasks; a jack of all trades-type, you're more than able to. and if you want to excel in a specific type of trade, you can do that, too. if you decide that you screwed up, you can drop the skill/class and backtrack.

      it's a fun game and allows for a good deal of adventure, simply by virtue of its customizability. it's open-ended enough that you can work to become an underling of a major character if you really want to. you may never have an impact on the "real" Star Wars story, but with SWG you can live in that setting and carve out your own story, which is basically what people are really looking for in persistent world RPGs.

  • Actually.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @06:51PM (#6457392)
    I think the 'crontroversy' has died down a lot. The very simple fact of the matter is that every day the servers are growing with more and more players, and after two weeks of play I have yet to see a single person complain about it 'sucking'... IN GAME. But forums? Weblogs? Sure, those people are often pissy. That's why they're not playing with the rest of us, who seem to be enjoying it immensely. The real question about SWG is how it will hold up over time, and right now that ball is in the air, heading for nothin-but-net -- and we're just waiting to see if it rolls off their fingers at the last minute before a score.

  • Plenty of opinions and counter-opinions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheRoachMan ( 677330 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @07:03PM (#6457471) Journal
    ...here [playnet.com] in this thread that was started by someone with access to the SWG beta-boards. He copied a post that gives well-argumented criticism about the bugs but more importantly, about the gameplay.
    I was interested in a MMORPG called Neocron [neocron.com] some time ago, but after playing the beta I found that it wasn't really worth the monthly fee. The game was plagued by nerfing sprees, exploits and the fact that there were skills or subskills that were so undocumented that nobody knew what they were for, not even the developers. I'm sure that the MMORPG genre needs a truly refreshing group of developers before it will catch my attention again.
    So even though I'm quite the Star-Wars fan, I'll probably never play a Star-Wars MMORPG, although the SW universe is such a good base for an excellent (MMO)RPG.
    • The post in your first link is from beta and there is a nice chunk of things listed which are fixed or never where a problem to begin with.

      for example.. the bazaar. lists way more than just 100 items (its called hit the next page listing) you can search for items in your city.. other cities and other planets.

      there is more but I don't feel like listing them all.

  • I get to be Luke! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @07:35PM (#6457671)
    Does it really matter if it sucks?

    Fans are fans, and don't need anybody to tell them the game is great, because most of them will assume that it is great regardless of their actual experience. Maybe just being Starwars is enough for some peope in the same way that it was good enough to use that wiffle bat as a lightsaber when you were playing "Starwars" as a kid; Its not a lightsaber but its close enough.

    In a way, I envy people that like the game, they are having a great time will those of us who think we have more complex tastes have to find other ways to entertain ourselves.
    • Maybe just being Starwars is enough for some peope in the same way that it

      Although I thoroughly agree that this is true, I have a number of problems with this...

      1. This only asserts that many people are too blinded by their own opinions to see the obvious. If we found an alien civilization that turned out to live in a communistic society, would we immediately hate them simply due to memories of the Cold War? I'd really like to think that the majority of people can overcome their own personal biases to se
      • Yes, because 4 years is a rushed game, right?

        This game has been in development for a long time, and had a 1 year beta period. It shipped with a few bugs, but so does every other game.

        They could have 'polished' the game for another 2 years, but would be digging themselves further in the red each month they did so. It makes sense that they released what they had, which was playable and fun.

        Polishing after launch serves the purpose of allowing the development team to grow (because they're making money now
    • There were 2 MMORPGs that I was looking forward to, SWG, and World of Warcraft. The first week I played the SWG Beta, I hated it (I dont play MMORPGs), but since I was submitting bugs, I kept going. Eventually, I got a few friends in, and I started learning the game, and seeing it, and it was amusing. Then after about 5 weeks, it was back to being "this sucks". The game is NOT "fun". While its breathtaking to walk into someplace like the Theed starport and see a Lambda class shuttle (a disproportionate Lamb
  • The article was pretty good, touching on all the compliments and complaints people have been giving the game so far (although some of the specifics were weak - there are numerous bugs, some professions are having difficulty because of them, and those difficulties will last for another two weeks due to the QA process).

    As far as SWG itself goes, it's really a lot more like The Sims Online, except there are things to do other than be a Sim (which was TSO's biggest flaw). Oh, and it's Star Wars. Sometimes.

  • SWG:Trash it.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @10:06PM (#6458389) Journal
    I've been playing SWG since it came out. I've only taken one day "off". I have a few observations...

    1. The server caps are at 3500. If 3500 people are on a server then you can't log in and access your main character. I've found no way to transfer my character from a populated server to a less populated one.

    2. Even When around 3500 people are logged on to a server, some of the planets/towns are empty. Most people hang out in the same main towns (Anchorhead, Mos Eisley and Bestine on tattoine) for example.

    3. There are plenty of bugs other than the disappearing house. I've had things randomly disappear from my Inventory...Including a Vibro axe I bought for 2/3rds of my credits I've had my corpse disappear for hours and thought all my items were gone. There are parts of the map in town that you should be able to run through but can't (ie an invisible wall). If you use the "burst run" command in combat, your character will still stop and get into a battle stance when attack. So you try to run away, and a monster melee attacks you, your avatar will stop so the nice monster can get closer and kill you. On that note, monsters can melee attack from very far away for some reason while you can not.

    4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.

    5. You are totally dependant on other players to have your wounds healed. So if you go into a hospital and there is only one medic there and 10 players you are in for a wait. Same thing goes for weapons. For example I am at "level 3" on the melee brawler skill tree. My weapon certification is for a "vibro axe". I need to find a artisan (crafter) who is at "level 8" (there are only 9 levels up) Once an artisan reaches "level 4" on the tree they can choose between 4 different elite professions, Droid Engineer, Architecht, Weaponsmith, and Chef. Then in the sub tree of Weaponsmith they can pick from 4 different branches, melee weapons, firearms, munitions and crafting techniques.

    Since there are a lot more firearms users than melee, I had a lot of trouble finding that axe. Basically only two people were selling it, if that. The player driven economy is a fun idea, but having to find a level 8 artisan to get a level 4 weapon is a bit shortsighted. This might work out where there are hundreds of high level artisans running around months from now, or maybe not.

    6. The missions are really boring, they come in two themes "destroy" or "deliever" They are pretty generic and mostly the same outside of the theme parks.

    7. The grind. It takes forever to get anywhere, or gain any experence.

    8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny. Let me tell you some of the things that are out of the "time period" in SWG.

    We've seen 1 "creature handler" in the movies, in the game, I run into them all the time. We've seen once Rancor in the movies, all of the creature handlers I see are toting around 3 of them.

    This is the one that bugs me the most..Here are some of the weapons in SWG: Stone knife, sword, dagger, heavy axe, lance, survival knife, curved sword, wood staff, metal staff, Fragmentation Grenade, flamethrower, ROCKET LAUNCHER...

    Yes, that is right a rocket launcher in SWG. Welcome to Star Wars: Quake Strikes back.

    Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit? Did I miss the scene where Darth Vader yells "Who's your daddy" at Luke and fires a rocket launcher at Luke? What is more out of character for the Star Wars Universe? 100 Jedi running around with different color lightsabres like attack of the clones, or 100 people running around mos eisley with rocket launchers and three rancors a piece yelling "N E ONE WANT 2 GO HUNTIN"?

    I'll take the Jedi, thanks.

    9. The lack of PvP support. It's such a pain in the butt to PvP and y

    • Re:SWG:Trash it.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by y0bhgu0d ( 168149 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @12:54AM (#6458979)
      Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit?

      not to pick nits or anything, but in episode two right at the beginning a rocket launcher is used to destroy a ship...
      • not to pick nits or anything, but in episode two right at the beginning a rocket launcher is used to destroy a ship...

        Yeah but that was Episode 2, which was a poor Star Wars film (not as bad as Episode 1 but still).

        Though having said that, you never know SWG might get rail gun's. Hmmmm Jedi's against a Rail Gun... block THAT shot ;-)

      • not to pick nits or anything, but in episode two right at the beginning a rocket launcher is used to destroy a ship...

        Damn you, I forgot about that. Actually I think I blocked it out on purpose, like many things in episodes 1 and 2. Seriously though, if they have lightsabres and blasters, dont you think they could come up with something a little more advanced for heavy weapondry? A shoulder mounted ion cannon or something?

        I didn't mention the "bone" armor that is so popular in SWG. You really have

    • I can totally see a rocket launcher in the SW universe. Not everyone is a Jedi capable of destroying things easily. A rocket would be very useful to take out enemy armor as shown by the land battle in Episode 2 armor is there, and they are equipped with rockets themselves, it's only a small step down to a personal rocket launcher.
    • Man your post sounds like it came right off of the IGN boards.

      "What is more out of character for the Star Wars Universe? 100 Jedi running around with different color lightsabres like attack of the clones, or 100 people running around mos eisley with rocket launchers and three rancors a piece yelling "N E ONE WANT 2 GO HUNTIN"?

      "

      Considering the game takes place after the first death star was destroyed having 100's of jedi's running around wouldn't be very star wars like either.

      Creature handlers are flavor

    • Re:SWG: DON'T Trash it.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Custard ( 587661 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @09:34AM (#6460696) Homepage Journal
      4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.

      No arguments here, although it shouldn't move as fast as other games do (since it's so complex it'd be wrong to rush past things and experiences).

      5. You are totally dependant on other players...

      That's the idea, and it makes it the most pure MMORPG to date :-) It forces you to interact with other characters. If you don't want to interact or travel to a more populated city with better doctors, then learn to become a medic and heal yourself, it's your choice. If you want free instant healing from an NPC with each town visit, play a different game.

      8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny.

      It's not a scam. Jedi's just aren't as cheap and boring and common as they have been in other Star Wars games. Too many games (diablo II comes to mind) make it way too easy to become an uber-elite character in just a few days. I think it's great that the only Jedi in the game will be people who really care and work very hard to become one.

      10. The inventory is horrible, you can't sort it in anyway, and it seems to move stuff around by itself.

      You can sort it...click Change View to get a spreadsheet style view (as opposed to the standard Icon style view), then click the column titles.

      • So what's involved in becoming a Jedi? Is it attainable? With Sony's history, I'd have a really hard time believing that it works on release. Take a look at EQ's big quests - great idea, but they were broken for months or years even before they were fixed.
        • So what's involved in becoming a Jedi? Is it attainable? With Sony's history, I'd have a really hard time believing that it works on release. Take a look at EQ's big quests - great idea, but they were broken for months or years even before they were fixed.

          As excited as we all are to become Jedi, the devs are just as excited. If you were one of the developers, wouldn't your heart make you want to work to make sure the Jedia class was in? If Jedi truly are not attainable at this point, there's be a lot of
          • Aradune was very excited about the flaming swords in EQ - and yet, they were not attainable for some time, even after they said that the quests were fine over and over. It'd just be history repeating itself.
    • You are totally dependant on other players to have your wounds healed.

      Have you considered getting novice medic abilities to heal yourself? It's very possible to be completely independent in this game by taking on several basic professions at once. If you're going to set your sights on heading straight for bounty hunter land, you're going to have to rely on some other people's non-bounty hunter skills.

      Even so, I think it's a good idea for people to be so closely dependent on each other. If you don't li

  • Haven't played yet... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gamgee5273 ( 410326 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @11:42PM (#6458755) Journal
    I am a massive SW fan...you'll find me in places around the net as "darth.binks," I still collect the action figures, I bought a laserdisc player just so I could get the original trilogy on LD, etc. I even have a banner with a large, looming Dath Maul face on my office wall.

    BUT...

    I'm not sure if I want to play the game. I was excited about it, but then I started reading the posts from the beta testers. I also realized: if this takes place between ANH and ESB, there are only two jedi in the galaxy at that time - Yoda and Vader. Now, I realize that everyone would want to be a jedi, and that I would be part of a large crowd...but I was disappointed by the fact that I couldn't even try for it.

    Plus, let's be honest: the storyline is static and stuck considering where this falls in the timeline. If it were after ROTJ then we could: 1) have Jedi since Luke could train a bunch; and 2) have a proper game going on! Wouldn't it be rather cool to see a true online RPG? There could be factions vying for the control of the galaxy - but it would be ongoing. Players would choose their faction and work to move it forward. A dark jedi could walk into a bar and start attacking people - if it brought points to his faction. A Rebel/New Republic force could find out (from spies - actual players acting like spies) about a new weapon and send a force to deal with it.

    These aren't difficult things to pull off. Basically, it would have been part The Sims, part Rogue Squadron II, part Jedi Knight II and part Everquest. Conssidering how old some of that technology is, it shouldn't have really been that hard. I could have made the choices for my character that would have meant something in the greater scheme of the game.

    Eventually, in the future, when SWG's servers are finally taken down, it would be interesting to see what type of storyline would be created by such a game...but that isn't what is happening. Instead, all I've read about, and seen on a friend's machine, is an empty game that, like one of the GameSpy reviewers said, is a chatroom where you kill monsters. If that does turn out to be the case, then SWG is a failure, because it didn't do what people love the movie for: fulfilling the idea that, in a fantasy, a nobody can become a major force in the world...

    Maybe SWG 2...

    • Re:Haven't played yet... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Maserati ( 8679 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @01:37AM (#6459124) Homepage Journal
      It's going to be six months and at least $30 for the expansion packs before you get to fly a ship in SWG. Screw that. $80 bucks ? EVE-Online is $40 at www.ebgame.com and you can fly a ship now (the strategy guide is based on beta 5 btw).

      I've been playing EVE-Online since beta. And so far, it's more Star Wars than anything else. I fly around in a ship, hunt pirates and sell their goodies. PvP is always possible, but moderated in-game by NPC cops, who will whack someone with battleships. No action out of the ship, but you do trading and such at stations. The storyline hasn't kicked in just yet, so no comparison there. It's like Star Wars out on the Rim, away from the Empire/Republic where space is full of freelancers.

      Besides Star Wars, EVE is reminiscent of Elite and Escape Velocity [slashdot.org].

      Oh, server uptime is good. Usually 3000-3500 people are logged in 7-10om PST and over 6000 on weekends. It's got bugs, they mostly get fixed. Some segments need to be rewritten completely (agent missions) and will be.
    • There could be factions vying for the control of the galaxy - but it would be ongoing. Players would choose their faction and work to move it forward. A dark jedi could walk into a bar and start attacking people - if it brought points to his faction.

      Uh..That's why it's called "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided". You can choose to be part of the rebellion or the empire (or a bunch of other factions like Thugs, etc.). These give you FACTION POINTS that determine PVP combat, etc.

      Learn more about the ga
      • Learn more about the game before you criticize it.

        Wait a second, Sparky. The game takes place between ANH and ESB.

        You realize what that means don't you?

        YOU CAN'T TAKE THE GAME ANYWHERE! Nothing will change - there is no prgression. Those faction points are meaningless.

        Zip.

        Zero.

        Nada.

        Might I suggest thinking before you speak?

  • too many people whining. the game is what you make of it

    when you first start a char in ANY mmorpg what do you do - mind numbing macroing until you uber out your character - that's to be expected

    If all you're doing is destroy and delivery missions - who's fault is that ? your own - there are other things you can do on other planets. [take a trip to the SWG forums and check out the theme park stuff and other hidden places posts]

    now the game is indeed full of bugs - and IMHO the most annoying features

    • "when you first start a char in ANY mmorpg what do you do - mind numbing macroing until you uber out your character - that's to be expected"

      I'd say that means your expectations are -way- too low.

      "anyone who plays an MMORPG knows that the first 6 months usually sucks..."

      If I know full well that a game is going to suck for the first six months I play it, I'm not going to waste that half of a year. I'll either write a macro to level my character for me so I can get to the "good" part, or I'll buy a leve

      • Re:Expectations (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Meeble ( 633260 )
        I'm not saying you're wrong on anything - it's all your opinions which you're entitled to but I think 2 weeks out the door people are bashing an unfinished product.

        I'll assume a lot of people playing swg played UO or EQ and were around at rollout time to know what that includes. I'm not saying it's right of the company, or it's smart to spend your money that way etc etc but it's all your choice. So wait a year then sign up, that's your choice and probably in 6 months or a year this game will be great - ri

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