Star Wars: Galaxies Nda Lifted!
<div class="IPBDescription">Ask away....Pictures Inside</div> NDA is now lifted, so now I can tell you what I like/dislike about the game, and what has changed during the beta. Be sure to look at the manual first:
<b>[SWG MANUAL]</b>
<a href='http://www.upperoomyouth.com/swg_manual.zip' target='_blank'>http://www.upperoomyouth.com/swg_manual.zip</a>
If you wanna mirror the manual, feel free to do so <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Note that this is not the final manual, it explains the bare bare bare bones about the game. And some stuff has changed.
<b>[THE GOOD]</b>
Its very customizable. Very easy to get into, with almost no learning curve. Everything you do gives you a reward which can be used to furthur your skills.
<b>[THE BAD]</b>
Too easy at what needs to be challenging (combat). And too hard at what needs to be easy (money). The economy is all player driven, its easy for a monopoly of players to get together and rig the prices. Missions take too long for the payoff. Holocron, a dev, has stated that the average ammount of money players should make in 1 hour of doing missions is 500 credits.
The problem, is that almost every item on the Bazzaar (virtual 24/7 store for goods and items) costs 1000+ credits. If it dosent, something is up. It costs 250 credits just to list an item, plus it takes a long time to get the items needed to make just 1 item.
<b>[THE UGLY]</b>
PvP. When I first started beta, PvP was gimpy. Due to recent changes to the cost of binding, insuring items, and the nerfing of mission rewards, its now almost dead. There are rumors about SOE including PvP in SWG for no other reason then it was a mandatory issue in the contract signed with LucasArts. And right now it feels very much like all that could have been done, all the massive heaping piles of potential in the Imperial vs Rebel conflict was shoveled out the window bit by bit. This is nto casual PvP, this is non-exsistent PvP.
Combat is insanly easy, there is no strategy, no skill needed. Shoot the mob till its dead, thats all you can do. Even Dark Ages of Camelot at LEAST had positional styles, and casters had utility spells. But here, when you specialize in combat, thats all you get, nothing else.
All of the things that could have made this a grade A game were inexplicably cut out in early beta. Player created cities, player controlled vehicles, mounts, they won't be in for the next 4-6 months after release, if at all (according to dev statements). Mythic said this same thing about player housing in DAOC about a year ago "Oh yeah, just 4-6 months!". Almost a year after they promised player housing, its just now getting put in. Pray the same dosen't happen to SWG.
Wanna be a medic? Congrats, you will be the only medic for the next planet or two. The medic class has nothing to really make it viable in groups. Yes they can heal, but the process takes too much time to be helpful, your usually helping more by just getting out your blaster. The devs tried to make them mroe viable by applying a ton of wounds to your stats after you die, you would think this would encourage more medics. But people don't want to run around looking for a Medic, then wait 15 minutes to have their wounds healed.
<b>[CONCLUSION]</b>
Unfortunatly, this game is not harnessing any of its potential. There is a mind boggling ammount of content and potential here, and so far about 1/10th of it is being used. Things that should have been included havent, playtesters havent even been able to play more then half of the advanced skill trees because they are either not finished or need to be changed. There is no time to test these changes.
<i>If you are going to buy this game, wait 4-6 months after things have been balanced, until bugs have been sorted out, and until they actually make this game what it could be.</i>
BTW, if anyone wants some novelty Beta 3 CD's Im selling them <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Feel free to ask questions.
<b>[SWG MANUAL]</b>
<a href='http://www.upperoomyouth.com/swg_manual.zip' target='_blank'>http://www.upperoomyouth.com/swg_manual.zip</a>
If you wanna mirror the manual, feel free to do so <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Note that this is not the final manual, it explains the bare bare bare bones about the game. And some stuff has changed.
<b>[THE GOOD]</b>
Its very customizable. Very easy to get into, with almost no learning curve. Everything you do gives you a reward which can be used to furthur your skills.
<b>[THE BAD]</b>
Too easy at what needs to be challenging (combat). And too hard at what needs to be easy (money). The economy is all player driven, its easy for a monopoly of players to get together and rig the prices. Missions take too long for the payoff. Holocron, a dev, has stated that the average ammount of money players should make in 1 hour of doing missions is 500 credits.
The problem, is that almost every item on the Bazzaar (virtual 24/7 store for goods and items) costs 1000+ credits. If it dosent, something is up. It costs 250 credits just to list an item, plus it takes a long time to get the items needed to make just 1 item.
<b>[THE UGLY]</b>
PvP. When I first started beta, PvP was gimpy. Due to recent changes to the cost of binding, insuring items, and the nerfing of mission rewards, its now almost dead. There are rumors about SOE including PvP in SWG for no other reason then it was a mandatory issue in the contract signed with LucasArts. And right now it feels very much like all that could have been done, all the massive heaping piles of potential in the Imperial vs Rebel conflict was shoveled out the window bit by bit. This is nto casual PvP, this is non-exsistent PvP.
Combat is insanly easy, there is no strategy, no skill needed. Shoot the mob till its dead, thats all you can do. Even Dark Ages of Camelot at LEAST had positional styles, and casters had utility spells. But here, when you specialize in combat, thats all you get, nothing else.
All of the things that could have made this a grade A game were inexplicably cut out in early beta. Player created cities, player controlled vehicles, mounts, they won't be in for the next 4-6 months after release, if at all (according to dev statements). Mythic said this same thing about player housing in DAOC about a year ago "Oh yeah, just 4-6 months!". Almost a year after they promised player housing, its just now getting put in. Pray the same dosen't happen to SWG.
Wanna be a medic? Congrats, you will be the only medic for the next planet or two. The medic class has nothing to really make it viable in groups. Yes they can heal, but the process takes too much time to be helpful, your usually helping more by just getting out your blaster. The devs tried to make them mroe viable by applying a ton of wounds to your stats after you die, you would think this would encourage more medics. But people don't want to run around looking for a Medic, then wait 15 minutes to have their wounds healed.
<b>[CONCLUSION]</b>
Unfortunatly, this game is not harnessing any of its potential. There is a mind boggling ammount of content and potential here, and so far about 1/10th of it is being used. Things that should have been included havent, playtesters havent even been able to play more then half of the advanced skill trees because they are either not finished or need to be changed. There is no time to test these changes.
<i>If you are going to buy this game, wait 4-6 months after things have been balanced, until bugs have been sorted out, and until they actually make this game what it could be.</i>
BTW, if anyone wants some novelty Beta 3 CD's Im selling them <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Feel free to ask questions.
Comments
yea same. Thanks for the info too.
They need to put in all their good stuff BEFORE the game ships, or else people end up as paying beta testers (BTW, I had to pay 7 bucks to get the 3 CDs shipped to me, its the only way to get a beta CD key). Im just waiting for a single MMORPG that does something different...looks like MMORPG on the choping block is World of Warcraft. And unfortunatly Im getting DAOC flashbacks already.
Oh yes, stuff that was cut or not implimented for the final release:
-Vehicles
-Mounts
-Player Cities (cut several months ago, due to it straining the server)
-Player Bounties (cut 3 months ago)
Summary of Classes:
Smuggler - You craft stat boosting items...no smuggling involved.
Dancer - Dance...dance...get xp...dance...dance...get xp.
Bounty Hunter - The only class that actually punishes you for advancing by making your missions more difficult but paying you almost the same ammount (16,000 creds for a 1 hour inter-planetary mission or 8,000 creds for a 30 minute local mission...hmm).
Weapon/Armor Smith - Possibly the only class that can easily make money without having to do stupid tasks constantly.
Commando - They can use Heavy Weapons...but no Heavy Weapons are in yet or have been tested for balance. They can also make grenades, which don't seem to do anything sometimes.
Scout/Ranger - The only class with all its skill lines working currently, can make camps, sell camp kits, and decrease mob aggro range.
Tera Kensai Artist - Can incapacitate most things easily, if you get in a fight with a TKA and your anything less then a TKA as well, kiss your **** goodby and hope you have enough to re-insure.
Droid Engineer - These are supposed to exsist, only saw 1 Droid Engineer in Beta though.
Medic - Useless in groups, pretty much you just sit in the Hospitals all day healing people's wounds for XP. Gets better once you go to Combat Medic, but not by much.
I say this again: <b> This game will not be ready for release in 6 days!</b> Tell your friends and family! Spare them $15 a month!
Do you know of any other good links to other tester's opinions on this?
fools.
<a href='http://www.actiontrip.com/previews/starwarsgalaxiesanempiredivided.phtml' target='_blank'>Preview at actiontrip</a>
<a href='http://mysite.freeserve.com/sirfragalot/swgimages/swgfrag.htm' target='_blank'>Another testers review</a>
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<i>I was just out on Tatooine, travelling out past the pod racer track, 3264 M from town. Out of nowhere BAM! 4 Tuskens and 2 banths stomp my ever loving furry butt all over the desert in like 15 seconds. I clone, however my bind location was in Mos Entha. I still received over 4K in wounds. I limp in my brand new body to med center and waited 4 people deep for healing. It took well over 45 minutes for the healing to START. I finish healing. Now go get my corpse, defenseless. I tried to recruit some bodyguards, but everyone is now too afraid to die. I get half way there. KILLED BY A Savorrt, reclone, wait 45 minutes, heal another 30 minutes, start back.
I made it the second time only to have a Bantha sitting my my corpse. Wait...Wait...Wait...Bantha is now sleeping on my corpse.. SO, I F5, burst run right through the center of their group get them all to chase me double back scoop up my corpse and head for the hills.
*BAM* Tusken Incapps me in ONE SHOT. DB and start all over.
All in all today, I have spent almost 4 hours just trying to retreive one corpse. I honestly feel this is a little harsh and not real customer friendly.</i>
The penalties were relaxed a little in the current patch.
<i>Ok but I remember playing EQ like 1.5 months after going live. The origial Norath wasn't that big. i seemed big. They had paths snaking through smallish zone to make it appear as if you were traveling far. You could run from Freeport to Halas with Sow in 30 minutes. That is pretty much the width and breadth of the world. One entire planet is probably comparable to the entire landmass of EQ when it first came out. That being said it was a great experience because its easier to pay attention to a much smaller area.
DAoC was wholey lacking in high level content. And the whole RvR system didn't even work properly months into launch. And while Each Realm is failry massive, its pretty much repeated in every other realm.
I personally feel that based off the number of planets, different individual mobs and NPCs, different types of random encounters that SWG is coming close to the amount of content EQ had at launch and I don't think any other game has come close to the feel and the amount of content at launch that EQ had. SWG does feel sparse, but that is because of its immense size.</i>
To give credit where its do, SWG is massive and has alot of stuff to do and explore. The problem is its too big for its own good, and the devs havent been able to give the game any depth. For example, me and my group once went to Lok, ran across the ENTIRE map to get to this big volcano. Once we got there....that was it. No special mob, no special encounters...and a long long walk back.
I would have preffered they only had 3 or so planets, then gradually add more when things were balanced out and they could really concentrate on each individual planet to make it cool and unique.
Aiee... now I have to choose between SWG and WoW for my MMORPG fix.
Aiee... now I have to choose between SWG and WoW for my MMORPG fix. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or everquest 2....*evil grin*
If you didn't know, SWG has a ONE character per server limit. So no trying out multiple classes for those with the "perma n00b" urge. Do NOT start up an argument over this in this thread, this is a nice thread and I'd hate to see it locked <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's a shame, though, because Star Wars is easily one of the three best developed sci-fi/fantasy-worlds of our times. Allowing the player to truly take part in that would have opened incredible possibilities. Unfortunately, yet another dungeon hacker won't do it.
<a href='http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=485&mode=flat&order=0&thold=0' target='_blank'>SWG on Gamers with Jobs</a>
<a href='http://www.ferrago.com/story/1739' target='_blank'>SWG on Ferrago</a>
Again, another mixed bag. <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
And liking SWG is very weird to me. But strangely, I loved it. It was just so fun. The combination of everything was so awesome. For those of you listening, there's a whole lot of empty space in the wilderness for a reason. People can build buildings, so there has to be enough room for em. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> What I found a realy cool part that isn't necessarily part of the game was that people like to roleplay to some extent. Rebels hate imperials and Imperials hate Rebels. That's just how it is! It's not uncommon to run around in a city to see PLAYERS shouting "Death to rebels!"
At one point, I was hanging around for the shuttle in Anchorhead on Tatooine, and Imperials just barged in and started taunting all the rebels around, telling them to "admit they were rebels" (go Overt) so that they could attack them. Pretty soon, a large fight broke out and blasts were flying everywhere. I just stood at the side and shouted "Go rebels!" Which is another thing; It's pretty common to be just standing or walking around a city, and suddenly a few players run by shooting eachother. It really adds to the spaghetti western-ish feeling of Star Wars. (Yes, I would characterize the Star Wars universe as sort of a western in Space)
i will also revel in hearing stories about how completely people will throw their lives away to this.
i can't help it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Only after this bandwagon stage will you see the good MMORPGs emerge. I mean, look at what we have coming up:
-World of Warcraft: I have no question Blizzard will make this an immersive and fun game, unfortunatly from their FAQ it looks to be alot similar to DAOC. They haven't released any info on PvP, but I can only pray it won't be reduced to some panzy dueling arena or something.
-The Matrix Online: Looks like it will be early November before we find out even what this game is about in the first place. After Enter the Matrix my faith in franchise games has once again been shattered, of course no one has ever tried a franchise MMORPG and its not being done by Shiny (Im sorry, but they are way to low profile and underpowered to even have touched the Matrix franchise).
-Everquest 2: No.
-Lineage II: This is the only RPG that looks like it could be refreshing, it has 2 experienced devs (NCSoft and Lord British), so hopefully they have both learned the bumps of the trade.
/me wonders if Twex has a pony tail & wears 'power suits', PR goon stylee. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
MMORPG's are at the moment money cows. They do nothing you can't get in another game, but they combine several things together & then use it to fund yourself forever.
Oh, And Nem - Shadowrun STILL > Cyberpunk.