SWG: Three glorious years of mediocrity

I playtested, and it sucked even then. We told the devs it was weak, and had all sorts of flaws, and they replied with something like "Thanks for the input. We're still shipping it as-is."

It's a big mess that basically plays upon the Star Wars name to get an audience. It's the videogame equivalent of the Star Wars Christmas Special.

This mess was released as a beta and in 3 years never even reached the quality of a finished, releasable product.

Kudos to SOE, crafty bastards.

ZeroCorpse-

Gotta love that corporate logic: Releasing knowing that you'll still sell based on the star wars franchise.

Bah- but, my question to them- why the hell would they go through the motions of having beta testers and not even consider using their input? meh....

It was crafted on an interesting concept. Alas, your adventure as some sort of half assed Han Solo isn't nearly as entertaining as watching the real Han Solo work his magic.

Didn't help that KotOR came out around then as well. No indeed.

Isn't mediocrity a little generous?

I played the 14 day trial and decided in just a few hours the game was lame. I love Star Wars...a lot. The concept of an MMO in said universe makes me happy in all the right places but they sullied it.

rhork-

I have a math equation for you:

SOE = evil

There. I solved your question. ;)

I played this game at the start for about 6 months and actually kind of enjoyed it.Lots of bugs but still playable and was so much fun killing weak rebels with a TEF outside of anchorhead and then running back into my safehouse waiting for the rebel counterattcks then coming out again and pulling a couple at-st's out and killing some more rebel scums ;D It actually had a lot of potential back then but SOE failed.

But the game is a shadow of its former self now.An absolute crap fest.I feel sorry for anyone buying this game nowadays.

But Bria will always have a special place in my MMO memories.

bring back the SWG PRE Combat upgrade and ill go back to it.

That game was so fun. Having huge battles, Crystal hunting, jedi hunting :)

The only thing good that ever came out of this game was this:

http://www.videosift.com/siftoff/story.php?id=2236

I bought the game before the space expansion came out... played it for the length of the free trial and put it away in a box. I had just a tiny bit of fun joining huge rancor hunting parties on Dathomir... when the game didn't lag out. Everything about that game was tedious and boring. It had a lot of potential but never came near meeting it.

"-When Star Wars Galaxies came out, I really wanted to like it. I really did. But, after about an hour or so I found myself asking one question: WTF?-"

I cannot subscribe to this. I'm playing MMORPGs since UO beta in 1996 and I had a great time playing SWG for quite a while (quit after jedi revamp). Guess it depends on your playstyle, I was Creature Handler and exploring the wildlife, looking for new baby pets to raise. Creatures are huge and fun to control. And, not to forget... SWG really hat this kind of world-feeling most MMORPGs nowadays lack (loading screens etc.). I don't play SWG anymore but i have fond memories of it.

SWG DID rock... I was so hyped about playing it before release, then finally got my chance and... it was cool :P just buggy as hell, lol. And that definetly improved, cause the bugs lessened and weren't as bad and the lag in cities got better. Questing improved quite a bit I think. They threw in space combat which actually turned out alright, and the Wooki expansion was not bad.

To tell you the truth it actually felt small in the sense of the Star Wars universe. KOTOR really nailed it, but they used certain things like cutscenes for landing on planets, plus the lack of flying your own ship, to really get that. Oh and don't kid yourself, KOTOR definetly helped SWG sales, and the real problem with MMOs is just getting people to try it for an hour or more, so I think people would be more willing to spend time with it even.

Maybe I just don't "get" MMORPGs, but I don't really see much difference between SWG and every other mmorpg. I played SWG for about a month, the whole mmo angle and star wars setting was interesting for a little while then the flawed gameplay became too obvious to keep going. Same exact thing happened with WoW. People get addicted to these games, but it has nothing to do with the quality of their gameplay. I can see that SWG is more flawed than WoW in just about every aspect, but that's like saying I dislike eating cow shit more than I dislike eating dog shit.

I remember back when I was in the Beta (really late Beta), and a month or two after that. It was an average game to me, and I got bored with it. Although that's kind of how I feel about MMOs, I can't get into them for long because about 80% of MMOs are exactly the same.

Now we'll have to see if Bioware is making a new Star Wars MMO or not.

While it was sorely lacking in content, I didn't think SWG was outright terrible the first year or so it was released (or at least not as bad as a lot of people tend to say).

However, the game still absolutely deserves to fail. Any company that screws over their playerbase like SOE did with their somewhat recent "revisions" deserves to fail. It's funny that people are quick to cry "nerf!" to the devs over the tiniest change in most MMOs, and yet SWG players were completely shat on by the devs in order to re-market the game. All of their hours played were rendered completely useless.

Yeah SOE and LucasArts really failed teh playerbase this last year or so.

Redesigning the game to make it feel more "StarWarsy" the bottom line is nobody in an MMO is gonna feel like Luke or Han simply because EVERYONE would have to feel like them for the Devs job to be accomplished and if EVERYONE can do it...well then yer just the run of the mill kinda guy.

I played the game since Beta 2 and but once this new NGE came around.. i quit. I dont know who to blame more SOE or LucasArts, but since is LA's license and they have ultimate control... and SOE just develops to their whims.. I blame LA for the most part.

"It's a big mess that basically plays upon the Star Wars name to get an audience. It's the videogame equivalent of the Star Wars Christmas Special."

I think you mean "It's the video game equivalent of the first three episodes."

I played it for the first year it came out, and it was buggy and laggy to begin with, but I found it entertaining. After that, I got tired of having to planet hop for the good resources (was a master doctor) and tired of having to spend 1-2 hours a day tending to my harvestors. I left it for FFXI, left that for EQII, left that for WOW and am now back at FFXI.

I have played SWG from Beta. It seems SOE has had a real problem with SWG. It has been trying to "find itself". First it wanted to be deep and involved. Then it wanted to be balanced, then it wanted to be not so deep and involved and also balanced. The game has been in this constant flux since release. I decided a few months ago that I was no longer going to pay for SOE and SWG to find out what it wants to be. Plus the whole New Game Enhancements (NGE) back in November was just WRONG. Totally screwing your current user base is blatently wrong!

Worked great for me. Leveled to Jedi and eBayed my acct. $1500.00 ty SOE

"Bah- but, my question to them- why the hell would they go through the motions of having beta testers and not even consider using their input? meh...." - rhork

This is an interesting question. One which I think I've had an answer for since I beta tested as well.

I believe they listened to testers FAR TOO MUCH. There was a VERY vocal group of testers that completely hosed this game. They wanted an extremely open and free-form game with an insane number of possible skillsets, completely customizable characters and pretty much ... CHAOS.

The devs were convinced these people actually knew what the hell they were talking about.

You have to understand that these people are in EVERY game... the most vocal people in the community pretty much have NO IDEA what makes a game fun to the masses. They are the hardcore... they spend every minute of every day min/maxing every system in the universe then write long dissertations that arguably make tons of sense if you were making a game to simulate some real world... but what happens is pretty much SW:G.

I played off and on for a while. I enjoyed the open-ended aspect for about a month then I needed some direction, didn't get it, and cancelled.

It's a damn shame what happened.

I liked running for 1/2 an hour to get to your mission objective, just so you could shoot a rat's nest. That part was really cool. Then after dying about 5 times, finally blowing up the rat's nest, running another 1/2 an hour back so you can claim your reward.

That's almost as fun as shooting something with your gun, just so it can run up next to you so that you can shoot it from point blank range, and still getting your ass whipped.

Loved that game...

I played SWG for a summer, and it was the best MMO I ever played. It was slow to start however, boring, confusing, and maybe lame. After a few days however, it was amazing, Whenever I was not playing It (which wasn't very often) I really wanted to play it. It was addicting, and it did, rock. While I do love joystiq, making the claim that SWG sucked when it first came out is ignorant, it was a deep and very solid game. I stopped playing a while ago, but, I know for sure that when it first came out, it was a great game. It sounds lame to me currently, but it was not always that way.

"I think you mean "It's the video game equivalent of the first three episodes." "

No. I actually like the first three episodes (though Ep. I is the weakest), because I'm not a cynical type when it comes to Star Wars. I went in to enjoy Star Wars, and that's what I got. Episode III is actually my second-favorite of the entire series.

The Star Wars Christmas Special, however, was just cashing in. It has a coked-up Carrie Fisher singing, it has Harvey Korman as a wacky alien chef, it has Bea Arthur in it, for gosh sakes! It's cheesy, lame, and embarrassing, and has so very little to do with the actual events of Star Wars that it's the only Lucasfilm-produced thing that is NON-canonical and denied as frequently as possible.

SWG was like the Christmas Special. It was Star Wars in name only. You see the main characters in passing, but they're not in character at all. You see a bunch of badly-made extras running around doing silly things, but they aren't important to the main storyline. You see a bunch of technical errors and bad effects that pull you out of the story.

Perhaps a better way to put it for Lucas haters is "SWG is the Jar-Jar Binks of Star Wars games."

Anyone else laugh when you saw the picture of a storm trooper doing a karate kick.

Silly storm trooper, you have laser guns! And from the looks of it, a glowing ass too.

What I always find humorous is that characters always "run" in games. Yes, I know you can walk, but if it takes 5-10 minutes when you run, who wants to walk? Can you image real life that way? Everyone RUNNING all the time? There needs to be a real penelty if you run, not "run for 10 minutes, rest for 30 seconds, run for 10 minutes" either. Heck olympic 100 meter dash runners couldn't keep running at speed with a 30 second rest in between runs.

I loved this game! Played it for 2 years...HUGE worlds, they were always upgrading it....first mounts, then vehicles, then SPACE was the best....truly the best recreation of Star Wars to date...and completely immersive...too bad the hardware couldn't handle it for the first 2 years it was out. But Star Wars + MMO is just an awsome combination.

I can't get into fantasy Tolkin-esque themes(thank god) so I don't play other MMO's. But I can't wait for the next Star wars MMO!! Now if they could just make in-game star wars currency transferrable to real world dollars...:P (ignites sabre)

"I played SWG for a summer, and it was the best MMO I ever played. It was slow to start however, boring, confusing, and maybe lame. After a few days however, it was amazing, Whenever I was not playing It (which wasn't very often) I really wanted to play it. It was addicting, and it did, rock. While I do love joystiq, making the claim that SWG sucked when it first came out is ignorant, it was a deep and very solid game. I stopped playing a while ago, but, I know for sure that when it first came out, it was a great game. It sounds lame to me currently, but it was not always that way."

Fantastic way of saying it.

I have to agree with posters 24 and 25. I had some great times and things were always changing, usually for the better. I've played COH and a few other MMOs but SWG really had the most free-roaming potential for awhile, if not the best quest finding track out there.

it truly is a sad thing what SOE did to that game...it was pretty good and had potential. then sony online entertainment(fuck sony...ANY of their many divisions) had to go and screw up everything and change everything.

[sigh]

I don't like the game, but an article just for the sake of bashing it is absurdly unprofessional.

I was one of the earliest folks to play this game and have literally played it from the start of the server "Shadowfire" under 3 different characters, through the good and the bad. It's sad what has happened to it. The first ads for the game all highlighted that it was each persons adventure within the Star Wars Galaxy and that you could be anyone- any profession etc...and had this amazing freedom of choice. One could do the game solo or in a group- but the choice was always with the player.
Simple result of game changes for the worse- most of my guild left the game.

Please pull the plug...the game died with the NGE. The problem is, current players keep B*!@#$%^ about it but won't quit. The only way they will kill this POS is for the customer base to /cancel. Seriously I have no idea why they think they won't get screwed over again by SOE. How many years of empty promises are you willing to put up with?

I have to admit I'm not overly enthused by the Max Rebo party or the gifts. I'm not a 3 year vet so I won't be getting the additional storage yet, but really...big deal. The game has been in beta state since release. Things have been promised that haven't been deliverd on and things have been broken that haven't been fixed, but then this is SOE.

Kotor was a great game, but not everybody wants to be jedi. Sure you get the funky force powers, but there is so much more to the Star Wars universe, there is a lot more potential that has been left unexplored. Its really sort of sad.

I just resubribed for a month (on probation) to see if anything changed for the good. The Result ist: SOE still sucks and seems not to notice that the NGE slowly draws player more distant. They prefer to nerf good things, give the Jedi what they want if they start whining and don't fix bugs that are ages old!
There's one good things that I see, the Quest quality has slightly improved but the targetting is a mayor annoyance and a step backward in usability. (more throughout report soon on dataleak).