Are you playing SWG?

[Union Carbide]

So, who is playing SWG? Come on, don't be shy.

I'm currently playing on the Gorath server as Union Carbide (shock!).

[hoowahman]

Whats good about this game? I read a few reviews and some people bitching about it on here. Besides that I want to really know why I should play it and have fun. Sell it to me =P

[Lokust]

I watched my wife play the beta for an hour and that was boring enough for me. Nowadays when I want my online RPG fix I get on DAOC-Gaheris. Varied PvE content in the game that feels the most solid to me but without all the l33t d00ds.

[ciparis]

[raises hand]

Find me as Sevarhin on Ahazi, with droid shops all over the galaxy (just hit master architect last night as well :p).

For those of you playing Planetside, if you wonder where cip went, blame SWG :) ...and my friends who talked me into "trying it out" one weekend...

I hated it in betas 2 and 3, but it took on a life of its own once it became populated. Love it despite some outrageous bugs, unfinished professions, and heavy-handed dev behavior. Easily the most immersive game I've ever played.

[Rob O'Boston]

Cip, whatever happened to you? You used to be the toughest Conglomerate Max qt3 ever had!? Now you sell droids? You're a shopkeeper? What the fuck is that??? You're like the gunfighter who tries to become a farmer. Shane never settled down, and neither will you. Sooner or later the sound of battle will draw you back in.

"Mother wants you Cip! Cip! Mother wants you!"

[ciparis]

Cip, whatever happened to you? You used to be the toughest Conglomerate Max qt3 ever had!? Now you sell droids? You're a shopkeeper? What the fuck is that??? You're like the gunfighter who tries to become a farmer. Shane never settled down, and neither will you. Sooner or later the sound of battle will draw you back in.

"Mother wants you Cip! Cip! Mother wants you!"

LOL :)

Sony is sending out "10 days free" to PS players who cancelled. Don't think I'll take em up on it... just having too much fun. I killed enough stuff in daoc and ps to keep my bloodlust sated.... for now :)

[Rywill]

"I ain't like that no more, Ned. I ain't no...crazy killin' fool."

Whatever, Cip!

Is Sony really doing the WW2O "come back and try it now" thing? That strikes me as really bizarre, because the game is no different than it was at release. Honestly. I mean, I guess the Liberator and Skyguard are in, but people hardly ever use them (esp the Skyguard), so who cares? Whenever I think of canceling the game, the reason is always "Man, they're taking $13 a month and the game never changes." How weird.

[ciparis]

Didn't you guys join the Dark Side(tm) anyway? Magmowers! The horror!

[grins]

[Rob O'Boston]

Ry, that is the first thing I thought too. Why now? There hasn't been a meaningful patch in a month. Maybe after they change the base cap system, but not now. I'm itching for new content, especially since I like playing the vanu least of all the 3 sides.

[Brandon Clements]

Ry, that is the first thing I thought too. Why now? There hasn't been a meaningful patch in a month. Maybe after they change the base cap system, but not now. I'm itching for new content, especially since I like playing the vanu least of all the 3 sides.
I don't mean to continue the thread hijack, but when the hell are they going to patch that (or any other changes) in?

[Rywill]

I realize this is a betrayal (and also a further hijacking of this fine, fine SWG thread--sorry!), but I liked NC the least. TR was the most fun I had--I play a footsoldier, and the TR are best at that. You can be a really flexible infantry guy with the Striker as a backup weapon, and their MAXes rule. Vanu is #2 for me. I like the Pulsar and the Lasher, the Lancer is okay. I've only tried the AI MAX (Quasar), and I have to say I'm somewhat underwhelmed, but I need to play it more.

NC I thought had good vehicles, but their infantry stuff was somewhat lacking. The JH isn't nearly as good as people say (probably my least favorite HA), the Phoenix is the weakest AV, and their MAXes are only so-so.

[Rywill]

Ry, that is the first thing I thought too. Why now? There hasn't been a meaningful patch in a month. Maybe after they change the base cap system, but not now. I'm itching for new content, especially since I like playing the vanu least of all the 3 sides.
I don't mean to continue the thread hijack, but when the hell are they going to patch that (or any other changes) in?
Apparently, like, never. They tested the LLU thing a couple of days ago, and the results were so awful that they took the whole thing back to the drawing boards. I didn't participate in the test, so I can't give any first-hadn opinion about it. The other changes are apparently not close to being put in (other than tweaks like the Lasher changes--but major updates like platoons, sanctuary strikes, and the Lodestar are not even close). I noticed that the new producer's letter basically says nothing at all.

[Brandon Clements]

Maybe Creole Ned's comments (in the Daily Grind thread) about Dave Georgson weren't far off then...

Back on Topic:

cip, I'm glad you are having fun with SWG. Hope it stays that way for you :)

[Rob O'Boston]

I'm sorry to hear that. I may be cancelling my subscription for a few months to wait for more content. The danger is that when I come back there will be no oufit to join. But, I'm ready to play some MtG Online and I think the Secret Weapons expansion is going to be fun, and the lack of a monthly fee is pretty attractive.

[Brian Rubin]

No Spaceflight, No Joystick = No Playing SWG for me.

[Martinez]

Smuggler on Bloodfin Server. (Yes, the 1337-d00dz server). Made Slice III, and Spice IV. I can slice armor now. Working on Slice IV, but it's currently bugged. Hopefully it'll get fixed by the time I get it.

Mention QT3, and I'll give ya free slices and spices.

[Union Carbide]

I disliked SWG in beta as well, but picked it up a couple weeks after release because everyone at work was playing, and I got a copy from a friend of a friend at Lucasarts for $15. Figured for $15 I could dick around for a while then cancel.

Well, I've always been a crafter type as a side hobby in MMOGs that allowed it, so I started as an artisan, and picked up Marksman and Scout. For a long time it was a grind, I wasn't advancing quickly, I never had enough money to get the things I needed, etc. and I actually cancelled my account.

Then we had a bit of crunch time at work, so I left my character logged in at home macro-sampling a particularly rich vein of steel that I had located. After 2 days I had several thousand steel in my inventory, so I dumped some on the Bazaar. Lots of 500 for 2000 credits. All of them sold and all of a sudden I had 40k credits to play around with. I set up a bunch of mineral harvesters, and for about a week I had full control over the steel market in the city of Moenia on Naboo. I made enough money that I was able to afford a house and pre-pay about 2 months of maintenance on it, and I still have enough resources to powercraft through the Tailor tree.

I realized about 2 days into my manipulation of the steel market prices that I was having a ton of fun running around between my harvesters and watching the sale notification emails coming in, so I renewed my account.

Sadly, it helps if you don't think of it as Star Wars Galaxies, and think of it as Generic Sci Fi MMOG. Unfortunately the Star Wars label comes with so much mythological baggage that is difficult to live up to, and some people just can't get past that. I know a lot of people thought it would be the perfect game for the hardcore SW fan, but I think it's actually better for people who like the movies but don't have any particular emotional investment in them.

[Jason McCullough]

Then we had a bit of crunch time at work, so I left my character logged in at home macro-sampling a particularly rich vein of steel that I had located.

The game that plays itself!

[Midnight Son]

The heck with MMORPGMMRPGMMRGMM's or whatever the acronym is! Worlds of Warcraft looks interesting, though.....

[Mister Widget]

Sadly, it helps if you don't think of it as Star Wars Galaxies, and think of it as Generic Sci Fi MMOG. Unfortunately the Star Wars label comes with so much mythological baggage that is difficult to live up to, and some people just can't get past that. I know a lot of people thought it would be the perfect game for the hardcore SW fan, but I think it's actually better for people who like the movies but don't have any particular emotional investment in them.

You know, that's an excellent point. I think my whole opinion of the game would probably be better if it had just been marketed as "Sony's Futuristic MMORPG". It would have been even better if they could have called it a "Space" MMORPG... but then, you still can't do anything in space. Still, a generic sci fi game with an emphasis on crafting would have been far less of a disappointment to me than "Star Wars: Galaxies" was.

[voltaic]

So with only 16 people playing SWG, (58 people not playing, 17 people saying "Fuck Star Wars") we still have all these threads about SWG on this forum? What is that, like 3 threads per QT3 SWG player?

[Brian Rucker]

I'm playing. On Starsider. Jack of all trades character. Future starship pilot (and there damned well better be merchant/smuggler freighters in the SE). Mostly roleplaying keeps me involved. In a great community on the RP server but there are still plenty of idiots around too. Thank you /addignore. Getting slowly sucked into PvP. We got in a guild war recently with some player pirates who were very good RPers and made even getting ganked pretty fun. Occasionally I'll get drawn into a GCW skirmish as well. Mostly I'm a fixer. I've got contacts in lots of places and if somebody is looking for someone or something I can probably track the information down sooner or later. Sometimes I do private cargo runs with important or hard to find items for people. Got a crew of good RPers but now I need that damn ship...

[Kevin Perry]

So with only 16 people playing SWG, (58 people not playing, 17 people saying "Fuck Star Wars") we still have all these threads about SWG on this forum? What is that, like 3 threads per QT3 SWG player?

There are probably a lot of us playing who don't want to have to defend the fact that we enjoy what we're doing. Although Caryn did a very classy job of that.

I am enjoying the hell out of it. But it's my first MMORPG, so take that with a grain of salt. I also enjoy sitting in medcenters and healing people, except when I go out to get more resources to make more medicines to heal people back at the medcenter.

Of course, I've had very little opportunity to play it due to the crunch at work. If I'd powerblown through 80 hours in the first week, I might be bored with it too.

[Nellie]

SWG strikes me as a game you either love or hate wether you played it or not. And in that respect seems to sum up just about any MMOPRG I can think of. Jumpgate, my pet love is so niche its unreal, ATITD is on a par with that having checked it out again tonight, all the elven ears of +1 hearing stuff is somehwat more 'populist' and so on.

People like me who were expecting Star wars in an RPG setting seem to be those most turned off by it. Those who wanted an RPG with a star wars theme seem to be those who accept or overlook (a crucial quality when it comes to MMORPGs) its failings and like it for what it is.

I'm not saying I wont ever play it, but at the moment it seems to sum up everything I dont like about the genre so far and stomp all over a big part of my childhood at the same time. And that ultimately is what stops me shelling out the cash to buy the game and subscribe to it.

[Desslock]

I'm the sucker with the two accounts, since I bought a couple for my wife and I to play so she could help me with my review. I'll probably drop her account soon (she dislikes it, although she like Dark Age of Camelot for months), but I'm still playing a ton, weeks after submitting my review, which is pretty telling.

Re: Jason's comment-- the fact that the game "plays itself" is actually one of my favourite features in the game, since it makes SWG one of the most friendly MMOs to casual gamers. The fact that I can still have factories/harvesters and vendors making me a ton of dough while I'm not online is really cool, and keeps me coming back when I otherwise might have shelved the game after being forced to focus on other stuff.

There's tons of other stuff I like about the game, which I've posted in other threads -- it's easily my favourite MMO to date.

edited: gave myself a wife

[Jazar]

"I bought a couple for myself and I to play so she could help me with my review"

So... how long have you had these dissociative feelings with your female self? :wink:

[Bub, Andrew]

Believe it or not, Desslock apparently has time for a wife too.

[Desslock]

heh, that's a funny typo -- as Andrew indicated, I meant my wife and I.

[jeep]

As you well know, I hate every game ever except for GTA and FF7 and Civ2 and Grim Fandango and all the other really good non-fps games ever made...that didn't make much sense, try this: I'm jaded and bitter and it takes a lot to win me over. Also, I grew out of Star Wars about the same time I realized I was not going to grow up to live in space, so 1986 sometime. I play a lot of games, very few of them are worth my time and money, a tiny fraction of those have something to do with Star Wars.

SWG is one of them. Frigging OMM kids (now Caltrops) got me on Lowca, which unfortunately is the same server all of the Something Awful goons are on (they're kind of tough to spot, what with the word GOON next to their names and all the jeffk references while they use exploits to kill everyone they come across).

Same frigging OMM kids quit the game three days later, and a month later I'm still playing it. Every waking minute of every day I play this game. I quit DAOC two days into SWG and I can barely recall ever playing it, despite having gotten on back when erik and chet were still on Lancelot. Everything about this game is 2 or 3 steps more complex than it needs to be, but it somehow benefits from this, there's an illusion of depth (that can become actual depth when you are with a lot of other players, but that's the human interface at work, no doubt). Get this:

- I had a rebel character, but I'm not doing rebel stuff, I'm just scouting around. Some tusk cats try to kill me, I try to run, they keep up easily and are about to kill me, I accidentally run into another mob...of NPC rebel SpecOps Marines, who promptly dispatch the cats, ask me if I'm OK, then radio the all clear signal into base. I said "thanks a lot" without thinking - I was the only PC for 10 klicks.

- When I make a new character I just buy all the starting classes, no matter what advanced stuff I want, then I just do whatever I fall into, and let the exp take me where it will. My intended rifleman/gunsmith ended up a well-respected medic who could barely down a womp rat, and who made money procuring rare resources for master crafters. My intended Bounty Hunter ended up a Bioengineer and Creature Handler. The character I'm working on now was going to be a Teras Kasi Artist (like Karate) and Pistoleer, somehow I'm gravitating towards the Mixology skills - a bartender who's his own bouncer.

- Soloing is the same as DAOC, but you can group with up to 20 other people, and it's a blast. There's this rebel Juste on Lowca in Moenia, he takes newbs to an imperial fortress out west, they all run into the very deepest part and then try to shoot their way out past 200 stormtroopers. Of course you die, but you get tons of exp in the process, and it turns into a huge mess within minutes. Most fun ever.

- I teach new players how to make money, fight things, what classes and skills to use, tipping courtesy, and generally show them the ropes.

Some things that are still a problem:

- The bugs come and go, can be a very expensive problem in terms of time lost, and the CSRs aren't responsive at all.

- The development of the game is insanely slow. They had a "huge patch" last wednesday that they'd clearly been working on for a while - every DAOC patch is more significant.

- Some things simply don't work. High level crafters can't make all the items they are supposed to be able to make. The resource system isn't balanced properly, so a gun that requires higher skill to craft is often worse than an easier to make gun with better raw material requirements. This applies to all crafting.

- People burn out on the game if they only focus on one thing. All crafters get sick of grinding knicknacks, all healers get sick of rude nontipping customers, and all combat characters get bored soloing Gob-Spitting Rabid Feral Manhating Republican Queen Deathspiders or whatever, so having all 6 of those skill trees available to you is useful, you can just pick up a tool for whatever you want to do and go to it to break the monotony of other things, and of course interacting with other players is key to the game, you just find someone else doing something and offer to help, or ask them to teach you how.

I don't macro stuff (they actually broke most macros with the last patch, so you can't survey for stuff for 3 straight days anymore), and I'm resisting the urge to grind for exp, instead running around doing bizarre things just to see the reaction. For some reason they made water scarce, even on naboo, to the point where the prices are apalling, and medics need it for medicine, and you should see the response when you start handing it out as tips in the med center. Just doing things a little different, or going out of your way to help someone, and suddenly you're in a group with them on Lok hunting Biz Natches (sic) for 1000xp a kill.

So on Lowca I was playing a character 'tired' but it got bugged so badly and the CSRs didn't get back to me for 24 hours, I just made a new one. Jaeke is in Moenia, likes to craft and give away high-quality widgets no one else would bother making (like crafting better crafting tools that give bonuses...they didn't even have ratings until a couple days ago, who knew all the old ones were like -10 to skill?) and is the sworn enemy of all plasma thieves - because they drop the best skill boosts...I love my boots with +10 to dodge.

Anyway I figure it can't be everyone's ideal game, you have to pay attention to time in the game, which can be annoying if you maintain something resembling a job or social life (anything you own like a house or something requires 'maintenance' so you have to drop money in it periodically), you have to learn each bug by encountering it and then begging other players to explain how to get by it, and the resources shifts are a lot fo trouble. You could play a whole character just surveying for good spots and keeping track fo resources...I tried it, very profitable, but you max out that kind of xp very quickly.

I'm playing it and enjoying it very much a month in and if anyone has the sick machine requirements you need to play on Lowca comfortably, I'm happy to give folks the tour. It's basically Broadband, 2GHZ chip and 1GB RAM or play on Tempest, the newer, faster, less populated, less buggy server.

/jeep/
...I edited a bit where it wasn't clear how long I played DAOC.

[jeep]

Server kicked me out and I ended up triple posting this...it's like playing SWG on the Lowca server, except thsi doesn't cost $15 a month.

/jeep/

[jeep]

It has been so long I have forgotten how to use phpbb...a nice vacation, I'd say.

[Jason McCullough]

Every waking minute of every day I play this game.

So that's where you've been!

[nutsak]

I'd probably give it ago if the bastards put a server that us Aussies could play on without the need for T1 lines...

the broadband situation in Australia REALLY bites the big one.
Actually... if we had better access here, theres quite a few MMRPGs I'd try.

[Mark Asher]

So what is the latest word on the space expansion? Is there any? I'm guessing they won't make their six-month promise, but have they indicated when it might be out?

[jeep]

So what is the latest word on the space expansion? Is there any? I'm guessing they won't make their six-month promise, but have they indicated when it might be out?

They still say December or January, but I think that's pretty optimistic, considering high-level crafters can't even make 25% of the things they should.

They promise vehicles earlier, as in speeder bikes and stuff, and Jedi are of course not finished. Not "oh it will take you a while to qualify," I mean "not in the game because they can't get them to work, either."

If they were ready to go, every person on the test server would have one to debug them, and we don't.

/jeep/