Update 5 for Star War: Galaxies - An Empire Divided has been released. Below are the highlights of this update, but go to WarCry for the full release notes:
More information.
SW: Galaxies - Update 5 Released
- Thread starter Asbjoern
- Start date
Greymane
Watchdog
The only update I'm interested in hearing about is where they say they're scrapping their current game and recoding it from scratch.
And that they're going to put back in more of the skill based, fun to do, sandbox style open world of exploration that it should be.
Instead of 'Hey lookie, I'm laser twirler number 789,654! and I'm level 246! Duel me newb!"
/sigh
And that they're going to put back in more of the skill based, fun to do, sandbox style open world of exploration that it should be.
Instead of 'Hey lookie, I'm laser twirler number 789,654! and I'm level 246! Duel me newb!"
/sigh
Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
I'm thinking that's a 60 month reward, not a 0 month reward. 
I wonder how that voice chat will work out? There has been talk about NCSoft's universal launcher program getting some sort of voice chat added but there was a LOT of pushback in the forums. I'm on the fence myself. Sounds great for those difficult battles or for telling folks that my video drivers have died. Sounds awful for roleplaying opposite-gender characters. Plus the voice almost certainly isn't logged so the major jerks can really crank up the abuse without fear of being banned.
I wonder how that voice chat will work out? There has been talk about NCSoft's universal launcher program getting some sort of voice chat added but there was a LOT of pushback in the forums. I'm on the fence myself. Sounds great for those difficult battles or for telling folks that my video drivers have died. Sounds awful for roleplaying opposite-gender characters. Plus the voice almost certainly isn't logged so the major jerks can really crank up the abuse without fear of being banned.
I'm thinking that's a 60 month reward, not a 0 month reward.
That is just the forum software, which haven't translated my newsbit properly. The actual newsbit doesn't have the error and that is - in essence - all that matters.
Last edited:
JemyM
Okay, now roll sanity.
- Joined
- October 26, 2006
- Messages
- 6,027
It took a few years to recover from the damage that SWG caused for my love to the Star Wars universe. As a fan, I actually felt exploited.
When the game was first introduced it was based on the philosophy "work hard, get rewarded". People who have a real job can figure out that we work to buy games, we do not buy games to work. There was hard work in the game alright, the whole game was an endless grind that was best done by macroing while you as a player did something else AFK.
There's some secrets how to build a roleplaying game if you like diversity. More classes but with lesser customization means less diversity than more customization with fewer classes. More classes does however mean a major load of work. The original SWG tried 32 classes, the majority of them broken and useless at launch. When players realised that one would simply be either dumb or very determined to pick one of the broken professions, the art of "Flavor of the Month" begun. Every powergamer would regrind their character to whatever profession worked at the moment. When SOE broke that profession while fixing another, or nerfing something so badly that there wasn't a point in keeping it, people just moved on to the next FOTM. This really was a loosing battle since some professions was left out without fixes for years. This wasn't really a Star Wars game by design, but rather a new attempt of building Ultima Online. The classes was based on Dungeons & Dragons, meaning a heavy focus on melee professions which had to be balanced against blasters. Also there was really just one armor worth the trouble. This armor didn't even appear in any Star Wars movie. When the majority of all players used that armor along with a huge Final Fantasy VII-like sword known as "Scythe", screenshots of SWG didn't look like a Star Wars game at all.
PVE was completely ruined. The game was supposed to have a strictly player-driven economy, meaning everything should be built by players. This ruined the whole point with looting. Since armor and weapons broke down while doing anything PVE it was counter-productive to bother about the wilderness. In the beginning the entire Galactic Civil War (which is refered to in the title "An Empire Divided") was PVP only. Kill a stormtrooper and you were thrown into PVP. Dressing in stormtrooper armor also made you PVP ready despite the fact that stormtrooper armor protected 1/3 the amount of damage compared to the non-starwars armor mentioned before.
Also Jedi was nothing more than a "pwn everything in pvp" class, leaving out the whole aspect of the religion and philosophies behind it (light getting more powerful by killing as many opponents as possible). Since roleplayers and PVE players kept out of the FOTM club, picking profession by feel rather than power, they had to sneak and hide to play the game undisturbed. Trashing PVE events, including weddings etc, was fun bonus content for PVP players. Trying PVE with friends was counter-productive. The only effective way to get experience was to grind yourself, preferably using a macro while you did something else like doing laundry or cleaning your appartment.
The first expansion; Rage of the Wookiees was really the first real PVE content added to the game.
When SOE finally broke down and changed their philosophy completely it was too late. Most Star Wars fans had already left. They did however build a heroic Star Wars roleplaying game at last, covering only 9 iconic classes that was diversified with a talent system. If I was to decide, they could have gone with even less, baking Bounty Hunter, Commando and Officer together into one class "Soldier", then making more talent trees.
Revamping a whole game on-the-fly is a challenge indeed. When I left the game there was still no multiplayer PVE challenges in the game. With the lack of of multiplayer PVE content made SWG into a horrible singleplayer game with a built-in chat. I know they have started to add real PVE content now but after finally dropping out I decided to never get back to MMORPG's ever.
When the game was first introduced it was based on the philosophy "work hard, get rewarded". People who have a real job can figure out that we work to buy games, we do not buy games to work. There was hard work in the game alright, the whole game was an endless grind that was best done by macroing while you as a player did something else AFK.
There's some secrets how to build a roleplaying game if you like diversity. More classes but with lesser customization means less diversity than more customization with fewer classes. More classes does however mean a major load of work. The original SWG tried 32 classes, the majority of them broken and useless at launch. When players realised that one would simply be either dumb or very determined to pick one of the broken professions, the art of "Flavor of the Month" begun. Every powergamer would regrind their character to whatever profession worked at the moment. When SOE broke that profession while fixing another, or nerfing something so badly that there wasn't a point in keeping it, people just moved on to the next FOTM. This really was a loosing battle since some professions was left out without fixes for years. This wasn't really a Star Wars game by design, but rather a new attempt of building Ultima Online. The classes was based on Dungeons & Dragons, meaning a heavy focus on melee professions which had to be balanced against blasters. Also there was really just one armor worth the trouble. This armor didn't even appear in any Star Wars movie. When the majority of all players used that armor along with a huge Final Fantasy VII-like sword known as "Scythe", screenshots of SWG didn't look like a Star Wars game at all.
PVE was completely ruined. The game was supposed to have a strictly player-driven economy, meaning everything should be built by players. This ruined the whole point with looting. Since armor and weapons broke down while doing anything PVE it was counter-productive to bother about the wilderness. In the beginning the entire Galactic Civil War (which is refered to in the title "An Empire Divided") was PVP only. Kill a stormtrooper and you were thrown into PVP. Dressing in stormtrooper armor also made you PVP ready despite the fact that stormtrooper armor protected 1/3 the amount of damage compared to the non-starwars armor mentioned before.
Also Jedi was nothing more than a "pwn everything in pvp" class, leaving out the whole aspect of the religion and philosophies behind it (light getting more powerful by killing as many opponents as possible). Since roleplayers and PVE players kept out of the FOTM club, picking profession by feel rather than power, they had to sneak and hide to play the game undisturbed. Trashing PVE events, including weddings etc, was fun bonus content for PVP players. Trying PVE with friends was counter-productive. The only effective way to get experience was to grind yourself, preferably using a macro while you did something else like doing laundry or cleaning your appartment.
The first expansion; Rage of the Wookiees was really the first real PVE content added to the game.
When SOE finally broke down and changed their philosophy completely it was too late. Most Star Wars fans had already left. They did however build a heroic Star Wars roleplaying game at last, covering only 9 iconic classes that was diversified with a talent system. If I was to decide, they could have gone with even less, baking Bounty Hunter, Commando and Officer together into one class "Soldier", then making more talent trees.
Revamping a whole game on-the-fly is a challenge indeed. When I left the game there was still no multiplayer PVE challenges in the game. With the lack of of multiplayer PVE content made SWG into a horrible singleplayer game with a built-in chat. I know they have started to add real PVE content now but after finally dropping out I decided to never get back to MMORPG's ever.
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 6,027