Daniel Myers

Star Wars Galaxies(SWG), what can honestly be said that hasn't been already? All the reviews before all the hate and discontent and everything else would make one think that there really isn't much left to be said about the game. The last 6 years I have been playing the game off and on, but pretty much kept anything I had to say really about it to myself. Unlike all the hate and discontent that has spawned from the game over the years and the crazy sometimes psychotic trip Sony Online took all the players on, I wanted to share more of my personal time spent with SWG. At least i figure that I could speak up a little bit instead of being another one of the quiet ones that has played Star Wars Galaxies.

What went wrong?

• Communication - Most people can tout that communication is always a problem. In this particular case though I think that it was more of serious issues on both sides of the fence. It is easy to point the finger at sony here and say well they didn't listen to the players and just did whatever they wanted so what was the point. But really I think the developers should have squashed some of the seemingly reasonable "ideas" right from the start (not sure where jedi thing started from but I remember early on a lot of complaining about it being star wars with no jedi). On the other hand some of the reasonable ideas that got blatantly ignored maybe should have been looked at a little more thoroughly or at least a better explanation of why they weren't done given (adding content, planets etc.). From the players though there was a lot of general trash postings on the forums that really served little purpose, like the people complaining as they were leaving and just attacking Sony in their whole post with little to no support on any of their points. Or offering some sort of reasonable resolution without just complaining about the game while saying they would never go back to the game.
• Content - The time that it took new content to get into the game especially early on was very excessive. To the point that seemed like Sony was more interested in fixing things that didn't seem like they were broke instead of really trying to add new things to the game. Or not fixing bugs or broken things for several patches, and with the patches coming in slow it really felt like sony didn't care.
• Player Cities - This is probably more of a nitpicking item than anything. But if the cities had NPCs that would walk around the cities based around what type the players wanted. For example if the player wanted imperials to run around their city then there would be imperials and a mixture of general npcs, or rebels or completely neutral. As it stands the cities are very stagnant and static and detracting. It should be expected that a city will try to exist in it's location for as long as possible or as long as the players are keeping up with it. With this though it makes the cities inherintly static for long periods of time with nothing really bringing any life to it from the game side.
• Jedi - Even though I have a jedi and play him regularly, the reasoning that I find that I play the jedi is more for the fact that they are a strong class and the most developed. At least it seems that way and really there are a lot of reasons why they shouldn't have even been a twinkle in the developers eyes. One would be the timeline is all wrong for there being thousands of jedi wandering about, but ok sure it is star wars why not have jedi in it? The bigger reason I think for me is the way that they were added with out really sorting out all the issues that kept being fixed/reintroduced with the other classes first. Also the ways that they implemented to make them more elite but harder to achieve then the whole process that went through changing that whole system all the way to the point where people could just choose them starting out.
• The Grind - Every mmorpg has its own grind in different ways. Over the years I think the most bearible grinds generally involve questing through the levels. With a variety of things that still can be done throughout the leveling process. SWG didn't per say have questing it has missions at least until well after the NGE came out then they added some amount of general questing. But the grind around the holocron time period was by far the worse, in fact that was one of the periods I left for a while was around the holocron grind.
• Alts - I can understand the why, but I still think it is a huge downside of the game is the fact that people are only allowed two characters per server without having to start up more accounts. I have altitis really badly and like to play with a large variety of different setups and everything. I understand that they don't offer players more alts because of the way player housing and the citieis are done but even more so now than ever they should have looked at making a way for players to have more characters per server. Like a shared lot system where a player gets a specific amount of lots per server and the lots are shared among all the players alts on a specific server.

What divided the community?
Primarily this was the New Game Enhancement(NGE). The NGE changed the face of SWG from the skill based system into a class based system and really was needed I think. The skill based system was neat and unique to the game but it literally gave players thousands of different ways of building their characters and left the devs with thousands of potential builds to maintain balance on. The NGE also made the game easier to play or at least more streamlined. This one system though was and still is a huge source of grief for many players, some taking it as sony abandoning the old system because it was too difficult to get working right, etc. Whatever the case maybe it was done and it really changed the core of the game, some people liked it and others hated it. To me it really felt like sony just didn't want to maintain the more difficult system which is fine but they should have spent a little extra time adding some more content.

What went right?

• Player Housing/Cities - Player housing and the player cities brought such a unique aspect to the game. The houses can be decorated as a player wishes, and some people have created increasingly elaborate house decorations. Player cities formed unique communities of players in the game, not just for guilds but for all players. Even some space craft's interiors can be decorated rather lavishly. Also players can operate their own stores and shops which brings a unique aspect to the economy.
• Space - Honestly I still think that the jump to lightspeed's addition of space into the game was one of the best parts of the game. The whole way space is handled in the game is incredibly fun and entertaining taking the best parts of games like xwing vs tie fighter and expanding on them into the space expansion. It is a lot of fun and hasn't changed that much over the years, the only thing that could make it better is more content more areas to go to and inclusion of larger capital ships. The capital ships would be even more entertaining and they could have npcs control parts of the ships if players were not available to so that players who owned the ships could still take them up there and get into some bigger fights. Even so the addition of some more ships would be welcome either way.
• Big Game Hunting - Even though this was more of the older part of the game when there wasn't really levels. It was common for groups to form just to take on some of the large creatures on various planets. It still goes on but not in the same way as it use to be where it took several players to take down a kryat or a rancor. It was huge amount of fun being on these hunting parties. Since the NGE the big game hunting hasn't been there so much but groups are still needed for instances and such which is still a lot of fun.
• Crafting System - SWG crafting system is by far one of the most indepth crafting systems that has been well laid out of any games I have played. So many factors to take into when crafting, like quality of materials, quality of equipment to craft with. The experimenting phase, the ability to create a prototype or a draft schematic that can be put into a factory. Even just the collecting of materials in general. It is a very indepth system that can be entertaining on it's own.
• Community - Through all the different systems SWG probably one of the more community centric mmorpgs. Everything in place to support and make the community stronger and more supportive of each other. From grouping and running instances to doing things up in space. Including the player cities and even the individuals house. Sony really gave a lot of extra community tools for SWG.

Even though some of the bad points are pretty rough and have been over the years in various ways. And even though the game sometimes feels incomplete due to bugs or other things it still has a lot of unique features that make it fun and entertaining. I haven't had the chance yet to try out the hoth instance or the trading card game so I can't really comment on those areas. As it is Sony has reactivated everyone's account for Empire Days the 6 year anniversary until the 23rd of july. That free time though probably isn't enough time to really see what the game has to offer or how it has changed over the years and as such I have considered reactivating my account to at least get a better view of the more recent changes. Even though it seems the game is slowly dieing off and it appears that they are getting ready to close down a few more servers there is probably some more fun to still be had in the game.