SWG: 5 years

There's been the SWMEU project thats been running for years. This is a Pre-CU version of the game.

www.swgemu.com

Agent 86 wrote:

And the run is over. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35452/Sony_Online_To_Shut_Down_Star_Wars_Galaxies.php

SWG is going to be shutdown in December.

This is going to be wierd when Dec hits. I've never truly quit the game. While i've left for extended periods it was always with the plan of being back.

ranalin wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

And the run is over. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35452/Sony_Online_To_Shut_Down_Star_Wars_Galaxies.php

SWG is going to be shutdown in December.

This is going to be wierd when Dec hits. I've never truly quit the game. While i've left for extended periods it was always with the plan of being back.

Same, I keep coming back except this year - even with the free time I told myself no! Now, I am installing...

http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/06/24...

Thinking about resubbing in a few months, for the end of the world event. Is Bloodfin still around?

I sunk a crazy amount of time into this game in the past seems kind of sad that they are closing it down. I kind of want to play it again now.

Tigerbill wrote:

Thinking about resubbing in a few months, for the end of the world event. Is Bloodfin still around?

Yep come to Naboo and i'll hand out presents. have around 20-30mil credits between my toons.

So apparently my account got reactivated for 45 days for free. I hoped in and found that my main character can't be accessed because he was on a server that was closed down. I only had one alt on a server that was not closed that I could access and I loaded him up and could not remember what to do. Was on naboo with no quests and an overloaded inventory. I may start a new character just so I can remember what I'm doing. Is there a particular server you guys prefer to play on?

breander wrote:

So apparently my account got reactivated for 45 days for free. I hoped in and found that my main character can't be accessed because he was on a server that was closed down. I only had one alt on a server that was not closed that I could access and I loaded him up and could not remember what to do. Was on naboo with no quests and an overloaded inventory. I may start a new character just so I can remember what I'm doing. Is there a particular server you guys prefer to play on?

45 days was due to the outtage. If you're at a complete loss you could always do a respec. First 10 or so are free. Change class to something else and back again to the one you want. That'll give you starting equipment and starting quests.

I'm on Bloodfin. If you want to create a toon there shoot me a msg on Steam to let me know your on and i'll help ya out. I'll also get ya kitted out with a house/speeder and other goodies too.

*sniff* I shoulda' taken more screenshots. I also kept going back every year or two after my 2 year solid run at launch. Gonna' miss ol' SWG. After reading the announcement part of my brain kept going "So does that mean SWTOR is going to launch around Dec 15?"

Kehama wrote:

*sniff* I shoulda' taken more screenshots. I also kept going back every year or two after my 2 year solid run at launch. Gonna' miss ol' SWG. After reading the announcement part of my brain kept going "So does that mean SWTOR is going to launch around Dec 15?"

That was my thoughts also and that SWTOR will not be SWG... /sad

Kehama wrote:

*sniff* I shoulda' taken more screenshots. I also kept going back every year or two after my 2 year solid run at launch. Gonna' miss ol' SWG. After reading the announcement part of my brain kept going "So does that mean SWTOR is going to launch around Dec 15?"

I think it is safe to say that TOR will have launched by Dec 15.

A few other SWG dates are interesting when considering TOR.

You can no longer buy a subscription for longer than a month at time, all billing ceases at the start of October, active subscribers come September 15 will be able to play the last months for free, and pro rata refunds will be given to any players whose paid-up sub time exceeds the remaining lifespan of the game.

I'm sure LucasArts does not want any interference between SWG and TOR's launch. My guess for TOR is that we are looking at a window between Sept. 15 and Dec. 15, with late September early October being most likely.

Please don't flame me, but SWG is still one of my biggest MMO disappointments. Not because it was the worst I ever played or the most repetitive, but because it had the most wasted potential.

jdzappa wrote:

Please don't flame me, but SWG is still one of my biggest MMO disappointments. Not because it was the worst I ever played or the most repetitive, but because it had the most wasted potential.

Naw they dropped the ball wtih the NGE they've even admitted it. While it didnt capture the early glory it ended up into something unique and fun. Tons of people never could get past the disapointment.

jdzappa wrote:

Please don't flame me, but SWG is still one of my biggest MMO disappointments. Not because it was the worst I ever played or the most repetitive, but because it had the most wasted potential.

We won't flame you, because this is true.

Edit: Do we have to do anything to claim the free game time? I remember getting an email about it but deleting it; thinking "I'm never going back, why bother."

Kinda sad. The crafting and economy in that game was so amazingly good. Used to run around checking my mining facilities, looking for new rare spawns of resources, figuring out how to craft the perfect end results, and that was enough to make a full gaming experience. Who needs combat, quests, loot etc.
Sure, pretty much everything else about the game was deeply flawed in my opinion, but someone please copy that crafting system!

Shadout wrote:

Kinda sad. The crafting and economy in that game was so amazingly good. Used to run around checking my mining facilities, looking for new rare spawns of resources, figuring out how to craft the perfect end results, and that was enough to make a full gaming experience. Who needs combat, quests, loot etc.
Sure, pretty much everything else about the game was deeply flawed in my opinion, but someone please copy that crafting system!

I remember there where actually webpages set up, that would pay people to survey for resources.

lol I still have a bunch of 990+ recources too.

Tigerbill wrote:

Edit: Do we have to do anything to claim the free game time? I remember getting an email about it but deleting it; thinking "I'm never going back, why bother."

Naw you should be able to load up the launcher and it'll tell you that you have 45 days available.

Some people are taking the news harder than others.

Mildly *NSFW* F-bombs.

SWG was my first MMO i played seriously (around sixteen) and it pretty much ruined me for the future trend of themepark-style mmos

NGE was above and beyond a disaster, though a lot of people seem to forget that game was already on a steady decline into irrelevance before then because SOE was unable to guide the player driven markets and emergent gameplay such as 80% resist comp and doctor buffs completely breaking PvE combat (though i think the CURB took a lot of good steps forward towards actually rounding up all of SWG's messy gameplay systems into something more coherent)

it is weird to think of it being dead and over, even though it wasn't really worth playing by 2005, had a lot of good times in the game

I remember sitting in Coronet for hours buffing people. Just sounds wrong doesn't it.

Tigerbill wrote:

I remember there where actually webpages set up, that would pay people to survey for resources.

At launch I made my first million (back when that was a lot) by mining resources for an architect. At the beginning of the week he'd give me a list of resources he needed and I would go out and find them. He even provided me with my first mining rigs free of charge. I probably did that for 3 months until he had a massive stockpile of resources and then I started selling directly to a resource outlet called Wal-Mart. They had automated vendors set up to buy any given resource at about 2/3 market value until they reached a certain level at which they would close their markets for that resource. I think that game was my first brush with a true in game economy.

I remember coming back during a "Hey, come see what we've changed about the place!" moment, and realizing that I'd never actually *mastered* any professions except dancing, armorsmithing, and mayoring. And none of those translated over to NGE terribly well.

(Which was the same problem I had when they revealed how you unlocked Jedi, by the way. Congratulations on making this great awesome game that encourages people to combine a wide variety of different abilities instead of always drilling down to the "master" level of everything.... and then telling them they've been doing it wrong.)

Hypatian wrote:

Which was the same problem I had when they revealed how you unlocked Jedi, by the way.

I really liked how they did it initially. It was this unknown set of variables for every player and when they did all the magical things then *boom!* they get access to a jedi. Seeing a jedi running around the world was a big deal. People in guild used to message when they saw one and people would come by just to check them out. It was the ultimate "I am leet" badge that a player could have. They weren't balanced at I remember being part of huge bounty hunter party that got together just to take out 1 Jedi. It was like a PvP raid of 10 vs 1 and we barely made it. Then with the NGE they make jedi a selectable class from level 1 and "balance" it. Oh well. I still enjoyed it even after that.

Kehama wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Which was the same problem I had when they revealed how you unlocked Jedi, by the way.

I really liked how they did it initially. It was this unknown set of variables for every player and when they did all the magical things then *boom!* they get access to a jedi.

My complaint is that all of the magical things you had to do were "master profession X" for some random set of X (five? seven? I forget). And the system was specifically designed (in my eyes) to discourage mastering professions—you could do more cool things by mixing stuff from different professions than by spending all the SP needed to gain mastery.

By the time that mechanic was revealed, I'd probably come within one skill of mastering half of the professions in the game at one time or another. Of course, *none* of that counted, since I didn't actually master it—I would have had to go back and start from the bottom and re-gain those professions. (And, over the course of normal play, anyone who played like I did would *never* have gotten Jedi: no mastery? No Jedi.)

It really ties in with a lot of the flaws that existed pre-NGE. There was a ton of cool stuff—but the systems weren't balanced at all, and you ended up with TKAs (like me) who could go out and solo pretty much any creature that existed. And things just started getting less fun because of that. And then instead of trying to balance the game mechanics based on how the players had actually played the game, they just threw up their hands and did the NGE instead.

I was pretty disappointed with the way things went, after I'd spent quite a long time playing that game.

The balance part didnt bother me too much because i tended to be on the top side of the scale. Soloing rancors was fun for me.

What got me to step back and away from the game was the way they handled the launch of player cities.

We initially were going to be on Tatooine but the spot we picked out was being contested by some Imperial clans. The day they launched i had to work and as the guild architect i had to make all the parts that would build the city deed. I left them for some other folks to build it and they either missed a step or they werent buffed enough because they failed. Didnt have enough for a 2nd go so the Imps got the first spot. We went ahead and found a place on Naboo and settled there as quick as possible. Just a few days i think (it took a TON of resouces to build the city deed) and we got set up and going. Neos Militis was born. Needless to say that was a lot of blood,sweat,tears to get that far. So we had our city planned and mapped out and ready to go.

The part that blew my gasket was they decided to put a cap(just for fun?) on the number of cities that could have shuttle ports. Without a shuttle port your city growth was stunted and couldnt go past a certain point. I threw up my hands in defeat and disgust.

May seem like a small thing, but up to that point thats pretty much all i was doing. Guild leader, Architect, Mayor. Had enough so started taking breaks. When i would come back i'd just do combat.

Hypatian wrote:

There was a ton of cool stuff—but the systems weren't balanced at all, and you ended up with TKAs (like me) who could go out and solo pretty much any creature that existed.

Heh, my main guy was an Imperial commando/TKA. I used to love rebel players charging me during fights thinking they would get an advantage by closing the distance with a commando. Holstering the lightning cannon and breaking out a spin kick on them always brought them up short. So much fun. And yes, I fully acknowledge all of the flaws.

I kind of view SWG in a similar light as The Matrix Online. Both tried a lot of new things, had tons of potential, but just seemed to fall short in the grand scheme of things.

WoW is really what killed SWG. They had a really good base. The skill system was very flexible and could have made the game great for many years but when WoW came out and started taking subscribers from all MMOs, the developers started to panic and started trying to copy WoW to try to keep subscribers. First they tried the CU, which failed, then the NGE which effectively killed the fun (at least for me).

kazar wrote:

WoW is really what killed SWG. They had a really good base. The skill system was very flexible and could have made the game great for many years but when WoW came out and started taking subscribers from all MMOs, the developers started to panic and started trying to copy WoW to try to keep subscribers. First they tried the CU, which failed, then the NGE which effectively killed the fun (at least for me).

This.

My TK Master / Creature Handler / Ranger has never been logged in since the NGE no matter how many free days I was given because it *couldn't* be the same character.

I have very fond memories of SWG. The skill flexibility was awesome and the community made up for the lack of initial content (note: I never raced to finish anything, I have barely made it to end game in any MMO, so my view might be coloured)

One of my favourite MMO moments was a night I spent hunting Graul(?) babies on Dantooine (?). I don't think I had any combat for the entire 3-4 hours, I spent most of it either crawling around or running from Rancors, yet it is one of my favourite experiences.