OK GUYS. HEAR ME OUT.
Star Wars Galaxies has been going through a massive flux for most of its existence. After a couple of hasty and massive game changing releases the game has finally seemed to have settled on a passable formula for gameplay and the latest team of developers to work on the game are trying their best to make the game interesting. I think they aredoing a good job.
14 Day Trial:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/content.vm?id=62963TESTIMONIALS!
What the christ, people?
I was in here like two months ago going "You know, this isn't bad, its sure as hell more playable than its been in a while!"
And everyone was like YOU LIE
When the hell did this happen?
I've been playing on Starsider, since I remember hearing someone earlier in the thread mention it. I hate to say it, but I'm actually enjoying it, and thinking about subscribing. I went bounty hunter because it was a class I was fairly interested in but never got around to trying (unlocked Jedi, and soon after mastering that I got burnt out on the game) and its pretty fun so far.
I've been having a fun time messing around on a trial account and thinking of resubbing my ancient main for a month
This update really makes me tempted to resub my prime account...
The game starts to open back up into the "fuck around in the world we made for you" sort of gameplay once you hit fifty or so. At ninety, you can literally do anything. It can be daunting, so the best thing to do is find something you want, and shoot for it.
There's also alot of secret stuff to find, gear-wise and content-wise, as the guy who posted about the instances mentioned.
I didn't even know an instanced attack on Mos Espa existed until it was mentioned on the page before this one. Likewise, I knew of people that don't know of Exar Kun's temple, the Tusken Fortress, the Rogue Star Destroyer, or content like that the last time I played.
Depending on the class you have, there's alot of hidden crap you can do too.
Jedi pretty much trump the list on "hidden obtainable crap" as well.
They can go on galaxy-spanning personal, unscripted quests for special/high quality lightsaber crystals, look to try and get the knowledge to build top tier lightsabers, find lore that increases their powers, seek out jedi/sith shrines and temples for the previously mentioned stuff, or just to meditate there and do other neat stuff, hunt down beasts like the Krayt Dragons in hopes of getting a pearl to boost the power output on their lightsaber. The list goes on and on.
I may despise the new, "content fed" version of the game that came around after the NGE came out (The game really isn't the NGE anymore. The NGE was a mess, created by the greed of Smedley, and the FPS loving idiocy of Torres. Both of them were moved off to other projects/quit after they ruined SWG's subscriber numbers.), but I will admit that they've taken massive steps in putting back in elements of the freedom you had in the pre CU era.
Some of the collections you can do for jedi stuff are just epic. We're talking, "go into this ancient sith temple and explore it while dodging deadly monsters" sort of epic. Only the collections that aren't killathons often take you across entire planets in search of ruins or other interesting things.
That being said, starting off at that level of freedom might confuse some people, and some people just enjoy the WoW-esque process of fed content better.
Personally, I prefer to be able to fuck around in the gameworld, so I really like the idea of a level boost token.
Now, if they'd just add effective crackdown squads back in, I could enjoy the GCW again.
There was nothing better then watching a high ranking rebel officer body-packing Spice get pulled over, off of his speeder by an Imperial patrol, then turn hostile to every Imperial player in the vicinity as the soldiers not only identified him as an enemy faction member, but also found him loaded to the gills with highly illegal drugs.
OK SO LETS KET SOME KEY POINTS OUT OF THE WAY IN Q&A FORMATBut the NGE was stupid and horrible and everyone hated it
Yes. Some of the most objectionable changes that the NGE brought have been removed. Combat/camera/interface now behaves much more like it did in the CU era (which most people liked). Bio-engineering is back and improved. Droids are now better than ever before and incredibly handy for crafters and entertainers, essentially allowing them to participate in combat without making combat classes imbalanced with them. (Combat classes can use droids but they fight at a reduced level).
Are there 15 billion people walking around in black composite armor
No. Not only are there several (and by several I mean at least 10) new armor sets, but a new feature allows you to equip the appearance of other clothing and armor without actually having to use it, meaning you can use your best stuff but dress how you like, meaning that visually, the game is more vibrant and interesting than it has ever been from a player character perspective.
But you start with Han fucking Solo and then get dumped cold and lonely in Mos Eisley.
Yeah, the tutorial still has Han in it, but you can skip it. However there is now a new, massive, long, and decently tuned quest chain that takes you through the first half of the game and when you're done you'll have all the basics for playing the game and enough money and resources to level up with ease. You finish the questline at about 45 which basically puts you right into the expansion quests which are numerous and for the most part, very well made.
What the fuck content is there?
SWG has adopted a legitimate dungeon system with a reward system that echoes WoW's system of tokens and armor sets. There are about 10ish *new* dungeons now on top of the old 6 or 7 and they are still adding more. If you can make it to level 40-50 then you can basically coast to 90 on a HUGE throng of quests from the older expansion packs that will pile a fuckton of loot on you.
Basically, you have no excuse to terminal grind unless you are just being lazy.
The collections/decor system that has essentially anchored the hardcore SWG players is drastically improved. A bevy of new collections that can result in both decorations AND some of the best combat items in the game encourage exploration and teamwork. (For oldschool WoW players, think "Leggings of the Chromatic Defier++"
Is there still house spam?
Yes. However, there are at least half a dozen new house models so the scenery is less ridiculous. New house models range from sith temples to some very snazzy houses complete with windows.
A system is in place to remove "condemned" buildings when players quit the game so house spam is not quite as bad as olden days.
Are people actually playing?
Yes, they've condensed the servers down by about half, one server, Starsider, is basically full. A few others are medium/heavy, and the rest are light.
JTL was awesome, what's the story with that?
They are adding new ships. There's at least 9 new ships since the NGE came out, most of them are awesome. Some ground quest lines have space mode options. JTL does take a lot of work in terms of getting good components and realistically it does require a joystick to be effective at higher levels.
However, it still looks goddamn awesome.
Oh yeah, and they fixed multi-passenger ships so turrets are now both usable and awesome.
How is the PVP?
PVP is still largely in tact. The latest developers have been trying to get closer to what was originally promised in BETA. Rori is the semi-official PVP planet, and the civil war system is now very similar to the early WoW honor system, complete with faction rewards exchanged for rank, tokens, and faction points.
There are battlegrounds, but they don't seem to be terribly popular yet. Most PVP is open world.
There are no real death penalties for anyone except a resurrection sickness so PVP is largely based around vendetta, fun, and mutual benefit.
Is every character still a cookie cutter?
The game has a talent point system now. I would call it slightly more frumpy than the WoW system, but effective and interesting enough to create some distinction between players.
CLASS RUNDOWN
JEDI
Think "Death Knight" from WoW. The most powerful tank with some offensive options. No longer an alpha class, Jedi are more balanced than before, although they do have a little bit easier time getting higher end gear than other classes.
BOUNTY HUNTER
Standard armored gun toating badass. A new bounty system allows players to place a bounty on ANYONE who kills them, so BH's now have quite a bit on their plate in terms of PVP.
SMUGGLER
Bursty with a lot of slows/snares. Think "Mage" from any fantasy MMO. Smugglers do $texas amount of damage in a very short window, but they go down HARD as soon as they run out of action points.
The "smuggling system" is still lame, but if you can grit out the incredibly boring introductory quests, you eventually get put into some 1 on 1's with player character bounty hunters during missions. The only positive is you get some unique weapon power ups out of it, no word on if they are superior or not.
Hilarious abilities include: the ability to crit with every hit for a pretty decent span of time, the ability to cloak another player as an aggro dump.
OFFICER
The old Squad Leader. Basically a paladin. Buff bot with a cooldown ability that, I hear, is the most powerful attack in the game.
SPY
Rogue with a gun. Complete with stealth.
COMMANDO
Lots of armor, heavy weapons, grenades. Commandos excel at spreading around damage and basically causing havoc in large groups. Pair one of these with a medic in a crowded room and things will die quickly.
MEDIC
Self explanatory. Except Medics are crazy good at soloing and can be hilarious in PVP. Probably the most flexible/potent healer class of any MMO in terms of potency and effectiveness.
ENTERTAINER
Still questionable as a viable profession. Cures ress sickness, and can give certain types of buffs. Not worth
playing. Strictly for AFK/macro junkies
TRADER
Trader is divided up into 4 blocks but that doesn't really matter because if you are new to this game, trader will be nothing but horrible for you. Think of Traders as the investment bank of veteran players. Turn 100 million credits into 5 billion credits inside of a year.
PILOT/POLITICIAN
Everyone gets to be a politician now (AKA can make cities), everyone gets to be a Pilot. You can be a pilot for either faction navy, or you can go solo.
Having mastered both Rebel and Privateer piloting, I would recommend new players go with Rebel/Imperial. You'll get more identifiable/pretty hardware and schematics for new ships are easier to find.
WHY WILL I HATE THIS GAME ANYWAYIt's not going to be for everyone.
TRAVEL
Travel is, for better or worse, still a major component of gameplay. You will be on a speederbike. You will be roaming the wilderness. Fortunately due to some better quest design and waypointing, your average travel time between objectives will be about 4 or 5 minutes. But for most quests you'll do this 4 or 5 times in a row to complete the quest.
On higher end content, the travel times become longer but the quality of the quests substantially improve. By the time you hit 45-50 you should have access to particularly well crafted quests.
Shuttle/spacesport travel wait times are basically gone. Personal starships (attainable from day 1 with no effort), allow free and instant space travel from starports, and the shuttle wait time in 1 minute.
SANDBOX
Love it or leave it, SWG is still, at its core, a sandbox/openworld game. The questing system in the first 45 levels does enough to initiate you into the game and give you the resources to make a reasonable transition into the late, game, but not much else. It's relatively boring (save for some interesting landmarks that you travel to), and grindy, but nowhere near as much as WoW or CoH.
Which means that most of the fun of SWG originates from its social and customization aspects. The combat and questing are a means to that end.
THE FIRST 45 LEVELS ARE LAME
They are, they are really just an extended tutorial/intro period that will give you some money, weapons, armor and transportation. Fortunately they dump you off right at the perfect level to start on the *real* quests which are, mostly, awesome.
The opening quests do involve "go here and kill 10 of XXXX", however, they always give you exact coordinates to everywhere you need to go, your targets are always within visual range of the coordinate, and usually the coordinate is not more than a few minutes away from the originator.
BEGINNER TIPS
THE ~ KEY. USE IT.
One of the most common things I read about this game from long-time players is that new players are usually turned off until they discover the ~ key function. The ~ is a magic shortcut to the radio menu of whatever your mouse is hovered over. The radial menu often reveals functionality of items you would not have guessed had functionality at all. Radial menu is your friend. ~ key is your friend. You can use it on anything in your inventory or any object in the game world. Anything you can target probably has a menu to it, and usually as more than one option. This is important because just double clicking an object perform a default action, which is not always what you might want to do with it.
ARMOR. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.
For the first 25% of the game you have no armor at all, and couldn't wear any even if you had it. By the time you hit the next 25% you'll be able to afford a top notch set of armor that will last you for most of the rest of the game until you have to start buying powerups which are super expensive.
BECOME A PILOT
Just signing on to be a pilot with any of the three space fleets gets you a free ship to travel around space with. It severely cuts down on downtime. Plus, running a couple of space missions is a good way to break up the monotony of the early game quests.
MONEY WILL COME
Assuming you actually end up subscribing, within the first few months of playing you'll be rewarded with the HOLY GRAIL of Star Wars Galaxies, the 30k pure resource deed. This is an single use item that will generate, on demand, a single crate of "perfect" crafting material. It is an extremely rare commodity and sells on the open market for a gajillion credits. You'll be a millionaire anyway by the time you hit 90, the resource crate is just icing on the cake.
ACTIVITIES!
I plan/hope to do some group space combat every weekend. Space combat involves me hopping in my bitchin' YT-1300 and letting you guys run the turrets. You'll get pilot XP from it and probably some cash. I'll probably do this every friday and saturday night for a couple of hours.
Once we get enough people high enough we can start getting some wingmen. A well equipped YT-1300 with a fighter escort or two = fuck shit up hardcore.
WHERE ARE WE PLAYING.
I am playing on Starsider. A couple of people are doing trials right now. Some other people might be moving here.
Starsider is very packed, but the game world handles it reasonably well. Even under full load it will only lag if you are near other
people. And most people are all in one area right now because of the new patch. So avoid that area.
LINKS:
14-DAY TRIAL
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/content.vm?id=62963
Returning players guide to new stuff.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=696943Who's playing
Name - level - class - Server
Jasconius - 90 - Smuggler - Starsider
Cassadore - 25 - - Starsider
Heifo - - Smuggler - Starsider
Niemee - 28 - BH - Starsider
Sagittarius - - - Bria
A few other people, if you are currently playing, trial or not, post here and I'll put you in the list. Not gonna crawl the old thread for players.
Posts
have faith duck
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Baby, why you got to make me hit myself?
The inside of a jedi player's house.
Pimpin' Sushi
Some PVP dogfighting outside of an outpost. My laptop makes it look bad. LOD kicks in pretty fast.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
PS4:MrZoompants
There are two main melee combat options.
Jedi, which is obvious.
The other is Smuggler, in the vein of "dirty fighting", focuses on bleeds and stuns. Not a lot of Smugglers go melee though since they tend to be squishy.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I could be wrong.
Man I want to play, but I need to wait to get a 2nd computer that can run it to play with my wife, which will take a few months.
And I dunno what class to play.
Leaning torwards BH, because I was one awesome BH. I would solo 226k Knights. And grouping with other BHs to jump a target just sounds fun.
Officer looks like he'd be popular in groups
Is there a class that is sort of the anti-jedi?
Right now I'm in a weird spot, level 80 without the money to support updating my equipment. Where should I start in essence to well... start out?
If anybody sees Caligula from the guild stone, tell him vlos was a better shot.
If you are good at space, space missions are always decent money.
Your primary goal should be to get to 90, and then start soloing silver elites, which drop gear with some reasonable market value. Anything not sellable like scrap armor pieces can be junked for about 8-10k a pop, and, for example, nearly every rebel/imperial NPC will drop one. Great money if you can find a good spot.
I have not seen a BH in action yet, but even a average geared Commando can be a beast.
They have this ability that lets them "dig in", which makes them immobile, but they get huge defensive bonuses. I was with one today who was getting pounded by up to 3 silver elites at once with no healing at all, and survived.
I don't know if anything is explicitly anti-jedi. EVERYTHING is anti-jedi, because a comparably gearard Jedi is simply not an instant-death to you anymore. The problem is that there are an f-ton of extremely well geared Jedi because they are a popular class.
Jedi are vulnerable to roots and snares. Smugglers have a lot of those, and I think BH's do as well.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
A smart BH is in the cantina, /dance ing in hot pants with the chicks
Then whipping out his custom krayt tissue scatter pistol, while the target is dancing along.
Totally gonna be a BJ
I'll probably be Kajusta on Starsider, once I get everything up and running.
What's generally the easiest class to access?
XBL
Could try officer or jedi to.
Playing with spy or smuggler isnt my first choise to get the grasp of the game with, both tend to be a bit softer to start off and build up with.
Bounty Hunter does too, but I guess I'll just have to figure out which of the two I want to play with.
Is there a website that has what the sets look like for each class?
XBL
The class items are all jewelry, and not really seen beyond any special visual over what a tailor could make.
Also all statted armor for attributes and skills are player done, theres nobody killing X boss for Y chestplate. You contact a person who reverse engineers to roll up powerbits and mod bits to create attachments for you to install onto your armor from munition traders.
I've just looked up some videos on youtube and the game looks much prettier than I remember; I'm assuming they've done graphical overhauls or something? Maybe it's because people at the time couldn't have everything maxed out or something.
XBL
Is that GCW related?
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
There are several new particle effects. The game has more sparkle.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Other than that its all player crafted, and no specific restrictions on class besides the one mentioned earlier.
There has been talk for some time though to add some 'iconic' armor for classes, such as a suit of armor with crosses on it for medics, or a more covert ops armor for spys.
It really isn't.
I'm not certain how much I like it, but it's not causing me to bleed from my ears and I haven't started chasing down orphans with a wheat thresher yet.
But then star wars fans are notorious for their masochistic tendencies, and I have to admit that I am one.
And yes, turrets work.
We did some Tier 5 stuff and it was surprisingly easy.
With a second gunner we could probably have some decent fun in Deep Space. If I can find someone to craft countermeasures we could probably do decently in Ord Mantell.
I am going to try the corvette approach differently next time. I realized its probably too hard to focus fire the turret with a strafe. Next time I'll go straight from the bottom. That oughta do it. But it might not matter since he's got three goddamn multi-gun escorts.
What I would do is take out the bottom turret, kill all three escorts in the bottom field of fire, and then move on to the rest of the corvette. The escorts pack a punch but their shields are basically like normal fighter shields. With two gunners it's totally doable.
The first time I ever did it I used a B-Wing and space bombs, but that's cheating
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Theres wayyy too many BHs for me to play one. I hate being the class that everyone else is
So im kinda stuck between commando, medic, and Officer
I noticed Med and Officer both have expertise sections for melee specialization. Is that actually viable, or quite stupid? Because I me some melee. So classy.
Also keep in mind that as an officer, you will have the ability to call in a shuttle for some rather awsome buff stims for your entire party and yourself to use.
EDIT: Oh, and Wookiee and Ithorian. Is going to be alot harder/more expensive if I have to find my specific armor every time I need an upgrade?
The poster on the page before this one wasn't incorrect in saying that Commando's are basically unstoppable ranged AOEing tanks with the right build.
Hell, they even get two talents, that, when filled out with expertise points, give them about 2000 innate armor points, not counting "Position Secured!" or any of the defensive traits and skills like that. They even get an expertise option that, when they're snared or rooted, their armor increases by up to 4000 points, depending on how many points you dump in the trait. The skill's rather aptly named "You're Going to Regret That.".
I'm fairly certain that, with the right armor, you could get somewhere between 70/80 percent damage reduction on all attacks hitting you if you equipped assault class armor, and invested in an extremely good personal shield generator.
The problem is, that compared to a couple classes, they have an insane number of expertise options, all seperated into tree's that require you to spec into them. It's a bit overwhelming, especially since some tree's aren't really usable until later on thanks to heavy weaponry becoming usable later on.
That, and it's damn hard to find a good weapon at early levels. Doing terminal missions is an incredible bore since my gun seemingly does shit all damage to bases, and I can't be bothered to be sitting at my computer while my gun plinks away at them after i've killed the defending mobs.
So far i've taken advantage of the fact that the NGE's original combat system was replaced with an optional auto-combat system to just toggle auto-fire and auto-aim on, and then I go AFK for a few minutes until I hear the base being destroyed.
Medics have the advantage of also being one of the two classes that can hand out buffs to other players. The other class being the entertainer, which has to be at their computer to hand out buffs. Tradition says that you're supposed to tip money for giving out buffs, since the person has no reason to do it otherwise. As such, buffing can be very profitable, provided you have the time to spend and know what you're doing.
But, unless you like dressing up like a whore, don't expect much in the way of tips if you're playing as an entertainer. People are creepy like that, apparently. From all the bitching i've heard from male entertainers, people bee-line to the scantily clad Twileks who are partially AFK while running a dance macro, and ignore the level 90 guy that can fill out buffs in two seconds flat.
Medics can just set up an auto-target macro that'll hand someone the maximum amount of buffs, go AFK in a corner at a starport, and come back to find their bank account filled with cash from tips from players. Though, admittedly, Entertainers do seem to get much more in the way of tips from what i've heard, given that they have to be at the computer to do their buffing. A couple successful entertainers i've talked too have listed their hourly income being at 10 million credits at most. That can easily outfit you with any gear you want early on.
Aside from that, their class name should tell you what they do in combat.
I don't know much about Officers, other then that they get factional pets later on like Stormtroopers, making them nearly the only people in the game who can get factional soldiers as pets now, since the old pet acquisition system for faction members was scrapped. Though, players that already had pets like AT-ST's and such still have them, and can use them until they're killed. Supposedly, Officers can call down lots of "support", like artillery bombardments and such too, though I haven't explored the class tree well enough to confirm that.
Edit: Another good thing about the Deathtroopers update is that anyone can get some fairly decent armor early on now. Deathtroopers' zombies start at level 5, and work their way up the closer you get to the epicenter of the epidemic. However, even the level 5 zombie hordes drop the basic Deathtrooper armor set pieces. While not as awesome as the advanced armor set, it gives about 1.8K armor, provided you don't mind looking like a zombie until you can get some equipment/clothing to equip to your appearance slots.
There's also lots of other cool/flavor loot you can get there, ranging from schematics to make some of the stuff that you see in the zombie wastelands, to holo-costumes that let you look like various types of zombies provided you have a holo-shroud. I found a wookie zombie costume that's all green and rotting, with it's spine exposed, earlier today.
Spend expertise in your fire support lines, and advanced stims. If you really want a pet, get a droid.
[Chat]
Profanity Filter
[Interface]
Expand Toolbar to second row
Allow overhead map rotation (pressing M brings up a diablo-style map, this makes it turn with your perspective)
Onscreen waypoint monitor (Makes following a waypoint that much easier)
Secondary target status window - Mouse over (as opposed to the default no second window)
[Controls]
Game mouse dead zone inertia (set to 0, tightens up the controls)
Game mouse dead zone (set to 0, tightens controls)
Actions can be fired from toolbar (enable this and use the Y button to toggle autoaim. Makes the controls like a standard MMO)
Clicking nothing untargets (Sometimes what you're fighting likes to magicly teleport behind you, this makes it not matter)
Show object names (Makes interactive objects more noticeable, helps for quests)
Show NPC's name
Auto loot corpses
XBL
So lets say I make an Entertainer and just dance for a day and get to 90. Would I be able to profession change to a different class and just do whatever I want? Or is this a bad idea?
XBL
You can just AFK dance in your house for 12 to 24 hours to get to entertainer level 90. Then, make a macro to automatically do flourishes, and head out to a cantina and start buffing.
Once you get a few million credits, you'll be good for the forseeable future, so long as you don't buy luxury items like the new vehicles that were released in this content update, or houses, or anything like that.
XBL
Non-combat classes and combat classes have their levels segregated. Meaning, if you play a commando to 90, and respec to a jedi, you'll be level 90.
If you respec from a non-combat class, to another non-combat class, you should keep your levels. However, if you respec from a non-combat like the entertainer class, to a combat class, you'll go back to level 1. That being said, if you decide to respec back to the entertainer class at a later date, you'll start out as a level 90 entertainer, meaning that your previously gained levels in both combat and non-combat class trees are saved.
That means you only need to hit CL90 at most 3 times (Depending on how traders handle entertainer EXP. It'd be two times if trader and entertainer EXP levels are linked.) to have access to every class at maximum level.
It should also be noted that entertainers can fight if properly specced. They have an entire tree dedicated to killing things with dance-steps or something. They can also get droids, or invest in beast mastery, to give themselves an offensive pet or suitably destructive battle-droid.