One of my fondest memories was walking to Jabba's Palace. Yeah walking mounts weren't in game yet nor speeders for that matter. Me and a friend and his storm trooper npc wandered the whole way there just to do the quests to get into the main area. That was what was fun being able to be in the world of star wars, not being an epic fighter but being able to go "Yeah I feel in the Sarlacc Pit yesterday." Or running into uncle owen's tombstone near the farmstead.
I loved being able to see the things that had been created in the universe. Taking missions from Vader and the emperor.
Player events were the best though. Also my buddies museum was posted on the "news" in SWG once on wanderhome its a great place.
I had my falling out with the game right before NGE, when they implemented the Jedi grind. Want to be a Jedi? Just come out to this place in the middle of nowhere and do stupid quests for days and days and you're in. We'll inject the midichlorians right into your blood stream!
Just killed the whole thing for me because you knew that within a few months there would be Jedi coming out of the woodwork. The original implementation was perfect. It made it so a very small percentage of the player base would be Jedi with permadeath in effect. If you were on a raid (factional base) and all of a sudden a lightsaber turned on out of nowhere, it was almost magical. People would practically stop for a second and stare, awestruck and scared for their lives.
They made it that way because the original dev's knew you could never make Jedi a choosable class. They knew that having too many Jedi would pretty much break the game for anyone not playing one and destroy any believability in the game world.
I hate SWG so much . I used to love it. The skill system was amazing, and I wish more and more MMOs had it. Many Riflemen/Master bounty Hunters existed. Mine was, im srue, the only one who used his last 33 points to take up dancing.
If there was one great thing about a skill system as complex as SWG it was that there was almost no limit to your multiclass abilities. Sure some balance issues arose from TKMs and MS, etc, but there were also some great roleplaying potential in all that. The game was supposed to be about living in the Star Wars universe, and most people tend either specialize or be jacks of all trades, just like real life. I never gave up Master Ranger, but I picked up master squad leader, bounty hunter, dancer; there just wasn't any limit to what crazy combination you could learn, then unlearn later. Something to be said for a game that lets you try to live in a world, instead of level up.
I can't remember any time in SWG that I thought: "If I can just level one more, I'll be able to beat this." or "If only I had this item the world would make sense." You earned your money through your class' abilities, and the world rewarded you for trying and achieving what you were capable of. I didn't expect to be a billionaire, since I didn't hunt out meat every weekend at prime locations, but the game wasn't going to reward me simply for being a Ranger, it asked that I earned my class by working at it. Not by leveling it. (though arguably I could kite Krayts for awhile there with my traps)
Maybe it's nostalgia, but most people I run into agree with the innovations that the game had, and to say that it was simply star wars awestruck-eyes would be a lie for so many people to believe in it. I've been addicted to WoW for awhile, but even now I end up seeking out an experience like SWG in every MMO I find, hoping to find something, anything, that resembles its experience. Not its game.
Dyrwen66 on
Just an ancient PA person who doesn't leave the house much.
A few of my favorite MMO moments ever came from SWG. Like finding the Lars homestead for the first time, turning around to survey, and realizing it was sunset:
Or my first experience taking on a wing of TIEs with a friend, and saving his ass before flying through an expanding cloud of Imperial.
Or hanging with the same friend in a spaceport, never having seen the result of his months and months of work on a Jedi, when all of a sudden his lightsaber comes out and he tears off, fleeing a pack of bounty hunters.
It's too bad that game is long gone.
Also, the ability to drive friends around in a pimp purple-trimmed landspeeder:
Morskittar on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited July 2008
My first Kryat hunt. That was awesome. Capturing my first pet, then capturing a pet so big people would bitch about not being able to see. Going to random vendors on a planet looking for that one great item.
Grinding Night Sisters, finding mind fire weapons, splicing people's stuff.
It was fun, flawed but fun.
Then came the Jedi and then the CU and then the NGE.
Speaking as someone who only tried SWG for the first time about this time last year when a friend's account also got free time, I have to say that the NGE starts out well enough, but by the time I finished the legacy quest line and then discovered that SOE had nerfed group xp to the point of near-uselessness right on the heels of changing mob AI to make it nearly impossible to solo unless you were a Jedi, I just kind of threw my hands up and quit.
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
SWG is the only MMO where I've played a class with no offensive *or* defensive abilities and enjoyed it. I could sit on my dancer and chat with people for hours, raking in tips, getting invites to random player made cities all over the place. It's so sad what they did with the game. In my opinion what SoE did with SWG is one of the worst design decisions ever. You had a core of subscribers, that had been through the game come hell or high water and then you toss NGE in their face, leading to most of them quitting? Good job. Never thought I'd see the day where my friend who had been playing it since released cancelled his 3 accounts.
SWG is the only MMO where I've played a class with no offensive *or* defensive abilities and enjoyed it. I could sit on my dancer and chat with people for hours, raking in tips, getting invites to random player made cities all over the place. It's so sad what they did with the game. In my opinion what SoE did with SWG is one of the worst design decisions ever. You had a core of subscribers, that had been through the game come hell or high water and then you toss NGE in their face, leading to most of them quitting? Good job. Never thought I'd see the day where my friend who had been playing it since released cancelled his 3 accounts.
Yeah, one of the worst moments for me was when one of the most active, friendly, and well-known guys on the server quit because of the changes and just how ignorant SoE was about it. He was one of the first Jedi on my server, and made friends everywhere he went, on top of being an outstanding PVPer. He made a huge post about it in the forums, and literally listed just about everyone he encountered in the game, with something good to say about them. This list was easily over a hundred names long, with a solid paragraph for each person.
After that my friends were pretty much disgusted with the game and SoE and kind of left one by one.
I used to keep up with some projects that were basically SWG emulators frozen at pre-CU, but none of them really went anywhere and having the game itself back wouldn't really be much without all the people that made everything great. I played for years and can't really think of any bad encounters with other players, whereas with WoW I can go on for hours about idiots and jerks I've ran across.
I read this thread about how the game sucks worse than ever, and then I go read the thread about how Vanguard's improved tremendously since its release, and I think: why? Why did this have the be the baseline for poor performance?
I read this thread about how the game sucks worse than ever, and then I go read the thread about how Vanguard's improved tremendously since its release, and I think: why? Why did this have the be the baseline for poor performance?
The thing here is perception. SWG started out as a plausibly good game and got worse.
Vanguard started out as a horrible game and got better.
Vanguard isn't the second coming and SWG isn't digital malevolence, but because of their histories they can be illustrated in that light.
Jasconius on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Basically, imagine a paladin's bubble skills in WoW. Only it lasts 30 seconds, costs almost no mana, and the paladin can still fight at 100% capability during it
My pali bubble only lasts 10 seconds, but it costs almost no mana, and I can still fight at 100% capacity. ;-)
Basically, imagine a paladin's bubble skills in WoW. Only it lasts 30 seconds, costs almost no mana, and the paladin can still fight at 100% capability during it
My pali bubble only lasts 10 seconds, but it costs almost no mana, and I can still fight at 100% capacity. ;-)
Please. You cannot fight and hearth at the same time. Silly people.
I used to keep up with some projects that were basically SWG emulators frozen at pre-CU, but none of them really went anywhere and having the game itself back wouldn't really be much without all the people that made everything great. I played for years and can't really think of any bad encounters with other players, whereas with WoW I can go on for hours about idiots and jerks I've ran across.
SWGemu has come along really far. The installer requires you to own the original game discs and is specifically designed to not work with any downloadable "trials" or clients (without unauthorized modifications). Their test servers are usually always up and public and I'd estimate that they almost have the game running better than SoE did.
It's probably one of the most active development communities I've ever seen, you should check back up with them.
Wait a minute, we can talk about SWGEmu here? I always kinda figured it'd be against the rules, but then since they're strictly anti-piracy and have anti-piracy measures in place, does that make it ok to talk about?
I always figured emulators would be against the rules... but then I suppose SWGEmu isn't really your typical emulator since it's emulating something that arguably doesn't exist anymore. Could we get a moderator to clarify if we're cutting it too close or if we're ok to mention it/discuss it?
Yeah I was a bit hesitant to post about it considering those rules, but it's kind of a unique case (it's designed to only let those that actually have the game play, heh) , so I guess we'll look to the mods on this one.
You guys hit the nail on the head with 'community'. I find myself doing the same thing. I keep searching for a game thats as player-driven, as SWG used to be.
I remember when I first started, I actually thought it was FUN to grind Scout xp. I can still remember killing the frogs on Tatooine until I got bored, then chilling in my very own camp-site, that I made!(this would lead to my very first addiction to crafting in an MMO)... I spent hours just looking at the scenery and the sky... I felt like an explorer. Then when I got tired of the grind and loneliness, heading off to the closest cantina to ask noob questions and tell a few jokes. I felt so free... It felt like being in a real world.
I absolutely loved the proffesion system, the way you could pick and choose. I ended up with a Smugglah, until the Jedi grind. I loved playing the role of the local drug pimp. I remember a tailor friend giving me the most awesome clothing gifts..lol.. My wife must have thought I was gay, when I exclaim from the other room "AWESOME!! I just got new pants!! LOOK LOOK!!!".. lol..
I loved slicing gear/weps and selling spice. When I joined for the trial, I just couldnt believe they got rid of spice... WTF. (Dealbreaker, off the bat)
When I started actively making and selling spice, I really became addicted to surveying and getting resources. This led to a crafter alt. and a whole new type of addiction. It's amazing how being needed in a game made for some awesome roleplay and friendships.
Anyway, regardless.. I felt sick when I went back... it made me feel the hurt all over again. Where the hell did my game go? Thanks SOE. I'm really gonna give SWGemu a go soon. I told a friend once, if i won the mega-jackpot.. I would buy the freaking rights to SWG and have re-coded to pre-CU.... that and smuggler missions....
I used to play on Tarquinas. What guild were you in? My char name was Trulku. Rebel Smuggler. Guilds I was in were Slave & Ghost respectively.
iSnortRitalin on
"I feel like a cranky old man, just bringing this up, but there's alot of you here... so would you do me a favor? When you're playing online.. Have fun.. but don't be a dick, ok?" -Wil Wheaton PAX 2007
LOTRO - Main: Mikkyo, Elf Hunter
Alt: Raahl, Human Warden
WOW - Main: Trulku (retired)
AOC - Retired.. what a let down....
SWTOR - can't fu*kin wait!!
I used to play on Tarquinas. What guild were you in? My char name was Trulku. Rebel Smuggler. Guilds I was in were Slave & Ghost respectively.
The only guild worth a damn I was ever in was IC, character name was Jasc. I spent a majority of my SWG time guidless and/or hopping from one to another as they became active.
Man, I loved our community, even if the drama did get a little hectic at times. Afterall, Tarquinas. We Know Drama. I personally was in Crystal Oasis for just about my entire stay on SWG, Imperial for every bit as long. Man... I miss those guys. Come to think of it I miss Tarquinas period, and I miss my TKM/Rifleman.
Wait a minute, we can talk about SWGEmu here? I always kinda figured it'd be against the rules, but then since they're strictly anti-piracy and have anti-piracy measures in place, does that make it ok to talk about?
I always figured emulators would be against the rules... but then I suppose SWGEmu isn't really your typical emulator since it's emulating something that arguably doesn't exist anymore. Could we get a moderator to clarify if we're cutting it too close or if we're ok to mention it/discuss it?
Well, the moderators will ultimately determine whether or not talking about the emulator is allowed or not. I tend to keep discussion brief, enough to just drop the name so that interested parties can research the subject on their own.
There is nothing illegal about the software. The only legal grey area is modifying and using a client which technically belongs to SOE or whoever owns the property now. Server emulators such as eAthena for Ragnarok Online have been repeatedly ruled legal to the extent that Gravity Co. Ltd. had their case thrown out of court.
Also, Tarquinas rules! Except for not having T21 rifles. Other than that, yeah.
Post CU Tarq was kinda shitty though. I remember Oasis but only as the guild that had DanielJames Scott (or whatever his name was, the really high level Jedi), and they just sweeped up Theed once an hour.
Oh yeah, I forgot, I was in DFR for a long ass time when I went from Imp to Rebel. But DFR was so massive that's basically like saying I was part of the Rebels.
Many a memory of SWG here. It was my first commercial MMO after having spent many, many years playing MUDs. That it wasn't more of the same fantasy I'd been playing for years was a big draw even if I wasn't the biggest Star Wars fan.
Masochist that I am, I made the mistake of going for a bounty hunter from the get go, as in when it required both master Marksmen and master Scout and there were tons of bugs with the class, to say nothing of being weaker than someone that had used less skill points to be a master TKM/pistoleer or whatever.
Being a bounty hunter really cemented how clueless the developers were about their own game. During one of the early rounds of nerfs, I recall Raph Koster making a post about how no class should be able to solo red level mobs when the "lightly armed and low risk" targets of bounty hunter missions ALWAYS were red mobs. One of the "fixes" that went in for bounty hunters eventually was to rewrite the mission descriptions and every target being described as armed and dangerous.
It also soured me on player driven economies quite a bit, at least when there's a small pool of players that can actually max out crafting skills. I know that there were some neat things with crafting and harvesting, but as someone who only had like 18 skill points to spare away from his combat profession, all I ever saw was constantly needing to find a new master weaponsmith when the previous one I bought from burned out. It also bugged me that I made far more money from one night of hunting and harvesting Dathomir carnivore meat than I ever did from my bounty hunting missions combined (Jedi were still damn rare when I stopped playing). Apparently in SOE's Star Wars universe, murderers and terrorists are small time but meat-filled buns are serious business.
No game I've played has anywhere near the social atmosphere of SWG though. Many of my friends were musicians or dancers, one of whom took up being a politician when player cities were implemented. We had a small city south of Mos Eisley where I kept a house decorated with old armor, the occasional bit of loot that had some interesting attribute, holocrons, and fish that I caught when I just didn't feel like shooting things. I spent a lot of time hanging out in one of the resident's cantina/dance hall. The city mayor was also a bio-engineer and between him and my fishing, city hall looked like a zoo at times. I did things with the decorating commands like arranging fish so it looked like they were swimming in the indoor fountain and pushing the elephant my friend had made into a brazier another friend had made.
Bio-engineer has to be one of the most original crafting professions ever. You harvest DNA from animals and use it to build skill enhancements or OTHER animals. My house had two bunny-cats crafted from lizards and my ostrich mount was fashioned from bantha DNA. Watching bantha fall over dead in rapid succession from failed DNA extractions faster that I could ever shoot them was a sight to behold.
So many brilliant ideas, but it was clear that the developers had no idea what they were doing from the beginning.
I was on Tarq as well. Was in the guild ITEC if anyone remembers. We had the second largest City I believe in the server. I was a Master CM/Pistoleer the whole time. AOE poisons that drained Mind? Or AOE heals? Damn fucking right. Man I fucking always made sure I made the best med packs and shit. My guild loved me. I remember going out to check my harvesters, and trying to scout for better land to harvest from.
I even remember getting a medal for my unique backstory. I was just walking around doing my own shit when the window popped up saying I got a new medal, and sure enough, it was for unique backstory. Not many people I knew got that one.
My first MMO, and I had a blast with it. I stopped right before all the bad shit happened (cause WoW drew me in of course).
Yeah ITEC was massive but I never really met/interacted with anyone in that whole guild.
IC was the most fun I had in a guild but it was run by a guy who was *way* to into the game (Allistair, who I think still fucking plays). He RP'ed as an Imperial governor, so you know he was simply lovable.
I remember Allistair, met him a few times. Never failed to be an amusing time.
Oh yeah! Forgot my name, I went by Digito Byte ingame. Ended up quitting for good shortly after the NGE hit, although I took a long break during the CU period, during which I played pretty much entirely on TC.
Yeah.. some ITEC peeps hunted me down numerous times.. damn IMPS... :P
Oasis had a bunch of nice people, as I recall. I stopped in the cantina multiple times, everyone there was friendly... unless I was overt, of course.
iSnortRitalin on
"I feel like a cranky old man, just bringing this up, but there's alot of you here... so would you do me a favor? When you're playing online.. Have fun.. but don't be a dick, ok?" -Wil Wheaton PAX 2007
LOTRO - Main: Mikkyo, Elf Hunter
Alt: Raahl, Human Warden
WOW - Main: Trulku (retired)
AOC - Retired.. what a let down....
SWTOR - can't fu*kin wait!!
SWG pre-CU was a fun and glorious sandbox. My friends from UO talked me into getting it during the launch. Once things settled down I remember organizing massive raids on the sand people's base. Thirty or forty people storming the gates, lasers flying around like it was an episode of G.I. Joe.
I ended up building my home right there, outside of the sand people's fort. Ah, the long, danger filled trips back into town before we got vehicles. I used to have fun driving my huge pink transport ship around and giving noobs lifts to prime hunting spots, player cities, and good vendors. I was making a terrible killing off of resources and weapons crafting, so I had all the time in the world to goof off.
Exploring the worlds in my big pink transport had to be the funnest thing I recall. Man the planets were so damned big.
Ambushing Imperials in the tight, cramped streets of....whatever that major city was on Tatooine.
I still cling to the hope that one day SoE will see the error of their ways and re-release a more classic version of SWG. It's filed along with meeting aliens, gaining immortality and omnipotence, and world peace for the moment...
Yeah, hunting Tusken raiders was another good time. The game was so open and actually rewarded hunting anywhere and exploring everything, so there was no pressure to powerlevel or really do anything that would diminish the fun. Just sitting around the Geonosian dungeon with friends waiting for the Acklay to respawn was fun. Or trying the Corellian Corvette when it first came out. God damn that shit was hard without a Jedi. One wrong move and you agro basically everything on the ship.
Wait a minute, we can talk about SWGEmu here? I always kinda figured it'd be against the rules, but then since they're strictly anti-piracy and have anti-piracy measures in place, does that make it ok to talk about?
I always figured emulators would be against the rules... but then I suppose SWGEmu isn't really your typical emulator since it's emulating something that arguably doesn't exist anymore. Could we get a moderator to clarify if we're cutting it too close or if we're ok to mention it/discuss it?
Well, the moderators will ultimately determine whether or not talking about the emulator is allowed or not. I tend to keep discussion brief, enough to just drop the name so that interested parties can research the subject on their own.
There is nothing illegal about the software. The only legal grey area is modifying and using a client which technically belongs to SOE or whoever owns the property now. Server emulators such as eAthena for Ragnarok Online have been repeatedly ruled legal to the extent that Gravity Co. Ltd. had their case thrown out of court.
Also, Tarquinas rules! Except for not having T21 rifles. Other than that, yeah.
SWGEmu has intrigued me in the past but there are two problems.
A) I'm missing disk 3 (out of 4) from my original set. I know in my heart of hearts it just wouldn't be the same.
I don't mean the game itself, pretty sure they can pull that off. It's just that the community will be so dispersed since there could only be at max 1,000-2,000 other people out there crazy enough to play an emulated pre-CU SWG server. I don't know what the sub numbers were back in the day but I know they were much higher than that. Without the numbers it will just be an empty husk.
It's my impression that most of the stuff that made SWG awesome can now be found in EvE, although you don't really have the non-com characters to the same extent SWG did.
Salvation122 on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
It's my impression that most of the stuff that made SWG awesome can now be found in EvE, although you don't really have the non-com characters to the same extent SWG did.
The gameplay in EVE isn't as satisfying when you're talking about PvE.
All the crafting in EVE feels _significantly_ different. EVE is awesome cool and such, but I don't think they're very comparable as far as that goes, in my opinion anyway.
It's my impression that most of the stuff that made SWG awesome can now be found in EvE, although you don't really have the non-com characters to the same extent SWG did.
EVE's community always struck me as far far more hostile than SWG's, and generally a hell of alot less pleasant to hang out with.
and I wouldn't be surprised if some SWGEmu servers managed to hit some very impressive numbers population wise, though I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that.
Original SWG was crack to me. Horrible digital crack.
My first MMO ever.
it was so good
It was my first MMO too, and man it got bad.
I remember sitting in a hospital, most times all alone, just waiting for someone to come in, and all I would have to hit is one button to heal their wounds, just so I could level CM. For hours almost, most of the time not getting any tips. It was boring, but for some reason, I kept doing it. Thinking back, I'm like "I'm playing $15 a month to sit and hit one button in one little room for hours at a time? What the fuck did I do?"
I don't think anyone will deny that in it's original form the social component of SWG was well implemented and maybe even best in class.. unfortunately that's not everyones cup of tea.
From my readings and surveying of the community boards actually a huge portion of the people who still play are actually former entertainers/crafters/doctors who still like the social aspects.
Original SWG was crack to me. Horrible digital crack.
My first MMO ever.
it was so good
It was my first MMO too, and man it got bad.
I remember sitting in a hospital, most times all alone, just waiting for someone to come in, and all I would have to hit is one button to heal their wounds, just so I could level CM. For hours almost, most of the time not getting any tips. It was boring, but for some reason, I kept doing it. Thinking back, I'm like "I'm playing $15 a month to sit and hit one button in one little room for hours at a time? What the fuck did I do?"
I used to think the same thing at times when I was leveling merchant, mostly because all my friends had nifty combat professions to go master for their holocrons, and I was stuck planting vendors everywhere and begging people to check them so I could get experience for it.
I was going about it all wrong though, and tried a different approach. I talked to some of the better weapon and armor merchants in the galaxy, and set up a shop in the biggest merchant center near Corellia, which was pretty much the hub of everything for everyone. I bought tons of stuff off of the big-time Rebel merchants and resold it all under one roof, undercutting the dirty Imperials that had a monopoly on armor and weapons. I ended up making a ton of good friends, a shitpile of credits, and all the while I was doing more damage to the Imps on my server than any of my friends that were out PvP'ing with whatever combat prof they were on.
SWG was totally what you made of it. Shit, I even had fun when I had to do a few entertaining professions for my holo grind. Any game that rewards socializing has the right idea.
Original SWG was crack to me. Horrible digital crack.
My first MMO ever.
it was so good
It was my first MMO too, and man it got bad.
I remember sitting in a hospital, most times all alone, just waiting for someone to come in, and all I would have to hit is one button to heal their wounds, just so I could level CM. For hours almost, most of the time not getting any tips. It was boring, but for some reason, I kept doing it. Thinking back, I'm like "I'm playing $15 a month to sit and hit one button in one little room for hours at a time? What the fuck did I do?"
Oh I know. There would be times when other CM's/Doc's came in to heal wounds as well, and we'd just end up talking, and complaining about having to sit all day and crap, and we'd discuss good places to get stuff for good med packs and everything.
I always thought it was so cool how there was always that one weaponsmith/armoursmith that was well known on the server, and everyone would try to buy the newest stuff from them, but it would cost millions of credits to buy one, but man it would be one sweet ass weapon. That type of community made the game really fun for me.
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I loved being able to see the things that had been created in the universe. Taking missions from Vader and the emperor.
Player events were the best though. Also my buddies museum was posted on the "news" in SWG once on wanderhome its a great place.
Just killed the whole thing for me because you knew that within a few months there would be Jedi coming out of the woodwork. The original implementation was perfect. It made it so a very small percentage of the player base would be Jedi with permadeath in effect. If you were on a raid (factional base) and all of a sudden a lightsaber turned on out of nowhere, it was almost magical. People would practically stop for a second and stare, awestruck and scared for their lives.
They made it that way because the original dev's knew you could never make Jedi a choosable class. They knew that having too many Jedi would pretty much break the game for anyone not playing one and destroy any believability in the game world.
I can't remember any time in SWG that I thought: "If I can just level one more, I'll be able to beat this." or "If only I had this item the world would make sense." You earned your money through your class' abilities, and the world rewarded you for trying and achieving what you were capable of. I didn't expect to be a billionaire, since I didn't hunt out meat every weekend at prime locations, but the game wasn't going to reward me simply for being a Ranger, it asked that I earned my class by working at it. Not by leveling it. (though arguably I could kite Krayts for awhile there with my traps)
Maybe it's nostalgia, but most people I run into agree with the innovations that the game had, and to say that it was simply star wars awestruck-eyes would be a lie for so many people to believe in it. I've been addicted to WoW for awhile, but even now I end up seeking out an experience like SWG in every MMO I find, hoping to find something, anything, that resembles its experience. Not its game.
Or my first experience taking on a wing of TIEs with a friend, and saving his ass before flying through an expanding cloud of Imperial.
Or hanging with the same friend in a spaceport, never having seen the result of his months and months of work on a Jedi, when all of a sudden his lightsaber comes out and he tears off, fleeing a pack of bounty hunters.
It's too bad that game is long gone.
Also, the ability to drive friends around in a pimp purple-trimmed landspeeder:
Grinding Night Sisters, finding mind fire weapons, splicing people's stuff.
It was fun, flawed but fun.
Then came the Jedi and then the CU and then the NGE.
Oh well.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Yeah, one of the worst moments for me was when one of the most active, friendly, and well-known guys on the server quit because of the changes and just how ignorant SoE was about it. He was one of the first Jedi on my server, and made friends everywhere he went, on top of being an outstanding PVPer. He made a huge post about it in the forums, and literally listed just about everyone he encountered in the game, with something good to say about them. This list was easily over a hundred names long, with a solid paragraph for each person.
After that my friends were pretty much disgusted with the game and SoE and kind of left one by one.
I used to keep up with some projects that were basically SWG emulators frozen at pre-CU, but none of them really went anywhere and having the game itself back wouldn't really be much without all the people that made everything great. I played for years and can't really think of any bad encounters with other players, whereas with WoW I can go on for hours about idiots and jerks I've ran across.
My first MMO ever.
it was so good
The thing here is perception. SWG started out as a plausibly good game and got worse.
Vanguard started out as a horrible game and got better.
Vanguard isn't the second coming and SWG isn't digital malevolence, but because of their histories they can be illustrated in that light.
My pali bubble only lasts 10 seconds, but it costs almost no mana, and I can still fight at 100% capacity. ;-)
Please. You cannot fight and hearth at the same time. Silly people.
SWGemu has come along really far. The installer requires you to own the original game discs and is specifically designed to not work with any downloadable "trials" or clients (without unauthorized modifications). Their test servers are usually always up and public and I'd estimate that they almost have the game running better than SoE did.
It's probably one of the most active development communities I've ever seen, you should check back up with them.
I always figured emulators would be against the rules... but then I suppose SWGEmu isn't really your typical emulator since it's emulating something that arguably doesn't exist anymore. Could we get a moderator to clarify if we're cutting it too close or if we're ok to mention it/discuss it?
You guys hit the nail on the head with 'community'. I find myself doing the same thing. I keep searching for a game thats as player-driven, as SWG used to be.
I remember when I first started, I actually thought it was FUN to grind Scout xp. I can still remember killing the frogs on Tatooine until I got bored, then chilling in my very own camp-site, that I made!(this would lead to my very first addiction to crafting in an MMO)... I spent hours just looking at the scenery and the sky... I felt like an explorer. Then when I got tired of the grind and loneliness, heading off to the closest cantina to ask noob questions and tell a few jokes. I felt so free... It felt like being in a real world.
I absolutely loved the proffesion system, the way you could pick and choose. I ended up with a Smugglah, until the Jedi grind. I loved playing the role of the local drug pimp. I remember a tailor friend giving me the most awesome clothing gifts..lol.. My wife must have thought I was gay, when I exclaim from the other room "AWESOME!! I just got new pants!! LOOK LOOK!!!".. lol..
I loved slicing gear/weps and selling spice. When I joined for the trial, I just couldnt believe they got rid of spice... WTF. (Dealbreaker, off the bat)
When I started actively making and selling spice, I really became addicted to surveying and getting resources. This led to a crafter alt. and a whole new type of addiction. It's amazing how being needed in a game made for some awesome roleplay and friendships.
Anyway, regardless.. I felt sick when I went back... it made me feel the hurt all over again. Where the hell did my game go? Thanks SOE. I'm really gonna give SWGemu a go soon. I told a friend once, if i won the mega-jackpot.. I would buy the freaking rights to SWG and have re-coded to pre-CU.... that and smuggler missions....
I used to play on Tarquinas. What guild were you in? My char name was Trulku. Rebel Smuggler. Guilds I was in were Slave & Ghost respectively.
LOTRO - Main: Mikkyo, Elf Hunter
Alt: Raahl, Human Warden
WOW - Main: Trulku (retired)
AOC - Retired.. what a let down....
SWTOR - can't fu*kin wait!!
The only guild worth a damn I was ever in was IC, character name was Jasc. I spent a majority of my SWG time guidless and/or hopping from one to another as they became active.
Man, I loved our community, even if the drama did get a little hectic at times. Afterall, Tarquinas. We Know Drama. I personally was in Crystal Oasis for just about my entire stay on SWG, Imperial for every bit as long. Man... I miss those guys. Come to think of it I miss Tarquinas period, and I miss my TKM/Rifleman.
Well, the moderators will ultimately determine whether or not talking about the emulator is allowed or not. I tend to keep discussion brief, enough to just drop the name so that interested parties can research the subject on their own.
There is nothing illegal about the software. The only legal grey area is modifying and using a client which technically belongs to SOE or whoever owns the property now. Server emulators such as eAthena for Ragnarok Online have been repeatedly ruled legal to the extent that Gravity Co. Ltd. had their case thrown out of court.
Also, Tarquinas rules! Except for not having T21 rifles. Other than that, yeah.
Oh yeah, I forgot, I was in DFR for a long ass time when I went from Imp to Rebel. But DFR was so massive that's basically like saying I was part of the Rebels.
Masochist that I am, I made the mistake of going for a bounty hunter from the get go, as in when it required both master Marksmen and master Scout and there were tons of bugs with the class, to say nothing of being weaker than someone that had used less skill points to be a master TKM/pistoleer or whatever.
Being a bounty hunter really cemented how clueless the developers were about their own game. During one of the early rounds of nerfs, I recall Raph Koster making a post about how no class should be able to solo red level mobs when the "lightly armed and low risk" targets of bounty hunter missions ALWAYS were red mobs. One of the "fixes" that went in for bounty hunters eventually was to rewrite the mission descriptions and every target being described as armed and dangerous.
It also soured me on player driven economies quite a bit, at least when there's a small pool of players that can actually max out crafting skills. I know that there were some neat things with crafting and harvesting, but as someone who only had like 18 skill points to spare away from his combat profession, all I ever saw was constantly needing to find a new master weaponsmith when the previous one I bought from burned out. It also bugged me that I made far more money from one night of hunting and harvesting Dathomir carnivore meat than I ever did from my bounty hunting missions combined (Jedi were still damn rare when I stopped playing). Apparently in SOE's Star Wars universe, murderers and terrorists are small time but meat-filled buns are serious business.
No game I've played has anywhere near the social atmosphere of SWG though. Many of my friends were musicians or dancers, one of whom took up being a politician when player cities were implemented. We had a small city south of Mos Eisley where I kept a house decorated with old armor, the occasional bit of loot that had some interesting attribute, holocrons, and fish that I caught when I just didn't feel like shooting things. I spent a lot of time hanging out in one of the resident's cantina/dance hall. The city mayor was also a bio-engineer and between him and my fishing, city hall looked like a zoo at times. I did things with the decorating commands like arranging fish so it looked like they were swimming in the indoor fountain and pushing the elephant my friend had made into a brazier another friend had made.
Bio-engineer has to be one of the most original crafting professions ever. You harvest DNA from animals and use it to build skill enhancements or OTHER animals. My house had two bunny-cats crafted from lizards and my ostrich mount was fashioned from bantha DNA. Watching bantha fall over dead in rapid succession from failed DNA extractions faster that I could ever shoot them was a sight to behold.
So many brilliant ideas, but it was clear that the developers had no idea what they were doing from the beginning.
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I even remember getting a medal for my unique backstory. I was just walking around doing my own shit when the window popped up saying I got a new medal, and sure enough, it was for unique backstory. Not many people I knew got that one.
My first MMO, and I had a blast with it. I stopped right before all the bad shit happened (cause WoW drew me in of course).
Xbox Live: Kunohara
IC was the most fun I had in a guild but it was run by a guy who was *way* to into the game (Allistair, who I think still fucking plays). He RP'ed as an Imperial governor, so you know he was simply lovable.
Oh yeah! Forgot my name, I went by Digito Byte ingame. Ended up quitting for good shortly after the NGE hit, although I took a long break during the CU period, during which I played pretty much entirely on TC.
Oasis had a bunch of nice people, as I recall. I stopped in the cantina multiple times, everyone there was friendly... unless I was overt, of course.
LOTRO - Main: Mikkyo, Elf Hunter
Alt: Raahl, Human Warden
WOW - Main: Trulku (retired)
AOC - Retired.. what a let down....
SWTOR - can't fu*kin wait!!
I ended up building my home right there, outside of the sand people's fort. Ah, the long, danger filled trips back into town before we got vehicles. I used to have fun driving my huge pink transport ship around and giving noobs lifts to prime hunting spots, player cities, and good vendors. I was making a terrible killing off of resources and weapons crafting, so I had all the time in the world to goof off.
Exploring the worlds in my big pink transport had to be the funnest thing I recall. Man the planets were so damned big.
Ambushing Imperials in the tight, cramped streets of....whatever that major city was on Tatooine.
SWGEmu has intrigued me in the past but there are two problems.
A) I'm missing disk 3 (out of 4) from my original set.
I don't mean the game itself, pretty sure they can pull that off. It's just that the community will be so dispersed since there could only be at max 1,000-2,000 other people out there crazy enough to play an emulated pre-CU SWG server. I don't know what the sub numbers were back in the day but I know they were much higher than that. Without the numbers it will just be an empty husk.
The gameplay in EVE isn't as satisfying when you're talking about PvE.
Also, it doesn't have gungans to shoot.
It was my first MMO too, and man it got bad.
EVE's community always struck me as far far more hostile than SWG's, and generally a hell of alot less pleasant to hang out with.
and I wouldn't be surprised if some SWGEmu servers managed to hit some very impressive numbers population wise, though I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that.
I remember sitting in a hospital, most times all alone, just waiting for someone to come in, and all I would have to hit is one button to heal their wounds, just so I could level CM. For hours almost, most of the time not getting any tips. It was boring, but for some reason, I kept doing it. Thinking back, I'm like "I'm playing $15 a month to sit and hit one button in one little room for hours at a time? What the fuck did I do?"
Xbox Live: Kunohara
From my readings and surveying of the community boards actually a huge portion of the people who still play are actually former entertainers/crafters/doctors who still like the social aspects.
I used to think the same thing at times when I was leveling merchant, mostly because all my friends had nifty combat professions to go master for their holocrons, and I was stuck planting vendors everywhere and begging people to check them so I could get experience for it.
I was going about it all wrong though, and tried a different approach. I talked to some of the better weapon and armor merchants in the galaxy, and set up a shop in the biggest merchant center near Corellia, which was pretty much the hub of everything for everyone. I bought tons of stuff off of the big-time Rebel merchants and resold it all under one roof, undercutting the dirty Imperials that had a monopoly on armor and weapons. I ended up making a ton of good friends, a shitpile of credits, and all the while I was doing more damage to the Imps on my server than any of my friends that were out PvP'ing with whatever combat prof they were on.
SWG was totally what you made of it. Shit, I even had fun when I had to do a few entertaining professions for my holo grind. Any game that rewards socializing has the right idea.
Xbox Live: Kunohara