Was NGE really needed?

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

Today, I spent sometime thinking about all the changes to Galaxies since launch and how over time, all the fun I had playing the game was, piece by piece, taken away from me by SOE.

 

When the game launched, I took a month off work to develope my character and I soon made alot of friends. I joined the Rebel Alliance and boy, how I loved the nightly raids on Anchorhead by the Imperials (all pvp) with over 80-100 players taking part and it was great.

 

PvP was destroyed in one swoop by SOE when they introduced decay and insurance. Weapons did decay during combat - fair enough - but at that time, I think weapons took an addition 5% hit on decay if you died and had to clone. OVERNIGHT pvp stopped, turning Galaxies into an intergalactic chat room! No more combat, just players sitting around chatting.

 

Then came player cities. Good idea in principle, however, this was the KEY reason for major cities becoming empty and really pulling the community apart. And, since then, lag on the servers has become a real annoyance.

 

Alot of things werent working but to be fixed soon - we had no mounts or transports, so we had to run everywhere.

 

At the start, all was good. We had the pointless 'Cries Of Alderaan' story and other pointless quests around followed up by a couple of dungeons. Personally, I feel that the total lack of content by the dev team @ SOE was the reason why the game died off in the first place.

 

An online experience needs content for players to be kept excited and interested. Vets managed to earn badges pretty quickly leaving them with nothing to do. If I said that nothing new has been added to Galaxies in over 18 months, would you be surprised? (I dont mean paid for expansions).

 

Then, Jedi. Lucasarts Producers were saying that some people were getting 'close' to becoming a Jedi. No one knew the path at that time. Why? Because THEY didnt have a clue! Along came the Holocron farse. Characters paying millions for Holocrons - in which you had to master a profession to become a Jedi...wow...what a path. So much for the movies?! People had to learn upto 18 professions just to become a Jedi, costing millions.

 

As more people became Jedi, there was a problem. So along came the Bounty Hunter. Who could track down and kill Jedi. Totally kill them. No loss of XP, as they had perm-death, making them a ghost like Obi Wan!

 

Of course, the Jedi cried over this. So they changed to loss of XP. But the Jedi still cried as Bounty Hunters, to them, were too powerful. Bounty Hunter gank squads would run around hunting top level jedi (squads could only hold 5 BHs). But being a Bounty Hunter now meant something.

 

SOE changed it. They made it all but impossible for a BH to do their job. Of course with NGE, Bounty Hunters are pointless as they can't hunt Jedi.

 

How can a Star Wars game not actually have a Galactic Civil war? This has been work in progress for over 18 months. With decay/insurance, no one hardly went overt (spec ops) so GCW soon died off.

 

If you look back at all these issues (lots more I have forgotten) and not to mean all the bugs in the game, you can see for yourself why Galaxies was failing.

 

World Of Warcraft has really given the MMORPG a giant kick where it hurts SOE, who have ruled the roost with online gaming. Not any more. WoW has its problems but it is nothing like Galaxies.

 

Had the dev team actually sat down and planned Galaxies, it could have been the game it should have been. NGE could have been avoided and the community would have been expanding, instead of shrinking. The players demand things to do - content. Once all the new players from NGE hit higher levels, you will soon discover that there is actually nothing to do in the game.

 

NGE, like it or not, has delivered what looks like the final blow to Galaxies with thousands of people leaving the game and with such competition out there now in what is becoming the biggest market for gaming, Galaxies future looks very very bleak

 

DMUK

[Vibro]

One thing that has annoyed me about the new Professions is that I spent quite a long time getting all that was reuired to get the visit from the old man. When I finally got it, I decided I was going to take a break for a month or so and I come back to find out that anyone can now become Jedi, which meant weeks of hard work down the drain.

 

I also don't like the fact that unless you buy the Trials of Obi-Wan it's next to impossible to get XP. Lag seems to be worse than ever.

 

I hope they sort out these problems quickly or I'll take my service elsewhere.

[TronusNavigon]

I posted a long winded rant, but I have it in one topic already so I'll just say this infamous quote:

 

"It's always the good ones that have to die."

[itchythesamurai]

I like how if you already did practically every quest in the game, you are missing out on a lot of xp. Nice reward for actually having done the content earlier.

[fozzie22]

They should have kept the game pre-cu tbh..but of course they listened to a few players who wanted something different..

 

Well they've got something different now,a dead game.

[JediConsularAD]

people are still going on about pre-cu, that sucks, the game has changed, face it and play or cancel your choice dont spread the misery.

[fozzie22]

people are still going on about pre-cu, that sucks, the game has changed, face it and play or cancel your choice dont spread the misery.

I have cancelled,please dont tell me you enjoy beta testing a game??

 

And paying for the privilidge too

[El Bodge]

i love the fact that the guild i was in on one server (Tarquinas i believe), the Revellion, or REVEL, was very close knit to another guild that was all Beast Handlers, now, im guessing through the means of cutting out that proffesion, that guild BEAST may not be operational

[JediConsularAD]

I have cancelled,please dont tell me you enjoy beta testing a game??

 

And paying for the privilidge too

 

yes i enjoy playing this game otherwise i would have cancelled, but hey thats my choice, if you have a problem with the game then email soe, complaining here isnt going to make a difference.

[Coppas]

soe r idiods and rnt gonna stop nefing until the game is shut down cause there stubborn

[SirLancelot]

soe r idiods and rnt gonna stop nefing until the game is shut down cause there stubborn

 

 

What?

[SirLancelot]

So finally DMUK is not going to play SWG anymore. Does this mean we can't look forward to your weekly "why I hate SOE/LA and the NGE" posts?

 

LOL!

 

To each their own. I think the NGE has done many good things for the game. Gamers, who are creatures of habit, need to learn to deal with change better. That's just my 2 Imperial credits.

[Justus]

I don't think the NGE was necessary, not for the players anyway. It was necessary for SOE from a development stand point I guess - easier to balance professions (something the CU was supposed to do, but apparenlty failed.) I liked having hybrid professions alot more than choosing from 9 'iconic' professions however. The quest revamp was great, even though I had already done a majority of the quest in the game, the quest revamp was a good idea.

 

Jedi as a starting profession, not a good idea. Jedi should remain something to work for, and should be rare. Especially in the time frame we are in, either that or they should just move back the timeline to the prequel era.

[Alteran]

The concept of the NGE was good, but it wasn't and still isn't near finished nor even now ready for live servers.

 

So many basics for the FPS style of combat is missing. Collision, free fire and much better combat AI.

 

Not to mention all the bugs, broken quests and non-functional weapons (which are going to be fixed... honest ). When all these things are bunched together and you are standing around trying to figure out what you are going to do next it's just to much for most Vets. There I was in Sher Ka's cave for the first time and I solo'd the entire thing with both a Jedi and then my Commando. Done, I just did the last thing in the ToOW expansion, it's farming time!!!

 

I blame LA fully for the absolutely poor success of SWG. LA decided the content and direction of the expansions and LA gave SOE the impossible to reach release dates for each expansion. SOE isn't a new company struggling to make a successful MMOG, they have the experience of EQ and EQ2 to draw from. SOE knows how to make a good expansion. SOE understands that the customers want and need content and story-line driven expansions to keep the attention of their customers, but when you have another company involved that basically tells you what and how to make it, then you are in for trouble. LA should have left SOE to their own and let them make an expansion that was worth buying and playing. Instead we have a MMOG that is full of holes with no continuity, real content or story line... oh yeah I forgot the bugs, broken quests and unfinished game mechanics.

 

I'm finished with SWG as well. My done beta-testing a game that has been out for 2.5 years and is in it's 2nd makeover that was even worse than the first combat revamp. Until my account is up, I'll farm SK every 3 days and build up a stockpile of weapons and stuff from SK... solo.

 

PS: Was the NGE needed? No, the CU was looking like it was almost finished.