Returning Veteran? Post your thoughts.

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

I'm not sure how many of you have returned to game recently but I started playing almost 3 months ago, after spending almost 12 months in MMO wilderness.

 

I didn't like World of Warcraft and was waiting for Warhammer online (and I still am) and I long to return to Galaxies but after the whole New Game Enhancement experience, I knew that I could never have that level of fun again? Or could I?

 

Upon hearing about player bounties, I thought that I must return. Logged back in and going through lots of emails and to discover that my 8 structures had eaten so much into my pot of money! (OUCH)

 

I swiftly levelled by toon up from 80-90 and joined a guild - who have been excellent. Its so great to see the Galaxies community in action, its probably one of the friendlist places to be.

 

Although its not easy, hunting and killing other players is alot of fun, as I am a Bounty Hunter. I remember the old days of hunting Jedi on Dantooine (until Kashyyyk came along) but now most can be found running around or on Restuss - the new pvp zone.

 

It's clear that alot has changed in those 12 months. Gone are the crappy camera and key map controls, replaced with the old style system from pre-nge, which you can customise. Hurray! Combat is alot better, NPCs no longer run off into the distance the moment you open fire - Mobs have been returned to a harder difficulity - thanks to players demands - new expertise systems adds some difference between players and to add icing to the cake, you have Mustafar. Probably one of the most dangerous places in game. It reminds me of Lok back in 2003 as this was hard and hostile.

 

You have alot of freedom to explore Mustafar, new dungeons, clever quests and plenty of high end loot is available to the brave. It's probably one of the best zones of any MMO game i have EVER played.

 

I look back and think that starting Galaxies in the time line they did was a mistake, as there are so many Jedi running around now and that, for alot of people is a scandal!

 

Galaxies still offers the player the freedom to do what they want when they want it and I look back and think, maybe I shouldnt have left but I am glad that I did, when I did but now I look forward to the future....

[Rogue15]

I first started Star Wars Galaxies back in February of 2005. (pre-cu) I really liked it, but thought it was really strange how the 'best' armor you could get wasn't even seen in the movies, and that some people even 'played' the game while AFK, also I thought it was strange that you were forced to go seek a doctor to get a buff packet that cost what seemed like a fortune! After a month I kinda got used to it, though between march and may (i really forget...) they released the Combat Upgrade, now many people were upset about it, but I for some odd reason thought it was very cool, probably because the particle effects of the weapons looked better (instead of the same stuff over and over even tho using different specials), I was going for master rifleman/master bounty hunter at the time when combat upgrade dropped, shortly afterwards they gave out 'respecs' so I joined in on the fun of group xp on lok, hunting Gurks. now THAT was really fun!!!! First big group hunt i ever got into and there was alot of diversity, I remember trying out my bounty hunter skills....one of my marks was hunting and I tried to take him out, didn't happen as I would have liked, but still...the memory is good.

 

Around the time of Revenge of the Sith, they released a new expansion called 'Rage of the Wookies' which i thought was kinda weird, didn't understand instances at all, and what made me upset is 3/4 my marks were on the planet Kashyyyk. I liked the quests though, some of them like Mort's quest were great because of the Katarn Clonetrooper armor.

 

I had to leave the game though in mid-may of 2005 because I moved, and I had no idea you could play it and not really notice the lag too much on AOL dialup...so I waited and waited and finally got sick of not having access to broadband so I resubscribed and waited out the long download. and by long i mean WEEK. damn that took forever!!!

 

When I logged in around march 2006 I was confused and disturbed. The game seemed a little off, like someone pulled a cruel trick on a blind person by pouring water in their cornflakes. well not THAT bad, but they had removed Player Bounties, dropped the class system down to just NINE classes and you couldn't mix and match, which I thought was the best thing from before, and placed in a levelling system which I was like 'wtf is this?' but I adapted to it, most of my friends were gone, so I joined one of my friends that played on Scylla for a bit, and did all that there was of legacy quest (up to theed) after that though I got very bored because levelling was a pain and nobody was group hunting like before, so i went back to starsider and found a nice levelling spot to get myself from 80-90 outside the abandoned rebel outpost on dantooine. millions of graul, voritor, and janta died by my hand on the way to 90.

 

I guess I was fortunate though, a month or 2 after I rejoined on a different server til i hit around level 30 and couldn't level up fast cause i just finished legacy quest..so i eventually went back to starsider, they put Player Bounties back in and introduced 'expertise' system to Jedi and Bounty Hunters. I thought it was pretty cool, couldn't wait to see the rest of the professions, was disappointed though as every single one of my marks ended up being a jedi, and I was no good at all vs them. I did get one of my friends from lucasforums to join and play it with me, he joined as a bounty hunter as well, I didn't go to legacy quest cause I just played it on the other server and it felt so boring.

 

Restuss was fun, first time I got involved in MASS-PVP, though most of the players there were Jedi for some reason. made bounty hunting more interesting though, every single mark seemed to be there!!!

 

My friend purchased Trials of Obiwan, and was very cool and bought it for me as well, so we went there and WOW....lots of awesome quests, it was too bad though that I was already level 90, the quests there would have helped me level for sure! My friend met a few other people and joined their guild, I followed and made some really good friends there, when base busting returned, I helped organize raids on the old bases on the east side of naboo. That was alot of fun. My friend jared (the guy that bought me toow) eventually quit the game though, he just got bored of it. o well.

 

I kept playing throughout the updates, then they released 'gcw' point system....that's what REALLY pissed me off. Not the system itself, but the way people were just outright exploiting the system to get points! they'd organize these weekly 'base clubbing' deals where they'd get a rebel to place like 3 bases, ALOT of imperials would show up just to stand around and wait for the bases to blow up so they could 'earn' gcw points and get rank+goodies. It was so damn lame. made me pull the plug back in february, right after chapter 5 came out.

 

Before and after i pulled the plug, I gave World of Warcraft a go, I got a character up to level 8 or 13 i think, I really tried to get into it, but i just couldn't. it wasn't the same, i missed the expansiveness of the star wars universe, the swoops, the cantinas, player cities, vendors, it just was not the same at all even though people say 'swg is trying too hard to be like wow' i don't think that's true, it feels like a completely different game, some of the concepts may be the same, but it's completely different.

 

Now I'm back. I'm glad I quit when I did, I really needed the break. And now there's ALOT for me to discover and explore. The beast master expertise tree is nice, it allows anybody to get a pet and if they want, they can become very good at training it, or just harvesting and growing them to sell them on the market! I always thought it would be really cool to be a bounty hunter+creature handler back in the day, but it wouldn't have been any good cause i would've only been able to have the low level pets around....at least now...they can be levelled. I think I'm going to have alot of fun with it.

 

I can gladly say that I am really looking forward to the future of star wars galaxies!!!