Star Wars Galaxies

Because of the nature of the internet, most, if not all, of the links in this post no longer work. It's too bad that this has to happen, but there's just not much I can do about it. As I don't subscribe to these games anymore, it's difficult to find these posts (if they still exist), so they may or may not be updated.

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The first 'quoted' text was originally posted to the MxO forums in a thread called 'Dont Believe SOE Lies', which was a 'warning' about what S.O.E. will do to MxO.
That thread was deleted just after I posted this reply.
There was some harshness in the thread from a few, but not really anything worthy of deletion.
S.O.E. has been well known for deleting negative posts and/or forum banning people for posting negative comments on the SWG forums.

Cache is a wonderful thing and I was able to save it and am now presenting it as my comments and observations on SWG (mostly) after the 'Combat Revamp'.
Sorry it is a bit long (feel free to skim, I won't be offended), but I, and many others, feel very strongly about what has and hasn't been done with this game.

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Mxo and SWG are different games, but the owners are now the same.
They aren't going to 'kill' it, depending of course on your definition of 'killing it'.
They aren't going to shut it down, (not right away, at least) but based on my experiences with SWG, the potential for alienating the playerbase with unwanted changes is quite real.

I started SWG about a year ago, and it was awesome. SW universe, huge worlds to explore, movie icons to meet (though not live), professions to learn.
It was truly amazing.

Then I became a Smuggler. (I actually had 4 alts, as I tend to get bored doing just one thing, but Smuggler was my favorite, even with the problems)
Yeah, the Smuggler argument.
Smuggler is one of the icon professions of the movies (Han Solo, just in case you didn't know).
When I first started, it was pretty dang spiffy. A bit of a grind for some of it, but not too bad. And, I found a great guild and made many friends.
After a while, the novelness wore off, and after spending time on the forums, I realized that it would never be fixed.

Try reading Revamp Discussion and Smugglers in SWG History - as written by the Devs.
No need to read the whole threads, just the first and last few pages.

I started MxO about 3 weeks before beta ended, and while I didn't experience the awe that I had with SWG, I did enjoy it.
Enough to keep playing for now, at least.
I let my subscription to SWG lapse for a while and planned to return after about 6 months to see what was new.
The Combat Upgrade/Rebalance (CURB) was just going live as my sub expired, so I didn't really get to play with it much.
The game was unbalanced, but still very fun for me, and didn't really need this change, as over 17,000 people thought.
This is about 8-10% of the population.
It's a standard guess-tamate that only about 20-30% of a games population use the forums, the rest either don't know about, or don't feel they need to/should have to use the forums. They just play for enjoyment.
Presumably, it would be about the same percentage that would know about a petition like this.
So looking at it with those numbers, about 40-50% of 'those in the know' didn't like these changes.
Looks a lot more substantial now, doesn't it?

Because SOE bought MxO, I added the Station Access to check out SWG again and see what's been happening.
I haven't been impressed so far.
Slicing (modifying weapons and armor for better stats) now requires loot drops instead of crafted tools.
They have increased the drop rate some, but they are mostly on elite npc's, and thus still somewhat hard to find and expensive.

Just a few days ago, JFreeman (a Developer) said:

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I can say that we can't really give any specifics about our plans, other than we plan to stop promising a smuggler revamp that we never seem to get around to delivering.

It's very unlikely we'd ever do a full profession revamp for smugglers anyway. Instead we're focusing on incremental changes, enhancements, updates.

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At least they finally admitted it.
It only took two years.

When I logged back in on Monday, there was a lot to take in.
I knew things had changed and some people would be gone. Some because of the CURB, some just moved on to something else.
After a few days of talking to the few friends I could find, I removed about 60 people (leaving about 30) from my friends list.
Some were guildmates that I didn't know too well, but some were friends that I enjoyed playing with.
Regardless, a 66% attrition rate is horrible, and it was indeed a sad day for me.
Most of those that are left, I haven't seen yet, but am told they are still around from time to time.

In his Goodbye Thread, electricnomad wrote:

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And most of all, I'd like to thank the friends I made in SWG. Knowing and interacting with people has been the most meaningful part of this game for me. As I said in some private goodbyes, if you would have asked me a year ago if you could ever become friends with people without having met them in person, I'd have never believed it. But somehow, through their writing and through their in-game behavior, personalities shone through, and I got a sense of the people behind the pixels. And I liked them. I genuinely like many of the people I've played with in SWG, and the people are what I'll miss more than anything else.

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How true those words were, then and now.
He left a few months before I started, and only knew him by reading his posts.
He was one of the more vocal players (and there were a lot of them) with ideas for changes, fixes, and new content for many of the professions.

Through my reading of the forums in the last few days, it appears that Jedi is getting yet another upgrade/publish/revamp. (Not too sure, many seem to know, but are under NDA, an official announcement is supposed to be coming soon)
That makes two publishes (and many other tweaks*) in less than one year, while Smuggler, and several other professions, are basically ignored.
(*Some of which are, recently Jedi were allowed to group to hunt without affecting their visibility {drawing attention to, and getting a bounty on themselves}. Jedi are almost exticint in this time setting, yet there are tons of them in-game, and they tried to slow down the progression by changing the xp payouts {for everyone} making them lower to extend the grind, make them subscribe longer, and dimish their overwhelming presence. {A bit late for that now}, and Jedi had the 'death penalty' removed for being killed by NPC's {Jedi previously lost experience points when killed by an NPC})

This is what people fear about what SOE will do with MxO.
Poor CS, ignore it, or change it to resemble Everquest or World of Warquest then ignore it.

Sadly, I'm considering quitting SWG for good when my Station sub runs out, and just continuing with MxO, depending on what this big announcement is.

With my friends gone, there isn't much reason for me to stay anyway, and another Jedi (whatever) would probably be the final nail in the coffin.
(Yes you can have my stuff. I'll auction it, then donate the credits to friends and newbs, watch the Ahazi, Chilastra, and Eclipse trade forums.)

Sure I can meet people and make new friends, but, as B.B. King said:
"The thrill is gone"
(and I fear)
"The thrill is gone for good"

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The announcement was made on Aug. 19, and it is indeed Jedi-centric.
Players will be receiving missions from the ghost of Obi-Wan on Mustafar, and recieve a special color saber crystal, among other unnamed rewards.

A few days before the announcement, changes were made to the way experience is given for grouping, resulting in less experience given when in large groups, which is what the CURB was supposed to incourage, among other things.
There was tremendous outcry from the masses and it was changed back a few days later.
There's also been some outcry about the new expansion as there are over 800 posts in the announcement thread.

(Entire discussion)
My comments from the MxO forums on this topic:

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I saw that.
I heard the rumors, then it was confirmed yesterday.
It boggles the mind that they are basically ignoring the rest of the players who like some of the more than 30 other professions and have no desire to grind out Jedi.

They've changed the new player tutorial to show you Jedi fighting at the end and if you do the beginning quest, as a real new player would, they basically tell you 'we've been watching you, you are very special', ensuring that everyone who even thought about becoming a Jedi will know it's quite high profile and obtainable.
Of course, a visit to any of the major starports will tell you that too.

They've added new 'content badges' in Mos Eisley, where you start, so you can become 99% done with force sensitive 'glowy' in less than an hour.
The only thing left is to master any profession, which can be done in a day or two.
They've taken away the negative xp for dying to npc's and they no longer get visibility if they are in a group.
Wouldn't want to make it too hard on them now, would we?
Of course, they stated several times that Jedi was to be rare and quite hard to obtain, obviously that was just another lie.

I did not go for RoTW, as I didn't really know if I'd be staying or not.
Reading the forums, it appears that all the quests are all instanced and that many are also broken.
The new expansion doesn't look interesting if you are not going for / already Jedi.
Apparently, everyone gets to meet Obi-wan Kenobi's ghost and take missions from him, get a special lava colored saber crystal and some othe big reward.
Whee, what are my Smuggler, Doc, and Crafter are going to do what with those?
Oh, sorry, the Doc and Crafter can't even get them as they are completely non-combat characters and the majority of the expansion is "high-level content".

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There were two 'Friday Features' released that day, the other was the Profession Popularity Stats, showing what professions were most popular.
Unfortunately, no info was given on how or when this data was tabulated.
This gave many Jedi players fuel to argue that Jedi was not the most popular profession in the game, most likely hoping to ease the frequency of flames directed their way.

(Whole discussion)
My comments about the 'stats':

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MsNiL wrote:
There's now solid evidence that more than half of the Jedi profession is so redundant that they are the rarest skillsets mastered in the entire game... still there's ignorant fools jumping on us.

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You actually think that's a true statement of how many Jedi characters are in the game?
You can't be serious.
Some are the 'noble' professions like healers and crafters but these are by far the minority.
The vast majority go for Jedi to be the alpha class and have their cool glowy sword.

I heard about the new tutorial, and made a new character just to see it.
Gee, I wonder why all the new players want to be Jedi? Maybe it's the fact that there's now a saber fight at the end, then doing the intro quest in Eisley, they are told 'you are special, we've been watching you for a long time now'.
Lets not leave out the fact that you can be 95% done with Force Sensitive 'glowy' in about an hour, getting the content badges with missions in Eisley, doing a bit of traveling for waypoints, leaving only any profession mastery, which can be ground out in a day or two if you chose the right profession.

Sure, most of the actual Jedi skills are at the bottom, most don't master those trees.
Let's look at the top 5.
Hmm, looks like the grind professions.
Bounty Hunter has 5 types of xp for conversion, the rest combine in various ways for 3 or 4 types of xp.
Some are BH just to grief Jedi, sure, but there's a lot of $ to be made just doing npc missions.
M. Smugglers can slice the terms for extra $ and xp.
Slicing loot drops either for sale or using themselves and making more $ by slicing if they've taken M. Smuggler too.

The original list is at least a bit more telling as to how much the professions are used, but not much.
Without info about when it was collected, how they are measured, and what the actual percentages are, it doesn't mean much.
Presumably, the data was collected recently, maybe within the last 2 weeks, and every character that has at least the novice box is counted for that profession.
If they really wanted us to know what the most 'popular' professions are, they would list the actual number of characters that have each skill box. The list would be quite long, but would actually tell the truth about profession popularity.
Marketing is why the lists have been shown to us the way they have. They show a false diversity.
Some professions would stay near their current position, but it would be quite a different list if they showed the true popularity of each skill box.

By not fixing or adding to regular professions, they drive people away from them.
When I left about 4 months ago, of the number of buildings around Coronet, about 50% had vendors, now its 10% or less (Ahazi and Eclipse).
Some have moved to Dant. as that's where most of the grinding happens, but even Dant has a good bit fewer vendors than it used to.

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I've tried to keep an open mind to the CURB changes, as there were imbalances, though I don't think it required the adding of a 'combat level' system on top of the' experience' system already in place.
Grouping is more of a reqirement now than before, and that is somewhat of a good thing.
Some people need or want to solo, though, and that's a good bit harder now.

There have been so many questionable changes, like:
*Loot drop items required for slicing.
*Weapons are no longer insurable.
*Doctors and Medics no longer get experience from healing in Hospitals (which is by far, the most asinine change) so healers are now required to be in combat to advance (which renders my Master Doctor worthless, as I mostly spent time in Med Centers healing people, and the Med Centers are now ghost towns, at least he's already Master).
*Two 'Double Experience' periods, with 'respec's' (I understand this somewhat, saying 'Hey, were sorry for the downtime, bugs, changes, etc.' but having the double xp twice, and allowing players to swap skills numerous times allowed people to advance through Force Sensitive skills and Jedi skills much faster than intended.

And I seem to find new ones every day that I log in.

While everyone will never agree about all the choices made in the games' direction, many feel they have made several grave mistakes.

This is partially evidenced by one of the statements in the press release about the new expansion:

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The companies also revealed that more than 1 million units of the Star Wars Galaxies franchise have now been sold, a testament to its ongoing popularity.

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This was brought up in a thread called Smuggler Popularity, you can see my whole post here, but briefly, I said:

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Great, they've sold more than 1 million units, of course only a small percentage of the people that have bought it still subscribe.
Marketing at its finest.
Which is better, 1 million sold with 20%-30% still subscribing after 2 years, or 750,000 sold with 50% or better still subscribing after 2 years?

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Of course, we don't know how they are counting 'units sold'.
Presumably, it counts every product related to the game, which include:
*Star Wars Galaxies - An Empire Divided
*Star Wars Galaxies - An Empire Divided Collector's Edition
*Star Wars Galaxies - Jump To Lightspeed
*Star Wars Galaxies - Episode III Rage Of The Wookies
*Star Wars Galaxies - The Total Experience (containes AED, JTL, RotW)

This, of course, paints the game in a very good light. And that's what marketing is for.
It also gives a false impression of the number of current subscribers.
According to various sites, the number of current subscribers of SWG is about 250,000. (sorry, no link, I know they are there, just can't find them)
The only required item from that list is the original 'An Empire Divided' or the 'Collector's Edition'.
JTL and RotW are extra expansions and no one is required to buy them, and I'm not sure if RotW requires JTL or not, but either way, it throw off the true count.
Anyone that buys JTL must have bought AED, so that counts as two sales.
As I said, I don't know if JTL is required for RotW, but it's still minimum two sales to get RotW, and possibly three.
Unfortunately, it seems they are more interested in drawing a continual stream of new subscriptions rather than a healthy balance of new customers while retaining current subscribers.

While most of what is said (and the venom unleashed) by the players is directed at S.O.E., they are not alone in this.
Lucas Arts also has a say in what happens and when.
Based on some things I've heard, they are part of the reason for the CURB, pushing the 'RoTW' live before it was fully ready (released when Episode 3 hit theaters), and will probably do the same thing with 'ToOW', as it's to be released when Episode 3 is released on DVD in November.
S.O.E. is responsible for some problems as well as L.A., but S.O.E. is the most visible target as they write the code, run the servers, and distribute the game.

I feel very much the way electricnomad did, I would never have thought that the friends I made and experiences I had with them would mean so much to me, yet they did.
It saddens me greatly that so much potential has been (thus far) squandered and great players have left in disgust, confusion, anger, and resignation of hope after investing their time playing and coming up with so many great ideas, only to have them ignored.

I still don't know whether I will be continuing or canceling my SWG account.
I have packed up two of my characters and deleted one, leaving one to try to learn the new system, and see what changes happen before my renewal date.
Honestly, it doesn't look too good.