The NEW Star Wars Galaxy

[BlanchPrez]

Now, this looks like a Star Wars MMO that I'd be interested in playing!

http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/665/665510p1.html

My only question is, what happens to everyone with existing characters? Do they have to start all over, or do they get to "respec" their character into the new professions and such?

Chris

[Infernus]

Respec.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/boar ... e.id=15742

[BlanchPrez]

Interesting. It actually has me interested in STG, where I was never interested before. Looks like it might be a fun game.

Chris

[Darquesage]

I may go back and give it 1 month in which to attempt to lure me back, but I'll wait till about 2 months after the change goes into effect so I can avoid most of the bugs...

Still kinda annoys me that they would completely change the game only 15 days after they release a $30 expansion for the "old" version. That seems low even for Sony.

[Cthulhu]

I hope that wasn't the chair I used on sunday.

[Infernus]

There is a trial available now. http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/

Do the trial first, see if you like it before you buy. Some people do, some dont.

[Gotetsu]

Ok, so I just loaded it and played it for a little bit. The interface is a bit funky for me, because it uses the mouse and the keyboard both for movement and facing. I was having trouble moving around because the mouse is so sensitive and the keyboard is so wooden. So, you really have to use both, and it takes some practice to get it right.

Space flight was really hard, especially when in combat. Again, the mouse is very sensitive, and feels like a joystick would work better.

The graphics are pretty good, with character customization not quite as good as CoH, but still cool.

Will I buy it and play it? Probably not. But it's still kinda fun.

Take this review with a grain of salt, as my MMO experience is limited to about 4 hours of EQ, and 8 months of CoH.

[Darquesage]

[quote="Gotetsu"]


Take this review with a grain of salt, as my MMO experience is limited to about 4 hours of EQ, and 8 months of CoH.[/quote]

Well, at least you know the good one:) I'll check it out sometime after my Lineage 2 trial runs out (graphics are cool, but I'm not impressed otherwise... actually pretty boring after a couple hours). Wonder if the space combat got changed from what it used to be. I was pretty good at that, and had a bad-ass tricked out TIE Fighter...

[BlanchPrez]

I'll give it a try after I finish my novel. Writting pretty much is taking up my gaming time, so...

Chris

[BlanchPrez]

So, the other night I DLed this and played around. Made my first character, Co'zar Silverblade.



He's a commando, and is pretty fun to play. Then, I had to, so I made a second character, a Jedi.



She's pretty fun to play too, but lots of hand to hand combat, which means she takes more damage than Co'zar does.

The controlles are a little weird, like Gotetsu said it felt like the moust was a little sensitive. I had to change that setting down a little so that I could grab the mouse without my character contorting like he had epilipsy.

The biggest thing that bugged me was the camera angle. The character is off to the left rather than dead center on the screen, and I could not find a way to fix that. Bugs the shit out of me, I keep running into walls and such because of it.

Otherwise, though, it's pretty fun so far. I haven't do space combat yet (expect that one part in the Falcon, but I don't think that really counts, because I wasn't flying the ship), but I do like the way combat works. I have to say, though, that the respawn time of the MOBS is REALLY quick. I got stuck in one mission where the mobs kept respawning and eventually I just had to run for it. Ended up dying, but I eventually made it through.

Would I buy it? If I had the extra money to spend on a second MMO, probably. It has the feel of a Star Wars RPG so far, and I'm enjoying the different classes. I even made an entertainer, which is an interesting class, all non-combat so far.

Chris

[BlanchPrez]

I got my commando up to 3 last night, and tried out the space combat. the controlls for that are even more wonky than for just walking around. Everything seems counter intuitive as far as the controlls go. I would rather the mouse not move anything, and just be used for targeting and interacting with the enviroment. Also, it would be better if the space combat controlls be the same as the normal walking controlls. But, I can't find a way to remap anything, though I'm sure it's in the options somewhere.

It's still a fun game, but the more I play, the less I think I'm likely to buy it unless these things get fixed.

Chris

[jimmy corrigan]

[quote="BlanchPrez"][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/BlanchPrez/EimiwriPoepais.jpg[/img][/quote]an ithorian jedi with a vibro-axe... nice! i like it. also dig the name. did you come up with it?

[BlanchPrez]

[quote="jimmy corrigan"]an ithorian jedi with a vibro-axe... nice! i like it. also dig the name. did you come up with it?[/quote]

Nope. I didnt know Ithorian naming conventions, and couldn't come up with something cool sounding, so I just used the random name button until I got something I liked the look of.



Personally, I like the hat the best. :)



Chris

[jimmy corrigan]

wotc released a supplement for star wars d20, damn, either "ultimate alien anthology" or "hero's guide" (i can't recall right now even though i own them) and it has tables of various names and definitions for all the playable aliens. very cool.

and yes, that hat rocks.

[Darquesage]

Actually both of those are supplements for D20 Star Wars, though Hero's Guide has apparently become very hard to find (not a very high print run, and it has all the cool power gamer feats... I still need a copy myself). But it's the Alien Anthology that has tons of naming examples. (I also lack a copy of that as well, damn my impoverished nature) Tom has a copy. If you ever needed a scan of one of the races, I'm sure he'd do it for ya...

[Darquesage]

Well, I went and did it... I set up a test account for the 10 day trial.

Some of the things I'm reading about with the game overhaul sound like they may be the solution to many of the reasons I quit in the first place. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see any of them. It's taken me over 4 hours just to get out of the first stage of the tutorial, because I lose connection to the game every 2 minutes or so. I have actually been completely unable to proceed past the point where I am (right after the Falcon landing on the space station cutscene), because every time I try to load in, I lose connection before the game finishes loading me in. This piece of shit has less stability than a house of cards in San Francisco. Also, the controls are clunky and counter-intuitive at thier best and the controls I want to change/rebind the most are apparently hardwired in. I can't even seem to get around it by reprogramming my mouse buttons on thier driver. I really need to smash something, so I'm going to go back to CoV for an hour or so before I hit the sack...It doesn't have any problems staying connected... I wish they ran SWG... As much as I despise ED, it's not this bad...

[Darquesage]

Ok, it's been a little while, and with SOE's offer to log in old accopunts for free, I gave it another chance.

The game is alot more stable than during my last experiment, and they've added a new movement option that makes the controls much more tolerable (I still have to spend an hour or so customizing them, and also had to switch a couple button functions on my trackball driver, but it's playable at this point)

They really have put some good effort into making the game feel more like you're in Star Wars than just playing Everquest with a set of Star Wars skins. What I've seen of the new quests is much better laid out as well. More going from point A->B->C->D->E, etc. (B,C,D,&E all being pre-determined locations usually) rather than the older style of A->B->A->C->A->D->E, etc (with B,C,D,&E all being random locations that are just about the same distance away)

The new Class system is much more simplified and streamlined than the previous one, but at the significant expense of induviduality. A lev 20 Commando is a ev 20 Commando is a ev 20 Commando. Any difference between you and someone of the same class and approximate level is limited pretty much to name and clothing, maybe you can find a different weapon than everyone else uses for a different color effect and to hold different graphics in your hands

With the new combat system (point and left click, hold until you or your target dies) I don't see a whole lot of difference in combat effectiveness based on weapon damage. It's there, but it's not significant. What type of gun you use is much more significant. There are 3 types of guns (I haven't put much testing into the melee yet), Pistols, Carbines, & Rifles. The Pistols are generally useless. Anything they can do, a Carbine can do better. Some of them do look really cool though. The Carbines seem to be the most effective in general. They have longer range than a Pistol and shoot faster than a Rifle. Fast refire rate seems to be the key to consistent victory. Rifles do have thier place though. They fire slower than Carbines, but do more damage per shot, leading to almost as much (but not quite) damage per second. They do have longer range though. Sometimes it's easier to kill a tough opponent by targeting with a rifle at max range, hit him with a special attack or 2 and blast while he closes. If you're getting particularly low lag and have good keyboard reflexes you can swap to a Carbine as the target gets closer and increase your DPS. Of course there are a couple models of Carbine out there (I use a Player-Crafted DXR6) with ranges almost equal to that of a Rifle.

Now if you're playing solo this sort of stuff can be pretty important because there's not much room for error if you're in a tough fight. If you're in a group however, there should be enough firepower all around that it's not a real big deal if you have maximized your DPS. In that case whip out whatever looks coolest and blaze away:)

Another important functional change they've made is the consequences of death. You now clone without any consequences other than having to travel back to where you died to finish the fight and extract revenge. There is no more Item Decay. Previously, when you got a really badass weapon or clothing/armor item, You left it safely tucked away in storage when you went out to fight, because after being killed 20 times it wouldn't function anymore. Wear and tear seems reasonable, but in this game things like armor are a significant part of costuming and such. And some custom sets of armor cost upwards of TEN MILLION CREDITS. (For reference, when I dedicate myself to grinding credits in the fastest way I know how, I can earn about a million every 4-6 hours. some people are faster, most are alot slower, some people might see thier first million after a couple months of play) So you can imagine how frustrating it would be to have such an investment degrade in quality whenever you use it for it's intended purpose. Now, you don't have to worry about it. Once again, this means "Equip what looks coolest and blaze away".

Another nice change is that those silly "Junk Dealers" that you see everywhere have expanded thier trade so now they will buy most loot from you. I used to just delete so many things because they weren't worth enough credits to go through the hassle of selling on a vendor. Now I can just make a stop at a conveniently located Junk Dealer and unload it all for cash:) The Scoundrel class can do one better even. They have the "Fence" special ability which allows them to sell this stuff to a Junk Dealer from ABSOLUTELY ANYWHERE. It's the ultimate in convenience, especially if you're running out of inventory space but you're deep in a dungeon

Overall I like the game better than I used to. Getting the controls to function was a pain, and before and after every session I have to go into my trackball driver and tweek the settings, but now that I've got it worked out, I think most of it works pretty well. (there's still some seriously counter-intuitive stuff I have to train myself to do). There's still alot of room for Sony to improve this game, but I think they've done enough that I can see my way clear to start paying them again. Hopefully enough others will go back and let the company know they're moving in the right direction finally.




With all that said, go here and enjoy this short film about SWG that Tom found:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... eeta+video