SWG to be cancelled... FINALLY

[username17]

On 12/15/2011 Sony will be shutting down Star Wars: Galaxies the MMO and their Trading card game.

I played it up until the NGE and LOVED it. My entire team of coworkers (10 ppl) played in our own City on the Plateau outside of Tatooine.

I forget what server I played on, but I had my first PvP experience on SWG.
My co-workers and I did stuff for fun like giving up our bikes and riding Banthas instea, etc.
Then the NGE came out and it all turned to shit.

Well, Sony has finally bit the bullet and cancelled the game.
This is the first (second? Tanarus?) MMO Sony has cancelled to my knowledge. I have a feeling they would've continued to Milk the cow until it was bringing in no profit.
But with Bioware's SW:ToR on the horizon, I think Lucas pressured SOE and forced them to shut it down prior to Bioware's launch.

Did anyone else play SWG pre-NGE (aka. when it wasn't crap)?
What are your thoughts on this?
If Sony did choose to shut down SWG, do you think this will lead to other shutdowns as well?

[jarshale]

I never played. What was NGE and why was it so shitty?

[Nocte]

Played from launch, quit before NGE. One of my favortite MMOs out there. There's a pre-NGE EMU for it, too, but it's still in development.

http://www.swgemu.com/

[username17]

NGE stands for 'New game enhancements'.
The dev's decided to make catastrophic changes to the entire game and actually turned it into a FPS. Instead of targeting and attacking, you had to aim and shoot.
It was a very bad idea was NOT well received.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

On 12/15/2011 Sony will be shutting down Star Wars: Galaxies the MMO and their Trading card game.

I played it up until the NGE and LOVED it. My entire team of coworkers (10 ppl) played in our own City on the Plateau outside of Tatooine.

I forget what server I played on, but I had my first PvP experience on SWG.
My co-workers and I did stuff for fun like giving up our bikes and riding Banthas instea, etc.
Then the NGE came out and it all turned to shit.

Well, Sony has finally bit the bullet and cancelled the game.
This is the first (second? Tanarus?) MMO Sony has cancelled to my knowledge. I have a feeling they would've continued to Milk the cow until it was bringing in no profit.
But with Bioware's SW:ToR on the horizon, I think Lucas pressured SOE and forced them to shut it down prior to Bioware's launch.

Did anyone else play SWG pre-NGE (aka. when it wasn't crap)?
What are your thoughts on this?
If Sony did choose to shut down SWG, do you think this will lead to other shutdowns as well?

MxO comes to mind as well, as far as cancelled sony mmo's. They've got quite a few on life support as well--if the new EQ isn't worth a shit then they really just need to close that whole studio down <_<

[Gustahn]

The shutdown is what i have heard, near the same time the new mmo is going to launch.

Considering LucasArts has final say on the direction it makes sense.

As far as SoE i think the only mmo they scrapped was Matrix?

They have so many titles on skeleton crews i would honestly say Planetside would be next.

[Goofier]

Saw this coming during the beta. Still have the discs somewhere, think some Star Wars nerd will buy 'em as collector items?

[Zadrian]

I play on the EMU.. it's got a lot of bugs since its in pre-development, but it's still fun.

[hdawg06]

I play on the EMU.. it's got a lot of bugs since its in pre-development, but it's still fun.

Too bad not much has changed in over a year. They have been working on that for 3-4 years and they are still years off until they develop a finished product. I have little faith that it will actually be playable on a regular basis in the next 2 years.

[Zadrian]

Actually there has been a good amount that has been changed.. the list of what's broke and what's unimplemented is out of date, i think..

Either way, it's still fun.. Can do resource collection and work my way up the skill trees.

[username17]

I might check it out. Never though of there being a P99 equivalent of SWG.

[hdawg06]

Actually there has been a good amount that has been changed.. the list of what's broke and what's unimplemented is out of date, i think..

Either way, it's still fun.. Can do resource collection and work my way up the skill trees.

I still have a lot of issues with combat and mobs falling through the world or becoming untargetable. Plus, there does seem to be some lag.

[Secrets]

Too bad not much has changed in over a year. They have been working on that for 3-4 years and they are still years off until they develop a finished product. I have little faith that it will actually be playable on a regular basis in the next 2 years.

At least it's not EQClassic.

[fuark]

At least it's not EQClassic.

God damnit Secrets. Old brown drybone skeleton models. YOU HAVE THE POWER. :D

[Zadrian]

I still have a lot of issues with combat and mobs falling through the world or becoming untargetable. Plus, there does seem to be some lag.

Yeah there are some targeting issues. But meh, i get by it. I just enjoy speeding around.

[Wigglepoo]

Ahhh SWG. It could have been so much more.

I'm certainly not a purist. That's reflected in my choice of character. I played a Creature Handler/Medic/Rifleman. I focused mainly on CH.

In my opinion, the CH was the single greatest pet class ever created in any game. While being decidedly non-purist, the concept and, to a lesser extent the execution, was brilliant. A combat-centric pet class that could be leveled entirely without engaging in combat. A pet class with access to damned near any npc creature mob in the game as a pet. And not just one, but a virtually limitless combination of pets and thus, a virtually limitless combination of pet combat styles.

It was never balanced correctly. It was never taken seriously by the entirety of the playerbase. It was never respected by the devs. But I miss it. I surely do.

[Doors]

NGE was awful. Played that game when it came out and quit sometime before the NGE but I did have fun with it. Sad to see Sony shit it all up like that.

[Eyeke]

I quit at JTL. was really fun though. one of my favorite rpg experiences to see that universe played out.

[Doors]

I think I eventually had a Commando or something. I always thought the game was fun before NGE. Wanted a Bounty Hunter or something back in the day, wasn't dedicated enough to grind out Jedi.

[jarshale]

so there are no playable emu servers yet?

[Zadrian]

There is a playable emu server, but it's a tad buggy, so you'd have to put up with it until development is finished/picks up again

[Nytewind TP]

I played SWG the first month or so when it first came out, I loved the land & graphics (where cool back then) But after that month there was sort of a loss in content and it got boring. I went back to EQ lol

[Trademaster]

Beta'd SWG and my input was that there were too many bugs to be released, it really needed (imo at the time) 6 more months of testing before release. Lucas wanted it out though so out it went. At release the game lacked vehicles, space and most importantly, content.

We finally got "content" in the form of an instanced "Corvette" (My first run through the Vette was all kinds of fun, left completely black bar'd)

JTL introduced space and space combat (which was more thought out than the entirety of the rest of the game) but still lacked content.

Then as SOE/Lucas felt that there was a "best" skill build, the did the "Combat Upgrade" to balance the classes, the game lost droves of players as the "Combat Upgrade" broke entertainers and crafters as they were considered "non-combat" therefore "unaffected" by the combat upgrade. The combat upgrade introduced so many bugs it was in worse shape functionally than it was in beta. From here I get fuzzy as I unsubbed for a couple of years, but there were issues where a character could either get no experience from killing a mob or dead. There was virtually nothing in-between. Entertainers and crafters were no longer playing, so combat fatigue and equipment degredation was removed. And, as with any skill based system there was a "best" skill build that players gravitated toward. Before even working out the bugs from the CU, (8 months after the "CU" upgrade) SOE/Lucas did pushed out the "NGE" which made the combat upgrade seem like a smooth and polished change. removing the skill based design, making crafted items vastly inferior to drops, and allowing players to start a Jedi without having to unlock. Jedi also lost their "alpha" status in essence becoming simply a melee character that got to wield a glowing nerf bat. Server populations disappeared.

Over the past 5 years, SOE has cleaned up a number of the bugs they introduced with their game mechanic changes, but more importantly, they added content, and mechanics to make it easier for players to develop their own content.

It isn't the swg that was released, but it is entertaining to play if nothing else for the space combat. I was of the opinion that the combination of play styles that swg had to offer would be a good blueprint for future MMOs, It had flight combat, the ground game, crafting, (best crafting design released), a card game and even tools for some actual role playing. (not just kneeling at a private location cybering), but with the way it was forced upon their customers, incomplete, bug ridden and unpolished, as well as the success of WoW, pretty much ended that.

Personally, I thought combining many different game styles into a single MMO was a great idea, instead of changing to a different game, different games were all available to you in the one title.

[BrandeX]

I'm surprised they didn't just turn both the MMO and the card game into a F2P entity, like they did with EQ2, although there may have been licensing limitations involved from Lucasarts. I do believe SWG CCG is currently the only official Star Wars themed online CCG out atm though.

[Gadzooks]

SWGEmu (http://www.swgemu.com/forums/index.php)

[Arclyte]

I dick around in the SWG emu server. There's a ton of critical abilities/items (even entire class trees) missing plus lots of bugs, and it looks like they're really understaffed.

It's cool that they've come pretty close to remaking old SWG, but a Project 1999 it is not.

[Engraverwilliam]

SWGemu is great...just make a char on CORE3 not Liberator (Lib is getting the wipe eventually)

... been enjoying running around punching things in the face :-) doing missions and such. nothing hard core

[Arclyte]

According to their forums the core3 server has been down for a few weeks now.

[Stumpes]

They have only a few developers and are not making much progress. I am not sure if it's because of the lack of funding or if it is just slow...

[BrandeX]

They might get more interest after the live servers shut down.