SG Review Ouch

[JonnyG]

I read this SWG review and all I can say is ouch.

http://content.guru3d.com/article.php?cat=gamereviews&id=49&pagenumber=1

Has anyone played? Is it really that bad? I was pretty bored with the beta version and then ran into a time crunch so didn't play after beta 2 so I'm not sure where the world stands.

JonnyG

[Mi Tes]

That reveiw was rather harsh. I usually don't go off what others say about games, because I prefer to try them myself. However, I got SWG on the 26th, but haven't played yet. Tried on the 26th but couldn't get the login to work. And yesterday decided to see the dev chat for Mythica - and didn't bother with anything else. Today perhaps I will give it another try and will let you know what I think once I play. I read though the "quick start guide" and it seems helpfull and well written.

[JonnyG]

I also don't go by what a reviewer says. Although I think a group of reviews does make me lean one way or another. I'll be interested to know what you think.

JonnyG

[chrislye]

As you can imagine, everyone on the Mythica team is watching this one with much interest. We actually want SWG to succeed, maybe grow and legitimize the market some more.

However, so far it's off to a rocky start, and the "buzz" that I'm hearing is largely negative. Lucas Arts & Sony have about 3-4 weeks to turn that around, otherwise I'm afraid we're in for another black-eye for the MMORPG genre.

Would love to hear what folks think of the game once they've had some time with it.

[JonnyG]

I spent time with the beta and was lost. Did the tutorial, then would come out into the world. Get a mission and start running. About that time the kiddo's would demand attention. So I'd leave. Next time I was on I would repeat.

I'm a huge star wars nut and really want it to succeed. I hope that things get better for it. Some of what they've done sounds really great.

JonnyG

PS. Chris, you're definitely an early riser.

[Mi Tes]

Status: It took me about 45 min to subscribe this morning (find a Station name that wasn't already taken) because it didn't save all your information when it found the name was already taken so constantly going back and filling in the information was a pain. There were subscription options for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and a year which I liked. It did a great job after the station name of continuing to flow you to the next screen you will need. I have been downloading for about 45 minutes now (still downloading) and noticed SWG is currently down for a patch.

Server Status
All servers are up except:
TestCenter
Bria
Ahazi
Corbantis
Flurry
Eclipse
Gorath
Kauri
Lowca
Radiant
Starsider


SWG Server Update
06/28/2003 08:18 AM

All servers will be down for an update at 6 AM PDT June 29th. The downtime is expected to last for around three hours.

[JonnyG]

I'm glad I got my Station name a long time ago. In the beta it seemed I was on that download screen a lot more than I was in the game. Although thats somewhat to be expected.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't do the patch more in the middle of the night.

Good luck. I'm definitely hoping you enjoy yourself. I want to play this game, and need to hear some encouraging news before I go out and buy it.

I bought 2 games 2 weeks ago (Burnout 2 and Midnight Club 2 for the X Box) so I'm a little leary about asking the wifey to buy another unless I really need it. Especially considering that I want Midtown Madness 3 for the X Box.

JonnyG

[Mi Tes]

Here is my n00b view so far. I got in - finding some servers were open (I don't remember what server I used, so I hope it reminds me when I log in again). Also, I hope there is some way to click past the intro - like AC1 so you don't have to see the intro a million times.

The character creation gave quite a few options - but normally just bigger and smaller height, weight, nose, eyes, lips - not the randomness that AC1 had. The "torso" option was quite funny - just a bigger chest for female characters and for the male characters it would give you broader shoulders and bulkier legs. Different colors and patterns were nice. There won't be many who look alike which I think is a good thing.

The training area gave some reasons why you were there, but one thing that was rather difficult for me to get used to was the way to move. I like the static camera in and movement by the arrow keys like AC1. Here you move and look around by the mouse (a kind of more advaced Shadowbane movement) - so that was a big difference and I don't like the changing camera views (kind of like Uru). Just doesn't seem that logical. Combat was like AC2 - you click to start fighting and it keeps fighting until you kill something, you die, or you hit the peace button (including the kind of cartoony aspect of having numbers of damage flying out). Seems like the officers in the training area were doing quite a bit of dancing (not sure why) just seemed kind of out of place because it didn't match what they were talking about - destroying your ship accidently.

Also, I noticed that people walk through you. When you get transported to a town, your just kind of dropped - not sure what to do then - directions about how to do missions or something would have been helpful then. There were quite a few other characters also in the area - so was nice you got dropped where others were. I will need to read the entire guide because didn't quite get what I needed in the training area to play without reading. After messing around in game for a bit and looking around, couldn't figure out how to log-off - had to ask (you /sit then /logoff) kind of like AO. I prefer AC1's click off. The help screen missed that basic information. Also missing in the training area or help option was information on how to use the map or where it was located. When I was at the area where you get missions, told you where you would need to go for the mission - but because was unfamiliar with where the map was and how to get somewhere would have had a few issues. I also didn't get how to use the keys on the bottom of the screen because you couldn't click on them with your mouse - so will need to read up on how to use them. Was strange also that you couldn't understand some people when they talked because they spoke a different language. In addition, the training buttons don't tell you at the same time that you want some skill how much you currently have so having to click back to see if you can afford some skill. The graphics were nice for the most part, but you would be running and then a tree that you hadn't seen before would pop up before you - kind of like Shadowbane.

Will read the entire manual and try again in the next few days. So far the main things I am not impressed with is the login, movement of your character, camera angle, and help screen that doesn't give the basic stuff I want to know. Also not too excited about the AC2 combat style, but it isn't too big of a deal for me. I do like the character creation uniqueness and that the game is so heavily populated already (it is nice to go into a city and find other people there, a real social place). Also, another good thing is that it seems like lots of options for things you could train - such as odd/interesting things like performing.

[JonnyG]

Thats kind of like my impressions during beta.

I always seemed lost.

I believe if you hit the alt key it will make your mouse control a cursor to click on the icons at the bottom.

JonnyG

[Jotun]

I know that before I went out of town, there was extensive discussion of SWG over at gonegold.com I suggest having a look over there.

[bigcapo]

Well here's my take on the whole SWG situation...

I got in on the end tail of the second beta shuttle and stayed thru release. There are definitely some things within SWG that are great ideas, but they are still quite buggy and need more time to be tweaked out before they can reach thier potential. I have already cancelled my subscription, but i plan on coming back in about 7-8 months and see what progress has been made.

I really don't want to dissect the whole game here, but I will point some other things out real briefly.

Player Tutorial - The first part of the tutorial that takes place within the space station is done rather nicely. It explains alot about the User Interface, and how do to simple tasks such as moving around, combat, and camera modes. The second half is the part that definitely needs more work. This pertains to the 'Holocron'(a manual tutorial and knowledge database) which is -supposed- to open up for you once you land on your starting planet. There is an enormous ammount of info inside of this Holocron, the Getting Started section is supposed to take at least 45 minutes if you go through it step by step. Most people tend to skip over this because of the large time sink involved in using it, yet when they have problems they don't even think of coming back to it to see if there is a possible answer to thier problem within. As you encounter new things for the very first time, it is also supposed to open up and explain about it. This is still buggy as it does not always do that, and if the server is lagged, it might not pop up until 10 minutes later.

[Player Tutorials have always been a big deal for me, It's one of those things that bothers me if the tutorial is not done to good and details on many minor things(not just basic) from the different game systems are left out. Tool-tips are nice, but are by no means a substitute for learning how to play.]

Controls - The default setting was not very comfortable for me, and as it seems lots of others too. On the other hand, i was able to find an option to change Keymap settings. They had FPS type, EQ Style, and UO style settings you could chose. Once i changed my type to EQ or FPS style.. it was much easier to use everthing i needed. I like the WASD movement controls personally.

Character Creation - They spent alot of time on this, and it certainly shows. It is one of the best creation processes I have used to date. There is little chance of seeing your Twin brother or sister running around unlike some other games out there. Everyone likes diversity, and I think they have definitely raised the bar on this particular system.

Email - Thier email system was nice, most problems from this were server side tho(emails taking long times to be received). Some nice points about it was the ability to attach waypoints, and send 1 message to multiple people like a real email would.

Travel - Well this is tough, they actually have done a decent job on it so far. They have the Shuttle ports to take you to any other city on the planet, and then they have the Starports for the Galaxy wide travelling. The bad part is the running around to areas where no shuttleport can go. It can take quite a while, but soon they will be adding mounts and vehicles, so that should remedy the situation. (Shuttles/Starports are still buggy also, they have a tendency to eat your travel ticket and not send you to where you want to go)

Combat - Hmm this is a toughy for me, I personally wasn't to happy with combat and also with weapons/armors. Selecting targets and switching between them quickly in battle can be rather painful sometimes. This needs work. Other than that, the queue system is decent and they just need to balance out more of the skills.

Crafting - I was never big into crafting, and SWG is the first game i really gave it a try in. I like the whole concept of creating items for myself or other players, but the game was saturated with crafters. There was so many people trying them out, that it was nearly impossible to sell most of the things you made due to the fact that every other crafter out there was building the same items. It turned into making items, giving them away free(which was hard to do btw), or destroying the item to make room in your inventory so you could build more unwanted items. People complain about the grinding involved in it, and i know the grind is only there if you make it that way. But people want to see progress right away, not a year down the road. Crafting needs to be much harder i think, that way it will deter others away from it and only the true characters who love to craft will be involved in it.

I'm kind of drawing a blank right now, and i know later on I will think to myself Oh yea... I forgot to mention this..

So if there is anything else, i will put it up sooner or later.

BigC

[werdna685]

Here's my two cents about SWG.


I like star wars, and i would definately consider playing swg...but im gonna wait another few months to find out if they can pull everything together. No mounts, no vehicles, no major story or quests to go along with it...like people said, difficulty getting about where no shuttles go...it just seems like a bit of a mess. Right now it looks like a bunch of repetitive deliver / destroy missions that dont feed into some bigger arc story. I definately get the feeling this game was put out way before it should have been.

Hopefully since mythica is an in-house production the dev team will get the respect they need from the publishing end of microsoft and are allowed to finish the game before its released.