They are cutting the classes down to 9. You can no longer delete the tree and make your character a different class. There is still only 1 character per server (unless you have a Jedi already).
You don't lose your level, you can transfer your level to whatever new class you pick.
Jedi is just another class now. No longer a huge pita to grind out. This has resulted in 90% of the people on test being a Jedi.
From what I hear the combat system is moving to a 'twitch' system....whatever that means.
Supposedly it has a much more immersive feel but they've completely gutted diversity in characters.
One of the correspondents was saying last night that this is just the first installment of changes. That LA (LucasArts) decided to break it up to minimize bugs and make for a smoother transition. Its looking like LA has taken over and is calling all the shots now. If Ep 3 hadn't been so bad I'd actually be happy about this.
Inside each person lives two wolves. One is loyal, kind, respectful, humble and open to the mystery of life. The other is greedy, jealous, hateful, afraid and blind to the wonders of life. They are in battle for your spirit. The one who wins is the one you feed.
Taken from a board I visit....I don't think it was the original poster's post but they never said where they got the info from.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you see it -- this is not SOE
Lucas Arts is totally behind this one
Historical Points
–- Patch 24 was canceled which would of introduced the Ranger Class upgrade and then all of suddenly a couple of weeks later they are introducing NGE
--Many of the Programmers that where involved in CU have been “relieved: of their managerial duties….
-- From the official release and presses – Lucas Arts have been conducting their own development, their own separate focus studies where they interviewed players individually and in groups to better understand what they wanted. They conducted their own private surveys and studied the other games.
Most of all Lucas Arts was dissatisfied with how SOE team was running Star Wars. First Lucas Arts ask that they cancel the FRS since the idea of Jedi killing other Jedi to get higher status seemed “un Jedi like”. They where unhappy with the sole reliance of killing (IE grinding) for combat skills, and they where not satisfied with some of the professions that they deemed “un Star Wars like” (IE was is a Ranger doing in Starwars). And, They has some issues with some of the particular aspects of the game that seem to run contrary to the feeling of Star Wars.
So – The Crafting skills remain the same but they combined some of the professions since some of the biggest complaints theyclaim was you needed two characters to be a thorough crafter. And I think from what I read they also stated that most crafters in the game where pure crafters (not sure I agree with that last point).
Combat system had the highest level of dissatisfaction across the board so from the feedback they based the new combat system more on twitch base FPS with some modifications.
They added more Star Wars and expanded universe jargons in the professions (Look at the special abilities of the Jedi) and decided that additional skills would be available with quest (quest for knowledge).
They got rid of professions that they claimed where played by less then 1% of the player population (lack of interest) which cost skill points and reserves the right to reintroduced them later.
And they wanted more quests for items, skills, and experience. They felt that a person should be able to gain skills and levels through quests as well as through grind killing; the emphasis on quests.
So the verdict is out whether they succeed or not but this is not SOE this is Lucas Arts. SOE failed in the eyes of George Lucas so they no longer call the shots in respect to the game. Remember this game may become the primary vehicle to continue the Star Wars experiences since ther are no more Movies as of now. Lucas has a right to be concern.
Finally, the argument that they are dummying the game for the XBOX doesn’t seem to fly (this view is popular in the star wars forums but I believe the source to be pure cynicism). The game is not really getting simpler, Space is remaining the same, Crafting and its intricacies are the same (which is very complex), Politician is remaining the same as a whole, and the sheer number of items and houses are remaining the same. To me that means the complexity is more or less the same.
They just change the assortment of professions (same skills), change the combat system, added a more robust Questing system (at least they claim to), and added what they believe to be more “Star Warsy” things (whatever they are).
So this is not another CU by Sony, this is Lucas Arts taking control. Weather they succeed or not (in the control or in the change) is yet to be seen.
Inside each person lives two wolves. One is loyal, kind, respectful, humble and open to the mystery of life. The other is greedy, jealous, hateful, afraid and blind to the wonders of life. They are in battle for your spirit. The one who wins is the one you feed.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you see it -- this is not SOE
SOE failed in the eyes of George Lucas so they no longer call the shots in respect to the game. Remember this game may become the primary vehicle to continue the Star Wars experiences since ther are no more Movies as of now. Lucas has a right to be concern.
Yeah well George Lucas failed at Starwars anways. The attack of the Scnoes and Revenge of the Faulty Plot Lines are a monument to how far out of touch he actually is with anything.
The game is not really getting simpler, Space is remaining the same, Crafting and its intricacies are the same (which is very complex), Politician is remaining the same as a whole, and the sheer number of items and houses are remaining the same. To me that means the complexity is more or less the same.
that dont fly either. Have you see the amount of weaponry they have taken out of the game? My Character used a Carbine I had recieved on a quest in Revenge of the Wookies expansion. They have now removed the gun from the game. The T21 which was usually rated as one of the best weapons in game ( Mine costing around 1.5 million credits) has been taken from the game. All Krayt weapons have been removed, most of the higher end weapons are scraped. I dont think the comment "we are keeping all the same stuff in the game is right. They took out alot of stuff according to the Test Center list.
Well tomarrow is the big day here in SWG land. I have logged onto both the test servers and the main servers..Just to see...here is what I found....
on the test servers
Jedi are slowly realizes they just got screwed by a telephone pole. The jar of vaseline they handed to the jedi is basically 'a new lightsaber' wooohoo...
Jedi have populated to the point where it looks like a cockroach infestation at a Tiajuana hotel. You turn the light on over CNET and about 300 of them scatter on instinct and there are usually 4 actual alternate classes sitting there.
Bounty Hunters have been seen sitting together for warmth. Most of them are looking at the weapons they have bought and cant figure out what the hell to do with them. Most are overheard saying "what do you wanna do?"
"I dont know what do you wanna do"
"Lets do a NPC Bounty"
"Sure"
At This point they stand walk 100 feet away grab the misison and turn and shoot the guy standing 100 feet away from the terminal.
Crafting classes are still confused as to what exactly they are supposed to be making.
On live Servers
Creature Handlers are staging a protest. I think alot of them are actually putting a physical price on Raph's head. However alot of them have rallied and are selling CL10 Pets at about 2.5 to 10 million per.
Bioengineers are sitting in front of thier manafacturing stations staring in disbelief.
Most have take on the Rainman personae. And have dubbed Black Tuesday as "Heavens Gate" Im not sure what this means but I have heard purchases of Koolaid, and jello pudding have gone up.
Sales on merchants look like Big Lots in a agressive take over has placed their spokeman Jerry Van Dyke in charge of marking the prices.
Bounty Hunters have declared this day Jedi Love day. This is where the Jedi, All levels and abilities are hunted. Bounties are flying off the Terminals faster then cards in a rolodex in the middle of Katrina.
Jedi in game are being hunter in the last few hours like Sam Neil in jurassic Park. Jedi are trying desperately to Grind out thast bit of xp they can. While the Full Template Jedi keep screaming "Dont go into the Long grasses" as another Bounty Hunter takes out the padawan with a round from his carbine.
Smugglers are pushing Drugs on the newbs at a alarming rate. Most of the Newbies in game are walking around in a permanent purple haze and a few can be seen begging more from the smugglers.
Dancers, and musicains are huddled together against the coming night crying each other to sleep as if a guard is gonna come inside the cantina soon and drag one of them away for an execution.
Carbineers are found screaming at the top of there lungs "No Brady Bill"
Riflemen and Rangers are trenched in with supplies of food, bandaids and annuals of Deer Hunter Weeklys.
Pistoleers are screaming "They will take my gun when they pry it from my dead hand!! Or when the server comes down!!!"
Terras Kasi are prancing around singing "I get to be a Jedi"
Pikemen and Fencers...See Terras Kasi
Politicians and Mayors of towns are see in the streets screaming "There is no need to be alarmed!!! Citizens!! All will be fine!!! Trust the Government!!!"
Ugg. The more I hear about this the worse it sounds. If LA is behind the changes that explains the problems. LA hasn't a fucking clue what they are doing and haven't since the Wookiee christmas special (where they explained how Jesus came to Star Wars and how even the wookiees are christian). They are at fault for most of the problems SWG has had over the years. Funny how they are completely changing thier unchangable rules that helped fuck the game up in the first place.
Nag loking at the Jedis...man you guys got screwed over in ways I cant even imagine. I know we disagreed on alot of SOE products but I do feel your pain man.
The funny thing is the majority of people on the SWG Forums are bitching at Sony. SOE has nothing to do with these changes, and LA is completely driving the SWG ship now, with Julio being the main guy now.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. – C. S. Lewis
Well, Nag, since you and most of the people griping have quit or cancelled, I fail to see where you have room to complain about them fixing a game due to the massive amount of cancellation and disinterest?
Granted, this maybe fubar, but you are an example of what is wrong.
K, that may be the first <and only> pollyanna reference I get in my lifetime. LA is in lockdown mode until the wave of antagonists are gone.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. – C. S. Lewis
SWG has quickly removed this post (and its 20 pages of replies) but not before it was copied off for our 'enjoyment'
I don't expect you to take my word on this but I will share with you what I was told by a friend of mine who works for SOE. I can't give you any more detail like his position, department, etc for fear of him being identified. They apparently are bound by some air-tight non-disclosure agreements.
Below is what I was told:
Apparently, the NGE has really, REALLY stirred things up in Austin. All sorts of fingers are being pointed among SOE employee's as nobody wants to take the blame. Right now EVERYONE is trying to distance themselves from being responsible for making ANY decsions on pushing the NGE live. Every single employee is avoiding any connection to the NGE like the plague. I was told that the Dev's expected SOME account cancelations when the NGE went live, but my insider said they were willing to take those vet losses with the hopes of bringing in new subscribers over the holiday sales season. Also, the devs were counting on most of the threats by vets to quit to not actually go thru with cancelling. They have admitted, at least internally, that they number of cancels has FAR FAR FAR exceeded the number they were willing to take. As a result, there is beginning to be some serious discussion of a pre-NGE rollback. Several dev's are in serious jeopardy of being fired, and many many many of the support staff etc are polishing up their resume's because SOE has become the laughing stock of the online gaming community. No longer is it a badge of pride to work for SOE according to what I was told. Even my friend says he is no longer proud of working for SOE because of how they have destroyed their reputation.
Also, after having to report to LA on the NGE results, specifically the account cancels numbers, some of the big dogs from LA have flown into Austin for some serious intervention. No details on what that means yet, but it is known that Smedly and the senior crew at SOE have been behind closed doors for unusually lengthy meetings and have emerged with scowls on their face. The speculation is that LA is gearing up to crack down big time. (I would love to have been a fly on the wall in those meetings)
Because of the signifacant loss of subscriptions, customer service has laid off 25% of their support staff starting the 1st of January with more cuts expected.
All in all, the NGE turned out to rock the player base more deeply than what they expected. Talks are now underway on cutting the game off sometime in the first quarter of 2006. There is discussion with an outside company that is interested in purchasing the pre-NGE code with the aim of running a handful (5 tops) of pre-NGE servers, and maintained with a skeleton support staff. Right now this is apparently looking to be the most realistic result.
I will post more info as I hear stuff.
Added stuff:
Oh, and my insider said the Devs are being intentionally vague on their forum posting and player communication because they want to keep as many subscribers as possible right now. A memo was passed down to ALL Dev's by the SOE execs with a list of topics that are completely not to be discussed or responded to on the forums. It is generally feared by the SOE team that the more info the player base has, the more of them will quit the game.
Also, the game WAS in the pre-development phase on porting to consol (xbox, playstation), but that those cycles have been 100% stalled at the moment because the future of SWG is so uncertain. But I was told that if any Dev posted or said that consol talks were never taking place it is a lie because significant discussions had already been underway with the design teams experienced with porting PC games to consol systems and that the NGE was partly (not entirely) designed to acomplish this objective.
Message Edited by kootsi on 12-05-2005 01:59 AM
Message Edited by kootsi on 12-05-2005 02:11 AM
~Mahonra~ The Original Dancing Jedi of Bria (Sooner Born and Sooner Bred)
They should just scrap the project and sell the rights to Starwars to another dev team. Maybe then somethinhg decent could come out of the that franchise.
The problem here is Lucasarts last year completely took over managing this franchise.
It was originally Kosters vision for this to be a Sims Online version of Star Wars. That was semi popular, but they wanted more so they revamped it to be more pure MMO'ish.
A few months ago, LA came in and decided they wanted it to be simplistic and pure Star Warsy, a la WOW, versus complex and simulationish, a la old SWG.
What they did was ok, in design, but the implementation and ninja rollout without telling anyone ahead of time was complete crap.
What they really should do is completely scrap the Empire Strikes Back Universe and redo this as a KOTOR MMO. 90% of the players want to be Jedi, and making a game where Jedi are supposed to be rare for a Star Wars crowd is idiotic.
LA are morons though. That's evident to anyone who watched the prequels.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. – C. S. Lewis
I have yet to see more than 50 posts saying anything positive about this POS expansion.
Torres is set to go on Attack of the Show.. 10 to one this pussy is gonna be pitched softball questions. However if they open the lines this bitch might be grilled like baby back ribs.
kaharthemad wrote:I have yet to see more than 50 posts saying anything positive about this POS expansion.
Torres is set to go on Attack of the Show.. 10 to one this pussy is gonna be pitched softball questions. However if they open the lines this bitch might be grilled like baby back ribs.
I'll look for the tape of this.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. – C. S. Lewis
