Star Wars Galaxies - The BEST and WORST MMO Ever - a SWG Retrospective

I love when people explain what made past games good, bc it's almost always void of real things or in the case of classic MMO's, a complaint that they ruined the game by fixing it the wrong way.

The irony though, is a lot of the time players cannot explain why it was good, cant admit the bad parts were severe and ruining the game for almost everyone, unaware the problems that would occur which we later see in private servers, and clueless as to how to actually fix the severe problems without ruining the game.

Not that anyone is wrong. It sounds like NGE sucked bigtime and adding Trammel to UO did seem to ruin it too. Ironically both probably saved these MMO's though, as at least UO saw its subscriber numbers double after the game was "ruined". I imagine playable Jedi at the start and FPS shooting was hugely popular too.

I love these classic games more than their updated variants, but I am factual about history, pragmatic, and a game designer myself. The main problem with SWG & UO being ruined (not quite as sure about DAoC & EQ) is that while fixing the severe issues that ruined the game and saving the game financially, they ALSO ruined other parts of the game in the process.

In SWG, that was all the fault of the devs. SOE & Smedley were notorious for being the worst game company ever. Horrible decisions in everything they did. UO arguably saves themselves by "ruining the game" but also arguably couldve done it better - either way the FFA PvP had to go & the bitter ex-players are wrong to say it ruined the game. It saves the game for 90% of players and ruines it for the jerks who loved griefing PvErs. Let's just be honest, if you werent big into PvP then the game was saves not ruined.

SWG's problem, however, was never the Jedi. And the Jedi never ruined SWG. In fact making Jedi more common saved the game AND made it better. How do we know this as a matter of fact? Look at the arguments and then look at the reality: Pre-CU servers.

The argument: SWG was special because Jedi was rare and difficulty to get. Jedi were OP though and awesome to play as to compensate. They felt real.

The reality: Pre-CU servers, after being open for awhile, result in every player having a Jedi. They become more common than if you could be one at the start, if they are OP. Pre-CU servers then prove you have to not make them as OP. Pre-NGE servers all over show Jedi being "difficult" doesnt do anything but cause ppl to have a long quest they do anyway. Which takes away from the REAL best parts of SWG. As we see in arguments that Jedi ruined SWG by becoming a possibility. Everyone wanted to just unlock Jedi. Not play the game. Even the core designer Raph Koster said no Jedi for a reason. He was right. But Jedi didnt ruin SWG. Their existence as a starting class solves all the same problems that not having them solves, except ppl wont play if they cant be a Jedi so it hurts the health of the game. Thats subjective to have them or not, but objective that they should be freely available if they are in.

SWG was ruined bc of one and only one part of the NGE: the class system. Gone were 30 skill choices (Professions) and deep & unique character creation. Now you had WoW classes, like a Smuggler who could only use Pistols.

CU from the sound of it saved the game from being total garbage, bc there were only 2 combat professions (Powerhammer? & Unarmed? I forget the names, bjt remember everyone said it was 2 so OP you couldnt play anything else, it was so bad) CU brought balance to the fighting styles.

The problem with CU is it deleted all the progression from the game that was already there. Almost like a partial server wipe. That would make anyone who invested a lot, to instantly rage quit or be so angry.

But everything elese about the NGE and everything else about the CU seem to actually make the game better.

Bc SWG Pre-CU was actually total garbage bc of the balance issues, the Jedi obsession (bc you could be them but not easily, which was the problem!).

The solution was to either

1.) Do a balance update instead pf the CU, THUS NOT ruining progression. But this was more minor since NGE killed it not CU.

2.) Do everything in the NGE except the class system. So CU & NGE changes from a skill based system to a Profession system shouldve never happened.

3. Either remove Jedi entirely from the game so NO ONE could be them OR add them so anyone could be them as a Profession. However that would work. (It could be as light as making Force Sensitivity have a higher xp requires to rank up, or as heavy as making them weak until they get their saber at end game. Whatever.)

If I were lead designer, I know what I wouldve done. And it wouldve been the best idea. An idea they ALREADY had, but better. Permadeath for Jedi, BUT better bc you can always start as a Padawan. This means anyone can always be a weak Jedi without a Saber. And whenever they finally level up to a certain grind, they can do a hard quest for their saber. At this point they're either just as strong as anyone else or a little bit stronger. Then when they get their saber? They become extremely OP. However, the entire time there is permadeath.

I have also heard arguments for 3 lives instead of 1. I kindof like this, but only with the devs saying "Okay, we actually will tell you that you only get 1 life. That's it. 1 death and youre done. However due to disconnects and latency issues, we are going to go ahead and give you 3 chances so you dont need to file a report that you disconnected or lagged to death. So remember, you should only get 1 life. The other 2 are just so we are fair bc the internet outages and poeer outages suck sometimes."

Either that, or think of some other way. Like if someone files a report saying they went linkdead, Customer Support can restore their characters if their account is in good standing, or just to be nice.

Also due to today's P2W bullshit, it would please investors significant AND satisfy players I think, if they could pay to skip a Jedi from start to the saber quest. But that being the ONLY thing in the p2w shop and telling players, WITH FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY, that 100% of the funds raises by Jedi purchases will go towards hiring more employees to implement the top 10 voted content/feature requests by the entire community - with a server voting system to vote for what you want next in the MMO. I think everyone would accept that in 2023. But ofc you know capitalist corps will just pocket the money, so this would only happen if I had full control of such a company. IMO a fair way to raise funds to make everyone's game better.

And of course everyone else could just get there the normal way, for free (or just their sub cost, obviously) and the cost of the Jedi is minimum wage * hours average to completely become a Jedi Knight (real Jedi w/ OP saber).

Also allow Jedi's to pick ANY color of saber they want during the quest. No cosmetic purchases. As I said, Jedi skip is the only purchase and is expensive.

Imagine, though. A birthday gift IRL to give someone a free Jedi (with permadeath). Funds (likely MILLIONS) hiring entire teams going towards COMMUNITY voted content/features. Come on, that sounds okay. And maybe I pocket 20% in secret bc I am a gamedev and despite the fact I hate capitalism I live in a capitalist societu and hehehehehe YOINK!

The engine was crap, there was no content, the character models were so ugly, any dungeons they made were just caves with random NPCs spawned in standing around and maybe three crates in the corner. The combat was dire, the UI was like programmer art, it was a buggy broken mess, SOE just focused on Jedi and the servers were so bad you'd just lag all over the place most of the time. It was such a terrible broken MMO that for the first handful of months didn't even have any vehicles to get around on. There was no way to level up via questing until the NGE came out, even before that they barely had any quests and none of them would give you anything other than maybe a badge. It was a terrible MMO that launched and died on it's arse...................... But I loved it lol. The profession system somehow made it so addicting and when they came up with the NGE it was like removing the only good thing about it.

we need to realize what is community based and what isn't, those group of people playing could have made any MMO feel amazing. we really need ro put more respect on the community

I just miss this and my childhood so much... we will never have this game and those days again and it hurts. I love my life and am very grateful for where i am now. But i will never fortet this age and the memories... makes me want to cry man.

TIL The CU wasn't the WoWification update that I thought it was. Might go and give the post-CU fan servers a shot when I eventually decide to return

I remember the white wookiee protests after the NGE...good times. Well, bad times, but good times.

SWG: Restoration my beloved

What about SWG Emu? It's based on classic, pre-CU SWG in all its glory.

Also there is an MMO called Saga of Ryzom that resembles classic, pre-CU SWG.

the cringe is strong with this video

Shawkorrr - Elder Jedi - SancTuarY - Wanderhome

Jedi ruined swg... nge was just a knee jerk reactiom to everyome crying like babies about wanting to be jedi. But precu was already dying when everyone and their mom was a jedi.

Wigger in 2023… cool shit dude

I had no idea what I was doing on this game when I played for a few weeks. All I remember was selling items for random volumes of credits (such as 35m) and actually seeing them sell and wonder what on earth they were

Spot on Analysis!!! If you never played it, ya just...don't...know...!

OMG, this was a great game. There was no quests and no storyline, and I never, EVER ran out of things to do.

My guild had a weapon smith who was named "Child Labor", so if he made a blaster, it would be "Mark IV Blaster made by Child Labor". I liked it so much I bought a lot of blasters off of his vendor and hung them up on my wall lol.

He literally could not keep his vendor stocked even though the guild was going out getting him mats, his stuff sold so well.

Where do I get this game from?

I didn't like CU at first. But the combat was better, and they added a lot of content in a short time span. Kashyyyk, Bounty Hunter armor, they made almost all armor viable, multi-passenger vehicles +++ Then Trials of Obi Wan came, added tons of new quests which was great. Except the Mustafar bunker that didn't fit the theme or the environment. And shortly after NGE was released, all unique professions were removed and the new combat was terrible. No more GCW, a lot of random loot with teddybear backpack, angel wings + over saturated colour palettes on clothing/armor. I rather have pre-cu composite clone army than a silly carnival. Pre-cu gave you the best Star Wars feel, you made your own journey. Aesthetically CU was the most authentic to Star Wars. NGE turned the game for children with no real star wars vibes or theme. Everyone was following the same story line/path. It was no longer about your journey.

Before NGE Tatooine was mostly covered with Tatooine house and a few generic houses. In NGE Tatooine was covered with tons of gray buildings and it was no longer Tatooine...

this game sucked ass

The fact that we didn't know all langages and had to learn it to communicate with aliens is hilarious to think about it.

This kind of game would be impossible nowadays because the publisher would shot any dev coming with this idea 😅

music gave me goosebumps