Star Wars Galaxies Combat Nerf Announced

[Evil Avatar]

In the newest Producer Letter to the Community (http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Julio Torres Producer Letter) from LucasArts Julio Torres, this unfortunate LucasArts employee outlines a totally new strategic plan for combat in Star Wars Galaxies.

Over the past year we have been working hard to respond to feedback we have gotten from players, fans, focus groups, and other research. This feedback has ultimately centered on one key area: the game does not feel like a heroic Star Wars experience. Currently, the early game has a steep learning curve and there is no clearly defined path of advancement or adventure. Many of our fans who bought the game did not see enough Star Wars style action early-on and ultimately left our world. It is our goal to change this and improve the experience for all players.

We are introducing a series of game enhancements to Star Wars Galaxies this month that include both significant enhancements to the live game as well as a completely redesigned experience for new players. The primary areas of focus include combat and profession and character development. The combat depicted in the Star Wars films, fiction, and canon that we have all come to know and love is fast-paced, action-packed, and visually intense. In order to stay true to the Star Wars fiction as well as to make the combat system more engaging, we have shifted the turn-based paradigm towards a much more engaging fast-action combat system where you control every move! After receiving feedback from members of the community, conducting extensive focus tests, and evaluating the combat systems of other games in the genre, we are confident this new fast-action combat truly delivers what players, fans, and gamers have come to expect from a Star Wars experience.

As mentioned earlier, combat is not the only area where we decided to focus our improvement efforts. We have also improved and brought more clarity to the profession and character development system.

Changing a live game is never easy. We realize that players do not like to have their experience altered. These enhancements will take some getting used to and for that reason we lined-up some incentives for the current players to enjoy as our thanks for your loyalty to our game.

We value our community and want you to stay with us. Our goal is to continuously improve the Star Wars experience, the one we all know and love from the films and fiction; action-packed, story-driven, Star Wars fun. With these features and enhancements we are setting the stage for incredible things to come for Galaxies with more announcements happening in the coming months.Can you really go from turn-based to real-time using the current Galaxies game engine and skill setup? It seems like it would be smarter (and easier) to just scrap the current game and spend 24 months building a new one. (It might not look so eye gougingly ugly also.)

[thecrazyd]

Its not really a nerf...

[Demize99]

Not to mention you don't have the stigma of it sucking so bad.

[Liquidize105]

Is there another established franchise that's fit for mmo-rization that could take on WoW? WoW's probably its own worst enemy.

2/3 of it is in the delievery, but still...

[rein]

Is this live yet? If not, when? I want to try it out if it is more action based. Hell, if it is WoW just lost me again and it is back to the station pass.

[Emabulator]

I agree with the legendary Evil.... you can't polish a turd.

[eatme]

Goes to Test Server on Friday.

Also, this isn't a nerf. Then again, most of the headlines on this fucking site don't make any sense. And when they do, the writeup is either misleading or wrong. That, of course, is why we all visit.

[Sloth]

SWG isn't ugly, i think the problem with the graphics is that they try to be too real instead of the cartoony graphics like WoW that look good because of artistic style.

[The Iron Weasel]

I doubt it'll happen, the game will be shut down before this happens

[Kefkataran]

Nothing in what you posted suggested this is a nerf. A major change, yes, but I'm not sure what makes this a nerf. Was that just a way of overdramatizing this story?

[reimomo]

2 years for the first Combat Upgrade.

4 months after that they totally revamp the brand new system.

so they're going to add bullet time in what, 3 weeks?

SWG isn't ugly, i think the problem with the graphics is that they try to be too real instead of the cartoony graphics like WoW that look good because of artistic style.

Nerf or no nerf, SWG is ugly. Half-assed attempts to mimic photorealism before photorealism was possible (in both EQ2 and SWG) weren't pretty. High-poly claymation with little artistic quality is ugly.

[Savok]

Was that just a way of overdramatizing this story?
Oh I think just about anyone who has spent a week here knows the answer to that one by now :p

But I do agree, changes like this you might as well start over, make SWG2 on the promise "we know what we're doing this time!". Granted people have spent a long time on some of their chars, so maybe get find a way to transfer them over to the completely rebuilt game, as that's the only thing stopping them pulling the plug on SWG and making SWG2.

[eatme]

I doubt it'll happen, the game will be shut down before this happens

It'll be shut down before Friday?

[Taco]

This is a kind of change you would only see if they were expecting it's last breath to be taken soon. Years developed around a turn based game, and two years after it's gone live a swap to real time?

[rein]

I got this info from SW Stratics (http://swg.stratics.com/content/news/GeneralNews.php#newsitem1130979039,13266,).


II. New Fast-Action Combat

What do you mean by "fast-action"?

Combat is now more action-oriented and feels like the action-packed combat depicted in the Star Wars movies – the new system is about 4 times faster than the current combat interaction. Movement speeds are fast and weapons fire at incredibly high rates of speed. These high rates of speed for movement and combat bring the Star Wars Galaxies combat experience to life and put players in control of every move and swing of a weapon.

However, ranged combat is not the only way to enjoy this great feature – melee combatants will also attack in similar fashion using the same keyboard and mouse functionality.


How will I control my character with this new type of combat?

To engage a target you will simply left-click on the target and right-click to use a special-attack, command, or item.


It looks like it isn't going to be 100% action based.. ..just a modified turn based system. After reading over all of the information the game actually sounds like it is going to be decent. I will hold off reinstating my Sony subscription until I hear more but it is intriguing. I like that they are going for more structured classes with the Iconic Professions.

[Chris_D]

I've read through the improvements, and as someone who had some amount of fun with SWG (quit after 6 months) it all sounds good to me. I don't know if it would persuade me to reinstate my account but a lot of people do still play so it's good for them.

[Demo_Boy]

ok so its turn based at 4x speed?
basically its SW MMOG with the playstyle from COH.


Works for me.

I hope theres a 500 mb demo. No way am i blowing a Gig download on trying it though.

[jwbxx]

People still play this game? Crazy. Playing this game over games like WOW and other great mmorpgs, is like picking a pinto over a Bentley.

[thecrazyd]

People still play this game? Crazy. Playing this game over games like WOW and other great mmorpgs, is like picking a pinto over a Bentley.
Sounds like the general consensus from people who never played it, or, at best, played it for a month from launch.

[Evil Avatar]

Its not really a nerf...

Anything that potentially screws up the game for the bulk of the people playing it is pretty much a nerf.

I wonder if this will last as long as the last "combat upgrade" or if they will be rolling this one back in a week when their current fan base freaks out?

[thecrazyd]

Anything that potentially screws up the game for the bulk of the people playing it is pretty much a nerf.

I wonder if this will last as long as the last "combat upgrade" or if they will be rolling this one back in a week when their current fan base freaks out?
They never rolled back the CU. It is still in effect. You should know what a nerf is. This doesn't screw things up, just changes them.

[Deadend]

So, they are changing a game, that the only people who still play... must like.. to get new people to come play.

No, this is stupid.

It will just piss off those who are still there and will not attract new people, as who gives a damn about a ugly Star Wars game?

[Maskatron]

Logic tells me that anyone still playing this game will play any SW MMORPG no matter what.

How many people do you know who wanted to like this game but don't play it now, because in it's present form it's all kinds of suck? *raises hand*

[Demo_Boy]

its not a nerf so the news title is bad....


but deadend is right on the money. they only stand to lose users.

[bean19]

Anything that potentially screws up the game for the bulk of the people playing it is pretty much a nerf.

I wonder if this will last as long as the last "combat upgrade" or if they will be rolling this one back in a week when their current fan base freaks out?

Didn't work for CoH/CoV. They freaked out WAY more than the SWG people (at least as far as post count). They messed up the first thread with too many posts and had to make another one. Well over 7000 posts about 3 days after the announcement was made, but there were other threads too. . . probably more than 20,000 posts speaking out against the enhancement nerfs and they kept them.

Btw - I also agree that they should just start development on a new SWG game. Too much is fundamentally wrong with this one. They'd have to change it so much that they'd basically be making a new game anyway.

But then they probably don't have the budget or backing for that or that would be what they are doing.

[Kefkataran]

Anything that potentially screws up the game for the bulk of the people playing it is pretty much a nerf.


Well, a nerf is something that lowers the power of characters. This doesn't sound like it will for sure lower their power. Could be a nerf, but the info you posted doesn't make it sound like one for sure.

[Deadend]

What if they only had the liscence for one game and it's expansions?

So while they have the budget to make a SWG2, Lucasarts would want more money for it, so it would simply be cheaper to rebuild the current one into a new one.

[Mason]

Yeah, the design behind SWG was broken originally. I'm sure they've delivered on some of the promises that were broken on launch (bounties on players, player-run cities/communities/politics, an actual galactic civil war to participate in), but even then it doesn't add up to a coherent experience.

Do they still keep a player from really specializing in both combat and non-combat fields? Because that's really one of the worst design decisions for me, those should be completely independent. But they've probably redone the skill system like three times since I played.

For some reason SWG was designed with the non-combat MMO player in mind, and keeping all forms of combat completely optional screwed up the whole game concept. I've got nothing against games having robust non-combat components, but to entirely tack-on the whole combat component (which is certainly what it felt like at launch) is going way too far to pander to the pacifists. The non-combat parts weren't even fun, since everything was dominated by quad-accounting macro guys.

Hold off on calling it a nerf until we get more details. But the smart money is on the fact that no MMO ever makes changes that significantly decrease your treadmill time unless expansion packs and low population have turned the lower-level areas into ghost towns. Not sure if SWG is in that category yet.

[notmetalenough]

Are they adding any content? If not, I'm pretty sure this upgrade will still give no one a compelling reason to play SWG. I went from 1 to 80 in a week, and then stopped playing a week after that when I realized there was nothing to do.

[Savok]

Good point Deadend, hadn't thought about that aspect.

[Bushido]

I loved X-wing games, I loved playing the pen and paper star wars. I always said I'd buy this game went jump to lightspeed came out....but then I tried the demo and the game was a lag fest. Characters walked funny, had very little variation in skins and models. Just a big let down...so ahem is it worth playing with jump to lightspeed?

[thecrazyd]

I loved X-wing games, I loved playing the pen and paper star wars. I always said I'd buy this game went jump to lightspeed came out....but then I tried the demo and the game was a lag fest. Characters walked funny, had very little variation in skins and models. Just a big let down...so ahem is it worth playing with jump to lightspeed?
I would wait until the NGE is released, but sure. The space is cool, and it is really something different from anything else on the market.

[Chris_D]

As someone who's actually played the game extensively (unlike many of the posters here) this sounds like a vast improvement to the current system which should be welcomed by most current players. Considering the star wars license, the subscription numbers for SWG are poor and there's no point in just plodding on with the existing player base.

I actually think one of their worst choices was to tie it to the episode iv to vi movies, rather than just go with their own original content, eg. KOTOR. For starters, having thousands of jedi running around when there's only meant to be about 3 is completely daft.

[Chris_D]

I loved X-wing games, I loved playing the pen and paper star wars. I always said I'd buy this game went jump to lightspeed came out....but then I tried the demo and the game was a lag fest. Characters walked funny, had very little variation in skins and models. Just a big let down...so ahem is it worth playing with jump to lightspeed?

The character generation is one of the best features of SWG. I loved that I could take the time and craft a really good unique player model, and then not have to walk around the game seeing mirror images of myself everywhere (eg. Guild wars).

[bean19]

As someone who's actually played the game extensively (unlike many of the posters here) this sounds like a vast improvement to the current system which should be welcomed by most current players. Considering the star wars license, the subscription numbers for SWG are poor and there's no point in just plodding on with the existing player base.

I actually think one of their worst choices was to tie it to the episode iv to vi movies, rather than just go with their own original content, eg. KOTOR. For starters, having thousands of jedi running around when there's only meant to be about 3 is completely daft.

Yes, they should have used another setting completely. Personally, I won't ever go back to SWG UNLESS I can play a Jedi, and like you said, that would not make sense in their current setting.

Evidently they wanted to use the fiction of the world during this time, but it barely exists. I remember going to see Han Solo and finding him to be this super short (idiotically so) dude. Later, when I had a far too powerful character (by grabbing every dodge skill and damage mitigation skill and wearing elite armor I only received about 1% of incoming damage), I went to fight the Darth Vader NPC. . . who just stood there while I killed all the Empire forces around him. I used to have screenshots. I never found Luke, but then I left about 2 months after launch.

[Royal Fool]

Does the game draw on any of the extended universe content? If it doesn't, Sony sucks. Never tried this game out, but I'm really not interested in buying an account unless I'd get it really, really cheap, haha... and even then I'm not sure how impressed I'd be.

[bean19]

Lots of information on the changes from Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarsgalaxiesaned/news.html?sid=6137122&page=0)

[Malovech]

Does the game draw on any of the extended universe content? If it doesn't, Sony sucks. Never tried this game out, but I'm really not interested in buying an account unless I'd get it really, really cheap, haha... and even then I'm not sure how impressed I'd be.

Oh man get a grip! The extended universe is worse than the prequel movies! Crappy writing at its finest.

[XenonCJ]

2 years for the first Combat Upgrade.

4 months after that they totally revamp the brand new system.

so they're going to add bullet time in what, 3 weeks?



Nerf or no nerf, SWG is ugly. Half-assed attempts to mimic photorealism before photorealism was possible (in both EQ2 and SWG) weren't pretty. High-poly claymation with little artistic quality is ugly.Just because you have some crap computer that can't display the game correctly doesn't mean it's ugly. Now here's where you tell me you have 10 GeForce 7800GTXs all in SLI... Yeah Whatever.

[Maskatron]

I just read that Gamespot article. It sounds like a huge improvement.

[bean19]

I just read that Gamespot article. It sounds like a huge improvement.

I'd do a new story on it, but. . . yeah, I guess I'll do a new story on it.