Star Wars Galaxies: First Impressions are deceiving

I remember the first time I loaded into the Test Center for NGE and thinking OMG what is this garbage, I was horrified. I got myself together and held it in as a professional and thought this cannot be for real. Alas, it was reality, and I did pinch myself a few times to make sure. Since then many readers and players have approached me and asked the question everyone was looking for an answer to "What do I think of the NGE?" and my reply was "Let me play it for a while and try to grasp the entire concept and full ideas then, I will make some sort of comment on the NGE."

I tried everything possible to grasp onto the NGE and at many a time like most others, I almost gave up, it was so alien to me, I was lost in a game I was so familiar with for so long. I even remember saying to myself I lasted thru the CU, JTL, ROTW, ToOW, there has to be a way to make it past this hurdle since a lot of the friends that shared the burden had now quit the game.

Then, there it was right in front of me, in big bold letters waiting to /whap me into the next expansion, it was right there in the title itself, New Game Enhancements ( N E W ) /DOH!. Then it hits me, I am so used to the old game, the old controls and all the old stuff maybe if I took a free trial in another MMORPG for a week or 2 and stayed away from the actual in-game of SWG then come back and retry it as if it were a NEW game to me, I might have a different opinion.

After being away from the in-game of SWG for a couple of weeks I came back and started again into my adventures, and found that approaching the game as if it were a NEW game I had not played before, was a much easier transition than just trying to over night convert to a NEW game system. I was learning the new keyboard layout as if I had never seen any of it before and learning the combat system from scratch. I still have the memories of SWG pre-NGE but I am now treating this as if it were a clone of the old game I loved and I am having much success in a NEW version rather than no version.

When I read that the combat is faster that was an understatement, sure we don't have all the wasted fancy graphics that lag the game from here to eternity, instead, they gave us raw combat that is fast as hell and don't blink you might miss it. We can now actually solo mobs and last longer against higher level mobs and nothing feels better then running into a crowd of low level NPCs and ripping them a new one, you feel like a god or a Jedi /snicker. Even the PvP system seems to be more fun with the combat system fairly balanced you don't know who to bet your credits on to win, as it is all in speed of the actual player, and how well they know their toon's abilities, and not the finesse of showboating. Jedi can win a battle just as well as they can loose one.

Sure I see other MMORPGs gaining subscribers and, peer pressure is a thing that will never go away, but, no other MMORPG can offer me 3 games in one: (Land Game, Faction System & Space Adventure) all in one, nor can any other game offer me the faces of Movie Stars I grew up with and some I wanted to be in my imagination as a child ( Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Boba Fette or Darth Vader). I am now seeing myself with the chance to play out my childhood imagination and do it with the fun of meeting others from all over the world, having the chance to meet new friends, assist new players and still be that movie character I wanted to be as a child.

Now I am not saying that this new system is not without it's faults, bugs or glitches but, we have to remember that this system is as new to the Q&A Team and the Dev Team as it is to the rest of us and they are having their nightmares as well trying to keep up with and find fixes for these that arise in the game and get them written in code, tested, debugged and put into live game A.S.A.P. On a better note it was mentioned that with the merger of many of the professions down to 9 instead of 30+ it would be easier to make fixes for these and, I have been noticing a major change with the patches and updates lately, the servers get patched, go up and actually stay up instead of the old system where they would be patched and be up for an hour and then taken back down for four or twenty-five hours.

I am seeing new items added to the game, new skills, new loot, new weapons, instanced missions, non combat professions being addressed in the near future with their own XP system and much, much more content being added every other day as well as many a fix for professions and bugs and I am glad to say I am actually starting to really like this NGE and I am looking forward to seeing more enhancements added to this new system, and from the SWG boards, I have been keeping a close watch on upcoming changes and additions and I am liking what I see. /jedimindtrick You will like the NGE /LOL.

All fun and joking aside I am going to make my prediction finally that this was a smart move on the part of SOE/LEC to do this massive overhaul of a very broken game and start providing us with a game that is actually starting to come together, I am putting my money down now that in 2006 SWG will be back as one of the biggest and most popular MMORPGs on the market as well I predict that many of the vet players that left will see that the change was for the better and will return to SWG and enjoy the new enhancements and fun.

For me I am headed back to see if I can figure out how a Tier-3 Pilot can defeat 4 Tier-4 random spawns in space that are blocking my Tier-3 mission critical, and , I am going back to what I love Star Wars Galaxies and most of all my in-game friends.

Happy Holidays Everyone. Hope to see you all in game.

Robert Bloodraven Greene
Press Staff
SWG WarCry
SWG.WarCry.com