How the Game has Changed for Me, And Why I Stay!!!

by Instigator Bonecrusher....



In the Beginning:
There were no player cities, there were no speeders, there were no mounts, there were no ITV's, there were no levels, there was no space, there were no spaceships and, there were no JEDI's!!! If you wanted to go somewhere, you more than likely walked. Shuttleports/Space Ports took over 15 minutes, and even then they were expensive to use. Just one Mountain Squill in Mos Eisley took the entire city of new players to kill it and half of them died in the process. If you died, you had to go get your corpse, or buy insurance which was far more expensive than all the gear you carried. And it took weeks to earn 100k credits for your first player association hall.

So what made me play this game that was missing so much???

It was unlike any game, I had ever seen. It wasn't just a Star Wars Game, which is what got me to buy it in the first place. >>BIG STAR WARS FAN <<.

You could be anything you wanted. You weren't trapped in one class/profession. You could be multiple professions. You could be a master of a few trades or the Jack of all trades. There were so many ways you could play, it was a sence of freedom, unbound by the rules of one profession, an no levels. And the Vastness, the games before it. You would run for a few minutes, and have to zone, to go to the next area, back then you could literally spend all day running across the planet in real life time, before you got to the other side. (which i actually did) The more i messed with the professions, to find what i wanted to do, the more i liked it. I was a proud, Swordsman/Creature Handler/Novice Armorsmith. And waypoints, man did i like those, a game that actually sent you where you had to go, without you having to look all over to find the place. And faction pets, were so cool, to have a Stormtrooper fight with you and for you, was awesome.

I have played other MMORPG's before it, and in the 4 years I had played online games, before SWG came out, I never PvP'd, ever... IN SWG I LOVE TO PvP. You actually got something for fighting, or lost something, such as your bases, faction, and etc. The game had so many bug's, and glitches, and etc. but it was probably the best game I had ever played, even with the bugs. And PvP fights were so varied, no two players who fought each other were alike, everyone had their own combat style, and skills they used, some were elite, some were newbs. And you never knew who was or wasn't going be able to kick your butt from their appearance alone. They had no levels listed, and you had no idea what skills they had, until they used them. And You had to wear armor that protected you from Fire/Acid/Cold/Electrical & etc. And when finally Jedi were added, it wasn't a class you could just walk up and get, you had to EARN it, and when you did, it was the ELITE of all the Professions. A Jedi back in the day, even a low level, would eat you up and spit you out before you had the chance to Blink.

The CU = Combat Upgrade:
I remember when players were so excited, and waiting for this. It was suppose to make PvP and certain classes more balanced. And over night, it took away so many players, it wasn't the fix that the players thought it was going be, it was a complete revamp of the entire combat system, everything was changed. They added levels to the Game, before this change, players actually had to use their brains to beat other players, it was a matter of your skills, and how you used them, that allowed you to beat other players. I watched, as player cities, went from full of people, to ghost towns, and Mos Eisley became deserted. Before the CU, my #1 asked question asked of me was, "How do I get Jabba faction?", After the CU my #1 question asked of me is, "Are they ever going add a Pre-CU server???" And 90% of all players who stayed in the game at the time, went Bounty Hunter, due to the respecs. To hunt all those Elite Jedi, whose skills had been completely changed.

The New Game Enhancements = NGE:
This is where they took away all the 32 professions, and remade them into 9 Professions, and you could start the game, as a Jedi, not an elite profession Jedi, just some Jedi wanna-be type, not even close to as powerful as they used to be. They added this about a week, after they added the Obi-Wan Expansion. And again, I watched many players leave the game. Was i happy with these change, no I wasn't, but at this time I was working for Allakhazam, doing site info of SWG. Would i have left the game at this point, had I not been working for Allakhazam??? I'm not sure of that myself, I think I probably would have, but since I'm still here, not sure if I would have. The Expansion of Obi-Wan might have been the only thing that kept alot of veteran players from leaving, and the influx of new players, from the Revenge of the Sith Movie, is probably what kept the game alive at this point.

The Game Today:
With the Addition of Player Collections, and GCW Ranks and etc., the game has slowly, but surely begun to come back to life again. Is it like it used to be? No. Is it as much fun as it used to be? No. But its getting there. I find myself playing more now than I have in the past few years, and I've steadily notice an steady influx of both old and new players coming to the game, so some improvements have been made. What do I like about the current system? What I mentioned before, the GCW & Collections, and stuff like Faction Armors, battle droids, the bringing back of the creature handler profession, granted its an expertise system now called Beast Master. Heroic Encounters, and etc. Would I continue to play the game SWG if I wasn't working for Allakhazam now? More than likely, yes. The Star Wars Fan in me, just doesn't want to give up.

Instigator Bonecrusher of Allakhazam...