Customer Reviews

Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided

5 star:		(146)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(81)
1 star:		(442)

 

 

I would have previously rated this game 4 or 5 stars. Unfortunately I am no longer able to play due to a 27 hr download via dial up for a recent patch that I am unable to make(DSL and Cable are not available in my area). Poor planning by Sony to inconvenience paying customers, especially in a shrinking market now dominated by XBox and PS2 gamers. It would have been so much easier to add this new patch to the upcoming Wookie expansion due out fairly soon. I'm disappointed to cancel an account that I've had for almost 2 years. I've got to spend my gaming $$$ elsewhere now.

I've played, enjoyed, and loved this game since fall of 2003, but Sony Online Entertainment has stripped this game of everything that once made it unique, and has just changed this game into an EverQuest clone. On top of that, their handling of upset customers has been the worst example of public relations I have ever seen. From anybody. The only way I would ever recomend this game to anybody, is if I knew they were feeling down about not being treated poorly enough.

I will never do business with Sony Online Entertainment again.

What was once the most innovative and unique MMORPG in the gaming community has now been blanketly conformed to match that of all others.

The tag line "The Greatest Story Ever Told... Yours" now belies the true nature of the game. One of the most important aspects of the previous SWG was that you had individuality. Crafters heavily competed against each other to create the best products possible to earn business. Since the 'Combat Upgrade' there are caps on what the best can be. The only way to gain individuality is to go fight a rancor without armor, to which other players will place the thought process behind such an action as either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.

Most negative feedback posts to SOE's site have been deleted giving the impression that there is still viable gameplay to be had. However, as anyone reading the feedback on various gaming websites can see, that the game has been forever changed, and unfortunately, for the worse.

SOE seems to have forgotten that the most important piece to this once great game, is their customer base, and has forsaken the input from it. Buyer beware.

Even though the Wookie extension has not come out (which I bought three of and will be requesting a refund for), SOE forced a combat upgrade on everyone despite the cries against it. One of my accounts (I have five) is a artisan and does not fight. They made it so i cannot wear any armor at all and I was killed by a lowly animal just trying to reach my vendor on the gentle planet of Naboo. I have played every day since the beginning of the game and loved it! Now I am forced to leave because it has morphed into some sort of strange game I have no desire to play anymore. It's very depressing and I will miss all my friends and will miss playing with my characters. It's simply horrible and I think SOE must WANT to destroy (end) the game or something cos everyone I talk to in game tell me they are leaving the game also due to this horrible upgrade.

I have played this game for over a year. I loved it. Recently, they released an untested upgrade to the combat system. It ruined the game. In the current state, I would strongly recommend a different game. If they fix the new upgrade it used to be one of the most complex games on the market. If you are looking for a game where the people making the changes take the consumers comments seriously this game will only frustrate you.

I have been playing since launch, tested the CU and gave the CU plenty of time. I had four accounts and canceled them all. I had a jedi, 2 different Master Combat characters and an Entertainer Merchant type character. I loved and now miss the game that was: The game that needed balancing and new content. I'm not going to tell you not to try out the game but I don't feel its worth it for many reasons:

1) SOE does not listen to their customers. Nor do they provide adequate support for their product.

2) The CU presented no new content. SOE put out a new Wookiee planet even though the game already has plenty of unused planets. I think this was the crappiest attempt at providing new content to date.

3)CU replaced what kept SWG interesting and players coming back. Now the game is like any other out there sporting a level system and forced grouping except it has more bugs.

4) Entertainers were rendered useless.

5) Crafters are borked and got the short end of the stick since they now die constantly.

6) SOE gives the users back the exact same content but this time forcing them to redo it grouped. As a master pistoleer/BH I had access to almost all the content in the game. Sure I had to group to complete some of it (as it should be) but having to group to have access to over half of what I once could do, limited my options, instead of providing me with intersting new stuff to do.

7) I bought Jump to Light Speed the moment it came out. As a master pilot I have found the space portion of the game to be just that "space" - mostly empty with repetative content where content is available.

8) Bugs - The CU is full of nasty bugs. What is not expected and should not be tolerated is the level of bugs present in a released product. SOE ignored the player base and even went so far as to push the CU ahead of its announced release date even though the CU testers made it clear it was riddled with bugs.

9) Ever felt like tearing your hair out? A game is just a game and no one should ever feel this way but trust me on this, put time and money into something to do with SOE and you will feel like tearing yours out due to their complete disregard for the amount of time, support, and money you put into one of their products. Doesn't matter if you lose all of your items, money, experience due to their bugs - SOE treats their player base like target practice. 0 Stars for customer service.

10) The lack of PVP or correcting the PVP issues were not properly addressed. The CU does nothing to promote PVP. Part of this is due to the rapidly declining player base and part of it is due to the fact that PVP is short lived and boring now.

11) A Level system does not equal a more interesting game than combat spamming. It just makes it boring in a whole new way. Thanks for that.

12) SWG = Grind Fest

13) The role playing, parties, and everything that was once possible due to a more flexible system is gone, gone, gone! SOE's idea of providing content is to remake the game at different intervals to keep the player base having to relearn everything. They have been doing this type of time sink crap since the beginning. Nerfs/changes/Nerfs/Changes - all without a care to what the player base (the ones testing the beta) have to say. Need something to do? Relearn the game!

14) Doctors are now pointless.

15) All low level Jedi's are screwed unless they wish to spend their time forced into visibility - leaving them screwed anyway. SOE is clearly trying to cut down on the amount of jedi and just stop short of deleting mass amounts of jedi accounts. They can't really do that but they sure know how to cause the jedi to do that themselves. Many have already left.

I don't expect you to take my word for all of the above. Many of the pro-CU players (and there is very little of them out there) claim that only power gamers, or low level characters or those who haven't tried the CU hate the game. That is rubbish! I watched as ALL of my in game friends canceled their accounts after many hours testing and trying out the CU.

Buy the game - give it a try - maybe you will like it, maybe you won't. I am willing to bet that over 90 percent of you who do try it will wish you hadn't.

I didn't sell my accounts I simply canceled - it is the least I can do to send a message to SOE that this rubbish won't be tolerated. Doubt it will make a difference though but I think it is far better than selling my accounts and having them think that these vet characters still play because the CU was a success.

Even if you are new to the game and have not been affected by the loss of what you loved in the game, I am sure you will find the bugs, the lack of content, and the crappy service make this game a bomb.

This game is now nothing like it was stated on the original box. It is a sloppy mess of EQ2 style play overlayed on a Star Wars look. There are many bugs cause by the current "upgrade". Customer support is minimal at best. They took a working game and made it into a non working one. SOE basically has shown total disregard for their customers with this. Many customers complaining and their words are ignore or erased on forums board. I would not suggest this game even for the die hard Star Wars fan. lacks many qualitys that you would come to expect from a Lucas design. I think the name should be changed for it is not Star Wars anymore.

Someone wrote a review saying that anyone who pans this game is a sheep, that we're just following ONE disgruntled person who didn't like the combat upgrade. Why aren't there any sheep following the people who LIKE the upgrade? Baaa!

Please do yourselves a favor, pay attention to the 90% of the people who are expressing their valid disgust with the combat upgrade. It has ruined a game that I loved. I don't want to quit because it was fun, I've grown attached to my characters, and I've enjoyed my online friends. But this is just not the same game, and it's not a game I want to spend time learning all over again.

Don't waste your time, money, or dignity with this game. This is _NOT_ something that George Lucas has a lot of say in, and trust us when we say _IT SHOWS_. Sony Online Entertainment is utterly clueless, and they have shown it with this "upgrade".

This is the exact thing those of us, hundreds of us, maybe even more, were all stating during the Beta phase. I, and countless others like me, started testing the Beta the very day it was up on TC. Right from the beginning we stated immbalances, problems with PvE combat, problems with the new skill prequesites, problems, problems, problems.

You know what happened to our daily posts?

They were *ahem* "archived" *ahem*

Yea.. Archived right into the Trash Bin.

And now everyone is going through this garbage live. At least _we_ were experiencing things on TC, there was the (false) feeling of still having some hope that things would get better. The worst part about the experience on the TC servers was they barely let the Jedi players test things. I don't even think I saw Jedi players until the last 5 to 7 days (no, I'm not a Jedi player.). The whole Beta only last a little bit over 3 weeks. Three weeks?!? And it's on live already?!?

They needed _way_ more than three weeks. They basically ripped the entire class/level system from EQ2, tried tossing the level part of that system on top of the already-existing skill-based system, and look at the mess we've now got.

Class/Level systems _do_ work, as long as the game is designed around that functionality. Most RPG games out there are class/level. However, when you take 1/2 the system from one game, and try blanketing another entire system with it, you will break things.

While I was on TC I tried full melee-only templates, I tried full ranged-only templates, I tried combinations of the two. All-Ranged was the best. However, things in the PvE world were still whack, and of course now the rest of the people are seeing what things are like. The public is _not_ happy. I admit, there are people who enjoy it. But the negative response is utterly over-whelming.

It was over-whelming on TC, and it's even more-so now in-live. Just look at the reviews at Amazon.com: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000067FDY/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-2566986-0847239?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=videogames">Clicky</a>

Lack of developer input. Lack of customer consideration. Lack of good judgement. Lack of taking to heart, all the brilliant customer feedback us that helped test things were dishing out on a dialy basis.

I posted copies of some of my more detailed TC Forum posts, just in case things were "archived" as they were, here: <a href="http://ib.hostaforumfree.com/index.php?mforum=swglife&showtopic=6" target=_blank>Clikity Clakity</a>

Many of us who helped out on TC really tried to stop this mess from happening. We tried to help get them to produce and release a balanced, playable, fun, new-user attracting, veteran-player keeping product. And not only did they ignore those who helped test (most of us almost every day right until the very end), but they even pushed everything, in all it's buggy glory, to the live servers EARLY.

You wanna find a nice MMORPG to play (and not worry about a monthly subscription, which ROCKS!), check out <a href="http://www.guildwars.com" target=_blank>Guild Wars</a> instead.

i have played swg now since the original beta 3 phase of the game, and have seen it go through many changes, the last one, however, has killed the game off, by changing the game from skill based, to level based, (and also by almost totally destroying the crafting community in the process) i would advise anyone contemplating buying, to wait, and see if they fix the system, in its present form, it is unplayable. it wouldnt surprise me if the game closes in the next 3-4 months. before buying check the game forums it could save you a lot of money, and heartache.