Customer Reviews

Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed Expansion Pack

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(86)

 

 

Hundreds if not thousands of people waited in great anticipation for the release of Star Wars Galaxies. Beta came and those of us fortunate enough to test the game diligently went about our duties testing and making bug reports. Soon it became apparent that not everything was being fixed or the bugs would crop back up in later releases.

Day of the announcement came that the game was to be released and almost unanimously the Beta Testers cried out for more time. The game was not ready. We were not listened to.

Bugs, broken professions and shoddy customer service from Sony Online Entertainment plagued us from the very start. Combat Professions were broken to the point that only 1 or 2 of them were viable in PVP combat. Yet we were told by the CRM that we had to be patient, that the Combat Revamp would fix all. That was in November of 2003.

Patiently we waited, The Jedi class (which should not even be in the game at the present) was created and revamped. "Now it's our turn" thought the Galactic Warriors on both sides.

Not to be

SOE has decided to devote all of it's programming resources to making JTL (Jump to Lightspeed) which is an expansion, instead of fixing the core game first. WE and YOU can look forward to a MASSIVELY broken game that as far as we can tell will never be fixed.

SWG was great in concept and alot of us looked forward to many years of playing.

After 3 months of beta testing and over a year of playing, this is one hard corps gamer who will never buy another thing from Sony Online Entertainment.

The game is not worth the money, and I refuse to pay for a Beta Test game while getting the shaft from the company that makes it AND being lied to all at the same time.

I'll start with my summary before anything else: avoid this game at all costs! There's nothing more to it than that.

Now, the question is why? I've played Star Wars Galaxies since launch. It was a fun game. It was one of the best games I've played. There were relatively few bugs, there were quests, and there was an extensive profession system.

There was. Star Wars Galaxies no longer exists. They screwed over their customers after 2 years of gameplay. Expansions were just a means of getting more money before altering the game entirely. You can no longer switch professions, and there are only 9 professions. Jedis are now available to everyone, and they are terrible.

I could continue on, but it only goes downhill from there. Do not buy this game. They just want your money.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to see what this game is really like now, you need to read the reviews in the Star Wars Galaxies: Starter Kit and ignore the earlier ones here. A lot of these reviews are old, and that is a BIG difference. Had I written this review before October/November, I would have given it praise. If I wrote it before June, possibly 4 or 5 stars. They changed this game OVERNIGHT (In November) and right after everyone preordered the expansion! It was all one big scheme.

My title says it all. I was involved in Beta, and was thoroughly disgusted with this game at the beginning. The joystick control was terrible. I even quit playing beta, thinking, "this is the end of SWG."
Fortunately, I had preordered JTL. Since I'd paid for it, I loaded it up...
...and was very happily surprised. New art, new scenes, new interaction, new action...awesome. JTL really rounds out SWG. I love the space combat, and the joystick controls are really good, in my opinion. You don't have to worry about getting an uber ship right away...in fact, you can get a free starter ship as many times as you need, and I filled out my first skill boxes with it no problem. The ships are no where near as expensive as I'd thought they be, so that was great! Most of the expensive components you get through combat. I had all the components I needed before I even bought my first ship. It cost 300K. I was expecting a ship to cost around 5 million. So, no, you don't need to spend 3 months gathering credits. Unless you're an idiot. But I digress.
The icing on the cake is the release from SOE that the next patches will focus on the ground game's combat system. They'll probably be done patching by March of next year...I'd say 4 to 6 months, though we may be pleasantly surprised. They're already taking apps for the beta, so we'll see.
My advice is...take the advice of people who stopped playing 6 months ago, and said "give it year" only, I think you might want to check the game out NOW, instead of being a newb in a fantastic world 6 months from now :)
SWG's potential is being realized!

Jump To Lightspeed is the expansion for Star Wars Galaxies, so for the enjoyment of JTL, the basic game must be good too. And frankly, it is not good.

While the graphics are amazing and the choice and variety of professions is huge, this is not a game you would want to play for long.

The combat system is very poor, and PvP combat is broken, with only a few professions being any good. There is simply NO Star Wars feeling to this game, because no-one looks like the movies. Imperials and Rebels all wear exactly the same armor and Jedi are horribly unbalanced and it takes an eternity to get Jedi. Furthermore, melee combat characters are much stronger than ranged combat characters, which is a travesty for this kind of game really.

The Developers show time and time again they cannot keep their promises and they only go for quick fixes that lead to new bugs. Priority lies with getting new people to join by announcing various gimmicks and 'carrots' and they need that because the departure rate of current (veteran) players is very high.

Keep an eye on their forums to see if the game improves in the long run, since these kinds of games do tend to change, but currently I would not buy it.

The ONLY reason I would suggest NOT buying this at release, is simply because its an add on (meaning you have to also BUY the Core game Box title) to a very badly produced game.

SWG has many awsome things within it. Many Many concepts have a great deal of potential, However the implimentation of it has been far from stellar.

The biggest issue at this time is that while you may buy this expansion..you start where everyone else starts...On the ground. Players make everything...including ships. We CHARGE..so you will have to spend time making cash before being able to be in space in a craft that is worth being there in.

The CORE combat system is radically unbalanced..as such I wouldn't recommend buying this untill your sure of the Core Games Stability and Balance.

"Jump To Lightspeed" is a decent product. However, it is a decent product welded to a horrible product that you have to buy to play it. It's the space-flight/space-combat expansion to "Star Wars: Galaxies." And for that, my review of JtL drops from five stars to one.

The problem with SWG is that it recently went through a massive in-game redesign (the so-called "Combat Upgrade"), converting it from an unbalanced, buggy, yet challenging game to (ta-daa!) an unbalanced, buggy, BORING game that should have remained in beta for massive bug squelching and game-balance work. Unfortunately, this new combat system was rushed to release so another expansion ("Rage of the Wookiees") can be released May 5th as part of the merchandising push for the new Star Wars movie.

For those of you who have played LucasArts' award-winning single-player game, "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter," you would be on very familiar ground with "Jump To Lightspeed." I suspect that this expansion is a direct port of "X-Wing's" code. If you are a casual player looking for good Star-Warsy space combat, I'd strongly urge you to stick with "X-Wing," and avoid SWG altogether, including this expansion.

The star wars galaxies upgrade is HORRID!!!!! They took a great, fun game... and made it into by far the single worst game i have ever played in my entire life overnight. I thought it was completely ridiculous before how it was a neverending grind of 6 months if you knew what you were doing to make padawan....then months on end from there....but at least the game was fun to play. What i didnt like before is the fact that if soe actually talked to ANY star wars fan EVER(obviously they dont give a crap what the fans think or they wouldnt have ruined the game on us).....they would find that nobody wants to be a dancer/ image designer/ wookie washing dishes for points to build his character or whatever dumb ideas they have goin on here......people played these characters because they HAD to, and had NO other choice. I would have payed 50 bucks a month to start out as a padawan because any fan of star wars wants to play a jedi right??? and not in a year from when they start after putting in 4+ hours a day. It doesnt matter now because the game is completely unplayable and ruined anyways.... and i feel sorry for anyone who is just starting out on there, as it will probabally take them 6 months to master a regular profession that they will find is completely worthless anyway....if they even stick with the game long enough to even accomplish that. My character is a master tera kasi/ master sword/ master fencer and died trying to fight 2 weaker monsters at once. the combat goes so slow it is pathetic, and horribly boring to even bother with. I saw a jedi running from a pack of huurtons (dog creature that a mid lvl character could fight no prob before) Jedi is supposed to be powerful i thought from watching the movies right? How pathetic to see them run away from weak creatures....but what do i know....maybe thats what lucas intends for them and has in the new movie huh???? The game lags horribly now because there is too many calculations and stats they are messing with now..... more stats only bog a game down and create LAGGGGGG and sure as hell doesnt make for a better game.
They say they beta tested this stupid combat upgrade and it would be cool if you could find out who the retarded morons were that said this was a good thing, and gave it the thumbs up......have they ever played anything else before , or were all of the beta testers on crack or just plain stupid, or what's up??? Im with everyone else and am cancelling my account and am going to look into some other games as anything will be better than this crap is now ..... I could go back to playing pong, and it would be a better and more exciting experience thatn playing star wars galaxies is now.

Non-existent customer service. Very buggy core game. After 1 year StarWarsGalaxies is still practically in BETA. I have zero faith in SOE and I will not be purchasing JTL.

Most of the previous reviews have covered what is wrong.

There are glaring bugs and broken in-game systems that have not been addressed over the past year. They range from the annoying like warping up to 150 meters away when you dismount a vehicle, to game-breaking such as major balance issues between the professions.

The community has been in a unproar becaues of a recent announcement that fixes which have been promised to the community for months and months will be pushed back indefinately to develop jump to lightspeed. They feel like their monthly subscription fee is paying for the development of JTL because all of the core game devs are working on it instead of the ground game.

This game has enormous potential but gross mismanagement of resources and wrong prioritization of issues is wearing on the subscribers.

To cite an example....despite the fact there are glaring game-breaking bugs, the devs decided to revamp the Image Designer profession...a functional profession with only minor issues and largely unplayed by most. Meanwhile the Smuggler profession (a core star wars icon) sits waiting completely broken.

Don't mistake the negative reviews as people being malicious to self-serve themselves. The negative reviews are posted by people who truely want SWG to work and be the awesome game it has the potential to be. They are doing this to get the devs attention and make things happen for the benefit of the game.

My advice? Don't buy it-yet. Keep an eye out though because if the management of dev resources improves from where it has been, this game could be sitting at the top of the MMO heap someday.

Right now they have a lot of ground to make up for though.

DEVS PLEASE DON'T LET THIS GAME GO THE WAY OF EARTH AND BEYOND.

Ok no one has played this game, but past performance will let you know.

StarWars Galaxies came out just over 1 year ago. There were some initial problems, but soon everyone was able to log in.

Since then the game has become something of a shame, with a dev crew that continues to lie to the community and push back updates.

1. JEDI - they are everywhere, this means the timeperiod means nothing, and you can count on them getting first dibs at publishes.
2. Combat - A combat balance was supposedly in the works over 6 months ago. It is now delayed until post December. Thats right this games development team hasnt fixed combat in over a year. As it stands PVP is broken along with PVE.
3. The Galactic Civil War. This was scheduled to come out this month, but has also been pushed back until around December. Thats right the Whole empire vs rebel thing is not going to be looked at until 1 yr. 6 mo after the games release.

4.The Devs are incapable of making this game work correctly 1 year after release, they wont even look at the major issues until this expansion is out. So if it will take rouphly 1.75 years to fix the first game Imagine how long it will take to get the expansion working.

5. AVOID AT ALL COST!