Getting what you see

Over at Raph's Place today, Raph posted some thoughts about WYSIWYG loot. Basically, the question is this:

If you see a mob with a spear, leather jerkin and sandals, why are you not able to loot that spear, leather jerkin and sandals when you kill it?

And, if you could, in what game could you best do this?

Continue reading Getting what you see…

SWG- Emulators and ‘Insiders’

Perusing the headlines at slashdot yesterday, I come across an article that almost made me fall out of my chair:

The Star Wars Galaxies Emulator hits Alpha

Continue reading SWG- Emulators and ‘Insiders’…

SWG Third Anniversary Announcement

Received a new email from SOE this morning regarding the Third Anniversary for Star Wars Galaxies.

While the announcement does not yet compel me to return again to a Galaxy Far, Far Away, it is always great to read the progress they are making towards completing the goals they set when they unleashed Order 66, err, the New Game Experience upon the genre.

Continue reading SWG Third Anniversary Announcement…

E3 Day 2- and End

So the daily surprises that are no longer surprises kept me from the show until almost noon. Meetings, emails, teleconferences from what would, in the real world be considered "noisy" but which actually was rather quiet relatively. I've theoretically been at the show for two days and I've gotten to actually walk it for about nine total hours.

But it all ended and I was free once again. While I wanted to hit South Hall again to finish up with games I hadn't learned enough about yet, it was my duty to actually, you know, see the other 2/3 of the show. To Kentia and West I did go.

Continue reading E3 Day 2- and End…

SWG Roadmap

While I've felt the New Game Experience for Star Wars Galaxies was a good start, I have been concerned that it has remained only a start for some time now. The NGE has been live for three months, and so far, only a relatively few elements have been added to bring a further sense of completion to it.

My concern was enhanced by a relative silence from the SWG team about their plans. When would collision detection go in? When would crafted weapons and armor actually have meaningful benefits in combat? When would the system become more consistent between old and new?

They've now begun to give some insights.

Continue reading SWG Roadmap…

Changed Rules

I know SOE draws a lot of ire from the MMORPG community. Some of it is certainly deserved based on their past actions, even if it is misdirected, like blaming someone on the EQ2 team for changes to SWG. But the sheer scope of changes they have been making seem to imply a renewed vigor within their various development groups. Individually and collectively, these changes resulted in me taking a new look at the games I thought I'd never play again.

Basically, I underestimated their willingness and ability to change.

Continue reading Changed Rules…

SWG timeline moving forward

Anyone who's played SWG or followed the recent NGE events probably knows that while a very interesting game with appreciable breadth of playstyles, the game itself seems locked within temporal stasis. Star Wars is about a story, a series of events that happen over the course of Galactic history.

Star Wars Galaxies meanwhile is set in a nebulous time between Episode IV and Episode V and has been locked largely at the same moment in history up until around November 12th when the NGE was pushed to the live servers. And even then, the biggest indication that the timeline had taken a baby-step forward was in seeing Han Solo on Tansarii Point Station rather than still sitting in Nym's Stronghold on Lok handing out missions.

This stasis seems to be ending.

Continue reading SWG timeline moving forward…

Save our Cities!

I'm in a funny place in my MMO gaming career. I've spent a solid year playing World of Warcraft in all its glory, cancelling only because I was getting bored with it, but not for anything Blizzard has done wrong. I've been spending the last six weeks playing Star Wars Galaxies, first curious by the NGE, and then actually enjoying the quest-based gaming that's never really been there before. And, having gotten City of Villains for Christmas, I'm playing the Hero side of things, graced by Cryptic's holiday gift in the form of a 30-day jetpack.

These three games are, effectively, fairly far apart on the span of MMO titles list. But being so different, they've highlighted a long-standing issue I've had with a facet of the world itself.

Some game's towns are all but lifeless.

Continue reading Save our Cities!…