SWG Tumbleweeds? Peiper returns …
Last night, I logged into Kettemoor after downloading the 14 day free trial. I had not played SWG since roughly October 2005. This momentary lapse in my normally good judgment came at a great cost in time lost, as a file, DATA3.CAB, was missing from the base SOE installer. I had to download that via a different URL — Of course, there was no instructions on that point other than that which I found through GOOGLE, and I had to wait for the failed install after downloading the trial. Total elapsed time to download and setup took me around 6 hours.
The fact that I even got near another SOE property will surprise a few of my friends (which means all, since I only have a few friends), as I hold great animus toward them for the way in which I was treated at the hands of SOE management at one point in the distant past. With that caveat aside, SWG is still the single greatest game design and Intellectual Property milieu in which I have ever played in the MMORPG space.
Over the last few weeks, I had been following a lot of the rants on MMORPG.COM SWG Veteran’s rant rooms about the apparent demise of my favorite gaming system. I am a bit double minded on the topic. I am not keen to see SOE profit or succeed while under its present administration; I still held out hope for the attributes that the game represents in an otherwise homogenous game grind MMO world. I can’t fathom a world without SWG’s mass customization, social interaction, and exciting back story. I still have not found the joy I found within the SWG milieu even after playing WoW, NWN1 Persistent World, NWN2, Dark Age of Camelot, Lord of the Rings Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars, and Tabula Rasa.
I see nothing substantially wrong with the NGE against which everyone issues their rants. Sure, they certainly dumbed it down, but I did feel a great nostalgia as I logged in to the world that I called home for 3 years. Once I figured out that I could still auto attack, I found the NGE combat interface very similar to Tabula Rasa. Some of the UI art now seems a bit adolescent since they put photos of actors in the game screens, but it’s something I could can get past.
When I logged in with my old account, I had a lot of interesting stuff on my person, and I was in the middle of a town on Rori formerly known as Yazoo City (of which I was Mayor and Founder). However, it is now renamed to HELL. When I put forward a /who, there were zero players on Rori. I wanted to get to Naboo to find people, so I jumped in my trusty space yacht at the Rebel Outpost and hit Theed. However, I had not cash, so when I arrived in Theed I ran a few missions. I needed the cash to get my house out of Imperial custody and for a place to store all the veteran loot I received for 5 years of loyal game play!
I found only three people in Theed, and there was not a single soul in the cantina. I set up my house (picture to follow) outside of the city near a player city called Imperia, and I changed the logo on the house to “PLAY AGE OF CONAN!” I spoke with two of the three people. One fellow chatted briefly, but he logged out to go learn how to transfer his alter ego to Starsider.
I had a nice chat with another player in a Rebel guild called <GSA>. Her name is Eliana. We chatted for about two hours regarding the state of the game. I will draw some conclusions in so far as her experience and my brief observations permit. It appears that most people on Kett have started moving off to Starsider [or another more populated server] or have left the game entirely.
I set up my LFG flag, and looked for people with whom to play. Population has apparently been decimated on the server for whichever reasons. The fact is — Theed was a ghost town. I remember a time in 2004 / 2005 when Theed, Kett saw hundreds of people in the starport, shuttleport, cantina, and medical center. A great deal of commerce including buff lines defied belief. It was a thriving metropolis worthy of the Star Wars books and movies that I love. The place I visited last night was not even a “blue glowie” of Kett’s past glory.
I will have some screen shots and further commentary about my experience on the 14 day trial. It seems to me that the game is sound, but I will test it over the next few weeks. I am mainly killing time waiting for Age of Conan. However, I have been feeling the need to fill the vast void left by my divorce from SOE and SWG, so I wanted to see for myself the state of affairs.
I will most likely create a noob player on Starsider as well to see if these servers have a hope of survival, as it is unfair to judge the state of the game solely based upon Kett. However, I feel pretty confident in the fact that none of my old mates are playing — they have moved on — and that it really appears to be a world even more empty than Second Life…..
Tags: Joachim, MMORPG, Online, Peiper, Star Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, SWG
Sad commentary, indeed. Poor SWG. It was, once upon a time, a truly valuable online game.
It has actually been a great return. There is nothing all that inherently wrong with the game aside from low population level. It is a very deep universe and the player driven economy, city housing, and all the good things are still there. Unfortunately, so is SOE.