Business And Economy Archive

Before everyone starts the hate, let me explain. Most of what I will address here is about Buisness and Economy and that's why I picked this forum out of the available Core Systems. Yes, some of the information will branch out from Buisness and Economy... but bear with that as you read. Also, I do not have Rage so I am going with second hand knowledge.

Many would claim that the CU was a step in the wrong direction for Star Wars Galaxies. I completely disagree. While the CU has large amount of bugs to be sorted out, it has dumbed down the armorsmith profession, and several items have lost their place in the SWG world (my poor droids), the CU was a step in the right direction for the combat portion of SWG. Balanced out most of the professions and it made groups reappear (a good thing in my opinion). Did the CU hurt crafters? Yes. But the damage is minor and can be adjusted to/fix relatively easily.

Now, let's take a look at the real crafting profession killer: RAGE. Rage is the second expansion of Star Wars Galaxies and is the worst step SOE has taken with this game; and considering some of the things they have done that is quite the statement.

Rage introduced to a world of nearly pure-dungeons, zoning, and great quest items.

Zoning: This is a horrible killer for crafters. A crafter cannot get to a certain location on Kash because they have not done the 'content' to unlock that portion of the planet. As a crafter, I am OFFENDED that I have to do combat content to actually DO what my content intails: crafting items.

Imagine if a awesome spawn of tolium (I'm a DE, so again, bare with me) gas hits on Kash. Its in some odd quested area that I haven't done the content for. So, my Droid Engineer is now screwed out of his content strictly due to the design of Kash. The beautiful thing about Star Wars is that it wasn't about zones, you could go see the scenery any time you wanted with any character (for the most part). Allowed us crafters to come and go as we pleased.

Now, this is assuming that Kash actually has resources we can harvest. If Kash does NOT have resources we can harvest this is an even bigger slap to our faces than zoning is. Kash would become a planet strictly for the combatants of SWG and for the entertainers to hang out at (no offense to entertainers); but, it leaves us crafters with nothing except MAYBE the ability to set up a shop on the planet. Oh, yeah. Crafters get 10 planets, everyone else gets 11 with their content on it.

Quest items: Everyone remember the DoT wars? Yeah, at least those were random drops. Now, there are weapons that are better than anything crafters can craft. Example: Mark II Carbine might have damage equal to the Proton Carbine; BUT, the Proton Carbine has a lower SAC AND is kinetic damage, a superior weapon for BHs in this day where Jedi can wear PSGs. This item is NOT a loot, it is a quest item. Do the quest, get the gun. Throw an ADK on it (like most BHs have done) and they never have to buy another carbine again. So much for weapons sales.

Rage is the third expansion of SWG. My hope is that it doesn't show the future of the game or the anti-CU people will indeed be correct... this game will become EQIII: Star Wars. Where crafters aren't even primary professions, they are just cute little side abilities.

That isn't what made SWG great. SWG is great because it caters to all players: combatants, crafters, social types. It wasn't about following a linear design; you could go where you wanted when you wanted. It wasn't about 'do this quest and get an awesome item', it was find these components and interact with another player to make your uber weapon for you. ADKs made it worse as some items will just never disappear, thus, the combatants have more money to spend. Inflation, anyone?

CU was a step in the right direction; Rage takes us two steps back... and I hope SOE has the sense not to make an encore of it.

SWG = Sandbox (play how you want to play)

WoW (and Kashyyyk) = Rat Maze (more or less play how the Devs want you to play)

I think RotW is just a taste of things to come, unfortunately. The Devs have seen the success of WoW, and have probably concluded thatthis is the way to get more subscribers. Hence Kashyyyk, a little slice of WoW. Crafters are purely secondary to this design philosophy (despite what the Devs say).

Who knows, maybe they are right? Maybe the majority of gamersprefer scripted static content (ala WoW) over free-style gameplay (ala traditional SWG). If this is true, you can bet this is the direction SOE will take SWG. SOE is a corporation, and corporations are all about making money...not about 'vision' or 'unique gaming systems'.

I'm just going to enjoy it as long as I can. The day they put the NPC vendors in will be a sad day indeed.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

I agree with the original poster except for one crucial point. Stop calling RotW an expansion. It's not an expansion, it's content. It added nothing to the game in the way JTL did.

The real step in the wrong direction is they made people pay for content. I thought that was what my monthly subscription was for.

Message Edited by Executor04 on 05-12-2005 11:25 AM

you can't put down anything like a harvester on kash, so the whole 'uber resource i can't get to' argument is irrelevant.

kash is supposed to be the planet covered by some of the meanest creatures in the galaxy. kind of rediculous to want to send a stockboy in with the ilusors (or whatever the brain bugs are called).

i think it's great to have somethig different.

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Itekazzawrrlic wrote:

Like you stated, it brought back group play. You need to group

What if you don't like group play?

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Don't like group play? At this point your playing the wrong game then.

Simply put I agree with the OP. I hate being forsced to play a certain way,Maybe I have been spoiled, by being allowed to enjoy my self with this game. Maybe the DEVs jsut dont want it to be fun to be a non-combatant anymore. It really seems like me that I am beginning to be replaced by content. They ahve added no craftable rewards for ships, weapons and armor now. Iam told that the new ships aer better than what a SW can make, and I know the new proton carbine is better than what I can make. Its not like they are just throwing out some decent rewards, they are throwing out rewards that are better than anything a player can make. I didnt buy RotW, because i realized fromt he clippings that it would add zero to my enjoyment of the game, after it's release I have discovered that I was wrong, it hasnt added zero(I would have perfered that), it has actually taken away enjoyment from the game. My sales of come to a crawl since RotWs release(could be for other reasons but I dont know) I used to make a good 1-3 million a day, down to about 100k a day. 100k a day will not cover my expenses(18 harvesters, 15 factories, 7 houses, 6 vendors, weekly fees for renting lots, shuttle tickets and I still need a few more skill tapes), at this rate I will eventually need to close up shop. I wonder why people have stopped buying weapons, could be that after double xp week they are all jedi, or those that arent are all trying to get their free uber weapon from kash.