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Thread: So this is what we all waited for?
Broog wrote:
I have to say I was disappointed last night when I finally logged in to JTL.
Some of it may be my fault I think my SB Live card is on the fritz as I did get incoming blaster sounds and tie fighter sounds when they screeched by my cockpit, and I got the traditional star wars music on mission completions but I had no sound for my own blaster shots and most of the time I was flying in space bored it was deathly quiet. Again this may be my sound card or speakers.
But the game itself? It doesnt even hold a candle to the old X-Wing or Tie Fighter games that came out maybe 4-5 years ago. Those were fast paced space combat simulators. Here the ships appear to move as slow as speeders do on land.
My machine is only a P4 1.4ghz which is .1 short of the recommended specs, and I forget if I have a gig or half a gig of memory I have to check, but for me it takes forever to load into this game. Now I have to load in, I suffer from incredible lag in Moenia (even though there were only maybe 10-12 players around the Starport), I have to load to get into space, I have to fly 10km to get to the Nav point which takes seemingly forever and is immensly boring, I blast a couple TIE fighters that takes like 2 minutes and so far has been incredibly easy, and then I have to fly all the way back to the docking station, land, reload into laggy Moenia, just to get my next mission?
What were the devs thinking?
Isn't this the space age? Can't I contact my trainer from space and get a new mission from there?
It seems the developers of SWG are so concerned with people advancing too quickly they decided to break apart the 2 minutes of fun you can actually have in this game with 30 minutes of tedium.
Now I only ran 2 missions last night because it took like an hour and a half to cut through the lag and all the BS (and I killed some wandering TIE and Rogue ships) so maybe at some point it gets better. I imagine with player-crafted ships it will be a little more fast paced.
As for the mechanics, I find the interface to be a little clunky and the combat uninspiring. It doesn't really make me feel like I am in a Z95 hunting down imperials. The combat is simplistic. The targetting is weak. There is no point to trying to outmaneuver someone on your tail because you simply can't. Not that it mattered they pelted me all day and my shields never dropped below half. Even shooting was boring the shots come out a little slow. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment blasting Tier 2 Rogues or TIE bombers because there really isnt much fight in them.
And there seems to be almost no strategy to combat. Point and shoot. Anyone can do that.I was hoping for a game where finally the user's ability and manual dexterity may have something to do with it. If it were faster-paced then maybe it would be (like the 5 year old X-Wing game).
Ok I am done venting. Unfortunately I have been on the 6-month plan and I am paid through January 27, 2005. I almost canceled a few months ago (after I got my Jedi which I have 0 desire to play even after the revamp) and I think I logged in maybe twice the past 3 months including last night. I stuck with the game with the hope that JTL would be the old X-Wing/TIE Fighter type game with high speed action and challenging missions, with the added bonus that since it is a MMORPG you can group with people and take harder missions or coordinate attacks and such.
Once again, my hopes were dashed.
EternalSoul wrote:
LOL! Moeniz lags horribly for me too. Then I go to Coronet and it hardly lags. Whats up with that?
Personally I think there is something about the textures or maybe the buildings themselves on Naboo that makes those cities lag more. Maybe there are more surfaces to render or something.
winddrake wrote:
I don't suffer much lag in Moenia, but I have noticed some since the rebel trainer was placed there recently. I have had a very good time playing JTL so far and can't wait to log back in and get back in the cockpit. I own x-wing vs tie fighter from years ago and enjoy that game as well, but they are different games. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I prefer the ability to modify my ship and choose from a bigger selection of flyable ships.
That I do agree with. I was hoping it was a little more like XWing v TIE Fighter with the added ability of being able to buy better ships and upgrade them as you go, in addition to being able to group with people and maybe even do some PvP.
Although I am certain that the ships will get faster I wonder if the combat will really pick up the pace. Even at low level starter ships and Tier 1 and 2 TIE and Rogue ships, the laser cannons shoot at a fairly slow rate (much unlike the auto-fire we see in the movies) and the ships move as if we are underwater and not in 0-gravity space. I wonder how much faster things will get down the road.
But most of all my problem so far with the expansion is, even if it does get better down the road, am I really going to get there? The time it took me last night just to log in and get a mission, complete it, fly back, get another mission, get back into space, and complete that mission, then go back home took probably 90 minutes. And no I am not a noob I didnt get lost or anything. I understand a good part of it is probably that I don't have a 3.0ghz machine with 2ghz ram and a 128mb video card, so the loading times for me are incredibly frustrating as I am staring at the screen and having very little fun.
But even with a mainframe the problems of having to leave space to get more missions and endure more loading times and lag and walking around time would still be there. That is something I feel the devs failed at miserably. Let people play and have fun. Get into space and STAY there unless you need repairs or you need to train. Since SWG inception this has been a running problem. With all their technology they have no walkie-talkies? You have to run to mission terminals or people to get missions you can't simply call them? Even in todays world everyone has a cell phone and we are hundreds of years behind the technology level of a Star Wars universe.
Anyway I hope I enjoy it a little more next time and I hope my speakers were just a little messed up and I dont get that deathly quiet when I am flying 10km to a nav point. Am I supposed to hear sound effects like my engine humming and my laser cannons firing? I have to think so. Is there any way to stay in space and just play? Should I stop doing the missions? Are there better missions I can do now instead of loading into space to kill 4 TIEs that takes 2 minutes?
BigRay: People like you really need to go away. This forum is for JTL discussion, which is exactly what I was doing with my post. I am not trying to tell people not to buy the game but I am discussing my experience and frustrations with it. In part I am hoping maybe to get some advice to make the game more enjoyable (maybe there is some way to get missions without docking that I dont know, for example), and in part I was critiquing the expansion. Your comments of "no one is holding you here" is foolish and serves no purpose. As I had already stated I am paid through January 2005. If my subscription ended in 2 weeks then yes I would cancel.
