Smuggler Archive

As written by Henry O’Conner of the Gorath Server

Star Wars Galaxies. For over two years I waited for this beloved title to be released, purchasing it and installing it on launch day and joining a myriad of friends on the Gorath Server as we attempted to rid the Galaxy of Rebel scum and restore order to the Galaxy.

We failed.

To say we failed isn’t really necessarily a statement of failure that rests on our shoulders. Or even the DEV’s at first. When Launched Galaxies was a game full of Bugs, Grass grew through my floor, I floated in front of my chair and on occasion I found myself hundreds of feet above Theed floating in the air. But none of these truly hindered game play and in fact made for nice jokes while in the game. And as the Patches began flowing out the problems began to be resolved. Vehicles and Cities were introduced and the gaming experience was opened up as trade and exploration became more viable.

However there was one thing more than anything that harmed our lovely game. The words of the magazine Editor. Star wars Galaxies was a unique game because for the first time it let you play as someone other Than Wedge Antilles or Luke Skywalker. An all powerful X-wing or Lightsaber were no longer yours to have. However despite the fact that this game was set at a time in the story when there were no Jedi. The editors and critics could not seem to cry enough bloody murder about the lack of an easily obtained Jedi Character. Despite the fact that many members of our guild expressed no interest in obtaining a Jedi the overwhelming amount of criticism about this job class seemingly forced the Devs to put the entire game on hold while the entire experienced was re-tooled to throw continuity out the window. As a placeholder for the game while this new system was instituted, newer Harder dungeons where created. The Geno Lab, Death Watch, and Corvette Mission all featured thrown together loot that was full of bugs and featured enemies that were powered up to insane levels. A rebel officer carrying a CDEF Pistol with 100K of HAM was neither impressive nor challenging it was just hard. The Corvette was defeated by my guild by literally going up in our boxers with nothing in our inventory as we knew that the extreme decay and time wasted on enemies would make for a wasted trip.

A smuggler Expansion was thrown out, a promised walk about Star destroyer never showed and a Space expansion that was mind numbingly boring was delayed until a point when no one seemed to care any more. Patches where relegated to fixing problems with ships and old men. And the actual new content available for players was only that of a single avenue that the Dev’s felt everyone wanted to Travel down. Last night I Logged unto Galaxies for seemingly the last time. My two best friends, guys who has waited eagerly for years and had built computers around the game had stopped playing, joining the ranks of multiple friends and guild mates who have simply become bored. A Recent loot system had been a welcome change, but had proved to be too little too late. As the Galaxy Main page is also almost never Updated I see that my Precision game is almost at an End.

But while I am sure many would disagree with me on the things I have said, I am still here to create a list of those things that I feel could have saved and indeed enhanced the game.

Smuggler Revamp. A launch profession that never seemingly did anything. Requiring unarmed skills to get but where never utilized thus wasting Skill points, a Spice tree that was made obsolete by Chefs, and a slicing system that could not be controlled and was a matter of Random luck, this system needed to be re-defined and given a more prominent role, Planets such as Tatooine and Lok could have been hubs of information and missions such as the Bounty Hunter class had carried out. Faction base style structures such as smuggler outposts could have been created for the members. Smugglers could ally themselves with groups such as Jabba, Valaria, and Nym and it’s members could have duked it out. The already existing smuggler outposts could have been more utilized as agents delivered items to you which could be snuck past Imperial squads, rival smugglers, and dangerous animals.

New Planets. While Space is Beautiful on lush in it’s backdrop, It is merely open space. The Planets offer new Terain, hidden features and varied creatures. Not having to worry about not being able to shoot something because it’s someone else’s who’s not even around, the hunting was good and the loot was nice. Planets such as Hoth would have offered new mounts, dangerous terrains and Wampa Hunting, Vehicles such as snow speeders could have been added and smuggling outposts could have been set up. Kessel could have been seen as a planet of caves, rather then the generic cave scheme that plagues the planets, a large network of caves spanning the map would have been laced with mining operations and dangerous factions and thugs, the Surface a place of danger and hostility a planet only the stronger players could travel to, but not so powerful that a fully armored buffed guild would even have a hope of lasting for more than 2 minutes. Planet Myrk would have held the legendary animals ysalamiri which would have nullified the Jedi abilities on the planet, giving other players an advantage. Character Tallon Karrde who simply currently stands around on Tatooine would be able to be set up on his own outpost with a full set of quests.

New Quests:

Here is one of the real quicker ways to improve that game. Sitting around with other members of my guild brainstorming ideas we came up with one really easy update. Since it’s obvious by the lack of Theme Parks and strength, the Imperials are handicapped so that Rebel Players do not have to live in fear. But the new quest would be relatively easy. Here is a breakdown: Imperial Guard.

Requirements:

Master Polearm

Master Swordsman

Imperial Colonel

Emperors Retreat Completed

With these four things mastered, a playing would be able to travel up to The Emperor and receive a new set of instructions. Set on a Quest that would take the character through an Actual Story across all the planets the Player upon completion would be rewarded with a full set of Red Imperial Garments which would provide stat Bonuses. However to Encourage participation Events could be held on occasion that was only open to Members of the Imperial guard that advanced the Story of the GCW. The difficulty of these new quest would be minimal as the imperial Garments have existed in game since Day 1, The only challenge really would be the actual entering of the new text for the characters involved in the Quest and the designing of a new story arc.

GCW. The Imperial Crackdown was the biggest joke ever. The day it was implemented I walked into Coronet only to see my Radar littered with Hundreds of X’s as 4 or 5 Rebel players killed Storm Troopers by the hundreds. The power of a single storm trooper needs to be boosted and their numbers multiplied. Cities should be littered with garrisons to denote the feel of oppression and occupation that the Empire holds. The Method in which a TEF is obtained by either side should be enhanced where any expressed Imp or Rebel activity will show you off as a member of your respective faction. Events of Rebel incursions on large cities should be immediately put down by players and city AI. Rebels should be relegated to off world, back water locations. Caves and ruins should be the order of their day. Faction Bases should no longer be destroyable but rather Conquered, The extreme rate at which FB are destroyed has led to little or no interaction between factions, and Rather Faction Base Farms have sprouted up where Imp cities are armed with Rebel Bases and Vice-Versa. Rather a FB should be capture-able allowing guilds to increase their territory and also creating a tangible expansion of their factions logistical numbers. If I member of a faction chooses to be overt and wear the armor of the faction, there should be certain duties they are expected to perform such as a short patrol or a mission of insurgency that should be put down. Events such as numerous non faction crowds gathering at a city for a protest which must be put down by imperials for example. Also GCW PVP or PVAI would have added consequences. The game is littered with Prison Facilities that serve little to no purpose. A death by the hands of player to someone of an opposing faction would result in the player waking up in a prison until rescued or serving a short stay. This would diminish the events of Base defenders having to worry about killing an attack and having that person be back fully buffed 2 minutes later. All of these are ideas to improve the state of the GCW which would not be to difficult to implement as the require very little new structures or locations required

Star Wars Galaxies was dealt a near Mortal Blow by the Year 2004, most of the Damage was done by people who were not actual players and by a very noisy minority. The changes I have quickly outlined are by no means Easy Changes, However they are far more simple than some of the other changes implied but never seen by the Dev’s as many of my suggestion make use of already existing items within the game rather than requiring the rendering of new characters or items.

I thank anyone who took the time to read this and Hope that it is taken under consideration by the Developers. As I am tired of every Dev Chat hearing about a Combat System Upgrade that never seems to be finished and GCW update that never seems to have any actual concepts or deadline to it.