SWTOR opens up some old SWG wounds : Star Wars Galaxies

Browsing the forums over at www.swtor.com I've been amused to see they've become a breeding ground for disgruntled ex SWG players who love nothing more than to dish the dirt on SWG and the NGE (New Game Enhancement).  Since you don't need an active subscription to post, and SOE's over zealous forum police have no ability to delete such hate threads (as they commonly do on their own boards), it's plain to see that the NGE farce just wont go away and probably won't until SWG shuts up shop.

So why after all this time are people still upset about SWG's NGE?

Let me explain. 

You see when I first started playing SWG all these years ago, I was blown away by the sandbox universe and the game gripped me firmly by the balls and refused to let go.  It was a complex game full of unique challenges but that is why I, and most of the other fans loved it.  

I started my journey as a humble human scout and over time (a very long time)  progressed into being a Master Rifleman. I explored so many of the professions and spent a great deal of time as a Combat Medic before eventually settling on  Bounty Hunter with some skills in other areas.  That era is extremely memorable, hunting player Jedi when death actually lost them experience, made the whole hunt more exciting.

I got lost in that world. I made friends, a few enemies but for a chunk of my life, SWG became just that, my life.  I was a year into the game when I saw the first Jedi player and it was an extremely exciting moment for me.  That excitement turned to disappointment when I learned how ridiculously difficult it was to actually unlock a Jedi.  I knew I didn't have the motivation, time or patience to do all that work.  That's when I decided to become a Bounty Hunter.  If I couldn't be a Jedi, I'd hunt them instead muhahahahaha.

More years passed and SOE changed the way Jedi could be unlocked.  I studied that system and came to the same conclusion. Even though the path to Jedi was clearer, it was still a very long and difficult path so I consoled myself by going out and hunting more Jedi muhahahaha.  I became quite good at it and again I'll reinforce that those days were some of the best. Perhaps I'll blog about some of my more memorable hunts in a future post.

My SWG life changed the day a young women entered my in game shop to buy some bio-engineered clothing.  We role played a little and I discovered she was a Jedi.  Turns out I was the first Bounty Hunter to kill her and though I'd not remembered her, I found here rotting corpse amongst the screenshots I'd taken of all my victims.   Long story short, we became friends, she held no grudges, and she talked me into going down the Jedi path promising to guide me with her knowledge.

So I began the insane grind to become a padawan, a journey that from start to finish took me just under a year and a half to complete.  During that time it was all I did. I logged on, ground, ground, ground, almost to the determent of my real life, but definitely to the detriment of my enjoyment of the game.  I knew I was hating every moment of the process but I knew the end reward, becomeing a Jedi would be worth the pain.  I spent so many hours playing SWG that it started to put a strain on my marriage (Yes, looking back it's pathetic!).

Severn or eight months into the process and after thousands of tedious hours I finally unlocked Jedi. Up until that point I'd still been a non force sensitive even after all the hard work, Amazingly I still had around 7 months of grinding to become a full powered Jedi.   Part of the way through the padawan trials I constructed my first lightsaber and the first time my character equiped it and ignited the blade I was practically orgasmic. It is a moment I'll never forget!

I began the padawan trials and quickly realised how weak a newly unlocked Jedi was. Beasts I could one shot kill as a rifleman were now a serious challenge to kill alone, a situation that presented all newly unlocked Jedi with a tough decision. You see in order to gain the XP you needed to get more power and skills, you needed to kill ALOT of creatures. It was almost impossible to do this alone but if you did it in a group, by using your force powers near other people (even other Jedi) or NPC's, you gained visibility.  Once you gained enough visibility (which happened very quickly in a large grind group) you ended up on the Bounty Hunter terminals.  Bounty Hunters would pick up these missions and by using droids, they'd get a fix on your position and track you down.  Generally their tactic was to wait until you were in a vulnerable position before striking (normally when your health was low.)  They'd spring out of nowhere and if you weren't quick enough you'd be no match for them given your low power in relation to their high power. More often than not you died losing the valuable XP you'd just spent the last 5 hours grinding.  Hate between the Jedi and Bounty Hunter professions was high.  Ironically for me, the hunter became the hunted and I died many times at the hands of a Bounty Hunter. It was a case of 3 steps forward 2 steps back.

Looking back, the fear of Bounty Hunters and constantly playing in a state of high alert is something that truly made the game amazing. I've never played a game since that had me so emotionally attached to my character than when I grinded my Jedi. 

Of course as I gained more XP and my Jedi became more powerful by unlocking new Jedi skills, I was starting to win a few of these encounters.  Unlocking invisibility changed my grind because I was now much more able to evade Bounty Hunters meaning less interruptions to my grind and less XP loss.  Eventually I reached a point both in Jedi power skill and actual player skill that I was able to make short work of most of the Bounty Hunters that came for me, but this took many months of hard work. There were some notorious Bounty Hunters who used to amaze me with their skill. I'd generally run from those ones. 

Now that I was able to hold my own against my Bounty Hunter enemies, suddenly all the hard work, sweat, tears, blood had become worth it. I was now truly having the most enjoyable experience I'd ever had in a game or an MMO. and these memorable battles with the Bounty Hunters will stay with me forever.  

"2 months later SOE announced the NGE which as we now know meant among many other disastrous things, that a player could become a Jedi right out of the box"

So there I was a year and a half later a full template Jedi, living the SWG dream and having an amazing time.  Dying to Bounty Hunters was not so important as even though I lost XP, it didn't matter because I could not lose any skills.  2 months later SOE announced the NGE which as we now know meant among many other disastrous things, that a player could become a Jedi right out of the box and by simply clicking on a picture of Luke Skywalker at character creation. When it sunk in, when the realisation was made that I'd just wasted all those thousands of hours and just over a year and half of hard work, I cried. Yep, I actually cried. 

To make matters worse it was clear that the motivation behind the NGE for SOE was to pull in more subscribers at the expense of their existing loyal players.  Not once did it cross my mind that the investment I was making into becoming a Jedi would be so diabolically disrespected by the very people I trusted with the game.  

To add insult to injury, as compensation to the pre NGE Jedi, SOE gave us some special items and abilities.  These were, the ability to turn into a hologram, the Elder Robe and a Lightsaber Crystal. Though at the time we were told they would be the most powerful in the game, SOE have again gone back on their word by introducing robes and crystals that are more powerful than those given to the pre-NGE Jedi.

So now you see why so many people STILL have a lot of emotion when it comes to SWG and the NGE.   The NGE wasn't just about a change to a game, it was about  wiping out of thousands of invested hours with single patch.  It was in our minds, a betrayal that will never be forgotten.