Star Wars Galaxies

Remember when the path to Jedi was a mystery?  Remember what we all theorized?

Some theorized that people got FS status by tipping a lot of credits to others.  Others theorized that "acting the part" along the lines of the Jedi code determined FS status.  Still others theorized that helping others, or playing our rles well, determined FS status.  In any case, we players believed that the GMs and live teams had something to do with the process of becoming Force Sensitive.

As a result, we all played in character, refrained from bad behavior, and helped one another.  We tried to play within the spirit of the game, because we all suspected that being a Jedi had something to do with playing in the spirit of the game.

Little did we suspect that the path to Jedi was determined by grinding a rote process from the game engine.  Once we found that out, we ceased to play in the spirit of the game, and be respectful to each other.  After all, the game engine doesn't care if we are jerks or good players.  It only cares that we do the required tasks saying nothing about the methods we use.

Thus, buffbots popped up.  Solo and spin groups popped up.  "Grind and destroy" crafters became the norm, and the medical centers became places for AFK tumblers.

There's something to be said for good GMs, and rewarding players who do the right things.  I think SWG had that early on, but more importantly, SWG gave the powergamers and twinks a reason to play in the spirit of the game.  When good play and roleplay is rewarded, you'll find people roleplaying and playing well.

I remember a friend was convinced that there were some visual clues, one having something to do with the eye colour of an NPC. It sounds ridiculous now but back then anything was possible.

I never spent much time or thought about Jedi myself, but I certainly did appreciate the mystery of becoming one. I figured that unlocking Jedi was going to be done in a very meaningful way, and it would have been done through an intellectually challenging method.

What was discovered to be the unlock method simply felt cheap and unnatural to the feeling and spirit of SWG IMO. I wont even discuss how I feel about simply selecting Jedi now.

I certainly agree with that, and that's what made the game fun on top of how it played. Nowadays any information about a game can be found on websites with databases, while WoW is certainly suited to such information where people can study a strat and be able to kill that boss and experience more end game content.

One of the main reasons I loved playing SWG was because it was hard to actually learn what you could/could not/had to do and where it actually lead you.

hehe I remember for the first month, I wouldn't turn on my light to see at night because I thought it might have something to do with Jedi.  I wandered around in the dark, bumping into trees and large pointy cats on Corellia, thinking "A Jedi would use his senses (ouch), and rely on the Force (oof) to guide him (scuse me kitty)."

Anyone else remember the "Nobles Quest Theory" from the forums?  I can't remember who it was, but on the Jedi forums, not too long before Monika T'ransvestite unlocked, there was a theory that obtaining Jedi had something to do with the little missions you did for Nobles.  I think it turned out to be a bug.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

There's something to be said for good GMs, and rewarding players who do the right things.  I think SWG had that early on, but more importantly, SWG gave the powergamers and twinks a reason to play in the spirit of the game.  When good play and roleplay is rewarded, you'll find people roleplaying and playing well.

Here's the flaw in this.

We imagined that SOE and Lucas were as much into the spirit of Star Wars as we were.

There is no way that any US corporation, ever, is going to pay for GMs who spend much of their time being GMs and not just somewhat more powerful CSRs.

Not when you can automate a lot of that and make it relatively "free"...for the publisher.  Even if you are charging a premium rate for a monthly sub...remember that SWG had the highest montly rate seen to date upon publication.

The "experience" of SWG was going to be doled out at the lowest possible cost to SOE and LA.  These guys are about one thing: the money.  They'll only provide the bare essentials.

Thus the very pedestrian way that Jedi was "earned".  By grinding.

Yeah.. its not hard to understand why SWG jedi path was made the way it was made. Hard to stay true to the idea of starwars when transfering the idea into a game , which should be a money machine.

Just check out  what blizz have done to wow's lore. They drugged they lore, did some nasty things to it and the lore forgot.. The only problem is that they forgot to drug us so we wont see the changes.

Yeah, i remember early on that perhaps Jedi had something to do with odd landmarks.  Every so often I would come across something different...odd spire sticking out of the ground in the middle of nowhere.  So, I would sit and /ponder and do various emotes hoping something would click...heh. 

I always thought grinding professions was way too easy for a way to get Jedi.  I wanted to see 5 random professions to grind, 10 random quests and 15 random POI's.    That way we could have left Jedi uber with the sabre damage but left a semi-permadeath on them.  5 deaths and then you would slowly reaccrue those deaths as your other toons played a few weeks or months or so.  Until you gained back a death you were a blue glowy... :) 

Plus it would have made people play the game more rather than just grind, grind grind...

This actually almost killed the game for me early on . I always felt far to many people had the goal of obtaining a Jedi. Which was shown to be true when Holo grinding became the normal routine of just about everyone you came across.I was certainly an exception to that mentality as were a handful of people I knew. However , during the Holo grind era the game was horribly off balance, Especially in regard to PVP and resource gathering.

The reason I felt so many people having the goal of obtaining jedi was bad for the game . Also came true , Once everyone was a jedi , Everyone complained there were too many.Splitting the playerbase into factions who hated one another.