Sentinels Republic

I was thinking of what could have been in the past for SWG. I also have been thinking of what this game can be now and into the future. I wanted to put it out there that the majority of the players play this game for the content other than PvP. A small number seem to hijack the game for their own ends and end up wasting the time of so many. SWG has a lot to offer and it can offer so much more. So, I figured that I would start some game discussion with some random posts here.

So lets look at a well read excerpt from an interview with Raph Koster:

Well, my opinion is Jedi are evil. Heh.

You see, Jedi are an immense attractant to players, readers, viewers. As a kid, I too waved around plastic lightsabers (we kept bending them as we struck one another, I am pretty sure my mom got really sick of buying new ones). Who can resist the fantasy of having this awesome sword, effectively magical powers -- mind control, telekinesis, telepathy, and more -- and of course, the classic Hero's Journey? I mean, it's basically an ideal play scenario.

Except that of course, you quickly realize that by comparison, everyone else sucks. I vividly remember granting Han Solo access to the Force when we played with the original action figures, because, well, he was too cool a character not to have them, you know? (We indicated Force powers by bending the legs all the way backwards, sort of a hip-shattering L shape, and then they could fly!) And let's be honest, how long would Han Solo have lasted against Darth Vader? About two seconds. In fact, Kyle Katarn, the most popular Star Wars video game character, basically is Han Solo with Force powers.

This is all fine and dandy in games where you play a Jedi and mow down Stormtroopers by the hundreds. It worked great in the Jedi Knight games. But Jedi are notably absent from the gameplay of other types of Star Wars games, and for a good reason. They are a discontinuity. They are too powerful. They are an alpha class. Not a problem is a single-player environment, but what do you do with them in a multiplayer setting where some people are badass Han Solo types who will always lose?

This same issue had come up in the Expanded Universe books and stories. You basically have the problem that:
-people identify with Jedi
-they're rare
-they're incredibly powerful

This meant that creators laboring in the universe had a few choices:
invent new stuff as powerful or more powerful as Jedi (which was done more than a few times -- General Grievous, the Witches of Dathomir, the World Razer, a living planet called Zonarma Sekot, The Ones - OK, it was done a zillion times, which just proves my point).
tell stories with no Jedi in them, as in the original Han Solo books by Brian Daley.

Of course, the demands of games focused on Jedi also meant that the powers of Jedi kept having to go up, too! I mean, people actually complained when you didn't start as a powerful Jedi in Jedi Knight II, and eventually, we got to the ludicrous heights of Starkiller in the Force Unleashed games: "sufficiently powerful enough to rip a million ton Star Destroyer out of orbit and slap Darth Vader around like he owed him money."




For those who like to read some of Koster's thoughts are posted on his blog here https://www.raphkoster.com/

I'd never actually read that article, thanks for posting about it.

I've long described SWG as the best MMO ever almost written. Seems the designer felt about the same.

I've also felt that Jedi in general was a mistake and that Lucas likely forced the downfall of what could have been an amazing game, seems I was right about that.

A system were you can change your skills any time you want. Where someone that liked interior design has a role in an MMO. Where a person who loves role playing can go exist with those that don't. Entire skill systems that require never leaving town or engaging in combat if that's not your deal. PvP in a universe that many people have loved for decades. Real crafting, not just assembly like every other cookie cutter piece of crap MMO out there.

Was it buggy? Hell yeah. But it had a foundation that could have made for the most amazing MMO ever. Sadly Lucas Arts nor Sony either one cared about the players and fans. Even when their decisions negatively impacted their bottom line they just doubled down on the bad decisions, one after another.

Like most I have passionate feelings about SWG, so I'll end my comments by simply saying I'm thankful for those at the EMU team as well as all those that contributed to it and other projects over the years bringing us to now. I'm thankful for the dedicated volunteers at SR and other servers that keep the flawed but fun game alive for all of us that loved the game so much over the years.

Having joined the SWG beta in the first group and playing through proff's to TK master, going glowey and grinding a Jedi to master I remember when the complaining started...and who the first person was to begin posting on the forums at that time, "her" never ending hatred of Jedi.
Her name on the forums was "Ms Nell" and looing back, she must have been the very first purple haired SJW.
Her endless complaining reached a point that finally forced SOE'S "SMEDLEY" to post that they were running focus groups through Lucas Arts HQ in an attempt to "fix the problems that people have with the game". What he didn't say at the time, was that the average age of the focus group was around 14 years old.
THEIR desire to roll a Jedi "instantly" gave us the NGE.
Argue any point of view you want about what SOE did, it all started from, just one thing that I can tell......"Ms Nell" saw me or another Jedi running through Ancient Krayt Dragons solo doing single blow damage of 30 to 60 k and just literally lost her mind.
Back in the day I remember seeing tons of Jedi "hate" threads, wondering why their hatred had reached such a fever pitch until it dawned on me, ONE thing.....ENVY....
Make no mistake, grinding Jedi was NOT for the meek, I easily spent 18 months to complete to master...hours and hours of solo grinding on Endor AOE spinning spider nests.....to earn millions and millions of XP. I look back at that time and it becomes very obvious to me that it was the start of the generation of "I WANT IT RIGHT FRIKKEN NOW, GIVE IT TO ME OR ILL DESTROY IT FOR EVERYONE ELSE".....sound familiar?
I firmly believe that is why private servers are offering "balance" and "shorter paths" to Jedi....but at the end of the day, it was, and always will be JUST A GAME....
Enjoy everyone, and hug a Jedi if you get the chance....

I honestly spent little time on the forums in the early days. I only visit forums when the game is unplayable (like today) or when I've lost interest and I'm trying to find a reason to stay.

I didn't alpha or even beta the original launch, though I did beta JTL and it was a waste of time. I warned about several issues that were ignored and then blew up in SOE's face and caused problems later. It was a waste of time, their coarse had already been decided and no amount of logic or reasoning would alter that coarse.

I know several early Jedi players, even some EBay Jedi as well. I understand the idea of Jedi is fun to many people, but the simple fact is that an alpha class cannot exist in a game you ever expect to be balanced. Jedi killed SWG, player numbers, exit polls and everything else over the years has proven that. Even people like Ralph and other insiders admit to that openly now.

Heck the EMU itself is based on a deeply flawed version of the game, but it's the version HC gamers still remember fondly and honestly they are they only ones that would really play an emulator over a decade after the fact. Without Jedi HC folks wouldn't play but a game with only HC gamers is, well, boring. Nobody needs anyone else, whether the EMU you play on gives you multiple characters or you VPN alternates and do everything yourself.

Compared to the first six months of live the EMU on every server is pretty boring honestly. It's a solo game with some minor interaction with others. It's nice to have my progress saved online and the possibility I could play with others but 99% of my time is solo just like it was within a few months of Jedi dropping on live.

Any Alpha class will be the end goal, no matter what you enjoyed about the game now it's the only thing to do. No other goals exist, and the game proved that. It also showed those in charge after launch didn't understand the game concept and didn't even understand the basic math of how things worked, so each time they tried to "fix" things they usually made them worse. You cannot fix a problem you don't understand.

SWG was about Star Wars, but it wasn't supposed to be just blasters and sabers, it was supposed to be an online world. And it was building in that direction, subscription numbers and server population showed that. The number of dedicated supporting classes and social classes showed that fact. It could have been a community that lived on possibly for decades, but bad management stopped that.

Maybe if Ralph or anyone had the balls to tell off George (or Hayden I guess in this case) and Sony and stand firm on building a game world, we wouldn't be here because we'd still be on Sony servers, chilling in a cantia BS's with a broad range of players. Instead of waiting for a server to come back online so I can buff my swordsman and kill some janta because as much as that sucks, at least there's no freak'n orcs and trolls. No matter how many other games I've played over the years non can hold my interest as much as broken down pre-cu SWG still does.

I sometimes use to wonder if they would have made the Jedi a pet Class... Where your character is a Droid and you can your Jedi would be your pet starting at Padawan... And as you skill up your pet would reach master but would not be super powerful. Could have been like CH but with a Droid... They could go tame/speak to a Padawan and teamup and there you go... That's your Jedi pet.

Would have been cool IMO...

We just need new PVE content.