Str8Dog's Journal: My Experience with Star Wars Galaxies So Far

Intro:

Ok, I have never played a MMORPG. I have no idea what the game play entails or even how these games work. But I have a few friends at work who do and I enjoy the Star Wars Mythos, so I thought I would take a chance and pick this one up.

Now unlike others, I got the game the day AFTER it hit the shelves, so I had no problems logging in and creating an account. I was able to quickly create a human scout character, name him Knynetic Flyingsky (or some thing like that) and get in the game. Oh yeah, I was able to do this after about a 20 minute wait downloading patches.

Once in the game, I opted to do the training mission. The mission laid out the basics of the game fairly easily and understandably and soon I was on the face of a planet in some city. I was then introduced to the "Lost Connection with Star Wars Galaxies" message. Now this message and I have become good friends over the last week or so. You see the fun thing about the LCSWG message is that there is no obvious way to reconnect other than quitting out of the game and relaunching. If someone is aware of a command such as /reconnect for Quake, please let me know.

Hooking Up:

After logging in, the first thing I did was bring up the email system and message a friend from work telling him to come get me. I then moved around the starting city looking at various things until he got there. Once he arrived, he gave me $1000 credits and a carbine rifle. And then LCSWG showed up to make the game more difficult.

After logging in again, my friend and I went back to the city he was in originally and we hooked up with a couple other guys and LCSWG.

After logging in again, we went hunting for moths and butterflies as anything larger quickly smacked all 4 of us down. At this point I discovered that I could harvest resources from the fallen bugs and create traps that seem to do nothing at this point. So, I began trap making and bug killing with my friends. Until LCSWG.

That was enough for that night. I walked away and finished up reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I must admit that Harry never once LCSWG'd me.

So a few days later I though I would give it a shot again and I logged in to my account. After downloading more patches, I was in. Now this time my friends were not online, although LCSWG seems to never leave really. I decided to do some exploring as the prospect of killing moths and butterflies sounded just boring as hell.

During my exploration, I ran across a NPC who needed a task completed and was offering a handsome reward, so I accepted. The mission seemed simple enough. Go find this person and escort them back to me. No problem. I loaded up the way point and headed out. I walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. The creatures around me grew and grew and grew and became ever more aggressive. Once I was a great distance into the wilderness LCSWG showed up and said hi.

After I logged back in, I walked some more and had 6-7 very aggressive hedge hogs attack me out of the blue and quickly incapacitate my character. So I'm sitting there waiting to regain my footing, when, you guessed it, LCSWG. So, I walked away from the PC.

Mission 1:

After a few days I decided to give it a shot again. After downloading more patches, I was logged back in and standing out in the middle of no where. I brought up the world map to get my bearings and noticed that my mission objective was actually in another city. What a dumb ass I am! I didn't have to walk there, I could take a shuttle. So I turned around and began walking back to the city I had come from. LCSWG'd.

Logged back in and trekked all the way back to the city. Quickly bought a ticket to the other city at a shuttle port and waited the 6 minutes for a shuttle to show up. Once I arrived in the new city I quickly made my way to the giant beam of light god had decided to shine on my objective, and began a conversation with the NPC I was supposed to escort.

The NPC informed me that he would follow me, and I headed quickly over to the shuttle port and bought both of us a ticket. Wasn't sure if I would need two, but figured that I would use the extra ticket at some point if I didn't. I then made sure the NPC was with me and I boarded the shuttle headed back to the original city. To my surprise, the NPC was not with me when I reached my destination. I did a quick once around the shuttle port to confirm he didn't get out the other side, and then bought a ticket back. LCSWG'd.

I logged back in and took the shuttle back to the other city, and low and behold there was my NPC waiting for me. So at this point I'm thinking great, I got to walk this schmuck all the way back to the other city. After my first visit to the great wilderness, I didn't think this was the greatest option, but what could I do there was a poor artisan waiting for this master painter to teach her wonderful new things.

So, I began walking. Now the first thing I noticed was the NPC seemed to walk about 1/3 of my rate and didn't understand that you could not walk through walls. Needless to say it took about a year to get out of the city by the most direct route. Once out of the city, things seemed to be better, my NPC seemed to tag right along if not a bit slowly.

After stop/walking what seemed like a couple hours, we came up to a imperial encampment. The imperials did not seem interested in us in any way shape or form, but my NPC seemed to be overcome with fear. He refused to follow me or even speak to me. He just stood there. No matter what I did, my NPC remained rooted to his spot. LCSWG'd.

At this point I decided that a book might be more entertaining for the rest of the night. Mission 1 failed.

Mission 2:

A few days later, I decided I had a few hours to kill downloading patches. Once logged in I discovered that the imperial encampment had moved and they had kidnapped my NPC. I decided that the artisan was S.O.L. and wasn't learning a damn thing from this idiot NPC. I quickly dropped the mission and headed back into a city.

I messaged my friends in the game and they informed me that they had moved on to a different planet and had found Jabba's Hut. Cool I thought and one of them offered to come get me as I didn't have the cash to make the flight myself. So I waited by the star port creating little traps which seem to have no effect on monsters but give me experience in trapping when used.

Once my friend got there, he suggested running a few missions to get some cash for the flight back. He went and grabbed a couple and off we went back into the wilderness. All the while I was telling him about my experience with the last mission I took.

We get pretty far out in the wilderness, killing knats and moths as we go when.... LCSWG. At this point I got fairly P.O.'d with LCSWG and walked away from the PC to read up on some C#. I IM'd my friend and told him I was sorry for waiting his time, but I had to go. Mission 2 failed.

Mission 3:

A few days later, I thought I would give the game a second chance. I mean I had paid $55 for it and they were sucking cash out of my account on a monthly basis so I could enjoy the Star Wars Galaxy!

Once the patches downloaded, I was in the game. My first thought was to message my friends and get hooked back up with them as that situation represented the only "fun" I had had in the game so far. But then I realized what had happened last time had prolly burnt them on coming and saving me, so I decided I would try my hand at running a mission on my own.

I began talking to NPCs and quickly found one that had a task for me to do. Sounded pretty simple too. Go to this city and deliver my marriage proposal to my love. Come back to me when you are finished. I could do that! And this time I knew to look at my world map to see where I was going ahead of time. As expected the object of my NPCs affection was in another city, so I headed to the shuttle port.

I bought a ticket and headed out. Once there, god had pleasantly cast a beam of light for me showing me right where she was. I headed over and started up a conversation. To my surprise, the NPC informed me that she would now follow me. What? I was just supposed to deliver a message not escort the NPC back.

I started walking back to the shuttle port which was not to far away. I thought I would figure out how to get my NPC to ride along with me. Half way to the port my NPC disappeared. GONE. Poof. LCSWG'd.

GODDAMNIT'd! I decided right there and then that I was GOING to complete at least 1 mission, so I logged back in. My NPC was no where to be found, but I noticed that my mission way point was back in the original city. I assumed the game realized that my mission had nothing to do with escorting a person and was ready to give me my reward. So I headed back to my love lorn friend.

Once I got back I noted the beam of god illuminating the spot where the NPC was standing, so I moseyed over and chatted him up. He of course wanted nothing to do with me and informed me that I had to complete the task at hand. I began to wonder if god's light was really a beam of mocking and I told that NPC to get bent. Mission 3 failed.

Mission 4:

So, I started walking around the city again and found a mission terminal. Figuring that I was having no luck with NPC missions, I gave the mission terminal a try. It offered up 5 missions. 4 of which involved roaming out and taking out nests of beasts that sounded much bigger than the standard fair moths and butterflies I had encountered so far. Seeing as how it only took two moths to drop me flat on my back, I opted to take the 5th mission.

My mission involved roaming out in to the great wilderness and verifying a camp was not over run with the bad element. Seemed easy. Go check something out. No Problem. LCSWG'd.

I quickly logged back in and headed out. I had my way point set and my trusty over head map up showing me all the locations I needed to avoid so I was not over run with bullfrogs and horny toads. After walking quite a while I checked my world map and saw that I was about half way to my destination. I kept walking.

After walking for what seemed like forever, cautiously avoiding the red triangles, the text area informed me that my "Mission Failed". What?! LCSWG'd. WHAT?! I went and picked up a good book and went to bed.

Conclusion:

So this is the total sum of my experience with SWG. I have found that Missions seem to be useless. A bullfrog or a pack of moths can kick my ass. Watching a person dance can heal my Avatar's stress, but does little for mine. No matter where you are going it will take a long time to get there (the scenery will be pretty but it will still take way to damn long). And finally LCSWG'd will be the biggest fight you will have in the game, unless you count the waiting for patches to download. Feh, maybe I'll give it another shot tomorrow.