Well, I've played SWG for at least 250 hours solid since release (no, I'm not joking). I'll give you all my (long) story which will include lots of parentheses. Go figure, I'm tired. So here we go:
It's ungodly addictive for the first week or so, especially with the fresh economy we had. I started out as an Artisan, and wanted to be a Weaponsmith. I powerlevelled (aka spamcrafted until my eyes bled) so I could get the best and newest guns to the market before anyone else. As a result, I was the first Weaponsmith on my server, and managed to make a gross profit of around 1.5 million credits, 500k of which remain after blowing it on factories/houses/facilities/random stuff I didn't need. This is in a game where the majority of players (who also have no clue what they're doing for the most part) think 20k is a lot of money.
The game was really fun (with that character) for about 150 hours. After that I realised that more and more I was playing because I felt I had to; I had to go fetch resources from 6 different harvesters so I could make more guns. I had to make more guns so my vendor wouldn't run out and people wouldn't start emailing me whining about my vendor being out, etc. I had to sit around and stare at the screen typing /sample, waiting 3 minutes, typing /sit, waiting 2 minutes, typing /sample again, and repeating this. For hours. Just to catch up with the resources my harvesters couldn't extract, so I had enough resources to more or less make a bunch of stuff without ending up with 2k-5k resources left over. Basically, the game went from "play to have fun" to "play because you have to".
There are a lot of timesinks involved with crafting. The most notorious of these was quickly avoided by doing the double (triple/quadruple/quintuple in my case) crafting tool thing: grab like 5 crafting tools, get in the mindset of repeating the same 12 mouse clicks for 8 hours solid (no joke), and hopefully have enough experience from those boring 8 hours to go learn the next "skill box" (of which there are like 16 in every profession). This gets extremely old extremely fast. So yeah, we more or less got around the problem of waiting for one crafting tool to pop out one item (or component; lots of items require multiple components to assemble a single item, so you have to build like 2-5 separate pieces plus the finished object) by just stocking up on crafting tools.
The next time sink came with a recent nerf to the "sample" skill, which allows you to sit down wherever you are and extract resources from the immediate vicinity. This is the only way you can get resources until you're about 3 hours into the game (a lot longer if you're new), or you somehow manage to flip a profit making stuff nobody needs. The time in between samples was upped from something like 8 seconds to 24 seconds. Now it takes a solid 24 seconds to (hopefully, if your surveying skill is high enough) extract between 0 and 8 resources of any type. As far as I know, there is no item in the game which requires less than 20 total rseources, so even for those of us that are experts, it takes at least a minute to make one component. More on this later.
The next time sink is the sheer time involved with running around. You have to go to every single harvester, get the resources out of it (hopefully, more on this too), make sure it has enough power to keep working, and pay maintenance. This can easily take an hour or two if you have 10 harvesters going. Since there are no vehicles, player mounts, spaceships, or anything, you're reduced to walking everywhere. Most of the time, the stuff you need is nowhere near a crafting station, so you're going to spend a retarded amount of time just walking around, hoping you don't get shot by that red guy standing 70 meters away.
So, crafting in and of itself is a massive timesink, and more or less pointless for at least the first 5 hours of your trip into the game. You'll be making the same thing over and over, and when you're done making it, you'll destroy it, because nobody needs it. In the first couple of days, everyone was making scopes, because they gave us 40 experience each, and required about 16 minerals and 4 chemicals. For me, it took something like 9000 scopes to reach Novice Weaponsmith. Including the time spent twiddling away the Artisan profession, I'd say it took me about 18 hours of absurd boredom before I could make something that anyone would actually buy. So yeah. 18 hours so I could flip a 500 credit profit. Once you actually get to your elite profession, the experience splits, and it will require something like 175k to get the first levels of experimentation (_slightly_ better items), and 175k for the first decent items you can make. So with me, I made something like 180xp a minute making DL18 pistols, which required 2 components, plus the item itself. This altogether (not including sampling resources or hitting harvesters) takes about 3 minutes if you don't spamcraft multiple components at once. With spamcrafting, you can cut it to about 1 minute 15 seconds. I have no remote idea how long it took me to get that first elite profession skill box, but I was WELL past 24 hours of play time.
I stopped playing that character after achieving 4 skill boxes in Weaponsmith: 3 weapon boxes, 1 experimentation. Something just shy of 1 million experience. At 180xp every minute 15. You do the math. Needless to say, looking back on it, I would have given up FAR sooner if the "newness" of the game had worn off sooner (or if I was doing it now).
So yeah, that's crafters. It's totally boring, and a lot of your time is spent doing the same repetetive thing. And then destroying those precious things you have created, since nobody will buy them, and the bazaar (SWG ebay) has so much trash in it that nobody would buy them even if they could find it. For people that like to sit around and chat or whatever, crafting may be the way to go. Or maybe just casually crafting (good luck ever getting past the 3rd skill box) and picking up some weapon skills or whatever on the side, you could have a decent hybrid character. You'd get romped in PvP though. If your game is centered around PvE and social interaction (like SOE designed it), you'll get some amount of long term enjoymet out of it. If you like to see some results (other than a pointless number of credits in your bank) from your time spent in the game, you're going to want to go elsewhere. Maybe a combat or support profession?
Yes, combat professions. I'm still surprised how fun combat in SWG is, even though I'm more or less disillusioned with the game now. It isn't a "click button, watch mob die, repeat" affair; if you don't actively participate in combat by using special attacks and modifying stances, you're going to do two things:
#1: Get worse experience than crafters.
#2: Be obscenely bored.
Basically, combat is broken down into two phases: the initiation phase, where you probably go prone, hit off one of your specials twice, realise the mob has seen you, and stand up. The actual combat phase involves spamming the living daylights out of that same special, and hope the mob dies before you die.
Unarmed classes (Teras Kasi Artist) are a bit more interactive, as you can do a bunch of neat things instead of spamming your one uber attack special. Grouping is a bit more interesting, usually involving you going to a kneeling position, and spamming your uber attack while hoping that you don't pull aggro, and that whoever's taking the beating (probably the aforementioned Teras Kasi Artist) doesn't die.
The way I describe it sounds rather bland, but when you get down to it, that's really how it is. One attack over and over for most ranged professions, TKAs spamming 3 or so different attacks while hoping to not die.
After whatever it was that you're fighting dies, there's usually a rush to loot the corpse and/or harvest whatever resources (hide/bone/meat) may be present. After that, it's wash-rinse-repeat time.
The other professions (Medics, Dancers, Musicians) are more socially oriented. Medics sit around in the medical center all day, healing people and praying to god that they either get tipped or someone donates organics/nonorganics so they can make more stimpacks. Those medics who do go out with teams generally suck at healing, and aren't much use for anything other than the occasional partial damage heal. They certainly don't heal us TKAs that are tanking everything we fight much. Anyhow, Entertainers are a bit more interesting, as you get to sit in a cantina for your entire game session, and hit the same 8 hotkeys over and over to do "flourishes" and heal those watching/listening to you faster. Entertainer experience is the only experience in the game that is slower than Artisans - even I couldn't handle it. It's more of a profession for those looking for social interaction above all else. Sure, I guess you can grab a pistol and go sling some shots at a creature, and dance when they set up camp to heal... but I've only seen one person actually do that so far. You will, like the Medic, rely almost entirely upon the (fairly nonexistant) goodwill of others for survival.
Now, for the non-player stuff: the game is gorgeous, and even runs well on my (outdated?) ATI Radeon 8500. I can turn pretty much everything up, and the only lag I will get is from loading other characters. Having 1 gig of RAM is more or less a requirement for this though. Medium settings with 512megs works wonders for me, and leaves no desire for full-throttle settings.
The sound is mediocre at best. As a combat character, you're going to hear the exact same blaster sound the entire game, unless you happen upon someone with a SG82, or a bounty hunter/commando with one of their class-specific weapons. Scout traps are ungodly loud for some reason, and are extremely annoying. The same 3 battle musics (sp?) play over and over every time you enter a fight (which is why I turned off background music), and get very old before long as well. The only sound in the game that isn't extremely aggrivating after a while is the player music from Musicians in the cantinas; there's actually a great number of different songs they can play, and with the 8 flourishes they can do, it can be quite varied.
The worst part above all else in the sound category would be pets. You're going to be running around seeing droids doing the same "bleep bleep" or "bleepity bloop bleep" over and over again. I haven't really noticed it much lately over the creature handler pets' noise. Basically, creature handlers go out and tame wild animals, and these animals become their pets. So if you get into a group nowadays, there will be at least one (often up to 10) Creature Handler. Prepare to turn your sound off. There's nothing like 8 people with 24 different pets out all making loud and obnoxious noises on top of that same blaster fire and battle music. It really is the most hate inspiring thing I've ever heard in my entire life. After a bit of playing, you'll get to see more of why Creature Handlers are the most annoying class the game: a lot of their pet "tricks" (which they do a lot of) cause the screen to shake, loud booms to occur (destroying your subwoofer), and block the camera repeatedly. And right now, there's no elite profession played as much as the Creature Handler.
Now, the bugs!
Well, right now there's an abhorrent amount of problems with the game, including bugs. How the previous posters missed these, I have absolutely no idea, so I'll list them off:
#1: Facilities disappear.
Yep. You worked like a dog for 3k to buy a mineral harvester. You set it down, turn it on, and go off about your business. You come back the next day and ... it's gone? So you file a customer service ticket (read on!) and hope someone helps you with this.
#2: Opening your facility might crash you
Yay, your harvester reappeared! Guess we can delete that ticket that's over 24 hours old with no response. So we open the harvester and... boom. Hello desktop. Well, restart the game, and it works. Awful odd, but no worries. We'll /bug it later.
#3: Corpses disappear
Rough, died to a mountain dewback on my way back from Mos Espa. Now I have to go grab my corpse! So let's trek into the wilderness for another 15 hour hike (this time completely naked). We get to the waypoint for our corpse and ... it's gone too?! We /bug this AND open a customer service ticket. Hey, let's go spam the official forums too while we're naked in the desert!
#4: Crafting tool bugs
There are a lot. Attempting to spam through the interface and get that blaster power coupler made, you can likely either destroy the thing and have to start over, or pile up so many screens that your monitor turns black from the fading caused by some of the windows. Sometimes items get stuck in it for no reason, and you have to break out of spamcraft mode in order to retrieve them. Sometimes you'll also have plenty of room in your inventory, yet you can't get items out of the tool, your backpack, the bank, bazaar... anything. Better start destroying inventory stuff until you find the fat culprit!
#5: Can't connect
Yep, the game's supposedly out of beta. Yet a large number of people (myself included) have characters which randomly get stuck. You might get booted out of the game (connection lost dialogue, get used to this), and when you go to reconnect, you sit at the "Connecting to galaxy" screen for hours on end, to no avail. Sure, the galaxy is up, and your friends can get in, but you sure can't. Tough luck, time to start a new character until they reboot said galaxy.
#6: Connection to SWG lost
Yep, you're right in the middle of doing something, people start disappearing, and next thing you know, connection lost! You might come back right where you were, safe and sound. You also might come back dead. You also might come back and be where you were 15 minutes to an hour ago. Go figure, it's all in the dice.
#7: Rollbacks!
Everyone's favorite, the "oh my god, I just got booted back to where I was an hour ago!" bug. It happened quite a lot early on, but it's less frequent now. Needless to say, I got rolled back by 45 minutes earlier today. Sadly, that 45 minutes was the run from Bestine to Wayfar, and is one of the most boring trips in the game that I've found.
#8: More fun stuckness
Watch out for player buildings, some of them can disappear and take you with them, putting you in the "Connecting to Galaxy" limbo class of paying customers. Enjoy your new character on another server for a while.
#9: Obscenely slow response time from Customer Service
Originally, I did not actually think there was in game customer support. Seriously, no sarcasm at all. I had one ticket open from the day after launch, until a solid SEVEN DAYS LATER. Even then, the response didn't help, and my problem was not solved. There is more or less a complete lack of in game support. If you get stuck, deal with it. Nobody will help you. Out of game customer support is equally as bad: the phone support numbers are listed as "9am-9pm PST", however, they were closed at 6pm PST when I called one day. I have several emails from two days after launch which have yet to be answered. The customer support is abysmal, end of story.
#10: Permanent stat loss
Yes, this was reported in Beta 2, but hasn't been fixed yet. I've done the math quite a few times, and I can't figure out where about 239 stat points went; certainly not to wounds, or to another stat. Luckily, I don't play that character anymore, but he still isn't fixed. Proper use of this bug can cause negative stats, which equals unlimited statpower. Fun stuff for exploiters.
#11: NPC pathing
Those of us who actively participate in PvP might have noticed this. A lot of the guards (of which there aren't nearly enough) often get stuck running into buildings. Some smart souls have used this to their advantage, killing people in the middle of various places (imperial capitol on Tatooine for one), and then dragging the guards into the bank to get them stuck. Eventually the guards leave, and they go back to griefing. It's kind of amusing, and there are lots of other PvP exploits which haven't been fixed yet. Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend any new player go Overt and participate in PvP until they've been playing for at least a month, and can handle themselves without guard intervention.
#12: More PvP fun: faction point exploitation
Early after release (3 days), people already had figured out that they could get groups of people to do faction missions and constantly rack in 5-10 faction points per second. By day two of relase people had full sets of Stormtrooper armor, and squads of Dark Troopers and AT-STs following them. Early on, your pets didn't permadie, and you could keep them in battle as long as you pleased. Basically, early PvP was a madhouse, and was totally lacking any fun. They made it now so pets permadie, but smart people can still save their pets before they die. And really, who can solo kill an AT-ST that can take down a group of 20 enemies solo? The exploited pets remain, and they're still in full force. A few people have gotten dark troopers and such legit, but they use their pets sparingly, and I haven't really seen any lately. Even still, 5 hours work can get you a Stormtrooper, which is a match for any player solo. Except maybe a master Teras Kasi Artist. Basically, there's people wandering around with exploited pets, and they're smart enough to keep them alive indefinetly. No fighting back, might as well keel over and die without firing a shot in defense.
#13: Deed renaming
As it stands, all facilities and droids come in the form of "deeds". You use the deed, and then place your facility, or call your droid. Some smart people have gotten into the habit of naming useless droid deeds such things as "Player Association Hall" and charging millions of credits for them - much to the buyer's dismay. This still hasn't been fixed, so be wary of deeds from people you don't know.
Honestly, there are a LOT more bugs that I just can't remember right now (Carbineer profession gated, SG82s decay in under 12 hours use, etc) and don't feel like typing out. As a summary, the game is still early beta material. If you are NOT prepared to deal with large amounts of bugs, and a total lack of customer support, you'll be fine. If you want a solid game where you don't have to worry about losing your hard work to shoddy development, _stay_the_hell_away_.
I can say, it's still moderately fun. I get on every once in a while to show off my Novice TKA that outdamages everyone else in the game right now, and occasionally I scum up another skill box for him. PvP fights are so few and far between without borderline griefing right now that I wouldn't recommend buying it if you're into PvP - Shadowbane had PvP down solid even in beta, and was (I assume still is) extremely fun - far more enjoyable than SWG will ever be.
PvE is interesting, but once you realise that once you master your combat professions, there's nothing else to do, this will quickly lose it's appeal. Don't worry though; if you're not a TKA, you've got at least 250 hours of playtime involved in getting to master Pistoleer/Rifleman. Carbineer will likely take you a month of actual play time to get in it's current state. Commandos are so broken it's not even funny, and Bounty Hunters are extremely shallow, and pale in comparison to Pistoleer/Rifleman in PvP.
Crafting professions can be fun for a bit, but when you realise that you'll never make anything that someone else can't make, there's little point to it. Actual player skill isn't involved in any form, so it can get bland.
Most of the classes end up being cookie cutter style; wanna rule PvP? Zabrak Pistoleer/Rifleman, and grab some TKA while you're at it. Crafter? Rodian or Mon Calamari. Medic? Mon Calamari, obviously. TKA? Trandoshan - anything else is gimping yourself. Wookie? uh ... yeah, useless.
I can say that the character generation in the game is unbelievable, and has to be seen to be believed. It's one of the few things in this game that actually impresses me. Then again, you can only make fat wookies so many times before the joke gets stale.
Summary: If you can handle tons of bugs, no customer support, and style yourself as a near-pure socializer/sightseer, this game is for you. If you want high end content, PvP, etc., go play Shadowbane or something. Graphics are great, sound pretty much sucks. Interface is actually quite good, frequent rollbacks bad. No point to the game really, beyond socializing and maxing out your skill points for no apparent reason.
Hope this helps! Sorry if it looks a bit rough, It's like 2am and I've been up since 4am at the Veterinarian's office
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Stardock Forums
there are destroy missions (vs animals from general stations or vs imperial installations from rebel stations; havent tried imperial ones.
Your review was excellent, by the way. I don't know if too many people in this forum are playing the game, but I, for one, enjoyed reading it. Here's my comments on what you said: