Star Wars Mailbag: The Sequel

Former Star Wars Galaxies Players Are Still Crying Foul

(CBS) 
So, I played Star Wars Galaxies from launch through June of 2005 when the infamous combat upgrade forced me to go back to such games as City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. I returned in the beginning of November 2005, determined to give this new NGE a chance, and activated a new Access Pass account just in time to begin the Test Server beta process.

Now, I am not one of those people complaining of the loss of professions and associative changes to the game. Admittedly, the game needed some serious help if it was to last. Whether or not Star Wars Galaxies last another 2 years is anyone's guess at this point, and only time will tell.

This, instead, is about the Community Relations between SOE and the SWG player base. Namely, the Community Relations Manager, Mr. Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl.

Checking his posts, one would think he actually performs his job as a community to developer liaison well. However, if one closely checks the threads he started for technical issues, one would see that his answers cover only the most basic problems with the game. When it comes to the more serious problems, he regularly refuses to even acknowledge their presence.

Take my example.

I have the $25 Rage of the Wookie and the $30 Trials of Obi-Wan expansion. As far as the Obi-Wan set, as seen with Mr. Torres on G4 recently, the expansion is indeed broken. Not only does Obi-Wan not spawn for the players, thus making the principle behind the expansion unplayable; but the expansion is rife with spawning issues (multiple MOBs spawning "stacked" and attacking en-masse when a player believes there are only 1 or 2), necessary named MOBs not spawning for 4+ hours or more, and many quests that cannot be completed due to a wide variety of bugs.

As far as the Rage of the Wookie expansion goes. It is even worse off.

Having had quest reward experience added to it in the December 13th, 2005 Publish 26 update, Kashyyyk is now even more broken than Trial of Obi-Wan. MOBs spawn inside terrain and buildings and are non-attackable. Attackable MOBs refuse to recognize damage dealt to them, and hit for far above their levels. Mission that send you into Kashyyyk space to complete are also broken, as just as on the ground the enemy ships refuse to recognize damage dealt to them, and hit for far above their levels.