Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of buying the online game “Star Wars Galaxies.” I haven’t played any other traditional online roleplaying games, because I’ve been put off by being squashed by higher-level players, and the seemingly endless cycle of kill monster, level up, kill monster. But from what I’ve seen so far, SWG takes pains to allow people to play the game however they want, and gives lots of alternatives to monster killing. Plus, there are 10 distinct “planet” environments, and exploration of new stuff would be a major draw for me.
I did enjoy The Game Neverending for a while, but the beta has been over for months and there’s no sign of the “real” game yet.
The other problem is, I tend to get frustrated/bored with games easily, which is why I mostly just play demos these days. That’s not a possibility with SWG. Still, I’m tempted. Any advice from people who play these games would be welcome.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-06-20
Scroll/Search down to “SWG”, the 4th entry.
i can’t believe you beat me to the punch Jesse…i was just about to recommend that exact PA entry… haha, so good call.
I am ninja giant fucking robot.
I did the beta, late in the beta period. It was a great deal of fun, though you might be wise to let the game … mature for awhile before buying it. The monthly costs are a bit steep too … I think it’s $15 a month if you go month-to-month, or $12 a month if you buy a year all at once. The grind is still there, though, even if it’s a different flavor. Maybe it’s not “kill monster, get experience, kill monster,” but it’s close. More like, “kill monster, get the bones, kill more monster, get more bones, figure out how to make bone armor, build the damned thing, and do it all over again.” But since the game is so new, there’s bound to be stability issues and huge huge patches every other day or so.
I liked participating in the beta testing, but I’m going to hold off on actually buying the game for awhile.