When SWG doesn't suck

Tale · **Posted:** Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:46 pm

J.TheYellow · **Posted:** Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:18 pm

That is unbelievably awesome.

Ratman_tf · **Joined:** Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:26 am **Posts:** 518

Very cool that SOE did that for them.

(Stuffs snarky comments about SWG away for another time.)

Buur · **Posted:** Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:28 pm

This is, by far in my mind, the coolest thing SOE has ever done.

Tortolia · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2004 8:38 pm **Posts:** 684

Sweet. Good for them.

Atoner · **Joined:** Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:40 pm **Posts:** 101

It's just SOE stealing from the Turbine playbook.

"If you don't have the staff to make content, do a live event."

It'll only please 0.01% of your playerbase, but hell, a content patch only pleases about 2% of them and requires programming, which is like, hard, and stuff.

-Atoner-

Tale · **Posted:** Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:19 pm

This one made me think of Smed: http://img215.exs.cx/img215/2228/screenshot01974xy.jpg

Arnold · **Joined:** Fri Jun 18, 2004 2:58 am **Posts:** 172

Atoner wrote:

It's just SOE stealing from the Turbine playbook.

"If you don't have the staff to make content, do a live event."

It'll only please 0.01% of your playerbase, but hell, a content patch only pleases about 2% of them and requires programming, which is like, hard, and stuff.

-Atoner-

WTF are you talking about? Back in the day, Turbine produced more new content on a regular basis than any other gaming company. And they did it for FREE.

Paxicon · **Joined:** Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:31 am **Posts:** 59

Atoner wrote:

It's just SOE stealing from the Turbine playbook.

"If you don't have the staff to make content, do a live event."

It'll only please 0.01% of your playerbase, but hell, a content patch only pleases about 2% of them and requires programming, which is like, hard, and stuff.

-Atoner-

The dark side is strong in this one. ;(

Random epileptic seizures of SOE hatred aside, good for these stormtrooper guys. It is always a pleasure to see a group that would dedicate itself to roleplaying with such devotion rewarded.

Freakazoid · **Joined:** Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:18 am **Posts:** 1091

Fuck, I am jealous.

Maybe if roleplaying were rewarded more often, I would want to try SWG.

J.TheYellow · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2005 12:24 pm

http://www.fuckyouanddie.com/pics/16073768.swf

Tale · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:53 pm

sonoma · **Joined:** Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:07 pm **Posts:** 64

I'd probably have asked him why he wasn't killing off the Jedi himself, maybe wonder aloud if his force powers were waning. Just to see if he would have remained in character long enough to force-choke my insolent butt until I expired from lack of oxygen, of course. Probably wouldn't have been part of his carefully orchestrated photo-op though. Might upset the troops, you know. Wouldn't want people to get scared of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Better yet, assault him with a group of rebel assassins. 'course if that happened ol' Darth would no doubt fire up the invulnerability shield and squeeze off a few deathtouches, before hauling his pansy ass the heck out of dodge.

Ah yes, roleplaying.

Atoner · **Joined:** Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:40 pm **Posts:** 101

Arnold wrote:

WTF are you talking about? Back in the day, Turbine produced more new content on a regular basis than any other gaming company. And they did it for FREE.

"Back in the day" being the operative words here. Content has given way to live events, more so in the past year and especially for the next few months in which there will be none.

-Atoner-

J.TheYellow · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2005 9:00 pm

sonoma wrote:

I'd probably have asked him why he wasn't killing off the Jedi himself

Yeah, OK, Rainz. I'm sure that's exactly the sort of reasoning these players had in mind when they decided to form a stormtrooper unit, that they'd play it up until DV showed, then let him have it and emote *assrape* over his corpse.

Probably would've made a lot more news sites, granted, but it'd also guarantee SWG wouldn't bother acknowledging its players trying to play within the intended scope of the game story ever again.

Faust · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:51 am

"Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?"

I think that is exceedingly cool. I'll be their guild is suddenly mired in a zillion applications for membership right now.

Good job, SOE.

Much as I hate SOE, I'm taking great pleasure in seeing them forced, by real competition, to actually cater to their customers for the first time in a long time. Smed has been eating crow over his "walking wallets" attitude for years... but now he's getting to feel the burn. A good thing for us walking wallets, I think.

sonoma · **Joined:** Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:07 pm **Posts:** 64

J.theYellow wrote:

sonoma wrote:

I'd probably have asked him why he wasn't killing off the Jedi himself

Yeah, OK, Rainz. I'm sure that's exactly the sort of reasoning these players had in mind when they decided to form a stormtrooper unit, that they'd play it up until DV showed, then let him have it and emote *assrape* over his corpse.

Not sure how you got from "this is what I would have done" to "this is what I think they should have done" (let alone from "question Lord Vader" to "attack Lord Vader"), but whatever.

J.theYellow wrote:

Probably would've made a lot more news sites, granted, but it'd also guarantee SWG wouldn't bother acknowledging its players trying to play within the intended scope of the game story ever again.

Because Darth Vader killing insolent officers, hunting down Jedi, and fending off rebel assassinations is so far removed from Star Wars. Whoops, looks like I substituted "Star Wars" for "intended scope of the game story." My bad. I keep getting those two mixed up.

Not to leave the wrong impression, I think it's cool. But it's not all that cool, and it sure as hell doesn't scale. I guess they get points for trying.

J.TheYellow · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:31 am

sonoma wrote:

Because Darth Vader killing insolent officers, hunting down Jedi, and fending off rebel assassinations is so far removed from Star Wars. Whoops, looks like I substituted "Star Wars" for "intended scope of the game story." My bad. I keep getting those two mixed up.

I get your point, and I'm not disagreeing with you, because I know it's just what you would do (assuming you could have infiltrated this group, or you'd wanted to jump through the hoops they did.) That DV exists at all in the SWG universe, but it's totally unknown where he is and is inaccessible until his ship suddenly lands on Tatooine at a particular time, and is gone again right after. As a player, it makes perfect sense to ask these questions. As a character in the ranks of Empire Stormtroopers, raising your hand to question Darth Vader why he doesn't get his own hands dirty -- that's not cool.

That SOE would take a risk like this (and LucasArts more than likely had to OK this up and down) does not diminish its awesomeness. Scale be damned, not even Darth Vader can be everywhere.

Ofbac · **Joined:** Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:51 am **Posts:** 182

I'll agree with J on this one.

It's apparently one of the hardest working guilds out there, sticking with a theme, organization and even drills just for the SAKE of doing it. That takes more work and a whole different kind of discipline than just doing big scale uber raids.

That the response to them was in their own format... role play encounter with the very symbol of teh system they chose to serve with their discipline... is perfect.

Sure, it does not scale. But guess what, it does not HAVE to scale. If 200 guilds put up the level of discipline and effort and organization that this guild did, THEN I'll worry about if they all get a cookie.

But then, by the same logic, if everyone did go to this level of effort in the game, a personal visit from vader would STILL only be for the elietest of elites, the guild that stood out head and shoulders above the rest. So again, scale is not a criteria for it.

It's ok to pick on game companies for what they do wrong (either by failure to achieve or lack of effort) but one must ALSO give credit when they do things that are positive. Otherwise you are just a whiner.

sonoma · **Joined:** Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:07 pm **Posts:** 64

J.theYellow wrote:

As a character in the ranks of Empire Stormtroopers, raising your hand to question Darth Vader why he doesn't get his own hands dirty -- that's not cool.

Of course it's not cool, any more than it was cool for Admiral Ozzel to screw up around Vader. I would expect the same fate as Ozzel got, and it would be a damn good roleplay moment too. I'd be happy to pay the death penalty to be part of that. Or be slaughtered as part of a rebel asassination team, as long as ol' Darth stuck to his in character powers, of course. He'd have these stormtrooper guy's help anyway, right? I mean they even PvP. They've got more balls than he does. They could handle it.

See, it's not so much that I'm against roleplaying, it's that I'm against roleplaying only scripted, boring crap with no challenge and no risk. I'm sure it was cool to see Vader, but I'll bet these guys have done much more interesting and challenging roleplay all on their own. Their own drill sargents probably give them a harder time, marching around in formation. Even, *gasp*, when they PvP. Let's face it, this is much more of a novelty than an end-game reward.

Of course Darth Vader can't be everywhere, he's a very important guy. He's the biggest badass in the galaxy and the military leader of the Empire, and there's a war on. So out of all the things to do, he goes off and gives some detachment of faceless cannon-fodder a pep talk. Why?

Because he's a fraud. Because he's not cut out to face any part of the rebellion himself. Because he's not prepared to lead his troops in battle. Because a couple of Jedi would probably get the better of him. Because he's really a pansy. If his men talked back to him I bet you he'd try to ignore them, or maybe reprimand them. ("I gave you permission to walk around and talk, not kill players! No more Vader avataring for j00!") If he got attacked, he'd probably beat a hasty retreat. This is Sim Beru, there's no room for the real Darth Vader. This one's a poser. He's a joke.

And everyone plays along, because they know he's joke, and they don't want to hurt his feelings or shatter their fragile little fantasy by making it obvious.

<anti-roleplaying bias>Blech.</anti-roleplaying bias>

Lying about games since before you were born

When SWG doesn't suck

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