So, I went back to SWG to give the NGE another chance after it went live, mainly to see how it affected my combat level 80 Master Bounty Hunter/Master Pistoleer/Medic. Good god, what a disappointment.
When I first logged in I was presented with a screen telling me I had to respec to one of the new classes. I expected this, but I still cannot help but feel tainted by having classes in SWG. Classes belong to EverQuest, to elf and bunny fantasy games. This is Star Wars, man, we need options, not restrictions. So, WTF?
After I finished the respec and got a flood of screen messages about “Too many commands, a buffered command was dumped…”, I proceeded to check out the interface. Who the hell designed this interface? This defines clunky and user-UNfriendly.
First thing I noticed was I had a chat box, but it was just a frame. Then someone said something and the chat appeared, then disappeared before I really had a chance to read it. I tried typing something, but instead open about 5 different windows in the interface. Ok, so they’ve reset my keymap so that now I’m stuck in FPS mode with modal chat. Wonderful. I did finally figure out how to get my chat to stay up, thanks to help of some guild-mates.
I got out of FPS mode by pressing the left Alt key then started moving things around to familiar places on my screen, when I found The Button. Right there, on the right side of the screen, near but not quite at the bottom, that you use to open your options menu. You cannot move this button at all. You also cannot remove it. WTF?
The toolbar pane can no longer be resized. Before the NGE you could resize it to display 2 panes at once, which was very helpful. WTF?
Okay, ignoring The Button I finally found my skills window, renamed now to Profession (what a f’ing joke!). What the hell is this? I have a radial, clock-like thing that seems to be pointing at 80, but with absolutely zero indication of what my progress to the next level is and no apparent explanation of what I have gained previously. The screen shot below shows what the profession window looks like. BTW The Button is highlighted with a red box around it. I hate The Button. I hates it, I HATES it!
Click to enlarge
Also, I am a Master Politician, even though I have never done anything political in the game — I haven’t placed any buildings, or run for mayor in a city, or whatever. Never had any interest in it. In fact, I don’t want it now. Found out from a guild mate that everyone in the game is now a Master Politician. Why even have the prof if everyone is automatically a Master? WTF?
Because I don’t want Master Politician I also discovered there is now no way to drop skills. What you got you are stuck with until you restart your character (i.e. delete and create a new one). WTF?
BTW, from the image above it appears I am half-way through phase 4 of the Bounty Hunter profession. But, what does that mean? What’s in a phase, other then 20 levels? What did I get from the previous 3 phases? What does phase 4 grant me or how does it limit me? There is not enough damned information on this screen. At level 80 I evidently have the Rejuvenate ability, but there is no explanation of what that is or why I need it. I evidently get +10 to droid tracking. But, as I understand it from a guild mate tracking droids are fairly useless after the NGE. WTF?
I did find out what the rejuvenate skill is, and it will be helpful to have a self-heal during combat. But, I had to go digging through the Abilities and Commands window to find it. In the process, I found out that I now have a whopping 4 special attacks that are worth anything, and the highest level of those is level 78. Wow, I’m going to pwn all those Jedi when I hunt them…wait. I can’t hunt Jedi anymore. WTF?
I can’t use my best weapons as they are now higher level than me. My Heavy Lightening Cannon is now Level 88 (and has been nerfed big time, down from a max dmg of 1200 to a mere 740). Also, my pistols are useless because they all have been nerfed to hell. My best pistol, a DL44-XT made with Krayt tissues that did a max of 930 damage now only does a max of 223. WTF?
After the required respec I found myself saddled with several “No Trade” items (hereafter known as “EQ’d” items), things I cannot get rid of except by destroying them. I had seriously hoped this was something I left behind with EverQuest. Well, now that SOE has it’s EQ reject developers working on SWG no trade is in. WTF?
One of these EQ’d items is a “Rookie Bounty Hunter’s EE3″ that does a whopping 73 damage. I can’t even give this piece of junk to an unsuspecting newbie. WTF?
And the set of Stalker Armor? WTF is that? This is just about the crappiest composite armor, ever. 1640 resists, with about 40,000 condition (which isn’t bad, granted). This shit would only be good at low levels, like something negative. But, it’s EQ’d so I can’t give it away to help newbies, either. WTF?
Destroyed that crappy armor, BTW.
And this isn’t even all of it, just all I want to write at the moment. I evidently caused a client crash while on my yacht (at lest JTL stuff did not get whacked!) by opening my inv, closing it, then opening help by accident and accidentally opening some other window while trying to close it. I don’t know, I was so sick and frustrated at that point that I don’t even care what caused the crash. At this point, I don’t even care if I ever play this game again. I certainly would never have purchased it in the first place, back in 2002, if it had been like this.
Posted in Games, Star Wars Galaxies | |
