Kill Ten Rats was the only blogger to post the other day recognizing SWG’s 5th birthday. It suppresses me a little that no one else bothered to mention it. It seems to me that SWG is the only game out that at release was truly a 3rd generation MMO. SWG was a game that was really ahead of its time. I can not think of a single game that has even tried to implement some of the original components of SWG. I wanted to take a moment to look back and think of some of the things that where in SWG that I would like to see implemented in MMO’s to come.
Can you say NO levels. Now SWG was the first MMO I ever played and EQ2 was the second. So after 2 years of playing SWG (I left before the infamies NGE patch) and going in to EQ2 at launch. Image my surprise when I had levels and needed to run back to town every level just to get my spells upgraded. So why after 5 years do we still see games following in the same old path? I for one loved the skill tree system. Was it perfect NO but there sure is a lot of potential in a system without levels. The community interaction of just people training other people was great.
Everything in the game was player made. There was no camping mobs’ waiting for a drop. There where was no questing for an item. You ran missions those missions paid you credits and you took those credits and bought your gear. So imagine my surprise when in EQ2 I had to accept the fact that I wasn’t high enough level for a mace. Not that I couldn’t use maces I just wasn’t high enough to use that mace yet.
Personal Vendors it is the only game that took the idea behind selling goods and made it into a class. You had your own personal NPC that would stand around and sell your wears. Later they added tents that you could set up around Player Cities to have your NPC merchants sell your goods. Now the vendors do not just stand there heck no if you where high enough up the merchant tree you could make them talk to passerbies. With everything in the game player made vendors where extremely important and if you where a good crafter and kept your vender stocked up people would travel a long way to buy from you. I made many runs across Rori just to get stem pack A’s.
Can you say dancers anyone. How about that a class based just on people standing around talking to people. One of my fondest memories is when BKB decided to have a party and Stryker paid a group of master entertainers 250k just to come at and play. What a great experience I just wish I still had that screenshot.
To sum it all up lets not forget the creature handler. How many pet Rancors did you have? There where also player cities, player housing, dynamic based pvp, and PA halls aka guild halls. So while the SWG we have to day is far from the game it was at release we have to ask why things like this have not been tried in other games. SWG didn’t fail because of its launch it failed because SOE didn’t want to listen to there player base.
And it did teach the industry a on big lesson. You have to listen to your player base.
I guess like your high school sweet hart, your first car and your first job you never forget your first MMO.
