Star Wars the Old Republic finally has one of the features I missed most from Star Wars Galaxies, player housing, the ability to have a personal house in the game and decorate it, and make it available to other places to admire.
Previously all that was available was each person’s personal starship, but these can’t be decorated, nor are they open to other players in general.
Early access to “Galactic Strongholds” for subscribers launched Tuesday. After trying to learn the ropes for a couple of days, I think the system seems to be a much improved version of the one used for Lord of the Rings Online, but falls far short of what Star Wars Galaxies offered.
Even though the rumor mill surrounding Star Wars: Episode VII has been swirling with casting rumors in recent weeks, at least one actor has reportedly been confirmed to be returning to the classic series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peter Mayhew is set to reprise his role as Chewbacca in the new film…
…Even though the plot is still a secret, Disney and LucasFilm did confirm that Episode VII’s narrative will take place 30 years after the end of 1983’s Return of the Jedi. When the movie hits theaters in 2015, fans can at least look forward to seeing what Chewie has been up to in all that time. And hopefully some amazing behind-the-scenes photos.
However, the current Star Wars timeline, based on the many books (all approved by Lucas Films) as well as the movies, lists Chewbacca dying 25 years after the events of the first (to be made) film, “A New Hope”.
So Chewie seems to have been given at least an extra 5-10 years of life.
In mid-December I gave up playing Star Wars the Old Republic, and gave Lord of the Rings Online a new try. I had actually signed up for the game when it was new, and was so excited about it I paid for a lifetime subscription. But I never really got beyond the starting phase.
Partly I was disappointed there was no player housing, as this was what I was most excited about in Star Wars Galaxies at the time. But, many years later, SWG was gone, and SWTOR seemed to have run its course. There was nothing to do at the top level, and even the addition of five new levels with the Makeb expansion wasn’t all that interesting.
I play solo PvE, that is, I play by nyself, not in groups, and I don’t fight against other players. Sadly, all the developers seem to care about is grouping and PvP, fighting between players. The game has run out of gas, yet the most recent expansion/update is only about grouping, with nothing at all for solo players.
And now when they are trying to fix space, it is only PvP.
Star Wars Galaxies, a vastly better game at its worst than The Old Republic so far, started without any space element at all, very strange in a Star Wars game. But 11 months after the game started Sony Online Entertainment presented the expansion Jump to Lightspeed, which gave us numerous sandbox adventures in space. With a variety of ships and missions, the new pilot profession to pursue, and even asteroid mining, it was wonderful.
The Old Republic, to its credit, had space from day one. But it used, and still uses, an imbecile “on rails” mechanism, which isn’t worth playing. Now, well more than a year and a half after launch, space is being updated in a future expansion…but only for PvP. The only reason for this that I can see on the forums is that PvE would be too hard.
That’s just not good enough. EA and Disney would do better to buy the rights to Star Wars Galaxies and release it. Even the way it performed on its last day, more than 18 months ago, it was superior to the deadend alley that is Star Wars the Old Republic.
Excalibur Starship 