Unplayable. Developed with not community involvement.
First, a quick background on this reviewer. I have been playing SWG since its launch over 2 years ago. I founded and lead the largest guild on my server, including two player Cities. Also, I was one of the very first Jedi unlocks in December of 2003.
Now, on to the “NGE”:
• Combat is just plain broken. Targeting is severely bugged, and is now no longer turn based, but “twitch” gaming. SOE has completely changed their target demographic 180 degrees from traditional MMO players, to a more console style audience. If you fit this new demographic, you may actually like this game once the bugs are worked out, which given their track record, may be never.
• SOE has for 2 years promised more involvement by the player community in evolving SWG. Then, on November 2nd, it was announced that this latest revamp (NGE) was developed in secret, with zero (0) community involvement.
• All of the crafting professions have been collapsed into a single “Trader” profession. Many of us see this as a slippery slope to eventually either phase out, or put on the back burner all crafting in SWG.
• The User Interface has been redone for NGE, and is too buggy to be playable. Becoming stuck in a combat endless loop, targeting problems, and the fact that combat is now a simple Diablo style click fest with little to no strategy, is a dramatic change for SWG.
I truly wanted to like the NGE, and to keep playing SWG to the bitter end, but this reviewer has had to hang up his SWG hat, and move on to games developed by people that understand their market and their target demographic.
Dagney