What a fantastic game it was... what a mess they've made of it now!
What have they done!! The interface and FPS mouse control is awful. The character development has been shot to pieces, and although becoming a Jedi was never my principle aim, the fact you can be one from day 1 doesn’t seem right. Even when the many bugs and problems are eventually fixed, it doesn't look like it will be a patch on the ‘old’ game.
SOE/LA have obviously decided that not enough people were subscribing previously, and that the changes will improve things. I’m not so sure. Forgive me if I’m wrong but I thought PC games tended to be played more by adults than young teenagers, especially when subscriptions are involved, and so moving to a shoot-em up FPS set in the Star Wars universe may seriously backfire. In fact I hope it does and they revert to the pre-NGE game. I’m not anti FPS as I’ve played 100’s of hours of Ghost Recon online, but SWG as it was is a much better experience than the present offering.
Admittedly I’ve only played the NGE for a couple of hours since it was launched, and given that my monthly subscription has just been taken from my account, I will try to give it a go for a few more weeks. Unfortunately I don’t feel very confident, and I’m not surprised to read all the negative feedback, especially from old timers to the game. I’ve played SW Battlefront and SW KOTOR, but they were nothing compared to the enjoyment I had back in Aug-Oct. Maybe SOE/LA will make more money out of the new game, but I don’t think they will, and I’m not sure it’s going to be any of my money!