A few days ago, I decided to install Star Wars Galaxies and re-activate my account. I’ve gotten a bit tired of City of Heroes (although, it’s a great game). I think CoH just doesn’t have the variety of things to do as say, World of WarCraft or Galaxies. I’ve deactivated my CoH account in lieu of starting up Galaxies again.

So, anyway, I haven’t played SWG in about two years. I remember the real reason I quit was because of a couple different reasons:

1. The tedium of SWG was insane. I would log on and play the game for, maybe, about four or five hours per week at the time. My character, Zev Freelock (the original incarnation of the name), was this gunfighter guy who I was working on getting his pistolering skills up. I wanted him to be like a sharp-shooting Jango Fett, but he looked like Han Solo to a degree. Anyway, Zev has a house on Talus, a speeder bike (like the ones from Return of the Jedi) and I was part of a guild called the “New Republic”. The guild got to a point where, through inner turmoil between the higher officers, disbanded. That was a drag. Then, I realized that because I only played for four or five hours a week, that was just enough time to grind some missions and get enough money to pay the maintenance on my house, then I was broke again (houses have a cost associated with them for upkeep whether you’re logged into the game or not). So, I was getting nowhere fast. Even my speeder bike was deteriorating over time. All this, and it was hellishly tough to “level” up your character. There really weren’t any “levels” (like a level 20 Jedi, for example). All you had were tons of these skill trees that you would work on to gain expertise in such things as gunfighting, smuggling, bounty hunting, dancing (yes, dancing), etc. So, it was always quite difficult to gauge your place in the universe. And, I was clearly not spending enough time in the game to get ahead. Lots of negatives here.

2. No one I knew in real life played SWG, and that was a bit of a bummer. For some reason, if a game is “eh” for me, it can be really fun if I know the people in real life that are playing online with me. I’m not sure why that is. Anyway, Right around the time I’m getting tired of the game, CoH comes out and I start playing it. I get Millard involved and then Shauna gets hooked. We end up getting together at my place on a very regular basis and having a LAN party. Me, Shauna, and Millard would all sit in my office here and just kick some serious ass. We’d laugh, talk, and munch on goodies all night long on Friday nights, and sometimes would play all day Saturday too. It was a blast. That probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game. Of course, we met some great people online and had fun with them too, but it wouldn’t have been the same without Millard and Shauna. Needless to say, the fun couldn’t last forever. We got to the point where the SuperGroup (i.e., guild) closed up shop for several reasons, and we all stopped playing CoH. That was another reason why I stopped playing SWG.

Well, I fired up SWG again recently, as I’ve said, and lo and behold the gaming system has completely changed. They now have levels you can attain for your character, the skill trees are pretty much all gone, and it’s not impossible to get money. Basically, all the things that I disliked about the game are now, well, just like WoW. It’s a lot of fun. And, I’ve gotten Zev to a point where he is now studying to be a Jedi instead of a gunfighter. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to play some today.

I need to go get a greeting card and send it out to Misti and the kids today, and also need to ship presents to my brother in Michigan. That’ll take some time out of my game playing, damnit.  I also need to do some laundry, look for some jobs, clean the apartment up, and wash some dishes. Well, if I can get this all out of the way today, maybe I can realx tomorrow and play Galaxies.

Sick Thought of the Day: Jabba’s junk.