SWG: The Secret Smugglers Hideout

Just a little photo journey of my house back then on SWG, i called it the secret smuglers hideout.

After the NGE my character became a smuggler and of course needed a cool  hideout :)

I was going through my screenshots and saw these and remembered that i really loved the way my house looked, decorating was pretty cool in SWG and i loved spending time finding cool stuff to place in my hideout and spend time decorating.

I loved travelling around to see the work other people did on their homes (and sometimes steal ideas) some people where really creative.

I really tried to give my home a smuggler vibe.

Saying goodbye to SOE after 8 years

Yes, for almost 8 years i have had accounts with SOE, i played practicly all their MMO's since i started playing Star Wars Galaxies in 2004.
I played The Matrix Online, Everquest, Everquest 2, Vanguard, Pirates of the Burning Sea, DC Universe Online, Clone Wars, Free Realms, Planetside.

Until i was able to get Station Access (later called "All Access Game Pass") in the EU, i had several accounts going, so you could say i was a pretty loyal customer.
Eventhough i hardly played any of the SOE games lately i still had my account going, just in case i wanted to jump into one of their games.

But like they say: all good things come to an end.
I don't think i have to go into details as to why i am now cancelling all my SOE accounts, as an EU player it is pretty much obvious.

Stargrace over at MmoQuests has a pretty good summary about the whole ProSiebenSat.1 thing over here

For me it is enough to say goodbye to SOE after so many years of playing their games..

To me it is quite obvious SOE only cares about money and doesn't give a shit about their customers, so my wallet will speak for me and i will cancel any account i have with SOE.

The End.

Screenshots of a lifetime

Like many gamers i am one of those that always tries to document my gaming adventures by taking lots of screenshots.
Today i had a look at my screenshots folder only to see that it has grown pretty large.


Over 10 gigs worth of screenshots.
17504 screenshots in 123 folders (games), that's a lot of gaming..

This is the oldest screenshot i could find, dating back to 2005, before that i never kept screenshots for long.



Every now and then i like to go through my screenies folder and try to remember the moments i took them, always fun :)

SWG becomes one with the Force.

I guess it was only a matter of time with a new Star Wars MMO coming out (which i will definatly be playing), that Star Wars Galaxies would close down and that time has come...

I still have many, many memories as this was basicly my first mmo, i joined in 2004 and for a few years played nothing but SWG.

Some of the most awesome features in SWG are the housing and resource gathering, i can't remember how much time i spent decorating and re-decorating my house.



Most people will probably blame the NGE (or the CU) for it's downfall, however i really think it wasn't that bad, although i will admit that the changes to the classes with NGE were a major dissapointment for me, the old class trees were simply amazing and it was a lot of fun trying things out and basicly be whatever you wanted to be.

I remember the long road to becoming force sensitive and finaly have "The old man" show up and the even longer road (read grind) to becomning a Jedi, the visits to the Aurelian village out on Dathomir to exchange your XP. Unfortianatly i never made it to Jedi as i was still grinding away when NGE came.
But i will never forget that feeling and moment when the old man came for me.
With the NGE being a Jedi was no longer special and there were Jedi everywhere.

Having the old man show up is definatly one of my most memorable moments in MMO history, it really made me feel special and definatly made my heart jump out of my chest when he did :)

I haven't touched SWG in quite some time but it is still one of the reasons for me to keep my Station Access account running, for some reason i still can't say goodbye to SWG.

So eventhough i think it was only a matter of time before SWG would close down the announcement stil comes as a shock to me and i am definatly sad to see SWG go.

The more i think about SWG the more good memories start to come up.

No matter what you might think of the game in it's current state, if you ever played SWG "in the old days", i am sure you will agree with me that it was one of the best games ever.

If you have never played SWG before, well there is still time as it will close on Dec. 15th and i still think you can get a taste of it's glory as not everything is bad (or gone), despite of what many people claim.

So a big THANK YOU to all the people working on SWG (past & present), May the Force be with you!.

You've lost that lovin' feelin'

Somehow i think that, the problems i am having with MMO's nowadays is mostly due to that feeling of being in that first MMO you play.

For me that was Star Wars Galaxies, way back in 2004, before i had mainly played shooters and simracing games. After playing Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic and quite a bit of "forum roleplaying" in the Star Wars universe, i really had an itch for (role)playing inside a universe with actual graphics, at that time SWG was being launched so obviously i was all over it :)
Unfortianatly my PC at that time couldn't handle SWG, so i had to upgrade, which of course i did as soon as i could.
So when that first day came and i logged in a whole new (scary) world/universe opened up for me, a world of adventure, exploration and new encounters and very important: the unknown.

Why is it, i am not finding that in any new MMO?
Is it because essentially nothing is really new, because all MMO's are technicly the same?
It probably is.

It's probably also the reason why so many MMO's fail to meet the hype that's created around them.
Many people are probably like me and with each new MMO we hope this one will capture that feeling we had in our first MMO.
I still have my hopes up for an MMO to show up to give me that feeling again, but i doubt this will ever happen.

For now there isn't much on my horizon, but i do have some hope for Star Wars: The Old Republic, although i doubt it will live up to those expectations, i have no doubt it's gonna be a great game, but i am pretty sure it will not be "the second coming", and no doubt many bloggers/MMO players will be dissapointed.
As for me, well i'll probably play it and enjoy it for what it is, but i doubt it's going to bring back that "feeling".

Back into space

Been working on my expertise for my smuggler, changing it from full Beast Master spec to a Smuggler/BM spec made it possible to be a bit more effective in fights, but i am still not able to beat lvl 90 elites.
I can take on 3 normal lvl 90 at the same time and i did manage to kill a couple of lvl 87 silver elites, but they were very tough fights, also lost a couple.

Still need to lvl up my pet who is now a lvl 38, but to more effective i might also need a pet with better stats, my current, a Fanged Tiglon doesn't have really good stats, but i like it too much to get a new pet :)

Also went back into space to work on my space collections, curently working on my "Void Wing" kill quota, only need about 150 kills to get my tier 2, found a nice spot with a steady spawn that also has some Black Sun around so i can get some kills into that collection too.

Also remembered i still need to master pilot, but that last mission to master is a pain when trying to solo, although i haven't tried it in a long time, might give it another go sometime soon, i'd really like to get out of my fighter and fly that YT-1300 that has been in my storage for so long..

It's in the cards.

Still playing a lot of the SWG Trading Card Game, not doing much else inside the game.
This cardgame can be really fun, but i still need to figure out how to play, i suck :)

So eventhough i don't know how to play, i am still having fun..

Playing Cards SWG style

Akean Kressh, lvl 90 Smuggler.

Been back in SWG, mostly just hanging around in my house (just outside Anchorhead called "The Secret Smugglers Hideout" on Ahazi) doing some (re)decorating and playing a bit of the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game, Should really figure out how to play this, can't even win from the AI on easy :)

Adding Collections

Finally went back to check out SWG again, mostly still annoyed with all those epic mobs and quests that require a group to do.
But i did have some fun going out looking for stuff for my collections and in the process found out quite a bit of new collections.

I also found a few "quests" (read kill stuff) that had no epic mobs in them so i was able to solo them and it gave me a lot of points with the Hutt faction :)
Also found a nice place close to my house for grinding my pet, who is at the moment level 31, so i still have quite a bit of grinding ahead.
The downside to having a full beast master template next to my smuggler profession is that i am missing a lot of the smuggler expertise and really depend on my pet, but of course a lvl 31 pet doesn't do much against a lvl 90 mob and even my lvl 90 smuggler has a lot of difficulties in taking them down, just seems like i am doing hardly any damage while taking a lot.. :(

For this new year i want to try and play more SOE games as i am paying for Station Access and i figure need to spent at least some time with 3 games to make station access worth it or i should cancel it, for the last months i have not played any SOE games at all despite having an active Station Access account.

And there is plenty to play in my account: Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, Matrix Online and Vanguard and i could also get Pirates of the Burning Sea, i did a lot of beta testing for this game but never actually started playing it when it launched.

Getting badge and dissapointed

After attending about 14 ceremonies, Akean finally got called by Princess Leia to recieve her "Hero of Remembrance Day" badge.

I also had a go at the new meatlump theme park (was very excited to get started, as with most new quests) only to find out that once again i am sruck on an elite mob that i can't take down with my Smuggler/Beast Master build.
It takes this elite mob (level 90) about 3 hits to kill me (level 90) and my (presently) level 33 pet isn't much help either.
And to make it even more dissapointing.. on my, 3rd or 4th attempt, i started attacking the elite mob, someone else popped up aided in the fight, the mob got killed and he got credit for killing it, he didn't even speak to the mob and that's what you're suppose to do according to the quest dialogue, me...?? well i still have to kill it (of course the person popping up dissapeared as fast as he showed up).

Somehow i have a feeling i am being punished for my choice of the Smuggler/Beast Master build, i'm not even able to make a dent in an elite mobs health bar, yet it takes an elite mob about 3 hits to get my health down and incap me and that's including using my heal during the "fight".

So right now i am stuck on almost every new quest (since they implemented elite mobs) and i am about ready to quit this game (after playing since 2004).

However i have decided to keep playing (for now), try to level up my pet and see if that's going to make a difference, if it doesn't i am probably going to quit SWG, almost every freaking new quest has elite mobs in them and i am not going to be forced to group up for them.
I don't mind a difficult fight, as long as i know i have a chance of taking the mob down, a difficult fight is a challenge, but when it takes a mob 3 hits to take me down it is quite obvious it's impossible.

Just to give an idea, i looked at my combat logs, i am doing hits that are around 150-238, that mob did hits well around 2400 to 2768...

Akean returns to active duty

Logged in to Star Wars Galaxies, to have a look around and check out the Empire Day celebrations (and get some gifts).
Also been trying to get the "Remembrance day" badge but so far no luck..

In other news my main has once again joined the rebellion, after being a "neutral" smuggler for a long time, Akean has once again joined the good fight, after leaving the rebellion to for a career in smuggling, she found herself back home when she once again met Princess Leia and knew she had to return to active duty.

Science Fiction or Fantasy MMO ?

I've been looking forward to Age of Conan for quite some time now.
However looking at my recent (or alltime) gaming history on xfire (since 2005) i am starting to have doubts on whether this is a game for me.
Looking at the hours i put into games and how much i like playing them, i'd have to say science fiction/ modern day MMO's are the games i have played to most, games like SWG, Matrix and Tabula Rasa and the Age of Conan is more of a fantasy game, sure i play some fantasy mmo's, but not as much as SF and i do feel i have more fun playing SF type mmo's.

Maybe i should be looking more towards games like The Secret World, which are more of a modern day/SF type game.
I guess i like (ingame) guns and aliens more than swords and elves.

Currently i am enjoying Tabula Rasa so much, i can't remember the last time i had so much fun playing an mmo, or maybe i do, that would be SWG, i started playing that shortly after launch and it was my main mmo for a few years, i only "stopped" playing that after NGE when i had done most quests and there wasn't much to do, the new content (heroic encounters) is great but practicly impossible to solo with my lvl 90 smuggler/beast master (yes i like playing solo in an mmo, bite me!) so it only frustrates me and i hardly play it anymore.

I do occasionally like playing a game like LOTRO (i even have a lifetime subscription for that), Vanguard or some of the other fantasy mmo's and i have fun, but recently, thinking about my gaming i'd have to say so far there are two mmo's that really got me excited about playing, the type of mmo that you can't wait to get home to and start playing and that used to be SWG and is now Tabula Rasa.

I will probably try out Age of Conan and i will probably play it like crazy for the first few weeks or maybe months, but then it will probably follow the path of most of my other mmo's and i will play less and less and i will end up only logging in a few hours a month or less, as i do now with LOTRO, Vanguard, EQ, EQ2 and so on.
Of course having SOE's Station Access is great and that lifetime subscription with LOTRO won't cost me anything monthly, that way i can still log in to most of these games and play them if i feel like it, but is it worth getting another game with a full subscription if i allready know i will probably hardly play it a few months down the line.

Unfortianatly it doesn't look like there are many SF mmo's on the horizon, maybe i should check in (or should i say jack in) with Matrix Online instead..

Star Wars Galaxies

Logged into SWG and went... fishing on Naboo.
After i visited the little "Ewok festival of love" (yub nub... or maybe i should say: allay loo tu nuv) i went to the waterfalls at Theed and did some fishing.
Managed to catch two more fish for my "The Reel Life" collection and one more for my "Nabooian Angler" collection, plus three more fish that were allready part of my collection.

Only need one type of fish in each of those collections to finish them.

Although fishing can be fun, there were times (after losing several fish in a row) that i felt like taking out a thermal detonater and throw that in the water, just for a little revenge... to "catch 'em all".

Star Wars Galaxies

Started with some space collections after getting a comlink "message" from R2D2, thought i'd be getting a quest but it's just another collection thing, had to shoot down some renegade's, who for some reason did not agro on me..., finished it and got a "space mobile" that looks somewhat cool in my house.

Did get 2 more collections after shooting down some Black Sun ships, that did agro on me and a collection that started with a "flawed" ship part that i looted.

Star Wars Galaxies

Logged in to SWG for a while to check up on things, thought about starting with the new chapter (chapter 8) but realised i didn't really have the time to start doing that :)
So i'll probably log in some time later to check out chapter 8.

Happy Lifeday

It's a happy Lifeday in SWG, as with all previous years it was time to get some Lifeday presents :

Star Wars Galaxies

Went out fishing on Naboo today :)
Managed to add 5 different fishes to 2 of my collections (the reel life and Nabooian Angler).

Star Wars Galaxies

Played a bit of SWG, mostly exploring for collections, it's somewhat fun to do but i absolutely hate the "kill ten rats" type of collections, they're too much like grinding.... kill 100 of a, kill 200 of c, yada yada yada... boring shit.

However i do think the finding items collections are fun.

Star Wars Galaxies

Finally played some SWG again, got started on the "Collection Quest Series", so far it's fun.... well it gives me something to do again in game.

Star Wars Galaxies

Finally played a bit of SWG again, tried to continue the Azure Cabal quest line, but gave up on it again..
I hate it when they force you to group when you don't want to.
The mission i was on was pretty much impossible to solo, had to fight up to 4 level 90's at the same time, even when i managed to take one of them down, the respawn timer was so short that before i could take another down the first one would spawn right back. So i said screw that and logged out...

I did get my 39 month veteran reward though :)