Yeah sure, the game is improving, since when? SOE has struggled to introduce any kind of interesting content into the game from day 1. The so-called story line missions for the Cries of Alderaan amount to little more than annoying Fedex missions. The storyline that goes with them is barely interesting, and not worth the hours of time spent trying to accomplish them. The worst part? You're expected to run these missions by yourself! Well, I can run it in a group if I want to, right? Not so with the Act 3 missions, everyone in your group receives different waypoints for the same mission. Meaning that I'm spending my hard earned money to play an MMORPG that ends up being an extremely poorly written single player game. If I were to add up all the time I've spent waiting for freakin shuttles, its probably something on the order of 3 hours. Those of you who play more than I do have spent much, much more.
All this wouldn't be so bad, if there was something relevant to do in the game. The Act 3 missions, you know the ones that I have to run solo, I CAN'T EVEN DO THEM BY MYSELF. Its been pretty much set up so that only a commando, or a master CH can run these missions solo, so why in the heck aren't they groupable missions? The only reason you have to interact with people at all in this game is because players must manufacture all the things you need to make the game at all playable. This is perhaps the one redeeming thing about SWG.
For the most part, I've given up on the whole rebel/imperial thing, because there is really no point anyways. So what if the rebels won acts 1 and 2, did we get anything for it? I suppose it really doesn't matter who wins act 3 either, because it doesn't mean a damn thing. The PvP element in the game just plain stinks. 2 or 3 character classes dominate the combat, and there's normally so much lag when any kind of large combat takes place that its not worth it. And don't think you can blame the lag on my system, 2.8 GHz, 1 Gig of RAM, SATA HD, and a Radeon 9800 Pro for graphics. Sorry SOE, but I think the lag is definetly because your server code sucks a**. Lag aside, when one "wins" a battle, what do they have to show for it: Nothing. You don't get loot for PvP, you don't get credits, all you get is lousy faction points. Points that mean nothing to rebels because there's almost nothing worth buying with them.
Stick a fork in SWG? Perhaps. The game has a great deal of potential, but thus far, SOE has squandered it. How about rethinking the game around the idea that ITS MULTIPLAYER. Encourage grouping, especially in the Act theme missions. REQUIRE a group to make it succeed. At the very least, don't punish those of us who want to run the missions as a group. Who cares if people have newbs tag along in their group, or people use groups to "power" through the missions, so what? At least people are playing together, which is the purpose of an MMORPG. Running Fedex missions accross barren, non-descript landscape for no tangible reward does not make for interesting or gripping content.
-Czda