[codebje]

The skill tree system was so nice compared to the rigid class systems of other MMORPGs, too.

The fact that player towns just emerged was really cool.

It was such a shame the space expansion was so ... flat. Neither space nor ground had a storyline to follow, but space wasn't an open world, and had no real element of choice in skill paths.

[ehnto]

I enjoyed the new aspect ships brought to crafting, and there's something special about walking around your own ship while it's in transit. But otherwise totally agree, it was kind of just space combat arenas and not much more.

[codebje]

I had a collector's edition 3-man transport ship, but IIRC the novelty of standing on the ship while in transit wore off before the beta ended. Cool, but too shallow on its own.

I can't figure out if the open world game was fun enough just on its own that an open space game would've been chef's kiss, or if it did need some kind of story telling too. It's too long ago to remember well enough, for me.

[tekbruh9000]

PVE was indeed awful. Especially given the back drop; it should have been full of adventure across the galaxy, established characters messing with players, but was merely "run here and kill 6 kobolds". NPC AI sucked.

Would love to strip from my private server, NPC generation as-is as implementation is static and does not allow dynamic responses. Replace it with modern agents to connect like players and train them to build out the world like players can.

Also started a project to make a new client using video and segmentation, gen AI to recreate initial game engine entities as Godot scenes to have full control.

Too little time for either, initial code has sat untouched for years.

[ehnto]

> Also started a project to make a new client using video and segmentation, gen AI to recreate initial game engine entities as Godot scenes to have full control.

That sounds fascinating, I've been working in godot for a few projects now. I'd be interested to know how you would integrate the Godot scenes into the current engine, or if it would be an entirely new client.

[tekbruh9000]

My plan was/is entirely new client, mapped client state to SWG emulator server.

Godot is a pain given my workflow is pretty cli heavy though. Since I last touched that project I looked into switching to Wicked Engine. Just include C/C++ headers rather than Godot.

But job got interesting (am an EE in hardware development land) and I have to spend free time diving into AI model architecture to keep up. Both SWG projects have sat idle for 10-12 months now. shrug