At last, a balanced and coherent look at what the Star Wars: Galaxies Combat Upgrade really plays like:
MMORPG.com:Combat Upgrade or Combat Downgrade?
Worth a look if, like me, you still don't quite know what the Combat Balance actually is, only that it is 'Bad Ju-Ju!'.
So to sum up, grouping got buffed, soloing got nerfed, and I thought I was only joking when I said it would be Everquest II with blasters! It's a shame really - I quite liked the casual soloability of the old system, but now it seems a lot more of an exercise in downtime minimising, via enforced grouping, as seen in, well, pretty much every other MMORPG title out there. Still, blog ranting aside, the tried and tested EQ model does actually work, after a fashion, so you can't blame them for reverting to type when things get bad.
But yes, if the old system was that good, I'd probably still be playing it now, instead of bemusedly heckling from a distance. I think, all in all, the best way to look at the whole episode is: "Hey! Suddenly, I have this Star Wars MMORPG on my games shelf, and I didn't have to pay anything for it. I wonder where that came from? And where did Galaxies go?"
And of course, with the Axis Pass, it really isn't costing me anything extra, so that's a plus. I must find time to have a look...