Housing is one of the great line-item features that a lot of people think every MMO should have. There is a strong desire to have a place to call your own in what tends to be an unchanging and unalterable virtual world. There is some need within us to leave our mark somewhere in the game. I get that.
And companies have responded to that over the years, offering up various forms of housing. Housing was a big part of Ultima Online back in the day. Housing was part of the attraction of WildStar, which just launched a few weeks back. And over the years I have explored various implementations. If I play a game long enough, and it has housing, I am usually there to give it a try.
But how well it sticks for me… well, that is another story.
Rift offered up housing with the Storm Legion expansion, but it was so free form that I barely did anything with it.
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Housing is one of the great line-item features that a lot of people think every MMO should have. There is a strong desire to have a place to call your own in what tends to be an unchanging and unalterable virtual world. There is some need within us to leave our mark somewhere in the game. I get that.
And companies have responded to that over the years, offering up various forms of housing. Housing was a big part of Ultima Online back in the day. Housing was part of the attraction of WildStar, which just launched a few weeks back. And over the years I have explored various implementations. If I play a game long enough, and it has housing, I am usually there to give it a try.
But how well it sticks for me… well, that is another story.
Rift offered up housing with the Storm Legion expansion, but it was so free form that I barely did anything with it.
Unfurnished Dimension by the Sea
People have done amazing things with dimensions in Rift… they were even doing so back during the Storm Legion beta… but, like most of Storm Legion, it just didn’t hook me.
Lord of the Rings Online, by comparison, offered some very pretty housing that was, in fact, a house. A house on a lot even.
A house in Bree
But the options for it were so limited that I ended up letting it lapse. There wasn’t much advantage to having the house and the customizations were limited to just a few locations within the house. You could hang up things from the world… taxidermied monsters or fishing trophies… but it still felt very generic.
And then clipping issues…
And while I liked the idea of there being a yard, the instanced neighborhoods were somewhat awkward.
Elves and their damn monuments
And it was tough to find a neighborhood where all of us could find a house we could afford. In the end, the minor storage benefit of my house in LOTRO meant I let the lease lapse.
EverQuest actually threw down and added housing with the House of Thule expansion. It borrowed a lot from its younger brother, EverQuest II, while using the instanced neighborhood model similar to LOTRO. And I was reasonably impressed with SOE’s ability to overlay yet another complex interface onto the aging EverQuest client. Plus the houses looked good.
A Norrathian housing development
The problem there was that I was pretty much done with EverQuest as a main game by that point. I like to visit old Norrath, so I had to go try it out, but I had nothing really to put in the house and the upkeep, which was aimed at those who had kept up with inflation, was well beyond my means.
And there have been others. Runes of Magic offered housing that gave you some form of storage, along with a woman in a skimpy French maid outfit.
Go Google the outfit
Landmark seems to be all housing. It is about as free form as you can get. no game at this point.
Behold Zuul’s Sky Altar
The pity is that there is no actual game around it yet.
Meanwhile, in EVE Online, the Captain’s quarters… the start (and probably the end) of housing in New Eden… allowed you to see your full body at last, and then park that body on a couch to watch something boring on a screen.
What is on Space TV today?
That might be too meta for me.
And since I am on about different flavors of housing, I will mention Star Wars Galaxies before some fan comes in to remind us all that this was the greatest housing ever. We will have to agree to disagree on that point. Yes, it gave you your own little spot in the real world where you could open a store or whatever. But it was a visual blight on the game, with huge clumps of houses strewn across the open landscape, encroaching right up to the edge of any in-game landmark. It made the game look like a Tatooine trailer park.
Literally a Tatooine trailer park
But after having gone through so much in-game housing over the years, I have to say that there has only been one housing model that has really suited me. And that is the EverQuest II model.
Yes, you do not get your own house in the midst of the world. At best you share a door to a stately home or guild hall with everybody else who has rented the same facility, so you all live there in parallel in your own instances. I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. It keeps away the blight problem, and while there is the problem of finding somebody’s house from a listing at a door, one of the bragging points I have heard about the SWG model was that finding people was difficult so that knowing where a given person lived and set up a store gave you power. I’ll take the less blight version.
But the key for me was that EQII housing gave me exactly what I wanted, which was a simple house where I could hang trophies and other rewards from my travels. I had the option to decorate, and at times Gaff, who had a carpenter, would send me some neat furniture to spiff up my home, but mostly I just decorated with things picked up as I played. And the important part was that somebody at SOE foresaw that need and provided me with plenty of items to stick in my home. In fact, whoever came up with the reward of a weapon you could mount on your wall for the Lore & Legend quests was a genius, followed by the person who decided to make heritage quest rewards displayable in your home. I went through and looked at every character I had played past level 20 the other night, and every single one of them has a house and has at least some Lore & Legend quest rewards hung on the wall.
Weapons on the wall
There are other aspects about it that make EQII housing good. The interface is simple. The house models themselves come in a variety of designs, from simple box flats to a whole island if you want a big guild hall. And the base models are cheap. You can have a house in any city for five silver a week, which was inexpensive back at launch when SOE was working very hard to keep a lid on inflation and no mob in the game dropped actual coin.
EverQuest II housing is really ideal for my desires. It is just a pity that it is in EQII.
It is a pity because I do not play EQII. I don’t play it because, for all the little things it does right, I don’t enjoy the main game. I don’t enjoy the main game, the character progression and zones and levels and what not for various reasons. Some of the reasons are pretty concrete, such as the fact that none of my close friends play the game anymore. It is on the official “never again” list for the instance group. Some of the reasons are very subjective. I really don’t like the 50-70 zones all that much. Everything after Desert of Flames makes me yawn, and even that expansion still strikes me as “the new stuff.”
After all of the above, I am finally getting to my point.
Despite the fact that EverQuest II has pretty much the ideal housing setup for me, I do not play EverQuest II. I don’t play EverQuest II because I don’t play MMOs for the side features, I play them because I enjoy the overall game.
So I love housing in EverQuest II and the music system in Lord of the Rings Online and the old world of EverQuest and the OCD inducing find all the points of interest apects of GuildWars 2 and… hrmm… I am sure sure there is something I could inject here about Rift if I thought about it… but I don’t play those game because the main game just doesn’t click with me.
I play World of Warcraft and EVE Online which, respectively, ten years in has no housing at all and possibly the most useless housing in the genre. I play them because I enjoy the main game, or the part of the main game in which I indulge.
So if you are out there trolling for page views by raging about garrisons in one breath because they didn’t meet your unrealistic and unsubstantiated expectations, after making it clear you never cared about housing being brought to WoW in the previous breath, in an environment where housing was probably a slip of the tongue to describe the feature, because Blizzard has been pretty clear in the past about their views on housing in WoW… well… I guess I got the punch line at the start of this sentence, didn’t I? Those who get paid by the page view…
Would I like garrisons to be EQII housing brought to Azeroth? You bet! That would be a dream come true.
But unless you have a compelling argument that garrisons are so bad that they are going to ruin the main game, there isn’t much drama to be had in my opinion. We can talk about how better the developers might have spent their time I suppose. But this is a pet battles sort of feature.
In the end, I am buying Warlords of Draenor for ten more levels of World of Warcraft and all the zones and stories and pop culture references and silly shenanigans that goes with it. And I suspect that will be the story for most people.
If garrisons have any merit, people will play with them and maybe even stay subscribed a bit longer. Or if they have any achievements… and of course they will have achievements… people will play with them for that. And if garrisons are truly the waste of time and effort as described, then people will use them to the extent that they need to in order to get to level cap and grab the achievements, at which point they will be forgotten like many a feature in the past.
Is somebody going to try to convince me that this was a make or break feature for Warlords of Draenor?
Or, if you want, just tell me about your favorite MMO housing. Somebody will anyway, so I might as well invite it!
The tl;dr version: If housing really is a must-have important feature for you, you probably aren’t playing WoW now and you probably won’t be playing it in the future.
Anyway, back to happy pictures. I put a gallery of my housing collections in EQII, plus a bit of the Revelry & Honor guild hall (which is huge), after the cut, because it really is my ideal housing plan.
Scenes from various houses and halls.
Artwork in a Halas apartment
Trophies in a Kelethin two room acorn
Books, I have lots of books
Snowglobes and banners
The guild hall island in the distance
On the grounds of the Revelry & Honor guild hall
A Stone of Gygax in the R&H guild hall
A room of altars in the guild hall
Sigwerd’s Freeport inn room, trophies on the wall
Hot poster of Firiona Vie on the wall
Weapons on the wall, some of them made extra large
Looking out the window in Halas
Nomu’s floating object inn room
The door went in when they upgraded the base apartment to two rooms
I am having some trouble getting into the new player dimension feature that came along with the Storm Legion expansion to Rift.
I ran the little quest that introduced you to dimensions, and dutifully placed the few little items that you start with in my new space in Telara.
Dimension by the Sea
But I am not really feeling inspired to do much with it. You can see all of my starter items have sort of been dropped off around the front of the little structure.
The view is nice… so long as you do not get too close to the edge of the dimension, at which point the invisible wall gets all non-invisible in your face.
Trying to see the wall edge on…
Anyway, my dimensional malaise sort of took me by surprise, as I have been much more enthusiastic about housing in other games, like LOTRO and EverQuest II.
I think there are two things that are different in Rift.
First, the dimensions are kind of a raw material, a palette on which to express yourself, on which you can build your own home. A lot of people really go nuts for that, as I saw in the beta tour. But I don’t think I really want to actually design and build a house. I think I prefer one pre-made, a structure within which to work. Rift is, perhaps, a bit too much “from scratch” for me.
And then there is the second factor, which I think feeds into the first.
I have been playing some EverQuest II lately, and I went to look at the home of my berserker, Sigwerd, who has the base level house in New Halas. It is one of my more decorated locations. It is out-done by a couple of my original characters, but the theme is the same when you look at what they share in common.
Sigwerd’s living room
Almost everything in Sigwerd’s house is something he picked up on a quest, or an event, or via a LoN card, or as a veteran’s reward. It is not so much a place I have decorated as a place that represents where I have been and what I have done. This is especially true with the wall of prizes from the Lore & Legend quests.
Wall of Weapons
I think SOE made a good decision in creating so many such items that can be displayed in player homes.
I hope Trion picks up on that aspect… and maybe comes up with a few more house-like dimensions going forward.
In the mean time, Frostfell is nearly upon us. It might be time to pick up some snow globes for Sigwerd’s place.
Station Cash, a real live RMT system, was introduced into EverQuest and EverQuest II this week much to the surprise of the players.
Those opposed to RMT in any form were, of course, incensed. Much cancelling of accounts ensued, if you believe everything you read in the forums.
Myself, I was just underwhelmed by what was being offered and, as Mr. Zenke pointed out, the price point of some of the fluff for sale. They certainly don’t seem to qualify as micro transactions. Darren’s response did not go into his usual fear of being “nickled and dimed to death” because prices start at a dollar. (Or a Euro, if you live in parts of the EU. No doubt there is some sort of virtual fluff
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Station Cash, a real live RMT system, was introduced into EverQuest and EverQuest II this week much to the surprise of the players.
Those opposed to RMT in any form were, of course, incensed. Much cancelling of accounts ensued, if you believe everything you read in the forums.
Myself, I was just underwhelmed by what was being offered and, as Mr. Zenke pointed out, the price point of some of the fluff for sale. They certainly don’t seem to qualify as micro transactions. Darren’s response did not go into his usual fear of being “nickled and dimed to death” because prices start at a dollar. (Or a Euro, if you live in parts of the EU. No doubt there is some sort of virtual fluff VAT that requires you to pay more for you Station Cash.)
But the next question that comes to my mind is, what other current SOE games are going to get an RMT fluff option? We know all the upcoming titles will have it, but who else will get a retro-fit?
Or do any of the other SOE games have enough subscribers to warrant the effort of slapping on a Station Cash store?
Will there be Vanguard RMT fluff? Matrix Online RMT fluff?
That has got to be a good news, bad news scenario.
In a world where I get a dozen or so World of Warcraft phishing attempts every week (current popular theme: click this totally bogus URL to get into the Cataclysm beta), and where I occasionally get attempts for other games, like Star Trek Online or Aion (which I’ve never even played), getting on the phishing list has to elicit some sort of “Hey, somebody cares enough to try and steal our shit!” response deep in the dark recesses of the mind.
Of course, that has to be followed up pretty quickly with “Crap, now we’ve got to do something about
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Okay, it is too hot to get to sleep, so I am sitting here past midnight reading Massively and feeling snarky.
That has got to be a good news, bad news scenario.
In a world where I get a dozen or so World of Warcraft phishing attempts every week (current popular theme: click this totally bogus URL to get into the Cataclysm beta), and where I occasionally get attempts for other games, like Star Trek Online or Aion (which I’ve never even played), getting on the phishing list has to elicit some sort of “Hey, somebody cares enough to try and steal our shit!” response deep in the dark recesses of the mind.
Of course, that has to be followed up pretty quickly with “Crap, now we’ve got to do something about it.”
And so SOE has posted an advisory in the news columns of the EverQuest and EverQuest II sites (PlanetSide? SWG? Free Realms? Anybody there? You use the same Station accounts.) about this phishing attempt with the usual “Check the URL before you click on it” message about any password change or account issue email you might find in your in box.
They have also included instructions about what to do or whom to contact should you think your account has been compromised.
EverQuest II is the next generation of massively multiplayer gaming, a huge online world where thousands of players come together for adventure and community.
Or Yahoo!, as it is correctly written I suppose. I always leave out the exclamation point.
Yahoo seems to have some sort of list in its top stories on the main page. Things like Signs You’re a Green Hypocrite and such. But once in a while something related to video games makes an appearance.
There were two such lists in the last week that I thought were interesting.
You’ll have to go read their criteria and such, but the list was:
Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 (1982)
Diakatana (2000)
Enter the Matrix (2003)
Star Wars: Galaxies (2003)
Killzone (2004)
Wii Music (2008)
Too Human (2008)
Spore (2008)
I like this l
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So let’s visit Yahoo.
Or Yahoo!, as it is correctly written I suppose. I always leave out the exclamation point.
Yahoo seems to have some sort of list in its top stories on the main page. Things like Signs You’re a Green Hypocrite and such. But once in a while something related to video games makes an appearance.
There were two such lists in the last week that I thought were interesting.
You’ll have to go read their criteria and such, but the list was:
Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 (1982)
Diakatana (2000)
Enter the Matrix (2003)
Star Wars: Galaxies (2003)
Killzone (2004)
Wii Music (2008)
Too Human (2008)
Spore (2008)
I like this list for a few of reasons.
First, I bought that horrible, horrible version of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. I saved my money and spent it on the game. $30 was some serious money back then.
It was so bad.
It was so very bad that we cannot let go of the disappointment almost 30 years later.
So bad that it is blamed for hurting the video game market.
I think that game broke my relationship with the 2600 for good.
Then there is Star Wars Galaxies there in the middle. An MMO that isn’t Warhammer Online being tarred with the hype brush. Well, that is refreshing! And SWG being called out for something besides the NGE! It is a two-fer!
And Wii Music. I’ve already been down on Wii Music. Not sure how the hype really was, but the game itself… rubbish.
Finally, Spore. So much hype. So much copy protection. Such a “meh” game. Even the Zero Punctionation review of the game was probably the most mild review Yahtzee has ever done.
Still, is that really the definitive list of most overhyped games? I mean sure,Duke Nukem Foreverdidn’t make the list, having never actually shipped, but I’m sure there must be some other worthy titles out there.
I immediately took to this list because its focus was only titles that were released in 2009 and 2010, so the whole thing wasn’t weighed down by the various boxed versions and expansions for World of Warcraft and The Sims. Or maybe it was just a consoles only list. They didn’t say that anywhere… in fact they were pretty sparse on the parameters… but these titles don’t totally go against what you see elsewhere. Have Sims sales dried up?
Anyway, the list for this year, so far:
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
Pokemon SoulSilver (DS)
Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)
God of War III (PlayStation 3)
Wii Fit Plus (Wii)
Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
Pokemon HeartGold (DS)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)
Just Dance (Wii)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
My first reaction was, “Wow, that is a lot of Nintendo focused titles.”
Club Nintendo Indeed!
Nintendo seems to own us with 7 of the 10 titles on that list. At least only two of them are Mario.
That was quickly followed by “Wow, that is a lot of Pokemon!” If they hadn’t split them out, combined Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver would have been on top.
And then, I started to wonder how soon StarCraft II would break into that list. According to that other source I linked, it is closing in on the Top 20 world wide, is already in the Top 20 in the Americas, and has the usual Blizzard momentum behind it.
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Seriously. It is as though Nintendo looked at all the money being raked in byRock Bandand Guitar Heroand said, “How can we tap in on this market without really putting in any effort?”
And so Wii Music was mailed in. Take some Miis, throw in some air guitar instrument motions with the Wii remotes, find some public domain music, mix in the usual measure of Nintendo required features, and let the sheep have at it.
I suppose I have to admire Nintendo for setting the bar extremely low. This is a game that somebody who cannot handle the colored buttons on the fret board of a little plastic guitar can still manage. But that does not make it any less annoying.
And the first, and most annoying bit is the fact that the Nintendo obsession with unlocking content is in full form here. So you cannot just jump into the game and play a song you might enjoy… not that there are likely to be any… no, you have to kick off with “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” in some crazed tribute to the Suzuki method.
And so you jam on electric guitar or drums or whatever to the song to which we all sing the “ABCs” here in the US. Fun. Not.
You then advance through “Do-Re-Mi,” “O Christmas Tree,” and “The Flea Waltz” to unlock “The Legend of Zelda” or, listed as popular, “Daydream Believer.” I suppose it meets the “popular at some time in living memory” benchmark. Looking at the list of songs the game has hidden away, there appears to be a couple of interesting titles, but we have not had the stamina to go unlock any of them so far.
There are other things to do in the game besides wave your hands to grammar school tunes. One which I thought might be a bit amusing was Mii Maestro, which involves conducting an orchestra Miis. Who doesn’t want to be the big shot with the baton?
You get to set the tempo for the piece, so you can drag it out like “Stairway to Heaven” or get all Herbert von Karajan and make it go by like “Flight of the Bumblebee.” (The man was a force, but could conduct some days like he was in a hurry to beat the traffic home.) Of course, to get to any songs you might like to conduct… and there are one or two… you first have to conduct “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” And even once you get something like Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons – Spring” or Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on the menu, the game wears thin pretty quickly.
Of course, one of the worst thing of all about the game is that my daughter loves it.
And so we flail away together, Wii Remotes alive trying to mimic in some way the instrument we’ve each chosen, making noises that sound like distant relatives of the notes one would expect, occasionally straying into the neighborhood of the right tempo, and proving that when it comes to music we should probably just stick to the play button on our iPods. It is no wonder I steer clear of the minstrel in LOTRO.
The other killer for me is the fact that it sure seems like there ought to be some good in the game.
The jam element seems to be on the right track, but it always ends up as a disco train wreck or a cat fight in the band room. (Doubly so when one of the instruments you can unlock is your Mii wearing a cat outfit that makes caterwauling sounds.) That could be just us… though I’d believe it if something sounded good even once. We cannot be bad all the time, can we?
Meanwhile the wide selection of instruments invites experimentation and repetition, but only leads to disappointment as you find out that you make equally awful noises whether playing harp, bass, ukulele, banjo, sitar, marimba, saxophone, recorder, or snare drum.
Still, my daughter has fun with the game. I just end up with a headache. But I was never the air guitar kind of person in the first place.
Time to go play “Daydream Believer” again. Maybe it will sound better if I go with the steel drums this time.
For those who truly hate World of Warcraft and cannot stand to grant it even one accomplishment, the real reason for the success of WoW is encapsulated in the idea of the perfect storm.
The circumstances were simply right at that moment of time and big, dumb old Blizzard fell into their position of market leader due to circumstances beyond their control. The changes, the flailing about, and the constant “dumbing down” of WoW only fuels the flames of the fire that keeps this theory on the boil in certain quarters.
And you will notice that “perfect storm” has a bad connotation in almost every usage, so no doubt refers to how Blizz destroyed the MMO market, one more slam against the current front runner.
I do not agree with this theory. People espousing it tend to ignore the fact that Blizzard had a series of best selling games before WoW, so had a good reputation, and that the Warcraft franchise was popular. A lot of factors went into the su
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For those who truly hate World of Warcraft and cannot stand to grant it even one accomplishment, the real reason for the success of WoW is encapsulated in the idea of the perfect storm.
The circumstances were simply right at that moment of time and big, dumb old Blizzard fell into their position of market leader due to circumstances beyond their control. The changes, the flailing about, and the constant “dumbing down” of WoW only fuels the flames of the fire that keeps this theory on the boil in certain quarters.
And you will notice that “perfect storm” has a bad connotation in almost every usage, so no doubt refers to how Blizz destroyed the MMO market, one more slam against the current front runner.
I do not agree with this theory. People espousing it tend to ignore the fact that Blizzard had a series of best selling games before WoW, so had a good reputation, and that the Warcraft franchise was popular. A lot of factors went into the success of WoW, a topic that has been bounced around ad naseum.
But while the whole “perfect storm” thing cannot stand by itself, things were certainly working in Blizzard’s direction.
EverQuest, WoW’s spiritual ancestor and former market leader, had trained a lot of people on what a 3D fantasy MMO was. There were a lot of EQ players and probably even more former EQ players by 2004 out in the market looking for something new.
Games requiring 3D accelerated video cards were common, and such cards were readily available and not too expensive, so the base of machines capable of playing WoW was much bigger at launch than it was for EQ back in 1999.
EQ itself had reached the stage of shoving unfinished expansions out the door every six months, while SOE was creating its own successor to EQ, EverQuest II, which wouldn’t figure out what it was about, in my opinion, until the two years later with the Echoes of Faydwer expansion.
So the market was ready, in a way, for Blizzard to come along with World of Warcraft. And even with its own troubled launch, it still looked like a better deal than its competitors on the market.
Yes, that is a grossly simplified look at WoW’s competition. There were other games out there like Dark Age of Camelot. But things did seem, in general, to work to Blizzard’s advantage in late 2004.
And it is news this week that made me start thinking about what the market will look like for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and how things will work out when it launches late this year. (Or so they say.)
Certainly there are some immediate parallels with WoW in 2004, so much so that it is tempting to start forecasting the weather in search of another such storm.
More the SWG forecast these days...
What might we predict if we took today and projected it out to the SWTOR launch?
The Blizzard Conditions
Like Blizzard, BioWare is well regarded, has a strong following, and a track record of best selling, high quality games.
And while Warcraft is a popular IP, very few IPs beat Star Wars. And this is not a new IP with which BioWare is working. Their success with Knights of the Old Republic gives them credibility with the public that they can deliver a good Star Wars game as well as the leverage (or so I have heard) to tell LucasArts to “screw off” if they start telling BioWare what to do.
The market too seems to be aligning itself in favor of BioWare.
World of Warcraft – It’s Draining Subs
World of Warcraft is in the position EverQuest was in 2004, the undisputed market leader. And like EQ, it is slipping into decline. While it does not suffer from quality problems in expansions, it is still managing to alienate sections of its core player base. Even my mom says Cataclysm is nice looking, but “meh” otherwise. And by destroying the old game to redo levels 1-60, they cut the nostalgia cord with their loyal fans. Blizzard has the summer to come up with something new or they look to be in the long cycle of decline. WoW will still be huge and profitable and highly polished for years to come, but things appear to be on the down slope now.
Star Wars Galaxies – That’s No Contract Renewal!
Then there was last week’s announcement of the closure of Star Wars Galaxies. Of course, LucasArts is declining to renew its contract with SOE in order to support SWTOR. The announcement said as much. And while it is silly to assume that SWTOR will somehow automatically get all of SWG’s subscribers, it will be the only Star Wars MMO in town, so no doubt some of that population will come in for a look. And those that come to look may stay because, unlike the mass of EQ players that went to EQ2, said “no,” and ran back to EQ, there will no “home” to which to return.
EVE Online – Unrest… but when isn’t that the case?
EVE Online is in chaos for the moment. But when does it ever go for six months at a stretch without something driving the player base to howl? And it is unclear to me if the echo-chamber of the threadnaughts represents anything more than the most vocal segments of the minority of EVE players than play the 0.0 segment of the game. Still, EVE is a very interconnected game, so your empire space based mining corp would feel the pinch if null sec players stopped needing resources. And EVE is a home for those who want a space MMO, and while SWTOR won’t be anything like EVE, you can be sure there will be some cross-over… and all the more so if CCP keeps stoking the fire or ire in the player base.
Rift – So Happy Today
Rift, the darling of late winter which bloomed so rapidly in the spring seems to be enjoying a stable summer. The biggest selling point for a lot of people seemed to be that is was “not WoW.” But it has started moving closer to WoW in difficulty and mechanics. Will this flower be a perennial or merely an annual, shedding a chunk of its player base for the next “not WoW” thing? Are the new trial servers an innovation or just a clever way to do a server shut down without doing a server shut down? Will Rift be able to claim a sizable loyal core, or will its player base be tempted by something that may be even more “not WoW?”
Guild Wars 2 – When it Ships
Guild Wars 2, a serious contender for attention in this market now sounds like it won’t ship until 2012. If SWTOR makes its own plan and launches this year, having GW2 out of the way will be an advantage.
Other Titles – Any High Pressure Systems?
What else will be coming out this year? Diablo III and the next installment for StarCraft II represent all that Blizzard will have to offer. They will steal some attention, but are really for something of a different audience. There will be other games, many of them free to play, as well as expansions.
So What Is The Forecast?
Having taken a semester of meteorology in college, I know a wee bit about forecasting the weather. And one of the truths of it is that a forecast gets more accurate the closer you get to the particular time for which you are attempting to forecast. And accuracy only hits 100% when you are telling people what is happening right now for your current location. The further away you get in time and space, the bigger the margin of error.
We are months away from a SWOTR launch and many things can change.
BioWare might need to slip the release into 2012. Or, worse, they might really need to slip in to 2012 but get forced by EA to go out the door unready for prime time.
Blizz might figure out what it needs to do to get WoW out of its slow decline and restore growth.
EVE might stave off a player revolt (actually, it surely will, as such unrest is part and parcel of the game in my opinion) and introduce walking on stations in time to make space interesting enough to attract those who might not be sold on SWTOR. (Though that level of change would no doubt instigate another player revolt in the threadnaut echo chamber.) Or EVE players might just stalk off to Perpetuum and be invested there when SWTOR rolls out.
Guild Wars 2 might launch this year.
Some other game, some sort of indie MMO with Minecraft-like powers of appeal, might show up and change the whole scene.
Heck, if we want to get wild in our speculation, SWG, riding a resurgence of interest based on nostalgia and its imminent demise, might start delivering enough dollars to LucasArts to make it think twice about shutting it down. But I would rank that on the scale of “maybe the horse will learn to sing” as far as likelihood goes.
There is a lot that could happen between now at the launch of SWTOR.
And sometimes the weather throws you a curve ball.
That is this week’s forecast for Silicon Valley. Rain is very uncommon in the summer here, but it happens. And two hours ago that forecast had the picture for thunderstorms. Even more rare those.
So, like the weatherman sitting here in late June and saying it is likely to rain in the fall, it is pretty hard to dispute the idea that a BioWare produced, Star Wars themed MMO with EA’s marketing muscle behind it is going to sell less than a million boxes in a short span of time. Beyond that, you have to guess at what conditions will exist at the time of its release.
What do you think will influence the forecast for the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic?
Even in the worst Star Wars fan nightmare, George Lucas would not have Han and Greedo exchange a dozen shots over the table before one of them finally flopped over dead, not having experience any diminished capacity along the way. Forget about who shot first, that scenario would be the real disaster.
Han going for his blaster
And yet, that is how it would play out in any Star Wars MMO you care to mention. My experiences this past weekend indicate that the toe to toe, multi-shot blaster fight is, and shall remain, the norm.
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Even in the worst Star Wars fan nightmare, George Lucas would not have Han and Greedo exchange a dozen shots over the table before one of them finally flopped over dead, not having experience any diminished capacity along the way. Forget about who shot first, that scenario would be the real disaster.
Han going for his blaster
And yet, that is how it would play out in any Star Wars MMO you care to mention. My experiences this past weekend indicate that the toe to toe, multi-shot blaster fight is, and shall remain, the norm.
Blasting away, two down and I'm barely scratched
Which is seriously making me reconsider my pre-order of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The whole hit points vs. damage dealt routine just feels wrong in a game like this.
I realize that it is equally inaccurate in a fantasy MMORPG, but swords, armor, and magic lead to a much easier suspension of disbelief. I can easily get past this in Azeroth, Norrath, Telara, or Middle-earth. But there are six Star Wars movies and about three seasons of related TV out there showing people going down to one blaster shot all the time.
Including, of course, our friend Greedo up there. As somebody else once quipped, the more important fact was that Han shot well.
For the most part, in the movies, only good guys, and the rare bad guy with one last act of defiance in him, generally survive beyond a single blaster bolt.
So I am trying to decide if playing a game where it takes 3-6 direct blaster hits to kill an NPC, all while taking as many hits yourself, is going to be something I can get past or not.
That December date is coming up quickly. It is just over a month away.
I am fortunate that my account is flagged so that I can play at this point.
So once I got the client up to date, I jumped right in.
As with everything Star Wars, it opens with the usual line about a galaxy far, far away.
Then, naturally, the Star Wars name/logo.
Star Wars? Ya think?
And once you have those two, you cannot skip the inevitable bottom to top text crawl of the situation.
There is conflict! Oh no!
These are the tropes of the Star Wars universe. On the one hand they do seem a bit tired more than 30 years after the original movie. But on the other hand, they do put you in the right state of mind.
And the game seems quite intent on placing you in that state of mind. So it brings out the old stand-by smuggler.
We've seen his type before
He, of course, flies a ship… the fastest ship around naturally… that is of obvious Corellian manufacture and looks kind of like one we’ve seen in the movies.
I mean, it is about the same shape and all...
Naturally, there has to be a dramatic, last minute escape.
In reality the explosion would have killed us...
And then a narrow escape through very familiar “bad guy” ships.
Not the local bulk cruisers...
Which, of course, includes fighters of the usual configuration…
Fighters, 6 o'clock!
…and a manning of turrets to hold them off.
Scratch one fighter...
The bad guys are never happy about this sort of thing.
You and what... oh, yeah, that army...
All of which is wrapped up with the dramatic jump to lightspeed.
That was soooooo cool... in 1977
That is all exciting and good and puts you in the spirit of things.
Then things start to fall apart for me. You have chosen your class.
9 choices there
And you get a quick intro into combat, but it becomes unsatisfying… to me at least… almost immediately. Standing toe to toe and exchanging blaster fire just seems silly.
Bang! Bang! You're Dead!
Close combat like this makes sense in a fantasy game, where a sword fight requires you to get up close and an armored opponent might take several hits to die.
But here we have ranged energy weapons that ought to drop you with a single, solid hit. Star Trek Online tried to cover this up a bit by giving you a personal force field. But here blasters are either so weak or characters are so strong that the average player can take half a dozen hits without a problem.
Yes, you can use objects for cover. The game tells you so.
Don't just stand there!
There is the usual corpse looting, this time for credits instead of gold.
I swear I thought he had a quest...
And experience points. You cannot have a game like this without experience points it seems.
...or have you been experienced?
I did spend some time running around, doing a few quests, and trying to spot things that made the game different.
NPC interaction wheel
Honestly though, I couldn’t stick with it for a long stretch.
Fortunately, patching was quick and easy, so I did not have to wait to get into the game. Not a lot of new stuff going in at this point I guess.
2.7 MB? Practically no patch at all!
And getting onto a server was no problem. There are only a few from which to choose and there are no queues or anything to delay logging on.
All of this did give me a chance to get a small taste of what the first Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, is currently like. I will probably go back for a bit more between now and December 15, when the game shuts down for good.
I though it was important to have a feel for what had come before so that I could truly appreciate the changes and innovations that BioWare is bringing to the table with their Star Wars MMO.
I have long complained that what passes for server status pages for SOE games like EverQuest and EverQuest II have often displayed information with little relationship to reality.
This is something that seems so easy, and which competitors like Blizzard have done so well, that I have boggled at SOE’s half-assed approach to the problem. I swear at one point the EQ status page was static HTML that somebody just updated manually… when they had the time.
I have long complained that what passes for server status pages for SOE games like EverQuest and EverQuest II have often displayed information with little relationship to reality.
This is something that seems so easy, and which competitors like Blizzard have done so well, that I have boggled at SOE’s half-assed approach to the problem. I swear at one point the EQ status page was static HTML that somebody just updated manually… when they had the time.
Currently it only displays the status for EverQuest II, EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, and DC Universe Online. I suppose the Vanguard servers are touched so infrequently that assuming they are up is safe.
And the region data column seems to be only partially populated. Test might pass for a region I suppose, but where is “live?”
And the sorting of the servers is obviously based on some database key not visible in the display. Alphabetical sorting by server name would be appreciated.
But otherwise, SOE seems to going in the right direction with this. I will have to check back on patch day and see if status and reality actually align now for SOE.
It is interesting to see that of the EQ servers, only Fippy Darkpaw and Antonius Bayle are running at a load level other than “low.”
Addendum:
SOE seems to be continuing work on the page. They have now added more games and tinkered with the information displayed, including the freshness of any given status.
The Game List, Sept. 2
Logical sorting patterns still seem to elude them, but you cannot have everything I suppose.
One of my MMO pet peeves, probably the only one that I have actually complained about multiple times on official forums, is the availability and reliability of server status information.
This morning I went to log onto EverQuest and, after going through three of the screens through which you must pass in order to get into the game, I got a notification that the server, Luclin, was down and that I should go check the network status page for details.
At the bottom of the page there was an entry about the servers being down for six hours starting at 5am today. Since it was 9am, the servers were obviously still down for that maintenance period.
What irks me, of course, is that the server status, all that static text in bold green in the middle of the page, indicates that the servers are all up. The person whose job it is to change that text when the servers are down either forgot or is out of the office, and since it is obviously not automated, the text remains the same.
Okay, so EverQuest isn’t down that much any more and, well, it is EverQuest, so who even cares?
It is the fact that it shows a lack of attention to detail that bothers me. Here is something that could be automated, that should be automated, yet is left as a manual task that gets looked after some of the time.
It is a polish thing, if I can use that word safely while Darren is about.
World of Warcraft has a great Realms Status page that is very useful. It shows server status, server load, and tells you if there is a queue. Blizzard talks about polish and attention to detail and they demonstrate it here. The only problem I have ever had with that page is when there is some general server problem and a few hundred thousand people hit it at once. The price of success.
EVE Online has just one server, but the server status is right there in front of you when you launch the client. Plus, the server status is available via an API, so I can see server status when I am running EVE Mon.
And it isn’t just EverQuest that shows this neglect. I have seen enough instances of the EverQuest II network status page reporting “All Servers Are Up,” when they quite clearly are not up, to feel the need to verify anything I read there.
And when looking at other SOE games, I noticed that the Pirates of the Burning Sea server status page reports all 13 servers up and running.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but didn’t they merge down to fewer servers than that? I could have sworn that Guadeloupe, the server I played on, was one of those eliminated, yet it is still listed as up. Did I completely misunderstand something (not unusual), or do we have at least one Flying Dutchman server on the loose?
And I could not find any server status for Vanguard.
Polish includes the whole user experience. It includes all of the little things, like accurate server status pages. It can be hard to take a company seriously when it treats information like this so haphazardly.
Network Solutions - Original domain name registration and reservation services with variety of internet-related business offerings. Quick, dependable and reliable.
I wonder what prompted them to pick that number? Could it be World of Warcraft?
As John Smedley said some time back, it is Star Wars, it should be huge. Of course, he was talking about the failure of Star Wars Galaxies to become a market leader.
As noted over at Massively, where they have an exclusive interview with John Smedley of SOE, Star Wars Galaxies is slated to be “sunsetted” (read “shut down”) on December 15th of this year.
In the interview, Smed gives the reasoning:
The decision to shut down SWG is first and foremost a business decision mutually agreed upon between SOE and LucasArts. LucasArts has a new game coming out, and the contract would be running out in 2012 anyway, so we feel like it’s the right time for the game to end.
And here we see an issue inherent in working with a popular intellectual property for an MMO.
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As noted over at Massively, where they have an exclusive interview with John Smedley of SOE, Star Wars Galaxies is slated to be “sunsetted” (read “shut down”) on December 15th of this year.
In the interview, Smed gives the reasoning:
The decision to shut down SWG is first and foremost a business decision mutually agreed upon between SOE and LucasArts. LucasArts has a new game coming out, and the contract would be running out in 2012 anyway, so we feel like it’s the right time for the game to end.
And here we see an issue inherent in working with a popular intellectual property for an MMO.
Vanguard, which SOE own outright, may run for years yet, so long as it makes just enough money to justify its existence. But there is always overhead from the owner of an IP, like there was with The Matrix Online. And so that closed, no doubt in part because Warner Brothers was owed money every month for the use of the IP.
And Star Wars is a valuable IP owned by Lucas and guarded jealously. Any licensed Star Wars product that is not a sterling success reflects badly on the IP, and SWG has had its share of troubles. (Rooted mostly in requirements laid down by Lucas after the fact, or so goes the tale of the NGE.)
And so the contract with SOE is coming to an end conveniently at about the time EA and BioWare should be close to launching Star Wars: The Old Republic.
We will find out in 2009 is that LucasArts is only willing to sanction a single Star Wars based MMO running at any given time. SOE has known this all along and this is part of why they did not bother going to LucasArts with their Station Cash idea.
Seeing that BioWare is set to launch a Star Wars: The Old Republic… well… some day… the sense that time is running out will grip Star Wars Galaxies. There will be a resurgence of subscriptions as a wave of nostalgia washes over the old hands while along with an equal surge of tourist who want to see the game before it goes away.
This enthusiasm will not last as long as SWG remains on the scene, thanks to BioWare’s creeping pace, and Galaxies will go quietly into the night a few months before SWTOR launches.
And while I was not right on all the details, including the date when we would find out, the central truth remains: Lucas will only sanction a single Star Wars MMO in the traditional EverQuest, 3D virtual world, monthly subscription sense. SWG is clearly out because SW:TOR is coming online.
(And no, Clone Wars Adventuresdoes not count, it is clearly a different sort of gaming, lacking that whole virtual world aspect for a start.)
So let the rush to nostalgia begin!
You have less than 6 months to go before Star Wars Galaxies is no more.
See the sites. Take your screen shots. Get ready to say “Good-bye.”
Maybe I’ll hold an SWG “Farewell Screen Shot” contest rather than another such contest for EVE Online.
But what would I give as a prize? A SWTOR game card?
The New Year is upon us again, a time when we frequently assess the past 12 months ended up handing us and examine what the next 12 might bring.
Last year I had no plans to make any predictions until I read some of the vague, wimpy, or tepid guesses at the future that some of my fellow bloggers had posted. They seemed to want to be right versus being interesting. For me, being right is perhaps a third tier goal. I would much rather stimulate some thought or discussion on what might come. But I am a fan of Robert Cringely, so what can you expect. To do that you have to go outside of the easy answer and be wrong. And if I can make a joke or two along the way, so much the better.
Of course, sometimes the hardest thing is pushing the envelope and coming up with a prediction that is outrageous. I got to the end of some of my guesses below and they did not sound so far fetched. That still doesn’t mean any of them will be right.
So let’s see how far off-base I can get.
1 – Private Citizen British
Fresh from his out of world experiences, plus that trip to the space station, Richard Garriott will start a new studio, (Mid-Point Games, somewhere between Origin and Destination), and begin talking up some “New Ideas” ala Gary Hart.
He will point to what he learned making Tabula Rasa and inspiration that he gained in the zero gravity of space, looking down on the Earth from on high, though it will later be discovered that his oxygen mix was a little off during his last few hours in space.
He will then wave his arms a lot in an attempt to articulate his vision. He will actually use the word “vision.”
That will be his undoing.
He will make no real progress selling his ideas in 2009 and will have to settle for being merely successful, rich, famous, and smart this year.
Of course, I thought this was going to be outrageous and amusing when I wrote it a couple weeks back, but then I read yesterday that Garriott is already throwing his hat into the ring. My prediction stands however.
2 – Bartle’s Test
Dr. Richard Bartle will stun the massive gaming community by making controversial statements about a popular MMO and will actually mean what he says. He will not give follow up interviews with Massively to clarify his position nor post comments to blog sites to correct misinterpretations of his statement.
This will confuse the community greatly. Massively, Joystiq, and other sites will run their own articles explaining what Dr. Bartel really meant while Dr. Bartle himself will eventually resort to posting to his own blog and various forums imploring people to take what he said at face value, as quoted, and to please stop trying to soften his message.
3 – Age of Anarchy
Funcom, bedeviled by problems with the Age of Conan release and still dragging along Anarchy Online will decided that costs can be reduced by taking the next logical step in server merges: Game merges. Age of Conan and Anarchy Online will be folded into a single game. Depending on which client you log into the game with, you will either be playing in a gritty universe of the future or in a vision of Robert E. Howard’s Conan world.
Age of Conan players will benefit from a sudden influx of stable if somewhat non-canon content while Anarchy Online players will get more cleavage options and DX-10 support.
This will give FunCom some financial breathing room and allow CEO Trond Arne Aas to speak with confidence about their next massive title, The Secret World. Mr. Aas will say that FunCom really learned a lot from their first two MMO releases and won’t make those mistakes again. He will then remind people that his last name is spelled with two a’s and one s and not the other way around.
4 – EverQuesting
The 10 Year Anniversary of EverQuest will be a big deal in 2009, with another Living Legacy-like promotion and special events, so be sure to cancel your account early in 2009 so you can play for free.
The 2009 EverQuest expansion, Realms of Valor, will have a huge boost in the level cap, taking it all the way to 100, and will include a series of planned raid progressions (because you know they won’t all make the ship date) that will be hailed as the best ever in game all based around a huge new overland zone.
There will also be off-line player sales along the lines of the broker in EQ2, an improvement in the minion system so that a guild can fill a whole party with minions to round out a raid (it will be awkward for guild leaders, but will work well), and at least one method of advancing your character while off-line. Not experience, nor AAs, but maybe skills or some other new character attribute. It will be very slow, but will only work while you are subscribed, showing that SOE is trying to tap some of that EVE Online training magic to keep subscriptions going.
Finally, this will be the last EverQuest expansion to appear in a box on store shelves.
5 – Call Your Agency
Sony Online Entertainment will continue to talk about The Agency, FreeRealms, and DC Universe Online in 2009. We will hear cool things and see exciting trailers, but no actual games will come our way.
Maybe, just maybe, we will see The Agency in November/December of 2009, but everything else is further out in the future, especially the new Norrath-based title they will announce.
By the end of the year, the reason for these delays will leak out. It will turn out that SOE’s new masters at Sony Computer Entertainment are insisting that all SOE game launches include a PS3 version on day one. They can launch PS3 and do PC later, but PS3 must never be a delayed release. This will hold up all new game launches while SOE works to align its skills and tools.
6 – Elves of the Burning Sea
Flying Lab Software, in an attempt to revive the subscriptions of its flagship product, will introduce a new server type that will replace the nations currently represented in Pirates of the Burning Sea with fantasy creatures.
The factions will be elves, humans and halflings, dwarves and gnomes, and goblins, orcs, and trolls filling out, respectively, the old French, Spanish, English, and Pirate factions. Cannons will be replaced on ships with ballistas and catapults (except on the dwarf/gnome faction, who will get gun powder), the artwork will be update over all, and a “new” new hand to hand combat system will be introduced to accommodate the anticipated on-deck melees.
The freedom of the new environment will allow Flying Labs to tune the game more for fun than reality. The server will end up being their most popular and they will have to do a server split to keep up. This will all lead to another round of blog posts on why fantasy seems to rule the genre.
7 – LEGO Dalaran
The team that did my favorite LEGO project of 2008, LEGO Booty Bay, will get back together in 2009 and do a magnificent LEGO rendition of Howling Fjord by mid-year, but will top this effort with a intricate model of Dalaran done in LEGO bricks. WoW Insider will be on the ground for step by step coverage of the construction that will inspire more LEGO-Azeroth construction projects.
This may or may not inspire a LEGO Azeroth video game.
8 – Station Cash Balance of Payments
A prediction that I made on Shut Up We’re Talking #40. Any current SOE game that does not get Station Cash is at its end development-wise. SOE is not going to turn off any game that is making money, but expect resources to be drawn off to new projects. Then will begin the slow decline into oblivion. As economic conditions tighten the purse strings, expect the end of PlanetSide to be announced at about the same time The Agency is expected to launch in a thinly veiled “here’s your new shooter” marketing plan.
9 – Star Wars Galaxies to Take A Bio
We will find out in 2009 is that LucasArts is only willing to sanction a single Star Wars based MMO running at any given time. SOE has known this all along and this is part of why they did not bother going to LucasArts with their Station Cash idea.
Seeing that BioWare is set to launch a Star Wars: The Old Republic… well… some day… the sense that time is running out will grip Star Wars Galaxies. There will be a resurgence of subscriptions as a wave of nostalgia washes over the old hands while along with an equal surge of tourist who want to see the game before it goes away.
This enthusiasm will not last as long as SWG remains on the scene, thanks to BioWare’s creeping pace, and Galaxies will go quietly into the night a few months before SWTOR launches.
10 – Dawn of Darkfall
Dakrfall will ship, though what is available on day one will be a subset of the over-ambitious feature list they have promised. It will even enjoy some modest success, enough to keep Aventurine going through 2009, while suffering the usual round of “just launched” MMO issues and patches.
It will not be the second coming of Ultima Online nor EVE Online in plate armor however, and Aventurine will have 2009 to figure out how to fix the problem that plagues cut-throat PvP; that a ready supply of victims tends to dry up once the hard core players settle in and take over.
Aventurine will walk a tightrope between keeping subscriptions up and pleasing their hard core followers who will cry out at any dilution of the unforgiving nature of the game. Failure to find the sweet spot will mean closure of the game by the end of 2010.
11 – Hero’s Slumber
Darkfall shipping will make Hero’s Journey the vaporware champ of the MMORPG genre. It will not ship in 2009. I consider this a “gimme” prediction so I will at least get one thing right when I do my accounting at the end of the year.
The fact that Simutronics cannot ship an MMORPG on its own development engine will continue to be the source of much snarkiness.
12 – Blizzard is Smarter Than You
And me too.
There will be lots of tuning of World of Warcraft along with some small content additions, but nobody is expecting an expansion this year, are they? Blizzard has proven that they can take their time and succeed beyond the wildest dreams of their competitors. This will continue to be an eye-opener at SOE who insisted on EverQuest expansions every six months for so long.
Diablo III and StarCraft II news will come out and there will be lots of whining and complaints. StarCraft II, when it ships this year, will top the charts and be embraced fully in South Korea.
Information about Blizzard’s new MMO will be released in 2009. It will lead to a blog firestorm of “Blizzard is run by idiots” style posts, all based on the faulty premise that Blizzard needs to develop another MMO in the mold of every other MMO or that the hard core edge that bloggers represent are the ideal target market.
Overall, Blizzard will continue to succeed despite not doing what a small number of vastly less successful pundits tell it to do.
13 – The New Guys
Red 5 Studios, Carbine Studios, and 38 Studios will all provide a lot more detail on their MMORPG projects this year, but it is going to be a tough climb for all three of them as they will need to prove that what they are creating will move the genre forward in a significant way to be taken seriously, as the fantasy MMORPG market is saturated by games that seem a lot like WoW (whether they came first or not) and WoW.
Maybe, just maybe, one of them will break the mold and go beyond WoW in a significant way, but my gut says no. Nothing we will see from them in 2009 will set a fire in the MMORPG market.
38 Studios has a lot of talent well versed in fantasy and how to make a current MMO. That path seems, in my mind, to lead refinement of the way things are, but not a change of the genre.
And then there is Carbine, founded by some guys from Blizzard, and Red 5, founded by some guys from Blizzard. Would I believe that a company founded by some guys from Apple would be able to beat the iPod or the iPhone based on their resume? I’ve already see that start-up. The answer is no.
Innovation will come from elsewhere in my opinion. (Maybe MetaPlace will become a talent incubator for the next generation?) We might see three successful, Lord of the Rings Online to Warhammer Online sized games from these studios, and they could be a lot of fun, but they won’t be different enough to spark enthusiasm.
14 – Heroes and Champions
President of NCSoft West, David Reid, will mention in an interview that City of Heroes is doing well and is here to stay. The resulting panic and exodus from the game will cause NCSoft to announce just three months later that City of Heroes will be closing by the end of 2009.
This will turn out to be perfect timing for Champions Online, which will be delayed until the Fall of 2009, to scoop up the remaining City of Heroes players to what many consider to be City of Heroes II in any case.
Later David Reid will mention that his marriage is fine, causing his wife to leave him, and that his position with NCSoft is secure, leading to his termination by the end of year. When asked about his health, he will wisely have no comment.
15 – Tobolderized
A Cult of Tobold will surface in 2009 with the publication on Wikia of Toboldipedia. This “Wiki of Love” will have the goal of categorizing, summarizing, and linking to all of the posts on Tobolds blog.
By mid year, however, there will a philosophical split between inclusionists, who seek to cover ALL of Tobold’s work, and exclusionists who seek to expunge Tobold works that they consider “non-canon” and which reflect, in their opinion, badly on Tobold.
By the end of the year there will be a ToboldWiki competing with Toboldipedia, and full scale war will erupt between the two sites when one publishes a picture they claim is of the actual Tobold. The other side will declare it a forgery (it will turn out to be SOE’s Brenlo wearing Groucho Glasses) while a third faction will arise at this point and declare that pictures of the anointed one are heresy and will work to destroy the other two factions and their sites.
A bemused and somewhat disturbed Tobold will find that he has no influence at all over any of these groups and, after a futile attempt to get them to “stop all this nonsense,” he will just ignore the whole thing and go back to his daily writings.
Looking Forward to 2009
With all that in store for us, 2009 should be an interesting year. Did I miss something? Am I even more off-base than I think I am? And to which Toblold camp do you belong? Let me know.
That December date is coming up quickly. It is just over a month away.
I am fortunate that my account is flagged so that I can play at this point.
So once I got the client up to date, I jumped right in.
As with everything Star Wars, it opens with the usual line about a galaxy far, far away.
Then, naturally, the Star Wars name/logo.
Star Wars? Ya think?
And once you have those two, you cannot ski
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That December date is coming up quickly. It is just over a month away.
I am fortunate that my account is flagged so that I can play at this point.
So once I got the client up to date, I jumped right in.
As with everything Star Wars, it opens with the usual line about a galaxy far, far away.
Then, naturally, the Star Wars name/logo.
Star Wars? Ya think?
And once you have those two, you cannot skip the inevitable bottom to top text crawl of the situation.
There is conflict! Oh no!
These are the tropes of the Star Wars universe. On the one hand they do seem a bit tired more than 30 years after the original movie. But on the other hand, they do put you in the right state of mind.
And the game seems quite intent on placing you in that state of mind. So it brings out the old stand-by smuggler.
We've seen his type before
He, of course, flies a ship… the fastest ship around naturally… that is of obvious Corellian manufacture and looks kind of like one we’ve seen in the movies.
I mean, it is about the same shape and all...
Naturally, there has to be a dramatic, last minute escape.
In reality the explosion would have killed us...
And then a narrow escape through very familiar “bad guy” ships.
Not the local bulk cruisers...
Which, of course, includes fighters of the usual configuration…
Fighters, 6 o'clock!
…and a manning of turrets to hold them off.
Scratch one fighter...
The bad guys are never happy about this sort of thing.
You and what... oh, yeah, that army...
All of which is wrapped up with the dramatic jump to lightspeed.
That was soooooo cool... in 1977
That is all exciting and good and puts you in the spirit of things.
Then things start to fall apart for me. You have chosen your class.
9 choices there
And you get a quick intro into combat, but it becomes unsatisfying… to me at least… almost immediately. Standing toe to toe and exchanging blaster fire just seems silly.
Bang! Bang! You're Dead!
Close combat like this makes sense in a fantasy game, where a sword fight requires you to get up close and an armored opponent might take several hits to die.
But here we have ranged energy weapons that ought to drop you with a single, solid hit. Star Trek Online tried to cover this up a bit by giving you a personal force field. But here blasters are either so weak or characters are so strong that the average player can take half a dozen hits without a problem.
Yes, you can use objects for cover. The game tells you so.
Don't just stand there!
There is the usual corpse looting, this time for credits instead of gold.
I swear I thought he had a quest...
And experience points. You cannot have a game like this without experience points it seems.
...or have you been experienced?
I did spend some time running around, doing a few quests, and trying to spot things that made the game different.
NPC interaction wheel
Honestly though, I couldn’t stick with it for a long stretch.
Fortunately, patching was quick and easy, so I did not have to wait to get into the game. Not a lot of new stuff going in at this point I guess.
2.7 MB? Practically no patch at all!
And getting onto a server was no problem. There are only a few from which to choose and there are no queues or anything to delay logging on.
All of this did give me a chance to get a small taste of what the first Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, is currently like. I will probably go back for a bit more between now and December 15, when the game shuts down for good.
I though it was important to have a feel for what had come before so that I could truly appreciate the changes and innovations that BioWare is bringing to the table with their Star Wars MMO.
As noted over at Massively, where they have an exclusive interview with John Smedley of SOE, Star Wars Galaxies is slated to be “sunsetted” (read “shut down”) on December 15th of this year.
In the interview, Smed gives the reasoning:
The decision to shut down SWG is first and foremost a business decision mutually agreed upon between SOE and LucasArts. LucasArts has a new game coming out, and the contract would be running out in 2012 anyway, so we feel like it’s the right time for the game to end.
And here we see an issue inherent in working with a popular intellectual property for an MMO.
Vanguard, which SOE own outright, may run for years yet, so long as it makes just enough money to justify its existence. But there is always overhead from the owner of an IP, like there was with The Matrix Online. And so that closed, no doubt in part because Warner Brothers was owed money every month for the use of the IP.
And Star Wars is a valuable IP owned by Lucas and guarded jealously. Any licensed Star Wars product that is not a sterling success reflects badly on the IP, and SWG has had its share of troubles. (Rooted mostly in requirements laid down by Lucas after the fact, or so goes the tale of the NGE.)
And so the contract with SOE is coming to an end conveniently at about the time EA and BioWare should be close to launching Star Wars: The Old Republic.
We will find out in 2009 is that LucasArts is only willing to sanction a single Star Wars based MMO running at any given time. SOE has known this all along and this is part of why they did not bother going to LucasArts with their Station Cash idea.
Seeing that BioWare is set to launch a Star Wars: The Old Republic… well… some day… the sense that time is running out will grip Star Wars Galaxies. There will be a resurgence of subscriptions as a wave of nostalgia washes over the old hands while along with an equal surge of tourist who want to see the game before it goes away.
This enthusiasm will not last as long as SWG remains on the scene, thanks to BioWare’s creeping pace, and Galaxies will go quietly into the night a few months before SWTOR launches.
And while I was not right on all the details, including the date when we would find out, the central truth remains: Lucas will only sanction a single Star Wars MMO in the traditional EverQuest, 3D virtual world, monthly subscription sense. SWG is clearly out because SW:TOR is coming online.
(And no, Clone Wars Adventuresdoes not count, it is clearly a different sort of gaming, lacking that whole virtual world aspect for a start.)
So let the rush to nostalgia begin!
You have less than 6 months to go before Star Wars Galaxies is no more.
See the sites. Take your screen shots. Get ready to say “Good-bye.”
Maybe I’ll hold an SWG “Farewell Screen Shot” contest rather than another such contest for EVE Online.
But what would I give as a prize? A SWTOR game card?
And the suit isn’t even aimed at saving the game, but merely to fight back against SOE shutting down those ever-so-effective internet petitions which have been springing up in the SOE forums and elsewhere in hopes of converting SWG to a free to play title. You know those always get the job done!
Game Politics News and Kotaku are reporting that a group of 50 Star Wars Galaxies players are threatening a class action suit against Sony Online Entertainment because they claim that SOE is hindering their efforts to “save” the game from being closed.
Acting more than a few steps away from reality, the group is specifically suing SOE be
... show more
And the suit isn’t even aimed at saving the game, but merely to fight back against SOE shutting down those ever-so-effective internet petitions which have been springing up in the SOE forums and elsewhere in hopes of converting SWG to a free to play title. You know those always get the job done!
Game Politics News and Kotaku are reporting that a group of 50 Star Wars Galaxies players are threatening a class action suit against Sony Online Entertainment because they claim that SOE is hindering their efforts to “save” the game from being closed.
Acting more than a few steps away from reality, the group is specifically suing SOE because they claim that the company has been locking petition forum threads (which along with poll threads, are explicitly forbidden by SOE’s forum rules) and banning those responsible, both pretty much within SOE’s rights and covered by the end user license agreement.
And the kicker is that SOE really has no control over keeping SWG alive. LucasArts, which owns the Star Wars IP, has the final say on the subject, and they are never going to agree to anything but a full closure of the game, petitions or no.
LucasArts not only has a vested interested in supporting Star Wars: The Old Republic (and probably a contractual one as well), but they have a responsibility to protect the Star Wars IP and ensure that it is seen in the best light possible. Letting SWG degrade over time, unsupported and with a population on the decline, does not serve that end.
Some seem to think that this is a nefarious plan to force SWG players to play SWTOR, something some are now claiming they will never do. But a few subscribers (and few is the operative word here) isn’t the motivation. It is protection of the IP and contractual obligations to EA and BioWare.
The writing is on the wall. SWG is done, gone, will exist no longer after December 15, 2011.
Nobody wants to see their favorite game go away. And people get especially attached to MMOs. Emotions on the forums are running high. But this whole assault on SOE is going to acc0mplish nothing. There are more than five months left before the game goes away, use it. Accept what is inevitable, make the time left meaningful, but be ready to say good-bye.
As part of the discussion of the player reaction to the shutting down of Star Wars Galaxies, Bhagpuss brought up the fact that there were a couple of SWG emulation projects going on, and that this might allow people to continue to experience SWG after the December 15th shut down of the game. They are, if you are interested:
They were once the same project, but branched over some sort of “tastes great/less filling” argument. Both continue along the line of emulating Pre-NGE SWG, which was what got them started in the first place. That there will soon be no Post-NGE SWG has not changed that.
... show more
As part of the discussion of the player reaction to the shutting down of Star Wars Galaxies, Bhagpuss brought up the fact that there were a couple of SWG emulation projects going on, and that this might allow people to continue to experience SWG after the December 15th shut down of the game. They are, if you are interested:
They were once the same project, but branched over some sort of “tastes great/less filling” argument. Both continue along the line of emulating Pre-NGE SWG, which was what got them started in the first place. That there will soon be no Post-NGE SWG has not changed that.
Emulation seems to live in a gray area in the world of MMOs. Following certain guidelines, they are not really “pirate” servers engaging in outright theft of a game. On the other hand, they do encroach on the work of others, so to say they are merely “private” servers does not cover things as well. Occasionally somebody throws around the term “fair use,” but apparently only to show they don’t know what the hell the term means in any sort of legal sense and are generally engaged in something closer to “wishful thinking.”
This picture might actually constitute fair use
Still, where there is a will, there is a way… or at least a few people willing to give it a shot.
An MMO emulation project usually consists of somebody reverse engineering their own version of the server side software of an MMO. When the server side emulation of the game is ready, the players then use the client from the original game to connect. This is done by altering the client so that it connects to the emulation rather than the original game login server.
There are, of course, legal issues involved here. And while nobody can ever really predict who will sue whom for what here in the US, the urban legend level consensus seems to be that if can avoid the following, you and your emulation project will be safe:
Don’t Charge – If you set up an emulation of an online game and you charge people money to use the game then you are clearly attempting to profit from somebody elses work, as in the case of Scapegaming, which brought in 3 million dollars in revenue from their private WoW server.
Don’t Use Source Code – Game companies do not make a habit of handing out their source code, but leaks do happen from time to time. Taking advantage of such a leak can tee you up for a lawsuit.
Don’t Violate DMCA – Ah, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, everybody’s favorite piece of legislation. Circumventing security or encryption can get you in trouble here. This was the other part of the Scapegaming case, the part that drove the award against them to $88 million.
Don’t Distribute the Client – This is the part of the game that the end users needs to connect to your emulator, but it is also where all the copyrighted and trademarked material resides.
Following the above four rules will probably grant you about the same legal shielding that arguing that you don’t have to pay US income taxes because the statute behind it is flawed or the whole thing is an illicit conspiracy; which is to say, none at all. Blizzard and Nexon, for example, quite actively go after any emulations of their game, though at least in the case of Blizzard I couldn’t tell you how you would do that without tripping over alleged rule #3.
But for some, life seems okay. The EverQuest emulation community for example seems to have quite a few options, with everything from “real” 1999 style servers to happy solo-friendly romps through Norrath to new original content on top of the game, and Sony lawyers haven’t shut them down.
And, as an end user, as a player, these issues do not really come into play directly, except in the broader sense of there being a private emulation of your game of choice being available to you. The companies in question are unlikely to spend time going after individual users when their goals can be accomplished by shutting down a server.
Except for one detail; the game client.
The game client is the one thing you need as an end user to be able to participate on these servers.
From what I have seen, a lot of the trouble of being able to play on these servers is getting the right version of the client. EverQuest emulation, for example, seems to have a couple of very specific starting points, all of them older distributions of the game.
And for the Star Wars Galaxies emulators I listed way back at the start of this post, they will require a fresh, unpatched install from the original game disks. No expansions, no compilations, no trial versions, no starter kit, no complete edition, no total experience, just the original distribution.
That original disk is a pretty rare bird already. And you can bet if anybody tries to distribute copies of it LucasArts will jump on them right away.
So if you think SWG emulation is in your future, I hope you have that disk.
And if you don’t play on playing but have that disk sitting on a shelf somewhere, it might have some value on eBay at some point in the future.
Are you planning to play? Or planning to sell?
Is anybody else planning to emulate the game?
And will LucasArts jump on these guys as soon as SWG is closed?
Not Knowing When to Let Go… A Class Action Suit to Save SWG
And the suit isn’t even aimed at saving the game, but merely to fight back against SOE shutting down those ever-so-effective internet petitions which have been springing up in the SOE forums and elsewhere in hopes of converting SWG to a free to play title. You know those always get the job done!
Game Politics News and Kotaku are reporting that a group of 50 Star Wars Galaxies players are threatening a class action suit against Sony Online Entertainment because they claim that SOE is hindering their efforts to “save” the game from being closed.
Acting more than a few steps away from reality, the group is specifically suing SOE because they claim that the company has been locking petition forum threads (which along with poll threads, are explicitly forbidden by SOE’s forum rules) and banning those responsible, both pretty much within SOE’s rights and covered by the end user license agreement.
And the kicker is that SOE really has no control over keeping SWG alive. LucasArts, which owns the Star Wars IP, has the final say on the subject, and they are never going to agree to anything but a full closure of the game, petitions or no.
LucasArts not only has a vested interested in supporting Star Wars: The Old Republic (and probably a contractual one as well), but they have a responsibility to protect the Star Wars IP and ensure that it is seen in the best light possible. Letting SWG degrade over time, unsupported and with a population on the decline, does not serve that end.
Some seem to think that this is a nefarious plan to force SWG players to play SWTOR, something some are now claiming they will never do. But a few subscribers (and few is the operative word here) isn’t the motivation. It is protection of the IP and contractual obligations to EA and BioWare.
The writing is on the wall. SWG is done, gone, will exist no longer after December 15, 2011.
Nobody wants to see their favorite game go away. And people get especially attached to MMOs. Emotions on the forums are running high. But this whole assault on SOE is going to acc0mplish nothing. There are more than five months left before the game goes away, use it. Accept what is inevitable, make the time left meaningful, but be ready to say good-bye.
Star Wars Galaxies, that is, because last night was it, the end. The servers are down and the game is no more.
But when I logged in, the results were in for the Galactic Civil War. The Rebels took the war with a score of 10 servers to only 4 for the Imperials.
Final Results
It is like the basis of an alternate history novel. How did things play out on, say, the Sunrunner server, where the Rebels only got 4%? Is that the version of where Luke doesn’t leave the homestead and gets killed with his Uncle Owen and family when the stormtroopers show up?
Bloodfin, where the Rebels eked out 11%, must be the version where Darth Vader says, “I am your father!” and Luke says, “Really? Cool!”
I always picture myself saying that in Luke’s place.
Whi
... show more
Star Wars Galaxies, that is, because last night was it, the end. The servers are down and the game is no more.
But when I logged in, the results were in for the Galactic Civil War. The Rebels took the war with a score of 10 servers to only 4 for the Imperials.
Final Results
It is like the basis of an alternate history novel. How did things play out on, say, the Sunrunner server, where the Rebels only got 4%? Is that the version of where Luke doesn’t leave the homestead and gets killed with his Uncle Owen and family when the stormtroopers show up?
Bloodfin, where the Rebels eked out 11%, must be the version where Darth Vader says, “I am your father!” and Luke says, “Really? Cool!”
I always picture myself saying that in Luke’s place.
While on Starfire, where the Imperials only got 7%, Luke defeats Darth Vader on Bespin while the Emperor slips on a bar of soap in the shower, cracking his head open and killing him.
And on my own server, Bria, the Rebels won, but only with 63%, which probably means that was the version where Lando and Wedge fail to get out of the second death star before it blows up… and all the Ewoks die due to debris raining down on Endor.
But any victory is still a victory, and so it was proclaimed.
Not sure who she was, but if they are casting for a Popeye MMO, she should try out for Olive Oyl.
The skies of Mos Eisley were filled with fireworks and rebel ships doing fly-bys.
Three is usually a “missing man” formation, right?
More fireworks
Meanwhile, in town, rebel troops were marching, counter marching, beating up suspected Imperial sympathizers, and collecting New Republic “taxes.” Cash only, please. No, you cannot have a receipt.
When I say, “Your left,” your left foot hits the deck…
Thinking this might be a good time to stay out of the way, and wanting to accomplish something on the last night of Star Wars Galaxies, I decided I would try to see at least something new on Tatooine.
I decided on Jabba’s Palace.
I managed to figure out how to get a waypoint set for the Palace and set off following the arrow in my X-38 Landspeeder.
A starter vehicle, modest in all respects
I didn’t get anything like that in SWTOR, let me tell you.
And it was then I discovered what a wasteland Tatoonie really was. Desert is bad enough, but suburban blight had totally taken over.
Looks like a Star Wars trailer park
And it just went on and on and on.
Suburban Wasteland Sanctuary
I get that a lot of people really, really liked having not only a house in the game, but having that house exist as a separate physical structure rather than a door to 100 or so instanced versions of the same house. But the downside though is easy to see.
On the ride from Mos Eisley, through Anchorhead, and to Jabbas Palace, there were only really breaks in the housing immediately around the towns and again at one point of interest, the Lars Homestead, along the way.
One clear spot, but I could see houses in the distance
Well, there is no point in kvetching about it now I suppose, but I just want to remember the endless sprawl as part of the whole.
I continued on towards Jabba’s.
More housing!
Sooner than I thought it would, Jabba’s palace hove into view.
Destination in sight
They let me in and I found my way around into Jabba’s chamber.
Reg!
And that is where I spent the remainder of the time SWG had left. For a while it was just me and some of the standard cast.
His father was a much better dresser
A couple of other people showed up, choosing Jabba’s palace to be their final resting place in SWG.
It is what you do at a wake…
I listened to the players, long term veterans of the game, talk about the game while we were reminded every minute that the server was going down and that we should go some place safe to log out.
There was a last minute visitor who came to give Jabba his last regards.
Time to settle up
And then acted on his threat.
Boom Jabba!
And so I recorded Semmi Vipra’s last act in the game. Soon the count hit one minute.
Some last farewells
And then the moment of truth came.
Connection to SWG Lost!
The connection was down, the game was over.
And so ended Star Wars Galaxies, a game with many high and low points, a game distinct in many ways, a milestone in MMO history. The official site now has a final message from the SWG team.
A Thank You to the Star Wars Galaxies™ Community
Looking back on Star Wars Galaxies and all these years I am so thankful for being able to be a part of the Star Wars Galaxies community both as the Producer and as a fan. It would not have been the incredible experience that it was without you, the players and fans, the dedicated team of people who worked on it over the years and the fantastic Star Wars® galaxy itself, which offered us a very unique and compelling place to explore, fight, play, make friends, and build our homes.
This is a book of memories, so let me start with a few of my own.
When I was a little boy, my father brought me to the movies to see a new science fiction film that he heard was pretty good. What I remembered most was the feeling of awe I had back then, and still feel to this day. Once I had experienced Star Wars, my life would never be the same again. In May of 2004, I walked into the office at Sony Online Entertainment to start a new job working on a game based on the very same story that had amazed me in my youth. Cool! I was very excited. All I wanted to do then was learn how this thing worked, and I spent the next seven years doing just that. I can say that not a day passed in the development of Star Wars Galaxies where I didn’t learn something new. Each day presented different challenges and solving them was always a rewarding accomplishment. It is everyone’s hope to find a job that you look forward to each and every day. Being a developer on Star Wars Galaxies was just that kind of job for me.
Star Wars means something different to each of us. That’s why we played Star Wars Galaxies. On June 26th, 2003, SOE and LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies and, for the first time, you could play online with your friends in the Star Wars universe. I was amazed at how much there was to do in the game – player housing, crafting, entertaining, combat, and more. One of the most exciting times for all of us on the team was the launch of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, which let players fly and battle it out in space in a true 3D simulation. Now we could all truly live out our Star Wars fantasies. It was like being a kid again.
Giving players a chance to live out that Star Wars fantasy has been the best part of the job. Some of my favorite memories include fighting Imperial forces on Hoth in the Battle of Echo Base, seeing those first player-created quests in the Chronicle Master System, fighting the undead in the Death Troopers update and, probably best of all, taking part in invasions and actually getting to make a difference for my faction in the Galactic Civil War.
From my first day to the last, Star Wars Galaxies was, and will always be, a meaningful and memorable part of my life, an experience I’ll treasure and share with anyone who wants to hear a good story. It has been an honor to take this journey with you, the community and all of the team members who have made Star Wars Galaxies such an awesome game.
On behalf of the Star Wars Galaxies team, thank you. We have truly enjoyed getting to know you – our dedicated players – over the years. From in-game events to Fan Faires, we appreciate your continued loyalty and support. It would not have been possible without you.
May the Force be with you. Always.
– Tony “Teesquared” Tyson
There will be a memory book posted at some point. And that is all that remains.
But now, not content with that victory, EA and BioWare appear to be maneuvering their metaphorical death star to target the rebel base that is Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures!
But now, not content with that victory, EA and BioWare appear to be maneuvering their metaphorical death star to target the rebel base that is Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures!
Yes, they may downplay it [edit: or maybe not], back peddle, twist their words after the fact, pressure sites to pull their stories, and wrap it up in some nonsensical statements. But the message has been sent.
It is a clear shot over SOE’s bow!
How will the plucky little game with its frequent content updates contend with the might of this fully voiced and operational fourth pillar behemoth out of Redwood City? Will they be able to stand up to Emperor Riccitiello and Darth Muzyka?
And how will the fourth pillar be applied to mini-games and a cash shop devoted to selling pets and clothing? Surely this will make for the best cash shop ever! Like a Nordstrom among the stars!
Will SOE prevail with a Valve/Target gambit? Stay tuned!
To the MMO minor leagues! “The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes…
Star Wars Galaxies, that is, because last night was it, the end. The servers are down and the game is no more.
But when I logged in, the results were in for the Galactic Civil War. The Rebels took the war with a score of 10 servers to only 4 for the Imperials.
Final Results
It is like the basis of an alternate history novel. How did things play out on, say, the Sunrunner server, where the Rebels only got 4%? Is that the version of where Luke doesn’t leave the homestead and gets killed with his Uncle Owen and family when the stormtroopers show up?
Bloodfin, where the Rebels eked out 11%, must be the version where Darth Vader says, “I am your father!” and Luke says, “Really? Cool!”
I always picture myself saying that in Luke’s place.
While on Starfire, where the Imperials only got 7%, Luke defeats Darth Vader on Bespin while the Emperor slips on a bar of soap in the shower, cracking his head open and killing him.
And on my own server, Bria, the Rebels won, but only with 63%, which probably means that was the version where Lando and Wedge fail to get out of the second death star before it blows up… and all the Ewoks die due to debris raining down on Endor.
But any victory is still a victory, and so it was proclaimed.
Not sure who she was, but if they are casting for a Popeye MMO, she should try out for Olive Oyl.
The skies of Mos Eisley were filled with fireworks and rebel ships doing fly-bys.
Three is usually a “missing man” formation, right?
More fireworks
Meanwhile, in town, rebel troops were marching, counter marching, beating up suspected Imperial sympathizers, and collecting New Republic “taxes.” Cash only, please. No, you cannot have a receipt.
When I say, “Your left,” your left foot hits the deck…
Thinking this might be a good time to stay out of the way, and wanting to accomplish something on the last night of Star Wars Galaxies, I decided I would try to see at least something new on Tatooine.
I decided on Jabba’s Palace.
I managed to figure out how to get a waypoint set for the Palace and set off following the arrow in my X-38 Landspeeder.
A starter vehicle, modest in all respects
I didn’t get anything like that in SWTOR, let me tell you.
And it was then I discovered what a wasteland Tatoonie really was. Desert is bad enough, but suburban blight had totally taken over.
Looks like a Star Wars trailer park
And it just went on and on and on.
Suburban Wasteland Sanctuary
I get that a lot of people really, really liked having not only a house in the game, but having that house exist as a separate physical structure rather than a door to 100 or so instanced versions of the same house. But the downside though is easy to see.
On the ride from Mos Eisley, through Anchorhead, and to Jabbas Palace, there were only really breaks in the housing immediately around the towns and again at one point of interest, the Lars Homestead, along the way.
One clear spot, but I could see houses in the distance
Well, there is no point in kvetching about it now I suppose, but I just want to remember the endless sprawl as part of the whole.
I continued on towards Jabba’s.
More housing!
Sooner than I thought it would, Jabba’s palace hove into view.
Destination in sight
They let me in and I found my way around into Jabba’s chamber.
Reg!
And that is where I spent the remainder of the time SWG had left. For a while it was just me and some of the standard cast.
His father was a much better dresser
A couple of other people showed up, choosing Jabba’s palace to be their final resting place in SWG.
It is what you do at a wake…
I listened to the players, long term veterans of the game, talk about the game while we were reminded every minute that the server was going down and that we should go some place safe to log out.
There was a last minute visitor who came to give Jabba his last regards.
Time to settle up
And then acted on his threat.
Boom Jabba!
And so I recorded Semmi Vipra’s last act in the game. Soon the count hit one minute.
Some last farewells
And then the moment of truth came.
Connection to SWG Lost!
The connection was down, the game was over.
And so ended Star Wars Galaxies, a game with many high and low points, a game distinct in many ways, a milestone in MMO history. The official site now has a final message from the SWG team.
A Thank You to the Star Wars Galaxies™ Community
Looking back on Star Wars Galaxies and all these years I am so thankful for being able to be a part of the Star Wars Galaxies community both as the Producer and as a fan. It would not have been the incredible experience that it was without you, the players and fans, the dedicated team of people who worked on it over the years and the fantastic Star Wars® galaxy itself, which offered us a very unique and compelling place to explore, fight, play, make friends, and build our homes.
This is a book of memories, so let me start with a few of my own.
When I was a little boy, my father brought me to the movies to see a new science fiction film that he heard was pretty good. What I remembered most was the feeling of awe I had back then, and still feel to this day. Once I had experienced Star Wars, my life would never be the same again. In May of 2004, I walked into the office at Sony Online Entertainment to start a new job working on a game based on the very same story that had amazed me in my youth. Cool! I was very excited. All I wanted to do then was learn how this thing worked, and I spent the next seven years doing just that. I can say that not a day passed in the development of Star Wars Galaxies where I didn’t learn something new. Each day presented different challenges and solving them was always a rewarding accomplishment. It is everyone’s hope to find a job that you look forward to each and every day. Being a developer on Star Wars Galaxies was just that kind of job for me.
Star Wars means something different to each of us. That’s why we played Star Wars Galaxies. On June 26th, 2003, SOE and LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies and, for the first time, you could play online with your friends in the Star Wars universe. I was amazed at how much there was to do in the game – player housing, crafting, entertaining, combat, and more. One of the most exciting times for all of us on the team was the launch of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, which let players fly and battle it out in space in a true 3D simulation. Now we could all truly live out our Star Wars fantasies. It was like being a kid again.
Giving players a chance to live out that Star Wars fantasy has been the best part of the job. Some of my favorite memories include fighting Imperial forces on Hoth in the Battle of Echo Base, seeing those first player-created quests in the Chronicle Master System, fighting the undead in the Death Troopers update and, probably best of all, taking part in invasions and actually getting to make a difference for my faction in the Galactic Civil War.
From my first day to the last, Star Wars Galaxies was, and will always be, a meaningful and memorable part of my life, an experience I’ll treasure and share with anyone who wants to hear a good story. It has been an honor to take this journey with you, the community and all of the team members who have made Star Wars Galaxies such an awesome game.
On behalf of the Star Wars Galaxies team, thank you. We have truly enjoyed getting to know you – our dedicated players – over the years. From in-game events to Fan Faires, we appreciate your continued loyalty and support. It would not have been possible without you.
May the Force be with you. Always.
– Tony “Teesquared” Tyson
There will be a memory book posted at some point. And that is all that remains.
