Star Wars Galaxies.
Probably the most beloved and missed game by most MMORPG.com viewers. The hype surrounding the development and release of this game was gargantuan. The chance to live and adventure in the awesome universe of Star Wars; how could this game not be hyped up beyond imagination?
They promised everything, and eventually, delivered (to some degree at least) on it all. Dozens of professions, vehicles and mounts, space ships, player created cities, dynamic events to participate in; SWG had it all.
Arguably the best and most involved crafting system ever created in a MMORPG. An open ended skill based advancement system, with dozens of professions from Bounty Hunters to Doctors to Cantina Dancers; even a shot and being a Jedi.
So what happened? Why did the game (in most eyes) fail?
First off were the bugs. Man there were a lot of bugs and glitches, and every patch that fixed some, only created more.
Then there were the balance issues. Every patch there would be a new "flavor of the month" character template. I remember one of the first was Riflemen, as they could 1-shot mind kill anyone. There was the Commando phase, the Creature Handler phase, the Combat Medic phase. Not to mention the insane stupidity that was the Doctor buff craze.
Third I'd say would be lack of content. Yes, this was an open sandbox world where you created your own adventures. In actuality, it became a mission terminal grind. Most of the "content," the Theme Parks, were so broken and buggy, or required you to be very high level (I know there were no levels but you get the point) with awesome equipment to even attempt. It was the same with the monthly story arcs. Can anyone tell me why you had to spend weeks and months grinding your skills and upgrading equipment to be able to kill a single Stormtrooper? This is Star Wars! Luke Skywalker was a moisture farmer and he had no problem blasting all kinds of Stormtroopers to bits.
I was a smuggler/pistoleeer. If one class was broken beyond repair, with absolutely no true direction or purpose it was the smuggler. We couldn't smuggle anything. We had some fancy tricks, that weren't nearly as powerful as Bounty Hunter or Commando tricks, and we could slice weapons and crates and make spice, which no one used after Doctor buffs. Pistoleer was really broken too. For being a class revolving around the use of a Pistol, we had terrible abilities in comparison to the before mentioned Professions that also used pistols.
Then came the Holocron grind. It was found that by collecting holocrons, the game told you what profession you had to master in your path to becoming a Jedi. I heard some stories of people have to master 20-30 profession in order to unlock their Jedi slot. Absolute insanity.
That's pretty much when I drew the line and stopped playing. I know afterwards came the Combat Upgrade and later the New Game Experience, but we've all heard endlessly about those and know what they did to the game, so I won't go into it.
The greatest downfall of SWG I think was that it was too big and too complex for it's time. Too many systems, too many professions, too many features… it became a nightmare of bugs and patches and as fun as the game was (for a time) it really killed it for a lot of people. The constant waiting for features long promised, re-rolling new professions with every patch so you could remain competitive (or in some cases even be able to hunt at all.) Also was the terrible grind. The developers seemed to take the few activities players found could generate acceptable levels of experience gain and later nerf them to hell. It was as if they really didn't want people maxing out their characters, because I think they really knew once they had, their really wasn't anything else to do. PVP was also very broken, especially during the AT-ST phase.
The developers had very wide eyes but lacked focus, with new games like Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft on the horizon, poor SWG just couldn't keep up.
SWG was really a UO player's game. Vast and open, skill based with little direction, a virtual sand box to hop into and play as you wanted to play. Some people never left the Cantina's, dancing and playing music nearly their entire game time.
But something was changing… MMORPG's were still a very niche market. Most video game players were used to being led along a storyline, with recognizable characters and heroes follow. The idea of being thrown into a world and being forced to create your own fun, to use the game systems to play your own adventures; most video game players scoffed at the idea. I think SWG had a peak player based of what, 500,000? UO I'm sure had less.
But that was what a MMORPG was. It was an open world. Sure there were things to do, developer crafted experiences to be had, but the main appeal of these games was the freedom. It was about creating your own goals and striving to reach them. About exploring and conquering new challenges. We didn't need to be told who our enemies were and who our friends were, we'd decide for ourselves.
Then a little game called World of Warcraft came out, and everything changed…
User Comments
Galaxies was just not as much fun a UO. It may have shared characteristics but the end result was light years apart.
I played SWG in beta and thought it was a great game that needed a little more polish at release, and then I came back and played it again later.. I really enjoyed dancing in the cantinas and spent almost all my time doing that. I'd really like to see another game that has viable, fun options for the mostly social player. :/
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