Star Wars Galaxies

HOLD UP! READ ABOVE THE DASHED LINE BEFORE YOU PUSH THE BACK BUTTON!

I know a lot of people will drop out before reading when they realize this is long, but I'm going to ask you.. please read.. at least until you grow bored and can't take anymore. Give it a chance. If not for me, then for your memories of Star Wars Galaxies. Thank you in advance.
 

-----
Alright, I'm posting this, not as a rant, not as a flame, and certainly not a hard-punch to the lower extremeties of Sony Online Entertainment. Why am i posting this? Not for you, not for her, not for him, but for me... in hopes that someone else out there.... and not just myself, feels the same way. That after these many years I'm not alone.. so here goes.
-----

In mid-2003 Star Wars Galaxies was launched onto the public. What was anticipated to be one of the greatest games of all times, began to receive sub-par reviews in some places and decent to great reviews in others. But despite this, I excitedly walked into the local game shop with my 50.00USD and slapped it down on the counter with a request for the giganto box entitled "Star Wars Galaxies" on the front.
At that moment I knew. It was mine. The best game I'd ever play was mine.

And it was. Star Wars Galaxies became my life. Every day after work and/or school I would come home and plop myself down in front of the computer to play Star Wars Galaxies. I was blind to the downsides and negatives of the game that so many people saw in it. To me, this game was perfect and for one basic reason I unknowingly followed until it had been taken away from me....

I don't know if any of you from way back at the early version of Star Wars Galaxies remember.... but when you were installing the game... and just as it was about to finish there were two slides of Tatooine with a VERY memorable phrase for me, which read:

"Now, it is time to tell the greatest Star Wars saga ever told... ...YOURS."

Maybe it was just me (and that's hard to believe) but those two slides are what made the game perfect to me. I grew up with Star Wars. I grew up wondering what the Star Wars Universe had to hold outside of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Darth Vader. What it would be like to live in the Star Wars universe with a blaster on my hip and a spaceship in the garage. Star Wars Galaxies was my gateway to that.. I really could be anyone I wanted to be in the Star Wars Universe. A smuggler? No problem! A Doctor? You got it! A jobless slant who begs for money? Why not?! I got to live Star Wars..

Two years into my adoration of Star Wars Galaxies I was happy, i still hadn't grown tired of my life in the Star wars Universe.... and then I was introduced with the Combat Upgrade that changed my game. My toolbar went from the bi-colored interface I had grown to love and know like the back of my hand to a multicolored and unique set of health bars, toolbars, and radials! It was pretty! But not my Star Wars...
But I loved Star Wars Galaxies and was still able to live my life in the Star Wars universe, so i let the changes slide. I accepted them and decided to love them.
And just as I was getting used to the new system, it changed again. By GOD! what could it be this time? I couldn't imagine.. but found out anyways. Months later in November we were all treated to the New Game Enhancements. I logged on to find that my game had changed. As if i had subscribed to another Star Wars video game. Similar to, but not the same as what I had played a mere eight months earlier.

The NGE stripped away the classes and left a select and mostly new ten... for what? "A better Star Wars Experience." "A simplistic system for the new players." "An update to better the experience and provide new content."

And all I could think was..... But... I didn't ask for any of that... I liked how it was. In-fact, I loved how it was... why would anyone change what seemed to be perfect to me? I didn't understand how going from a robust and entirely customizable 32 professions being reduced to a very few and very linear ten was going to better my Star Wars experience. I didn't understand how the new combat system was supposed to enhance my experience playing Star Wars Galaxies. And most of all, I didn't understand what Sony was thinking... it bewildered and baffled me. How? Why? What?

And so, like some others I decided once again, to bear it through and stay... but the more and longer I played the NGE, the more i grew tired of the new system. The more i hated it, and the more i despised it. I told myself I would never quit SWG until the servers shut-down. I was a loyal subscriber by god! I was going to stay through thick or thin! Look what SOE had brought me in 2003, and continued to into 2005... If they were going to do something as bad as this... they've got to have a plan!
I kept wondering what I had done wrong, what we as the loyal players and fans had done wrong. Was it my fault? Ours? Can we fix what we had done wrong? Can we? Please?

But they didn't and nor cold we... or at least thats what it seemed as if the truth were.
All I could see was that SOE had jumped the gun when the new competitor "World of Warcraft" had jumped in the game. As if they decided to try and step up the notch to a new level.. but were unprepared..and completely unorganized and founded in their attempts.

So in early-mid 2006... I hit the cancel button and left. I felt like SOE had turned the very dog I had come to love and cherish on me.  The dog I watched grow and had a part of...

But once again, like so many I found myself coming back off and on. Hoping that this time it would be better. That I'd find something I hadn't seen the first time I quit... or the last time I had come back... but No... i never have.. and the cycle continues...

I've forgiven Sony for the events. It's a video game, and they did what they felt was right. Regardless of what the players asked, and what truly was right or wrong... I'd like to hope they put their consideration into the best interest of their creation's fans. I don't hate them anymore, I don't really blame them too much.
But what is- Is that I'm still missing my Star Wars experience. After the changes, I couldn't live the final two slides of the installation disk. I wasn't living the Star Wars experience. I was living Luke's experience, Han's experience, or Boba Fett's experience. The one's I didn't want to live. I got enough of that from watching the movies or playing the other video games like Rogue Squadron.. I wanted to live my own experience. Keys Kumorrow's experience.

I don't understand why Sony took that away from me. After i devoted so much money and time into their creation.. The creation I loved. Why they had to change it. I'd have rather watched the servers die on the old system after myself and the others grew tired and bored of the game and moved on. Not to see it be ripped away from our hands and turned into something almost entirely different when it was given back... It left what I can really only describe as an incomplete hole in... well I guess you could say "My Gamer Heart" (As corny as that sounds) and it still stays that way. I still hope that the next time i log back in i'll be taken back to 2004. All my in-game friends would be there online, my profession hotkey would reveal 32 professions again and my gaming world would be right again... but it never has.

and there's probably not a month that goes by that at one point I don't think of Star Wars Galaxies and ask why..

So tell me... am I not alone in this feeling? Or am I the only one standing on this rock asking why and still feeling regret?

In truth, I don't expect the game to go back. I don't expect the developers to suddenly jump up and exclaim they're going to return the game to what it was.. because in truth, even if the old system is put back... it won't be the same game. My friends won't be there... my guild won't be there... it just wouldn't be the same... that excitement and fun I experienced those years ago... So I don't really want it to come back the way it was I guess... but I would like something... something to get rid of that hole. an explanation? A new game? I don't know... but something.. I don't want much. =(

But still, Thank you Sony for all the good times between 2003 and 2006. I don't think i'll ever find a game I loved as much as I did that one.

 And as for those of you who are and have read this. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out.

~Keys

So here's to you my past friends of Shadowfire... Arwenna, Gnarwakkar, Stool, Fritz, and all the others I shared a memorable experience with in Star Wars Galaxies.
Here's to you past and current players of Star Wars Galaxies.

... and most of all... here's to you Keys' Kumorrow.

Bantha Blasters are on me.

Edit: Typos and minor additions for clarity and thanks for reading.

You share my "gamer's heart" as well my friend. Star Wars Galaxies, may you rest in peace.

Amen.

Faxx of Bria.

tldr - game was awesome and nge ruined it

to the op, it was quite a nice sentimental read which i shared with you, try running it through a spell/grammar check though - i always prefer long thoughtful/creative posts to be error free

Yeah, I miss it too.  I've gone back several times in trials and even subbed a couple times, but I just couldn't get into the NGE.  I'm kinda feeling the urge to go back right now because I heard some of my old guild members that followed me to WOW had returned.

The NGE is the height of gaming incompetence and indifference to its community.  It's present form exists now for the sole purpose of reminding other companies what will happen when you change a game as drastically as they did.

Some in my guild liked the CU or atleast thought it was tolerable.  I disliked it immediately when I saw the new UI icons.  They looked cartoony and bright and all wrong.  If it aint broke, don't fix it.  It's kinda like when you were a kid maybe, and you come back from school and your mom has gone in your room and 'brightened things up a bit'.  You feel a little pissed because you liked it the way it was, and the fact that you don't have a say in this intrusion only pisses you off more.  That can about sum it up for NGE as well.

I hope someday a precu server opens up.  I don't like to be so pessimisitc about something I miss.  Whether it's run by SOE or out of some guys basement, I don't really care at this point because the game was abandoned in favor SWG NGE.

Anyway, I feel your pain.  Lot of folks do.  Ofcourse we have moved on, but the way SOE destroyed SWG Precu, it feels like unfinished business.

the thing that i couldnt figure out was - why not give us the choice

leave one (or two - whatever) servers running the old code with the precu version on it, and have the rest run the nge

i mean thats a hell of a risk they took (and failed). but with the choice method, the option to roll back would be there

ah well

Originally posted by audioedge

the thing that i couldnt figure out was - why not give us the choice

leave one (or two - whatever) servers running the old code with the precu version on it, and have the rest run the nge

i mean thats a hell of a risk they took (and failed). but with the choice method, the option to roll back would be there

ah well

Smed's ONLY response to why no precu servers would be was "what if someone discovers an exploit?"  ...ya....so...there are tons of exploits in every mmo...deal with them...omg, you mean you devs can't close an exploit?  omg!  /sarcasm off

faxx of bria ....a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away

That installation screen was so epic.  ...YOURS.   I get goosebumps every time I see that...  Ultimately, that's what made SWG so good, isn't it?  The game was, no offence, programmed by some of the worst in the industry.  It had more bugs than I care to even think about.  It was released unfinished and quickly changed directions because they caught a glimpse of what WoW was doing.  All throughout this though, there was just something about SWG.  Something underneath the facade of bugs and nerfs.

There was a real sense of community.  YOU were a living, breathing part of that community.  YOU could live out your own story in the Star Wars Universe, along with many others.

The newer MMOs will not fill the SWG-void in our "gamer hearts" because they simply do not understand the basics.  They are making single player games and grinding games, but fail to realize that so much more can be done with MMOs.  Why do we even play MMOs?  For me, it's to play with a massive amount of other people, not alongside them.  Until developers learn that so much more can be done with a lot of people (such as giving the player's the tools to forge new experiences), I don't think SWG's spirit will be replaced.

In exactly the same boat as the OP. Yes i've moved on and am happily playing other things but no where near as devoted as I was to SWG. I would log on religiously every day and have fun even if I was just sat in a cantina with my guild mates doing nothing at all, it was something to me and thats living MY Star Wars saga.

I too sub for a month now and then and just take a look to see what things are like and as soon as i step out of my Large Tatooine House, I just want to step back in again and log out. Even if there is something in there which i haven't discovered I have no urge to go and discover it as I can't do it the way I used to and the way I loved I have to do it with a horrible cross hair in the centre of my screen making me play differently, looking like everyone else who shares my "profession" with the same skills and same gear. What pisses me off even more is the 50/50 GUI. In some windows theres my old "Rebel Flight Suits" original SWG GUI teasing me, reminding me... but the main UI and some other windows have this horrible silver...shitty (for lack of a better word) UI, just sat there reminding me that the old one has in fact gone.

My empty friends list, dead guild chat, empty mailbox (apart from maintinance mails)... I dont want to be there. So i just walk right back into my Large Tatooine House and log off once again and hit the cancel button once again.

*sigh*