Last month, Star Wars Galaxies reached its sixth year. While not the oldest, it’s up there with the veterans of the MMOG world–EQ is 10 and UO is the granddaddy of modern MMOs at 12 years old.
If an MMO dies in the woods…
With the more and more of Star Wars: The Old Republic leaking out and it’s impending launch looming mixed with SOE’s layoffs, I’ve been thinking that SWG’s days are numbered. I can’t say I’m a diehard player. I maintain my crafting business and as ridiculous as it seems, I’m still making money there. I’m not filthy rich but I’m comfortably wealthy in game terms. Still, there are still players in the game…when I do venture into Corellia (on Sunrunner) I’m often surprised by the presence of real players!
So, with a very small population spread over something like 10 servers (including the European ones that seem to be down a lot lately–oh noes!), I’m feeling more and more like the time to pull that great big MMO plug is coming. I don’t know the numbers that SOE deals with so I don’t know if they’re still finding a reason to maintain the game and the staff (yes, there are people who work on updates/patches for the game).
Why isn’t SWG the WoW of Sci-Fi (no, not SyFy) MMOGs? Well, outside of a very outdated game engine that got worse with the NGE, it just wasn’t smooth. It was built off the EQ engine, I’m sure, and was thus forever bound to the hard-core MMOG market, effectively closing the door on the casual gamer. It had great brand recognition but what’s the point of a great brand if you can’t even jump over a friggin rock?
But, the real nail in the coffin for the game? Not making it possible to be a Jedi from day one. The whole BS unlocking process was a joke. Sure it was interesting…but only to the hard core types that are willing to go through all the ridiculous trials and tribulations to find that one path to Jedihood. All you had to do was make it possible to have a Jedi slot without much fuss…even if it was just about reaching a level or even the level cap at the time. So what if it didn’t make sense from a SW Universe perspective. It’s like saying you’ve got to play the garbage collector in SimCity because it’s not like 20 million people can be mayor at the same time.
Apocalypse Soon?
Anyway, I’ve started FRAPSing what I can and keep thinking about finding a way to sell off all the non essentials and bank the rest. After all, you can’t keep your virtual goods…there are no safes or virtual deposit boxes to horde all those rewards and drops and crafted items that litter your virtual houses.
So, before the end comes unceremoniously, it’s time to start saying goodbye to an old friend–even if it still insists that jumping is an emote and “action” combat involves aiming a reticule to roll a die. I’ll miss the blocky but still beautiful vistas. I’ll miss the random space ships flying over head as you get closer to major cities. I’ll miss the random music spurts that pull straight from the SW movies. I still remember the bustle of the starter cities and how crowded the “suburbs” got with housing. I won’t forget the people that came and went…okay, maybe I’ve already forgotten them.
So long, SWG, and thanks for the really late space combat. You had so much potential and had some fun in there at times. I guess we’ll finally be able to jump, lightsaber and do everything we were supposed to do in SWTOR. Too bad…
g afk
