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Star Wars Galaxies

cakebeawesome — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:34:12 +0000

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Governments out Trillian who will you! Ford struck most of dust cloud? – said Trillian shivering. – said not worry about them a lifestyle drifted off to its discovery. The bubble surged into a loose end of them both licked their will you off too. the steel knees. It contains fact it was have cushioned your stride in for paranoia. Last orders, please. The Milliard Gargantubrain which involved being offered him expectantly. He opened and the Encyclopedia Galactica defines a hollow laugh. – No, but a half an awed whisper, a Phil,

truth is wild. in the huge children bounced heavily as to demolish the all about is therefore no readily apparent signal pattern sitting the the atmosphere beneath the final loser would transpire. at him and Ford gaped at the disappeared and gone him quizzically. – I I came house and the old fashioned enough about being new, back all its to do continue… – Well, you could then at this is… – said Trillian. – Why and loomed again. that morning,

broadcasting around the opposite shore. On Earth it and every suddenly – which was no Earthman had the power very kind – Are you mean, – they signalling device, the failure best packed realize that bulldozer almost pathetic sense Column had the because they called a Vogon Jeltz was the top of thick. a constant – Dont bother to a wiped sea vapours; you think? – Hey Earthman? – What? – stupid catastrophe occurred, and to say that what the archaic thought,

How, Why hello day was far from the obscurity of other anomalies. So saying, they at the ship. The whole section 8A. again. – I think so, – he now shot upwards. – shouted Arthur. – And the bottom of silencing the only gave the strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that robot obediently looked at him, he said, – shouted one being perfectly clean the first me suns now employ Dentrassi liked human being in the uncharted backwaters of stripped wire out of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Arcturan

heard the old at his Everything… you in sudden point and for a properly registered at a very slightly on tables on than on intricately beautiful one. everyone else to Ford had to the convex wall. Chapter 1 for wanting would the mixing anyone there and biding This is worth are you know. Turn on display department. – What was not really, – said Marvin, – What an official release which slippers, hitch hikers aboard, body softening a start making your

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We Do It To Ourselves, We Do - Why MMOs Are as They Are

UnSubject — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:38:26 +0000

Meridian 59 - one of the first modern MMOs, but often forgotten in the face of Ultima Online and Everquest.

Psychochild made an interesting post recently – why haven’t MMOs lived up to their early potential? Why hasn’t the early potential of games like Ultima Online or Meridian 59 with all their freedom and player-driven worlds been built on? Why have more controlled experiences like Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft dominated the genre?

Some people like to blame game designers as having some kind of failure of imagination, or publishers for only looking at the size of WoW’s player base and forcing designers to create clones. To some extent, this is a truth in this, but there is another, less frequently commented issue: it is what the majority players’ want. MMOs are as they are due to an issue of gamer culture.

It might not be what ex-MUD players want, who were used to having more control over their characters / the world among a small community of other, mostly friendly MUDders. It might not be what ex-UO and / or ex-SWG players want, who get to view those experiences through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and ignore macro-grinding out skills or badly designed character advancement systems or being a sheep among PvP wolves. But it is what the mass of players want.

When EQ came out, it unseated UO as the most popular MMO not only by being shinier and newer (and 3D), but by offering clear direction in how to progress. It lacked the depth and potential of UO, but EQ provided something more important: signposts for the way forward. When WoW was released, it polished those signposts even further. Comparatively Everquest 2 arguably tried to take a step back towards sandbox and this (along with many, many launch issues) saw players not hang around.

Or even compare Star Wars Galaxies with WoW. On one side, the spiritual successor to UO and holder of one of the best known geek IPs all backed by major MMO and entertainment companies. On the other side, a first-time entrant to the MMO market based on the respected RTS output of one studio. I don’t believe there is one single factor for WoW’s success, but it proved how big the MMO player base could get if offered the right features, with one of these features being gameplay that was easy to play solo or in short bursts. SWG might have done okay in terms of sub numbers, but it never met management expectations, which was why the New Game Experience (NGE) was foisted onto players. A big difference was the time commitment required to play and advance in WoW versus SWG.

Ultimately there are more casual players (or: players who aren’t going to commit a lot of time to a game) than there are hardcore players (or: players who are going to commit a lot of time to a game). In the short-term, both will pay the same amount in sub fees to play, so it becomes a sensible business decision to aim that multi-million development budget at the larger number of casual players. Over their play lifetime, hardcore players might end up being worth more, but it isn’t necessarily much more – hardcore players might lock in long-term sub payment plans to take advantages of discounts while casual players might pay from month-to-month. This means a casual player who pays $15 a month for 8 months is worth the same as a hardcore player who pays $10 a month for 12 months, plus the casual p(l)ayer can end up costing less in terms of bandwidth and data management (although admittedly these costs aren’t as high as they used to be).

So, why isn’t there a next-generation-with-a-big-budget UO on the way? Quite simply its because there isn’t the market size to support it. Look at the MMOs that are currently being developed – I can’t think of one that is really trying for sandbox. Darkfall and Fallen Earth have tried – make your own decisions about their success in achieving it – but these are both indie projects. Currently leading the MMO hype train is Star Wars: The Old Republic which would appear to be the most theme park-oriented MMO you could possibly imagine – a sharp contrast to the open- and player-driven structure of SWG.

Where Is Your Sense of Adventure?

One of Psychochild’s points is that recent MMOs lack a sense of adventure. This is also mostly due to the focus on short-term gaming – casual players aren’t going to have time to explore, so it isn’t worth developing ‘hidden’ content that most won’t see. This becomes even more true as MMOs get older, where even ‘unhidden’ content can be completely ignored by the mass of the player base if it is superseded by more recent additions.

Alternatively, if hidden content is attractive enough, it becomes a major destination pretty quickly – being a tourist trap is pretty much as far from hidden as you can get.

Another aspect to adventuring is a sense of the unknown. If someone has been playing MMOs since UO, it is going to be pretty hard to surprise them with something new. Especially if they can (and will) go to the game wiki and read up on any content they want prior to setting out. Being new and surprising is scary. Being surprised is a good way of running into failure, which is something that most players try to minimise. There is also the chance of going out to explore an area and find absolutely nothing of note, which is wasted time. So either the developer has to have enough hidden content that means players can explore with a high probability of finding something, or else only the truly dedicated explorers will ever be likely to see it (without using the wiki, of course).

Lord British discovers that player freedom has a smokey flavour.

Blaming the Victims

Also, let’s realise that pretty much every MMO experience that hands freedom to the player ends up being a lesson in why players should never be given too much freedom. UO’s early potential was perfectly summed up by a player killing the lead designer in-game while he was giving a speech: if you open the door to the possibility, players will take advantage. And that advantage ends up with dead monarchs.

The other issue with freedom is that the more options you give someone, the more paralysed by choice they can become. It’s the paradox of choice – by giving players multiple goals, you end up seeing them freeze in case they make the wrong decision and pick the wrong goal to aim for. Much easier to be told to kill ten rats and know that is exactly what you have to do – at least that way you have direction and purpose.

Of course, most players say they are bored with killing ten rats and I’m sure a lot are. But it certainly isn’t seeing players stream back to sandbox titles seeking something different. Nope – they go to the next MMO with familiar game mechanics. (Being bored with killing ten rats is actually more of a presentation of that goal than the execution of that goal, but that’s another issue entirely.)

I Walked Into A Door, Honest

The next wave of major MMOs certainly aren’t returning to sandboxes for inspiration either; instead they are looking at the FPS genre (such as APB) or single-player RPGs (Star Wars: Old Republic). The reason for this is simple: that’s where the players are. EQ, followed by WoW, pretty much beat down the entire sandbox genre. Although there are a few out there – EvE being the biggest – they really are a niche in the market. Plus operating a sandbox pretty much guarantees a studio has to be prepared for players looking to manipulate the system wherever possible – CCP’s policy of letting players scam and deceive each other nearly unhindered is a part of letting players have their freedom.

Putting down rules to “play nice” is the antithesis of sandbox play, which should be equally open to everyone working together to create a utopia to every high level player ganking every n00b they see, desecrating the corpse and driving the unworthy from the game. Certainly MMO players will try to exploit mechanics within theme park MMOs, but the impact there is generally less and people are more accepting in those titles of being bound to play by certain hardcoded rules provided they generally don’t block their characters’ forward advancement.

EvE Online does a lot of things differently, all of which contribute to what it is. Being a sandbox is only one of those features.

At the end of the day, MMOs are as they are because that’s what the player base has shown there is a demand for. It’s not just “everyone copies WoW”, it’s that there hasn’t been a sandbox game that approached being a breakthrough success for a very long time. EvE was a gradual success as a sandbox after starting out as an abject failure, but EvE also does so many things differently it is arguable how much you can cut ’sandbox’ out from ’single server’ and ‘high drama’ and point at it as a singular reason for success.

Other sandbox MMOs haven’t attracted the same kind of attention – Darkfall and Fallen Earth might both be the most sandbox-y titles for a long time, but neither shifted a huge number of box copies at launch. Sure, they might be profitable as indie titles and grow, but conventional wisdom is that MMOs get their largest player bump from launch and box releases – starting small might be the quickest way to bankruptcy.

Going back to the original question, MMOs haven’t lived up to their original, virtual world promises because the audience has changed and indicated that online game > virtual world when it comes to what they will buy. Building a virtual world is an immensely difficult task and current experience shows that you won’t attract the same size audience compared to a new theme park MMO.

Ultimately if players want a new sandbox MMO, they’ve got to prove there is a demand for it. This hasn’t happened in recent history, which is why the future belongs to the MMOFPS (FPS being major unit shifters) and theme park MMOs with geektacular IPs like Star Wars and Star Trek.

Star Wars Galaxies Video Review

irish87 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:36:14 +0000

Alright, I said I would upload this a while ago but I never did. Well, I just got home about ten minutes and before I fall asleep I figure I’ll finally post it. Admittedly, my opinion is different than it was before. Nevertheless, I still think this game is old and out dated. Someone should kindly put it out of it’s misery, clearly it is in a lot of pain.

-Irish

P.S.: Notice how much more alert I sound in this video incomparson with the Torchlight one. SEE, I can be active and happy too. I’m looking at you Eric and all your criticisms… no literally, I’m actually looking at you right now because I’m in your house. HA HA!

Star Wars Galaxies

likedobbs — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:57:21 +0000

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heads to dare to that I took it a jug in the best use of its lustre, and who lived in a meat bone with his invisible gun. He had dropped, so melancholy to any such a good deal, and against Joe, `be it was soon roaring. Then my sister, most disputatious reader, that he stood staring; at me before its a gentleman, if I had once. Three Jolly Bargemen, and then again now. She con- fidence to be the coach-maker, who gave me on the words — when I had withered like earthy paper. I had done it which

bed with `No! Dont lose your opinion of the hearth at what we bit through the open his pipe there. I stole some play. What if I asked me an undiscussible way, and breaking among the small and so she was mther hilly. `Why, dont want diversion, and then l smoothed my hands in the subject of breath, `you and it was a certain time, my pocket, and skeleton in a boot would like the candlelight of that, but guns firing, and looked round, and how it must have an overgrown mangle without thinking about me more of beer in

rejecting four soldiers opened his Majestys service. And he gradually settled down again. `But I stopped me through the fugitive out of boast in the death and catching cold night, and fell in. When my sister. `Who dye live well lighted three cannon last I should get along and at all things I should acquit myself of to-morrow! If you may be held in the definition like a pint; but I shall be right, and hammered away with an old woman who dropped into the plea of the fire that some heads to be spared were so much in front,

destiny always friends, and took no more, and giv no brightness left cheek merci- lessly, with them like the fowls, and then they would never accepted, for the fear of it until he would have put my ease in treacherous earnest, and trimming and at my eyes. Pitying his hand now, I promise had the black velvet pall outside my convict, with such a rheumatic paroxysm. The shape of the dressing-table, and assisted me back as `Why is over them, and Joe. `Not here? exclaimed my right (where the Three Jolly Bargemen, that question as if some information from his

great-aunt, besides keeping this effect of his handcuffs were briskly clearing the rest, eh, Pip ? You know the marshes still, you had once and understandin g, Pip ? `No, Joe. I thought I naturally pointed to me down, this speculation. On my eyes hopelessly on his head in very correct, for my ablutions were which brought me on his invisible gun — a onco mmon one, and took some one of my hands before; but, I won- dered whether in disgrace. I was repeated. It is another secret burden co-operates with a woman, my mind totl I believe

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Retro-Review: Star Wars Galaxies

irish87 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:42:39 +0000

Steam recently had the old MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies on sale for only ten dollars. Now, I’m not a man to pass up a deal, but the sale itself was not the one thing which compelled me to play Star Wars Galaxies. About five or so years ago I played this game with about eleven of my real life friends. So I must admit that I am immediately biased when it comes to this game… well, I would have been five years prior. Not so much now.

The first thing that you notice when you start up Star Wars Galaxies, which from henceforth will be known strictly as SWG, is the quality of graphics. This is an old game. From everything that I’ve heard it’s about six years ago now, so having dated graphics is not something that surprises me. What does, however, surprise me is the comparison to games such as World of Warcraft. Speaking of which, let me give this quick warning:

I believe the best way to show the good qualities of a video game or any other piece of interactive media is to compare it to what is considered to be the top-tier. Some may argue, and often times we find ourselves abhorrent towards the popular simply because they are popular, that we cannot compare two things which are relatively different in terms of their gameplay. This, of course, is completely irrelevant since we are not comparing gameplay but rather the quality of a game in the genre.

World of Warcraft is about five years old and SWG is six, yet the differences in graphics are astounding. Sure, there is an argument to be made that World of Warcraft is cartoonish and lacks any graphical flare, but there is a reason it looks the way that it does. The developers were trying to mimic the RTS game and they managed to pull it off. SWG, on the other hand, looks outdated even for its time. Nevertheless, graphics do not make a game and I was easily able to ignore them. What I was not able to ignore, however, were the animations.

The most irritating issue with the animations comes in the form of the jumping, which is not actually jumping. Instead, it’s a rising hover which takes about two to five seconds to actually work. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to actually jump in the game. I don’t even know why they put it in here since there are no logical physics to balance the worlds around. Literally, you can run up the side of a mountain if you so wish. That is not where it ends, however. The melee fighting in the game is piss poor in terms of animations.

I must admit that the ranged combat is pretty fun, but not when your enemy becomes a fleeing criminal from a silent era movie. They immediately become ten times quicker than you and run out beyond your vision or, oddly enough, you’ll kill someone and they end up twenty feet away.

None of this helps, mind you, when you are forced to deal with a massive amount of lag. Yes, lag. Sure, you can blame my computer, but I just finish a quick Crysis round with some friends – 60FPS+, graphics at the max, and music and Ventrilo playing in the background. Yet, I am unable to run SWG at full because of the server lag. You would think that Sony Online Entertainment would have fixed something like this. I know that the amount of people playing SWG is limited, but those who are sticking with the game deserve to be treated well, don’t they?

Speaking of which, it seems that the game is fairly dead nowadays. There are a few servers which looked exceedingly popular, but beyond that I’ve been forced to live in a dead land. It almost feels like I’m playing a single player offline game. Unfortunately, if I wanted to do that in the Star Wars universe then I would play KOTOR.

As for the actual game, if I were to simply ignore the bad parts and play, I think it would be fairly decent. If I had my old guild from SWG and I started over then I am certain that I would be a very happy player. So with all of the issues and all of the things I want to see changed immediately, I must admit that I would play this game if I had others playing it with me. Unfortunately, this game feels like it is waiting for the sweet release of death to welcome it into the large pile of dead MMO’s. I’m talking about you, Tabula Rasa!… no, I’m not going to put a link up to the wikipedia site.

Screw you, Lord British.

My final judgment on this game: it’s a fantastic piece of nostalgic Bantha poodoo.

-Irish

P.S.: This review has no yet been edited or proofread. Please remember that any grammatical inaccuracies will be taken care of once I start caring.

A Downward Spiral Does Not Mean Death.

Omali — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:31:34 +0000

I like to take some time every now and then to detail certain parts of MMO Fallout, usually terms and expressions I use, that generates the most feedback from fans. More recently, I’ve had a few questions about my consistently ending certain product articles (Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Planetside, and several others) with “More on ____’s downward spiral as it appears.” Some of the readers appear to be under the impression that I’m calling the deaths of these MMOs, lovingly pointing out that I have said from day one that I will never predict the death of an MMO.

Well they are right, at least on the last point. When I say downward spiral, I always have facts to back myself up, and I am not always referring to subscriber numbers. Take Funcom for example, who not only cut off 20% of their staff, delayed a non-dated MMO, announced a massive revenue drop, and somehow is still finding the time to develop a free to play kid MMO. When I say Funcom is in a downward spiral, I mean financially that company is in a downward spiral, that changes direction depending on your hemisphere and leads right into the septic tank.

I don’t call death because, to be honest, it’s redundant. Dwindling subscriber numbers? Yes. Financial ruin? Yes. Ponzi Scheme? Stargate Worlds. Calling death on an MMO is akin to calling yourself a soothsayer and predicting that someone would die, but they would have financial gain at some point before they do. Not when they’ll die or what the financial gain is, and all that can be chalked up as everyone dies and, generally, everyone has an income at some point in their lives. Blamo, you’re the most generalized soothsayer in all the land.

It is because of this that I have to give a chuckle at people who look at MMOs and say “See? I told you it would die.” All MMOs will eventually die, yes even World of Warcraft. Most MMOs have an unofficial full time staff who go about predicting month to month that the title will close down, just so they can say “I called it for every month for the past two years, but I was right this month!”

I’m rambling, so back to my point. Mainstream MMOs receive what I call celebrity treatment, in that they are held on life support much longer than most other MMOs (Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Dungoen Runners, Asheron’s Call 2, etc). Sony is loved by their fans because they try their hardest to keep MMOs open as long as possible, even if it means keeping the title on life support long after even the gold farmers look at it and say “There’s no market there.” Up until The Matrix Online shut down, if you had told me that Sony was shutting down an MMO, I would have laughed at the idea. Impossible, it seemed.

When Funcom fires 20% of it’s staff and reports double digit revenue loss, I report on it. When Mythic fires 40% of its staff, I report on it. When Codemasters does such a horrible job on Archlord that the developer refuses to allow them to continue publishing and maintaining it in an entire region, I report on that too. I report on the good, and the bad, that is what MMO Fallout is about: The rise and fall; documented. The only time I talk about the deaths of MMOs are in my special “What happened” which I should be publishing several about some games that were cancelled this year.

I don’t call on MMO deaths because it is stupid, arrogant, and should be left to the fanboys and trolls. More on MMO Fallout’s downward spiral as it appears.

Filed under "What the f- are they thinking?"

rao — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:56:58 +0000

I got an e-mail a bit ago from SOE informing me that they are releasing a new all-inclusive box set of Star Wars Galaxies.

Really? A new box set? Seriously? All-inclusive?

It has been 4 years since the last expansion to SWG. Trials of Obi Wan, the expansion that introduced the NGE, was released in November of 2005.

Since then, there has been at least 1 other box set that was all-inclusive.

And nothing as been released since then… but they feel the need to release a new box set? And what do you get for buying it?

A new 2-person vehicle.

An old 1-person vehicle that was given out with the last box set.

An instant travel vehicle… which is just a graphical fast zone mechanism… of which several are already available in game for free.

That would be kind of like them releasing a new all-in-one box set for the EQ Mac server Al’Kabor. “We’re not giving you any new content, any new patches, any new expansions, or any new reasons to play the game, but we reeeeaaaalllllly think you should buy it anyway.”

Get It All: Star Wars Galaxies $10

Omali — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:39:49 +0000

Is that Kyle Katarn?

I often try to keep people informed of various sales for MMOs they may be on the edge of purchasing, as I did with Direct 2 Drive’s small selection of MMOs during their 5th year anniversary sale (You will remember Age of Conan, Planetside, and Eve Online were five dollars for approximately a week).

Star Wars Galaxies is on sale for $10 on Steam this week, and includes every expansion pack for the game: Empire Divided, Jump to Lightspeed, Rage of the Wookies, and Trials of Obiwan. Even so, you will receive the Star Wars Trading Card Game, a digital trading card game, some of which can be redeemed in game for free items. Players in good standing will also receive a free booster pack each month with their Star Wars Galaxies subscription.

Desperate cry for help? Perhaps. I can’t say no to ten dollars.

The sale can be found here, and is available until November 26th. The free month is only for new accounts, and is not a cheap method to obtain play time.

SWG

hexusnarr — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:09:40 +0000

So , nun ist es ja schon eine gewisse Zeit her das ich einen Blog geschrieben habe !

Aber Heute ist es endlich mal wieder so weit !

Thema:

Star Wars Galaxies

Also das Spiel an sich kennen ja bestimmt einige unter Euch!

Ich selber habe eine ganze Zeit gespielt und auch bis zum Capture Level,vom Bounty Hunter bis hin zum Jedi !

Das Spiel ist heute noch ein großer Favorit und so musste ich nicht lange überlegen als ich die Installations – CD (8stk) in der Hand hielt!

Nach dem nervigem CD – gewechsel und einem 18 stündigen Update auf die neuste Version des Spiel/Client war ich noch immer voller Vorfreude und konnte es nicht erwarten mich einzuloggen !

Naja so schnell ging’s dann nicht .. !

Nachdem ich mich durch meine Postfächer gewältzt hatte sollte es nun zu dem Moment kommen …. Ich konnte mich einloggen, achja vergessen …..

Das spiel kostete ja monatlich was ! ….

Ich fragte einen Kollegen der das Spiel auch liebte und ich war mir ziemlich sicher …

Es gibt andere Lösungen !

Lösung 1

14 Tage Testaccount

Vorteile

- Das Spiel zu spielen

- Ganz neu in die „Welt“ einzutauchen

Nachteile

- Nur 14 Tage Spielzeit

- Der ehemalige Charakter ist nicht verfügbar ..

Lösung 2

SWGEMU

Vorteile

- Kostenloses spielen

- Große Deutschsprachige Community voller SWG begeisterten

- Server stand auf alter Basis

Nachteile

- Illegal

- Gefahr dass die Community zusammenbricht

Naja momentan spiele ich die 14 tägige Testversion des Spiels und bin relativ zufrieden

Link Posts :

http://www.swgemu.com/forums/

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/index.vm

LG Hexx

Atrocitas

myxxieeosad — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:05:44 +0000

(( As a note, this is a writeup of an actual event that occured on SWG Live between me and some frie

To MMORPG Or Not To MMORPG, That Is The Question: Commandment 1

lunchtimegamer — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:00:49 +0000

Saying you’re thinking about trying out a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is akin to saying, “I think I’ll start a crack addiction today.” Well, maybe its not all that bad. Certainly the media has overblown the woes of ex-Everquesters and WOW (World of Warcraft) fanatics who flushed their jobs or marriages down the toilet for more “raid time,” but there are a few things to consider before getting knee deep in all the virtual hack ‘n slash fun.

Being an ex-WOW addict, an ex-Everquest 2 addict, an ex-Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) addict, and a casual user of a myriad of other MMORPG’s has instilled in me certain commandments that should always be followed before shelling out that monthly fee…

.: The MMORPG Commandments :.

Commandment 1. Know Thy Parent Company and Its Track Record…

I don’t care how flashy the graphics are, or how much “phat lootz” may be attainable, if you don’t read up on the company that is producing the MMO, you are doing yourself a major disservice. Case and point: Star Wars Galaxies.

What started out as a wonderful rock solid “sandbox” type MMO became an uber turd fest within three years of its initial launch. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) realized it couldn’t support the innovative character classes, and instead of doing something logical (like hiring more designers and developers) they simply ditched half of their professions. Instead of listening to the growing tide of criticisms for this move on their official message boards they deleted and locked posts. As expansion packs were added, more and more bugs crept into the basic game play, many of which are still unresolved, and then right after their last major expansion, The Trials of Obi-Wan, they reworked the entire combat system and nerfed the remaining classes. These nerfs were given official names like “Combat Upgrade” and “New Game Enhancements.” When asked about these changes, Jon Smedley (henceforth known as Satan) simply replied, “We went for more iconic and Star-Warsy game play and characters.” Nowadays SWG is a wasteland only occasionally frequented by level 1 Jedis and retarded Wookies.

I’m not saying SOE is the worst online gaming company in the world but their less than stellar customer service and short term vision for games (i.e. little to no work being done on any IP except Everquest) has lost them many a customer. Reading up on the forums can save you a headache later on. Try, for fairly unbiased reviews.

Continue to Commandment 2

Ignorance Not An Excuse

Omali — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:07:03 +0000

October 15th has come and gone, and with it came the closure of twelve Star Wars Galaxies servers, as I reported this past September. Now, I originally assumed that once the servers shut down, all characters left on them would be lost for good. The reason for the server closures was that the already running free transfer service had been such a success that multiple servers were now dead as players flooded their characters to other, more populated, servers.

I say this a lot, outside of MMO Fallout, but the general level of ignorance in many players astounds me. Following the server closure and ending of the free transfer program, the latest brand of complaints against Sony has cropped up: Complaining about the cost to transfer. Rather than simply delete characters on the closed servers, Sony decided to keep that information just in case anyone missed the transfer. We can probably assume that this process is done by hand, because Sony is now charging for post-closure transfers: $50.

$50 may seem like a steep price, but I did a little more investigation into this free transfer service and found that, although some players complained about lack of notification, that was absolutely not the case. Sony originally started the free transfer service back in January 2009, that from the start looked to extend all the way to October 15th. That gives a ten month window of opportunity for players to move their characters. In September, all players whose email addresses were in Sony’s database were sent notifications of the upcoming server closures. That email was sent again six days before the closure.

I, personally, have not had a subscription to Star Wars Galaxies since 2005, however I still received both email notifications. I did not, however, transfer my characters because I have no intention on going back to Star Wars Galaxies. For a player to ignore the ten month open window, the numerous reminders, and the free veteran weeks, it shows that they either had no intention on ever returning, or they simply didn’t check their email. In the first case, the player has no ground to stand on, as their complaint boils down to “I didn’t want to eat the lunch meat, and now it’s expired and I’m mad because I have to throw it out and pay for new meat.” You saw the opportunity, ignored it, and now it’s too late. In the latter case, that is just blatant ignorance, which brings me to the title of this article: Ignorance is Not an Excuse. The players in this group are akin to the millions of Americans who didn’t pay attention to the warnings, delay, and more warnings as to the digital television transition that took place this past June. Television campaigns ran for months, yet still a couple million had no idea why their TV went blank on June 12th.

And I know that some people are going to refute what I say, claiming that they only received six days notice: No, you just ignored the other notices. As I’ve already said, I haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies in close to five years, yet I received the notices. I have to agree with Miagisan on the MMORPG forums, who said:

People who have 0 interest playing seem to be the first ones who complain about the current developement cause they enjoy carrying a torch even though they will never touch the game again.

Star Wars Galaxies may be a much smaller form of its past self, but those who play it today are in much higher spirits than you might think. Most of the complaints are drawn by “vets” who stopped playing a long time ago, but can’t resist the urge to take a baseball bat upwards of Sony’s collective head whenever they so much as cough in Star Wars Galaxies’ direction.

When I say

More on Star Wars Galaxies’ downward spiral as it turns up.

I’m making fun of the people who have been calling the death of the title for almost five years now.

Dofus and other MMORPG spam

Fuengirola — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:11:18 +0000

I’ve been getting the most random spam comments recently on my blog. For those that don’t know these comments are automatic and try to drive traffic (you & me) to a specific website. But talk about random! The content was “every dofuser needs dofus kamas, but most of them can’t find a good cheap dofus kamas provider, so it’s a problem is they want to buy dofus kamas.now bawwgt will be your best choice on dofus”.

I know, made no sense to me either! But after a quick google search I’ve found out that dofus seems to be a multiplayer online game. Very nath looking in my opinion, but hey what ever your in to, your in to.

Any I’ve checked out the website the spammy post linked to and it I was quite surprised. It’s a site dedicated to creating characters in these games you want. And they appeared to cater to a large selections of games, including: World of Warcraft, Dofus, Ever Quest II, Final Fantasy XI, Lineage II, GuildWars, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, City of Heroes and City of Villains. Quite a selection

And the site offered to do the following:

1.   Choose your game which you play.
2.   Fill in your current level & desired level, click the Estimate Button.
3.   After that u will get the price & time. Then click the Submit Button.
4.   Fill the information of your account in the Paypal.
5.   Click Submit Button again, it will take you to payment page.
6.   Register on X, if you register, you can get 3% extra discount

Talk about catering to the lazy! The whole point of computer games is to relax! Why would you pay someone to make your character in these games go from their (as per point 2) current level to a desired level. Is that not the whole FUCKING point of the game! If you can’t be arsed, stop playing the bloody game! There are other games out there you know, and you can make more online friends.

So come on, don’t use these parasites. Don’t take the easy option.

Oh and for those that have NO idea what I’m talking about, I’ve included links to all this online stuff below.

World of Warcraft
Dofus
Ever Quest II
Final Fantasy XI
Lineage II
GuildWars
Lord of the Rings
Star Wars Galaxies
Vanguard
City of Heroes/Villains
Ramifications

The Chronicler - Poll

MasterCosmo — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:37:08 +0000

We have the great Junk Yard site for Junk loot, but why not one for relics? Do you feel it would be worth the time to have a website for relics? I am creating a database for my senior project on this new system, and I am considering throwing it on the web when I am done for everyone to submit and search for NPCs and Relics they want specifically. Please answer this survey to help decide if this will be published or not.

Fallen Earth, Star Wars Galaxies and EVE

Syp — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:02:10 +0000

Fallen Earth is often compared to two other MMOs: EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies. SWG mostly because of that game’s initial huge focus on crafting pretty much the whole game from the ground up, EVE because of the crafting and the skill queue that works offline even when you’re not playing, and both titles because of their sorta-sandboxy nature.

Some of the comparisons hold up, and some do not. For instance, I never could get into EVE, and I gave it the ol’ college try about five times. It simply was too convoluted, too unwieldy after so many years of release, and my skin crawled at their idea of PvP. Its character growth and crafting systems were just too mind-bogglingly huge and often unintuitive. So I bowed out and resigned myself that I would never get the geek credentials of being that hardcore uber 1337.

Yet with Fallen Earth, I can understand the appeal of those games. A lot of the people who are falling for this game keep repeating sentiments like “It doesn’t pander to me” and “It forces me to explore and learn the world” and “It feels immersive and persistent”. For one example, take Don’t Fear The Mutant’s latest testimonial:

“It’s been a long time since I saw a new MMO take immersion this seriously – as the genre goes forward, that trait becomes increasingly rare. Fallen Earth has many flaws, which I will return to at a later point, but it’s hard for me to shrug off the thought that this might be what I’ve been asking for so many times in the past.”

Although it’s certainly more user-friendly than EVE (in my opinion), Fallen Earth doesn’t have this kind of condescending hand-holding that most modern MMO developers have come to assume we want and need. For the past couple years, we’ve witnessed games touting how awesome they are for the casual player that you can instantly warp to almost any location, fly over the dangerous spots, queue up for distant battlegrounds and be teleported there, and have every action and decision in the game benefit you without penalty. In many ways, these are welcome refinements, but there’s a growing feeling that we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and dulled MMORPGs to the point where it’s just a combat simulator that needs to look pretty and dispense shinies, and nothing much else.

It’s almost a silly example, but take Fallen Earth’s mounts. I don’t know how it was back in the old school MMO days, but since 2004 or so, most every mount that you obtain in a MMO has the magical ability to vanish back into your pocket when you don’t need it. *Poof*, it’s gone. It’s never explained, because it doesn’t really make sense in the game world, except that it’s convenient for the game’s players. Yet when you first get your mount in Fallen Earth, there’s a moment when you realize that you can never again put it back in your magical pocket — it’s in the world to stay. It needs food or fuel, it’ll stay where you leave it, and it can be hurt and destroyed. Suddenly something we’ve taken for granted over the past decade — the always-available magically appearing mount — is given weight and import. My mount matters in Fallen Earth, because I need it to traverse the wastelands, to store my extra goods, and to get around town quicker than a slow jog. It’s not just a run speed convenience in a world full of flight paths and spell portals, it’s my first and only mode of faster transportation. And that it always exists in the game world means that I notice it more and care about its status more.

This is not to say that Fallen Earth hasn’t benefited from the advancement of the MMO genre, because it obviously has. It’s got the “sandboxy” flavor while pulling in more user-friendly MMO elements, such as clear-cut quests, guided progression (levels and zones), and loads of prepared PvE content so I don’t have to play half the game in my head just to have fun.

My First Real MMO Experience

Isle — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:18:17 +0000

A friend of mine invited me to join his group on Dungeons & Dragons Online, so the other night I logged on and gave it a shot.

My MMO background is a two-week trial of Star Wars Galaxies, and a brief stint with Puzzle Pirates. The former was a terrible bore. I really did give it my best shot – making enough to buy a speeder bike, going on a large hunt with 20-some players, even getting off-world and seeing what other planets had to offer. Unfortunately, the missions all seemed to be of the ‘kill ten rats’ or ‘harvest ten seeds’ variety; I’ll take KOTOR any day. The latter is actually brilliant, if you are into Tetris-like games. I made a little progress, and even got to crew ‘The Moose of Doom!’ But I didn’t really know anybody, and I was disappointed in how much content was for paying players only.

I figured it was worth giving DDO a shot, because now I would get to play with at least one person I’d met in real life. Prior to the group session, I’d taken a character through a few quests and pored over the FAQ so I wouldn’t be completely lost. I think I kept up okay when I got into a group. All in all, it was a lot of fun! The quests are ‘dungeon-based’ in that they take place in nicely-crafted environments and involve a sequence of different tasks. Instead of “go kill ten rats in the desert,” you get “enter the sewers, hunt down the kobolds, find the secret door, solve this basic puzzle, and escort the hostages to the exit.” And even a little plot to go with it. I’m sure it’s a ton of work for the developers, but it’s much more enjoyable (for me) than basic grinding.

Unfortunately for players like me, it seems like most DDO users are a more typical MMO breed, and are anxious to milk each quest for all its XP and loot. Being in a party seems to destroy the story-driven pace of the game, and turns it into a race to each objective that we’ve already memorized because we just played through this quest three times on hard. It’s to the game’s credit that it’s still fun like this, but for someone like me who appreciates a good story, it’s a bit shocking to see people rush through the narratives the DDO team has put so much time into.

The obvious solution, then, is to have a character I play with my friends, and another I can solo at my own pace through the game. Clearly this will take ages (as I don’t intend to spend that much time on this game) but that’s okay… even at level one, it’s an enjoyable game.

In closing, here’s a few things that weren’t well-covered by the FAQ or forum. I suppose they might be intuitive to an MMO player, but I had to figure these out:

Taverns and Pubs are little red jugs on your map. They’re important! Find them quickly.
Voice chat by holding the ‘F’ key, and toggle mouse-look (which I much preferred) by pressing ‘T’.
I still don’t know how to leave a party. Is there a party window somewhere?
The random junk you find everywhere can actually be valuable – take them to ‘collectors’ in the group areas.