Star Wars Galaxies shutting down
It seems that this universe is only big enough for one Star Wars-themed MMO. Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies with a "galaxy-ending event."
It seems that this universe is only big enough for one Star Wars-themed MMO. Before BioWare's The Old Republic can begin, it seems that Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies must come to an end. In a letter sent to community members, SOE and LucasArts details plans to shut down all services for Star Wars Galaxies, including both the MMO and trading card game. "The shutdown of SWG is a very difficult decision, but SOE and LucasArts have mutually agreed that the end of 2011 is the appropriate time to end the game," the official notice reads. Service for the game will end on December 15th.
However, it appears Galaxies will not enter the MMO graveyard quietly. In fact, SOE is planning a "galaxy-ending event" that will become available during the last week of service. The final chapter of the game will be "written in part by the dedicated and passionate SWG community," although exact details on how fans can participate haven't been revealed.
If you want to join in on the festivities, you'll need to have an active SWG account by September 15th. After that date, no new accounts can be created for the service. All billing for Galaxies will end on October 15th, effectively turning the game into a closed free-to-play MMO for its final months. (SOE assures that current subscribers will receive a pro-rated refund for any pre-paid subscription that ends after that date.)
Additionally, all active Star Wars Galaxies subscribers will receive "fully-paid subscriber status" to one of SOE's other games: Free Realms, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, EverQuest, and DC Universe Online. Obviously, SOE hopes that you'll become hopelessly addicted to one of their other online games. The free subscriptions will run from October 15th to December 31st.
"We are extremely grateful to all of the SWG fans. We have had the rare opportunity to host one of the most dedicated and passionate online gaming communities and we truly appreciate the support we've received from each and every one of you over the course of the past eight years."
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Star Wars Galaxies ends December 15.
It seems that this universe is only big enough for one Star Wars-themed MMO. Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts is shutting down Star Wars Galaxies with a "galaxy-ending event."-
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I only played a free trial like 7 years ago, so I'm no expert, but didn't it used to be difficult to become a Jedi until they changed it so that anybody could very easily?
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It was a cover up. However, it was also how they planned to implement Jedi into the game. There was to be this really long and boring quest chain you would go on, grind endlessly (probably for hours) on certain mobs for a drop for holocrons that would (possibly) reveal which classes you needed to max. Then you would be able to embark on the Jedi quests to unlock the Jedi slot. Once unlocked, grinding experience as a Jedi was supposed to be way more difficult than any other class, and rightfully so.
I'm saddened they went with the "please-everyone-cause-it-makes-money" route.-
I remember where I was and what I was doing (in the game) when the first Jedi was announced. Anyway, it wasn't really until they started nerfing all the classes that people left en-mass. And then came a more simplified version of the game, and it was a horrible mistake.
All i can say is that the game was pretty amazing within the first 5 months or so, and then it just went down hill.
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Suits did not ruin this game. The game had a fatally flawed design from the very start. You want to point fingers, point them at Raph Koster, the most over-hyped designer in gaming. If you've ever read anything on his Theory of Fun, or played any of the games he was lead design on, you'd realize he's not a game designer and had no business handling the Star Wars license.
SWG was all about the sandbox. It had amazingly complex systems to simulate a world, an economy, intricate crafting etc. I will say one thing for SWG, the player-driven economy was amazing. Player cities were (and still are) an amazing achievement that I wish other MMOs would tackle.
The problem was you had all of these intricate systems and a wonderfully deep and varied skill progression path, but the world was empty. I mean, shockingly empty. They spend so much time building tools that let you build moisture farms to fund your Twi'lek dancer habit, that they never built the "game" part. Hell, they forgot to implement a Z-Axis (What do you mean I can't jump over a 1 foot tall crate? )
With NGE and CU, they tried to bootstrap a game to the framework, but it never panned out. Instead it crippled the few positive elements without actually adding much in the way of good gameplay.
I played the game from Beta 1 (when it was just a few dozen people standing on Tatooine where Bestine would eventually stand, and we could just walk around and emote at one another) through the CU. I was there through the horrible holocron grind and when they just gave everyone Jedi. I played Jump to Lightspeed and I went through their attempts at dungeons/instances.
The game suffered a half-done design and what was honestly a terrible engine (even on my current gen hardware, it's still not smooth or pretty). It exemplified Sony MMOs at the time: Crap engines, half-baked design. To this day, I don't think SOE's really recovered from this era/mindset.
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kinda surprised they are ending it this long before release of TOR. it would have made more sense to keep what star wars fans they had occupied until closer to the release of another star wars mmo. instead, many of these people will probably go play another mmo and get stuck on it before TOR releases.
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I love how all the NGE haters blame this closure on those changes. Let's look at the timeline:
2003 SWG launches
2005 With players leaving left and right, Sony implements the (admittedly ill-conceived) NGE to try to make the game more accessible to new players. Existing players get mad and hold grudges until the day they eventually die, apparently.
2011 In the face of a new Star Wars MMO coming out, and an expiring license needing to be renegotiated with LucasArts, SOE decides to pull the plug, giving players 6 months notice.
So, 2 years w/o NGE, 6 years, with NGE... but it was NGE that destroyed the game? No. NGE destroyed the game for *some players* but clearly there were enough who enjoyed post-NGE SWG to make it a viable product for SOE to keep around. The game lasted 3 times as long with NGE as it did without it.-
I don't. I hated the NGE, but I felt the game was failing to me with the lack of content overall way before that, and customer service issues for me were enough to bail on the game. The game could've potentially lasted just as long without the NGE as long as they released the extra content, but no one will ever know that. I quit before the NGE was officially released but played during the release of JTL. I jumped back into the game later only to see a shittier product than before while the NGE was running. The presentation was terrible. I just didn't like it's over simplification and complete revamp of the classes. I understand why they did it, but I felt it like they went from one extreme to the other. I do still think it was just time to put the game down. It had it's run.
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Just as an example, VentureBeat:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/24/star-wars-galaxies-shuts-down/
"But the chief culprit in the death of this game is its own publisher. Sony has released several updates that have not been received well with fans." And then he yammers on endlessly about how he loved the game but had to quit when NGE came along and yadda yadda.
I'm not saying NGE was a great idea, and even Smedley says it was a mistake. But that mistake was 6 years in the past.
I'm sure they're closing SWG for the same reason they closed The Matrix Online. The cost of the licensed IP. SOE keeps games like Vanguad and POTBS open...heck aren't they even still running EQOA (the PS2 game)?
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I never tried this game on account of people telling me how horrible the NGE was. It might have been the only "major" MMO release that I never played.
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For the record, they had hundreds of thousands of subscribers in those first 2 years, and 10's of thousands the last 6.
Take the number of subscribers x the months they subscribed, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that there were more active players pre-NGE than post. I mean they went from 12 servers to what, 2?
NGE destroyed the game for "most" players, not "some". You understate the sheer numbers by using "some".
Oh well, my wife and I quit playing ages ago, and still recall fondly the experiences we had in pre-NGE, and that's good enough for me. If you enjoyed the game after the changes, that's find and good, everyone has different tastes, and thresholds for pain ;)-
"I mean they went from 12 servers to what, 2? "
Sure, but almost every MMO experiences server contraction over time.
Again, it's really easy to forget that NGE was done for a reason; the game was bleeding subscribers. And I'n not saying NGE was a success (I'm not, and SOE isn't). I'm saying that if NGE had killed the game, it would've been shut down in 2007, not 2011.
You're assertion and implication that if they hadn't rolled out NGE SWG would still have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and 12 servers is pure speculation and/or wishful thinking. We'll never know what would've happened.
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I agree that the game would never have maintained 12 fully populated, thriving servers this long, but the problem with NGE is Lucasarts/SOE threw away the incredibly dedicated and enthusiastic playerbase they already had for some potential players who would never be satisfied by the changes NGE brought about.
I guarantee if they hadn't removed both of my classes from the game (Master BioEngineer/Creature Handler) I'd still be playing today, providing they had continued much the way they have since, with reasonably frequent content releases. But I tried NGE for a month, and never was able to recapture any of the joy and fun of the game I had played since beta. Since I left, my wife (who was a very successful tailor on our server) eventually quit as well.
I'm sure my story is not unique, and I'm pretty sure SWG would have been much more successful if they hadn't gone with NGE (and the Combat Update, for that matter)
I really wish SOE/Lucasarts would release the pre-NGE client/server backend once the game winds down as public domain or something (wishful thinking, I know)-
I don't hate on the game, and I can't understand people cheering when a game fails or ultimately ends but Kwperly is absolutely correct, yes the game clearly had enough subscribers to warrant keeping some servers online after the NGE but again in my experience from launch up until just after the NGE (and a few resubscriptions after that that never lasted more than a few minutes.) the difference in playerbase was like night and day.
Granted there were never millions of people playing at launch, but you had to go to the edge of nowhere to not run into people, then came the combat update which started the bleeding of subscribers I believe pasmith is referring to. The problem was that instead of tweaking that or just rolling it back they decided that a better fix to the hemorraging of subscriptions was to amputate the limb with a chainsaw. I remember after the NGE came out, guilds on our server that regularly had dozens of members online at any hour of the day (pre CU and to a lesser extent post CU) vanished from sight altogether. Even then I might agree that more people might have stayed and "gutted" through the NGE, but you also have to bear in mind the loss of players compounding on the loss of players; ultimately just as many people quit because the people they played with were gone as those who quit specifically because of their NGE update.
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I would love to see a book about the development of this game. Describe the industry and SOE as it existed at that time, and the decisions and changes in direction that led to the game's release. Cover its reception, the community impact, the NGE, JTL, customer service, everything.
Everything about the history of this game is a lesson for the industry. -
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