Sony Shutting Down Star Wars Galaxies MMO and TCG 142
flibbidyfloo writes "Sony has sent an email to current and former subscribers to its long-running MMO Star Wars Galaxies explaining that the service will be shut down in December. Here's an excerpt from the email: 'We write to you today to inform you that on December 15, 2011, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and LucasArts will end all services (MMO and Trading Card Game) for Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). 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 ... In addition, we will be discontinuing the sale of all Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game (TCG) digital card packs as of today, June 24, 2011. Loot cards will not be redeemable in the SWG MMO after September 15, 2011. The TCG will continue to operate until the final service closure on December 15, 2011.'"
And this is why virtual objects have no real value (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you imagine paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars on eBay for something that only exists in one of these games, then finding out a few weeks, months, or years later that it's going into the bit-bucket at the end of the month?
Blowing Up Galaxies (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? No dedicated user ran servers? Not buying it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously folks. I don't buy games that don't have private or dedicated servers. Would it really be such a bad thing if little groups of players could host their own worlds? They can't really compete with the experience of the main servers, but at least some people would be able to play, even after the game's plug has been pulled.
Some determined players have done so with WoW by reverse engineering the client server protocol, so I gave it a spin -- It wasn't my cup of tea, but my brother became a subscriber because of the added exposure -- That's right: Blizzard made money because a private server existed.
Some people don't have the time to grind forever -- the private servers can have different exp rates; WoW and RuneScape servers I've seen do, anyway. One such WoW server almost won me over due to the benefits afforded to the time-challenged player.
It's really a shame that games have to die at all. Welcome to the future folks. There is some hope, some FPS franchises still have dedicated servers that players can run... but, for the most part it looks rather bleak.
Some game titles are deprecated for no good reason eg: Halo2 multi-player is canned. How the hell does this make sense? When playing most of these games one player's console becomes the "server" for the others... All you have to do is ALLOW the game to talk to other games and bingo, multi-player. However, we can't do this -- and that makes me mad.
So, 5 friends and I all join up in party chat. We then all pop Halo2 in the 360. We can each see that the others have inserted the game by looking at the Icon next to our names on the friends list. Our XBoxes KNOW that we are all playing the game, and we have connections to each other ALREADY because of the party chat. However, WE CAN'T play online together because the matchmaking server was killed (because of Halo3 & Reach no doubt -- bet they'll eventually get killed to force migration to other new games too).
Now, there is such a thing as unranked matches, so the score keeping server isn't an issue... Additionally there is LAN play. So, we all join my VPN, and play Halo2 -- No XBox Live needed (we use it for party chat and coordinating matches). THANKS FOR NOTHING MICROSOFT! My XBox Live subscription seems to lose value over time... not.. very.. smart.
That's when we all made a pact when in comes to new games: No private/dedicated server? SCREW IT -- DO NOT WANT.