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Role Playing (Games) Media Movies Star Wars Prequels Entertainment Games

Star Wars Galaxies Celebrates First Anniversary 41

Posted by simoniker from the better-late-than-never dept.
Thanks to Sony Online for its official page celebrating the first anniversary of PC MMO Star Wars Galaxies, as they examine a timeline of the first year, from day one, June 26th, 2003 ("the most exciting and stress-inducing day of most of our careers"), through November 4th, 2003 ("The first Jedi appears in game"), through April 21st, 2004 ("We officially announce [space-based add-on] Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed!") In relation to this, the first veteran reward for the game is announced, "the deed for the multi-passenger ship model SoroSuub Personal Luxury Yacht 3000 the day Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed launches" - it's explained: "This starship model has been popularized in Star Wars fiction by Lando Calrissian's personal vessel, the Lady Luck." Finally, there's also a retrospective visual catalog of the original SW:G Beta test posted on the official site.
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Star Wars Galaxies Celebrates First Anniversary More

Star Wars Galaxies Celebrates First Anniversary

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  • SWG Disappointing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jxa00++ ( 322387 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:31AM (#9557799) Homepage
    I can't help feeling they blew their chance with this. I know it has gotten progressively better over the year since the launch, but I feel this more than any other MMPORG had the potential to break that 1,000,000 subscriber barrier. (If any of them ever will) Or in other words gain that mass acceptance.

    Maybe the expansion will cause a spike in the player numbers but I from what I have read it will be adding in features that probably should have been in the game originally.

    • All mmorpgs are going to be disappointing until everyone has broadband. There is just too big a discrepancy between dialup and broadband for all of us with slow connections to play. When I get dsl (crosses fingers) I don't plan to play online-only games, but I'd be more inclined to think about it. If I have to wait 30 extra seconds to have a mediocre gaming experience for online versus having a great time single-player or over LAN, it's local every time.

      The other downside of MMORPGs is the $10 or so mo

      • Re:SWG Disappointing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sqrt(2) ( 786011 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:38AM (#9558160) Journal
        They also charge you to buy the game IN THE STORE! As if they weren't bending you over with the monthly subscription fee, they make you pay for a game that you can even use without shelling out MORE money.

        Either you pay for it at the store, and have no subscription, or you give the game away for free (use bittorrent or p2p to help with bandwidth) and charge a subscription, but not both. That's what's keeping from picking up any of the MMORPGs.

    • Re:SWG Disappointing (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Idealius ( 688975 ) *
      Agreed. SWG was my first MMORPG and I played it for less than 10 hours before I was forced out of it due to a low content game.

      I probably spent more time creating new characters with the character creation system than in actual game. (It was superb especially for the time).

      On the other hand my second try with a MMORPG; Final Fantasy XI for PC hooked me, line and sinker. It has a mediocre character creation system at best.

      What lesson does this teach us?

      DON'T MAKE THE BEST PART OF THE GAME THE FIRST 10 MI
    • I know it has gotten progressively better over the year since the launch...

      And how do we on /. know this? Because the complaint articles about how bad SWG is stopped coming. If they're not complaining, it must be all OK.

      • Re:SWG Disappointing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @01:35AM (#9557971) Homepage
        All it means when people on Slashdot (all over, but especially the games section) aren't complaining about one thing is that they're busy complaining about something else. The most recent common target seems to have been the next iteration of Xbox which apparently completely sucks despite the fact that nobody outside the House That Evil Built in Redmond (and selected co-conspirators like ATI) knows anything concrete about it.

        Of course, that doesn't stop the first post right off the top in this topic from being someone who declares SWG disappointing and has already decided that the not-yet-released expansion is only adding what should have been in the original game (I don't even know what that means unless it said on the original game boxes that there was space dogfighting, etc.) and thus may fail at attracting new subscribers.

        Indicative of the miserable attitude generally present on Slashdot - the first post should have been something like "Shout out to all the one-year-old Wookies in the house!" or something equally festive. Instead, it's a whine with no cheese but some odd logic.

        PS - SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE ONE-YEAR-OLD WOOKIES IN THE HOUSE! :)

        • Have you ever played the game? If so, why didn't you mention this -- your disposition may have been useful to the readers. If not, how the hell would you claim to know what you're talking about when you haven't ever experienced SWG firsthand?
        • Actually, he's right. Everything in the expansion was originally slated to have been in the game at launch, but wound up being pulled out when LucasArts pressed SoE to push the game out as fast as possible.

          On a side note, I have played the game, where it seems you have not, and I wholeheartedly agree that it was quite possibly the biggest letdown I've ever experienced. The game has had class balance issues since launch, many of which are still a problem. There are several classes which are still comple

        • But the original poster was correct. SWG *WAS* very much dissapointing and this expansion *IS* only adding content that was originally slated for the initial launch. I was not even on beta but I received regular emails about features for SWG that seemed to DIMINISH every month until launch.

          More to the point, I played SWG, it was boring, there was no content and the thrust of the game seemed to be a levelling treadmill that was even MORE dull than EverQuest (if that's possible).

        • > SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE ONE-YEAR-OLD WOOKIES IN THE HOUSE!

          For hardcore SW fans like myself, SWG represents a failure by SOE to include vital parts of the Star Wars universe, or indeed release a true SW MMOG.

          I quoted the Wookie comment specifically because, for the time in which SWG takes place, the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk is blockaded by the Imperials. Wookies are a slave race, and the few Wookies who have escaped live in fear of being recaptured.

          They don't wander about freely in Imperial cities,
          • I don't like when people start quoting how "such and such happened in star wars book #38 page 450." imho i think the only knowledge we should have of the star wars universe should come from the movies themselves. Extra content and whatever is fine if it's liscensed by Lucas, but i don't like how frank p. writer decides such and such happens on X planet at a certain time. unless the books and everything are official happenings in the SW universe, i'll shut up now. that aside, i played swg the first month
            • > unless the books and everything are official happenings in the SW universe, i'll shut up now.

              There are three SW licenses.
              The "canon", which is reserved strictly for the movies.

              Expanded Universe (or EU) is where almost all of the books and games takes place - all this stuff goes through and must be approved by Lucas / LucasArts. Check out the Star Wars Databank.

              Finally, there's "Infinite Galaxies", which is what SWG and a select few other things fall under. Non-canon, non-EU, things that are IG don
              • Interesting...

                I must admit I got caught up in the pre-game hype and agree that the devs seemed to miss the point of the Star Wars universe (haven't played the game but even before release you could see which way the wind was blowing from the forums - and lo and behold, non-gamers were then locked out of them). My understanding though was that SWG had a definite placing in the timeline and was part of the Expanded Universe. I also thought they had said they were working closely with Lucas and nothing woul
    • I was a beta tester for SWG. I was one of the many that pre-ordered, and took the day off to start playing on Day 1. After only 2 months of playing, it was very apparent that the game wasn't going to have enough content added to justify the monthly fee. While the expansion will dramatically improve the game, the parent post is right, too little, too late. In beta, they actually announced that this was planned 6 months after the release. I might have stuck around if they would have kept that deadline.
    • I've played Everquest for the past 5 years and still play only because of the frienships I've made so far, and the fact i can make $400+ in one week from playing a game. After playing EQ for this long its obvious that you should never, ever, under any circumstance trust Sony to run a game correctly and expect good customer server as well as balance in the game. I personally think that the only people that are still playing SWG are the ones who had never played an MMORPG pryer to SWG.
      • You're actually quite wrong on that. One of SWG's biggest initial problems was that it attracted a non-MMORPG crowd. The boards were full of complaints about the RPG combat for months. Now that those voices have faded out a bit, the experienced MMORPG crowd is getting down to the business of loving the game.

  • hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by u-238 ( 515248 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:38AM (#9557824) Homepage
    I remember it like yesterday. After years, literal years of hype, when the game finally released to the 1,000's of people who had already preordered the game, their credit card registration webpage woulden't work. The entire community, many of whom literally had the date makred off on their calanders (my time in the forums lends credence to my statements), were left to sit, wonder, and wait. It wasn't until hours later that day that it did work, and when it had, many of the game servers didn't work.

    This bumpy start acts as a painfully accurate analogy to the overall zeitgeist (oh god I love that word) of the game, the game's gameplay, the developers struggling and meger attempts to suffice their loyal, rampant and huge fan base; and almost every aspect of the Star Wars Galaxies experience.

    It's gotten this far, and, well, cheers for that.


  • I Bent My Wookie [andrewziola.com]
    -Love Ralph
  • On the free 14 day trial.

    It's actually fun, if you've got people to play with. It's defiantly a social game.

    Solo, it's just a grind. Can be fun, sometimes isn't.

    • It's actually fun, if you've got people to play with. It's defiantly a social game.

      As are most MMORPGS (massive MULTIPLAYER online roleplaying game). The interaction between people is what makes online games interesting, rather then playing a singleplayer game where you mostly see the same old constantly. Therefor a singleplayer game concentrates on game aspects, deep storylines and choices for a player to keep the gaming experience a fun one over time.

      However with MMOG's it's common to create somethi
      • The past few months have shown that the MMOG market is getting satiated (sp?) and already some big titles have stopped development. Not sure if staturation is really the problem, you can look at final fantasty,city of heroes, sims online, and even SWG and see they did bring alot of new people into the game.
        The real problem and evidence in sims online, SWG, horizons, AC2, shadowbane and others recent releases is that you cannot release a buggy game with little or no content and expect to compete.
        If the

  • SWG just another average MMORPG now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by servognome ( 738846 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:11AM (#9558080)
    I was lucky enough to be in beta 2 & 3. The thing I remembered most was a couple weeks before launch somebody named "Swiggy" managed to crash the server for 3 days. It was amazing that when the launch date was announced, pretty much everybody in beta said, It's not ready, entire classes were broken, others overpowered. Even post launch some servers had significant downtime and bugs like all of somebody's stuff disappearing, dupe bugs, and my favorite all the buildings on one planet relocated to the middle of the planet map overnight.
    I took 2 weeks off from work to play, it was very fun, even fighting all the annoying bugs, then I ran out of content about 3 months in. SWG has a great crafting and world system, there just isn't enough to really do. I just sat there with 30 million credits, nothing to spend it on, and nothing really to do except just make more credits that I couldn't spend. It was the first MMORPG that I felt like I beat the game.
    It's sad, the game really had potential, I log in from time to time (my friend kept my account alive) and they've added alot of stuff, but I'm too psyched about EQ2 to rejoin SWG.
    • Do you think that maybe if you hadn't spent your (presumed) vacation time playing the game, that you wouldn't have blown through the minimal amount of content so quickly? Sony should have anticipated people needing more stuff to do, but if you were looking for a lasting experience, you shouldn't have consumed it all so quickly.

      Then again, from an economic standpoint, you were paying the same $14.99/mo. regardless (with the first month included in the initial purchase), so it makes sense to blow through t
      • Its interesting to read the message boards and see everyone complain about how all the classes are broken and whatnot. It seems everyone has a different idea of what each class should be like, and none of those ideas correspond to what the developers have implemented
        Yes that kind of stuff happens all the time. But there is no excuse to have at launch, literally broken classes. Commando and Bounty Hunter couldn't be completed on some servers until several months after launch no matter what because a part
    • I had a similiar problem with running out of content. It was fun for 6 months or so because there was still enough stuff for me to do to keep myself occupied. But when myself and 3 other people killed the hardest thing in the game (a Dark Jedi Master) things went downhill. It wasn't just that the mob should have taken 20+ people to kill. It was that, what else is there to do really?

  • 14-days free trial is still on... (Score:4, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:49AM (#9558188) Homepage Journal
    I recently played the free 14-days trial [fileplanet.com] (still available). I was impressed and see how it can be addicting even though the game was choppy on my aging Athlon XP 2200+ machine with an ATI Radeon 9800 AIW (128 MB) video card. I have to say that a lot of has changed according to the timeline [sony.com] (quite funny too).

    I hope City of Heros [cityofheroes.com] will be doing the same when it reaches its one year anniversary. I will have to check this game out after I upgrade my system and when I have more free time in a few months.
    • For what it's worth, CoH just launched its first content patch yesterday, two months after the game came out. For the most part, the game has been pretty smooth sailing, with only a couple of serious bugs worth noting (some story arcs that can't be finished by some characters, problems with Task forces that have been resolved, and the occasional persistence of Vahz disease, which has also been fixed).

      We miss capes, of course, and there's a certain component that whines constantly about PVP (CoH doesn't hav

  • Do you hear that? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by cicatrix1 ( 123440 )
    It's the sound of raging indifference.

    Yeah, SWG is doing great. lol.

  • Unbe-FRICKIN'-lievable! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zhirem ( 771259 )
    If you have never played the game, you may want to do so. There is, in fact, a lot of things to do in it for someone who has never experienced it. My word of caution to you would be: don't expect too much. The fun curve will level out and start to decline quite early on in your experience (YMMV of course).

    What kills me about the one-year anniversary is the fact that: The Annum-Vets get a reward! Hoo-ray! And what is this nice thank you from the kind folks at SOE?

    You get: a deed to a ship for when th

  • SWG? Who cares? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by code-e255 ( 670104 )
    I played Star Wars Galaxies a bit over half a year ago and I quit after my 30 free days were over. It was bloody unstable - the client crashed every couple of hours or so (without giving me any error message), and on a several occasions the server I played on crashed, resulting in about half an hour of playtime being lost each time. A few weeks ago I briefly played SWG again (with that 14 day free trial) and my client still randomly crashed a few times (and before you accuse me of having a screwed up system
    • Depending on how it's done, seems to me that the space expansion could save the game.

      Need a reason to keep grinding for credits? Maybe you'll get to buy a ship.

      Need a way to get powergamers and PvPers out of the standard SWG RPG world and away from the casual players? Sell them an extra layer and let them shoot it out in space.

      Nobody's forcing you to get the expansion pack. If you enjoy farming, there's nothing to stop you staying in the role and never leaving your home town. What you will hopefully

  • Well I am now in it for two months (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @11:50AM (#9561511) Journal
    I can see the addiction but sadly I am a person who doesn't get addicted for long. I played it a lot, to much in fact and now I just can't be bothered anymore.

    Is the game that bad? Well I played a couple of these type of games and frankly I think the entire concept has a problem.

    A MMO game is about doing things together yet the game design seems to fight this every step of the way.

    One of the simplest social things to do is to do missions in a group. Small snag. Doing missions just isn't that much actually fun, you do them to gather experience points/money/resources. But XP is badly distributed. Bounty hunters need to get XP with their guns but when they use them they suck the XP away from all the other group members. High lvl chars can kill so fast that a new player may not even get a hit in.

    Normal resources like meat are evenly distruted but rarer drops are not. Wich means that some people really get nasty when someone else gets the drop they wanted. I seen hunts where the was more argueing then hunting.

    Money is a problem too as new players need a large group to minimize the risk of them getting all the creatures after them and ideally they want 1 or 2 high lvl to take the heat. But the money will be very poor. I done it a couple of times where I was just tanking the creatures allowing newbie players to attack safely and it can be fun. But often is not. Since I have more money then I can spend (or indeed want to spend) I just help new players for fun, with the 14day trial a lot of fun players joined (and were turned off by the 14th yr old holo grinders))

    And here is the simplest reasons MMO games are not the run away success people predicted.

    An awfull lot of people on the net are assholes. While there is no need to thank a medic everytime he heals you saying nothing all or constantly "HEAL ME NOW" is getting annoying. When you then get a newbie who has been carried by others the whole hunt, has gotten resurrected by the doctor several times and gotten several free buffs and then gets rancor bile (an ingredient used by medics) and then wants big money from them you feel that perhaps there are some people you just don't want to play with.

    Same with spam. The chat is like IRC so you got whole herds of spammers repeating the same message 10 times quickly so that others see it. Because else their message isn't seen between all the spam. Duh.

    Those who played MMO games know easily one anti-social person can ruin a good session. And the sad reality is that SWG has a lot of them. For those who never played a MMO game imagine the net without spamfilters/popup-blockers/slashdot-moderation/etc . please continue reading after you stopped screaming.

    SWG and other games can be fun, when you play them as social games, sadly SWG developers seem to have designed the entire game to the CS kiddies. The hologrind (in order to become a jedi you had to complete X proffesions meaning you had hords of players just doing a proffesion because they wanted to be a jedi not because they wanted to be say a medic) killed most of the choose a role you want to play. The PvP ensures that players with work can never be openly rebel or imp because there will always be some 14yr old using every exploit available to prove he is leet.

    But the most important fault is that SWG isn't star wars. It is like those old doom mods. SWG is EQ bugged with a Star Wars skin.

    If MMO games are to succeed I think a drastic rethink is needed. Who ever is going to make the next one is going to have to figure out why The Sims is one of the best selling games every and why The Sims Online died.

    And this requires one very simple question to be asked I think. How many people who play the sims play it in "freestyle" mode( meaning with the money cheat) vs the "game" mode (earn every dollar you spend through work). I think that a lot more used the money cheat to give them the capital they wanted and then played their family.

    I think that a huge amount of the potent

  • Its interesting to note that everyone decrying the game is doing so because of the lack of enjoyment playing the game. I actually had fun during the two months that I was playing it. Sure, some of the skilltrees were a bit of a pain in the butt to raise (anything crafting mostly...or entertainment for that matter), but it was really enjoyable IF you had someone you knew well to play with. The big killer of that game, in my opinion at least, was the absolutely, drop-dead, kick-you-in-the-jimmy, ignore-it-
    • Yes, same here. My character basically stopped gaining experience for anything other than combat. I wasn't even close to topping out or reaching a cap or whatever. I waited a week. Nothing from CS. I struggled in vein to get help from CS. Gave them the week before my subscription ran out to get back to me. They didn't. The end.

      I understand people are busy. But I was paying a subscription precisely for customer service throughout the life of the game...

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