Sony Online Entertainment has officially pulled the plug on LucasArts MMO, Star Wars Galaxies, after its contract with the latter came to an end.
The closure, which happened following various closing events in the early hours of this morning, marks the end of eight years the subscription-based MMO has been in operation.
In 2005 the game's developers accepted defeat and completely redesigned it, slashing the number of player classes and allowing new users to play as Jedi from the start - a privilege previously reserved for only the most elite.
In its final closing celebrations this morning, developers deployed a host of X-Wings, giant baddies and Return of the Jedi-esque firework celebrations to see the MMO out in style.
Galaxies' death of course makes way for the launch of EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic next week.
SOE said in a note on its website: "On behalf of the Star Wars Galaxies team, thank you. We have truly enjoyed getting to know you - our dedicated players - over the years. From in-game events to Fan Faires, we appreciate your continued loyalty and support. It would not have been possible without you."
Thanks for the memories, SWG.
Comments
16 comments so far...
slick loose on 16 Dec '11 said:
Never heard of it.
jdkoke on 16 Dec '11 said:
It was kek. I won't give it a second thought as am playing TOR tha night
mogel94 on 16 Dec '11 said:
A real shame this, at least they went out with a bang.
Moribundman on 16 Dec '11 said:
It was laughable really, I went back and downloaded this again after actually forgetting about it back in 2004 or thereabouts. My character was spammed with about 50 loyalty gifts for being part of SWG for 6 months, a year, 18 months etc etc and I couldn't move after I accepted them all! Still seemed fun but way too deep for me with Skyrim beckoning and GTA on the phone...
metallicorphan on 16 Dec '11 said:
I was with it for about a year,but could never get into it
saying that though it did have some great ideas,i was mainly planet hopping and finding places from the movies,like Naboo palace or Tatooine and finding Jabba's Palace,the planets were quite huge,took me and my speeder quite some time to search them all
pRM8 on 16 Dec '11 said:
Played it from release until the CU then the NGE. Guild mates were slowly dropping out until I ended up not touching it again but really enjoyed the time I had with it though.
Im enjoying ToR but wish the crafting was as deep as it was in SWG.
AvatarIII on 16 Dec '11 said:
shame, I remember when it came out, and said to myself, "one day, when I have the time, the money, and a good enough PC, I'll get that game," unfortunately out of those things, I think my laptop is only just barely good enough to play it.
also a shame because I have little interest in the old republic era, otherwise I might have said the same thing about TOR.
echopark on 16 Dec '11 said:
I always say the same when someone askes about Galaxies ... it was way to a head of its time. The craftin on it was pretty damn advanced compaired to the simpleness of what wow has brought the game was pretty advanced with the masses of different classes and skill trees u could of went. I mean ppl could just be a dancer if they wanted to be. U wouldnt dream seeing that in a game of today. Its a shame really
nologo on 16 Dec '11 said:
yeah but that was its failure as well... it was so hard to get into the game. i played it for a while - wihtout the backing of a kind guild.. it was hard work to get into it.
it was pre jedi spammage.
i liked having my own house and speeder bike tho
i just wanted to be a storm trooper ha!
Clattuc on 16 Dec '11 said:
When GALAXIES was launched, it was a state of the art sandbox (much of it the brainchild of Raph Koster) and a good STAR WARS experience. Endless effort had gone into creating the planets, the animals, the cities, etc - it was incredible. And you could develop your character however you wanted - there were no "classes" and there were no overt numeric "levels," just skills you could learn from various trees. No invisiwalled theme park worlds - you could go anywhere on the planet you wanted, any time you wanted. Overall it was pretty amazing. And in the pipeline were mounts, vehicles, player cities (!!) and finally a spaceflight combat expansion.
To be honest, I don't think LucasArts ever "got" Koster's vision for the game, but as long as it was growing, they gave it some rope. But then World of Warcraft launched, and suddenly 350,000 players went from 'promising' to 'pathetic'. The original vision was sidelined, as were Koster and the relatively happy playerbase, while management went into convulsions trying to rethink the game to attract mythical millions away from their tauren druids. The "first shoe" dropped in the form of the Combat Upgrade(CU), an FPS/twitch makeover of combat mechanics. Many didn't like it, but you could get used to it and at least the rest of the game still worked. Then the real disaster fell - an unannounced reboot as the "New Game Experience" (NGE) featuring, guess what, hardwired player classes and numeric levels. No more skill trees, no more this, no more that. Everything dumbed down. Instant Jedi for anyone, after people had sweated blood to unlock it in the original game. A level 1 Entertainer, on the other hand, could walk into the Nightsister cave unmolested. It was chaos.
Not only did the mythical millions of new players not materialize, but the hundreds of thousands they already had melted away like snow in spring. I saw estimates of 35,000 in 2007. It's pretty clear at that point that the great burning Eye of Lucas turned away from Galaxies for good. It was better to have a Star Wars title in publication than not to have one, so the contract would continue until a new game was ready, but Sony was pretty much on its own.
And that's when a minor miracle happened. A new team of (younger, cheaper) developers slowly took over the bombed-out game - and began rebuilding amid the ruins. Bit by bit, feature by feature, chapter by chapter, they added complexity, flexibility, smarts and fun back into the game. Numbers were still small, but server merges helped make things seem busier. New players did indeed arrive, and old ones returned. The community - albeit diminished - was very strong.
Yes, the graphics were mondo 2002, but (a) nobody ever complained in recent years that Galaxies was killing their graphics card, (b) other games (including WoW itself) have proved that players don't need cinema realism if they buy into the game world, and (c) those simple graphics were used for some of the most dizzyingly creative player-made environments that MMO gaming has ever seen.
Nevertheless, the writing was long on the wall. BioWare's keenly anticipated OLD REPUBLIC title couldn't delay forever (though it seemed that way for a while). LucasArts didn't want two MMO titles and I don't blame them. So GALAXIES had to end. And the new game is gorgeous. But something tells me we'll never again have quite what we had in early 2005 - or late 2011. I'll miss the game.
slick loose on 16 Dec '11 said:
That was beautiful Clattuc, I love it when people like yourselves talk with such passion about a game they love
DannyIsBatman on 16 Dec '11 said:
I agree, i was going to post something similar. SWG was another beast in terms of MMO scope, its nice to see passionate fans(and Devs for that matter) giving it a good send off.
I salute you SWG.
Ganja_Ninja on 16 Dec '11 said:
awesome post a few above mine, i loved SWG at launch, had alot of fun pretending to be a tuskan raider, and even more fun as a pvp rifleman entertainer. RIP SWG.
jukkiz on 17 Dec '11 said:
If SWG had stayed in its pre-NGE stage, it would probably be one of the biggest MMO's right now. People who are fed up with restrictive "kill 10 pigs" style themepark rides would be flocking to SWG's sandbox.
Unfortunately I didn't get to play the original SWG. When it was released, there were only dial-up modems and playing MMO's would've been forbiddingly expensive. Add to that a monthly sub for a penniless student, it was quite impossible to even consider MMO's.
SWTOR is just another cloned themepark game. Uninteresting, unimaginative and unimpressing in every possible way.
Izo on 17 Dec '11 said:
I remember playing this in it's early era before they went mad with patches and killed the game, it was a tough grind to get going but as someone mentioned it was quite state of the art at the time, Clattuc put it best as the NGE was when the game's death certificate was signed. Instant Jedi was an insult to everyone who had worked for months and believe me this was no easy feat as they had to put in WOW type hours.
Clattuc on 18 Dec '11 said:
The pre-NGE skill trees were actually extremely grindy - leading to all sorts of outrageous botting and stuff. Much as we hate the "kill 20 pigs" type of quests, they at least break up the flow a little into manageable chunks. In original SWG it was more like "train Pistoleer II, now go kill about 2500 more things, then come back and train Pistoleer III." People probably still have nightmares about the grind to Master Chef.
I find it hard to imagine that the skill system wouldn't have been changed even if the NGE had never happened.
As for the overall success of the game, maybe with a graphics upgrade it might have reached a million players or so, particularly with some effort in Asia, but it would never have been a game changing breakout success like Lineage II or WoW. But it could have enjoyed a long and successful life, instead of a long hospital stay.
Give it time, it's clearly no GALAXIES, it's BioWare's signature take on the universe, but it feels Star Warsy and I think it will do well. Again, it's better to have one title alive than none.