Star Wars Galaxies isn’t dead -- far, far from it actually. Earlier this week developer and caretaker Sony Online Entertainment announced that it plans to kill over ten servers because the MMO’s player base is so damn lively and energetic. And it was all a part of a glorious plan. Apparently, SOE has been allowing players to transfer their characters (for free) to other, more populated servers. As a result of the mass migration, SOE now has a license to pull the plug on the less populated servers.
But, oh no -- plug-pulling is not a bad thing. This is Star Wars Galaxies we’re talking about here. Playing the MMO is like touching God’s face or watching a butterfly spread its wings for the first time. It’s beautiful and glorious and wonderful.
The servers -- twelve total -- will be killed on October 15th at 5 PM PDT. Thirteen servers will remain from the original amount. If you were wondering why exactly this is good news, check out this official statement:
"Due to the overwhelming success of the recent Free Character Transfer Service, we want to inform you that on October 15, 2009, at 5:00 PM PT, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will close the following 12 Star Wars Galaxies servers."
"The Free Character Transfer Service launched earlier this year with the intention of allowing players to transfer to servers with more active communities, creating a more vibrant and memorable Star Wars Galaxies gaming experience. The Free Character Transfer Service was a phenomenal success, leaving the less active servers in an undesirable position. In order to help streamline the current and new user experience, we have made the decision to close the less active servers and focus on the thriving Star Wars Galaxies servers."
The names of the servers -- if this concerns you -- is listed below the fold. We know all of you care deeply about this game, so be sure to check it out.
[via G4TV]
The not-so-dead but totally dying server list:
- Corbantis
- Europe-Infinity
- Intrepid
- Kauri
- Kettemoor
- Lowca
- Naritus
- Scylla
- Tarquinas
- Tempest
- Valcyn
- Wanderhome
Contest:
1:00 AM on 09.17.2009
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It was fun as fuck going to a player's storefront/house(multiple planets = lots of realty), say, on Tattooine where his Gunshop was. You made the trip from many planets away because this guy was the best on the server.
Guy1: Hey man check out my new rifle!
Guy2: Whoa! Is that a <playername> rifle? Nice!
Then Combat Update(quickly followed by "New Game Experience") tried to make it more WoW-like and thus, the beginning of the end came.
Glad my server(Ahazi) wasn't on the list, I might just re-sub for 1 month to go back and see how the game that popped my MMO-cherry is doing. And then of course, lament the days where guilds were more like families than a bunch of newbs you had to babysit.
My friend Nathan and I spent the entirety of 10th grade chemistry drawing up plans, and brainstorming ideas for when the inevitable Star Wars MMO came out. We had an entire idea planned: we were going to start a swoop bike gang on Tatooine, and expand our influence as part of the Empire into uncharted space.
Needless to say, we wept when Galaxies came out and subsequently sucked. Props on recognizing Everquest II's craft system, by the way :D
Bioware anounces 12 severs closing for The Old Republic as Blizzards new MMO continues to eat people alive.
I rejoined after NGE and it had become garbage. I logged onto one server where it appeared as though players were driving Tie Fighters around the desert. It's a shame they thought they had to dumb it down for the lowest common denominator WoW players.
Of course, I'd argue the original game would have succeeded (modestly) without the Star Wars license.
Of course, admittedly they've beaten the game into the ground by trying to revamp it. Shoulda left it alone!
I don't play it anymore, but not because I don't like it anymore, but because I don't have the time to invest in MMO's anymore. It was a beautiful experience at the time. No joke.
I have a lot of fond memories of Star Wars nerdiness playing this game. Mostly in part to being a roleplayer in-game. The roleplaying experience in SWG was, and continues to be, the greatest roleplaying community ever created, especially in the Starsider server. I have so many good friends that I made through such, even ones I still talk to today.
About the servers though, I'm kind of surprised they didn't do this last year. Those servers have been empty and dead for a long time now. I'm happy to see neither Chilastra nor Starsider are on those lists, the two I played on, but I wouldn't expect them to be on there because they're the two largest servers population-wise.
Oh, and Brad, man. That's one heavily sarcastic tone, sir.
But SWG was such an awful awful POS that I'd be glad to see it die.
After people discovered how to unlock Jedi the game went straight into the toilet. Not that it was that great before. The combat was atrocious.
I kid you not. I had a blaster and shit and was killed by 2 miserable space frogs.