Star Wars Galaxies was a tremendous disappointment on many levels. Not only did it make the road to becoming a Jedi almost as difficult as actually becoming a Jedi, the game was a barren expanse of rocks, stones, and other synonyms for hardened mineral formations. Sony never did much to amend the situation either, their only attempts at adding content resulted in massive overhauls of core game mechanics that most people had started to enjoy, and when Sony came in and started throwing monkeys into the gears, many people were upset. Combined with the massive popularity of World of Warcraft and actually having sex, SWG lost many players, and those players left behind homes; homes that were once cozy sanctuaries where people developed their hopes and dreams and raised cuddly tauntaun pups for fun and profit. With the mass exodus, they became cold, lifeless shells, and a constant reminder of the emptiness of the human soul.
Sony, always one to change things without thinking through the consequences, has decided to smash all those homes to piles of ones and zeros, and is employing players to do the work for them. According to Opposable Thumbs, quests are going to be implemented for people who want to kick in doors and tear out virtual plumbing, with the rewards being redeemable for in-game shinies.
As much as I spend my nights defecating in envelopes destined for Sony HQ, I think this is a stroke of genius. They have all this real estate taking up valuable memory, and instead of having one of their wage-slaves double click the houses into oblivion, they make people pay them for the opportunity to fix their problems! Sony, if you were a beautiful woman, I'd totally do you, but afterwards, I'd be a little scared that you were going to steal my kidneys.
Contest:
7:35 PM on 04.24.2007
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btw , i read the site everyday and never posted any commments , so here i am , all alone on this post no one seems to care about, nice to meet myself =)
SWG seemed like a really novel idea when it came out, but so many people I knew that played the game were not that interesting to start off with. And then they started to become moisture farmers and such.
Why? I remember the days before WoW, when you walked into the Mos Eisly Cantina and it was jampacked with people just hanging out and chatting. Afterwards, you went hunting with your guild, including campfire sessions and tents.
Back in those days I saw a Jedi exactly once. Hell yeah it was tough to get one, but that was the whole point of SWG. I mean, timewise SWG was settled in between Episode 4 and 5, a time where Joda and Kenobi were the only Jedis left.
They did update that Jedi System so it was eventually easier to get one, problem was the more people who achieved the Jedi rang the more Überplayers there were. They needed to fix that. Unfortunately what came then were the NGE, which totally ruined the game in my eyes. Now everybody could become a jedi right from the start. Ever since you walked out of a starport and saw a mob of jedis jumping and fighting with their light sabers right in front of the Darth Vader NPC. THAT ruined a lot of atmosphere for me.
So yeah, after the big reset SWG was a dissapointment, but before it was just great for anybody who was into Star Wars just a little bit. You had so many choices of professions and fighting styles, lots of people and guilds, Space fighting, ships and gliders, Housings, etc.
And what I experienced when I came back to SWG after NGE was that a lot of players seemed to teurn after getting dissapointed by WoW. Just because WoW has the most players it doesn`t mean it`s the best MMORPG there is. SWG with all its little flaws (Jedi as a starting profession etc.) still has huge potential.
Agreed. Though your opening statement sounded more like "SWG sucks because it was so damn tough to become a Jedi". But maybe I just misunderstood it, hence the time over here... 5 am.
Sony keeps inactive accounts, too. The`re just starting to get rid of the empty houses. There are so many abandoned cities on the SWG servers, they are just "standing" in your way when travelling on the planets. If Sony deletes them, that place could be used by an active guild to build their on city where they want to.
Nex, I think you may have just described the fate of Lord of the Rings online also.
It would be fun to destroy peoples former domiciles. REPO MAN MMO!