Stars Reach

 This blog is my blog.  It goes where I go.  I am probably one of the biggest Raph Koster fan boys out there.  He even once posted on his blog about me.  Yes, me!  Now Raph is making waves in the MMO community with his new game Stars Reach.  So why haven't I talked about Stars Reach yet?  Well that's simple: I've been playing games and blogging about them.

 Blaugust is a great chance to switch things up a bit and talk about fresh topics and Stars Reach is right up my alley.  It also fits well with the "get to know me" week of Blaugust because in order to talk about Stars Reach we need to step back and talk about Star Wars Galaxies (SWG)!

 First I should note that I am a huge Star Wars fan.  I can't pinpoint specifically where in my life that I became a fan, but I do have a core memory of sitting on the living room floor as a kid and watching the opening scene of A New Hope being broadcast.  My family didn't go to the movies so catching a movie on the TV was about it.  Eventually I was known to check out every Star Wars book from the local library and the rest is history (and I still maintain the original expanded universe, now called Legends, is far superior to what Disney is doing).

 Now take a love of Star Wars and combine it with the early days of massively multiplayer games and throw in a shaker of Raph Koster and we got Star Wars Galaxies.  For me personally I saw a lot of Ultima Online in SWG and that was exciting.  At the time I didn't know much of Raph Koster but through being in early alpha tests for SWG I learned about him and found myself nodding along to most things he was saying.

 I ended up having a love-hate relationship with SWG.  I loved that it was Star Wars and that it was an open world where I could build my house anywhere and be the moisture farmer I always wanted to be in Star Wars.  I hated though that the game didn't focus on the moisture farmers and eventually with the infamous New Game Experience (NGE) it was clear combat was the focus.  SWG never delivered on the promise for me.

 Fast forward today and we have Raph Koster hard at work on a spiritual successor to SWG.  He even went so far as to say the words out loud: Koster calls Stars Reach a “Star Wars Galaxies 2.0,”.  So what does that mean?

 It means an online game that is focused on more than just combat. A game that is trying to do so much more than  just be a themepark.  To do the scope justice let me pull from Raph's announcement blog post:

Stars Reach uses simulation to a degree never seen in an MMO before. We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

 That is a lofty goal and takes me back to memories of SWG.  For example; SWG had dynamic materials that could be gathered from the world.  There was an entire path for players that wanted to be nothing more than gatherers whereby they improved their ability to scan for and find materials.  That information could then be sold to others and it had value.  Why? Because the materials in that exact state with those exact variables were finite and once mined were gone forever.  Those materials then were used in blueprints that could only use those materials resulting in limited runs of items such as blasters and armor.  Materials gone?  So were those specific outputs.  The inner moisture farmer in me was jumping for joy.

 Stars Reach is aiming to take this level of dynamic world to another level and multiply it across a universe.  That has me super excited for what they bring forward as a game.

GamesMadeMe: Actual Games + My Gaming Origin Story!

 GamesMadeMe is a series of posts that cover gaming-related topics that have shaped who I am as a gamer today.  Since I've covered specific moments in games and related topics like gaming magazines it is about time I actually talk about some games that made me!  Today let's take a jaunt down the gaming history that has informed my current day preferences.

 We'll start at today and work backwards as best as my memory can recollect!

  New World is my current jam and holds the record of "most played" across my entire gaming career.  As of this post I am nearing 2,500 hours played!  Whats most amazing is that I never planned to play this game.  I only found out about it because it was hosting an early preview event at the same time as the Crowfall beta test.  

 While testing Crowfall the population numbers plummeted one day and when I asked why the New World preview event was mentioned.  I decided to give it a go because I just wasn't feeling Crowfall and I was absolutely hooked from the moment I set foot in New World.  I am still hooked.  I love New World.

 

 Guild Wars 2 (GW2) is next on the list.  Between New World and Minecraft (which we'll hit after GW2) there were a lot of games but Guild Wars 2 was the one that stuck around and kept coming back around.  I own and have played the first three expansions but admit I am all about PvP so spent a lot more time in World vs World vs World (wuvwuv for short).  

 Also as I mentioned in my Game Markets post I was a huge investor in Guild Wars 2 and truth be told that is where most of my /played time was invested in GW2.  I earned so much gold and converted so much of it to premium currency that I have piles of stuff and knick-knacks on my account. I also have several level 80 characters.

 I never really got hardcore into GW2 even though I played a ton (1,000+ hours).  I didn't have a guild and never played with one during my time in the game.  The game is very solo friendly so it was never pressed upon me to need to group up.  I did a lot of things but aside from playing the market one specific thing never grabbed hold.  I never finished the original story, never did dungeons/fractals/raids, really didn't finish any living seasons, and outside of some ascended gear pieces and a single legendary greatsword don't have much gear.  I own the first two expansions but barely played their stories/areas.  But I still loved the game and should I ever break up with New World it's likely where I'd go back to.

 Minecraft launched in 2009 which was a special year as that is when my oldest was born.  I tried Minecraft off the recommendation of a co-worker.  At the time there was no survival mode and the game was a very basic block building game.  The UI still showed how many players online; I used to have a screenshot showing there were about 500 total users online!

 The beauty of Minecraft way back then was that it ran on our work computers.  When the survival mode launched my co-workers and I filled our breaks and lunch hours with Minecraft.  We had our own server and played the crap out of the game (some of my Minecraft videos from this era exist on my Youtube 1 2 3).  

 As a first time father Minecraft was the perfect game in those first few years of my oldest son's life.  Relatively non-violent and abstract blocky graphics = perfect for a kid to watch.  I played Minecraft pretty hardcore for it's first four years.  Lots of fond memories and I wish to this day I'd of stuck with making videos (I could be super famous now!).

 And that would have been the end of Minecraft after I moved on to other things, but right as I was breaking my addiction my oldest son hit Kindergarten and Minecraft was every kids world at the time.  My son picked up Minecraft about 2013/14 and he still plays it to this day.  We've played together on and off and we even got mom (not much of a video gamer) to play.  Some my fondest gamer dad moments are building stuff in Minecraft only to find out my son cheated and spawned a wither the next day and destroyed it.  I still have the worlds saved and a personal cherished digital artifact is when screen recording accidentally recorded my son exploring a new castle I had built for him.

  Before Minecraft my passion was Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR for short). WAR also holds the record as the game that broke me.  I was the uber fanboy for WAR. As a long time Dark Ages of Camelot player I was confident that Mark Jacobs could do no wrong.  WAR was going to be the best game ever.  It was the World of Warcraft killer (remember we are going new to old so we haven't gotten to WoW yet).

 WAR is also unique in that the entire rise and fall of the game is captured in this blog's history (see tagged posts here).  If you were interested you could watch as I go from eternal fanboy to ex-cult member.  I loved the premise of the game and had a great group of folks to play with.  

 We formed the Casualties of War guild on the back of a bunch of World of Warcraft/MMORPG bloggers (400+ members at its peak).  Running that guild taught me I never want to run a guild again even though in every aspect of real life I am a leader (people leader at work, leader when I was in the military, leader in boy scouts, always my kid's sports team coach, etc).

 WAR was really fun to play when it launched. Unfortunately the game was never really finished and it showed.  End game zones were mostly devoid of content and the advertised end game of city sieges never really worked.  When it did work it was exploited heavily.

 WAR ended up crashing and was shutdown.  Fortunately I broke my fanboyism long before it was in shutdown and even though I revisited it for a little bit it never got it's hooks back in me.  It did forever change how I want to interact with new MMORPGs.  I'll be optimistic about games.  I will play them hardcore like I do New World and be a cheerleader.  But never again am I going full fanboy and expecting a new MMORPG to be the next big thing.

 November 23, 2004.  A day after my birthday.  World of Warcraft launched and there I was on the Azgalor server with my mind blown (even though I had played in a beta phase before launch).  How could a game be this good?  12 hours later I realized I hadn't left the computer.

 World of Warcraft (WoW) holds the spot in my record book for the longest gaming sessions.  I could not put the game down and my addiction was aided by an odd work scheduled at the time where I basically had half the month off and the other half 12 hour shifts.  I was also in the military in full on real-life-war-mode so interest in anything other than work and then getting home to play WoW didn't exist.

 I loved playing WoW launch.  I was fortunate in that I never really had problems accessing the game and playing.  It was just a magical time to be playing online games.  So many new players, and gamers, coming to check this once-in-a-lifetime game out.  I played as a Horde Troll Shaman but refused to heal; I was all about the DPS shaman with windfury on the great axe.

 My time playing WoW was focused on PvP.  I really didn't care about dungeons and did very few.  I never participated in a raid nor did I have interest in raiding.  I wanted to do nothing more than prowl the Alliance zones looking for trouble.  Since there were PvP servers I was given that opportunity.  Later on battlegrounds came out and that was my jam.

 As magical as WoW was though it didn't hook me long term.  I gave up playing before the first expansion came out and it was months later before I gave The Burning Crusade a try.  I really don't know why I went from playing 12 hours straight to not interested.  Partly it was landing an amazing girlfriend who then became my wife, but mostly I just stopped playing.

 Before WoW it was Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC).  DAoC launched Oct 9, 2001 and I played it faithfully until WoW wrenched me away.  I loved the Realm vs Realm and played a Runecaster for Midgard on the Merlin server.  I was at or adjacent to many of the world firsts in the game: there when the first relic was captured, in the race to be the first player to 1 million realm points, and there when the guy that did make it to a million realm points got part of the game world named after him (screw you Dakkon!).

 Mixed in with my time in World of Warcraft and Dark Ages of Camelot was Star Wars Galaxies.  I was an early adopter as I was heavily involved in the Star Wars roleplaying forums the game hosted before launch.  I was in the early beta/alpha tests when all there was to the game was an empty sand zone and speech bubbles.

 Star Wars Galaxies had some of the best possible MMO systems ever created.  It is a shame they never got the time of day if they were not strictly combat or Jedi related.  As I tell people I want to be the moisture farmer so as the game steered more to letting anyone become a Jedi the more it wasn't for me.  But systems like housing, vendors, gathering, and crafting - no game has done it better.  No game even comes close.  Damn it game developers; give me SWG 2.0! (No; I am not interested in SWG emu servers).

 Ultima Online is the first graphical online game I played.  It is the first game I bought when I had my own PC and my own place as a young adult.  I rushed to get internet solely because I wanted to play Ultima Online.  

 I was introduced to Ultima Online years before that moment when I was working in a grocery store as a teen and my manager played it.  I would get a chance to go to his house and watch him play on a potato of a computer.  At the time it was original Ultima Online with all it's craziness: no safe zones, red players killing anyone that walked out of town without a plan, player run cities, game masters that would literally play god in the game, and houses you could lose if you lost your key.  To illustrate how early we are talking: there were still tons of open spots to place a house.  I never got to play, but watching was enough for me.

 Fast forward back to being in my own place with my own PC and I was joining right as Ultima Online Renaissance came online.  The Renaissance expansion brought a mirrored version of the world, called Trammel, that was completely safe and it opened up a flood of new land to fill with houses (the "open spots" having long ago been taken up in the original Felucca realm).

 Being a new player I had zero idea what the land grab was and other than some memory of watching my old manager play the original game I didn't know what I was doing.  So I treated the game like a virtual world; more intent on interacting with other players in a social aspect than getting the next progression item checked off.  If that meant just picking up garbage people left on the ground (oh yeah; items could be dropped and picked up by other players... how novel) then that's what I did.

 Eventually I did catch on that I needed to progress and that spun into having multiple different accounts so I could abuse all sorts of systems like the faction system, housing, and more.  Unfortunately I was so late to the housing party the only way to get a house was to buy it off eBay (yes, I bought my UO houses off eBay!) because all open spots were taken so even if you wanted to place a house you could not.

 I was very fond of PvP in UO.  I was not a player killer, but I loved faction warfare (player killing without becoming a red player).  I also got into the provoking skill which was basically the easy mode of end game PvE content as you could entice monsters to fight each other while you hoovered up the loot they dropped from killing each other.  

 I also got big into taming anything the game let you tame; my favorite being the white ice dragons.  Anyone that knows taming in UP knows the saying "kill all"; nothing more satisfying than a half dozen dragons suddenly vaporizing an enemy.  While in today's PvP metas it is "kill the healer" back then it was "kill the tamer".  Many a fight was won based on how many dragons were brought.

 Now I need to fill a gap between my gaming origin story and Ultima Online because before graphical MMORPGs I was addicted to text MUDs (multi user dungeon).  Without MUDs we wouldn't have the MMORPGs that we have today.

 The one that got me started was a MUD running in IRC on the Xnet IRC server.  I stumbled on it joining a chat room and a bot posting a puzzle; once you figured out the puzzle it let you in fully to the MUD.  It was like virtual Indiana Jones! I have no other recollection other than those pieces, but it was tons of fun and featured perma death PvP.  I killed my younger brothers character at one point.

 Probably my most invested MUD was a Star Wars themed one.  I don't remember the specifics and the websites are long gone, but I do still have notes I took on paper about it.  I used graph paper to map out areas of the game and take notes about things like "droid here" or "viewport overlooking space dock".  It had space flight as well as many planets.  I do vaguely remember getting into some drama and getting banned at one point. 

 I played plenty of other MUDs as well along with MUSHES and whatever other acronym soup we used back in those days to differentiate one from the other.  I even got into Medievia MUD for a bit which was the largest MUD ever and still running to this day.  It was mind blowing they were aiming for things like 20,000 players online and wanting to get to 200,000 (not sure what they ever peaked at).  I was used to MUDs with 5 people online; thousands was crazy to think about.  One of the coolest part of Medievia and many other MUDs was player created content.  It was just text so the barrier to entry to have your dedicated players help build was very low.  I honestly wonder if some of my poorly worded room descriptions are still floating around somewhere in Medievia!

 We'll finish on the origin story of gaming for heartlessgamer and recount the day I won a Sega Genesis.  I had played Nintendo and Super Nintendo at friends and extended family houses, but in my house we were still stuck in the "black and white" television era.  Without easy access to them video games were no different than any other toy to play with when visiting friends and family.  

 That all changed the day that I won a Sega Genesis.  The Sega was a possible prize from selling magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser.  I (really my mom) had done a good job getting folks to sign up so I was in the running.  It was towards the end of the school day and classes had just let out and announcements were coming over the intercom.  I hung back in the classroom to hear them.  I really, really wanted that Sega Genesis.  Then I heard my name and to this day I can remember looking at my teacher at the time and seeing the biggest smile on her face as I sprinted out towards the office to get my prize.  I hoisted the box over my head and for a few glorious moments I was the king of my school.

 I walked to school so had a few blocks to get home with the prize.  I really don't remember my parents reactions, but they were supportive of me getting it up and running.  I wasn't kidding when I said we still had "black and white" televisions.  Our main set was too old to get the Sega working and after phoning a friends parents we were able to get it set up on my mom's tiny little kitchen TV.  From then on I spent many an hour at the kitchen table playing Sega games in black and white. Some favorites from the time; Wrestlemania, Shining Force, and of course Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

 I will never forget winning that Sega Genesis and I swear the movie 8-bit Christmas is loosely based on that time in my life (I already had an awesome treehouse my dad made though; I just needed a video game console).  And that is the gaming mode that started it all and therefore is what truly made me a gamer!

Ashes of Creation "New World is the gold standard of harvesting/gathering"

 I caught up with the recent Ashes of Creation live stream (I actually watched it via Asmongold's reaction video -- don't ask why; I just like watching Asmongold's reaction videos for Ashes updates).  

 In this update the Ashes team shows off the gathering system they are lifting directly from New World.  Every tree is now able to be chopped down (previously in earlier alpha tests it was sparse nodes across the world) and that will expand from there to other node types such as rocks, plants, and more.  Asmongold's quote to kick off the video was "New World is the gold standard of harvesting/gathering" which I'll agree with, but also as my comments will show there is room for enhancement.

 For anyone that has played New World this is very familiar.  New World brought this type of mechanic out of the realm of survival games and into an MMORPG.  Chopping down a tree is one of the most satisfying feelings in all of New World.  I can't imagine playing a future MMORPG that doesn't let me cut down every tree, break up every rock, and gather almost anything I can see.  I am all for games like Ashes lifting ideas from other games and this was the right idea to grab from New World.

 What can, or what will, Ashes do to improve on the system?

 First, they can add more variables to the system.  If there is a knock against New World's system it is that the node spawns are static and do not vary at all which means farmers and bots can camp them.  A great change for New World and where Ashes could improve this type of system is to randomize the spawn locations of the nodes.  Certain areas could still limit what type of node spawns so players know where to go to gather but the actual placement in that area could be changed up.  This would reward the often overlooked explorer play type.

 The good news is it sounds like Ashes is solving for this with their surveying skill which will allow players to find and learn about node spawns and if I understood it correctly it will allow players with higher surveying skill to find randomly placed nodes.  This brought back memories of surveying in Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) which allowed for players to locate and find unique resources and cash in on them before others showed up.  The key to the SWG system was randomization and time limited nature of where you could get the resources.

 Next the Ashes developers talked a good bit about how the materials you can gather will vary based on seasons, "node" (referring to their land parcel system), and other player actions.  It definitely sounds like to be a successful gatherer you will need to know the systems and the world as well as have leveled up skills.  The question is whether they can make the system where it rewards the average player and doesn't just become a system where the elite players lock everyone else out.

 In the Ashes stream Steven (the guy at the head of Ashes design/funding/everything) asked us to think about two areas when giving feedback and talking about this update so I wanted to oblige him.

Feedback Focus 1: Steven asked the community how we feel about the change to have far more resources available for gathering in the game?  A caveat was most of the increase in gatherable materials it would be focused on general construction and trade; not necessarily for making gear.

Answer 1: As I mentioned earlier in the post I can't see myself playing an MMORPG that doesn't have this sort of harvesting/gathering system.  Chopping down trees may just be a "minimum requirement" going forward for me to consider a game.  I think this was the right choice and with the surveying system it looks to improve on the system from New World.  The only concern I have is it may get too complicated.  There is a benefit to the simplicity of New Worlds system: see tree, chop tree, get stuff.  Adding too much more to that loop may make it less fun.

Feedback Focus 2: Thoughts on the visual fidelity of the gathering actions.

Answer 2:  I tend to not get deep into visuals in games these days.  They play a role, but not as they did in the past.  As long as it feels like it fits and doesn't take away from performance then I am fine with what I saw in the video.  Not necessarily visual, but the audio in the demo was not that great.  New World nails the sound of chopping and mining so feel like Ashes has some room on the audio end to improve.

 The Ashes devs also commented on group gathering.  This is a great idea and something that Crowfall had (probably one of the only things that game did well). I love the idea of having to team up to gather.  I love the idea of needing a second player to take the other end of a giant saw to go at a massive tree.

 Steven also asked about what players felt about the system where what is inside a node is only revealed when you take the harvesting action.  The example given was a rock that once broken revealed there was a crystal inside and a second harvesting action was required to gather the crystal.  I am fine with this but over time it may become irritating having to harvest nodes twice instead of just getting the internal materials on the first pass.  Will have to see how it feels when playing.

For those that need it here is the Ashes update embedded below.

Speaking of gathering; let me harvest your thoughts by leaving a comment.  Thanks!

MyMMORPG: Let's dream one up!

 Listening to various podcasts about Ashes of Creation and listening to folks overlay their hearts and dreams on the game has made me think about what I'd want out of an MMORPG.  Combined with my recent "a post a day" commitment to get back into blogging I figured it was time to start my long awaited series on "My MMORPG" and the game I'd make if I was Steven-rich.

The question is where do you start this quest?  Do you come up with a long list of things to do?  An outline of the entire thing?  Define the business model; is it free to play or a subscription?  Write the story first?  

Personally I have a saying I like to use in my career "If something is worth doing it is worth doing WRONG." What does that have to do with where to start?  Fair question. I bring this up here because I want this to be a start but not the only start.  We may be back here again in the near future.  Maybe feedback makes me change course.  Maybe a brilliant idea later down the road requires something earlier on changes.  Regardless I have a couple goals to get started here.

1. This first post has to set the framework
   
2. Keep it simple

So where do we start?  Simple: the world and setting for the game and to keep it simple and set the framework for future conversations this post would be better titled as "The Not-Star-Wars MMORPG". Follow along to find out why.

When I look back on any MMORPG I've played (or wish I could play) the first thing that always catches my attention is the world and setting.  Ultima Online?  Basically took every medieval text MUD I had ever played and put it on screen.  World of Warcraft? Warcraft where I get to play that orc on the battlfield!? Count me in!  Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning?  Duh (and sigh).  Star Wars Galaxies?  Ummm; duh x2!  New World? A cool setting that hooked me before I ever hit log in.

So why "Not-Star-Wars"?  Simple: Star Wars has everything in a setting that I'd want in my dream MMORPG, but I would never want to put my chips into a game that can be ended on the whim of an intellectual property owner.

Let's work through what "Not-Star-Wars" brings to us:

• Melee combat
• Ranged combat
• Magic 
• Not-magic
  
• Mounts
• Vehicles (aka multiplayer mounts)
• Houses
• Spaceships (aka space houses)
  
• Varied planets (i.e. zones and instanced content)
  
• Multiple races
• Multiple classes
• Crafting
  

Probably the biggest benefit of this setting that pays off the most is the "varied planets".  Planets and space travel between them is the ideal contextual reason for zones and instanced content to exist without turning the game into hub and spoke and thus losing the M for Massive.  While the world setting doesn't need to explain everything the more it is able to justify for mechanics to exist the better the game will feel.  It would make immediate sense to a player that they are jumping in a space ship, zooming through space, and ending up on a unique alien planet that only they and their group are present on.

This also allows this MMORPG to target the "mega server" model instead of "single server" and have it all make sense with the way the universe is set up.  All players need to be in one single universe with the chance at any time to interact with any other player.  This eliminates problems such as scaling up single servers to deal with population growths and eliminates the follow on problems of having to merge servers down.  The universe just exists and it makes sense when you jump in a space ship and fly off to a planet that you are off by yourself and then joining back on a busy core planet with thousands of other players.

Another benefit that some old school MMORPG players will welcome is that space travel, inside a fully customized player ship, can bring back the social aspect that has been missing due to the "get you directly into a group and into content" model of "group finders" in most MMORPGs.  Don't get me wrong; I want games to connect players via in game tools but what I also want to ensure it drops players into the opportunity to socialize and not just at the starting point a sprint.  Sitting around in a space ship, making preparations for the content, and socializing with your fellow players is huge.  Scale this concept up to core planets and ideas like space stations: the core of setting should be places for players to interact socially.

As my bulleted list shows there is a lot of pieces that fit with Not-Star-Wars and give context to game systems and mechanics MMORPG players are familiar with.  Again the most important aspect is that the setting gives context to many MMORPG staple systems such as zones, instanced content, socializing and more.

More to come on MyMMORPG!  Have thoughts?  Think I am starting in the wrong place or heading in the wrong direction?  Leave a comment.  I love to argue socialize.

Star Wars: Rogue One Review

Since seeing Rogue One (twice now) I’ve been thinking about Star Wars Galaxies (SWG), the ill-fated Star Wars MMO.  A key moment in my history with SWG was in response to a comment from the developers stating that “no one wants to play a moisture farmer”.



As a longtime poster on the SWG role-playing forum I argued that this mentality was wrong.  There were tons of players that wanted to exist in the Star Wars universe as something other than a Jedi, smuggler, or bounty hunter.  Players wanted to be that moisture farmer.  I wanted to be that moisture farmer. 



I was and continue to be a Star Wars expanded universe junky and this is why I found Star Wars Rogue One to be my favorite Star Wars movie of all time.  With it’s menagerie of characters, locations, and fan service indulgences Rogue One is a movie that diehard fans can place themselves in.  Maybe you are one of the protectors of the Jedi temple on Jedha?  Or a two foot tall member of Saw’s rebellious band? Or maybe you are one of the various imperial roles featured on Scarif?  Maybe even a black armor wearing Deathtrooper!  Personally, I am the space farmer being bothered by some imperial bigwig.



As much as Rogue One is a movie for the want-to-be moisture farmer, I can see why casual fans and regular movie goers would be less enamored with it.  I could write a lot about this, but it’s easier for me to point you at Red Letter Media and Mr Plinkett’s thoughts on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJgfxlgUIZY  In short, for a movie review, I agree with Mr Plinkett.



However, as the Star Wars super fan, none of what makes for an underwhelming movie matters. The feel and look of the movie is consistent with the originals.  The acting, while not perfect, doesn’t detract from the experience (case in point; go back and try to watch the acting in Episode 1,2, or 3).  The movie delivers an expansion of the new cannon that fits right into the old.  Basically, they didn’t screw it up and that is what matters for me.



I can handle the conflict when I agree with critical reviews such as Mr Plinkett’s and still make the statement that Rogue One is my favorite Star Wars movie.  I don’t believe for a second that Disney intends to make Star Wars movies for fans like me.  Rogue One is a happy accident for fans like me and I am comfortable with my love for it.

A quick thought on The Force Awakens and Starkiller Base

I never wrote a review for The Force Awakens.  If I had, one of my chief complaints would have been that of Starkiller Base.  While I loved the movie I could not bring myself to rationalize Starkiller Base.  The Death Star (1 and 2) were big deals, not just from the perspective of the rebels, but from the perspective of the story and plot.  Starkiller Base, while a big deal to the “new rebels”, is nothing but a stolen plot point from the original trilogy and multiplied by three (ITS BIGGER AND SHOOTS MULTIPLE BEAMS!!!).   It did NOT fit the story and did nothing more than fill a spot in the “soft reboot” formula which is why the wise Mr Plinkett dinged TFA in the story category.




With Rogue One in place I have an even harder time buying Starkiller Base.  Rogue One provides incredible depth to what seemed silly in A New Hope (a moon sized super weapon taken down by a shot to an exhaust tube).  The movie goes a long way to show the struggle and loss endured to start the wheels in motion for The Rebels to be able to destroy the Death Star.



Looking at TFA; Starkiller Base appears, fires, and then is subsequently destroyed through an even harder to believe series of events than the exhaust port.  A series of events that has no way to ever be explained in a clever way as Rogue One was used to flesh out the weakness of the first Death Star. 


This is because TFA goes out of its way to plant explanations in the movie: Finn having worked on the planet and knowing how it can be destroyed, Phasma being able to turn off the shields, the Millenium Falcon warping through the planet’s shield, and Starkiller Base having the same functional weakness as the Death Stars.
 
Rogue One really ruins TFA for me because of this.  However, I know it doesn’t ruin it for the average movie going public.  Just as I love Rogue One because I want to be a Star Wars space farmer I know that the rest of the general audience loves TFA because it’s a good movie.

Raph Koster bleeds

This is an amazing read: Raph Koster revisits the fabled time of game development that lead up to the launch of Star Wars Galaxies(SWG) and it's initial game systems for attaining Jedi status.

I've never really gotten over SWG, what it could have been after launch, and its eventual collapse.  Reading this article from Raph I get the sense that he was as heartbroken as we were as initial forum goers and beat testers. Raph's words bleed a passion and intelligence that is absent in today's game design.  They are what hooked us then and what I think will let us close the book on the SWG chapter in our MMO careers.

Star Wars Galaxies shutdown, thoughts on a troubled past

The writing is on the wall: Lucas Arts must close the Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) chapter of Star Wars MMOs. SWG is a black eye for the MMO community as a whole; wonderfully envisioned yet poorly managed by SOE and hamstrung by Lucas Arts. SWG will be shutdown as of Dec 15th, 2011. Anyone thinking this wasn’t inevitable hasn’t taken a look back on the history of Star Wars gaming. This is Lucasfilm’s (now Lucas Arts) calling card: out with the old and in with the new.

Let’s step back in time to 2001. Decipher, a card game company, has been running the Star Wars Customizable Card Game (SW:CCG) for the past six years. They are competing directly with the behemoth that is Magic: The Gathering (MtG). SW:CCG is consistently considered the second place card game on the market behind MtG. On occasion, SW:CCG is even outselling MtG. The future is bright with new Star Wars prequel movies in the theatres and a SW:CCG expansion pack sitting with the printers. Then suddenly word hits that Lucasfilm is looking to pull the plug on SW:CCG. After several negotiations, the Star Wars license is pulled from Decipher and the SW:CCG grinds to halt.

Many people not familiar with this story may assume that there was a valid reason for Lucasfilms (this is pre Lucas Arts days) to pull the license. It certainly couldn’t be because the game flopped: it was, after all, competing alongside MtG. While no solid answer was ever given for the whole debacle, it didn’t take long for the card gaming community to figure out the true motivations. Lucasfilms had gone and recruited Wizards of the Coast and MtG developer Richard Garfield to create a new Star Wars trading card game (SW:TCG). It was clear that Lucasfilms did not want a Star Wars game playing second fiddle and who better to fix that than the people behind the number one game!  Too bad for Lucasfilm, because the SW:TCG flopped and closed within a couple years.

Looking back to SWG and we can see the same pattern emerge. A new MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR), is right around the corner and SWG is not even second fiddle in the MMO market. On top of not even being competitive in the market, SWG is a laughing stock ever since the disaster known as the New Game Experience (NGE). Lucas Arts wants all focus on SW:ToR and SWG’s license was up in 2012. SWG had to be closed.

To be honest though, I am simply amazed how long SWG remained alive. I was actually talking about SWG’s demise in 2006 and my post from March of that year is eerily relevant to the current events.

“I am not an expert on licensing, but I couldn't imagine Lucas Arts letting the Star Wars name be dragged through the mud by the national media much longer. Lucas Arts was a driving force behind the changes to make the game more "Star Warsy" and I doubt they are pleased with the results. So I will blame both SOE and Lucas Arts for the current state of the game. “

And then:

“What I do know is that a new Star Wars MMORPG would generate a ton of buzz. First of all there is SWG that has a few years under its belt that has taught us a lot about what the gaming and Star Wars communities want out of a game. We know that space flight and combat, action inspired game play, and Star Warsy"ness" are all required. We know there isn't people lining up to be Moisture Farmers. We also know there is plenty of wannabe Jedi in the galaxy.”

SW:ToR is exactly that: space flight and combat, action inspired game play, and Star Warsy"ness". Unfortunately back then I didn’t realize I was going to be on the other side of the fence, completely put off by what SW:ToR is shaping up to be.

The Star Wars fan inside of me died a little researching and writing this post. I truly wanted SWG to succeed and still hold it within my top MMOs of all time simply on wasted potential. I also want SW:ToR to surprise me and be a new dawn for Star Wars MMOs. Sadly, with Star Wars it doesn’t appear we can have two separate properties exist in the same market and we're forced to accept whichever one Lucas Arts determines to be the best.

*I apologize for the acronym soup.

Hey Tobold, Did You Forget About Star Wars Galaxies?

Tobold posted a couple weeks ago about the feeling that the crafting system in Guild Wars 2 was added onto what was an already fleshed out adventuring MMOG. This makes it seem like the crafting system is tacked on and was not present in any of the core design discussions for the game.

Tobold also asked:

I wonder how a MMORPG would look like if the developers *first* designed the crafting system, trade, and the player economy. And *then* designed the adventuring system around that.

I would answer this question very quickly: look at Star Wars: Galaxies (SWG).

For all intents and purposes, SWG was designed with the crafting and player economy in mind first and foremost and the adventuring gameplay added later. Combat was not even added to the alpha or beta phases of SWG until near the end and come release (and all the long years since), the adventure gameplay of SWG was terrible.

The funny thing is; SWG got the crafting and economy right! However, with the combat being so terrible and adventuring being nothing more than running across randomly generated terrain until the game spawned something for the player to interact with, SWG fell apart. Eventually the infamous NGE (aka New Game Experience) hit and SWG sits to this day as a pile of "what ifs". 

Tobold asks the right question, but may have overlooked one of the prime examples that the market has already churned out. With the SWG example in mind, what we need to really ask is: I wonder what a MMOG would look like if the developers designed the crafting system, trade, and the player economy AND the adventuring system at the same time AND with the same goals in mind.

IMHO, it would probably look like Minecraft with a story mode, but that is a completely separate discussion.

Return to the Galaxy for FREE

Any player that has previously subscribed to Star Wars Galaxies will be able to play the game free of charge between February 1st and March 1st.

No, this is not out of the kindness of SOE's heart.  Its an offer to promote their upcoming Galactic Civil War expansion: Forces Under Siege.  This would be the expansion where SOE finally realizes that there is a galactic civil war occurring during the Star Wars classic time line.

Any old-school player (that means pre-NGE) will probably remember little to nothing about the galactic civil war from the original game, because there wasn't one.  Sure, Rebels and Imperial scum could chase each other around and spam knockdowns, but it was for no gain to either faction.  It was nothing more than a constant gankfest at each of the spaceports.  It sucked.  No, it really, really sucked. 

However, the new expansion approach to the GCW isn't going to tempt me back into the game.  I only mention it because its a free month of play for a MMOG, a Star Wars MMOG no less.

News Roundup: SWG Server Closures, 5M Confused Free Realmers, and The MMO Prophet

Unbeknown to everyone, Star Wars Galaxies still had 25 servers running. However, they've decided to close 12 servers:

Sony Online Entertainment has announced and notified Star Wars Galaxies players that the game will be shutting down 12 servers on October 15th. The effected servers are:

* Corbantis
* Europe-Infinity
* Intrepid
* Kauri
* Kettemoor
* Lowca
* Naritus
* Scylla
* Tarquinas
* Tempest
* Valcyn
* Wanderhome

I hate server closures, but secretly love them when they are done for the right reasons. SWG needed to close servers because the playerbase was getting spread too far apart. The consolidated servers will provide a much better player density.

This presents a unique challenge, as SWG allows players to own property. I would hate to be the guy that loses prime real estate right outside of Mos Eisley on Tatooine, but at the same time, I would welcome the potential new business when I find a new plot of land to settle on a more populated server!

Following suit with more SOE-related news: Free Realms *almost* hits 5 million players.

Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Free Realms is 'close to' 5 million registered users, revealed Sony Online president John Smedley, speaking in a Gamasutra-attended panel at Comic-Con International San Diego 2009,

We still don't have any revenue figures, and as Facebook and Twitter have taught the Web 2.0 world, big user bases tend to cost A LOT of money and are not necessarily equatable to profits.

I played Free Realms and it was fun for a few days. It wore off quickly and once stripped down, there is nothing in Free Realms for me. Which is apparent, as SOE also announced that 75% of Free Realms players are under 18 years of age and a lot of them can't remember what year they were born or whether the lack of a twig'n'berries between their legs meant M or F:

Additionally, Smedley updated some of the game's demographics, stating 67 percent of players are male and 33 percent are female. "We were shooting for more females, but that's way better than the MMO audience which is [typically only] 15 percent female," says Smedley. He added that Free Realms stats show females outpurchase males by a 30-40 percent margin, and that 51 percent of Free Realms gamers are under 13, with around 75 percent under 18.

At launch, 40 percent of players were hitting Free Realms' registration website, and walking away. SOE found out that the average 10-year-old kid was getting hung up at the birth date field -- kids knew the day and month of their birth, but not the year. And they weren't filling out the "gender" field.

Snark aside, grats to SOE on Free Realms, we need more successes in the MMOG market.

Lastly, Tobold (the MMO Prophet) predicted World of Warcraft: Cataclysm:

Reader Luka is going through my archives from 2003 to now, and sent me a comment about one of my posts I had long forgotten about. It is from October 16, 2008, with comments on WoW patch 3.0 and ends with this paragraph:

MMORPGs are multiplayer games, and much of their attraction comes from the interaction with other players. As the players moved on, a huge part of World of Warcraft just ceased to exist. What is left behind is just an empty stage, and faint memories of the plays that were enacted on that stage. To populate that part of the world again, we'd need a completely different type of expansion: Not 10 more levels added to the endgame, but a cataclysm striking the old world, and changing it. New classes, maybe even new races, and most of the quests and zones of old Azeroth being changed to breathe new life into them. I wonder if we'll ever get such an expansion.

Meh

Meh, Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) gets its own card game. This is something that would of been awesomely cool at launch, but feels completely tacked on now. Plus, Sabaac is the penultimate card game for any Star Wars role-playing game, and no company seems to be willing to touch it. I honestly had wet dreams when it was mentioned that SWG would possibly have Sabaac in game at some point. Sadly it never happened.

I am not going to blast SOE too hard on this one. I am a sucker for card games and the market needs more of them on official online platforms that don't cost an arm and a leg to participate in (I'm looking at you MtG Online).

I've said it before; these sort of projects are the ones I can bear coming out of SOE. I just don't like the tacked on feeling of most of them. Can't one of them be launched on its own platform without a tie-in to a B-rate MMO?

My Top 10 MMOs

Via F13. (read the rules if you are going to post your own top 10). Now onto my list, with some explanations following each choice.

1. World of Warcraft - Millions, yes millions, of subscribers. Penetration into non-gaming media on a large scale. To me, there is no argument against WoW being #1.
2. Ultima Online - Developed before there was a real market, didn't copy anyone, and remains a unique experience. Oh, and player housing!
3. Star Wars Galaxies - Included for POTENTIAL. This was billed as the first game with the POTENTIAL to attract a million players. Sadly, it proved there are no sure things in this market.
4. Guild Wars - First mainstream title to go completely against the grain of the subscription model. Proved that it can be done, but more importantly, it can be sustained in the long run.
5. Dark Age of Camelot - Showed that timing and smooth launches are equitable to success in the market. Plus, DAoC proved that the little guy can get it done with a smart plan.
6. WWII Online - MMOFPS? Yes.
7. EVE Online - Another POTENTIAL inclusion. The game itself isn't spectacular, but the design behind it is begging to be turned into something great.
8. Lord of the Rings Online - I compare LotRO directly to Star Wars Galaxies. There are no sure things, even when the developers play it extremely safe. Lower than expected, only because THERE IS NO FUCKING MAGIC IN LORD OF THE RINGS TURBINE!
9. Everquest - Only mentioned for being brave enough to bring 3D graphics into the genre.
10. MUD 1 - The literal "birth of online gaming" can not go unmentioned.

Can dreams come true? GDC rumors!

Grimwell has a laundry list of rumors from the Game Developers Conference.

Raph leaves SOE. Confirmed, see below.

Finally will give Raph a chance to get out and prove his theories right. He talks the talk, but needs to walk the walk.

EA is going to gobble up Mythic.

Unverified, but Mythic is small, lost a lot of money on Imperator, and is vulnerable to buyout. Lum can't tell us because he has work issues of his own so we must wait. Sounds sensible to me though.We've heard this one before. As long as EA doesn't mess with Warhammer Online!!!

The Cartoon Network MMOG. I call this almost verified. I sat in on a round table mastered buy a gentleman with MMOG experience who candidly said he was working on a MMOG for CN. Then I was introduced to a former UO dev who works there. Add in the fact that I received some 'Adult Swim' socks in my press kit and it's clear they are up to something.

Employing old MMOG devs is usually reserved for those who wish to make MMOG's. ToonTown for adults? Lots of interesting properties to mix up.Could be interesting, but doubt I would want to pay for a "ToonTown for adults". I don't like the industry shift towards "every game will be an MMORPG now so we can make more money."

SOE Loses SWG licence? Unverified. Would be a huge embarassment all things considered. Especially since the NGE went down recently, and burned the house.

Best thing that could ever happen. I've already talked about this here.

Wolfpack and Ubisoft not so friendly. Ubi dropped the price to "FREE!" and there is no SB2 announcement. Sat in on a PVP roundtable moderated by Damion Schubert and he didn't mention this, neither did the other WP friends. At the end of the day SB didn't bring the $$ on a large scale despite doing many things right for MMOG's and PVP. Possible, but not verified.

No Shadowbane 2 announcement makes me sad :( But there is plenty of other games on the horizon to make me happy. While Shadowbane was a great idea they failed on the business front. Failing on the business front almost always means failing on the game side of things.

Bioware Austin gets SWG licence. They did open that office, and there is a forum thread about the SOE loss part in which a Bio dev says to not decide either way until further data is in. Unconfirmed, but interesting. Would Gordon want to do that again? I hope they do something else like Jade Empire Online. I'd buy that six times!

Bioware + Star Wars + MMORPG = /drool!!! Grimwell may want an action-MMORPG, but I want a Bioware Star Wars MMORPG. This is almost too good to be true so I am holding back just a little.

Smedley Getting the Axe at SOE. This is a bonus entry, not from GDC. Something I was actually told last week and wanted to sit on and fact gather. At this point with Raph gone and SWG in question... it's hard to think this wouldn't be on the table.

Second best thing that could happen. That guy just doesn't "get it" and he confirmed it with his "We're going to dominate World of Warcraft" speach. I don't think this makes SOE any better, but Smedley just wasn't the man to make it better.

Those are some HUGE announcements that could be coming down the pipe in the near future and you heard them at Grimwell.com first!

Update: 15 Nov, 2009 - Edited spelling, applied labels, and removed broken links.

Why letting Star Wars Galaxies die is the best thing that could happen... for Star Wars fans

On the heels of some pretty bad press coverage (Washington Post, CBS, etc.) and the cold hard facts that focus groups just don't like the changes to Star Wars Galaxies I have something to say. Letting SWG die is the best thing that could happen if you are a Star Wars (and MMORPG) fan.

It is unlikely that SOE would let SWG die, but it is very possible that they will rollback the NGE. Rolling back the NGE would be a toss up to whether the game could survive. My guess would be that any major change would completely alienate any remaining fan base and possibly push Lucas Arts to pull the license.

I am not an expert on licensing, but I couldn't imagine Lucas Arts letting the Star Wars name be dragged through the mud by the national media much longer. Lucas Arts was a driving force behind the changes to make the game more "Star Warsy" and I doubt they are pleased with the results. So I will blame both SOE and Lucas Arts for the current state of the game. After all we know Lucas Arts had to sign off on moving the time line forward and allowing Jedi to appear all over the place.

So what does this all mean for the Star Wars fan that is still looking for the game where they can experience the Star Wars universe in all its glory? If SWG was to die it would be very possible that the license for a Star Wars themed MMORPG could be up for grabs. That is a tempting prospect for any MMORPG developer with the current state of the market.

World of Warcraft has proven there is a market for MMORPGs that extends beyond just Everquest's 500,000 subscribers. In fact it extends far beyond that. The market is global for MMORPGs that want to support a huge development cost. While Star Wars is a global name it is unknown what sort of following a Star Wars game would have in the heavy gaming countries of China or Korea. World of Warcraft is one of the only games to really succeed in both the East and West.

What I do know is that a new Star Wars MMORPG would generate a ton of buzz. First of all there is SWG that has a few years under its belt that has taught us a lot about what the gaming and Star Wars communities want out of a game. We know that space flight and combat, action inspired game play, and Star Warsy"ness" are all required. We know there isn't people lining up to be Moisture Farmers. We also know there is plenty of wannabe Jedi in the galaxy.

A new Star Wars MMORPG should have a pretty solid understanding of what to build. It would be an exciting development period as SWG critics, SWG fanbois, Star Wars fans & critics, and MMORPG fans all battle to get a game that will bring the excitement that the Star Wars films and MMORPGs have brought to millions of fans. Star Wars galaxies is better dead than alive.

Update: 29 Nov, 2009 - Edited post, corrected spelling, and applied labels.

The SOE effect: The other side of the coin!

SOE Effect Part I
SOE Effect Part II

Those are both my articles on how I feel SOE is leading their games (Everquest1&2, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies) astray and that any SOE game should NEVER be played. SOE is a shifty and underhanded developer pushed a) by money grubbing business suits and b) by unrealistic development schedules and practices set forth by John Smedley.

However I have found someone who differs in opinion. Someone who can argue a lot better than I can, but Darniaq will not sway my opinion. SOE is dirt. Go over and read the article and browse around.... Darniaq has quite a few insightful posts.

MO5 - The SOE effect... part II... MMORPG madness

Mouthing Off 5

If you play Everquest 2 currently, I would quit. Why? Because the SOE effect is going full tilt and the ole’ captain over at SOE, John Smedley, has lost the lock to his spigot: err, mouth. Read the clown’s: err John Smedley’s new interview over at Gamespot.

To quote the clown:

"One thing that I love about our company is that there is no 'quit' in this company. It's about making sure that we have pride in what we do. People within the company feel so much pride in this game that they want it to beat the crap out of World of Warcraft. That's something we feel very passionate about. We know we are capable of making the best stuff out there, and I'm proud to say that with the changes we're making in Galaxies, I think we're headed in the right direction."

They love your company so much that the Star Wars Galaxies team has lost numerous leads, developers, and technicians?

They are so dedicated that they somehow are going to rebuild a 2.5 year old game into a World of Warcraft killer? You can “want to beat the crap out of World of Warcraft”, but I would think it a bit silly to actually believe you can. It is said though, confidence is a key to success.

Enough about Star Wars Galaxies, let us get back to Everquest 2. As I have previously defined the SOE effect I will connect some dots. In April ’05 Star Wars Galaxies underwent the Combat Upgrade to mixed reviews and a slight murmur in the crowd. Players stayed and lived with the changes because it was not GAME ALTERING or DRAMATIC. Fast forward to November and the BOMBSHELL known as the NGE was dropped inside a two week period.

The numbers are not in or they are very closely guarded, but the word around the Internet is that the NGE has killed Star Wars Galaxies. Actually, effectively killed would be a better statement. No amount of marketing or positive PR spin will sway a large group of new players to pick up Star Wars Galaxies sans a complete re-launch under a new name.

Now, back to Everquest 2. EQ2 already had a major revision to it's combat system and class balance. Once again, there are some murmurs in the player base about the changes. People are still playing though. However, what will happen when SOE decides that the game isn’t Everquesty enough?

Smedley claimed that their sandbox approach didn’t work with Star Wars because it wasn’t Star Warsy enough. Everquest 2 isn’t a sandbox game, but it’s no Everquest either. SOE so far has swayed from making a better Everquest all the way to making change after change to open the game up towards what I like to call “the World of Warcraft player”. Not just casual gamers, but gamers that like to solo MORE than group. Obviously World of Warcraft has found A LOT of gamers that fit this mold.

If SOE is so CONFIDENT that they can turn Star Wars Galaxies into a World of Warcraft killer then what do you think they will believe they can do with Everquest 2, which is still rumored to be short of pulling a profit due to high development costs. Is Everquest 2 in for a major shake up because it somehow doesn’t fit the mold that SOE believes it should?

If 300,000+ accounts at SWG’s peak wasn't good enough then what is the threshold for Everquest 2 before SOE mandates it be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up? Did SOE learn with Everquest 2 that sequels don’t work in the MMO market and did that scare away the idea of a Star Wars Galaxies 2 implementing their new features? I don’t know about everyone else, but it seems like the SOE effect is getting worse.

With SOE’s parent company, Sony, already hurting in the public relations department with the DRM fiasco, will they be willing to take any more negative press as the story of the Star Wars Galaxies NGE debacle starts crossing into the New York Times?

Everquest 2 players: get while the getting is good. Don't say "It will never happen", because it already has. As much as you may hate the idea, you can't deny the obvious trend that SOE has set. How many more games do they need to kill to prove it?

Update: 3 May, 2009 - Edited post and applied labels.

Poll shows Star Wars Galaxies NGE plans not popular

Star Wars Galaxies NGE seems to be taking a beating not only on the message boards, but in random internet polls. Discount the validity of such polls and pass it off as just "whiners who haven't tried it yet", but there is a lot of people talking.

People are sick of changing with no promise that when and if things get better in Star Wars Galaxies that they won't just up and change it again. No amount of bribing or promising from the Star Wars Galaxies development team can sell this vocal crowd.

It is human nature to despise change and Broken Toys has a good discussion why.

Smedley spins the Star Wars Galaxies NGE

Next Gen has an article/interview up with SOE head honcho, John Smedley. (bad link, removed)

" 'We got a lot of feedback about what was wrong and what wasn't. We saw early on that people weren't satisfied with the combat, so we decided to try something pretty radical.' "

Hold on here... the MULTIPLE complaints from BETA TESTERS didn't give you a clue before you launched the game? Chalk one up for not caring about the feedback from beta testers. Another reason professional beta testers should be used to initially test an MMO. If you are paying them I would sure as hell hope you were listening to them.

"The original design of the game was very much influenced by the Richard Garriot (Ultima Online) and Brad McQuaid (early EverQuest) schools of MMOG design. That is to say that the very best experiences in the game would come from massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship. The rewards that come from that are significant but highly exclusive."

I was around on day one and early on they were staying as far away from the EQ model as possible and stealing only the skill idea from UO. Massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship... three keys to avoiding making EQ2 (oops).

"Along those lines, it was incredibly difficult to become a Jedi. In fact, the mechanism for which it is accomplished (which was secret for a long time) is that a character has to master five specific professions (out of more than 20), and those professions were selected for that character secretly by the game at the moment of creation. The player never knew which specific five would unlock the Jedi path. It was an incredible time sink, to say the least."

Bad decision to have Jedi in the game as playable in the first place. You don't decide to place the game in the "old" movie timeline and then destroy the immersion with a thousand Jedi running around. Jedi should of always been NPC only... or even better... special event characters. The new "force sensitive" class is going to be overplayed... welcome to Star Wars Jedi Online!

" 'It's mixed. It's very positive [feedback] from the people who are actually playing it. And we also have the expected push back from the people who haven't actually logged in to try it," says Smedley. "Once people get in there, it's overwhelmingly positive. It's the "the sky is falling" crowd on the forums that's still going to take some converting. I understand that. These are big changes.' "

Maybe... just maybe... people are sick of you redesigning the game they've invested so much time into. Not to say these changes aren't needed, but not understanding why that vocal minority is RIGHTFULLY pissed is a sure shot to alienate even more players.

"There's a quote about the original design of Galaxies that says it was too much like living the life of Uncle Owen (the moisture farmer) and not enough like the life of Luke or Han Solo. We want to deliver more of the heroic Star Wars experience."

Actually early on Star Wars Galaxies was all about being Stormtrooper #245 or a moisture farmer. Not everyone wanted to be a hero... they wanted to live among heros. Sadly most players want to "change the world" when they are playing an MMO. Unfortunately this is not possible and making classes that stand out in the movies detracts from the immersion factor. Not everyone in Star Wars is a bounty hunter or Jedi, but in Star Wars Galaxies NGE it will be quite the opposite.

Star Wars Galaxies NGE video

OK back to gaming for a bit. There is this video floating around showing off some of the new combat in Star Wars Galaxies New Gamer Experience. What I gained from the video.

1. Collision detection does not exist for projectiles.
2. You can not dodge incoming fire as it tracks directly to you after being fired.
3. Click... click... click... my wrist is hurting already.
4. "Hide behind the boxes kid"... ROFL... and get shot over and over. The illusion of using your surroundings is almost there.

Conclusion

People jumped way off the deep end when they got their hands on this thing at AGC and heard the rumors. Hype is a bad thing that is starting to kill this announcement. I still feel its what the game needs, but they need to refine it more.

I could possibly have all these systems wrong with no hands on experience, but I like to stir the pot.

The rebuild of Star Wars Galaxies

Initially I caught onto the fact that Star Wars Galaxies was planning a MAJOR rebuild of their game via Kill Ten Rats. F13.net also has a good discussion going on.

The quote that really caught my attention...

"Basically they went through, ripped out 80% of the classes, left in the following: Force Sensitive, Bounty Hunter, Officer, Smuggler, Commando, Spy, Trader (all the tradeskills - 4 base sets now - Domestics, Structures, Munitions, Engineering), Medic and Entertainer. Here’s the deal. Right click shoots - you have to aim. Left click fires off a special ability.

No more auto attack.
No more hotkey combat.

Once collision detection goes in, this will probably be the game I play. There’s actual skill involved now. You can run from people and they can’t just autohit you."

It seems that they are merging the concepts of Planetside with SWG which is something many people have called since SWG was in beta. Star Wars combat has always been about the lasers and SWG was quickly pushing the EQ formula into Star Wars.

All these MAJOR changes come on the heels of their first combat revamp... which I doomcast on message boards well before it ever hit. These new changes are what I consdier a REVAMP. They are truly migrating the game to simpler, yet more skill based combat system.

Do I think these changes are going to save the game?

Possibly, but I'm not going to Vegas anytime soon to drop my life savings on it. It will hopefully be 6+ months before we see the changes. Otherwise they will be rushed, buggy, and do more harm than good.

These are good changes for the game! However, the number of complete rebuilds of entire game systems for SWG has destroyed all faith in SOE developers that I may possibly of had left. Sorry Raph.