LucasArts Announces First Massive Multiplayer Game

Nastard writes "LucasArts announced that they will be partnering with Sony and Verant (the guys who brought us EverQuest) to bring us a massive multiplayer RPG based upon the Star Wars universe. The article doesn't give any dates, but I'm sure we're all gonna be in line for this one. "

Comments

Good idea, bad base?

[natey]

Good and bad...

Verant strikes me as a pretty good gaming company (I'm an EQ addict myself) overall...they're very active within the community they created, have a good deal of direct contact with the players, and make a pretty darned neat piece of software.

But.

Everquest's main problem (IMO, of course) isn't gameplay imbalances or quest bugs or any of the directly game-related issues that are thrown about. To me, the biggest turnoff about EQ is the sheer volume of 12-year-old brats that're running around. (I'm generalizing, of course - some people on EQ are surprisingly younger than they seem for their maturity, and some 35-year-old parents are worse than clueless kids could ever be, but you get the general idea.)

I'm sure Verant's Star Wars game will be a hit - they haven't advertised EQ in months and sales still climb - but I'm not gonna place any bets on what their player base ends up like.

gamebalance

[jeroenb]

I just wonder how they're going to work out a scheme to make the game interesting for everybody without having a universe where 99% of the population is Senior Jedi Knight :)

The problem is: if you want to make this play like the real SW universe, only a couple of players could be a Jedi and the majority would have to be stormtrooper, tusken raider, ewok, etc. I can see people registering 10.000 times just so they get to be a Jedi and stuff like that. I hope they solve this in a cool way - I wouldn't mind playing a stormtrooper.

I'm not sure about being an ewok though...

Re:gamebalance

[drivers]

That's the thing. Every player should be allowed to be a hero, even if it isn't realistic. This is a game not a simulation. Ultima Online is a little bit less fun due to the fact that so many characters end up building chairs for a living to get ahead. :)

pay-to-play?

[Ater]

Refreshing to see that the gaming industry hasnt totally abandoned the industry (although it seems close), and the Star Wars series has always been a prime setting for rpgs with its huge universe (I'm still holding out for hopes of a multiplayer Fallout though). But it also reminds me of another complaint that I have with the gaming industry today

What does annoy me is that like Everquest and UO, is that this game will most likely be another "Pay-to-play" game with ridiculous monthly charges. Yes I can afford $10-20/mo, but the money adds up, and it is ridiculous to expect a consumer to pay regular fees for a game, or so to speak. One thing I would like to know is why all online RPG's charge for playtime. I never see it occuring in the action, wargame, or real-time strategy field. If I buy Starcraft, Quake III, or even Diablo, I wouldnt have to pay anything extra for online play. Granted, I'm not knowledge about the workings, but I doubt RPG's require such additional online maintainence that it merits a continuous charge. I do realize that the characters and settings are stored, unlike the average strat/shooter game, but again, I hardly see how that would account for any additional expenses.

Maybe it's just me, but once a game is purchased, you should be able to play it out of the box and enjoy it as intended without having to fork over more money. Even the occasional ad would be sometimes acceptable as an alternative, IMHO. I think that if online RPG providers would stop absurdly charging fees, even more customers would sign up, and idle ones who already bought the game would play more often. I see the high numbers of people that dont seem to mind the charge, yet I also have many more friends who would be dying to join the online RPG world but are sickened by the notion of an extra charge.

Re:pay-to-play?

[Obasan]

I'm actually inclined to think the opposite. I can understand why they want a monthly charge (although I think it's a little pricey given the service provided). They need to keep the servers alive 'indefinitely'. True, they can assume that interest in the game will decrease as the game gets older, but with no new sales coming in paying for server admins, server room space and bandwidth is going to be a constant drain on their coffers. And if they ever shut down the service you can bet gamers would cry bloody murder.

What I think is that they shouldn't charge for the game CD at all. I was actually shocked when I found out they were charging for the Ultima Online software itself. That doesn't make sense to me. The idea is to hook people into paying a 'low' monthly fee for using the network service. Asking for a full software title's price upfront and then charging a monthly fee seems excessive to me.

I get dibs on Nerf Herder

[Squeeze Truck]

I always wanted to be a nerf herder in my own online universe. This is a dream come true.

The Ecology of MMP

[Robert Link]

This is exactly the problem that MMP games have had so much difficulty dealing with. If you make 90% of the population inkeepers and bartenders and other such drones, then the game is only fun for the few that get to be heroes. On the other hand, if you make everyone a hero, then the ecology and the economy of the game world get completely unbalanced. Treasure becomes meaningless because you can always find someone who has an extra sword of flaming doom that he's willing to sell, and once you've bought it, good luck finding any monsters to kill with it. They've all been wiped out by the plague of heroes swarming over the land.

None of the currently operating MMP RPGs has found a completely satisfactory solution to the problem, and it may be that none exists. One thing that would help a lot would be to have death be for keeps. As it stands, whenever the monsters manage to take down a player character, it is an empty victory at best; he'll be back within minutes, perhaps with a slight XP penalty, perhaps without some of his equipment, but nevertheless largely unscathed. However, most players seem to resist the idea of death being deadly pretty fervently, so don't expect to see it any time soon.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, or whatever you will, but I don't have a lot of confidence that MMP games will ever "get there" as far as capturing the RPG experience. There is an editorial at Games Domain that sums it up pretty well. When I play an RPG I want to have at least an opportunity to have a meaningful impact on the campaign world; however, in any campaign world few people have that opportunity. In a game with only half a dozen players, the deck is stacked in your favor; by design you get to play the characters that have a chance to make a difference. In MMP games there are simply too many players for that to be practical. The result is stagnation and boredom, which isn't really what I look for in a game. So, here's hoping they get it right with this one, but I'm not holding my breath.

-rpl

Who knew?

[cybercuzco]

"Star Wars online will be a phenomenon that transforms online gaming for both gamers and casual game players," says Lisa Simpson, president of Sony Online Entertainment.

Hmm, I guess this means that Lisa is no longer on Fox, and has decided to stop doing the Simpsons sitcom. Fox officials said that they were sorry to see her leave the show, but at 18, she was no longer the little girl that america fell in love with. I know that ill be sorry to see her leave, but this just means maggie has to step up. ;-)

A letter from the year 2002

[Travoltus]

Dear Travoltus:

Hi, it's me. Travoltus. 2002 edition, that is. I just wanted to inform you that last year, I met this wonderful girl named Matilda on Lucasarts' Star Wars Online (SWO), and now we're getting married.

Yup. We met while standing in line at the Rebel Academy with 200000 other players. I picked the highly ignored Han Solo and she picked Princess Leia (she was the first female player in the game, hehe). Everyone else was battling it out to be - you guessed it - Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

Matilda fell in love with the way I slaughtered that entire ewok race right off the forest moon of Endor, but after my single handed annihilation of Jar Jar Binks and the Gungan species, she totally wanted muh bod. We had some sizzling hot virtual sex and, well, the rest is history :)

BTW, since this is the first marriage between two Star Wars Online players, George Lucas gave away the bride. I looked good in my Han Solo uniform, and Matilda, well, that dress, oooeeeeeeeeeowwwwwwwwwwwww baby! The downside was we were married by a 6' tall guy in a Yoda suit, who spent more time laughing than actually joining us in holy matrimony. The upside is we both got special edition copies of all 4 Star Wars movies, including The Phandom Menace: The Jar Jar-Free Edition - on DVD! (Oh and don't tell anyone we got this stuff on DVD, Lucas made us sign a shut-up agreement...)

Matilda and I are expecting a little jedi in 5 months. You keep hanging on out there in the past, ok Travoltus? And please.. get the game!

Death to the Gungans!
- Travoltus

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63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,