Living with Darth Vader

rppp01 writes "The BBC is reporting that Lucas Arts is putting the Star Wars universe online this December. Go here to read all about it. I know lots of people who are now starting to leave Everquest. Is this the next everquest? Will we have massive Star War fans calling in sick everyday in attempts to become a jedi? Will Jar Jar be friend or foe?"

Comments

whats the engine?

[SirSlud]

i dont follow everquest (after quake/teamfortress ruined my chances at an elec eng degree, no harm done) ... but whats the engine underneath this new Star Wars MMPORMGPROGSPORMPG? Somebody told me it was just a modded EQ engine, so isn't this more like an expansion pack or 'skin' rather than a whole new .. oh god dont make me try to figure out the anagram again ..

Sony?

[doublesix]

I notice this is being published (?) by Sony. Does anyone know if there'll be a PS2 version?

The BBC versus Amazon.com

[Chasuk]

The BBC is reporting that Lucas Arts is putting the Star Wars universe online this December.

I normally trust the BBC, but I think they are wrong on this occasion. According to details on Amazon.com, Star Wars Galaxies will be released on February 14, 2003.

Some mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

Some mistakes in that article. There's already a fourth Monkey Island game. I guess they're saying they're making a fifth?

And as for Grim Fandango being a cartoon... that does not do it justice. If you haven't played it, hunt it out for one of the richest, most wonderful adventure games ever.

Re:It's a nice idea...

[Khomar]

One serious problem I see with Galaxies is that a major part of the Star Wars dealt either with spaceships or speeders/racers/vehicles. If this game is very similar to Everquest, then this whole aspect of the game will be missing. How is travel from planet-to-planet going to be handled? As a former player of Everquest, I can tell you that sitting for 15 minutes while a ship passes through black space between planets is not exactly condusive to a good time. :-)

Fantasy really works well for this type of genre because there are built in limitations. You don't expect to be able to fly anywhere, generally, and the technology is expected to be limited. The most advanced thing you might deal with is riding a horse which requires only a slight change in perspective and speed.

While the Star Wars universe is large and interesting, I see most of the fun resting in the ability to hop into a speeder and race with someone else, not walk into the cantina and stare at the scantily clad women (oh wait, that was Everquest....). I saw no mention of this ability in the article. It sounds like a glorified EverQuest to me. Though the graphics quite good, the real key will be in the gameplay, and whether or not the fans can accept their limitations.

Re:So you walk around and kill things?

[C0LDFusion]

I loved Rebellion. I wish they wouldn't have made the "space combat" suck so much, but it really takes alot to beat the game, which is a good thing, except for all the people out there who can't manage the hundreds of variables involved.

I wish I could get my hands on a second copy so my friend and I could play 1v1. I thought the game was best suited for human vs. human, anyway, because once you go to the "Hard" difficulty on that game, it's impossible to compete against a game that can manage the variables instantaneously, while the human can handle, at best, 4 or 5.

Afterlife, Monkey Island 2 and DotT, I agree, really weren't good, but Rogue Squadron, Shadows of the Empire, and a few others that came out were good (and I still play Rogue Squadron, because I like flying the Millenium Falcon (Sure, the latest iteration of the X-Wing series lets you fly a ship SIMILAR to the Falcon, but the real thing is kickass).

But I will also say one thing. WTF was X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter? I thought it was supposed to be so awesome and combine the best aspects of the two games, but all it did was take the action and none of the storyline. And the copy I got featured mis-labeled CDs. It was just sad.

Jar-Jar would be fun to code

[Anonymous Coward]

Jar-Jar should have a special skill in the game called BDL - Blind Dumb Luck. Whenever you try to kill him, his BDL kicks in. You fire your blaster at him and he cringes, but the shot miraculously passes between his tongue and his ears, ricochets off fourteen walls, a stagnant pond, and a black hole, and comes back to hit you right between the eyes. Jar-Jar makes an annoying comment while you sit at your monitor, teeth clenched in apoplectic fury. Oh yeay. With work and a good programmer this guy could be made INTERACTIVELY annoying!

looks good to me

[Hythlodaeus]

The development team for Star Wars Galaxies is mostly comprised of former Ultima Online developers. The lead designer is Raph Koster, formerly known as Designer Dragon of UO. They made a prototype space game for Origin to brand as Wing Commander Online, but that was about the time EA (Origin's parent company) gutted Origin down to just the UO team and rolled it all into the EA.com division. EA tried to assign Koster's space team to the Sims Online, but they wisely made a deal with Verant to make a Star Wars game. Thus Verant's Austin division was born. There's no code in common with Everquest.

Lucas is aiming to kill fair use.

[MisterSquid]

I think /.'ers concerned about their rights online and also in the domain of fair use should consider not giving another red cent (or silver pfenning, or ridged dracma, etc.) to any business concern directly promoted by Lucasfilm and/or Lucasarts.

Yesterday, /. ran an article about Fox CEO Peter Chernin's call to media and tech companies to work together to combat piracy. Some /.'ers speculated that Lucas's suggestion that media and tech companies form an alliance to prevent piracy is, at best, a disingenuous one. For example, in one post, RobotRunAmok suggested that Lucas is playing the "misguided artist" to Valenti's "evil fat cat suit," the implication being that Lucas is an evil fat cat. In another post, Jippy_ points out that "[s]aying that there won't be film of merit or quality without there first being movies of flashy repetitive garbage" is just plain bad logic.

Lucas would sell our fair use rights down the river if he thought he could make a bigger buck. His last three films stink (he's proven himself to be the much inferior artist compared to his peer Spielberg), and though he is pioneering digital production and delivery, he doesn't seem to understand that such technologies work best when they facilitate rather than obstruct fair use rights.

What really disturbs me is that Lucas--his very person a monument of excess--uses environmentalist language to protect his profit margins. Sure, digital film in the long run may be more environmentally friendly than celluloid, but that's hardly a justification to compare the market forces which drive popular cinema to an endangered ecosystem! The NYTimes has an article that quotes Lucas as saying:

I am begging for co-operation. There are unintended consequences of piracy. If piracy is not stopped, the rainforest of the entertainment business ecosystem will collapse.

If the movie industry, with its increasing resemblance to the recording arts industry and its cozying up to those who would revoke our fair use rights, can be compared to a rainforest, then I say clear cut the whole damn thing.

Re:Smart move

[harlows_monkeys]

This is probably the ultimate MMORPG license. Unless someone comes out with one based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I'm sure Sony and LucasArts will have cornered the market

How about Star Trek? There's probably room for an MMORPG there.

Some classic SF could be interesting. For example, Asimov's Foundation series, or Niven's Known Space series. The ringworld alone has room for a rather large game.

There's also alternate history, which is what Mythic is doing with their next MMORPG. That one will be set in a galaxy where the Roman Empire survived, and became a galactic empire.

I'm strangely unexcited by SWG. For me, Star Wars is something to watch, not something to do. It's only really interesting to me in that they are supposedly using much of the same engine the EQ2 will use, so as an EQ player, I'm curious to see it.

I hope Verant have learnt from EQ

[DrXym]

EQ started off well, but was utterly ruined by its topheavy nature and Verant's seeming total indifference to fixing fundamental game problems. Four years on and the UI still sucks, the game mechanics have not changed noticeably and unless you're a twinker spending hours playing a day, repetitively learning trade skills, running from one end of the world to other for some NODROP item, camping for hours for a spawn you'll never advance far. For a while it feels like fun, but after a while it dawns on you that you're just repeating the same actions over and over.

I hope for their sake that Star Wars: Galaxies is different. Fix the damned bugs rather than compounding them, don't let the game economy be screwed, don't let the game get topheavy, and have a 'live' world where there is no need to camp spots or waste hours waiting for something to happen.

Re:Sounds rather interesting

[the_2nd_coming]

damn...I think that they are realy working hard at keeping this game universe somthing that can continue very nicely....the fact that a very small percentage of players will ever become a jedi based on hard coded probabilities makes it that much better, not to mention the active hunting by the imperial guard...I am realy excited now....if I could only afford to pay for the game service.

Re:1st dibs

[silicon_synapse]

If there were Diplomats and Mob Bosses in these games I would actually play.

Not sure about diplomats, but you can enter politics. Each town needs a mayor. No mob bosses since the Hutt faction got cut but maybe in an expansion. You can be a smuggler though. Take a look at the professions list. It's quite interesting.

Character class balance

[xixax]

So in the intersts in getting a universe not composed entirely of Jedi knoghts, will the most powerful character end up being an Ewok bountyhunter with droid specialisations?

Xix.

Re:1st dibs

[Codifex Maximus]

So, lets see. Being a "Jedi" is nothing more than passing a midiclourian (sp?) test, becoming an apprentice and eventually being recognised as a Jedi by your elder Jedi?

Does not being a Jedi then mean you are not allowed to be endowed with the "Force"? I think not. You could be a non-Jedi force aware person or even start your own branch of the Sith. Couldn't you? :)

I fear that I have no insider knowledge of the new game but I played Everquest till my fingers hurt. I trust the Sony "Visioneers" to do "The Right Thing" for a balanced game. Some may not like it but balance in game and the force must be maintained - otherwise, it's not worth playing at all - by anyone.~ YMMV

How will they model the autocracy?

[Goonie]

As I understand it (haven't played them so I'm not sure) Everquest and the like were quite free-form. However, the Star Wars universe, as well as any number of clans and races who fall into temporary alliances, contains one huge, honkin, authoritarian Empire. Now, I'm sure that military and civilian leaders in the Empire had all sorts of extracurricular activities going on, but how do you model the obligations of being a cog in the Imperial wheel in a MMORPG? Or does the game simply ignore this aspect of the Star Wars universe?