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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?"
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 ..
"Old man yells at systemd"
I notice this is being published (?) by Sony. Does anyone know if there'll be a PS2 version?
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.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
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.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
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:
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.
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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 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.