Star Wars Galaxies - Fact-Checking, Fan Style

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to this interesting LA Times article regarding Star Wars Galaxies. As well as plenty of background information, the piece talks about how detail-orientated beta testers of the forthcoming Sony-published PC MMORPG are, and includes this choice quotation: "..a German fan was outraged that the cockpit dimensions of an X-wing star fighter varied from those in the movies. Blackman looked into it and found that the game's version was indeed off -- by 6 centimeters."

Comments

wow 6 whole cm!

[Tumbleweed]

Then he's gonna be _really_ pissed when he finds out the Millennium Falcon's size is off in all published Star Wars stuff from that of the movie set by about 40%!

Still, it IS the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, so allowances should be made. :)

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[Tumbleweed]

That's calculating in the wrong direction - things get bigger & heavier.

Plus, the Falcon travels through hyperspace, which wouldn't cause those effects - only relatavistic flight (_near_ the speed of light) would cause that.

From what I've read, the discrepancies came in when they redesigned the whole Falcon after the fact, unlike all the other sets used in the first movie. No big deal to me, but it makes for some interesting reading - apparently when they were trying to come up with a new design (the Rebel Blockade Runner was what evolved out of the original Falcon design) - it was good ole George who held up a hamberger and said something along the lines of "make it like this". Hilarious. Plus they had originally envisioned it flying in a different axis, rather than how it wound up - too weird imagining all that now.

I also really like looking at the "Art of Star Wars" books to see what all the original concepts were. Sometimes much cooler designs lost out to what we finally got to see, so they're a must-see for any SW fan.

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[JonMisurda]

That's calculating in the wrong direction - things get bigger & heavier.

You're right about the heavier, but the parent is rigth about the length... things get shorter and heavier. In fact, the formula is called the Lorenz Contraction.

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Han Solo brags that he can make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. This is another example of Bad Astronomy; like a light year, a parsec is a unit of distance, not time."

Maybe that's how far he had to travel to find somebody who cared.

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[il_diablo]

Han Solo brags that he can make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. This is another example of Bad Astronomy; like a light year, a parsec is a unit of distance, not time.

Interestingly enough, this is explained in the books about Han Solo's pre Star Wars career, cleverly known as the Han Solo Chronicles (IIRC).

It's six novels. In one, he makes the Kessel run, and skirts so close to the Maw (the collection of black holes that makes the Kessel Run so dangerous/lucrative) that he experiences a bending of space. Thus, shorter distance. QED.

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[daeley]

Look, if you're going to start quoting the classics, at least get your measurements right. As every geek worth his/her/its salt knows, there's no such thing as 140 bwiddlethorms, since the bwiddle- (of course, bwaddthle- in the original Outer C!thornic branch from which all dialects in that quadrant descend) prefix can only refer to quantities in multiples of 90 (90, 180, 270, etc.). Don't get me started on the hideously non-canon 'secron' -- that's like saying the Ascetic Malform was a Xenirrific Frumphf, for Ulp's sake! And you call yourself a geek: zappydonks, I say to you, megalazappydonks!

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[rjh]

There once was a professor named Fisk
Who made love with an action so brisk
The Lorentz Contraction
Came into action
And shortened his rod to a disk.

-- Isaac Asimov

Re:wow 6 whole cm!

[willr7]

Shut the frell up, shazbot breath! Fudu you!

I think you meant to call him bantha poodu.

Ph33r the hardcore star wars geeks

[Kethinov]

What's next? Wookies don't make the wookie sound right? The pull of gravity is off in comparison to the total mass of the planet they're on? Hyperspeed is measured in incorrect units? Light saber power sources have incorrect yields?

Sony is messing with the wrong kind of geek here. Unless they get it just right they're not satisfied. Between Star Wars and Star Trek you can't get a more hardcore geek.

Re:Ph33r the hardcore star wars geeks

[Kethinov]

I wish they would make a Star Trek MMORPG. They could set it in the TNG timeline so it doesn't step on future storylines in movies and series.

What would you do in a Star Trek MMORPG? Instead of powerleveling it would be power ranking.

Step 1. create new character with L337 name.

Step 2. power-promote yourself from cadet to admiral.

Step 3. become an inter-galactic warlord poising your fleet of L337 ships against your friends.

The problem is, in a Star Trek MMORPG you'd have to be some kind of an outlaw or wildcard character like Quark in DS9. You could never be a starfleet officer or any kind of galactic government officer because everything you'd do would theoretically be dictated by an order from a higher commanding officer... how's that fun?

SWG's concept works because you can create a character in a vast star wars like world. You're not bound by orders or uniform oath. :)

Re:Ph33r the hardcore star wars geeks

[Babbster]

The problem is, in a Star Trek MMORPG you'd have to be some kind of an outlaw or wildcard character like Quark in DS9. You could never be a starfleet officer or any kind of galactic government officer because everything you'd do would theoretically be dictated by an order from a higher commanding officer... how's that fun?

SWG's concept works because you can create a character in a vast star wars like world. You're not bound by orders or uniform oath. :)

Actually, your perception of what things will be like in SWG is just like what could be done in a Star Trek MMORPG. After all, the Empire has buckets of Imperial Star Destroyers but you'r not going to play a crewer on one of them becaue, as you said, that would be boring. It would be the same as being an ensign on a Starfleet ship.

BUT, you could still be a Federation citizen just as you can be an Imperial citizen in SWG. Furthermore, you could be in Starfleet just as you can be in the Imperial military. You're looking at it as everything being done at the behest of a commanding officer, while in the MMORPG tradition you could look at it as being assigned a quest.

For example, let's say you're an Imperial trooper. You receive a mission from a superior officer telling you to go and secure blaster batteries. You're told that a particular merchant has these batteries, so you go to see him. The merchant resists your Imperial authority (or is an agent of the Rebellion) and therefore you must kill him (and presumably his cronies), locate the batteries and either bring them back or call in for a pickup once the area is secure. Boom, you've just followed orders from a superior officer and it could very well have been fun to do so. It's little different from going to a guild leader in Everquest and receiving a mission to go out and kill giant possums for their fur so that coats can be made.

As I noted above, similar things could be done if you were a Starfleet officer in a Star Trek MMORPG. An example might be that a settlement of sentient lifeforms was found on a planet but the ship that detected it didn't have time to investigate further. Your mission might be to go to this planet, locate the settlement and make contact with them if permitted by The Prime Directive (or take close-in tricorder readings for later analysis). Along the way, you might run into hostile wild animals, Breen who are active for some reason on the planet, etc. Again, the "orders" can simply be equated to being given a quest.

Making things to do in an MMORPG isn't tough, regardless of the setting. The tough part is making sure there's enough to do and injecting enough variety into the tasks to keep people interested.

Why not an Alternate Universe?

[Prien715]

It seems absurd to create a universe in which the players have absolutely no control about the future of it. There's no heroism when something just "has" to happen. For example, if no one joins the rebel alliance, the rebels will still win. If no one joins the imperial army, the rebels will still have a tough fight. Why not just say, this is the star wars universe but things could happen differently than in the movies? Wouldn't it be more fun if you could try to kill Darth Vader even if you had only a small chance of succeeding?

Re:Why not an Alternate Universe?

[Babbster]

It would be even more absurd to be able to kill Darth Vader only to have him "respawn" a week later.

The biggest problem with making the game world completely malleable by the players is best described in two parts:

1. Players who aren't online when a galaxy-shattering event occurs (like killing Darth Vader or Princess Leia being turned to the dark side or whatever) miss out. As in my first sentence, it seems like it would be no more fun or involving if those characters reverted (back to life or back to good in my examples) after a specified time, effectively resetting the game.

2. If the game changes too significantly (and doesn't reset) then it destroys what the developers have created. To use the example of Everquest, if Freeport were permitted to be destroyed by dark elvish players then everything the developers put in Freeport (including quests, NPCs, dock, etc.) is lost content that would need to be replaced. The developer would essentially have to build a new game multiple times just to keep up with "Players Gone Wild."

In an MMORPG like this, you either accept the internal logic or you don't. If you don't, it's probably just not the right game for you. For a bigger influence on events in the Star Wars universe, you might want to watch for Knights of The Republic - single-player RPG - coming later this year for Xbox (and I believe for PC as well, though that version will come a bit later).

Full text...

[Tyrseil]

Kill Darth Vader You May Not

What would Yoda say? The upcoming 'Star Wars' online game limits players' actions to adhere to creator George Lucas' vision.

By Alex Pham, Times Staff Writer

Can the virtual flutter of a mynock's wings change the course of history in a galaxy far, far away?

Kurt Goetzinger knows the answer is no, but that won't stop him from trying anyway.

Like thousands of "Star Wars" fans, Goetzinger has spent the quarter-century since George Lucas' science fiction legend premiered trying to re-create a slice of that galaxy in everyday life -- such as the "well over $1,000" he says it took to make his own suit of Imperial storm trooper armor.

This summer, Goetzinger will get the chance to work, play and fight in a virtual galaxy created just for fans like him. "Star Wars Galaxies," the first multi-player online computer game set amid Lucas' mythical star systems, will let fans work the vapor farms of Tatooine, tend the cantinas of Mos Eisley and even skirmish with Imperial troops.

What it won't allow them to do, though, is vanquish Darth Vader, destroy the Death Star or marry Princess Leia Organa. Or anything else that might somehow knock off course the scrupulously controlled story of the Skywalker bloodline.

Multi-player online games have flourished in recent years because they allow players to create their own legends as they slay dragons and conquer evil. But in "Galaxies," the legends already have been written in indelible ink.

That doesn't deter Goetzinger, who relishes even a bit part in Lucas' grand drama.

"Some people believe their fate is always determined," said Goetzinger, a 35-year-old executive at a Nebraska nonprofit. "So why try? Why not just chill and play games? But we do try."

From the outset three years ago, the programmers and designers assigned to "Galaxies" knew that setting an online game against the backdrop of "Star Wars" would be both a blessing and a curse. And as one of the most recognizable stories in popular culture, "Star Wars" would attract players.

But that story is so guarded by Lucas that every creature and relationship in "Star Wars" -- from the butterfly-like mynocks to the romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia -- is canonized in the company's official 12,000-entry database to ensure consistency in the ever-expanding body of movies, novels, comic books and video games.

"Video games have to allow for multiple outcomes," said Howard Rothman, president of Lucas Licensing Ltd. "There's no way to make a game with a predetermined outcome because it would be boring. So how do you open it up to create a fun and rich experience and still hold true to the universe?"

With earlier Lucas games set in the "Star Wars" universe, designers simply wrote the story and players followed it. For instance, if the game called for players to attack an Imperial base, they either succeeded or failed. And they could play over and over until they won.

Multi-player online games are different. In games such as "EverQuest," which does not have to fit within the confines of an existing story, more than 400,000 players from around the world pay $10 a month to create virtual communities. If someone wants to be a warrior, the games include plenty of quests on which to embark. But if a player wants to be a merchant and just trade goods, he or she can do that too.

The attraction is the interaction between players and the ability to create history, even if it all unfolds on the silicon of a computer server. That's possible in a fantasy role-playing game such as "EverQuest," which started with a clean slate.

Lucas executives, though, feared the chaos unfettered "Star Wars" fans could unleash. What if players decided to create a Wookiee boy band that sings stupid tunes? What if players staged plays that depict Yoda as a drug dealer? What if they started a religious sect that preaches Han Solo is a coward?

Most game proposals are 25 pages long. Not so for "Galaxies

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't any player usable spacecraft until the Space Expansion pack... also in the beta I haven't seen any X-Wings up that close, so my guess is that this article is BS.

Star Wars scale is not well understood.

[NanoGator]

What I find amusing about topics like this is that fanatics will get into nitpicks like that, but won't get into conversations that make the universe seem weaker.

A huge huge discrepency in all three of the original movies involves the speed of light and how fast ships travel in relation to it. Most of the rebuttals are like "It's space jargon" or "if you read this book, then it rationalizes it completely." or "Uh he really didn't mean that." etc. Well there's a much simpler explanation that doesn't require reading a dull book. The Star Wars galaxy is very small. Small, as in "The Galaxy is on Orion's Belt" small. Scale everything down like that, and suddenly the speed of light is better than warp-drive. You can travel inter-stellar with a disabled hyperdrive to go visit your back-stabbing buddy. You can even survive a fall out of a moving vehicle or a 30-foot drop to the ground while tied together with a group of people without breaking bones!

I've had a difficult time getting people who'd be interested (aka fanatics) in this idea, mainly because they don't like the idea that the Empire couldn't possibly take on the Federation from Star Trek. I shit you not, they are overly sensitive to situations like that. Suddenly, making sense is no longer important if Captain Picard wouldn't even be able to see Darth Vader!

I have to admit, though, that the most amusing thing about this idea is that people will actually call me names over it.

Bobcat Goldthwait said it best...

[TrebleJunkie]

and includes this choice quotation: "..a German fan was outraged that the cockpit dimensions of an X-wing star fighter varied from those in the movies. Blackman looked into it and found that the game's version was indeed off -- by 6 centimeters."

As is oft heard on The Bob and Tom Show, Bob (Bobcat) Goldthwait said it best about rabid Star Wars fans:

"Have any of you nerds ever seen a vagina?! Because if you had, you'd throw that Stormtrooper cookie jar right out the window!!!"

Just to be evil...

[stefanlasiewski]

Blackman looked into it and found that the game's version was indeed off -- by 6 centimeters.

Just to be evil, they should adjust the cockpit size by only 5 centimeters.