Star Wars Galaxies - Release Date Announced

DCookie writes "It's official! The highly-anticipated PC MMORPG, Star Wars Galaxies, is set to hit the shelves on June 26th. The NDA for the Beta will most likely be lifted in the next few days as well, so be prepared for more info about the game soon!" The press release also has info on the subscription plans, which range from $12.00 to $14.99 monthly, depending on how many months you buy at once - the game will retail for $49.95 and include one free month's play.

Comments

Game without a purpose

[stefanlasiewski]

Hmm, last article was Robots without a Cause (products without a real purpose), and this article is about a game without a real purpose, that after spending $15 a month and wasting countless hours playing the game, you still feel unfufilled.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with playing games now and then, but I'm sure that plenty of game addicts (myself included) can talk about what a life sucker these games can be.

Don't buy! not for the first few months anyways

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in beta, and the game is really unfinished. There needs to be a lot of tweaking done before it is ready. Give it a few months and it'll get there and be enjoyable. But right now it's only slightly better than AO was at launch.

Re:I hope its not the Sims

[raygundan]

Because the fun in the Sims was being a control freak, and doing whatever you wanted with your Sims. In the online game, you can't really do that-- everybody else does what they want. And you have to work (do really boring repetitive tasks) to get money.

Sims: Make fake people do what you want.

Sims Online: The worst repetitive parts of an RPG, minus the plotline, plus all the fun of lamers yelling at eachother in a poorly-designed chatroom with no scrollback. And no control over anybody else, since they're all real too.

In short, it simply can't be the same game online.
You have to wonder why nobody pointed this out.

Re:Don't buy! not for the first few months anyways

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also in the beta and agree. The game performs very well, but is way to complicated and requires too much time to get anywhere.

I really tried hard to like the game, but it's just too tedious.

Does anyone realize just how AWFUL this will be?

[DarkFencer]

Does anyone realize just how AWFUL this will be? Take Verant's atrocious customer service record, add in tons of StarWars fanboys, and add the highest monthly fee around for a MMORPG (Everquest Legends excluded) and you get the train wreck that will be Star Wars Galaxies!

I'll be avoiding this like the plague thank you very much, though I will keep up on it to watch the train wreck develop. This could be a worse launch then Anarchy Online!

Error in headline

[Snowspinner]

It should properly read "Star Wars: Galaxies to begin charging for beta June 26th."

But, then, I'm cynical, jaded, and broken.

Re:Don't buy! not for the first few months anyways

[Jahf]

Sounds like the early days of Anarchy Online ... actually, sounds like the later days of AO, too.

I gave on on AO after making repeated bug reports only to have the bug forums wiped not once but twice. After reposting I folded and retired. It was a real shame ... I enjoyed the game enough to work on hacks like skinning the interface and making a better in-game map. But the bugs that were in the final beta never got fixed and it made travel and such a royal pain.

I got a free month awhile back and logged in to see if anything had changed ... nope. Not to completely badmouth, they did add quite a bit, but the core issues were still there. I got another free month recently and asked around before reinstalling the software and ... yep ... still bugged maps and travel. Not worth the reinstall.

Here's hoping SW:Galaxies learned from those lessons. The Star Wars material is not enough to survive on alone. Especially after Episode I and II having been such a disappointment.

Why the retail price?

[afabbro]

I really hate the MMORG model: $XX at the retail store + monthly fee. Why can't they just let people download the game (or buy it for $10)? $50 is a lot to gamble on a game you might not like after a month.

Yeah, I know - it's to squeeze more money out of Joe Consumer. But I still hate it. I suppose with any game you're taking the risk that you won't like it or will get tired of it quickly.

I think of Diablo II - great game that's fun even without the online experience. And they don't charge for that. So if a game company is going to sell a game that has *only* an online experience, why charge for the $50 shiny box?

I'll pass.

Re:Why the retail price?

[sweetooth]

There is no reason to pay for distribution. With a game like this, Sony and/or Lucas could EASILY distribute the game online or directly. If the game has any hope of success, they'll have to be making enough money to reimburse the development costs.

That's right because bandwidth is free.... oh wait.. it isn't. Even if they set up a bunch of servers on high speed connections and add bit torrent links there is the problem of distribution, and it's expenses. It may not be as expensive to provide the game in a downloadable format, or it may be just as expensive, I haven't seen any formal statistics on the subject. It is obvious however that there is a cost associated with both the traditional method of distribution and internet distribution. It also completly ignores those people that cannot download the images due to a lack of adequate bandwidth. Of course you could distribute in both mediums, but that will probably increase the cost of traditional distribution due to decreased volume. I have a hard time believing that those increased costs will be offset by any reduction in cost due to internet based distribution.

I've said this a dozen times already, but I guess I'll say it again. There are plenty of people willing to pay the full retail box price and still pay the monthly fee for these games. If nothing else, why should these companies change the model if they don't feel they are losing a significant number of customers. The fact that a few people bitch about the price of the boxed copy and don't buy the game is probably not the biggest concern of the bean counters when it comes to the bottom line as that group of people is clearly in the minority. If they weren't I'm fairly certain we would start seeing alternative distribution methods. If you don't think that these companies are willing to change thier distribution methods go take a look at the box sizes of older games and then compare them to the newer smaller boxes you see on all the store shelves. It may have taken a long time for that to happen, but it is progressing rapidly at this point. If enough people decide that they aren't going to play the games because of the initial cost the distributors may reduce the initial cost. Until then don't expect anything to change.

If you want to know for you sure you might want to contact Funcom as they had downloadable versions of AO though at the full retail price. Though I doubt they will give that information out.

A soon as there is no tredmill

[Shihar]

I'll play the first game with no leveling tred mill. I have a life, pure and simple. I can't afford to keep up. I might be able to fit a marathon 6 hour run during the weekends, but when it comes to the weekdays 1 hour is being optimistic. Simply put, I can't keep up with a 16 year old kid with no job, no girlfriend, and nothing better to do who can play over 40 hours a week. So I have simply stopped trying. As soon as a MMORPG comes out that appeals to me even though I will never be able to pump 40 hours a week into it, I'll buy it. Until that day, screw MMORPGs. I want a game to play in my spare time, not a game that replaces my social life.