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Star Wars Galaxies Technical Difficulties
Thanks to several readers for pointing to a SWGalaxies.net post summarizing the multiple technical difficulties on both registration and game servers for the PC MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, which launched within the last few hours. The registration servers were down or extremely slow through the afternoon of the 26th, and official word was "..a combination of hardware failures and some other unforeseen technical problems resulted in a severe load on the registration servers." These issues were resolved later on the 26th, and many were able to register their characters, but unfortunately all of the game servers are currently (11.30PM PST) down, as Sony "..found a serious problem with our database that is being worked on as we speak." We'd recommend watching the official site for more information as it happens..
I'm a longtime Anarchy Online player (although I have taken a few vacations, the most recent a 6-month romp), it used to bug me to no end when people would get on the public channels simply to rant and rave over how horrible AO was back in the day (it personally didn't bother me a whole lot, it certainly pissed some people off to no end though) and that SWG was going to be akin to the Second Coming. Seeing SWG fall flat on its face at launch makes me so happy. I know none of the fanboys will equate this at all to the problems that AO (and every other MMOG out there) had in its initial stages, but at least it's a bit of justice for me.
I also glanced over the videos of SWG on one of the larger gaming sites (no clue which it was), I find it hilarious how glamorous they try to make the game look. The video I watched was basically someone running a quest. They talked to a couple people, one NPC (I assume) went with the character while they hunted another NPC down. A big, dramatic firefight ensues. The two NPC's and the PC go at it (read: stand still in the field) with their pistols, while the player's doing all kinds of sweeping moves with the camera and such to try to make the fight more interesting than it was.
There's been a longstanding problem with MMOG's (at least MMORPG's) in that combat is always a pretty central part of the game (tradeskills in some are right up there though, but typically the tradeskills facilitate combat, so it all comes back to that) and it's really pretty difficult to make combat interesting... It's evolved from the early days of Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior where you'd have your good guys lined up on one side of the screen and the bad guys lined up on the other side, you tell everyone to ATTACK, sit back, and watch the fun. It really hasn't changed too much since then, either. Sure, it's gotten much prettier and a little more complex in terms of setup, but once your characters start doing their thing, there isn't a whole lot for the player to do. I wait for the day that someone finally comes up with this brilliant idea to really draw the player in to combat... AO at least keeps me somewhat involved since my character sucks enough that when soloing I need to frantically heal myself while trying to keep a constant flow of damage heading towards the object of my frustrations...
1. Game goes "live".
2. Players flood the servers.
3. Shit breaks.
4. Impatient nerds flood every line of communication with complaints.
5. More shit breaks. The nerds become as problematic as the original tech problems
6. Stuff starts to work again.
7. GOTO 2 (repeat a few times)
8. A month passes, and then the not-so-nerdy players sign up with no problem, and cruise into the game painlessly.
that you can only fire in certain positions (behind the MOB, to the side of the MOB)
that you can only fire after other special moves for combos
that you can only fire if you parry or block
that's the warrior ones I know about, other classes have their own.
Makes combat slightly more interesting
SWG combat is okay but it does seem silly two humanoids standing 2m away from each other blasting with guns until one runs out of hitpoints.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I bought PlanetSide last nite to curb my itch to grab SWG. I'm glad I did, because PlanetSide looks amazing and seems like something I'd be more likely to stick with for a while.
At the same time, I hit a bug in the tutorial where the continents were locked so I couldn't use the map interface to tell my dropship where to go. Since completing each tutorial opens the next one (after the first two), I can't finish the tutorial section.
I logged onto the game, ran around for a little while to see if I could find some area where I could practice a little (one of the tutorials mentioned a firing range or something like that), but instead got run over by a teammate in a vehicle (yes, I did get out of his way, he turned to get me), and generally didn't find anything to do without going straight to battle. Then when I decided to make my way back towards the center of the base to hitch a ride out to battle, I got disconnected from the server.
All of that being said, I'm hoping it'll be a better experience once I get to really playing. The graphics are certainly amazing, and the controls feel like your fairly standard fps controls.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
So the fact that nothing runs as expected is supposed to be expected? That makes no sense!
Here's the thing. This isn't a first gen MMORPG. This is what, a third generation game? Have they learned nothing from the past failures? I mean, they limited distribution for the first week/month to avoid having a glut of users trying to get on and crash the servers, and it's not like they can't do a little math to figure out how many users they should expect.
This sort of behaviour has become commonplace, and as a result will never be fixed. The sad thing is, they're only hurting their real fan base with crap like this. I guess somewhere someone said, "Well, these are the hardcore guys that have been waiting three years after 2..3..i forget how many delays. They'll do anything to play this game, so we can do whatever we want the first week. They'll still be there."
Piss poor.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Turned out we had a set of images in the enrolment system that totalled about 150k when they should have totalled 10k.
This is why users should harbor some forgiveness in their hearts for a new system. It is basically impossible for humans to track every aspect of a complex system, such as computer software.
However, when an ill-concieved website never gets fixed and, even after one full year, it still breaks and is slow and unpredictable, then heads should roll. (I'm speaking from my experience of having to use rediculous--and embarrasing, if public--"money saving" intranet websites each week)
Oh, one more (off-topic) thing: it seems to be trendy, now, for companies to put pay stubs on-line without mailing the official documents. Print the damn things out! I fear what would happen to employees who suspect a pay-related issue and have no documentation to back up their claim. Complacently not printing out pay stubs just leaves open the probability of missed problems and corporate abuse of electronic data.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Seeing as they SWORE the game was ready to launch.
Another poster hit on a good point, this ISNT a 1st gen MMORPG, this is from the PEOPLE THAT RUN EQ!!
This game SHOULD have came off without a hitch.
And the "well, technically speaking blah blah blah" isnt an argument, because MOST gamers (not all) know only the following...
1) buy game
2) install game
3) play game
4) happy
if you take out step 3, step 4 becomes "gee I wasted my money on this crap?! wtf?! this sucks"
Keep in mind, MOST stores wont let you return an opened MMORPG, because the key is used, so theres no reimbursement from the vendor if its sent back.
Shame on SOE for not having a smooth launch. Its rediculous.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I totally agree - you can claim that "You couldn't play EQ for the first 3 years!", but the fact of the matter is - there's examples of good launches out there - DAOC, Planetside, etc.
The standard excuses of "Oh, we really didn't think this many people would signup", or "There were undocumented bugs in the subscription system", should be translated as "We were getting so excited about finally starting to collect your money, we totally neglected working on subscription software/server stability for the last 3 weeks."
Motor city online was retired.
Ive been playing the beta (and wont be buying the full version BTW). One thing springs to mind.. Isn't Star Wars about space and space battles.. Xwing ships shooting past and such.. And thats what's completely missing from SWG. So you pay your money and pay your subscription for 18 months before you can do what you really bought the game to do.. fly ships and travel freely.. Damn what a turkey... A case of marketing over content