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Raph Koster On Star Wars Galaxies

Posted by simoniker on from the kooky-wookies-and-wifi-jawas dept.

Thanks to UGO.com for their interview with Raph Koster, creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, discussing the launch period for the much-discussed PC MMORPG. He suggests that: "The launch was a little rockier than we'd like, so we've tried to be really proactive.... We're making a real concerted effort to constantly improve the game", and talks about new features: "Another big thing that's going in is gambling. So we're working up to Sabbac [the game in which Han Solo wins the Millenium Falcon from Lando]... We're gonna be adding slot machines and roulette." Also touched on are the mission diversity complaints: "The missions were never intended to be rich and complex and deep... they're intended to only take a little while, not be incredibly complex. But, of course, players have found them to be a great way of making money."

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Online RPGs by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    My impression of the MMOs is that gameplay is rarely the strong point. EverQuest has little gameplay-wise to distinguish itself from Statbuilder. I do not know why that has to be. Multi-Player FPS gameplay is awesome. But it has yet to translate to online RPG-style games. So if that is true, story and plot seem to be the kind of things that make playing these games fun. They provide all of the variation. So why the hell does he say this in the interview:
    You know, that's one of the things that's been an interesting balancing act. The missions were never intended to be rich and complex and deep. The whole point of them was, "Hey, I've got an hour to play. I want to jump in. Give me something to do now." So they're intended to only take a little while, not be incredibly complex. But, of course, players have found them to be a great way of making money. Literally, 80% of the money in the game is made out of missions. That's a huge number. We'd really rather people...you know, the NPC's have quests! And they're like multi-leg things.
    What exactly is the point of money in a game that is no fun to play? Would the ability to become a millionare have made Dai-Katana more fun? (Yes, because anything would have made that piece of shit more fun, but that's not my point.) There is innovation going into these games in some areas; but it is not going into the right areas.
  2. As much as I've bashed SWG by sweetooth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they can get thier shit together and get Asherons Call style monthly updates rolling (better than this months which is absolutely worthless so far) I'll stick around for a long time. I played AC for 3 years and stuck around for the people I met and the monthly updates. Not every month was a great update, but there were always updates. For $10 bucks a month I felt I got my monies worth and played two accounts for much of that time. Unfortunatly the end for me was when the problems with the community that remained in the game over shadowed the updates Turbine was creating. Running around with hundreds of other people that were all maxed out in levels and having every quest solved within a couple of hours of the monthly patch sucked.

  3. Heading in the Right Direction... by Ka0s23 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I do think that SWG was rushed out to say the least, it seems to me now to be headed in the right direction, despite the large volume of "whiners". As I've experienced so far, SWG really challenges its players to adapt to the ever changing world, whether intended or not. I started as a rifleman, working my way up through master marksman and master rifleman. Then as all riflemen know came the T-21 nerf, and my character was needless to say pretty hosed. Rather then bitch and moan I simply took my character in a new direction and tried out becomming an architect. I submitted my opinion to the devs that the T-21 nerf was extreme and now severly hurt the rifleman class, and went on my merry was building houses. As any other riflemen out there know the T-21 nerf was recently lifted and I can go about happily hunting again. My advice, don't bother with SWG if your just gonna cry and quit if your perfect character gets slighted during one patch. This is one of the few cases I have seen in any online game where the developers listened to the gameing community and reversed a nerfing. So enjoy the game and be constructive with you suggestions for the devs, they just might listen. Flooding the forums with "This game sucks now, I can't have 3 rancors" really doesnt help.