The Saga Of Star Wars Galaxies Recounted

Thanks to GameSpy for its three-part article discussing the 'long and storied history' of PC-based MMO Star Wars Galaxies, noting: "Regarded as one of the most ambitious MMOGs ever launched and greeted with hype spawned from decades of movies, no other game has had a more difficult road than Galaxies." The piece goes on to argue: "The most conservative estimates of Galaxies' stable player base estimates approximately 100,000 active players", although Sony Online's chief creative officer Raph Koster disagrees with that figure on Waterthread.org, countering: "GameSpy is way off. We get more uniques in a day than that, much less subscribers." The article concludes: "Star Wars: Galaxies attracted many, many people to MMOGs who had never tried one before. Many were put off by the initial lack of content. Despite the oft-stated fantasy of 'living in the Star Wars galaxy,' what many players truly want is to have a Star Wars adventure." Update: 03/16 16:49 GMT by S : John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, has mailed us with official comment: "Star Wars Galaxies has much more than double the number of subscribers quoted on GameSpy. For the record, the title is doing very, very well and is the second largest MMO in the North American market."

Comments

The joys of creative editing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"My character worked to explore every last crevice, be a supplier for a couple of merchants and lead a Rebel guild. He became one of the first on Ahazi to get the 'Mark of Intellect'. I did every possible thing you could conceive of except change professions."
- Dave A., Jedi, Ahazi

Looks like an editor clearly chopped off part of this quote.

The missing part probably goes something like this:

"I did every possible thing you could conceive of except change professions and I still hadn't unlocked my jedi slot. Then I found one of those holocron thingies after killing about a million local toughs outside a starport on Corellia. It told me I had to be a master dancer. So I'd log in every morning after server reset and AFK macro in Theed. Once I made master dancer I still hadn't opened that %^$&**(%$# FS-slot. Back to killing local toughs outside the starport. Finally after 2 weeks of this I got another holocron. It told me I had to become a master chef. I wanted to shoot myself. Anyways I ground my way to master chef and surprise, surprise, I still hadn't unlocked the FS-slot. I decided that rather than wasting any more time hunting for a holocron I'd just grind my way through all the professions. After grinding through armorsmith, weaponsmith, swordsman, TK, tailor, image designer, carbineer, fencer and finally architect I managed to open a force sensitive slot."

Re:I played the first month and I wont go back...

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangely enough, there are some people who want to play as an ewok, and also a group of players who are using bothans to emulate jawas.

somehow this doesn't suprise me considering who their user base is.

Re:It was worse than that!

[Alkaiser]

"On top of that there was the daily 2 hour lunch, that we usually took at a strip club."

I KNEW IT!

Here's the relevant quote from the review:

"Animations are very nice. (the guys at SOE must have logged countless hours in exotic dance clubs...all under the guise of doing research for the Entertainer class.)"

I was SOOOO onto you guys...

Re:I don't think things are going to get better...

[BlindMellon]

>>I still have yet to be scanned by a probe droid. Too easy.