Slashdot Mirror
Lucasarts Through With Sony?
pdawerks writes "Heard through the grapevine: Apparently Lucasarts is displeased with the way that SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) has handled Star Wars' MMORPG Galaxies. The day after the JTL expansion goes live, they plan to announce the second expansion pack and the divorce between SOE and Lucasarts." This appears to be a complete rumor. However, I found corroborating rumormongering at SWG Warcry and Second Life Herald. Lucasarts has previously lessened their developer stable, casting doubt on this idea. I can't imagine Lucasarts could do a worse job with the game than SOE has, though.
I played SWG early on. Ironically I found the game to be so immersive and creative when it came to the realism of the world, that the gameplay itself took a back seat. I think this is a case of some great softare that has critically flawed game design.
Then again, it's entirely possible that SWG may be the most incredible MMORPG ever conceived, and because it seems to rely so much on player-generated content, it may take years before the game matures and shows what it's capable of.
However, the brilliance (or lack thereof) of the game may be moot. The other night I was in a club with a group of people and there was a Ms. Pac Man cocktail table game in the bar that people were lining up to play. Sometimes I think today's games have become so complex they've negated their value.
When you're playing a game that has 5000+ pages of documentation, with a minority hardcore community that considers you a n00b if you don't know that ALT-SHIFT-PgUp in combination with the alternative UI loaded and the spatial relativity ability received from completing the Lord Eladril quest will improve your defensive attack posture, you have to begin to wonder whether real life demoralization isn't preferable?