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Sony To Encase Half the Star Wars: Galaxies Servers In Carbonite

Impy the Impiuos Imp writes "Sony is apparently merging out of existence half its Star Wars: Galaxies servers. In spite of a number of innovative features (three health bars, choreograph-able dancing, music you can coordinate between several players, 'your own R2 unit and 3PO,' programmable droids, and so on), a complete overhaul of the combat system, designed to simplify it and make it more action-oriented, actually drove away more people than it attracted. It soon thereafter retired to that great, Sony one-fee-for-all stable of aging and also-rans in the sky. Still on life support, it was preceded in death by Sony foster brother The Matrix Online."

140 comments

  1. Innovative features by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I laughed out loud at "three health bars". Thank you for making my day, Impy.

    1. Re:Innovative features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      In a move borrowed from Gilette, Sony will relaunch as Star Wars Galaxies 2 with five health bars.

    2. Re:Innovative features by VGPowerlord · · Score: 4, Informative

      I played the game at launch... and 3 life bars is about right. If your health, action, or mind bar went below 0 you died and had to reload your clone.

      All 3 bars regenerated based on your stats, but you used action and mind points to perform specific actions... oh, those bars could also be damaged directly by other players (in PvP) or specific mobs.

      Even better, you needed other players to get rid of any "permanent" damage you took to said bars, which filled part of those bars with black.

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    3. Re:Innovative features by SandmanWAIX · · Score: 1

      Agreed. A most excellent summary. Pretty rare these days.

    4. Re:Innovative features by Linker3000 · · Score: 1

      Managed by Aloebi-won Kenobi

      --
      AT&ROFLMAO
    5. Re:Innovative features by Sj0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's nothing MY health bar has five bars AND VIBRATES!

      --
      It's been a long time.
    6. Re:Innovative features by Opportunist · · Score: 1, Interesting

      So essentially you had health, mana and endurance? Gee, now that's new. Or at least was, around 1990 before MUDs came into existance.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Innovative features by Dotren · · Score: 1

      So essentially you had health, mana and endurance? Gee, now that's new. Or at least was, around 1990 before MUDs came into existance.

      Lets face it, what else is there?

      Even if someone comes out with a game that calls them something completely different (indeed, as SWG did) we're still going to associate them with what we already know. Besides, these are easily identifiable and understood by most game players now.. why confuse things?

      Even to knew players, anyone who understands the concept of the words "health" and "endurance" and pretty quickly figure out how they relate to their character.

      SWG at least did something slightly different with them in that you could get "scars" or permanent damage to those bars that lowered your possible max until you got the damage repaired. I'm not saying this is a good system (I found it rather cumbersome and annoying) but at least they were trying something different.

    8. Re:Innovative features by rjhubs · · Score: 2, Interesting

      but in what other game could running out of mana kill you?

    9. Re:Innovative features by BobMcD · · Score: 1

      Because running out of mana has always been fatal?

    10. Re:Innovative features by Qzukk · · Score: 2, Informative

      but in what other game could running out of mana kill you?

      Star Ocean. Which is infuriating when you're at a low level and resurrection items are damned expensive, but not such a problem later in the game.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    11. Re:Innovative features by ImprovOmega · · Score: 1

      From an RPG perspective at least, several Final Fantasy bosses (FF6 at least specifically for sure) died when they ran out of mana. Sure, it wasn't your own party, but still it's not an entirely new concept.

    12. Re:Innovative features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      in the star ocean series running out of mana can kill you. There were actually a few bosses that it was easier to spam mana draining spells to kill it. Think of mana as spiritual energy. Sort of like if you try to do nothing but calculus problems for 8 hours your brain will just sort of shut down. no mana, character passes out (to my knowledge, only the Shin Megami Tensei series has a character actually die when they run out of hp. But that series makes it a point to have resurrection and such)

    13. Re:Innovative features by Chyeld · · Score: 1

      A. TFS was being sarcastic.
      B. How many MUDs 'killed' you when you ran out of mana or endurance?

    14. Re:Innovative features by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      > So essentially you had health, mana and endurance? Gee, now that's new.
      > Or at least was, around 1990 before MUDs came into existance.

      I'm not surprised if it was in old-school stuff, but for modern, 3D worlds, it was new.

      In any case, to expand on the description, different attacks could damage different bars. If any went below zero, you died.

      So the game had an interesting dynamic -- do you specialize in one attack type, or defense for that matter, or become a jack of all trades doing mediocre damage and defense in all three? Sooner or later you'll run across someone who's got your number.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    15. Re:Innovative features by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      In world of warcraft the net effect is the same, when a mage runs out of mana in PvP he is generally going to die, so you have to balance health against mana carefully.

    16. Re:Innovative features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shinobi?

    17. Re:Innovative features by NSN+A392-99-964-5927 · · Score: 1

      In a move borrowed from Gilette, Sony will relaunch as Star Wars Galaxies 2 with five health bars.

      I am Victor Kiam back from the dead. Remington Micro Screen shaves as close as a blade or your money back, sold at all good health bars.

      --
      All cows eat grass!
  2. When will they get it??? by cyberjock1980 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't release a game and then change everything about it. Add content and features, sure. But you never drastically change the game. People start to feel like they don't "know" the game and leave. You aren't going to attract new customers by touting something like "new improved attack system". They don't know about the old one so they can't judge how much better it is. And the people that don't like the changes will spread their opinions that it sucks.

    Get it right before you release it or deal with the consequences.

    1. Re:When will they get it??? by gbarules2999 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You don't release a game and then change everything about it.

      You clearly haven't played Star Wars Galaxies. That thing was a fucking cultural black hole. It needed to be plugged before we lost something important.

    2. Re:When will they get it??? by Fluffeh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You don't release a game and then change everything about it.

      You do if basically EVERYONE playing your game is asking that you do in fact change them. As a player, I wanted them to overhaul the combat system so that it actually promoted grouping with other players. That's the general consensus of everyone that played it. The downside was that while they did overhaul it, they totally repeated the same thing and made it ungroupable.

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      Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
    3. Re:When will they get it??? by Jartan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm going to have to disagree here. Drastic changes were very much needed. The problem is they tried to do totally new things inside the framework of their existing engine to save money. They basically tried to tack semi FPS gameplay onto a client that very much did not support it. Then on top of that the changes they wanted to make just sucked. If they had spent a bit more money on it and not tried to do stuff that was obviously stupid it would of worked fine.

    4. Re:When will they get it??? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 2, Funny

      You don't release a game and then change everything about it.
      ...
      Get it right before you release it or deal with the consequences.

      Mr. cyberjock1980? George Lucas is on line one for you.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    5. Re:When will they get it??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You don't release a game and then change everything about it.

      It sounds like they did a bang-up job of recreating the George Lucas Experience.

    6. Re:When will they get it??? by Imrik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just overhauling the combat system would have been reasonable, but they also scrapped the skill system that made the game unique.

    7. Re:When will they get it??? by sr8outtalotech · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The NGE was the worst ever 'patch'. It was designed to make the game console friendly. Sony had a player base that was using PCs and basically said fuck you guys were simplifying the game so that it's so boring you'll leave. It worked, I left and everyone I played with left.

    8. Re:When will they get it??? by lorenlal · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only if they had a compelling environment, interesting characters, but extremely unfortunate dialogue.

    9. Re:When will they get it??? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I think he's refering to the Jedi changes.

      Sony: ok, it was a bit harsh to make Jedis randomly, so ... let's make it so that everyone can roll a Jedi, no more randomness.
      Players: You WHAT? I rerolled a hundred times / paid $insane_amount on EBay for my Jedi! Fu.. you (ragequits)

      Sony: Ok, but to make Jedis at least halfway balanced, we install permadeath. So, a Jedi dies, he's dead for good.
      Players: You WHAT? Can't do that, your servers are stable like a pig on stilts, and your GM said he won't revive me for going LD. Screw you! (ragequits)

      Sony: Ok, fine, no more permadeath, we just balance Jedis to everyone else.
      Players: You WHAT? But Jedis are SPECIAL! Can't just make them "balanced" with a fuckin' healer bot! (ragequits)

      And so on.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    10. Re:When will they get it??? by dwiget001 · · Score: 1

      They drastically changed things roughly 2.5 months after launch.

      Then, they had the big wide ranging change about a year after that.

      In both cases, the game changed beyond recognition.

      I left after the 2.5 months after launch change. The game was buggy before and buggy after. Link deaths when changing server zones, pets getting stuck at server zone area changes, aggro mobs and NPCs in city zones killing unsuspecting newbs, etc.

      Plus, I am strictly a player vs. environment person, I hate player vs. player gaming, so that limited me greatly in SWG. Which is fine, I left not long after launch, laughed when I saw people bitching about the changes and nerf batting across the boards. I liked the idea of the game, but frankly, it was either poorly thought out initially, or was badly implemented (or possibly both).

    11. Re:When will they get it??? by navygeek · · Score: 1

      As a player, I wanted them to overhaul the combat system so that it actually promoted grouping with other players. That's the general consensus of everyone that played it.

      Uh, no? If it was the 'general consensus of everyone that played it', people wouldn't have abandoned ship 1) as soon as they announced the NGE, 2) once they deployed the NGE, 3) continued to leave in droves after the NGE had been out a while. People weren't abandoning the game NEARLY as fast before the combat revamp as after. I, along with the group I played with thought SWG 'Classic' was just fine the way it was. You could be exceedingly successful as a rifleman/creature handler, , or one of a dozen different types of crafters. The revamp destroyed that in a big, big way.

    12. Re:When will they get it??? by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't release a game and then change everything about it. Add content and features, sure. But you never drastically change the game. People start to feel like they don't "know" the game and leave. You aren't going to attract new customers by touting something like "new improved attack system". They don't know about the old one so they can't judge how much better it is. And the people that don't like the changes will spread their opinions that it sucks.

      That's the problem with MMO's. If I buy Knights of the Old Republic and love it, I might resent changes in Knights of the Old Republic 2. If so, I can just stick with the old game. But that's not the case with MMO's, you're stuck with the upgrade. I don't really see how this will change.

      It's actually kind of funny how chaotically divergent the reactions can be to elements within a game. When the game launches there's no debate, it is what it is and people experience it together for the first time, warts and all. For every element in the game you'll find people willing to fight to the death for or against it. And every time the developer tries to fix something it's like they just tried to eat someone's baby.

      The problems I've seen with games is either when they try to add features that really bring nothing to the game or when they try to simplify complexity that was actually a core part of what made the game interesting.

      4x games are a good example of this. It's basically an elaborate version of GO. Expand across the map, control territory, beat the enemies. There was a great game on the Palm that reduced this to the essential elements. You had a map with dots. The dots were planets. Each planet could be captured by a ship and a colony established. You have three resource allocations: factories, ships, and science. There was only one type of science and one type of ship.

      So from that point on you built your fleets and explored planets. More science meant your ships had greater range, had better saves against attacks and greater odds of hitting when fighting. Fights meant your stack of ships went against the enemy stack. You fire. If you hit, you get to fire again. Keep hitting, keep firing, one ship dead for every hit. Once you miss, the enemy gets to fire back. Numbers count but so does science. Low-tech fleets will just be cannon fodder.

      We're talking black and white graphics, no sound effects, but this is basically the essence of 4x games. And if you compare it to the classics like Master of Orion, Civilization, etc, you can see where more detail isn't always better. Civ had some problems with this. That's what made the console version so amazing. They were able to strip out a lot of the stuff that made the game more complex but not more fun and were able to bring out the essence of the game. Of course, for those who think the crufty bits are the best part, Civ4 is still out there but you're going to need a computer.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    13. Re:When will they get it??? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      unique != good.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    14. Re:When will they get it??? by cyberjock1980 · · Score: 1

      The point I was making is that they shouldn't have released it if it needed changes. You don't rewrite the game because your first iteration sucked. You should have made absolutely sure that what you had was what you wanted before you released it. This is where they apparently failed, or they didn't actually ask anyone how much it sucked. Regardless, they didn't plan accordingly and now they're paying the price.

    15. Re:When will they get it??? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Unfrtunatly they needed to be changed before release.
      A bunch of people looked at it, didn't like it and left. They aren't likely to come back any time soon no matter what you do. The ones that remained didn't pullin enough revenue.

      Sony had limited options. Make changes and hope people come back, or shut down.

      The biggest flaw is it wasn't true to what the fans expect from a SW game. To be important at the start and get on with important actions.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    16. Re:When will they get it??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      unique != good.

      Well IMHO it was better than the level-based characters, which is why I left after the NGE went live. If instead they just did the combat upgrade, I would still be a subscriber today.

    17. Re:When will they get it??? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 1

      The most fun I had was playing as a Dancer/Bio Engineer. For a while there you could be very creative with BE, and as a Dancer you could use macros to create coreographed dances - I did a few myself which were pretty entertaining. I also did good business building enhanced creatures for creature handlers and superior foods for fighters. Those last two were only possible some six months or more (my memory is a little hazy) into the game's release, because BE started out as utter crap.

      It would be fair to say that Star Wars Galaxies had players because of the name, and in spite of itself. As soon as they figured one thing out, they would break another. It was terrible, but some parts were fun and you pretty much played in spite of the overal game. You were there because you loved Star Wars, and maybe had a hope in the back of your mind that you might become a Jedi.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    18. Re:When will they get it??? by brkello · · Score: 1

      I disagree. Just you have to change it for the better. Every little change you make is going to piss of at least a few of your customers, no matter how good you are. They just managed to make things worse.

      --
      Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
    19. Re:When will they get it??? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Well, from my perspective, you're extremely unfortunate dialogue!

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    20. Re:When will they get it??? by Fozzyuw · · Score: 1

      You aren't going to attract new customers by touting something like "new improved attack system".

      You're not going to attract players when some other company say "hey, we're making an even BETTER Star Wars game" either. Galaxies will be dead shortly after launch of The Old Republic. Sony's more than likely knows this and is planning the phase-out.

      There's barely room in the market place for all the MMO's as it is, there's certainly no room for two Star Wars MMO... one that's been so tainted with stories of terribleness that it's joke in the MMO community.

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
    21. Re:When will they get it??? by navygeek · · Score: 1

      I had a great deal of fun being a Musician/Creature Handler as the tallest possible Wookiee. A friend of mine had two accounts, both of her characters were female Twi'leks and, at the time, dancers. I set my two crystal snakes to 'trick1' that circled them as they danced, while I played a tune. Was pretty sweet to look at. That little gimmick, along with talking to most people that entered the Cantina, earned me the Professional badge. That was about 3 weeks before I quit the game because of the NGE coming and the FS grind....

    22. Re:When will they get it??? by skeptictank · · Score: 1

      At the time, the speculation was that the contract with LucasArts required the game to hit some minimum number of subscribers or LucasArts was free to license the Star Wars IP to another MMO developer. When it became apparent that the game wasn't going to get anywhere near the required number, SOE dumbed down the game and launched a media blitz in a bid to pick-up a lot new subscribers. The rest is history.

    23. Re:When will they get it??? by Fluffeh · · Score: 1

      You could be exceedingly successful as a rifleman/creature handler, , or one of a dozen different types of crafters. The revamp destroyed that in a big, big way.

      There were a LOT of classes that could be exceedingly successful as solo characters. But there was next to no point in playing the game with a friend and actually playing together.

      What's the point in rolling a healing class if you can only heal 1 party member out of the five you are with? Do you have a specific healer/dps combination for every class? I have no problem with trying new types of action bars, on paper it looks great to have mind, body and action points, but in a system that is supposed to encourage you to play with friends, it's helplessly broken if only certain combinations have ANY point in being together.

      I would have been happy with it if a medic was simply able to heal damage done to any party member. What? A medic can't heal a wound made by a rifleman or a carbineer, but can heal something done by a pistol? That's just stupid.

      --
      Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
  3. sadface by el_tedward · · Score: 0

    I'm mildly sad to see SWG go this way, but I guess it's kind of like knowing that a loved one won't have to suffer through their cancer for much longer. [insert statement about the good old days]

    1. Re:sadface by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      SWG was my first MMORPG. Still remember my first day well. And largely my only day as I lost interest very quick, but it was so cool to walk out into this living Star Wars world.

    2. Re:sadface by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      I do give them credit for the environment. I even logged back in a year after the massive changes that accelerated its death spiral, into Mos Eisley. Outside "The Cantina", the robots still walked around, gibbering their cute noises and stuff. A few red cons here and there. Went inside and saw a boisterous bar, with "the music", and a bunch of patrons sitting around.

      Then suddenly "I has a sad". I realized there wasn't one damned real person anywhere nearby. It was an odd feeling, that hollow emptiness in the midst of what, to my senses, felt like a real, bustling, happenin' area.

      Then they refused to return my Master Dancer to Master status after I "tried" some other builds after their massive re-do. Boilerplate, "I'm sorry" from them got boilerplate likewise in return, and I turned off the spigot.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  4. Brillant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So instead of merely turning off those servers, they'll encase them in carbonite? Pretty cool. I hope they make it a public exhibit, I will certainly go take a look if I'm ever near. Please, more details about the carbonite process and less about the game features.

    1. Re:Brillant! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It is crude; but should be adequate to freeze Skywalker for his journey to the Emperor.

    2. Re:Brillant! by suso · · Score: 1, Informative

      They are not really doing this, its just a slashdot mind trick. I suddenly felt that millions of voices yelled out and then were suddenly silenced or someth...... NO CARRIER

    3. Re:Brillant! by HockeyPuck · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I suddenly felt that millions of voices yelled out and then were suddenly silenced or someth...... NO CARRIER

      Y'know, I'm starting to wonder what is the minimum age required to understand the "NO CARRIER" reference. What age does the average person have to be to have never experienced the "NO CARRIER" phenomenon?

      Additionally, what's the min age to have actually used a real vt100, 3270 or 5250 and not an emulated one via export TERM=vt100...?

    4. Re:Brillant! by jackbird · · Score: 1

      I think the VT terminals generally got shitcanned 6 months to a year NCSA Mosaic came to the campus in question.

    5. Re:Brillant! by maglor_83 · · Score: 1

      I'm 26, and have never experienced it. That does not mean that I don't understand it.

    6. Re:Brillant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I picked up a DEC VT102 at age 22 (I'm 25 now) for a parents-basement server collection so I could hook it up to serial terminal ports on old vax and sun boxes, etc.

      It's a very respectable terminal and is definitely easier to work with than fussing with vt100 emulator settings and null modem cables that don't have rts/cts etc...

    7. Re:Brillant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That might be because you're just a kid.

    8. Re:Brillant! by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 1

      I'm 20 and have never personally experienced it. But, I do understand it. I sort of intuitively understood that NO CARRIER meant you've lost a connection. A quick google returned more of the phrase's subtleties.

      --
      SSC
    9. Re:Brillant! by lorenlal · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm 28, and I have.. So we've got that narrowed down pretty solidly.

    10. Re:Brillant! by Hork_Monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you've never experienced the rage of when someone picked up the phone and interrupted the 3 hour download of 1 porn pic, you haven't lived.

    11. Re:Brillant! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

      You can easily judge by telling this old joke:

      "What do net addicts and navy pilots have in common? Both freak out when their display shows them NO CARRIER."

      If they laugh, they're old enough.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    12. Re:Brillant! by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      So far those people haven't been born. I still know people who use modems because they don't really have a choice. There are fewer and fewer of them though.

    13. Re:Brillant! by suso · · Score: 1

      I don't know about that. I'm 33 and I've only used a REAL terminal maybe once or twice and it was only for novelty. I used modems extensively though.

    14. Re:Brillant! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Anyone who connected to the Internet using a modem or used a serial cable between two machines will have seen NO CARRIER, so you don't have to be that young (I was still using a serial cable to transfer files and play games in 1999). As for the VT-100, I'm 27 and the last time I used one was about four years ago, connected to a phone switch that one of my housemates bought on eBay so that we could easily see which extension was making calls and itemize he phone bill. I later connected it to a dual-P3 machine running FreeBSD and had it display fortune cookies.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    15. Re:Brillant! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      In '86, U-Mich had a walk up window where you could feed in your punch cards, that nobody used but they kept open just in case some geezer walked in who didn't wanna do things the new-fangled way, or found some old stack on his shelf he thought might be useful to convert to online storage. They also still had reel-to-reel tape racks where you could store your own data, and you could request via prompt to have a worker put it online for awhile for you.

      I also remember a "free half day" of exploration at my Jr. High where you got to pick one of a couple of dozen one-shot classes like caligraphy and so on. I and 1 other guy picked "computers", and we got sat down in front of an old ball-type tele-terminal. We accidentally got the complete "program list" printout, which seemed logical at the time, to see what we could do, but took so long to print it used up 70% of our time. Ran two "sims", the wagon train going out west one, and the civil war one (hey, let's pay our troops like a million dollars each!) Apparently paying troops too much money actually increases the AWOL rate. Who knew? On the positive side, since we lost, the debt was null and void.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    16. Re:Brillant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hilarious! And yet, so, so poignantly sad.

  5. May it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    rot in hell! They ruined what was a great game and alienated most of the existing player base. I am surprised it lasted this long.

  6. Which is it? by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good job trying to be clever with the title and summary, but which is it!?!? "Encased in carbonite" or "out of existence?" Man, that's as bas as CNN anchor Kyra Phillips saying that a dancing Imperial stormtrooper looked like it needed some WD-40 the other day, as if stormtroopers are robots or something. Blasphemy. Now I'm angry.

    --
    This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
    1. Re:Which is it? by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Umm, you do realize that they wear armor, right? I mean they're not exactly cloned to have the white shell, hence the WD-40. Or are you offended, because clearly the system is self lubricating for easy use in desert conditions?

    2. Re:Which is it? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not so much blasphemy, as the title wasn't quite obviously a joke.

      That is: It would have been amazing if someone had actually decided to go and encase those servers. That's the story I want to see.

      As it is, they're probably not either -- probably simply being repurposed.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    3. Re:Which is it? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      WD-40 is for metal. Maybe it's just me, but I sort of assumed that Stormtroopers used some sort of futuristic material instead of plain old metal that can get rusty. I think it's more likely that the journalist involved merely thought "armor = rusty" in a supreme leap of mental logic, either that or she's never seen Star Wars and thinks that Stormtroopers are Nazis.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Which is it? by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 1, Troll

      WD-40 is not for rust or lubrication, it's for loosening stuck bolts or parts. It's not a general purpose oil and will evaporate in short order. RTFC

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    5. Re:Which is it? by lorenlal · · Score: 1

      Mike Godwin is applauding you sir.

    6. Re:Which is it? by danger42 · · Score: 1

      As it is, they're probably not either -- probably simply being repurposed.

      Or thrown into the trash compactor.

      --
      -nd
    7. Re:Which is it? by Z8 · · Score: 2, Informative

      WD-40 is not for rust or lubrication, it's for loosening stuck bolts or parts. It's not a general purpose oil and will evaporate in short order. RTFC

      Uhh, lubrication is for loosening stuck things :-)

      WD-40 is actually a combination of an oil/grease and something that evaporates really quickly like an alcohol. You spray it on when it's really light, and then it evaporates, leaving a heavier greasy substance behind which will stay there. So you can use it for many lubrication jobs.

    8. Re:Which is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah Man. And now I'M angry, too. So damn angry at this guy and that Kyra Phillips B**** that I'm leaving this nasty reply. As if stormtroopers were robots... That's probably why the Sony crew set their phasers to "kill" for SWG.

    9. Re:Which is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some WD40 might get the giant stick up your ass out, mister precision.

      And I use it on plastic all the time.

    10. Re:Which is it? by Venerable+Vegetable · · Score: 1

      I checked a can and it clearly states it cleans, lubricates and protects against rust. (among other things)

      I do agree with you though that it's not really the best choice for all that. I mainly use it for loosening stuck bolts and parts.

      But it does say so on the can.

    11. Re:Which is it? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      And the white armor is supposed to be blaster-resistant, yet they die to one shot more easily than the cloth-"armored" rebels do.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    12. Re:Which is it? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Stormtroopers are supposed to be Nazis.

      And the Jawas, what could they be? Is there any real-life group with a name similar to "Jawas" who are little, beady-eyed desert nomads always concerned about money and trying to rip you off in deals?

      Nope, I'm at a loss. Ah well, cya. Gonna go fire up my "Jar Jar Binks: The Complete Live Action Works: The Director's Cut" blueray.

      Oooo-teeni, indeed.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    13. Re:Which is it? by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 1

      Exactly - WD-40 is not an ideal general purpose lubricant. And besides, everyone knows PB Blaster is better, anyway.

      And back to my original secondary point, Imperial Stormtroopers don't need it to do the Thriller dance. There is no reason to believe their armor corrodes or rusts anymore than my cats' fur does, and I've invested plenty of hours teaching them to dance. Duh.

      --
      This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
    14. Re:Which is it? by SatanClauz · · Score: 1

      no, actually its for "W"ater "D"isplacement! hehe

  7. Noooo.... not Tarquinas. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My character on Tarquinas will be sent to the great bit-bucket in the sky.

    Those bastards!

  8. Re:Good by negRo_slim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have nothing against SW: Galaxies, but I'm glad to see it failing. If only because Sony owns it. I hope anything and everything that Sony touches fails miserably. They deserve it.

    I disagree.
    When I was a kid I enjoyed my Walkman, the Trinitron was great albeit a bit heavy. And EverQuest was quite spectacular for it's time.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  9. A foot in the grave but not dead by tetsukaze · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sony is shutting down half the servers. One half, leaving approximately one other half. This is actually good for everybody. The remaining players will actually get to play with other people, the whole point of MMOs I'm told. In addition Sony gets to spend less money supporting the game which is good for them. Oh yeah, we get to rail on Galaxies. That's good too.

    1. Re:A foot in the grave but not dead by hedwards · · Score: 2, Informative

      But some of us liked playing Ben Kenobi, doing chores, fighting sand people every couple of weeks, you insensitive clod.

  10. Re:Good by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hope anything and everything that Sony touches fails miserably.

    Hmm...there was Betamax...and Minidisc...PS3...soon to be blu-ray... Sadly, I think your curse worked.

  11. Re:Good by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 1

    seriously? flamebait? come now- I loved every sony product I tried, still have my minidiscs. There is always something about sony that causes them to eat themselves. It just is what it is.

  12. Re:Good by the_mushroom_king · · Score: 0

    Beware of Sony shrills bearing mod points.

  13. And nothing of value was lost... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    [insert yet another rant about SOE destroying the game here]
    I'd think after 4+ years I wouldn't be so bitter, but obviously if I'm bothering to post a comment which I know won't even gain any mod points...

    There were some really good things about the original game. However people started leaving after poor choices were made as the game went on. Choices like not fixing serious bugs in the core game like sitting down and 5 seconds later sliding 15 meters in some random direction. Choices like adding the ridiculous holocron bullshit as a way to unlock Jedi instead of real content. The sandbox game with skill trees instead of levles, the three health bars, the plethora of emotes and huge player driven crafting economy were great.

  14. mod parent up by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

    mod parent up, i came in search of servers actually being encased in carbonite (which would be very impressive due real carbonite being an explosive) and was thoroughly disappointed!

    --
    IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  15. Re:Good by jaxtherat · · Score: 1

    Shills not shrills.

    --
    http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
  16. hardly the firts by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

    Galaxies is hardly the first MMO to shut down/merge servers and keep in business. Others have done it more gradually perhaps, but they went from 200k subscribers to probably 100k and didn't close half the servers for a long time, and as anticipation builds for Star Wars TOR they're going to have a churn of people - but they're probably seeing the eventual need to be down around 50 or 60k subscribers, if not outright close. Whatever one may think of the NGE (cough disaster cough), their technology was never great to start with, and looks dated, and they've changed the design from what the people who were paying wanted to keep paying for, which isn't going to inspire confidence for the future. That's the natural progress of an MMO, just because WoW hasn't got there yet doesn't mean others haven't.

  17. Seriously, Who gives a Rat's Ass? by Darbacour · · Score: 1

    Star Wars Galaxies was passà back in November 2005 when the NGE(New Game Enhancements, also known as the "Benny Hill Upgrade") was released. It exists now not so much a game but more like a cautionary tale and textbook example of a has-been mmo.

    --
    -Darbacour
  18. Sony drove the game into the ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The combat system in Star Wars: Galaxies was actually completely revamped twice. The first revamp, called the CU (Combat Upgrade) went over somewhat okay. It resolved a few of the problems that the original system had, and it held a lot of promise. There were two major problems with the CU, though... One, it was just as buggy and unfinished as the system it replaced, and two Sony made almost zero effort to finish, improve, or troubleshoot the CU. The result was that even after several years into the game's launch, the core gaming system was still plagued with bugs, imbalances, half-finished ideas, and an odd mix of non-aesthetically matching game systems. Sony "solution" to all this was to simply redo the entire combat system again, this time calling it the NGE (New Game Experience). The problem with the NGE, though, was that like the CU before it, it was buggy and unfinished. At was it this point that the mass exodus of players began. Sony had already proven twice in a row that they had zero ability to actually finish and troubleshoot a combat system, and a large chunk of the playerbase decided that the NGE would be no exception. Sony also did a terrible job managing the transition from each system to the next. As in any MMO, loot, achievements, and other acquired goals/recourses play a major role in defining a player's sense of accomplishment in the game. Prior to each revamp, Sony promised that all of a players loot and achievements would be converted to something of equal usefulness in the next system. This ultimately proved to be nothing but a lie. All manner of loot and quest rewards were transformed into junk. Many players literally had months of effort wiped away in a single day. And this happened not once, but twice! The downfall of Star Wars: Galaxies was predicted from the moment the NGE was first announced. Sony ignored their playerbase when the game was launched, they ignored them when they introduced the CU, and they ignored them when they launched the NGE. It should come as zero surprise to them that their now former playerbase decided to ignore them back.

    1. Re:Sony drove the game into the ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The downfall of Star Wars: Galaxies was predicted from the moment the NGE was first announced.

      If I remember correctly, wasnt that like 24 hrs before they implemented it?

  19. The Game is still Kicking! by Phrogman · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Before anyone starts snarking on the NGE and what it did to the game, let me start by noting I was there at release (day 2, since no one could log in on day 1), I was there during the CU, and I was there for the horrid NGE experience (just after my birthday too, sigh). I know all about the old game, and the stages it went through after that.
    The NGE was a horrid idea, pretty much the poster child for how *not* to make changes to your MMO. The person who promulgated it should have been taken outside and shot dead for suggesting it.
    However, I just wanted to note that the game is still alive, still will have 13 servers *after* they close the other half, still has lots of players (particularly Starsider server) and is still functional. Its not great everywhere, but its functional, and they are still making improvements to it. They have a great team of developers who are producing some neat improvements and fixing a lot of old problems. Its still got a fantastic economic system, a crafting system that is hands-down better than anything in any other MMO I have tried, and its still the most sandboxy game I can think of (other than potentially EVE, which I haven't played). Actually make that the only sandboxy MMO we have left (yes, other than EVE), the rest of them have followed the Way of WOW(tm) like a sad flock of dodos on their way to extinction.

    There's very little that's innovative in MMOs these days, but a lot of the more innovative stuff was in the original SWG, and there's still some innovative stuff being added. The game has seen some very good updates added to it (all for free of course) since the NGE hit, and its become a lot more playable. I think someone who had never played the original might enjoy the current version, provided they can get used to the fact that its not quite as hold-yer-hand for you as many modern MMOs are.

    --
    "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
    1. Re:The Game is still Kicking! by hydrolyzer · · Score: 0, Troll

      only sandboxy game? probably true. www.fomportal.com -- was more sandboxy then anything you've seen before, but from what I hear its degrading in quality through its second lease of life.

    2. Re:The Game is still Kicking! by thebheffect · · Score: 1

      SWG may be still kicking, but it's lying in a pool of it's own blood, gurgling, hoping someone passes by to give it a coup de grÃce.

  20. Has anyone here actually taken notice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of the fact that there are TWO names on the box for the game?

    Sony (Sony Online Entertainment actually) couldn't have made the types of changes they did. Unless Lucas Arts signed off on them, probably not unless Lucas Arts actually gave the directive to *make* the changes.

    SOE is run by gamers, why would they want to wreck something they know is great?

    As far as this being the end of Star Wars Galaxies, it's 12 servers out of 25, the game is by no means dead. Actually looking at the forums http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=816422 its the same ones that have been in a free character move state for a while now.

    1. Re:Has anyone here actually taken notice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SOE is run by gamers, why would they want to wreck something they know is great?

      You must be new on the Intarwebs.

  21. It was like... by TornCityVenz · · Score: 1

    A million voices cried out and were ....merged with another server? hmm not quite as satisfying

    --
    I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
  22. memories....damn by GarretSidzaka · · Score: 1

    I played this game for the better part of 2006. i started right when Jump to Lightspeed came out and quit after the Combat Upgrade (C.U.), like just about everyone else.

    hey WOW players, imagine if 95% of your inventory and 75%skills where taken away or renedered unusable. and then give a strong character a puny level 19 when they switched to Sony online everquest-y style. that was the Combat upgrade. i quit and most of the other players quit. it was like a ghost town mmorpg.

    there are people who are trying to bring back the Pre-CU Star War Galaxies by emulating the servers and whatnot, but none of them seem even close to being done.

    i will always remember my wookie character, Woklor!!

  23. Re:Good by draco664 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You sure? Many of the Sony fanboys I've met seem to have had puberty delayed, if their high-pitched whining is anything to go by.

  24. Actually, that's exactly why I'll disagree by Moraelin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, that seems to be like exactly the kind of move that will drive players away, no matter how it's done.

    See, it's not just whether the turning to FPS is well done or (as was the case) crap done. It's that it turns the game into a whole other genre than I signed for.

    If I wanted to play a FPS, I would be playing one of the many FPS-es without an online fee. It's not like people were sitting going, "man, I'd so play a FPS, but I have no clue where to get one. If only Sony could turn one of their game into a FPS..."

    Then there were changes like that to the skill system. Honestly, when you hear someone rant about how great the old SWG was, _the_ thing that invariably comes up is the skill system. There were a lot of people who basically put up with its many other sins, just because it was the only one which didn't force them into the mould of a pre-defined class.

    So then Sony comes and throws exactly that away.

    It doesn't really matter inside which framework you do something like that. It's going to piss people off.

    Then there were the changes to the characters. Everyone had their own combination that they played because genuinely that was what they liked to play, and they had spent months tweaking them to exactly their taste, collecting gear, etc. Then suddenly that combination isn't even available any more. I'm not talking just "nerfed" or "changed", but, really, whatever combination you were playing, chances are there wasn't any close equivalent available after the NGE. For some, like animal handlers, there was nothing that even played similarly after the change.

    For those without SWG experience: Imagine if Blizzard one day and said basically, "nah, hybrid and pet classes are now out, they're too complicated for you lot. And you've been bitching about specs and your guild making you respec since we first added raid dungeons, so we're throwing those out too. So from effective now, we'll only have the classes: fighter, archer, cleric and thief. (Which incidentally don't play like warrior, hunter, priest and rogue either.) With a fixed progression of a abilities. If you were playing a paladin or druid, sucks to be you, you get to choose one or the other, not be that jack of all trades crap."

    "Oh, and what's that crap about being a warrior _and_ a blacksmith? Can't you just make up your mind? From now on, you can be a fighting class or you can be a trade class, not both. The traders won't even have a combat level, but we'll make all monsters ignore them."

    Also imagine that it wasn't an April Fools post.

    I'm willing to bet that three quarters of their population would cancel their subscription over such a drastic change. Which is what happened to SWG.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:Actually, that's exactly why I'll disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have WOW experience, can you reframe this in terms of Eve Online?

    2. Re:Actually, that's exactly why I'll disagree by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2, Informative

      > I don't have WOW experience, can you reframe this in terms of Eve Online?

      Imagine you could now only be a specialist in frigates OR destroyers OR cruisers OR ... OR dreadnaughts.

      And your drones all went away.

      And you were a battlecruiser who had good DPS and good remote repair/shielding, and you logged in one day and found a popup that said, "Good DPS or good healer, pick one. Now."

      So you picked DPS, but now you just had a handful of damage clickies, and the entire warp scrambler/webbing stuff was gone, and people just stood there and blasted at each other until only one side was left.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    3. Re:Actually, that's exactly why I'll disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have WOW experience, can you reframe this in terms of Eve Online?

      It would be as if they reduced the game to just a couple of different ship classes, and also made it so a character could either fight or make ship upgrades, but never both.

      Under the Profession system, players could mix-and-match skill boxes based on what their character did in the game. Want to be a rifleman? Use a that type of weapon to get the appropriate XP and qualify for the skill boxes you want under the rifleman profession skill tree. Want to be a dancer? Dance for other players or in NPC missions to get that dancing XP. Want to be a droid builder? Make droid components and chasises to get that type of XP? Once you had enough XP to qualify for the box, it was "bought" using a pool of ~250 points, which was enough for many different combinations (you could also "sell" skill boxes at any time, but the XP necessary for them would be lost). For example you could max-out two specific crafting professions and still have sufficent points to be decent with a single type of weapon (i.e. pistols, carbines, rifles, swords, polearms, etc...), or you could become a master of two types of weapons and have some medical skills. Sure someone could have the exact same skills and professions as your character, but unless it was a min-maxing "flavor of the month" there wouldn't be many that would be.

  25. WTF is Star Wars: Galaxies ? by quenda · · Score: 2, Informative

    To save other not-quite-geek-enoughs from googling:

    Star Wars Galaxies (abbv. SWG) is a Star Wars themed MMORPG (online computer game) for Microsoft Windows developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies

    (isn't this the job of the TFS?)

  26. sony rootkit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    never forget, never forgive

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit

    1. Re:sony rootkit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Never give up, never surrender!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest

    2. Re:sony rootkit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  27. WTF by Datamonstar · · Score: 1

    I don't get it. Is the article summary written in Wookie?

    --
    The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
    1. Re:WTF by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Let him have it. It's not wise to upset a Wookiee

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  28. Amazing that it took this long to die by Tomsk70 · · Score: 1

    Bought this when it came out - and within two days sent Lucasfilm a rant in which I questioned how exciting it was supposed to be running across the Tattoine desert for hours at a time. In fact, I took the game back to the shop and got a refund (yes, this was back in the days when games were physically bought from shops).

    As I recall, I also ranted about why Lucasfilm had replaced 'fun' with 'profit', and why they thought that would be attractive to players. Funnily enough, they ignored my email - but it seems that they finally figured it out for themselves, and closed the thing down rather that making something people actually wanted to use.

    Are Lucasarts and Apple actually the same company? I'm seeing too many parallels for it to just be a coincidence :-)

  29. Yeah, tried this game for year and a half by finalnight · · Score: 0

    Played this game in 03-04 shortly after launch, but it was very difficult, didn't make a whole lot sense game mechanic wise either. Though it was very graphically beautiful at the time. I typically just enjoyed going around all the planets and getting my own house/speeder. That was about it. Half way through a one year subscription (New years 05), I got WoW. Came back briefly for JTL, never been back since.

  30. Watch out for NGE fanboi astroturfers here... by WCMI92 · · Score: 1

    I've read some comments here that are just flat out not true about the current state of the NGE Game (I refuse to call the current iteration "Star Wars Galaxies", that game died in 2005, the NGE resembles it only graphically). If you are interested in Star Wars Galaxies, visit the emulator site (www.swgemu.com).

    First off, closing 12 of 25 servers is still going to leave a bunch of empty servers, they might have enough players left to support 4-5 at most, 13 is still ridiculous. I laugh at those who say they still have "100K" players. ROFL! The NGE hasn't had that many subscribers since 2006. SOE will not release subscriber numbers (for obvious reasons) but the best estimates have them at or below 10-15K.

    As has been stated here before, the NGE happened back in 2005. It was the second and worse of two cataclysmic game changes made within a 6 month period. The Combat Downgrade (the first change) is perhaps looked at more kindly now than it was back then since at least it didn't delete 2/3rds of the game and turn it into "Benny Hill visits the Gungans". The combat system introduced with the NGE didn't and still does not work properly, is action (and thus network packet) intensive and generates crippling lag whenever there is any decent number of people in any area pvp'ing or even killing NPCs. SOE has done nothing to fix this, or other glaring bugs (such as targeting of mobs that can shoot you from inside objects and terrain). Even if you accept the NGE concept, of dumbing the game down into 9 "iconic and Star Wars-Y" classes, it just plain does not work even as designed. Forcing the remaining population to clump into fewer servers is going to worsen, not improve, the game experience.

    The current game is not only broken to shit, but SOE continues to abuse what customers they have left. They recently purged the player "senate" of every member that had the slightest notion that they were there to represent *gasp!* PLAYERS rather than shill for SOE, and the new "community relations" guy they brought in recently is prone to psychotic outbursts on the forums and has all the outward appearance of someone who is mentally unstable and could snap at any second under the slightest pressure.

    SOE can't find time to fix bugs. But they CAN find time to add what is the absolute biggest RMT scam in the whole industry. They call it a trading card game. I call it an illegal interstate/international lottery. You aren't actually paying directly for highly desirable (and exclusive) in game items and content via RMT, you are essentially buying lottery tickets for the CHANCE to get these things. Amongst the TCG lottery items are things that players have asked them to add for YEARS to the game, such as a house to display pets (called a barn) and a private hangar to store your ships.

    The RMT loot lottery card "game" gets multiple expansions a year. The NGE hasn't had an expansion in 4 years, since "Trials of Obi-Wan" which was released under the CU system, then mostly deleted when the NGE game out. This was one of SOE's most infamous scams in and of itself, we were charged for that expansion literally the DAY BEFORE the NGE was announced! Features were advertised, yes, ADVERTISED for the expansion that they knew were going to be deleted 3 weeks after it was released.

    Frankly, I'm more amazed that John Smedley and his cronies aren't in JAIL for the fraud they have committed with this game than I am that 4 years later, the NGE still exists as Station Pass filler. Frankly, Smed and his boys are so untrustworthy I'd not buy a dollar from them for 50 cents.

    At any rate, myself and many of the 240,000+ former customers of Star Wars Galaxies celebrate the closure of 12 NGE servers, and we look forward to the demise of the remaining 13. For those getting ripped off by SOE, you can't say we didn't warn you.

    Enjoy the stormtrooper zombies they are adding soon (yes, I am serious, they are adding these). The rest of us will play real games like EVE, wait for TOR and hope it's good (at least it's not SOE) and play Star Wars Galaxies via the emulator.

    --
    Corporatism != Free Market
  31. Noooo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's impossible!!!

  32. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, because they had good products over a decade ago, you don't want to see Sony fail in every future endeavor? That makes about as much sense as willingly embracing DRM and corporate rootkits on your computer. At one time, Sony was great, though sometimes I found that paying a premium for their "quality" bought some mediocre hardware. For the past few years, they seem like they're on a path toward corporate suicide, a path that I would love to help them achieve. To that end, I won't shell out even one red cent for their products until they're out of business or until every last decision maker in their company is fired and replaced with people who realize that it's bad business policy to screw your customers.

  33. SwgEmu by hamburgler007 · · Score: 1

    It's great...basically restored the game to its pre-CU state. Ironically it seems like it has more players and is more stable than Sorny.

  34. I can tell most of the comments never played SWG by Stregano · · Score: 1, Informative

    I am a pre and post NGE/CU person (NGE = New Game Enhancements, CU = Combat Upgrade). I actually stopped playing SWG in pre NGE because the game really sucked. It had nothing to do with the complexity. I love complex games. The game just had no direction. I was given a small tutorial and just dumped out there. Sure, it was cool that I was just dumped into the Star Wars Universe, but the complexity really hampered it (take a look at how simple WoW is if you even want to come at me about simple games sucking).

    I will not defend everything about SWG, but there is a huge aspect that most people skip right over, which is space. Everytime SWG comes up, nobody even mentions space (i.e. JTL or Jump to Lightspeed).

    Most people wrote SWG off without even doing anything in space. I have been playing SWG for over 3 years and my character on the ground is still not at max level, but I have a maxed out pilot with some incredible ship components.

    I assure you that fighting pvp in space is not just flying in a straight line and going after the target. Well, you can go ahead and do that against me if you want and see what happens.

    SOE could easily pull JTL out of SWG and have it its own game. It is honestly that good. Anybody I talk to about SWG will sit there and spout off the random retarded comments they read in places on the net, but every single person when trying to rip on SWG will completely leave JTL out of the picture as if that entire section of the game does not exist.

    I have tried multiple MMO's based on the ground (SWG, Guild Wars, EQ, and a few more) and I can honestly say that ground MMO's all in all are just boring. When I say ground, I mean you are confined to that planet. You may have some type of mount that can fly, but in the end, the point is for your character to travel somewhere on foot, kill some stuff, and then move on.

    JTL customization of ships is incredibly robust. I mean, you can literally pick the type of ship you want to fly based on the way you fly, and customize the ship parts based on the way you fly. Do you want to be the captain and manage a crew? Maybe you want some small and agile, etc. The list goes on and on of what you can do. You can fine tune anything from the engine and reactor up through the weapons, shields, and a bunch of other components (even the paint job and textures used for the ship can be customized).

    You want to talk complexity and saying that SWG messed it up, JTL is still very complex. The only other game that even comes close to rivaling JTL is Eve Online (and that is basically an economy MMO wrapped in a space backdrop). Even EVE Online can't hit the customization of what you can do with your ship and how you fly it in JTL.

    Everytime SWG comes up, watch, I am serious, watch how many people will rip on the game and either spout the same redundant stuff that was on the internet, or completely skip over and not even mention JTL.

    JTL is a part of SWG. JTL is incredible. JTL was not completely revamped during NGE. Do not even start the, "Well maybe that is it problem. It needed a change" since most of you are just finding another outlet to vent about SWG on the ground changing.

    Here is something I have not seen anybody post about: Your classes did not get destroyed. All of these people claim that after a few years of "fine tuning" their classes, they lose them, that is completely false information. People that kept their accounts through the transition also kept whatever character classes they had as well. So if the person had spent 2 years on a Chef/Bounty Hunter, when the transition took place, they still had a Chef/Bounty Hunter.

    The change they did was that instead of over 20 specialization to pick from, they took it down to 9 and they included Jedi. One thing the preNGE people have bitched about since NGE is the fact that they had to work for Jedi, and then post NGE people came along and could just pick it.

    Well, that means none of you are going to play Old Republic, right? Wel

    --
    The world is how you make it
  35. Re:Good by zippthorne · · Score: 1

    blu-ray players are down to $100 at newegg. I'll bet they're sub $100 at WalMart this christmas with a $60--$80 "doorbuster" model for people to get trampled over.

    So, we're only now even heading into the price point at which the viability of blu-ray will be tested. And since verizon is freaky-slow rolling out FiOS, I'd say blu-ray has a pretty good chance.

    memo to verizon: I get that the television ads have to have a wide market and will necessarily cover areas where you're not rolled out yet, but.. could you maybe stop sending me direct mailings touting the great service? My entire county doesn't have it yet, and there is a buffer of two towns all around which your rep said you have to get through before you even start working here, so could you maybe stop wasting money on pointless mailings and run some damn extruded glass already?

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  36. Jedis are problematic by BobMcD · · Score: 1

    This is a key problem with every single Star Wars game ever, in every genre.

    Jedi are supposed to be balanced by their scarcity alone. Or, at least they were, prior to the prequels.

    You cannot do this in any type of 'massively multiplayer' game.

    Your two workable options are:

    1) Have zero player Jedi. Make the players play the normal people.

    2) Have everyone be a Jedi.

    The middle-of-the-road solutions SOE and others have attempted fail miserably every time. And this is by design. Lucas didn't set out over thirty years ago to create a universe that could be easily rolled into a playable game. We need to come to terms with that fact and move forward.

    1. Re:Jedis are problematic by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The role-playing games put out by Wizards of the Coast balance things nicely by having things Jedi aren't as good at as other players. This is harder to do in a MMORPG, because the focus tends to be a lot more on combat, but you can have quests with multiple ways to solve them.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    2. Re:Jedis are problematic by BobMcD · · Score: 1

      The d6 game had an elegant solution as well - Vader comes to kill powerful Jedi. So if you flaunt your powers, expect to lose a limb in the near future.

    3. Re:Jedis are problematic by Dragoness+Eclectic · · Score: 1

      Well, they could use in-game methods to keep the supply of Jedi low or at least 'special', like we did in tabletop D&D with PC drow characters: the authorities (Imperial, natch) try to kill you on sight, all the time.

      --
      ---dragoness
  37. Re:Good by geekoid · · Score: 1

    The walkman, I loved it. Sone makes good monitors.

    Everquest was good until Sony got it. The it took to long to evolve with the industry.

    Nothing like staring at an open spell book for 30 minutes while stuff happens around you.

    The key to Blizzards success was looking at EQ, and making an MMO that didn't ahve the problems EQs customers had been complaining about for ages. Then after WoW huge and quick success then they tried to serve their customers. That is where Sony always makes their mistakes. They have a products and then they start thinking their customers would never go away so their service slips.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  38. The end is finally near... by Schnoogs · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ...I joined the day the original Galaxies was released and was simply never able to get into it. It was slow and glitchy and there wasn't much to do. I can remember spending days wandering around Tatooine killing rats and occassionaly hanging out in a bar watching people stand around endlessly. I wasn't surprised when they came out with the new version and I'm not surprised it's beginning its death spiral now. I'm really hoping the Star Wars Old Republic MMORPG is going to be waaay better.

  39. Re:Good by ImprovOmega · · Score: 1

    EverQuest is still going. Albeit it seems to be running on broken ankles about now with all the bolting on they've had to do to keep it competitive. I understand there's another expansion coming out soonish which will make...number 15 I think? I left last year, but it was and is a fun game for the types of people who enjoy that sort of thing.

  40. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uh, the spellbook thing went away about 8 years ago and never existed for toons over level 20. If you're going to slight a product at least know it's history and workings.

    Or are you one of those retards that still drones on about Microsoft Bob?

  41. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At one time, Sony was great, though sometimes I found that paying a premium for their "quality" bought some mediocre hardware.

    Like what? And please be honest, did you actually pay for it yourself or was it with mom and dad's money?

    For the past few years, they seem like they're on a path toward corporate suicide, a path that I would love to help them achieve. To that end, I won't shell out even one red cent for their products until they're out of business or until every last decision maker in their company is fired and replaced with people who realize that it's bad business policy to screw your customers.

    It doesn't count if you couldn't afford it in the first place. I just bought a 32'' HDTV from the sony store, and none of the other customers looked like junior college fuckups or manchildren who post empty threats to slashdot. They were all people with lives and real jobs who were happy to pay a premium for quality hardware. And though I'm sure no one else there had even heard of slashdot, I know that, like me, they would enjoy knowing that their purchase was pissing a bunch of socially deficient basement creatures who pissed in bottles and ejaculated into dirty socks.

  42. SWG Emu by navygeek · · Score: 1

    As long as SOE is decommissioning the servers, I think it would be great if SWG Emu could offer to buy one or two off of'em. Would be a GREAT help to their reverse engineering of the game. And since SOE hasn't tried to shut SWG Emu down yet, they might even be willing to sell one of the boxes. Long live Valcyn! :-p

    1. Re:SWG Emu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those servers are junk. Plus SOE version of SWG had really really really bad network coding. EMU fixed a ton of Sony mistakes. Although, I concure....Valcyn ftw!

  43. I'm amazed SOE is still in business by skeptictank · · Score: 1

    I played EQ on and off until 2004, when I finally had enough of SOE. SOE must be an integral part of Sony's plan for world domination; otherwise they would have let it crawl off and die the death it deserves.

  44. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    EQ was spectacular if you played one of SOE's pet classes. If you were a necro (famously played by their top customer service rep), or a tank and spank setup - warrior and cleric you were good to go. If you played an enchanter, same thing. Everyone else got nerfed to hell and back and told to suck it up. Druids and Wizards went back and forth between decent damage classes to transport only. And Hybrids? Don't even talk to me about those - 40% more experience to get a nerfed char at the end of your efforts. SOE's customer support through that time was rude, condescending and unsupportive when they could be bothered to respond at all. First decent game to replace EQ saw a mass exodus.

  45. SOE sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WORST PATCH EVER. SWG was hands down the best MMO I've yet to play....CU ruined it. Players said, "we don't like this". Sony said..."Yes you do". Players left game. At a later date...in a business room far far away....Sony finally decided to make a joke of the game with NGE. Those pathetic server maint costs must have finally made them want to finish it off and bury it to hide what should have been their shame for being complete morons about everything they did. I still hate Sony so much to this day, i refuse to play any game thats got a Sony stamp. I won't even buy a PS. I'm a firm believer in the fact that every person who had anything to do with the CU or NGE should be kicked squarly in the balls. Twice. Oh oh...go figure...the new StarWars MMO...funny...wonder why its not Sony. Oh yeah...because they ran the last one into the ground. Sony....stick to making crappy TVs n CD players....stay out of and quite F*in up our games.

  46. Encase in Carbonite??? by RockClimbingFool · · Score: 1

    More like incinerate like Darth Vader's appendages.

  47. I'm not giving my name to a machine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Thank you for playing Starwars Galaxies" is the reply I often got when submitting bug reports for The Matrix Online...
    Face it. SOE don't know what they're doing.

  48. so by unity100 · · Score: 1

    I wanted them to overhaul the combat system so that it actually promoted grouping with other players

    basically you wanted them to make the game into another fucking eq grind clone.

    please, dont play any games anymore. or, dont express your views.

  49. Re:I can tell most of the comments never played SW by unity100 · · Score: 1

    all that wall of text you typed tells me that you are just another eq bimbo (you can replace eq with wow, practically same) which prefer to be put in confined spaces with defined routes to go. you dont love to take initiative, dream, and create your own projects, but rather prefer to 'progress' in narrow, safe confines someone else forced on you.

    yours is not entertainment. its a small career progression simulation. no wonder you were baffled with the 'complexity' that was there in pre nge swg. you couldnt even realize that there was no complexity, there was just customization and therefore freedom.

  50. get the fuck out of gaming ... by unity100 · · Score: 1

    As in any MMO, loot, achievements, and other acquired goals/recourses play a major role in defining a player's sense of accomplishment in the game.

    you eq/wow drones. because of the hype you created endlessly blabbing about 'goals/achievements/resources/accomplishment/success', gaming has turned into a fucking job than an entertainment in the last 10 years.

    go die in a corner. and fuck your accomplishments. accomplishments are for real life.

  51. pray tell us by unity100 · · Score: 1

    can you POSSIBLy be proposing that, while their entertainment/software division SOE sucks THAT bad, their other divisions wont be suffering from the same 'they are bags of dirt' outlook against their customers because they are under the same corporate roof ?

    what was that fucking ROOTKIT ordeal that they pushed on to us ? installing rootkits to our computers ? im sorry ? what ? was it a different time/space continuum than ours ?

    i advise you that you dont push your hate-filled bullshit and instead open up your eyes. sony is a corporation. any division under it is under the same corporate roof, with similar philosophy. electronics division wont be a bunch of straight people where all other divisions are assholes.

  52. SO ? by unity100 · · Score: 1

    what exactly is the purpose of your post ?