I remember listening to Raph Koster lamenting the fact that they wouldn’t be allowed to have paid performers for roles like Darth Vader because Lucasfilm/EA insisted that every single player needed to have the same identical experience – so instead of people playing prominent characters like in his previous game Ultima Online, Vader would be a static piece of furniture that had dialogue.
I quit the game when they finally introduced Jedi classes by making you find random loot drops that scripted random skills for your character to master.
So my high level and well crafted droid building merchant was required to drop one of it’s key skills in order to become a high level DANCER if I wanted to be a jedi.
I played SWGemu for a year. I was an armorsmith, one of the best. Generals and kings would make the pilgrimage to my shop to beg me to craft them composite armor for a million credits or more. I scoured the galaxy for the best components. I stayed up late to snipe auctions on rare materials. I made sooo much money. I would craft mythically good starter gear like chitin armor, light as a feather and stronger than steel, give it a color theme like black and gold so they looked like insects, and give it away to newer players. It was a blast.
I just brought up Star Wars Galaxies in the Star Citizen reddit. In some ways SWG was ahead of its time, in others it was antiquated, but it all came together to make something really unique.
One of my favourite class systems until the revamp. Absolutely loved mastering I believe Scout and maybe Sniper or something to be a BH. I had made friends with someone who had a store in the desert. I made my best Kyle Katarn look. Really miss it.
I was quite young when this gem of a game came out. I remember my parents buying a copy of this and the strategy guide that was the size of one of my school textbooks. I would spend a stupid amount of time before the game released thinking about which class I was going to try, and which species my character was going to be – I had never felt so excited to exist in a world, especially considering how this was *Star Wars* and I was such an absolute dork about anything SW related. It was a blast. I may have never made it into the more elite classes because of how technical and “adult” the world was, but I cherished every experience I had, no matter how small. Speeder rides on the desert sands of Tatooine. Buying my first ticket to board a ship to Endor. Hours spent interacting with people in cantinas, bazaars, and all over the major cities. Years later and I don’t think I will ever have that same experience. But therein lies a silver lining; those memories will forever be with me.
A foundational game for me. I was one of the player correspondents from the official forums. While I think our actual impact was pretty small, the devs did host an in-game, invite-only get-together including Raph at one point. At this point, the game was super buggy and no Jedi appeared yet. I remember sort of cornering him and asking if the lack of Jedi was hurting the Star Wars immersion. It was clear we all wanted them but they still wanted it to be an achievement and rare for the time. I recall he felt like it was holding the game back, and the other player correspondents were torn between Jedi and Star Wars immersion, emphasizing balance, stability, actually telling a story, fixing broken classes, and adding new features.
I forget the specific timeline but soon after came the first Jedi, holocrons, and detailed info about how to unlock your Jedi. The game absolutely changed after they were introduced, though the game was changing regardless. I often wonder if or how much that conversation pushed them towards accelerating Jedi in the game and all the complications they brought while dealing with balancing classes and weapons, bugs, and commercial requirements from SOE.
SOE really fucked shit up, but it was WoW that came out and obliterated every other MMO. It’s execution and style were so good and pulled a massive community from everyone else.
SWG was before its time and let down severe mismanagement by EA. the game was incredibly deep and the PVP was some of the best ever. Not to mention being able to make your own clan towns, etc. Looking forward to watching this video!
This is one of those lightning in the bottle video game moments. The dawn of the MMO age, pre-internet guides, pre-metas, pre-streamers. It was such fun moment. The game size seemed infinite back then. Everyone just played what/how they thought was fun, completely lost in the scale of the game.
Still have my Collectors Edition case in mint condition.
Sandbox MMORPG’s like that just no longer exist. The closest thing we have nowadays is the many Survival titles that come nowhere near close to it.
I stopped playing it after they dumbed it down with the “New Game Enhancement” update. Most of my clan on the Bria server abandoned it shortly thereafter.
More than any MMO I’ve ever played, and I’ve played quite a lot of them casually, Galaxies really felt like a massive open world that you’ll never see all of, where you were just an insignificant rando trying to make their way in the universe.
This is one of the best MMORPGs ever too be honest.
It wouldn’t survive now a days due to the need of spoon feeding the player as well as the lack of making the player feel like they were the main character.
Galaxies did it right, you were part of a huge universe, not the center of it.
The space combat was amazing, the player made cities, the quests, loot, crafting, all so unique.
Yet so many gamers now have no clue about games like this:( they are all just copies of each other.
“You have to understand Star Wars Galaxies both in terms of what it could be and what it frequently was. What it could be was a game where evocative Star Wars narratives were generated on the fly by a complex set of social systems. What it frequently was was a game where players in identical armour holding knuckle dusters queued for buffs from a man in a coat in the rain.” Raph Koster, 2015 SWG Retrospective
This game is always a wonderful example of how nostalgia is rose-tinted. The common sentiment is always that the original game was great and the two major updates (CU and NGE) ruined it.
But in reality the game started bad and those two updates just made it worse. It was a wonderful social tool with a Star Wars skin, but it was otherwise really tragically broken.
At launch the quest system amounted to running up to computer terminals and grabbing two missions at a time. The missions were always the same: run five minutes out of the city boundaries to a nest of NPCs, kill the NPCs, destroy the nest. Return. Rinse. Repeat. No narrative. No characters. No flavor text. No real variation. It was just that over, and over, and over again.
Combat was sold as this vast and varied network of all these different disciplines, but the balance was so broken that virtually every single player was a TKA, because once you had the move Knockdown you were basically unbeatable. You’d get a mind buff and spam knockdown until you won.
Crafting was perhaps the most complex system I’ve ever seen in a video game, yet because there wasn’t any balance to the armor or weapons, you weren’t crafting a wide variety of stuff. Hope you liked making Composite armor and Vibro-Knuckles for the sea of TKAs, because that’s all that really sold.
And then there was the chore of it all. If you planned to grind out those flavorless missions to level up (the only way to, really) you had to log on, head to the shuttle terminal, wait up to 10 minute for the shuttle, possibly do that again if you were on a moon, head to Coronet, stand in line to wait for a doctor (who was usually a 2nd account setup to run on macros) so that you could drop 10,000 credits for a 3-hour buff. Depending on where you logged in and the time of day, it would be a solid half-hour before you were ready to actually “play”.
The game shined as a social tool. Between all of the emotes and the non-combat professions, it was a roleplayer’s dream. And if you found the right server or RP group, you’d sometimes find a community that established house rules to try and fix all of the broken gameplay.
I loved the years I spent playing Star Wars Galaxies. But that love was because of the community and *in spite* of the game, not *because* of the game. The game itself, from *day one*, was a hot broken mess.
Finally! Glad to see more stuff coming from his channel.
I was there on launch day. As buggy as it was, I had so much fun with this game.
The prospecting, mining, and crafting systems in that game were so much damn fun. Especially with the quality variations of final products.
This seemed like such a no-brainer to be successful.
Wish they would try again
I remember listening to Raph Koster lamenting the fact that they wouldn’t be allowed to have paid performers for roles like Darth Vader because Lucasfilm/EA insisted that every single player needed to have the same identical experience – so instead of people playing prominent characters like in his previous game Ultima Online, Vader would be a static piece of furniture that had dialogue.
I quit the game when they finally introduced Jedi classes by making you find random loot drops that scripted random skills for your character to master.
So my high level and well crafted droid building merchant was required to drop one of it’s key skills in order to become a high level DANCER if I wanted to be a jedi.
logged out and quit.
I played SWGemu for a year. I was an armorsmith, one of the best. Generals and kings would make the pilgrimage to my shop to beg me to craft them composite armor for a million credits or more. I scoured the galaxy for the best components. I stayed up late to snipe auctions on rare materials. I made sooo much money. I would craft mythically good starter gear like chitin armor, light as a feather and stronger than steel, give it a color theme like black and gold so they looked like insects, and give it away to newer players. It was a blast.
I just brought up Star Wars Galaxies in the Star Citizen reddit. In some ways SWG was ahead of its time, in others it was antiquated, but it all came together to make something really unique.
Mark this thread: With the success of Hogwart’s Legacy, it is simply a matter of time before a Jedi Academy MMO is released.
There is no way they wont.
One of my favourite class systems until the revamp. Absolutely loved mastering I believe Scout and maybe Sniper or something to be a BH. I had made friends with someone who had a store in the desert. I made my best Kyle Katarn look. Really miss it.
I was quite young when this gem of a game came out. I remember my parents buying a copy of this and the strategy guide that was the size of one of my school textbooks. I would spend a stupid amount of time before the game released thinking about which class I was going to try, and which species my character was going to be – I had never felt so excited to exist in a world, especially considering how this was *Star Wars* and I was such an absolute dork about anything SW related. It was a blast. I may have never made it into the more elite classes because of how technical and “adult” the world was, but I cherished every experience I had, no matter how small. Speeder rides on the desert sands of Tatooine. Buying my first ticket to board a ship to Endor. Hours spent interacting with people in cantinas, bazaars, and all over the major cities. Years later and I don’t think I will ever have that same experience. But therein lies a silver lining; those memories will forever be with me.
Oh man
Had so much fun playing a combat medic in this game.
Best MMO
Probably one of the best MMOs ive ever played.
Was part of the closed Beta program and still have the beta CDs somewhere.
A foundational game for me. I was one of the player correspondents from the official forums. While I think our actual impact was pretty small, the devs did host an in-game, invite-only get-together including Raph at one point. At this point, the game was super buggy and no Jedi appeared yet. I remember sort of cornering him and asking if the lack of Jedi was hurting the Star Wars immersion. It was clear we all wanted them but they still wanted it to be an achievement and rare for the time. I recall he felt like it was holding the game back, and the other player correspondents were torn between Jedi and Star Wars immersion, emphasizing balance, stability, actually telling a story, fixing broken classes, and adding new features.
I forget the specific timeline but soon after came the first Jedi, holocrons, and detailed info about how to unlock your Jedi. The game absolutely changed after they were introduced, though the game was changing regardless. I often wonder if or how much that conversation pushed them towards accelerating Jedi in the game and all the complications they brought while dealing with balancing classes and weapons, bugs, and commercial requirements from SOE.
SOE really fucked shit up, but it was WoW that came out and obliterated every other MMO. It’s execution and style were so good and pulled a massive community from everyone else.
SWG was before its time and let down severe mismanagement by EA. the game was incredibly deep and the PVP was some of the best ever. Not to mention being able to make your own clan towns, etc. Looking forward to watching this video!
Rip Kettemoore, I think of my old community often.
Ahhh memories. I was a Master Image Designer as well as doing some Teras Kasi. Weird combination but I had a lot of fun!
This gane wqs amazing! I was a bounty hunter, a chef and then a jedi but i think jedi chasing did ruin the game
I remember when there was a crackdown on smuggler stuff, drugs and sliced gear…
Imperial Players with npc escorts
Bownty hunting actual players…
So mutch fun, best mmo ever.
Best crafting system ever in an mmo. Sad no one has tried to replicate it.
Its such a shame they basically killed the game when they tried to turn it into a WOW clone
I actually get “homesick” for that game. I loved it so much!
This is one of those lightning in the bottle video game moments. The dawn of the MMO age, pre-internet guides, pre-metas, pre-streamers. It was such fun moment. The game size seemed infinite back then. Everyone just played what/how they thought was fun, completely lost in the scale of the game.
Still have my Collectors Edition case in mint condition.
Sandbox MMORPG’s like that just no longer exist. The closest thing we have nowadays is the many Survival titles that come nowhere near close to it.
I stopped playing it after they dumbed it down with the “New Game Enhancement” update. Most of my clan on the Bria server abandoned it shortly thereafter.
Shame. It was a unique experience.
More than any MMO I’ve ever played, and I’ve played quite a lot of them casually, Galaxies really felt like a massive open world that you’ll never see all of, where you were just an insignificant rando trying to make their way in the universe.
And then, the Jedi came…
This is one of the best MMORPGs ever too be honest.
It wouldn’t survive now a days due to the need of spoon feeding the player as well as the lack of making the player feel like they were the main character.
Galaxies did it right, you were part of a huge universe, not the center of it.
The space combat was amazing, the player made cities, the quests, loot, crafting, all so unique.
Yet so many gamers now have no clue about games like this:( they are all just copies of each other.
“You have to understand Star Wars Galaxies both in terms of what it could be and what it frequently was. What it could be was a game where evocative Star Wars narratives were generated on the fly by a complex set of social systems. What it frequently was was a game where players in identical armour holding knuckle dusters queued for buffs from a man in a coat in the rain.” Raph Koster, 2015 SWG Retrospective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djJO1XSOwuI
This game is always a wonderful example of how nostalgia is rose-tinted. The common sentiment is always that the original game was great and the two major updates (CU and NGE) ruined it.
But in reality the game started bad and those two updates just made it worse. It was a wonderful social tool with a Star Wars skin, but it was otherwise really tragically broken.
At launch the quest system amounted to running up to computer terminals and grabbing two missions at a time. The missions were always the same: run five minutes out of the city boundaries to a nest of NPCs, kill the NPCs, destroy the nest. Return. Rinse. Repeat. No narrative. No characters. No flavor text. No real variation. It was just that over, and over, and over again.
Combat was sold as this vast and varied network of all these different disciplines, but the balance was so broken that virtually every single player was a TKA, because once you had the move Knockdown you were basically unbeatable. You’d get a mind buff and spam knockdown until you won.
Crafting was perhaps the most complex system I’ve ever seen in a video game, yet because there wasn’t any balance to the armor or weapons, you weren’t crafting a wide variety of stuff. Hope you liked making Composite armor and Vibro-Knuckles for the sea of TKAs, because that’s all that really sold.
And then there was the chore of it all. If you planned to grind out those flavorless missions to level up (the only way to, really) you had to log on, head to the shuttle terminal, wait up to 10 minute for the shuttle, possibly do that again if you were on a moon, head to Coronet, stand in line to wait for a doctor (who was usually a 2nd account setup to run on macros) so that you could drop 10,000 credits for a 3-hour buff. Depending on where you logged in and the time of day, it would be a solid half-hour before you were ready to actually “play”.
The game shined as a social tool. Between all of the emotes and the non-combat professions, it was a roleplayer’s dream. And if you found the right server or RP group, you’d sometimes find a community that established house rules to try and fix all of the broken gameplay.
I loved the years I spent playing Star Wars Galaxies. But that love was because of the community and *in spite* of the game, not *because* of the game. The game itself, from *day one*, was a hot broken mess.