Sony To Encase Half the Star Wars: Galaxies Servers In Carbonite 140
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."
May it (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.
Re:Good (Score:4, 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.
A foot in the grave but not dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm...there was Betamax...and Minidisc...PS3...soon to be blu-ray... Sadly, I think your curse worked.
Re:Brillant! (Score:2, 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...?
Re:When will they get it??? (Score:3, 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.
The Game is still Kicking! (Score:2, 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.
Re:Brillant! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Innovative features (Score:2, 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.
Re:Innovative features (Score:3, Interesting)
The end is finally near... (Score:1, Interesting)