Wired is running a story about a recent shake up in a major online world. Now I would like to spend some time to document what I know of it... and its a surprsing amount now that I think of it.
First off. The game "Starwars Galaxies" was never released if you ask me. Those that remember the old Dev Boards days preceeding the launch know what I am talking about. This kind of defection due to a massive core game design change happend once before... it happend even before the game was released. The rift began about 6 months before the initial release date when all of a sudden space combat dropped out and was designated as the first expansion. At that time the nature of core game mechanics for interaction changed and suddenly the dreaded EQ "treadmill" re-apeared in the core mechanics design.
There were enough pieces remaining that the defection of contributers to the board community wasn't quite as bad as what I am hearing about regarding the current mass exodus of players. But after that change many people who posted page after page of thoughtfull comentary on the comming game design implications were no longer present. What had drawn them there was gone and what had been put in its place drew a new and different crowd. I survived that change on the boards, hoping against hope that more of the initial design would survive than did. It didn't take long after logging in to the inital world to realize the game we had all be talking about for more than two years up to that point had not been made. In its place was a pale image of the possibilities we had been promised and despite the fact it was a pretty good game the results left a bad taste in my mouth I couldn't shake. The elements that remained were not enough to salvage the world, and the rough hack job that had removed the other elements had left a very rough game world that faced a great deal of growing pains early on to hide the gaping wounds in the play mechanics. A lot of the assumed interaction was broken. The civil war participation was transformed into an end game kind of reward for people who dedicated a long time seeking the skill advancement dings. Player control of territory almost didn't exist.And in game dynamic content was thin on the ground. The imagination sand box had turned into another graphic candy defined jungle gym. It was a far more elaborate play system than had come before. But I could see enough to understand they had changed the basic idea of a player run world into a static theme world. And with that realization I logged out to rarely return.
NGE is simply the logical end of that shift that occured in the months before the initial launch date. They killed the individuality of proffesions, killed decay (which drove the crafting game) and finally made Jedi open to all which fits in with Sony's idea that the game must cater to the individual and not the overall idea of a sustainable online community. Its a terrible shame if you ask me. Truly new things are rare... and inital Galaxies was going to be New. Alas it never was allowed to be what the creators wanted it to be. To me and many of the early dev board denziens the game was Still born and placed on life support. NGE simply marks the final death of the game that could have been. I am sorry to hear it go. But in a sense I am relieved. It always pained me to talk to peple playing in the game, constantly hearing reminders about how close we came to receiving a true online world in which to play 'Starwars' rather than a controlled theme park experience. It was like seeing a great college athlete suffer a career ending injury on the eve of turning pro and then running across them every now and then and being constantly reminded of what could have been. But NGE isn't an injury. It marks the final death of the intial vision of Lucasarts lead designer Ralph "Ultima Online" Koster aka Holocron.
May it rest in Peace.
If by chance any of the old Dev boarders happen across this I was known there by the somewhat less than origianl nick of Anakin_Darklighter.
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