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Star Wars Galaxies

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For the fictional setting, see Star Wars galaxy.
Star Wars Galaxies
Star Wars Galaxies box art.
Star Wars Galaxies box art.
Developer(s)United States Sony Online Entertainment
Japan Electronic Arts Japan
Publisher(s)LucasArts
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows,
ReleaseUnited States 26 June, 2003

Europe 7 November, 2003
Japan 23 December, 2004

Australia 2006
Genre(s)MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Star Wars Galaxies (abbv. SWG) is a Star Wars themed MMORPG for Microsoft Windows developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.[1]

History

On 16 March, 2000, LucasArts Entertainment announced a partnership with Verant Interactive Inc. and Sony Online Entertainment to create the first massively multiplayer Star Wars online role-playing game.[1][2] The then unnamed game would be developed by Verant with online play supported by SOE. This was the same team responsible for creating and supporting the popular EverQuest multiplayer online game. LucasArts would be responsible for all distribution of the Star Wars online game. The announcement included an expected release date some time in 2001 and that the game would take place during the original trilogy era.

LucasArts officially announced the brand name of the game to be Star Wars Galaxies on 29 November 2000.[3] The announcement claimed the first round of testing for Star Wars Galaxies was expected to start in late 2001 which would push back the official release date to an unknown time. The game's official information site was launched on 30 November 2000 in conjunction with SOE and featured frequently asked questions about the game and message boards fielded by members of the development team.[4]

We see this Web site as an important step toward building a strong community for the Star Wars Galaxies line of games. We firmly believe that consistent and open communication with fans will be one of the keys to the success of the Star Wars Galaxies experience.

— Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts[3]

On 17 May 2001, even before the game went into public beta testing, the first expansion's development was announced.[5] The yet unnamed add-on, which was expected to be available six months after the initial product release, would be a space simulation and enable players to own and fly starships which would allow interplanetary travel and space combat. The release date of the initial product, the ground-based component, was updated to the second half of 2002. The staggered release schedule of the space component of the Star Wars Galaxies series was said to benefit players because they would have time to establish their characters and explore different elements of the core game before adding the space layer.[6] Traveling between planets would be accomplished through the use of public shuttles, which would ferry characters from world to world.

A new official site was also released on the same day that put more of an emphasis behind the community of the game. It included new screen shots, movies, an updated FAQ, concept art, development team member's profiles, features about the game, and a new forum.[7] The site reached 100,000 users by December 2001.[8] Throughout the next year after the release of the new site, new content would be revealed. This content included information on species and locations, new images and movies of different game elements, and 360 degree QuickTime VR panoramas of different locations.

Verant began accepting applications from users in May 2002 who were interested in participating in a closed beta test for SWG. The closed beta test would begin in July 2002.[9] SOE would share more information on the game as the beta moved forward. This would include more screen shots, information on match making services, the fact that players would be permitted only one character per server,[10] and skill trees and how the skill-based system would function.[11] LucasArts also announced on 20 May 2002 that both the Xbox[12] and PlayStation 2[13] would get a version of the game, but these would later be cancelled.

LucasArts officially confirmed a release date of 15 April 2003.[14][15] They also announced on 20 December 2002 that the ground-based component of Star Wars Galaxies would be called An Empire Divided and that the game's online community had grown to over 400,000 users since its inception in November 2000. This represented one of the largest ever fan communities amassed for any game prior to retail availability.[14]

An Empire Divided would later be delayed to an unknown time,[16] but on 17 June 2003, LucasArts confirmed Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided would be released on 26 June 2003.[17]

Gameplay features

As with all MMORPGs, the feature set of Star Wars Galaxies is subject to change.

Timeline

The game events are set following the destruction of the Death Star in Episode IV: A New Hope, but before the beginning of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Geography

The game launched with 10 planets: Tatooine, Naboo, Corellia, Talus, Rori, Dantooine, Lok, Yavin IV, the forest moon of Endor, and Dathomir. In the second expansion, Rage of the Wookiees, the Wookiee planet Kashyyyk was added. In the third expansion, Trials of Obi-Wan, the planet Mustafar was added. Each of the original 10 planets are represented by approximately 225 square kilometers (15 km x 15 km maps) of game space.[18] In contrast, the expansion planets of Kashyyyk and Mustafar are smaller, constructed differently (e.g. instances) and in some cases imposed different rules than the original, such as terrain that is not traversable (i.e. mountains or hills that cannot be climbed over).[19][20]

In addition to the 12 planets, there are 12 space zones, each encompassing approximately 3400 cubic kilometers (15 km cubes) of fully-navigable space. Nine of them are associated with one or more of the playable planets: Tatoo (Tatooine), Naboo (Naboo and Rori), Corellia (Corellia and Talus), Dantooine, Karthakk (Lok), Yavin, Endor, Dathomir, and Kashyyyk. (Mustafar has no associated space zone.) Kessel and Deep Space have no planets and are used for high-level gameplay and player-versus-player combat. The Ord Mantell sector was released in January 2008 as a new space-only zone, but there is a space station there (called Nova Orion) where pilots can land and acquire quests.

Graphics

The game is generally praised by reviewers for its realistic character models, detailed architecture and lush environments.[21][22][23]

Points of interest and cameos

Examples of characters and points of interest that players can visit within the game include R2-D2, C-3PO, their escape pod on Tatooine, the Naboo Royal Palace, the abandoned Rebel bases on Dantooine and Yavin IV, the notorious pirate Nym in his stronghold on Lok, Ewoks and Rancors. Other main characters include Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Emperor Palpatine, Admiral Ackbar, Jan Dodonna, Boba Fett, Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Salacious Crumb, Max Rebo, Wedge Antilles, Gavyn Sykes, HK-47, Boss Nass, Admiral Thrawn, the "reincarnation" of General Grievous as NK-Necrosis, and the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

References are also made of characters from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, such as Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade from the Thrawn trilogy, and HK-47 from the Knights of the Old Republic series of games.

The game also references the other two Star Wars spin-off films, in that the player may encounter the Gorax species from Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, and the base of the Sanyassan Marauders, as seen in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.

Species and professions

The 10 species available to players include: Human, Twi'lek, Zabrak, Wookiee, Trandoshan, Rodian, Mon Calamari, Bothan, Sullustan and Ithorian.

There are 9 professions: Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Commando, Spy, Officer, Medic, Entertainer, and Trader. In addition to these professions, a character can also choose among three Pilot sub-professions and optionally enter the Politician sub-profession. Characters can specialize in different areas of their main professions by selecting "expertise" options, including Beast Mastery.

Ships

The Jump to Lightspeed made individual ships attainable by players for the first time. This allowed players to acquire and pilot ships of various sizes. Ships ranged from fighter-sized ships up to ships like the Millennium Falcon. Some players chose to play most of the game in space, while others went back and forth between space settings and planetary settings.

Combat mechanics

Ground combat is currently real-time and similar to a first-person shooter. The player must aim a targeting reticule at a target and left-click the mouse to fire. Auto-aim and auto-fire features are available, creating a more traditional combat experience, but players eschewing those options are rewarded with an increased chance to do maximum damage. As characters gain levels, they gain access to additional combat abilities called "specials" which are activated by using the right mouse button. These specials usually have a cool-down period. In addition to providing especially powerful damage attacks, specials are also used to heal, buff, debuff and crowd control. Players gain the ability to use more powerful weapons as they advance in level.

Players also earn "Expertise Points" as they level up which they can use in their professions expertise "tree". The player can allot 45 points into various abilities and attributes to make their characters more diverse, from weapons specialties to healing and armor proficiencies.

Player housing, guilds, and cities

Characters can erect, own and decorate a variety of buildings, including houses, cantinas, guild halls and city halls. These buildings, when grouped, can be organized into cities. Players hold elections via ballot box for Mayor. Elected mayors grant city members certain rights to place structures within the city and eject players from cities as needed. Reelections are held every two weeks. If another player wishes to run for mayor they can add their name at any time to the ballot box to run against the incumbent. As cities grow in population, they become eligible to add services and facilities such as vehicle repair garages, shuttleports, cloning facilities, hospitals, cantinas and garden displays. They can show up on the planetary maps alongside canonical cities such as Theed and Mos Eisley.

The gameplay design encourages realistic social institutions such as a dynamic player economy and other real-life social phenomena like a complicated division of labor. According to Star Wars Galaxies and the Division of Labor, the division of labor in Star Wars Galaxies around April 2005 produced in-game results similar to those in real life. Galaxies' original game design socialized players to specialize their characters by mastering one or two professions, and to join guilds, in which players relate to one another primarily in terms of their professions (eg: "I am the weaponsmith, so I make weapons for the guild") — just as in real life, people are tied to one another by organic solidarity.

Other features
File:Lifedayimage.jpg
A screen shot from the SWG website of Life Day.
  • Single- and multi-passenger ground vehicles and starships: (landspeeders, speeder bikes, swoops, X-wings, TIE fighters and even several of the YT series of ships)
  • Player-run Virtual economy where player characters are responsible for creating many in-game items including blasters,starships, clothing, armor, food, housing, furniture and even a wide variety of droids. Items are created from player-collected raw materials and looted items.
  • An extensive set of emotes, moods, and associated animations, which affect not only an avatar's physical appearance but also the text used to describe a character's speech, and even the shape of the speech bubble displayed on-screen.
  • Standard MMORPG features such as player guilds, chat functionality, and other community features.
  • The ability for players to place bounties on opponents that killed them in PVP. Player character bounty hunters can then pick up another character's "bounty mission" on the terminals and track the character down. A bounty can be claimed at anytime, regardless of the target's PvP setting. Up to three bounty hunters can be tracking a character at any given time.
  • An extensive character creation system. Characters can hire Entertainers to change their appearance in-game, with even more options than those available at creation. Every visual aspect of a character is thereby changeable at any time after character creation except species and gender.
  • The game references and features elements from The Star Wars Holiday Special, such as Lumpy's stuffed bantha, and the customs of Life Day, when the player visits Kashyyyk. The red Life Day robes the Wookiees in the special wore are also available during special events in the game.

Release and expansions

An Empire Divided

File:SWG June 2004.jpg
Star Wars Galaxies before Jump to Lightspeed

The base game, titled Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, was released on 26 June 2003 in the USA and on 7 November, 2003 in Europe. A localized version for the Japanese market was published by Electronic Arts Japan on 23 December, 2004. Japanese acceptance of the game was low, and in November 2005 the servers were shut down and existing accounts migrated to US servers.

At the time of its initial release, the game was very different than it is now. Vehicles and creature mounts were not yet implemented. Player housing was not in the game, player cities were not either. Housing was added first, with cities added later. (Those features were added in November 2003.) Each character and creature possessed three "pools" (called Health, Action, and Mind; or "HAM") that represented his or her physical and mental reserves. Most attacks specifically targeted one of these three pools and any action the character took also depleted one or more of the pools. When any one of those pools was fully depleted, the character would fall unconscious. Combat, then, required the player to carefully manage his or her actions to avoid depleting a pool.

Character progression was vastly different at release as well. Characters started out in one of six basic professions (Medic, Brawler, Marksman, Scout, Entertainer, or Artisan) and could pick up any of the other five at any time after character creation. Each profession consisted of a tree-like structure of skills, with a single Novice level, four independent branches of four levels each, and a Master level which required completion of all four branches. Characters purchased these skills with experience points gained through a related activity. For example, an Entertainer could purchase skills to get better at playing music, but only with Musician experience points. Dancing experience points were entirely separate and could only be used to purchase dancing skills.

In addition to the basic professions, characters could specialize into advanced professions such as Bounty Hunter, Creature Handler, Ranger, Doctor, and Musician. There were a total of 24 advanced professions, although there was no way for characters to obtain all of them at once. Each advanced profession had certain skill requirements from the base professions that had to be met, some more restrictive than others.

Jedi were not available as a starting profession, or even as an advanced profession. The developers stated only that certain in-game actions would open up a Force-sensitive character slot. The actions required were left for players to discover. It eventually turned out that characters had to achieve Master level in random professions. At first the player had to complete four master level classes which were randomly chosen and unknown to the player. The developers then introduced Holocrons which would inform the player of the first, then after completion second master class required. At various times the number of master levels needed ranged from four to seven and the number revealed by holocrons varied from two to four. The first Force-sensitive character slot was unlocked on 7 November 2003.[24]

Jump to Lightspeed

This first expansion, Jump to Lightspeed, was released on 27 October 2004. Two new races were added: Sullustan and Ithorian. The expansion added space combat. Characters could choose one of three factions in the new Pilot sub-profession: Rebel, Imperial, or Freelance. The playable sectors include the space surrounding the 10 planets of the game as well as Kessel and "Deep Space." Combat is real-time and twitch-oriented like a first-person shooter and can be played with a joystick at the player's option. A new Artisan profession, Shipwright, was also introduced. This profession created ships, shields, armor, weapons, etc for players. They also had the ability to take looted components from space and reverse engineer them into better components.

Rage of the Wookiees

The second expansion, Episode III Rage of the Wookiees, was announced on 9 March 2005 and released on 5 May 2005. It added the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk and its corresponding space sector. Kashyyyk is different from the previous 10 planets: rather than being 16 square kilometers of openly navigable area, it is divided into a small central area with several instanced "dungeon" areas. A new space zone was also added. Other content added in this expansion included the ability to add cybernetic limbs to a player character and quests for two new creature mounts and three new starships. A substantial portion of the content for this expansion was adapted from the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith which was released to theaters in the U.S. on May 19, two weeks after the expansion release.

Trials of Obi-Wan

The third expansion, Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan, was announced on 19 August 2005 and released on 1 November 2005. This expansion added the ground planet of Mustafar to the game. No new space sector was added with this expansion. Like the previous expansion, much of the content is related to Revenge of the Sith, which was released to DVD on the same day as the expansion was released. Additional content, including the presence of the droid HK-47, is based on the Knights of the Old Republic games.

SWG compilations

On top of the expansions, SOE released several compilations of their games:

Star Wars Galaxies - The Total Experience
This pack included the original Star Wars Galaxies (An Empire Divided), Jump to Lightspeed and the Rage of the Wookiees expansion packs. Customers who bought this pack also received a BARC speeder as a gift.
Star Wars Galaxies - Starter Kit
The kit was the first version of the New Game Enhancement (NGE). It contained An Empire Divided and Jump to Lightspeed. Customers who bought this pack also received a X-Wing or TIE fighter instant transport vehicle as a gift.[25]
Star Wars Galaxies - The Complete Online Adventures
This included the original game with all expansion packs, a DVD of never-before released bonus features, a slide show of more than 800 pieces of Star Wars Galaxies concept art and screenshots, all set to more than an hour of orchestral in-game music, excerpts from the popular “From Pencil to Pixel” book that chronicles the art of Star Wars Galaxies and interviews with the producers, and all the cinematic trailers for the game. It also included an exclusive in-game item for use while playing – a personal AT-RT vehicle as seen in Revenge of the Sith.[26]

This version was the first which was released in Australia, instead of An Empire Divided.

Reviews

Reviews for the initial launch of the game in 2003 were mostly positive. The game was praised for its lush graphics, liberal use of the movie soundtracks, massive world size, character customization, creative creature ecology, complex skill system, player economy interdependencies and its sandbox approach. Reviewers criticized the overwhelming complexity of the game, PVP/PVE combat imbalances of the professions, bugginess and lack of quest content.[27] The reviews for the first expansion, Jump To Lightspeed, praised the new space combat but criticized the ground game for its lack of sufficient improvement.[28] The reviews for the second expansion, Rage Of The Wookiees lauded the new quest content for current subscribers but lamented the CU and the continued bugginess of the game.[29] The third expansion, Trials Of Obi-Wan(ToOW), once again introduced new quest and content and the planet Mustafar. However, two weeks later a new system called NGE was introduced, which forever changed the play style of SWG and removed some of the content that was included with ToOW.[30]

Criticism

Some media organizations have speculated that Star Wars Galaxies may be the most controversial MMORPG.[31] Some such critical issues follow.

Jedi

Players who wished to play a Jedi character had to first unlock their Jedi slot by fulfilling an unknown list of criteria. However, within four months of this stipulation, no player had yet achieved the goal. The Jedi forum at the official site turned into a "flamer's paradise" as some subscribers accused the developers of lying about the Jedi system being in place. The first player unlocked their 'Jedi slot' on 7 November 2003.[32] Lucas Arts game producer Haden Blackman stated in an interview on 20 December 2003, with Gamespy: "We're confident in the [Jedi] system because the feedback from players has been extremely positive. Not only are Jedi players happy with the system and the powers they are receiving...." This caused a backlash by some players who felt this statement was misleading. Gamespy noted: "GameSpy's mail was so flooded with reports from the Galaxies community that we started researching this feature to present both sides of the story."[33] Because the time commitment to unlock a Jedi was substantial, players complained that perma-death of the character after three deaths was overly harsh. The developers eventually relented and lowered the penalty to skill loss in January 2004.[34] The skill loss was later recanted.

Other complaints that were raised involved the process of unlocking the Jedi slot, known as "hologrinding", was overly long, painful and disruptive to the social fabric of the game. In August 2004, the developers released a quest system as the new path to unlocking the Jedi slot.[35][36] With the NGE (see below) in November 2005, allowing all players, including new ones, to play a Jedi character, there were complaints that the efforts that veteran players had expended in unlocking their Jedi slots were all for nothing. [37]

Many players have pointed out that canonically, there are very few Jedi active in the galaxy during the time period in which the game is set. The number of Jedi characters in the game, especially after the NGE, has thus raised some controversy [citation needed].

Combat Upgrade

Star Wars Galaxies after the Combat Upgrade patch

SWG developers promised a "Combat Upgrade" or "CU," which was released 27 April 2005, and represented a major re-writing of the combat, armor, and weapons systems, wherein only certain professions could use specific weapons and armor. The combat mechanics in the game were shifted from a skill system to a combat level system for both players and game creatures. The UI icon graphics were changed from monochromatic to color.[38] This alteration resulted in controversy caused by players who criticized the changes,[39][40] and cancellations during that time.[41] However, subscriber numbers gradually grew back for the next seven months, hitting a peak around October 2005.[citation needed]

New Game Enhancements

Star Wars Galaxies after the New Game Enhancements

Another set of game changes dubbed the "New Game Enhancements" (NGE) was announced on 3 November 2005 and started testing the next day. It went live on November 15 via digital download, and became available in retail as the Star Wars Galaxies: Starter Kit on November 22.[42] Changes included the reduction of the 34 original professions to nine "iconic" ones. The NGE changes also included a massive overhaul to the gameplay, deemphasizing the importance of tradeskills and replacing the CU combat system with a faster first-person shooter style game. Jedi powers and status, once obtainable only after extremely long hours of play, became available to characters as starting class.[42]

The launch of the NGE introduced new bugs, broken quests, and induced client-side lag.[42] There were criticisms of the changes in several reviews, and negative player feedback was noted by media outlets outside the gaming industry, including CBS News, New York Times, New York Post and Wired Magazine.[43][44][45][46][47] On Slashdot, John Smedley explained that they felt it necessary to revamp the game to the NGE in order to reverse the deterioration they were seeing in the subscriber base.[48]

The development team affirmed this is their desired direction for the game, and they are slowly modifying parameters to address players' desires.[49] This progress includes the re-introduction of some pre-NGE features that were removed, such as creature handling, target locking, auto-firing, the ability to fire special attacks from their keys,[42] and the option to keep the camera behind the character, rather than the NGE's over-the-shoulder perspective.[50]

Since then, the development team has given each profession a set of "Expertise trees" to bring back some complexity and differentiation to characters.

After the announcement that SOE had acquired the MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Smedley addressed that game's players, many of whom had come from Star Wars Galaxies, about the perceived threat of major changes to the game:

We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

— John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment[51]

Expansion refund

The Trials of Obi-Wan expansion met with controversy as, two days after the expansion was released, the development team announced the NGE. Many players objected that they would not have purchased the expansion if they had known in advance about the NGE. Sony Online Entertainment eventually offered a refund to players who had purchased the expansion prior to the NGE.[52] Some subscribers threatened a class-action lawsuit,[citation needed] but eventually gave up once they learned it had no legal basis since SOE was going to offer refunds.

Subscriber numbers

Veteran designer, Raph Koster, helmed the development and initial launch of the game. Many industry professionals expected that the subscription numbers would exceed the one million mark, a feat accomplished only thus far in Asia by MMORPGs such as Lineage and more recently by World of Warcraft.[53] Based on NPD figures as of February 2004, SWG sold more than 400,000 boxed copies at retail for a total initial revenue of over $18 million. Sony Online Entertainment confirmed in March 2004 that there were well over 200,000 monthly subscribers making it the second largest MMORPG in North America.[54] The company later reported in 2004 that they had 250,000 subscribers.[55] In August 2005, Sony Online Entertainment reported that they had now sold 1,000,000 boxed copies of the game.[56] Media sources reported that the subscriber numbers have fallen substantially since the release of the CU and the NGE.[57][58] In early 2006 after the NGE, allegedly "hacked" numbers purported to show that only 10,363 subscribers were playing on a particular Friday night. The President of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley, denied that subscriptions had fallen this low: "Have the numbers in Star Wars Galaxies gone down? I will tell you that the concurrent numbers have gone down. Are they as low as what was shown there? Absolutely not."[59]

As of the second quarter of 2006, according to charts at MMOGchart.com, there were estimated to be between 110,000 and 175,000 subscribers. A more recent update from MMOGdata.com which uses the previous data from MMOGchart.com, estimates that the game has about 49,000 subscribers as of April 2007.[60] However, both MMOGchart.com and MMOGdata.com rated the subscriber number estimates at a "C" confidence level which mean they are "merely industry 'best guesses' or are otherwise questionable" due to SOE not releasing SWG subscriber numbers.[61][60] Posting on the official forums, Lorin Jameson (SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies, forum name "DeadMeat") has refuted the latest figure: "I think I am safe in saying the 50K number is vastly wrong."[62]

In October 2007, Primotechnology.com reported that; "It’s estimated that the game now has fewer than 100,000 subscribers and less than 20,000 active players.[63]

Emulation efforts

The aforementioned controversial updates to the game prompted a few small groups of players to develop a server emulator which would allow for play in an older version of the game. Some players are seeking to revive the "Pre-CU" or Pre-Combat Upgrade version of Star Wars Galaxies. Different groups are currently attempting to reverse engineer this earlier version of the game. Although none of these emulator projects are completed, some are running public and private test servers. Several former SWG players have formed communities in advance of the release of an emulator.

Novelization

Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine is a novel based in part on places and events in the game. It was authored by Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman, the LucasArts producer of the game.[64]

References

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  24. ^ Allakhazam.com: Star Wars Galaxies: News: Congratulations Monika T'Sarn for Unlocking the Force Sensitive Slot!
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  34. ^ http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/march04/galaxies/03/index.shtml Rausch, Allen; GameSpy.com: Episode III (of III); March 14, 2004]
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External links

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