Star Wars Galaxies devs discuss why it died | PC Gamer - crawfordreadion
Star Wars Galaxies devs discuss why it died
I love a GDC postmortem, with the Side effect and Diablo breakdowns as classic examples of the form. The latest from this class's all-digital GDC commit Star Wars Galaxies connected the slab and then creative director Raph Koster and enforcement producer Richard Vogel could dissect what went wrong with the infamous MMO. As the opening move crawl put it, "This is the story of the worst game to become a classic, and of the most notorious patch in videogame chronicle."
Star Wars: Galaxies may be fondly remembered today for its crafting, player-driven saving, house-customizing, terpsichore, and concenter on relatively ordinary characters, simply at launch it was a calamity. As Koster and Vogel order IT, a lot of that came down to how rushed it was, with the developers' request for an extra six months before launch being attenuated to a single month of scraunch.
During that month, one of the features that was cut was a system for trailing how players could unlock the ability to become a Jedi. The plan was that you'd have to complete a randomized set of activities, though you wouldn't atomic number 4 told what they were. You'd sustain to explore and learn and prove everything until one day you'd suddenly be told you had a connection to the Force. Instead, in the final gritty you'd need to use five randomly designated skills from the huge number accessible, though you wouldn't be told that. That was "a very fateful decision made at the end of a 14- or 16-minute crunch day," Koster said.
The result was what the developers wanted—Jedi were rare and mysterious, and most mass played early characters. On average, a third of the players along each server ran a shop. IT became a game where you made your own fun, ignoring the rudimentary quests to roleplay, run beauty pageants, or make music videos.
That's a semihard angle to sell, though. Warriors with laser swords are easier to put along posters. Eastern Samoa Koster explained, "We get told by merchandising, 'You know what, to practice a new marketing push button we pauperism Jedi in the game. We want Jedi by Yuletide.'" First they added a holocron that told players what to do future to unlock Force powers, and soon those players were abandoning their shops in droves to grind skills and become Jedi. This was atomic number 102 fun it turned forbidden, but completionism is impossible to bridle.
Then the New Game Enhancements patch simply added Jedi as a class selection, while overhauling and removing many of the active systems. It alienated the community WHO had looked past the rough launch because a gamy more or less crafting and dancing and economics and home decoration and pets was what they actually wanted. They unsubscribed in large numbers.
When Star Wars Galaxies closed down in 2011, its final hours proverb an outpouring of love for the much-maligned MMO, with players returning to log in one last metre. As Vogel says, "They created their own stories living in the Star Wars universe and that was what made it special to them."
Previous GDC postmortems have been posted to YouTube, and hopefully this one will be before long.
Jody's first information processing system was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to purpose a code wheel to play Pool of Radiancy. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent River Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Commonwealth of Australi's low gear radio show some videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Theme Shotgun, The Big Take, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first clause for PC Gamer was published in 2015, He altered PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and actually did play every Warhammer videogame.
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-galaxies-devs-discuss-why-it-died/
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