So Long, Star Wars Galaxies

Amethyst Moonshadow of Flurry

I haven’t actively played SWG in years.

It was my first MMO, back in late 2003. I’ve always been a Star Wars fan, and when I realized I could play a character in the Star Wars universe with thousands of other people… well, it was a dream come true. My very first character ever was a human in the Shadowfire galaxy that I played until January 2004, when I switched to my true calling and what I considered my true SWG home… a Rodian in the Flurry galaxy. Amethyst Moonshadow was the Official Pink Rodian of Flurry since January 2004, and I loved her (and all of her identical alts) very much. Understandable; you never forget your first MMO love. I left with a lot of my friends after the NGE fiasco and haven’t returned to play seriously since; it’s been at least a year since I’ve poked around in-game just temporarily, and even though I haven’t actively played for years, I was truly saddened to receive the following email today:

Dear Star Wars Galaxies™ Community Member,

We write to you today to inform you that on December 15, 2011, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and LucasArts will end all services (MMO and Trading Card Game) for Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). The shutdown of SWG is a very difficult decision, but SOE and LucasArts have mutually agreed that the end of 2011 is the appropriate time to end the game.

We are extremely grateful to all of the SWG fans. We have had the rare opportunity to host one of the most dedicated and passionate online gaming communities and we truly appreciate the support we’ve received from each and every one of you over the course of the past eight years.

In recognition of your incredible loyalty, we are extending special Fan Appreciation offers to the current SWG community. We also plan to go out with a bang with a galaxy-ending in-game event in December and hope to see you all there. The details relating to these offers and events as well as the timeline and specifics regarding the discontinuation of the service, are provided below.

Again, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to our player community for making SWG one of the best online communities in gaming history.

Sincerely,
Sony Online Entertainment & LucasArts

Why should I care, really, when I haven’t played in so long? I keep asking myself this, but it doesn’t change the heavy heart feeling I have over the news. It makes me sad. There are so many memories wrapped up in that MMO. Lots of good friendships were made – hell, one of my dear WoJ guildmates attended my wedding in 2008! I met a lot of incredible people in the Flurry galaxy, and have kept in touch with several of them over the years. Some of us have even played in other games together since; a tribute to how strong the bond in SWG was. Some of my fondest memories are reignited when I log in and see some of the personalized items, like a Christmas fruitcake or a bio-engineered Woolamander, that sit in my cantina, named especially as a gift from some of those incredible people I was fortunate enough to meet through SWG years ago.

The Official Pink Rodian of Flurry since 2004

While you always knew it wouldn’t possibly last forever, RIP Star Wars Galaxies. You died in my eyes with the NGE, but held on for so long and still drew me in nostalgically from time to time because of the unique experience your MMO had to offer. I have yearned for an MMO that had what you had for years, and nothing so far has ever been quite the same or quite able to measure up. The intricate crafting system, the player housing system, the player cities and politics, the social aspects such as having cantinas and a dedicated entertainer/social class… those features made SWG robust and gave players so much more to do than engage in combat all the time to get ahead… something I have not been able to find done as well in any other game since. It truly felt like an open-ended world with limitless possibilities, a true “sandbox” of a game, if you will. Jump into a dungeon, fly in space, find some PvP action, explore various planets, craft, decorate your house, quest for collectibles, set up a shop and sell your wares, sit around in a cantina all day conversing with others and listening to their galactic tales… yup, SWG, you will be missed.

Massively did an exclusive interview with John Smedley, president of SOE, on the end of SWG. I think my favorite part of the interview is that John openly admits the NGE was a mistake and apologizes for it. Not that it matters now, but it was nice to read, because back when the NGE took place no one at SOE was man enough to admit that it was a mistake. The end of SWG is being referred to as its “sunset” and there are some things planned (like an in-game event) for SWG’s sunset that culminates on December 15, 2011.

With that news said, SWTOR is coming… I’m hoping Flurry will be able to rally somewhere together. There have been a few “official Flurry gathering” threads on the SWTOR forums – the first reached its 1k post limit, so a second one was started. Flurrians have been checking in and discussing SWTOR there, so the optimist in me is hoping we can organize where to go together as a galaxy when the game goes live. There are so many old names I recognize in that thread, and I’d sure like to live on in the Star Wars universe (as a Rodian, of course) with some old faces from SWG in SWTOR. We’ll see!

geekling due soon!

As for me, well, as mentioned in my most recent post(s), I’m about to be a first time mom. In fact, we’re due in 4 days. My gaming time has pretty much ceased to exist at this point, even my geeky soap shop is in “maternity mode” for awhile; I do plan to re-sub in SWG in order to be in good standing by September 15. Why September 15? All those who have an active subscription by September 15 will get to play the final months of SWG for free until the plug is pulled on December 15. I’d like to be able to attend the in-game event with other old-timers and putz around with them for free when I do have a spare moment, without a formal commitment. My play time of course will be limited with a newborn and I most likely won’t spend tons of time in-game, but I’d love to see the game off for the last time and hope some old friends join me that final week at the sunset event.

Photos
While you can head over to my Star Wars Galaxies photo gallery and see them all, here are a few images of me as Amethyst Moonshadow taken over the years, just for fun.

[Show as slideshow]

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So long, SWG, you’ll always be my first MMO love.

love,
Amethyst Moonshadow, the Official Pink Rodian of Flurry

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EVE -> STO -> SWG… What?

Amethyst Moonshadow, the Official Pink Rodian of Flurry

As mentioned in my previous post, Lucas got me to start playing EVE Online with him over Christmas break. I should clarfiy and mention that he had me start my own account in EVE a little over a year ago to play with him, but I’d never gotten into it then. He’d kept my account going off and on to keep it training, so the “new” character I started playing with him over break was actually my old character that had over 8 million skill training points, so it’s not exactly like she was brand new or anything. Just new to me, even though a lot of the gameplay came back to me a little easier the second time around.

With my complete non-interest in WoW right now and the lack of anything new, I found EVE to be a nice change of pace. A bit more of a learning curve than other games, but still nice to play with my husband. 

Not too long after I gave it a go, however, I got a beta invite to Star Trek Online. I gave the STO beta a spin and while at first it seemed great, I quickly realized that it was too linear for my tastes. By linear I mean that your only purpose in going out of the base stations (which was your only real place for interaction with others unless you went out with a group or got randomly grouped with others while on a mission) was if you had a linear mission to complete. You’d get a quest, be required to travel to x system, and then you’d either kill something in space or as part of the mission have to beam down to x planet and complete x objective in a shallow and linear world where you couldn’t really go outside of the preset mission area, and as soon as you completed x objective, you were immediately beamed off the planet and back to your ship with no opportunity to explore or see the sights. It kinda felt Guild War-ish in that main hubs were your only source of running into others (and it being broken into several instances of the hub where you’d have to hop to the same version of the hub to see your friend at the same station), and then everything outside of the hubs feeling instanced for your group or mission party as well. Meh.

I know that doing quests or missions are part of all MMORPGs and don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a lot of neat things about STO, for example the bridge officer setup and the ability to equip your ship with a set of officers with their own abilities that you trained to create a unique ship… but the lack of being able to just explore killed it for me. I mean, isn’t that the drive for the Star Trek series? To boldly go where no one has gone before? To explore the far reaches of space and discover new beings on remote planets? For now, there’s no way to just go out randomly and beam down to any planet you want and just… explore. You can’t comb every inch of a planet whenever you want and discover something — the only way you’d be able to beam down to a planet is if that was part of a mission. And all you do on missions is kill, kill, kill. It doesn’t seem to really fit with the diplomatic approach that was so prevalent in the Star Trek series.

I know that this is just a game, but after realizing what I was missing in STO (And after trying my hardest to create something that resembled a Rodian as closely as I could with the cool “unknown alien” character creation option, lol) I knew what I needed. I needed the perfect space game. EVE and STO had inspired me to stay in space. And clearly my seemingly conscious need to create a Rodian in the Star Trek universe was telling me what I was missing: Star Wars Galaxies.

Is this lame? Probably. Considering an article written recently listing the top 10 screw ups of all MMORPG history’s time has SOE’s NGE to SWG was listed as number one, I shouldn’t be here. But I am. Things have changed. A LOT! But SWG contains all of the perfect elements that I’m craving right now. Pink rodians, a fantastically intricate crafting system like no other, real open-ended exploration anywhere at any time, the housing system and the ability to build player cities, vendors and being able to decorate your home and sell your wares in a shop you design and make your own… it’s bliss. The combat system is different (though my main was an Entertainer anyway, so it’s not like I did a lot of combat in the old system) than I remember, but it’s something new to learn. I have a level 65 alt that I went combat with, and I’m having a blast (pun intended) learning how to play a Commando as I level her up to 90. I miss the REAL Bio-Engineer and Creature Handler professions and am still bitter enough about that to keep me from really diving deep into the new Beast Master profession, but at least there’s still beast mounts that I can craft for nostalgic purposes. And community. SWG’s Entertainer profession is unlike professions in other games because it creates this need for a social hang out, and cantinas can be a hopping place for the community to come together at.  It’s still not quite as hopping as it used to be in Theed back in the day, but I do enjoy that I can take my Entertainer to a cantina and just chill and talk with others if I want to. I meet lots of interesting people that way! I do like the new Collections system, too – much like WoW’s achievement system — and think it’s neat. There are a lot of cool rewards for some of the collections and it’s been fun working on those. It just adds one more facet to the game for me that wasn’t there in the old system, which is holding my interest long enough right now so that I can experience it all.

I’ve got Amethyst leveling up her Imperial piloting, which I had never done past Tier 1 before, and I’m having fun with it. Yes, I went Imp because they’re horribly outnumbered on Flurry at the moment. Alt 1, Ame’thyst, is selling all of my phat lewts in my old shop just outside of Eisley including some of (Alt 2) A’methyst’s old Pre-NGE BE pets. And Alt 2, A’methyst, has gone combat and is leveling a Commando up to try and get into PvP, end-game instances, and the new GCW system that is also new to SWG since the last time I played seriously. All of my characters have something fun going on and it gives me plenty to keep me busy and look forward to when they get there. Ame can get into space PvP and buff on the ground, and A’me is going to partake in the GCW and instances and work on her Imp faction. All while I sell my wares and make some cash to do whatever I want to do at the same time.

I am aware that SWG may not have a lot of life left. With ToR on the horizon next year and, from what I hear, the SWGemu project nearing completion (after following it for several years now!) I can see that there will be a lot of competition for SWG to stay afloat. I know that I personally will be giving the SWGemu project a go for nostalgia’s sake, and most definitely will be playing ToR. But you know how sometimes all you really want is to curl up with something comfy and indulge a little in your favorite comfort food or guilty pleasure? That’s what SWG is for me right now, and I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Find me in the Flurry Galaxy as Amethyst, A’methyst, or Ame’thyst. :)

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