Star Wars Galaxies: Strolling Down Memory Lane with Raph Koster

SBFord

Raph Koster's site is being updated frequently as he is taking questions on design decisions made on Star Wars Galaxies. Today's question is "What were the thoughts on Jedi and why were such drastic changes made in patch 9 to the entire system?"

For fans of Star Wars Galaxies, these entries about some of the most controversial design decisions are a terrific read. The site is crawling so be patient and sit down to read Koster's extensive post about Jedi and Storm Troopers and one about Temporary Enemy Flagging. The promise is that more is to come.

Check it out (patiently!) at RaphKoster.com.

Kickaxe

Truly enjoyed reading these blog posts from Raph, remembering the greatness and awfullness of what I consider to be the very best MMORPG ever made--cause no other game has ever meant quite so much to me as Star Wars Galaxies. I'm pretty sure Raph Koster deserves much of the credit for making SWG innovative and compelling. So, thanks Raph for daring to be daring, even if it didn't quite all work out the way you wanted.

SpottyGekko

Is it just coincidence that these reveals are being made now that SOE is no longer a legal entity ? I'd imagine that any non-disclosure agreements (written and unwritten) between Raph and SOE are no longer relevant ? Neither of the companies (SOE and LucasArts) involved in SWG exist any more, after all.

palulalula

Ok...do you talk about the same game i remebered?  It was a game full of bugs and some strange lag spikes. PVP was some kind of strange ''puppet master string pulling'', robot dance exct.... Tatooine  was the only good looking planet, rest was just to weird to be the  Star Wars

Darthconnor

Nice article. Sounds like given the time and money and right engine to run on could have been an even greater game then it was. Sad that they rushed so much and ended up ruining alot of the plans they had for not only Jedi but the game itself.

Sovrath

Originally posted by palulalula
Ok...do you talk about the same game i remebered?  It was a game full of bugs and some strange lag spikes. PVP was some kind of strange ''puppet master string pulling'', robot dance exct.... Tatooine  was the only good looking planet, rest was just to weird to be the  Star Wars

have you ever heard the term "greater than the sum of its parts"?

I suspect that there was some of that happening for people. It all depends on what one values in these games and what one can forgive.

Caldrin

Originally posted by palulalula
Ok...do you talk about the same game i remebered?  It was a game full of bugs and some strange lag spikes. PVP was some kind of strange ''puppet master string pulling'', robot dance exct.... Tatooine  was the only good looking planet, rest was just to weird to be the  Star Wars

Never had any major issues myself and I put quite a bit of time in to that game.. never did the jedi thing but still..

Octagon7711

Yep, good times.

Wizardry

IMO it just proves they had a very poor team when comes to design systems.I have seen that same problem over and over in many or most games  and usually the dev ends up with some cheesy control method with stats to garner any over powered players.

There is a super easy method to still give say a JEDI a super powerful feeling whlle controlling him.This is where the whole SYSTEM and depth comes into play.First of all if you make a game soloing,it is a fail right away,can't help you then.

However in a group you create hate meters and utilize longer timers.I like to call it SPIKE damage,you can give that JEDI 1 maybe 2 maybe even 3 super powerful abilities but put them on very long timers so they are not a spam god.Give them the ability to transfer some of that hate to another player,give them abilities to dodge away several feet to avoid taking immediate damage from massive spike damage hate.Allow a Tank type class to have a COVER ability that perhaps lasts 5-7 seconds,long enough to protect the Jedi.

The basic setup is that sure the Jedi can have the msot damage and be the fastest but he should also be very weak to attacks,meaning there needs to be more to his design than simply being the best at dmg.

I have not once in my years playing SOE games found their system designers to be any good at all,matter of fact they seem to copy the same design ideas in every game they make.

 

Wizardry

Originally posted by Wizardry

IMO it just proves they had a very poor team when comes to design systems.I have seen that same problem over and over in many or most games  and usually the dev ends up with some cheesy control method with stats to harness any over powered players.

There is a super easy method to still give say a JEDI a super powerful feeling whlle controlling him.This is where the whole SYSTEM and depth comes into play.First of all if you make a game soloing,it is a fail right away,can't help you then.

However in a group you create hate meters and utilize longer timers.I like to call it SPIKE damage,you can give that JEDI 1 maybe 2 maybe even 3 super powerful abilities but put them on very long timers so they are not a spam god.Give them the ability to transfer some of that hate to another player,give them abilities to dodge away several feet to avoid taking immediate damage from massive spike damage hate.Allow a Tank type class to have a COVER ability that perhaps lasts 5-7 seconds,long enough to protect the Jedi.

The basic setup is that sure the Jedi can have the msot damage and be the fastest but he should also be very weak to attacks,meaning there needs to be more to his design than simply being the best at dmg.

I have not once in my years playing SOE games found their system designers to be any good at all,matter of fact they seem to copy the same design ideas in every game they make.

 

 

Whiskey_Sam

If this were up and running I would still be playing it.  (That which shall not be named just isn't the same.)  Haven't found a game yet with such diversity in things to do aside from combat and depth to get lost in something as simple yet enjoyable as laying out your own city/house/town hall/cantina.  Everything since has felt like it was missing features in comparison.

Amaranthar

I started playing a little late and didn't play SWG for long. I wanted a Sandbox game and when I looked at the items for sale and saw the huge power gaps I knew that it had to account for all that difference, just like Themeparks have to. But reading this Raph didn't say much but did drop a possible hint that his idea wasn't to do that (not sure at all though).

There were also things in SWG that I though were great moves forwards for MMOs. The Entertainers in the Cantinas were enjoyable and seemed "just right" to me. And the campsites were also a great idea. Both offered boosts and meaning to be there that felt both "kind of realistic" and social (which needs to be enhanced more for MMOs). The pet system, while I didn't play it my son did and loved it (he had played UO and WoW too and said this was his favorite system).

I thought the power gaps pretty much ruined the social atmosphere of the player built "cities". I think they needed more in the way of code also, more "city stuff" to encourage players to use them more. But I really wasn't around enough to know for sure.

I'm still dreaming of that great Sandbox experience. My hopes are almost zero at this point. If game companies haven't seen that they are on the wrong course yet after all the failure over the last years I don't think they ever will. And the money just isn't there for anyone else to do it. I just think that if someone did do it, and do it well (MONEY), then the entire genre would slip over to the Sandbox World side once gamers see how exciting it can be in a "worldly" sense as opposed to the lead-by-the-nose game play of Themeparks.

Amaranthar

I love the idea of perma-death combined with limited access for "classes" that can grow to be very powerful. I loved the idea for Jedi in SWG, and I loved the idea for Dragons, Deamons, Angles, etc. in the original Horizons design. But you always have to consider player groups "farming" them and using a group of them to run over the rest of the game/players.

Personally, I think you have to limit access in the same way that Raph talked about before time ran out and it was changed to just skills. It has to be not only limited access, but also random and unpredictable.

I'm sorry for all the screaming crybabies who want their candy "NOW! " (*stomps feet*). But it just doesn't work.

cylon8

This sounds so much like the sto dev cycle

eddieg50

I am glad the Dev admits the game was poorly made, when I played it seemed like a social gathering a large chat room so to speak, there were constant lag spikes, combat was clunky at best. what they did have was a great crafting system, and later a good space game, it is to bad they could not build on that

Amaranthar

Originally posted by eddieg50
I am glad the Dev admits the game was poorly made, when I played it seemed like a social gathering a large chat room so to speak, there were constant lag spikes, combat was clunky at best. what they did have was a great crafting system, and later a good space game, it is to bad they could not build on that

I hear the crafting system was great a lot over the years.

I'm wondering what you think was great about it? I think the system was except for the gear grind aspect. Well, not the grind as you always want a progression, it was the power differentials that mimicked the Themepark games I didn't like.

So I'm asking to see if that power gap aspect was part of what you thought was great, or if it was the rest of the system excluding that?

Octagon7711

I've read a lot of stories about development, in games, movies, and other things that require a huge investment of teamwork and group planning.  It all seems to go the same way, like the saying, "Every boxer has a plan until he gets hit."  Most people don't make planes for what to do after getting hit. Many a project has taken on a life of it's own and turned out in ways nobody could predict. 

Even with total control over a project you learn that there is no such thing as total control.  Important people leave.  Bosses spring last min. orders on you that he knew about a long time ago but but waited, for what ever reason, to the last min. to pass on to you.  You discover it's physically impossible to do some small thing that hinges a lot of larger things together and have to make drastic changes. 

 

I would like to know of a project that came out exactly as it was planned from the beginning.

Reklaw

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by palulalula
Ok...do you talk about the same game i remebered?  It was a game full of bugs and some strange lag spikes. PVP was some kind of strange ''puppet master string pulling'', robot dance exct.... Tatooine  was the only good looking planet, rest was just to weird to be the  Star Wars

have you ever heard the term "greater than the sum of its parts"?

I suspect that there was some of that happening for people. It all depends on what one values in these games and what one can forgive.

I for one forgive plenty in SWG mainly because it gave me a complete new game experiance well beyond what I already enjoy'd in single player games.

I saw/witnessed/experianced many of the issue's the game had. And was sort of hoping on fixes for most of it. Some came some never where fixed.

But regardless I finaly stepped into a online game world where I didn't needed to always be that hero. I could but would only be able to become a hero due to the ingame community. It wasnt the game where there game itself needs to tell you you are the hero like most of today's populair MMORPG's.

To me SWG showed what Online RPG means TO ME PERSONALY. Today's MMO's while having a RPG tag it's the tag carried over from singleplayer games. But it's the RPG tag the masses like because most of them are used of playing games where they are being told what to do or who to be. FACT simply look at most populair MMO's.

 

tawess

Ok... i am going to link to that post everytime peopel try to tell me SWG was not a godawefull mess when it launched.... There you have... From the source.... Stick your rose-tinted specs up your posterior.

 

It does explain A LOT about Image Design and Entertainment otoh.. Why those always felt VERY unfinsihed. Turns out it was because that was the actuall case.

Arglebargle

Originally posted by Octagon7711

I've read a lot of stories about development, in games, movies, and other things that require a huge investment of teamwork and group planning.  It all seems to go the same way, like the saying, "Every boxer has a plan until he gets hit."  Most people don't make planes for what to do after getting hit. Many a project has taken on a life of it's own and turned out in ways nobody could predict. 

Even with total control over a project you learn that there is no such thing as total control.  Important people leave.  Bosses spring last min. orders on you that he knew about a long time ago but but waited, for what ever reason, to the last min. to pass on to you.  You discover it's physically impossible to do some small thing that hinges a lot of larger things together and have to make drastic changes. 

 

I would like to know of a project that came out exactly as it was planned from the beginning.

Dwight Eisenhower had a great quote, " ...I have found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

 

SWG had a ton of problems from the get go.  It was seriously broken at all points in its existence.  Some folks loved it despite its slipshod design.    But time pressure and some highly paid, highly placed management types were able to undermine the development  and ensure SWG was an unfixable mess.

Raph

Originally posted by Wizardry

IMO it just proves they had a very poor team when comes to design systems...

There is a super easy method to still give say a JEDI a super powerful feeling whlle controlling him.

I invite you to go make your own games, and when you prove me wrong, I'll hire you. I have done it before.

PS, you forgot to account for the "rare" pillar.

Raph

Originally posted by tawess

Ok... i am going to link to that post everytime peopel try to tell me SWG was not a godawefull mess when it launched.... There you have... From the source.... Stick your rose-tinted specs up your posterior.

It unquestionably was.

In hindsight, though, it was also the most ambitious, rich, social, and complex virtual environment ever created, amking most MMO projects look like toys. :P And I say that without any false humility. A mess, in part because it broke ground most games are still catching up to. Today, parts of things like Twitter, Facebook, and consoles are inspired in part by things that were pioneered in Galaxies.

tawess

Originally posted by Raph

Originally posted by tawess

Ok... i am going to link to that post everytime peopel try to tell me SWG was not a godawefull mess when it launched.... There you have... From the source.... Stick your rose-tinted specs up your posterior.

It unquestionably was.

In hindsight, though, it was also the most ambitious, rich, social, and complex virtual environment ever created, amking most MMO projects look like toys. :P And I say that without any false humility. A mess, in part because it broke ground most games are still catching up to. Today, parts of things like Twitter, Facebook, and consoles are inspired in part by things that were pioneered in Galaxies.

 

 I agree... It was the only game where i have ever been able to play A dacing hairdresser that also moonlighted as a fashion consultat. I loved every minute of it. But that was in a way also what soured me on it all.. "we" id´s saw no real content updates and there was no good way to promote our services. There was some great work put in to make entertainers less vounrable to jerks and the system for tailors was pretty solid.. if lacking in new designs.. =P

 

The holo emotes was a nice boost in the pure profit department but they did not offer much in the way of fun...

 

But i am not bitter. I had some of my bets times in SWG and even if the game in the end got tossed out with the bathwater... It was a grand idea.

 

Speaking of nothing... the starter smuggler ship from JtL just got made in to a plastic model in the X-Wing minature game... the #dunelizard" i think it was called.

knightaudit

I played SWG for a time on and off .. both in Pre NGE and post . The game had great Aspirations, I think a bit too much for what could be delivered at the time. It was the first MMO i played that made me feel a part of the world.

Part of me has to wonder what the game would be like now if it were redone .. better graphics, better engine, better programmers and development team that could make it the game it wanted to be.

Other than the bugs and a few design decision I think the game could have been a perfect example of a true sandbox experience if not for the release of the 400lbs gorilla that came out in 2005 and changed things from a more sandbox design to a more theme park design for MMO's.

 

hercules

the developers need closure and so do fans so i thank ralph a developer i hold in high esteem for this.

to me it brings back flashback.for instance i posted here and on the server forum that holocron  grind was beginning of the end.

jedi had and never did have a place in that timeline  i said it in 2001 when i followed the game and a LA producer it will be.

how they planned to fix this in the timeline given to SoE to use clearly was not LA problem and they left it to ralph and his team to magically solve.

reality of things was also the game was getting better and more amazing  each week and you could see cities growing and people everywhere .we had no offiical numbers but it clearly was growing  and would have continued growing.

i was one of the top 3 weaponsmith on chilastra and had a huge client list(found the old book recently with all the names) and can say when holocron came out i saw a huge drop in numbers  but was replaced by the crowd "who left initally because no jedi" and those who "heard about jedi".

to me i feel the population actually dipped post holocron but settled to the level it was pre cu(again have historical posts on this matter).

well its nice to know i was not imagining things and ralph  has confirmed this.

Also all the new information about  SWG seems to sort of point to the LA pressure .again something if you read thru the lines always seems to point to.So much so if you recall Smedley of former SoE pointed out after SWG closed he had no interest in using brand IP  anymore and will focus on SoE own IP or make new ones(sign of the biiter relationship and control LA had?).

Maybe someday Smed will tell his own part .

To ralph if you ever read this .You have the most amazing dream about a virtual world and i hope you get the time and freedom to build it in crowfall and i will be there for sure.the LA management will thankfully not influence this game

Tibernicuspa

Originally posted by Raph

Originally posted by tawess

Ok... i am going to link to that post everytime peopel try to tell me SWG was not a godawefull mess when it launched.... There you have... From the source.... Stick your rose-tinted specs up your posterior.

It unquestionably was.

In hindsight, though, it was also the most ambitious, rich, social, and complex virtual environment ever created, amking most MMO projects look like toys. :P And I say that without any false humility. A mess, in part because it broke ground most games are still catching up to. Today, parts of things like Twitter, Facebook, and consoles are inspired in part by things that were pioneered in Galaxies.

It's a shame that a niche team can't take another shot at it with modern tools and a better understanding of how much time an MMO needs to cook.

I doubt it would be an indie project, way too large to pull off. But it doesn't need to be a blockbuster either.