Star Wars Galaxies Postmortem

Tiller · December 6

Just now seeing this. I know over the years Raph had talked about some of these development issues when making SWG at various times, but this goes into extra detail not previously discussed.

Some of the tech they had to create to make the game is groundbreaking for the time. Makes me appreciate the game and the Devs more and the work they did on it. From combat trees, to crafting, from music to the awesome resource gathering; and lets not forget the factional system, where there were more than just two factions, world building, swg was really advanced the time and there hasn't been anything like it since. Raph is right in that many of the system ideas they implemented have found their way into other games in some form. Anyways, the video is from 3 years ago; almost an hour long, but still a good watch. Side note, never knew Porter Robinson played SWG.

Dibdabs · December 6

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

Tiller · December 6

Dibdabs said:

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

You must have been one of the EQ players i.e. not a Star Wars fan or the target audience.

Kyleran · December 7

Dibdabs said:

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

I looked up Porter Robinson just now, he really never was somebody.....

After SWG won the "Coaster of the Year" award from CGW I had no interest in giving the game a try as my tolerance for buggy messes is pretty low when playing online games.

Tiller · December 7

Kyleran said:

Dibdabs said:

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

I looked up Porter Robinson just now, he really never was somebody.....

After SWG won the "Coaster of the Year" award from CGW I had no interest in giving the game a try as my tolerance for buggy messes is pretty low when playing online games.

I know you are old as dirt and all but did you use a 50 year old copy of encyclopedia Britannica too "look him up"? because he's a pretty well known EDM DJ and producer, even google will tell you that. I mean his music was literally in the first Forza Horizon game back in 2012. The song Raph speaks of has 68 million views on YT; How many views you got on your channel for old cat memes?

Brainy · December 7

Never heard of him until this thread.

cameltosis · December 7

Haven't watched the whole postmortum vid but have certainly read his portmortums book, which covered everything i saw in the vid so far.

Certainly was a damn impressive game for it's time! One of the things i remember from the book was that Raph said they basically had to scrap most of the systems when he first arrived, and between then and launch was only 18 months. So, they basically built the whole game in just a year and a half.....which is why so much of it was buggy and raw......but still damn impressive in what they achieved!

In terms of target audience, i think there were really two main audiences: those who wanted to live within the Star Wars universe, and those with an affinity for complexity / meta game.

Sandbox games are really meant to be lived in, not just experienced. The breadth of activities and the interconnectedness really allowed players to occupy and live within the universe. It felt great!

But it was also an incredibly complex game. There were simply so many systems, so many numbers, that if you had an affinity for such things then SWG could really suck you in. It's crafting system is still held up as one of the best, even though the process of crafting was still boring. But the sheer amount of steps, and the variety of components, made it a number-cruncher's paradise lol.

NegativeJoe · December 8

Dibdabs said:

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

it wasn't for everybody but the things in that game were amazing. Not even close to being matched 20 years later. I said at the time when it got so much hate, and I say the same thing now. If you took out the star wars theme and jedis, totally removed them. and made this orcs, elves, and lizardmen (ok keep the trandoshan) it would have been a much bigger hit.

(i just read a brighter shores review on steam that had me lfmao that referenced this in a roundabout way)

Sovrath · December 8

Tiller said:

Dibdabs said:

Hmm, I played SW Galaxies years ago and couldn't see what all the hype was about. I tried it last year on an emulated server, using the disk I'd bought at the time, and honestly I still wasn't impressed. I uninstalled the game once more, and the disk was flung into a drawer somewhere or other. I have no inclination to spend an hour watching the video. Never heard of Porter Robinson - I can only suppose he used to be somebody.

You must have been one of the EQ players i.e. not a Star Wars fan or the target audience.

I knew a guy who was a die hard EverQuest player and he ended up playing Star Wars Galaxies for a bit. He hated it as he felt it was like having a second job; one that he didn’t get paid for.

He came to the realization that he wasn’t the target audience.

As mentioned earlier, it really seems like a game that was meant to be lived in instead of “playing.”

NegativeJoe · December 9

def was that. there was a lady i knew that just decorated houses and buildings all day, when she wasn't tailoring outfits for peoples weddings.

cameltosis · December 9

NegativeJoe said:

def was that. there was a lady i knew that just decorated houses and buildings all day, when she wasn't tailoring outfits for peoples weddings.

Those people still exist :P

I'm on SWGEmu, and there is a lovely lady who specialises in tailoring. I bought a bunch of stuff off her vendor so she got in contact: "is there anything special you want? i take commissions".

Ended up having a long back-and-forth chat, gave her a list of ideas for my 3 characters, then a couple of days later she handed over something like 20 different outfits lol. Way more than i'd asked for, and she charged a lot less than expected. She just loved crafting outfits for people!

Gave her a hefty tip for the effort :-)

cheyane · December 9

I played this from beta and paid a hefty amount to have it shipped clear across the world and have customs check it and pay that fee too only to play it wrong. I was so indoctrinated by how Everquest worked I just could not get into the empty landscape everywhere and I was rudderless. I didn't know what to do.

It was not until Everquest 2 that I began to truly try out other things like carpentry and decorating homes for others. Had I been able to think outside the box then I would never have dropped SWG because I am actually the type of person that enjoys doing the quirky thing like having a specialized shop in the middle of nowhere and be happy that people came to get stuff from me. It would have been fun but unfortunately that boat has sailed and I can never go back.

So for me SWG is the one that got away. I always read with avid interest other people's adventures and think wistfully about how much fun I could have had.

NegativeJoe · December 9

it was amazing game. back in the day (and on the main private server when it was early) i would specialize in rangering/animal harvesting and did the same. i would spend hours and hours finding the hot spots to harvest the animals

the biggest thing that ruined it for me, and a lot of players, was when you could start pumping out a bunch of alt chars.(private server problem maybe?),

once everyone could do everything, they didn't need each other anymore. 'i got a dancer on 2nd acct' or 'be back on doc to buff', the syncrhonous of the crafts kind of went away.

i know that main private server, literally everyone i met had a max everything the last time i hopped on.

Tiller · December 9

SWG was more like a multi-player Star Was Sim, farm sim, life sim, city builder, with a few theme parks . All the mechanics had their own mini game in a way. If it was made today it wouldn't be beneficial to sell it to folks as just a simple MMORPG, or even just a sandbox because it was almost became a way of life game. Literally people lived in it, it could be as fun or boring as real life, it was what you made it.

NegativeJoe · December 9

BTW if anyone interested..i don't know yhow to forum search here(been gone too long ) to find any discussion on this.

Aparently the guy behind SWG https://starsreach.com/

Amaranthar · December 9

NegativeJoe said:

BTW if anyone interested..i don't know yhow to forum search here(been gone too long ) to find any discussion on this.

Aparently the guy behind SWG https://starsreach.com/

Yeah, we're aware of Raph and Star's Reach.
It's amazing what he's accomplishing with that game.

cameltosis said:

NegativeJoe said:

def was that. there was a lady i knew that just decorated houses and buildings all day, when she wasn't tailoring outfits for peoples weddings.

Those people still exist :P

I'm on SWGEmu, and there is a lovely lady who specialises in tailoring. I bought a bunch of stuff off her vendor so she got in contact: "is there anything special you want? i take commissions".

Ended up having a long back-and-forth chat, gave her a list of ideas for my 3 characters, then a couple of days later she handed over something like 20 different outfits lol. Way more than i'd asked for, and she charged a lot less than expected. She just loved crafting outfits for people!

Gave her a hefty tip for the effort :-)

I love this stuff. I get bored of things that are confined to small thinking and tight restrictions. Raph Koster has the ability to make games that allow for a great deal of freedom in play styles. And while I have my own styles, I really enjoy players who give us other dimensions, like your example.
These players, when added up, add huge amounts of depth to these worlds. I am so looking forwards to Star's Reach.

Tiller · December 9

NegativeJoe said:

BTW if anyone interested..i don't know yhow to forum search here(been gone too long ) to find any discussion on this.

Aparently the guy behind SWG https://starsreach.com/

Part of me wishes it was based on the Star Wars IP. While I like the ideas and concepts he has presented for his game. For me the big draw with SWG back in the day was that it was like living in the film from 1977; the locations, the sounds, the music.

I'm not a huge Star Wars nerd, but I am a fan, and for me at the time SWG rekindled that nostalgia I remembered as a kid growing up with toys, movies and merchandise. It was just cool starting out as a nobody, and making a name for yourself in a galaxy far, far away.

Elidien_ga · December 9

One of my best MMO memories came from SWG. We were on Naboo in our guild and many of us came from beta and we had this amazing survey of metal I think it was. Whatever it was it made amazing starter weapons. My friend was the crafter and would make these amazing pistols and rifles. I would load up as many as I could carry and hop the shuttle to Tatooine and sell them. I was a literal gun smuggler and runner. There was so much to do and you could do and be anything you wanted.

cameltosis · December 10

NegativeJoe said:

the biggest thing that ruined it for me, and a lot of players, was when you could start pumping out a bunch of alt chars.(private server problem maybe?),

once everyone could do everything, they didn't need each other anymore. 'i got a dancer on 2nd acct' or 'be back on doc to buff', the syncrhonous of the crafts kind of went away.

i know that main private server, literally everyone i met had a max everything the last time i hopped on.

When SWGEmu was running its Basilisk server, you could have tons of alts and so what you said was true. You could also run multiple instances of the game on a single PC, so you could log in your own Doc to buff your combat character, then login you Ents to do mind buffs.

SWGEmu is now running it's Finalizer server (in it's push to 1.0). On Finalizer you're limited to 3 characters and you can't run multiple instances. In theory, this works well. I've always kinda grouped the classes into 3 categories - combat, crafting and support - so having 3 toons means you can experience a good spread. I have a swordsman, armoursmith and smuggler in order to experience each type of gameplay.

That said, population is really low right now, so it can't have been that successful! I think, after so many years of Basilisk and now a few years of Finalizer, a lot of the community are just waiting for 1.0. The devs have been making good progress on Jump to Lightspeed, but i wouldn't be surprised if we're still years away.

Theocritus · December 10

I fall into the "tried it but wasnt impressed" camp.....

Scot · December 10

I was playing other MMORPG's never got the chance, I can remember guys I knew who did play it talking about bugs, but they still loved the game.

Raph · December 19

Tiller said:

I know you are old as dirt and all but did you use a 50 year old copy of encyclopedia Britannica too "look him up"? because he's a pretty well known EDM DJ and producer, even google will tell you that. I mean his music was literally in the first Forza Horizon game back in 2012. The song Raph speaks of has 68 million views on YT; How many views you got on your channel for old cat memes?

Don't forget the song for League of Legends in 2022.

Or, you know, the frickin' Grammy nomination.

I'm just glad that Amaranthar is impressed with Stars Reach.

Scot · December 19

I pay so little attention to who is making the music in games...where's Sovrath?

Raph · December 19

Oh, the game music is just a side project. He's an actual world-tour-level rock star.

FrodoFragins · December 19

I was initially excited but there were two major things that killed my interest.

1) No space combat. As a fan of the Xwing vs. Tie Fighter series, that was a massive mistake in my mind.

2) Reading that becoming a Jedi was random and took lots of grinding on a character to discover if they could even become a Jedi.

Once WOW released I lost all interest in SWG. Once the NGE hit a bunch of SWG players joined my WOW server.

The reason I'm not interested in trying SWG now is because I'm just not a sandbox fan.

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Star Wars Galaxies Postmortem

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV