massive update to Star Wars Galaxies admits defeat

I still hold fast to my belief that Star Wars Galaxies was the best MMORPG I've ever played. Looking back through past writings, it read like an emotional rollercoaster where my fondness for the game fluctuated drastically over a short period. Through five months of playing, I was exposed to an incredible variety of roleplaying experiences, high-level monster hunts, and taking part in producing average-level goods for the game world's economy. I was quick to dismiss the Jump to Lightspeed expansion as the first nail in the game's coffin, because the mechanics of the land and space-based portions of the game felt so disparate. I didn't want a twitch shooter, I wanted an extension of my adventures planetside. Though in hindsight the "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter" model is probably the only way it could have been done in such a small timeframe. Three expansions later Star Wars Galaxies has changed dramatically, to the point that players started leaving in droves.

In late October of last year, the announcement was made that a collection of "New Game Enhancements" (NGE) were going to be implemented, which included nine "iconic" character classes and a completely revised combat system. This came hot on the heels of the badly needed Combat Upgrade that did more harm than good. The third expansion for Star Wars Galaxies, The Trials of Obi-Wan, was released the day the NGE changes went live. Little did players know that the NGE were also waiting in this expansion. In fact, players were so outraged by this tactic that SOE offered a refund to those that purchased the expansion online only to find that their favorite MMORPG had been irreversibly changed. Veteran players were given the Jump to Lightspeed expansion at no charge, as if it were some salve to heal the festering wounds.

I only played Star Wars Galaxies for five months, but I continued to follow it pretty closely despite my lack of involvement in the game world. I can trace the downward spiral back to mid 2004, where talk of improvements to the Jedi system along with the upcoming Jump to Lightspeed expansion had players still wanting the base game to be fixed in a frenzy. The developers efforts seemed focused on fully implementing the Jedi Knight system, which to that point was only something that was reserved for the hardcore. Since the implementation of the Jedi system, the game has been bleeding subscribers, with additonal expansion packs thrown together to maintain interest among the players that were still around. As with most MMORPGs, Star Wars Galaxies' harshest critics were the ones that had invested themselves heavily in the game world. These are the people who depended on the game's economy and structure, only to see the game receieve a complete overhaul to make the game all but unrecognizable.

The New Game Enhancements can be summarized into three main components: the new character classes, the combat system and the injection of more "Star Wars" content. The nine new classes can apparently be traced back to their origins in the original game's system, but it removes the flexibility and freedom to explore roughly 32 professions, and instead forces players to follow a predetermined path. Jedi are also immediately selectable, which ultimately reduces their uniqueness, completely contradicting the context of the game's setting, where Jedi are all but extinct. As a result of introducing these new classes, niche professions like creature handling were effectively removed from the game. These changes are frustrating to no end for existing players, whose characters they have been building for the last two and a half years have become obsolete.

The class levelling system is based on general experience points, not the usage of skills as in the original system. The free trial consists of the first ten character levels, and is set up almost exactly like Everquest II: Trial of the Isle. Each class goes through a series of four "phases" of increasing special abilities, with the final phase reached at level 70. At each level-up, you're automatically given a new ability. This is exactly like Everquest. It is also a lot more boring.

From a game design perspective, this was probably an easy decision to make. The class balancing becomes simpler, the grind for specific skills disappears, and the character development system is less intimidating for new players. From a game world perspective, however, this change does away with one of the things that made playing Star Wars Galaxies so interesting: you weren't a class, you had an occupation.

The combat system has become fully real-time, and now resembles a third-person shooter. Collision detection was a bit unfinished as well, as I could shoot (and be shot at) through walls. Hostile encounters were no longer discrete firefights; this was hack and slash with blasters.

Star Wars Galaxies begins with you being rescued off of a ship by Han Solo, Chewbacca and R2-D2. This in itself was ridiculous, because if you think about the game's population, how could they have time to pick up everyone? The insistence on more interaction with NPCs was a good decision, as the quests become less of a job board and add a bit of depth to the experience. However socializing with famous NPCs should be a special event, not commonplace. It's a big universe, and the game's introduction doesn't make it very clear why your character is so important. Part of Galaxies' appeal is that it was a believable universe - maybe too much so - where the world seemed to go on just fine without you. I don't need to hang out with Han Solo for my experience to be validated. Part of what made Star Wars Galaxies so immersive was the anonymity of the universe - it was up to the player to make a name for themselves within the community. It wasn't handed to them in some half-baked story.

Though as a former player of an Artisan/Marksman, the reworking of the Crafting system was the biggest disappointment in the NGE for me. Because of the new looting system, where both credits and decent items are available as monster drops, it lessens the need for the Trader class. The Trader is divided into three sub-classes that must be chosen from during character creation: domestic goods (clothing, food), munitions (armour, weapons), structures (buildings, ship hulls), and engineering (droids, some specialty weapons). Star Wars Galaxies had one of the most detailed and robust crafting systems that I've ever used in an MMORPG. Now the crafting system feels stripped down, and there doesn't seem to be that much room for tweaking the final product. Once you've chosen the Trader class you're pretty much stuck, because the ability to craft items is not available to everyone. I'm not sure if the Trader can be self-sufficient and mine raw resources like the Artisan could, but this would make the class a little more interesting to play.

Out of everything I'd say that new character class system is easily the most devestating change to the game, as it upends its entire foundation, creating an obvious turning point where the game is changed forever. A decision like this should have been saved for a sequel - SOE should know best of all that keeping two generations of a series alive is not impossible (with Everquest and its sequel), though perhaps not the most financially sound decision.

As the market for MMORPGs grows, and the conventions of the genre become deeply rooted in players' minds, occupations like "Entertainer" or "Trader" are less appealing to the newcomers who seek instant gratification. I hate to blame World of Warcraft for this situation, but it's true - it's very hard to expect someone who's buffed out warrior sporting fearsome looking plate mail to settle for a droid engineer or a dancer in a cantina. There is a definite lack of heroism in Star Wars Galaxies, but to me that was just part of what made the gameworld so immersive. Star Wars Galaxies always had the potential to be a groundbreaking MMORPG: a self-sustaining gameworld that makes players feel like they're actually part of it instead of just a tourist doing repetitive quests that are of little consequence in the game world. Not that Galaxies lacked inane quests; there were just other, more interesting things to do. There were real options for building in-game communities. There was ample opportunity for roleplaying.

These radical changes brought by the "New Game Enhancements" makes two points painfully obvious:

1. SOE was not satisfied with the original game model. They did not trust the original design. SOE wanted another World of Warcraft/Everquest.
   
2. SOE could care less about the community and the time they have spent building the Star Wars Galaxies universe, and in some cases, influence changes to the game.
   

The second point being infinitely more damaging than the first, both to the success of the "new and improved" Star Wars Galaxies, and SOE's reputation overall.

It's regrettable that this had to happen, but SOE has a business to run. I can understand from that perspective why they would decide to change the game into something more accessible - Galaxies has constantly been struggling with its moderately sized but dedicated community since its release in July 2003. The subscriber base was at a standstill, if not already fading before World of Warcraft launched in late 2004.

Naturally there are rumours about further additions to the game to inject more Star Wars and less, well, MMORPG and of course the ones that everyone wants to believe about the game being rolled back to what it was. Whether there's any truth to these reports remains to be seen, though I think they're materializing out of former players' desires to see their favorite game returned to its former glory. As someone's signature on the official forums aptly put it: "SWG - Where removing the playerbase from the game is considered an enhancement".