MMO Roundup: Farewell, Star Wars Galaxies
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 28th 2011 at 2:00PM
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The sunsetting of Star Wars Galaxies Star Wars Galaxies players recently received the notice that no MMO player wants to see: Their game was shutting down. At the end of 2011, Star Wars Galaxies will be closing permanently. Massively recently sat down with SOE President John Smedley to discuss the closure of the game and SOE's future. |
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Controversy brewing over EVE Online microtransactions EVE Online sparked a veritable media frenzy late last week with the launch of its Incarna expansion and an in-game item shop. An event being dubbed "monoclegate" began when players discovered the lofty price of a cosmetic monocle -- and the flames only grew from there. |
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Leaked document shows CCP's microtransaction plans And here's where it gets worse. An internal CCP document that outlined the potential directions the company could take with microtransactions was leaked to the public. Here's a phrase you never want to hear: "Greed is good." |
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Mike "Gabe" Krahulik speaks his mind about SWTOR Sometimes being a celebrity in the gaming world has its perks. Take Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade, for example. People instantly recognize him, they want his opinion on everything, and he can get in on any beta he wants. All right, that last bit was a stretch, but he did get into game testing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. And after much begging, the marketing team at BioWare gave "Gabe" the chance to publicly sound off about TOR. Guess what? He loved it. |
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Guild Wars 2 takes us down into the dungeons Although Guild Wars 2 is taking steps to advance the MMO scene, there's one standby that isn't going anywhere, and that's dungeons. Author and developer Jeff Grubb recently discussed the details of a few of Guild Wars 2's dungeons. Check it out! |
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Massively's week in review Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
MattKrotzer Jun 28th 2011 2:07PM
Having tried SWG early on, I was very unimpressed. A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to come try it out, and despite the gameplay being awesome, there's a certain awesomeness to the sandbox of player-created awesomeness that exists there, and I've got to admit the RP there is largely top-notch stuff, with player created dynamic events.
I'm glad I got this time to experience it before it goes away for good.
MattKrotzer Jun 28th 2011 2:09PM
Wow. I mistyped. The gameplay is LESS than awesome. It's downright terrible. But the RP is good, and once you get used to the quirky and clunky interface, there's some good stuff to be had.
mazca13 Jun 28th 2011 3:28PM
Yeah, I did find the same thing - SWG is a very flawed game from a mechanics point of view, but they really did get large parts of it quite right from a sandbox point of view and it certainly feels very different to any other MMO I've played.
MattKrotzer Jun 28th 2011 3:46PM
Exactly. There's not a lot of content supplied by SoE... when there is, it's quickly completed by the majority of players, who then go back to creating their own.
I wish I could get some of them to move to WoW and utilize TotalRP2. There could be some amazing quests built.
fbp Jun 28th 2011 4:20PM
SWG had so much potential and then to see it get ran through poor development is just sad.
SamLowry Jun 29th 2011 1:20AM
Well, at least there's the emulators.
wutsconflag Jun 28th 2011 2:17PM
Controversy over Eve Online Microtransactions, indeed. More like MACROtransactions ($80 for a monocle? What?!?)!
The outcry from a large part of the Eve player base approaches the "RealID Required for Blizzard Forums" outrage a few months back. Yeesh...
awall Jun 28th 2011 11:40PM
There is one difference from a straight cash shop, though. You can get the store's currency through in game means by purchasing a plex, an in game item that either grants one month of game time, or now gives you 2500 of the shop currency. That means you can buy everything within the shop just by playing the game and earning isk. The $80 price tag is an estimate based on how much a plex costs if you buy them with cash.
awall Jun 28th 2011 11:42PM
*3500, not 2500.
jfofla Jun 28th 2011 2:43PM
Hopefully CCP will stay strong and not cave like Blizzard did on RealID
Dril Jun 28th 2011 2:57PM
Yeah, because the cash shop was such a great idea.
So was the RealID thing.
OWAITLOL.
Astalnar Jun 28th 2011 4:04PM
I don't see a problem with EVE Shop items, if they stay true to their cause, and someday you realy could purchase ships (that is biggest fear for community) they will cost billions of dollars.
Dril Jun 28th 2011 4:46PM
You don't see a problem because you don't understand what it represents.
EVE has, until now, been a contained universe. Everything (and I mean, everything) you could ever want could be made by a player. That meant the economy, and the game itself, were dependant on players.
The cash shop ruins that in a single stroke.
It is a problem.
Ant Jun 28th 2011 7:06PM
I don't hate on PA on anything, but this is the one time I will. You can tell Gabe's review is meant to keep Bioware happy, which is sad, because how many jobs have they done for Bioware? Practically obligated to give them a positive review.
Little disappointed.
MusedMoose Jun 28th 2011 7:42PM
Care to explain how "you can tell" that? I read Gabe's comments, and it didn't sound like anything other than him being very pleased with the game. I'm not a huge fan of PA, but I do know that the guys who make it have no qualms about being dead honest about whatever they're talking about - they clearly don't care whether or not they offend anyone or if people like what they say. ^_^
RogueJedi86 Jun 28th 2011 10:56PM
Gabe published this without having to get proofread by BioWare first. He played the beta and asked them if he could do it, they allowed him, and that was it. They were as surprised as us about what he actually said. I knew Gabe would be positive, but not for the reasons you said. I knew because he is a massive Star Wars nerd(check the PA comics, Gabe is often depicted reading SW novels like the "Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines" book in a comic last year). He did say he didn't like SWG though, so he's not just a "love every turd LucasArts has released" kind of guy (which I am).
His impressions have nothing to do with any business his company has done for BioWare before, especially since the team working on TOR is not the main BioWare team who hired PA for work, but a spin-off called BioWare Austin that is mostly made up of talent from the Austin Texas area who've worked on past MMOs. The biggest name on TOR that has worked for the main BioWare Edmonton studio is Drew Karpyshyn, who wrote KotOR, Mass Effect, ME2, and the Jedi Knight storyline for TOR. BioWare Edmonton is doing TOR's space combat, but that's all, the rest is all BWA.
zweitblom Jun 29th 2011 1:11AM
You know that you have to provide proof when you accuse a person of lying, don't you? So - where's your proof?