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Star Wars: Galaxies curdles faster than any other MMOG in my experience, and I do not think that is because I’m jaded and cynical about the genre, unlike a lot of the players. Like all MMOGs, the possibility space that the game opens on initial experience is great, heedless, addictive fun. Its graphics remain stunning, its economic design remains innovative, its profession system looks compelling. So I am left now trying to figure out why, four months after the game went live, in my estimation, Star Wars: Galaxies is one of the worst massively-multiplayer persistent-world games to date, leaving aside fringe products like Mankind or World War II Online.īroken down into its component parts, the game does not seem that bad. I was also looking for a MMOG as a focus for my current research interests in emergent systems, networks and complexity theory, and Star Wars: Galaxies seemed as likely a subject as any.įinally, I was personally excited about playing the game, as I love Star Wars and I love MMOGs, and the game seemed to me, even in Beta, to cater to some of my favorite design principles and ideas. I have been writing a SWG postscript to my essay on MMOG economies, and I plan to put both the original essay and the postscript up on this site soon. Second, I was specifically interested in the virtual economy that SWG was working with, given my current research interests in computer games. The game was being made by the largest, most successful companies involved with games of this kind, with the participation of some of the most gifted and interesting designers experienced with the genre. If any game was going to take MMOGs beyond their early limitations, it seemed SWG would be the one to do so.

I followed the development of Star Wars: Galaxies closely for three reasons.įirst, because of my general intellectual interest in MMOGs as a whole, and the degree to which Star Wars: Galaxies (SWG) seemed to represent in its early design specifications an important milestone, a true “second-generation” MMOG that was also based on a hugely popular licensed property.