Reviews / previews
Why be just another chaotic neutral magician when you can live life as a Dark freakin' Jedi? Thats the question LucasArts and Sony Online are asking with Star War Galaxies, their ambitious joint foray into the crowded realm of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). With the whole Star Wars universe at their disposal, theyre hoping its the only RPG youll ever need.
A New Hope
Galaxies will enable you to choose one of eight Star Wars races, from Wookiee to Mon Calamari, then unleash you into the Star Wars universe during the Galactic Civil War, just after the destruction of the first Death Star. From there, you decide whether you want to support the Rebellion as an interstellar smuggler or start a quilt-making club for right-handed Imperial nerf-herders on Tatooine. Galaxies will let you develop your character in any way you wish by assigning points to the skill branches of combat, craftsmanship, and politics.
Shadows of the Empire
Galaxies is being developed by Verant Interactivethe same team responsible for EverQuestbut its doing its best to make sure this isnt just, EQ: The Wookiee Years. Veterans of both Ultima Online and EQ are on the Galaxies team, hopefully ensuring that the mistakes of the past wont be repeated.
One of the Galaxies dev teams primary goals is to eliminate the tedium of the MMORPG lifestyle, including such EQ nightmares as corpse recovery and painfully slow stat recovery. Player vs. Player combata notorious sore spot, especially in Ultima Onlinewill be handled with extreme care, focusing on story-driven faction conflicts, with a strict penalty system for those who dare break the laws of the land. Player land ownership will be included, too, but Verant wants to ensure Naboo doesnt become the suburban wasteland that UOs Britannia eventually became.
Your Destiny, It Is!
While Star Wars Galaxies is still far, far away (LucasArts anticipates a fall 2002 release), plans are already underway for much, much more, including an expansion pack focusing on space travel and starship combat. Information flows freely and regularly at the official Galaxies Web site (www.starwarsgalaxies.com) so check it outand prepare to watch your free-time go the way of Alderaan.-- 0 / GamePro
Become an Imperial diplomat. Take sides with the Rebel scum. Herd nerfs as a Mon Calamari ex-Jedi hermit. Hey, anythings possible with Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, LucasArts ambitious "EverQuest with Wookies" MMORPG project with Sony Online. At launch, Galaxies will feature nearly a dozen enormous planets from the
Star Warsuniverse, eight races, and a ridiculously customizable character generator. Also in the works: an Earth and Beyond-like space expansion for 2003 and a potential Xbox version for some time far, far away. Say goodbye to your friends nowchances are you wont see most of them til its time to line up for
Episode III.
-- 0 / GamePro
When Lucasarts first announced Star Wars Galaxies, the online community erupted. EverQuest players who were tired of farming gear for their alts announced almost immediately that they were going to abandon Sony Onlines MMO juggernaut for Galaxies. Star Wars fans announced their plans for upgrades to their PCs. The industry announced that the next best thing had finally been announced. It was as if everyone else could just go homea Star Wars-based MMORPG could only mean the rest of the industry would be cancelled.
So, Galaxies has been out for a few days now, and while the industry hasnt been cancelled, its certainly been improved, simply because Galaxies is a part of it.
If youve never played an MMORPG, Galaxies is (like EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, and a few others) an online game in which you create a character and interact with thousands of other players, all on one server in one world that continues to turn whether youre there or not. As you play, your character will advance in certain areas, becoming stronger and gaining new abilities, which opens up new gameplay options and enables you to take on more spectacular challenges. For example, in EverQuest, you start out fighting rats and, a few months later, youre level 65 and powerful enough to take on, well, much more powerful rats. Galaxies is the latest example of this sort of gameplay, but its strength lie in the ways the game differs from the others in the genre.
The most obvious things youll notice (besides the Star Wars stuff) are the graphics and sounds. MMORPGs have made leaps and bounds in the past couple of years (and theyll make even more in the next year or so) in the area of presentation, and Galaxies is easily the most gorgeous and immersive game in the genre. Huge cities, vibrant wildernesses, and highly detailed player character models help nail home the sheer Star-Warsiness of the game, while the Star Wars sound suite does its usual awesome job of grounding you in the world of the films.
The coolest things about Galaxies are ones that only MMORPG veterans will really notice. First, Galaxies is the first of its type to offer so many options for controls. The default control scheme is a bit funky, but a simple draw-down menu contains instant re-mapping to EQ-style, FPS-style, or isometric (Ultima Online-style) controls, meaning that if you dont want to spend the time to learn a new control scheme, you can just pick one that you already know. An extensive tutorial system (one you might have to hunt for to find) will help you figure out what to do and how best to advance in your chosen profession, and an amazingly customizable character generation system (down to the shape of your eyes and the thickness of your torso) makes sure that no two players have exactly the same avatar. A slick /find command brings up a menu that triggers waypoints and yellow paths that help you find destinations in the games huge cities. Those are just a few of the ways Galaxies makes playing the game easier.
Then there are the cool touches. Wookiees can only speak their own language, and most people cant understand themmeaning that at first youll only hear Rawrroorrrwrrr whenever a wookiee talks, until you get someone to teach you to understand Shyriiwook. Droids and indigenous creatures wander about in the cities, and different starting cities have different levels of dangeryoure much more likely to be randomly attacked by a cannibal in Mos Eisley (yes, that wretched hive of scum and villainy) than you are in Theed (Queen Amidalas home town) or the cities of Corellia (where Han Solo comes from). There are theme parks to visit, once youve fulfilled certain quests, and they range from Jabbas Palace (where you can meet Boba Fett or Jabba himself) to the Emperors Retreat on Naboo (where the Emperor kicks it with Darth Vader).
In answer to the genres critics, who say that these games are nothing but endless leveling grinds, Galaxies offers tons of ways to play, even if you never plan on picking up a blaster. Artisans, entertainers, and medics need never raise their voice in anger, but the game is set up so that mastering those professions is every bit as worthwhile as training to be a great warrior. If you enjoy fighting, though, Galaxies offers tons of different ways to do that, and you can be a brawler, marksman, bounty hunter, scoundrel, or any of a ton of other types of warriors. People who just want to sell stuff can even be merchants, complete with storefronts, NPC vendors, and discounts for premium auctions on the galaxy-wide eBay-like Bazaar.
Galaxies had a few server jitters at launch (the game was unplayable for the first couple of days), and theres still a lot to do yet, since the last stage of Beta wasnt completely finished when the game was rushed to stores. Still, even with tons of balancing and content missing, the game is tons of fun, and its a clear evolution of the genre from an automated creature generator into a more complete social interactive medium. It encourages roleplaying better than EverQuest, its more gripping than Dark Age of Camelot, and its more casual-gamer friendly than Asherons Call 2. Oh yeahits also Star Wars.
So, no, the industry isnt cancelled. But all your free time might be.
Curious to find out more about what makes Galaxies different from other MMORPGs? Read the Star Wars Galaxies Starters Guide.-- 0 / GamePro
We recently had a chance to play as powerful Jedi for the latest publish for MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. In contrast to the previous publish that had players search for the professions that unlock the force-sensitive slot (infamously known as hologrinding for its long, painstaking, and many times random process), players can now be Jedi by following a system of quests.
Through an encounter with an "old man" (specific conditions for the person to appear were not revealed, other than having to receive certain badges), you are then given crystals, which you must protect from mysterious Sith foes that attack you. You then eventually go to a new village called Aurilla to take on quests to advance your force sensitive professions.
The village is inhabited by force sensitive NPCs, who are continually attacked by Sith warriors bent on preventing the emergence of more Jedi. The enemies had a decent amount of HAM, but nothing as difficult as Nightsisters.
Dueling and PVPing will be a substantial portion of Jedi advancement--once players choose to become Jedi Knights, they lose their "mundane" professions and go up a Force Ranking tree. The Force ranking is determined by how many other Jedi you defeat, and players need to dethrone others to advance.
For better or for worse, Jedi have a safe haven (one for Light and Dark side) called a Jedi Enclave, where Jedi are safe from eager Bounty Hunters. Depending on your ranking as a Jedi the player will be able to access deeper into the enclave--though no specific perks of this is known.
Playing as a Jedi is a more flashy experience, with the ability to cast force armor on yourself or other protective benefits. In addition, Jedi can "spam" and pile a bunch of different attacks that stack on the opponent including dizziness, blind, intimidate, and weaken. Fighting against a small band of experienced non-Jedi still remains a challenge however, as a non-Jedi with well-placed defensive stacks can render an inexperienced PVPer helpless.
With the release of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion approaching, LucasArts has said that much discussions is currently underway surrounding the much-awaited combat rebalance--with one LucasArts spokesperson talking of the potential "nerfing" of powerful professions such as Teras Kasi and Commando.
Stay tuned for more Star Wars Galaxies info as it becomes available.-- 0 / GamePro
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