Pumping Irony

Mightydar wrote a nice background story on his first guild last week, and I thought that was a great idea so at the risk of turning this into a meme, here’s mine. This has actually been several days in the making, between my work schedule and having to contact other people to refresh my memory a bit.

My first subscription to an MMORPG was Star Wars Galaxies. Being a Star Wars fan, I was immediately entranced with the ability to create my own character and live a life in the virtual vistas of various worlds from the Star Wars lore. The cities were so alive with various characters, both player and non-player. It was a magical experience; one of those moments in life you feel you’ve arrived at something of greatness.

My friend Daniel and I started SWG together. I’d never played any MMORPG and SWG was recommended over the others at that time by a co-worker who’d done them all — EQ, AO, E&B, and pretty much everything else since at least 2001 — and said SWG would fit my gaming preferences. Daniel was a “recovering EQ addict” as I (not so) jokingly called him then, and approached the idea of getting involved with an MMO again with both excitement and trepidation. Shortly after we started, my brother-in-law Mark also joined us on the Bria galaxy (server).

None of us can remember exactly how we met the fine folks of our very first Player Association (SWG’s term for guild) but needless to say, we became very active and social members of Alderaan’s Revenge within a short time of starting the game.  Eventually player cities were added to SWG and AR combined our resources to create our first town, also called Alderaan’s Revenge, on the dangerous fringe planet of Lok. Lok is a dry, barren planet with plenty of dangerous wildlife, and the planet is a bit off the beaten path of the normal travel routes, so traveling to the various planets was a bit on the expensive side. However, Lok had the awesome background music, so that’s where we went!

As AR grew, so did our town. Eventually we were able to add our own shuttle port (not sure, but I think we were among the first few guilds on Lok to do so) to catch a quick ride to the Star Port at Nym’s Stronghold. We regularly had guild meetings, electing new officers and a mayor for our city, and other social functions. We had several master craftsmen as well as master entertainers and doctors, and soon our little out of the way guild town started getting popular with other players as a place to get high quality items and buffs.

Eventually I gained enough confidence, and my character’s skills high enough, to go along with the guild to the high-end planets like Dathomir, hunting Rancor (Jabba’s pet monster in Return of the Jedi) and Nightsisters, Dark Side force-sensitive women who tamed Rancor and enslaved men. Despite having some lore from a Star Wars novel, sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if one of Raph’s guys hadn’t watched Amazon Women on the Moon one time too many back in the day and created the Nightsisters.

At the time of the “Rancor runs” my character was gradually lowering her skill as a Creature Handler in favor of becoming a Bio-Engineer so she was always seeking those runs to Dathomir in hopes of acquiring the highest quality DNA samples from the Rancor, which were very difficult to get but which some of the best engineered pets.

AR also ran SWG’s first instanced dungeon, the Corellian Corvette, though I only managed to make it in there a few times due to schedule conflicts. At the time, CC was very frustrating because despite being high or maxed at combat skills it seemed we were rarely able to touch the enemies, so often the pre-dungeon excitement turned into post-dungeon bitching after getting repeatedly spanked. Hard.

To this day, one of the most memorable things we did as a guild was to offer our support defending a Jedi padawan friend — who was not even a guild-mate — and defense from three maxed-out bad-ass Bounty Hunters. One of our guild leaders gave the Jedi access to her house so the Jedi could enter and hide, while the rest of us sent out the call throughout the galaxy. Everyone in the entire guild dropped what they were doing immediately and paid the travel costs back to Lok to defend this poor new Jedi from imminent permadeath at the hands of the Bounty Hunters. We took to the streets where the Bounty Hunters first attempted to negotiate with us to let them have their prey, which we promptly refused, then the BH’s began threatening us as well. AR didn’t back down, the BH’s called in several guild-mates of their own and the situation escalated into a full-on battle in the streets. AR took a beating, certainly, but we eventually won the day and the eternal gratitude of our new padawan Jedi friend as well as her entire guild.

Eventually Daniel and I left SWG, though Mark stayed for quite some time. I’m told some major drama and in-fighting broke out and Alderaan’s Revenge imploded upon itself. Most of them wound up in another guild called Alderaan’s Exiles, though the key members split yet again when the drama followed them to AE. A Google search leads me to believe a guild exists again on the Bria server with the name Alderaan’s Revenge but as far as I can tell, it’s an entirely new guild with no relation to my former family.

In the end, I look back fondly on those days, and I will credit AR with providing me a key element I seek in each new guild in each new MMO: a sense of family. Every guild I stick with in every game, I put that friendly, helpful, family feeling as a top priority over content progression. Content is static, it will be conquered in time; developing new relationships, making new friends you remember over a lifetime is a much more dynamic and rewarding process, and I’m pleased to say that the guilds I’m in now provide exactly that.

Thankfully, I’m a Founder on LOTRO with a Lifetime membership, so that’s working out great. My super-awesome kinship has been very understanding that I didn’t want to get sucked into the “must.play.all.day.and.night” rut that I found myself in with WoW. I want to do the dungeons and raids with them badly, but I want to make sure I can keep things casual so I’ve been on break from LOTRO.

Turbine recently announced a special $9.99 per month plan for DDO which I jumped on. I’m also in a super-cool casual family-style guild in DDO and, while I love the adventures in the game, the problem with a totally group-focused game is that if I can’t find a group, I can’t play the game. I do look forward to playing the high-end content, and it sounds like some amazing and awesome content is coming this year. In the meantime, if I can save $5 per month to keep the subscription active and pop into Stormreach anytime I want, sounds great to me.

My final subscription was the SOE Station Access, where I have Everquest II, Vanguard, Star Wars Galaxies and Planetside active.

However…

I haven’t bothered to play Planetside in months because I never saw more than 10 players on a server and it has an atrocious UI along with horribly flaky mouse movement in the menus. I understand it was great in its day, but apparently that day has come and gone so even as a curiosity, Planetside was a failed venture for me.

SWG. Whoah. Not that I necessarily mind adding quests and all but SOE did such a poor job of it in their misguided NGE overhaul. I could even adapt to that but, much like Planetside, the game has serious population issues. To date, I’ve encountered a grand total of six players and have seen not a single line of chat from anyone. The graphics are badly dated and I truly resent being hard-locked at 30 fps when I could be having a much smoother experience. SWG was my first MMO and I have fond memories that nothing else will ever replace, but I guess it’s true: sometimes you just can’t go home again.

EQ2. I have created several characters of different races and classes and the farthest I’ve managed to advance any is level 9. Other than the random bit of music, I have struggled to find even a single enjoyable element to the game. EQ2 is quite popular and arguably has more content than any other MMORPG on the market. Originally, I decided I would put up the fight and work my way towards whatever quality content surely must be out there, but I finally had to be honest with myself. With other games out there willing to “show me the money” with quality content from Moment One, why should I have to punish myself wading through this muck? It’s a shame, and I wanted to like EQ2 but it just wasn’t in the cards.

Vanguard, surprisingly, I’m having a blast with and I’m in a friendly, fun and helpful guild. Even though Karen has abandoned us like red-headed step-children to go adventure in Norrath. Grouping has been incredibly fun as well as challenging, and I’m thoroughly enjoying being the “Rock Star Tank” again. Actually, I may be enjoying tanking more in Vanguard than I did in WoW, because the Dread Knight class simply oozes coolness and I enjoy the challenges it presents. I also have a real-life friend playing Vanguard now (also a new guild-mate, yay!) so that’s an additional compelling reason to play. Well-known population problems aside, I can honestly say I’ve seen quite an influx of brand-new players over the past few weeks since GU3 was released, and it’s been wonderful. I’m seeing players in nearly every town I visit, the chats are active, friendly, and Chuck Norris-free (well, mostly).

I wasn’t having any financial issues, but I finally had to come to terms that I was paying an extra $15 per month to play Vanguard, because as wistfully nostalgic as I may have been, I’m not going to return to SWG, nor can I tolerate being logged into EQ2 for more than a few minutes, so it’s wasted money.

So, as of a few minutes ago logging out of the Java chat with an SOE customer service rep (thanks for the help, by the way, Eric) I am now left with only a normal monthly subscription to Vanguard and the new 33% discounted subscription to DDO. Should another game roll down the pike, I can add it without batting an eyelash as the total cost would be close to what I’ve been paying anyway with the Station Access and full-price DDO, but right now there are no titles current or in the immediate future that are piquing my interest whatsoever.

By now we’ve all heard the joint press release from BioWare and LucasArts saying they’re collaborating on an “interactive entertainment product.” Which we all presume will be another Star Wars MMORPG, most likely set in the Knights of the Old Republic era since that’s been BioWare’s area of expertise.

This second bit of info may be bogus since it’s allegedly a copy from an email but here goes anyway:

Important news re: Star Wars Galaxies: The Complete Online Adventures

From: LucasArtsStore.com

Sent: Thu 10/25/07 10:22 AM
Dear Customer,

We regret to announce that Lucasarts will no longer be producing Star Wars Galaxies: The Complete Online Adventures as a physical retail package on CD or DVD. We will therefore cancel your pending order for this item. As direct downloading of this game eliminates the need for shipping costs and shipping lead times, we hope this is a satisfactory alternative for you. We again apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Sincerely,
LucasArtsStore (StarWarsShop)
Customer Service

Ouch! This might be reading into things, but could LucasArts possibly be in the initial stages of severing their ties to Star Wars Galaxies altogether? SWG is still a Star Wars product and just because KOTOR Online (KOTORO?) (come to think of it, I’m sick of tacking “Online” to end end of MMO titles already) will be the “new shiny” doesn’t mean SWG will just suddenly die and go offline. Hell, the Matrix Online proves that Station Access alone can keep comatose titles on life support. On the other hand, it’s a rare day to see SWG boxes on store shelves these days because it just isn’t selling so this could just be a prudent marketing decision; after all, the digital download is still offered. I see this as a much more probable explanation. I just don’t see LucasArts giving up control of SWG unless they outright order SOE to put it out to pasture. Boy, oh boy, would the SWG Emu ever get some major attention if that happened!

One thing I have noticed on forums (MMORPG.com mostly, I don’t dare venture into the SOE forums) is that the SWG vets (aside from being entirely too adamant in their SOE hatred and just need to let it go already) miss the Pre-CU/NGE days not because it was Star Wars but because it had depth; it had complexity; it was the closest thing to a workable “sandbox” game we’ve seen. Let’s face it, once you got past the graphics and the John Williams soundtrack, SWG wasn’t very Star Warsy at all. Nearly four and a half years after launch, it still has aspects that were never finished that even the NGE didn’t touch, and there’s quite a bit of clunkiness to the whole experience. Let’s say BioWare manages to nail the Star Wars “feel.” Does that imply KOTORO (ok, that’s twice and I’m annoyed at the Zorro-sounding acronym already) will bring back those customers that SOE lost? I doubt it. BioWare will probably take a page from Justin Timberlake’s book and “bring the RPG back” to the MMORPG genre since that is, above all else, what they do best. But they’re partnered with EA, and regardless of all the “kinder, gentler EA” stuff their public relations department spits out, EA is all about the bottom line and that means going for the mass market. That, in turn, means a lot of hand-holding and linear game-play, just like we’re accustomed to already. The whole “sandbox” thing is very much unproven territory. The hardcore might like it, but catering to them alone is dangerous grounds with this IP’s last hurrah in the MMO space. No, I see quest icons over NPC’s heads, level numbers over our character’s heads, crafting and profession instructors, being directed to new areas, etc. Everything we’re used to seeing now with one exception: a great story line to the quests and over-arching stories in the background to participate in. LOTRO taken to the next level or beyond, in that regards.

On a side note, Lucas has done well timing extracurricular products such as video games to coincide with the release of his own projects. Has it ever occurred to anyone that perhaps BioWare is making their 2009 release of a Star Wars MMO set in the “Expanded Universe” time line (set in the years between Episodes III and IV) that would coincide with Lucas’ 2009 debut of his Star Wars live-action television series? Just curious…