60 Second Preview of…
Star Wars Galaxies at E3 2001
The Specs
Galaxies will feature eight playable races, a new 3D engine, zoneless
worlds, vehicles for land and space travel, and support for player
run associations. Galaxies will be skill-based instead of level
based, and will be designed so that players don't have to play for
hours and hours to keep up with friends. Players will see and interact
with famous Star Wars characters and will be able to play for the
the Rebels or Imperial forces in the Galactic Civil War, or can
remain neutral. Housing will be supported, as will player run businesses,
including factories. Players can become bounty hunters, merchant,
smugglers, and Jedi. Six months after the game is released a space
expansion is planned that will support space battles.
The Speculation
Mark's Comments: Galaxies was the most impressive
game at E3, though we really were mostly seeing a glorious graphics
engine at work. It's an immense game in just about every way you
can imagine. In size, the one world Verant has finished is 35% bigger
than all of EverQuest, and they plan on having many worlds in Galaxies.
In ambition, Galaxies is being designed to be so open-ended players
can have careers as hairdressers if they want, or possibly rise
through the ranks to become the captain of a Star Destroyer. In
execution, Galaxies' graphic engine already looks a couple of generations
ahead of anything out there. The game looked almost as good as a
movie during the demo we watched. Raph Koster, one of the Ultima
Online designers who's now working for Verant on this game calls
it a second generation massively multiplayer game. Translated, that
means they're hoping to eliminate many of the design problems found
in UO and EQ while at the same time trying to realize design goals
they had to leave out of those games. The biggest obstacle they
face is not tripping over their ambition.
Tom's Comments: Let me be the first to distance myself
from all the praise being heaped on this tech demo. Becasue that's
all that was showing at E3: a tech demo with the sound of developers
in the background making promises. Among their promises were minimizing
the problems other MMORPGs have with downtime during corpse retrieval
and spawn camping; integrating space and planetside gameplay so
they don't feel like separate and unrelated games; creating an economy
that doesn't favor people who play 30 hours a week; and making a
MMORPG with a wide enough appeal that it will work as a combat-free
experience or an engine for role-playing or an economic sim or a
chat program with a graphical interface. Support for use as a dessert
topping and floor wax will be added six months after the space portion
of the game is added. Sure, Galaxies looked great, as most tech
demos are wont to do. With huge AT-AT and Krayt Dragon models, the
developers were able to capture a sense of scale that's been missing
from Star Wars games since Jedi Knight. But Verant has a long way
to go before they've got an actual game.
Publisher:
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Sony Online
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Developer:
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Verant Interactive
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Genre:
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Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
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Release Date:
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2002
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May 22, 2001
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