LucasArts is the Evil Empire for Star Wars Fans

A large number of players of the MMOG Star Wars Galaxies have quit playing the popular online take on the omnipresent film franchise and what's more, they are now moving to different games altogether.

Why?

i. They say that the controversial, sweeping redesign of the structure of the game has ruined the fun and wasted the years of work they have invested into building and developing characters in the virtual world. Carolyn Hocke, web technician for Saint Michael's Hospital in Wisconsin, whose character A'thena was mayor of an in-game city on Tatooine and owner of a bustling shopping mall says;

It's now a shoot'em-up game for adolescents, not at all conducive to our play style. People who we grew to know over the last couple of years are gone. Cities are ghost towns, guilds are gone. My galaxy is gone, my game is gone.

ii. The New Game Enhancements (NGE) dropped much of the complexity of the original design that let players choose from more than 30 different professions in the Star Wars universe to just nine. Out of these 9 one is Jedi. In the earlier version only a precious few determined players could hope to attain the use of the Force. Unbelievably, now, any player can choose that path from the game's start! This means that there are more light-saber wielding players making the game fast faced and more action-based robbing the fun of building up strategic encounters. Some of whom have been playing as the same character in the same virtual world since the game's 2003 launch are disgusted that the characters they've spent all this time building are gone.

iii. Brian Orr, who had been playing two characters for more than two years says;

I attempted to play by the new rules for a few days. However, the gameplay was horrid, and the bugs were intolerable. Needless to say, I canceled my account.

People like Hocke are pissed off like hell. Hocke called the NGE a 'cruel hoax'.Julio Torres, the game's executive producer at LucasArts who originally announced the NGE on the game's official forum says he finds their lack of faith 'disturbing' and he tries to infuse some good air in the situation. He notes;

Old Star Wars players will get other 'special enhancements' in the new game such as exclusive access to the game's best light-saber models. These Elder Jedis will also glow with a blue halo as the ghost of Obi-Wan in The Empire Strikes Back.

He adds

We understand that change is hard sometimes, but the new game we have is more Star Wars than ever. Players that actually give it a real try find it immersive and more fun than ever.

But his conclusion throws a dampener on the slight excitement that his earlier talk might have generated. It seems LucasArts is banking on the fun element of the new NGE that is more action-based with fast gameplay. He says;

Playing a Jedi is fun and games are meant to be fun.

Well, it's no more fun for the older fans who have reasons to feel being robbed. Maybe the newer Star Wars gamers wouldn't mind the new NGE. But then, if not for the old version's theme, what makes Star Wars different from the run-of-the-mill games? Already people like Hocke are moving to games like World of Warcraft.

Via: Wired News