LucasArts – MMO Fallout

Disney Shuts Down LucasArts

In a truly disappointing move, Disney has confirmed to Game Informer that the game publishing subsidiary LucasArts has been shut down, accompanied by an expected number of layoffs associated with such a change. Instead, LucasArts will move toward licensing rather than developing games based on the Star Wars franchise.

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

Unfortunately this likely means the cancellation of the upcoming, and extremely beautiful looking, Star Wars 1313. As Game Informer points out, the shuttering wasn’t exactly unexpected, with the absence of both the Force Unleashed and Battlefront series, not to mention the total lack of any serious Indiana Jones games in the past few years outside of LEGO Indiana Jones.

MMO Fallout hopes for fast employment by those affected by the layoffs.

Star Wars Galaxies: One Month In

It’s been one month since I started playing Star Wars Galaxies on my new character, and by now I had completely forgotten that I never set up a subscription after entering my serial code, so that was a bit of surprise. Since last week, I managed to find a few items in my bag that took me back to Tatooine to complete missions I never finished the first time. One of those missions turned out to be the Death Trooper line of quests, that started out as very low level (level 1) and immediately sprang to level 10 and then level 90. So I still have the level 90 Death Trooper mission in my journal, that will sit there for a long time.

The Death Trooper mission, what I did play of it, was a massive pain in the ass even from the Galaxies point of view. I found myself traveling back and forth every other mission between Tatooine and Dathomir, two planets that are not connected meaning I had to travel to Corellia, then travel to Dathomir so I could talk to one person, then travel to Corellia, then travel to Tatooine so I could talk to a scientist, who would send me back to Dathomir, and back and forth. I own the book that the mission is based off of, as seen to the left, and apparently the Death Trooper saga is canon.

My current role, as I talked of last time, are working for the Royal Security Forces on Naboo, tasked with defeating terrorists, preventing local thugs, and being randomly de-mounted and scanned in Theed. In my previous few missions, I had to go to several locations and kill 14-16 mobs to distract them, and then bug their antenna. This confused me from a continuity point of view: If I’m killing large amounts of a group to distract them, why am I the one who has to plant the bug? Isn’t the point for me to distract so someone else can plant the bug? Someone didn’t think this mission line through (probably me).

But this wouldn’t be a Galaxies episode without me whining about issues I’m having in-game. I’ve talked before about the game showing its age, but no more so than the slow reaction that Grandpa is showing me here. I walk through a group of terrorists and can make it about ten seconds away before they notice and start shooting at me. In some cases, I’ll fire at a guy and his buddy standing two feet away won’t move a finger. About ten seconds later, just before I kill the guy I’m attacking, he’ll finally snap up and start shooting me. For what Galaxies adds in atmosphere, this takes a lot of it away.

What really annoyed me is that apparently Qa’ashi has become quite a poor aim. Earlier I complained that I had trouble with the locking system being too strict, in a “No, you will aim at this person because I told you to,” sense. I’m not sure if this is just part of the process, or if I hit something somewhere to turn it off, but now I can’t get the target to stay on at all. If I move away from the person I’m aiming at, I stop targeting them. Normally I’d follow the “maybe you should learn to aim” people, but when mobs have lag and terrible pathfinding issues like in Galaxies, where they go into 50 mph sprints about two hundred feet in the opposite direction (to better hit me with their pistol?), keeping a steady aim can turn into a real pain in the ass.

Star Wars Galaxies: Week 3

*Note: I finished writing this before the double exp update, this does not include any gameplay spent after today’s update*

Hallelujah! Week 3 of Star Wars Galaxies is over and done with, and I am finally off of Tatooine. Although my time working for Jabba was just grand (A little run in left me with -450 standing with the Hutts, but 3305 with Jabba, if that makes sense), I was finally able to get the droid head I’d been looking for and get my fully functional R2 droid from Watto. I was quite surprised as to how long that particular quest series took me, and by the end of it I was still level 21, still working my way towards end-game.

Despite what tone my opening image may convey, I’m finding this game extremely addictive. Despite some issues with availability over the past week, I was able to get two levels, although I finished the Jabba The Hutt line (for now) and even managed to speak with the big guy himself. Walking around Jabba’s building adds to the atmosphere I talked about in earlier articles, because there are certain places you cannot go until you raise your faction rating with Jabba. I wasn’t even allowed to be in the same room as Jabba until I finished mission lines for two of his followers, and even then I had to complete missions for his assistant, Jabba himself, and then a torture droid to finally get the head I was looking for.

The Hutts are just as seedy and disgusting as you could hope for in a Star Wars game, and my missions involved sabotaging competing pod racers, killing their champions, murdering opposing traders, and just generally enforcing Jabba’s will wherever it need be enforced. At the end, however, I was forced in a mission to bring information to either a Rebel or Imperial messenger (this sets up your allegiance). I chose the Rebels over the Imperial scum, no offense to any Imperial scum reading this.

I can’t get away from the issues with context response in this game, however. As in the first image, there are problems with interconnecting rooms and being able to shoot through them, but not be within line of sight of the enemy. Having to step into the room just to shoot a guy through an open doorway takes away from the immersion, as do my attempts to move from target to target, even though the game tends to go completely off screen to someone who is out of range, rather than the guy standing two inches away from the person I just killed.

I only gained two levels, but I did accomplish a lot. From now until who-knows-when, my smuggler has been transferred to Naboo, where I am working for the Rebel Alliance, getting in good with the Royal Security Forces on Naboo, meaning I can look forward to missions involving killing thugs, gangs, and murderers rather than helping them along. Oddly enough, I still have a higher status with the Empire than the Rebel alliance, but that is because I started out at a disadvantage (missing that rebel checkpoint in an earlier article).

Leveling has slowed down, a lot, likely because of the insane amount of time spent traveling from spot to spot to finish quests. On Tatooine, having to travel five thousand kilometers or more just to get to one area, then kill ten mobs and have to travel three thousand kilometers to the next, is not uncommon. I can only hope Naboo will provide quicker leveling.

My house will stay on Tatooine. I have still yet to go back and put some of my new posters on the walls. This may just be my time playing, but I’ve yet to see any players since the prior week.

But still, if you haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies and want to check it out, I would suggest doing so. If you’re a “veteran,” even a disgruntled one, come back and give it a go. Create some new memories before the game goes offline for good.

LucasArts Breaks Silence: Talks Galaxies

With all the talks from Sony Online Entertainment regarding Star Wars Galaxies shutting down, LucasArts has been silent on the issue. Not anymore. In a letter from LucasArts, Gamepro has published the following:

The decision to shut down the game has not been an easy one. SOE and LucasArts investigated every option to keep the game open, including taking it to a free to pay model. However, that model just isn’t financially viable. Changing the business model for an experience like Star Wars Galaxies takes a major investment and overhauling of the existing infrastructure of the game. We’re unfortunately at a point in our life cycle where a change of this magnitude is just not possible. The harsh reality is that we’ve reached a point where the game is no longer a sustainable business. None of us wanted to see this point, but we’re extremely proud of the last eight years of the game and the community that has supported it.

We have a lot planned between now and December and we want to make sure that from now until then, we send off Star Wars Galaxies in a style befitting such a great game. We’ll be right there in the game with everyone else, counting down until the end, making sure we connect with all the friends we’ve made over the past eight years. It may be bittersweet, it may feel like it’s happening before it should, but we have approximately five months remaining where we can all enjoy the game together. We sincerely hope the community will join us.

Well it’s certainly a response, and it does show that a free to play model was at least considered.