Stargazing
If there was ever a fantasy world I would have liked to step right into, lightsaber in hand, Star Wars is it. I want to pilot that X-Wing. I want to face the Hut full of jelly and save that princess with buns in her hair. I want to be the swashbuckling hero. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like I can do any of those things in Star Wars Galaxies, a game that launched just last week.
Galaxies sounded like a gamer’s dream. User controlled cities, controllable vehicles like land speeders, and space combat headed the feature list. As the years rolled by, features became future promises and even future expansion packs. What’s left sounds more like Everquest with Ewoks than the incredible game I hoped to rush home and play.
I say “hope” because I’ve yet to purchase the game. Another reason has kept me from the retail shelves. The rapidly shrinking feature list should give you a clue. From the initial reports – and the reports of some folks in the beta – the game is buggy. Some things are incomplete. Some things are completely broken. Day one found many gamers waiting for the registration screen. Subsequent days have been filled with server downtime.
For many massively multiplayer role-playing games – Dark Age of Camelot excluded, server instability in their infant days is par for the course. That doesn’t make it right, particularly when Joe consumer is sitting at home $50 lighter. For this game, it almost seemed to be the plan. The game isn’t ready to play. They are, however, more than ready to begin collecting money.
And somehow, I’m still interested. I won’t spend my hard earned money to beta test their software. However, I hope one of my friends does. I need someone on the inside. Someone to approach me in a year and assure me that my dream of what this game could be is close to becoming reality. Much like the suits at Sony, I need a guinea pig.
The Star Wars license with a $15 a month fee is the closest thing that the massively multiplayer gaming community will see to a sure thing for a long while. Look ma, I can be a Wookie. They can’t screw it up. They just can’t. That doesn’t mean they won’t give it a college try.
I would have gladly paid their sum to play the game that I really wanted to play. As it turns out, though, they haven’t finished it. I won’t pay them a cent until they do.
