RIP: Star Wars Galaxies 2003 – 2011

Via Scoop.it – Metaverse News

After an eight-year run, Sony Online Entertainment has officially pulled the plug on the subscription-based MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. The virtual epic adventure across George Lucas’ Force-themed universe came to a close today thanks to the end of a licensing contract between Lucas and SOE.   It also conveniently shuts down operation as a newer, BioWare-developed Star Wars MMOG prepares to launch next week: Star Wars: The Old Republic.   According to several different reports, the virtual Empire-ridden universe went offline following various closing events in the early hours of the morning. The developers even participated in these events, deploying a host of X-Wing fighters and shooting off fireworks similar to the show seen in The Return of the Jedi. PC Gamer actually provides a lengthy insight called “Inside the final hours of Star Wars: Galaxies” which paints a bitter-sweet goodbye to a universe carved out by developers and subscribers alike. “The death of a player-driven MMO like SWG is different to that of a more prescriptive game,” PC Gamer writes. “What is being lost is not just the accumulated experience and credits of thousands of players, but the cities and sculptures that the advanced object manipulation system allowed players to create. Pod-racers created from hundreds of tiny parts; a custom starport built from the ground up. Unless Sony open the game up to the community, all of these are gone forever, beyond the reach of archeology.”
Via www.tomshardware.com