The Glade 4.0

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/playerinfo/

Come December 15th, SWG will no longer exist.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Goodbye, you won't be missed.

I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I wonder how much longer EQ1 will last?. I suspect it's either going to have to go to a free-to-play model, or shut down altogether at some point in the not-too-distant future...

Yeah, my guess is that Lucasfilm isn't renewing whatever licensing contract SOE has, lest there be a competing MMO on the market for the upcoming Bioware game.

Also, it'd reflect pretty poorly when people could do side-by-side comparisons and say "SWG's spaceships from 5 years ago put what SW:tOR has to shame; if you want to have cool spaceship Star Wars, play SWG."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

LA isn't renewing the license. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be renewing it even if TOR wasn't coming out considering how poorly SWG is doing with their sub 10k subscribers.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Lol, "competing." I seriously doubt anyone would recommend SWG for anything. I was disappointed with DA II, but I think Bioware can at least beat SWG little if not outright.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Jump to Lightspeed was an awesome Star Wars space sim, if you could either manage to keep yourself supplied and repaired via flight endeavors alone, were sitting on a fortune from having actually played SWG itself wealthily, or could stomach running occasional SWG missions and the like to supplement your finances.

If paying for things wasn't a big obstacle due to one of the above, the actual gameplay was outstanding, probably the most fun since TIE Fighter, and easily among the best flight models for a Lucasarts-affiliated game coupled with the best ship selection and customizeability/upgrade system of any space sim I've played.

I just wasn't outright *good* enough to make it my sole career, and despised SWG's ground content for obvious reasons.

But despite that, I would absolutely recommend SWG for stick jockeys, especially if the alternative was the steaming pile of 1993 that Bioware's been showing off and calling "flying your own starship."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I see the year "1993" amongst a lot of TIE Fighter talk and I have to think, "Does he mean the first X-Wing game is total crap?" since it came out that year. It's not the best, sure. But I'd take that any day over a disney ride on rails that has the sign "star wars space combat" on it.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

1993 is Rebel Assault.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

For its time, it wasn't bad at all.

It was quickly overshadowed by other releases, which were quickly overshadowed by other releases, etc and so forth and so on until they think everyone's forgotten and they can re-release antique video games.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Ah. But it's also Larry Holland's first step into a larger world.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Yeh. WoW bombing runs with starships. /sigh.

Which saddens me. I *want* to like this game. I *want* something new and wonderful.

I just am not seeing it.

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Holy shitsnacks!

See, I loved X-Wing. I started playing it around '96 or so. It was after the Collector's CD Edition came out (graphics engine upgrade to the one used in Tie Fighter, both expansion packs, and other improvements), and fell in love. I never really got into Tie Fighter, though. Maybe it's because I have an inherent dislike for flying the Imperial craft. What can I say, I'm a Rebel at heart. Then again, it's probably because I didn't play it until after X-wing vs Tie Fighter came out, and I was hopelessly addicted to multiplayer. 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4 was hella fun, and the co-op option they introduced with the Balance of Power expansion was amazing. That was the one thing I wish they would have done with X-wing Alliance. It had everything else: an engrossing single player campaign, outstanding multiplayer support for it's day (especially in tandem with the MS Gaming Zone), and a much improved graphics engine. If they would have just made the campaign missions available as co-op, it would have been much better. Oh, and if they had released an expansion to tie up the loose ends from the family mission storyline.....GGGRRRRRRR!

Speaking of XWA, I recently dug out my old discs, and decided to give it a try. I had a heckuva time getting it installed and working on Win 7 x64 with a modern graphics card. But I was finally able to get it working. And I even updated all the craft models to hi-res versions and got it to support widescreen resolutions. It's still pretty dated, but man, I forgot how much fun this game was. The only thing I need to do now, is get some good old fashioned multiplayer dogfighting going!

/derail off

Anyway, all of this to say that, I'm really looking forward to The Old Republic. I could care less if it had a flying section/missions in it. I'm glad they are at least trying to appeal to the fan base. Sure, I'd love for Bioware, or anyone else to release an updated space-sim based in the Star Wars universe. But, in the meantime, I'll wait for TOR to be released, and try it out myself, before I decide if I like it or not. Bioware has not let me down yet, and I doubt they will this time. Sure, I may be disappointed with parts of it, like anything else. But as a whole, I'm sure I'll be very pleased.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

The unresolved "Uncle Anton" missions in XW:A still bug me to this day (and I haven't touched the game since '99). They have this over-arcing story and it comes to a climax, and then it just jumps directly to: "Hey, you're now flying in the Battle of Endor! And..... for no reason whatsoever that has nothing to do with the story to this point, you're flying the Millennium Falcon!"

Another classic example of Lucas Arts forcing a company to rush a game, I am sure. Which is why I am pretty confident that SW:TOR will be undercooked. Hopefully, it will be rare enough to be mostly edible.

I was crushed when I heard Lucas Arts was getting rid of Larry Holland and Totally Games. I was very much looking forward to expansion pack content for XW:A and (I hoped and prayed) a "TIE Fighter: Empire" game with a single player story on par with XW:A except from an Imperial bent.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!