Raph Koster on the legacy of Star Wars Galaxies
Amid all the internet commentary sure to be forthcoming over the next few days regarding Star Wars Galaxies and its upcoming swan-song, none of it is really as relevant as the thoughts of the man primarily responsible for designing the original game.
Raph Koster offers up a bit of commentary on SWG's demise via his personal website, and despite the brevity, he manages to touch on exactly why the game mattered to so many of us and why it will be sorely missed. "It gave us features that continue to amaze people who don't realize what can be done: Real economies complete with supply chains and wholesalers and shopkeepers, that amazing pet system, the moods and chat bubbles [...], player cities, vehicles, spaceflight," Koster says.
It also gave us dancing, and while many progression-focused gamers scoff at SWG's social features, Koster rightly concludes that they may well be the game's legacy since they allowed us to "stop saving the world or killing rats and realize the real scope and potential of the medium." In the end, Koster says that SWG's potential may have overshadowed the final product, but what remained was nonetheless a mold-breaking MMORPG. "I'd rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity. There's a reason people are passionate about it all these years later," he wrote.
