Sadly, you won't see us on SWG. This has been the most fubared launch in the history of MMORPGs, I think.

The fact that one in 8 of my friends (including me) was able to complete subscription and registration and successfully create a character and log into the game world (before every server crashed the night the game launched) is not a great sign.

Now I hear most of the servers are full, or are under heavy load, and I *still* haven't been able to create a character yet, and we have to try and coordinate about 10 of us to get onto the same server so we can play together.

Couple all of that with a "bug" of having to type "N/A" in the "region, if outside the U.S." field on the subscription page, and I'm one pissed customer. This is the same company that made Everquest...surely they had some experience to learn from about launching these things.

I hate to say it, but I had a feeling this was going to happen after playing in the final weeks of Beta. I'll report back if I feel that things have gotten any better at all by Sunday.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

*sob*

well. EQ has been around for years and years now and is a finely honed beast. Playing any MMORPG at launch is risky business.. even EQ way back when.

I'll probably only pick it up in the fall. Otherwise I fear I'll be paying for the right to further beta test it... argh. Evil business models make me sad!

I plan on sending a "Sorry about the launch, hope you get better" card to Raph Koster (lead developer of SWG) in the mail. Does Hallmark make those?

Anyway, somehow this is all Sony's fault. How could they screw up this badly with an almost fail-safe liscense and almost a decade's worth of experience developing MMOGs?

Interesting little story. At GDC last year, I was sitting next to Raph at the screening for "Avatars Offline." Midway through the documentary, Sherry Turkle (noted games scholar, wrote "Hamlet on the Holodeck") appears and says something like "The reason online games haven't become a real medium is because you need to have a sort of literary mythos, such as Star Wars, that the everyday person can related to. Perhaps, when Star Wars Galaxies is released we will truly have a game worthy of the phrase virtual world..."

There was a big pause after this dramatic interlude, so every major developer in the room turned back to face Koster and said something like, "Yeah, no pressure, Raph. Hope ya don't fuck it up, heh."

I dunno, you had to be there ;)

Not to nit-pick, but the author of _Hamlet on the Holodeck_ was Janet Murray. Sherry Tuckle is more of a sociologist, and wrote books like _Life on the Screen_, and _The Second Self_.

Yeah, launch day for Star Wars Galaxies was a clusterfuck extraordinaire. Just about everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Registration screwups, server crashes, database errors and then a server wipe on one West Coast server. Ouch. If it was Wolfpack and Ubisoft, at least you'd say, "Well, they've never done this before on this scale". But SOE has. Makes you wonder how Mythic pulled off a good launch for DAOC.

Anyway, Day 2, unless you were waiting to play on the Flurry server or couldn't get into any of the full servers, went pretty well. Now servers are down again for a pretty substantial period--my guess is some kind of database fix, though they were working well yesterday.

Gamespeak
Posted by jane at 10:23 AM
Yesterday Justin 'n I hunted far 'n wide fo' curtains fo' da freshly-painted dining room." We went seven stores over da course of four hours, know what I'm sayin'? By da end we didn't even know what we wanted anymore n' shit. But Justin wanted achieve something, so we finally settled on some sizzlemizzle-transparent ivory-colored cotton panels we seen at da seventh store."

This morning we wuz reflecting on da odyssey, know what I'm sayin'? "I think we gots gravy experience," Justin be like, "even though we only bought one thing." I think we've increased izzle shopping skill, 'n izzle interior decorating skill n' shit. I think we're another step closer leveling up in design n' shit. "

Can yo' ass tell that someone's been playing an awful lot of Morrowind?

Update: Justin 'n I wuz just working on da book we're writing together n' shit. Suddenly tha dude stood up." "I has go," tha dude be like n' shit. "Star Wars Galaxies is out today n' shit. I'll be right back." " And off tha dude drove, know what I'm sayin'?

See yo' ass online!

Yeah, Day 2 didn't go so badly. I'm happy to report that not only were just about all of the servers humming along nicely, but it also seems that they've re-adjusted the damage model one final time, since the last combat balance scale they had running in the final week of Beta was *insanely* difficult.

I was able to level up a lot in a few skills (since I already knew what I was doing, fortunately) in just a few hours. It looks like it should be some good fun.

You forgot to mention leet speak.

It is far easier to tell a gamer when they start using terms like leet and haxor. Personally I find the whole leet language completely annoying. If I can be bothered I have to sit for a minute trying to figure out what the hell the person is saying to me. I don't know if it is just me but I always get the impression that the person using leet speak is immature. That and I find myself asking myself 1000 year of latin and english and some think it is better to write in numbers and hashes.

What about you jane and justin?