So I went to log into Star Wars Galaxies today and the world my new dude is on was down. Harumph. So I logged in one of my old characters. And I do mean old; I last played this character probably 4 years ago.
He woke up sitting on a hillside in some woods in the middle of nowhere. Why had I logged off in this spot? No idea. I had no clue what planet he was on, or where he was. I start walking aimlessly and as I came over a rise, I saw buildings in the distance, so I headed towards them. It was a decent sized city, player made. And all the homes were abandoned. I walked into a few of them, and all the former residents’ stuff was there, but no people. I fancied I heard the wind howling through the dusty streets as I entered building after building, but never met another soul.
It was kind of creepy, in a kind of cool way. I wondered who these people were, who had banded together to build this city in the wilderness. Had it been the home of a guild, or just an organic gathering of random adventurers? Things weren’t laid out in an orderly manner, so I don’t suppose the city had been laid out in advance, which makes me think random adventurers.
I found myself wishing that SWG modeled housing decay…these places shouldn’t have been so pristine. But at the same time, I’m really glad I logged that guy in. I wonder if he, and that city, will still be there in 4 more years.
They just did free character transfers to make larger pop servers. Wonder if your on a now deserted one.
Player made ruins? How intriguing!
They just need to implement an archaeologist class, so that current players could spend all day digging through the buildings, recovering lost player-crafted items and using them to wildly and incorrectly surmise who lived there and what they looked like, just like in real life.
“Well, from these fragments of pottery and the alignment of that southern wall with the planet’s sun on the vernal equinox, it’s quite evident that this house was inhabited by Wookies in spandex leotards, and their primary occupation was rearing miniature giant space hamsters and drinking tea.”
You used to play with us some, back in the day… don’t suppose you logged off near New Coventry? It’d be even creepier if you were wandering through Aogwyn’s or Bognor’s homes and shops. 🙂
Naaa, those names I would have recognized. The city name had “Memorial” in it so maybe it was left in-tact intentionally. I don’t think it was a server move thing, because you’d think people would’ve taken their stuff with them on the move.
Nope, it can only be one thing: a heretofore unknown alien race abducted everyone!
Melmoth, I’m definitely loving the archaeologist vibe. As a game designer, I’d put that sort of easter egg all over in the world… just to get people to dig a little deeper. 😉
You probably got ported to the middle of the map at some point — old bug, I can’t remember why it happened but it used to. Some of my old chars logged in like that too when I went back for a while in 2007.
SWG had so much potential. The NGE actually *did* get a few things right (though not the UI, but that was unredeemable to begin with), once they ironed out how awful it was — packing up houses, for instance, is an absolutely brilliant feature, and there are others.
However, what eventually got to me was that SWG is now a game where people AFK-macro whatever it is they need to do in between doing instance runs. That’s soul-less. I’m not even sure the NGE can be blamed for shooting SWG through the head — personally, I think the insane (WHO dreamed that up? Jeez) hologrind thing they dreamed up was the real killer.
Eh well. Mustn’t ramble, the corpse is long buried. I tried the new beast mastery thing, but I won’t go there either.