Anyone read this?

[Mobus]

I had never read this article before. It unexpectedly hits it dead-on, too. The writer must have been a player. ;P

Published: December 10, 2005
www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/arts/10star.html?ex=1291870800&en=1ee435afbd84a355&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

This part particularly stuck with me:
"For them to just come along and destroy our community has prompted a lot of death-in-the-family-type grieving," she said. "They went through the astonishment and denial, then they went to the anger part of it, and now they are going through the sad and helpless part of grieving. I work in the health-care industry, and it's very similar."

I've never left that "sad and helpless part of grieving." Isn't that sad and helpless of me?

[Lezaro]

Heh, I've been looking for an article that relates the psyche to the fall of SWG for awhile and this one is about as close as it gets...

Very interesting, but not really too in depth unfortunately.

I've tried logging on over the course of the last year maybe once, but the game is just too horrible now to even consider playing.

It's sad to say but I hardly feel like I know you guys anymore :/, I'm even forgetting how I used to pronounce the names of the people who rarely log on here now.. Eoro? I used to see him every day and chat with him and kill stuff, but now I don't even remember how to say his name. Hell when I was giving him as an example, I typed "Euro" because I hardly remember what his name is lol.

I just like to log on here and read the articles you guys randomly post, and I have the hopes that one day we will be playing another game together, such as SWTOR.

And if you find another article like this Mob, please post it!

[Mobus]

Aug 21, 2009 15:16:32 GMT -5 Lezaro said:

And if you find another article like this Mob, please post it!

Roger roger!

There's plenty of angry reviews made after the changes:
pc.ign.com/articles/675/675442p1.html
www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3146444

But as for actual articles, here's a few that might be of interest:
www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2005/12/69816
pc.gamespy.com/pc/star-wars-galaxies-2005/667893p1.html
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/21/tech/gamecore/main1335511.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

That last one seems the most substantial.

You might also find these interviews interesting:
games.slashdot.org/games/05/11/16/1633205.shtml?tid=209&tid=11
pc.gamespy.com/pc/star-wars-galaxies-2005/667893p1.html

I've not read these in a long ol' time, but there you go!

Also, about SWTOR. I'm sure I'll be there. I really want to stay away from mmo's, but how can I resist a Star Wars mmo made by the developer of my favorite game (KOTOR)? Answer: I don't think I can. And I'm sure we'll see most everyone else there, as well.


We probably will see:
Eoro
Syek
Jenicide
Ehrgeiz
Ethoh
Negilum
Mobus (hehe)
Lezaro (hehe - don't you just love hehe's, Lez?)
Oseh
Esnodai
Kindreth
as well as some additional people hopping from WoW to try it out, like Gairlan and Nalana.

Guys/gals who I have no idea whether or not we will see:
Kowpla
Bruno
Baile
Parplex
Ank'hara v1 or v2
Xaira

And we likely won't see these guys in SWTOR:
Vikrant
Jweisykk
Neek

I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of people. If you ever read this and I forgot you, sorries! I love you just the same.

Personally, I think SWTOR will be a nice little reunion when it comes out. That moves the game from "hard for me to resist playing" to "impossible for me to resist playing."

I miss the old SWG, sure. But I miss the gang more than anything else. Like we've said numerous times over the years, they are what made the game as fun as it was.

[negilum]

I'll probably check it out, but somehow I just don't think I'll enjoy SWTOR that much. I'm more interested in us.jumpgateevolution.com/ and www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php

[Lezaro]

pc.ign.com/articles/675/675442p1.html
"Perhaps worst of all, opening up the Jedi profession for all players is a huge "screw you" to the players who bothered to put forth the time and effort required to unlock the secret of playing Jedis under the old system."

www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2005/12/69816
"So to be told that in two weeks, your labor investment, your year and a half's worth of work, is going to be destroyed, is tough for some people to take."

pc.gamespy.com/pc/star-wars-galaxies-2005/667893p1.html
GameSpy: What changes in particular do you feel will make the game more fun for veterans?
JT: Veteran buffs (a very powerful buff to be unveiled soon), "elder" titles, and the opportunity to check out all of the nine new iconic professions for all veteran players."
He pegged that one.... lol

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/21/tech/gamecore/main1335511_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
"but it's hard not to wonder whether Smedley's vocal minority contention is spin — counter-clockwise to Richard Nixon's "silent majority."
Did he really compare Smedley with Nixon? wow...

That was a bit of reading but I got through them all somehow. Still unfortunately, none of them discussed the psyche is the people encountering the NGE. I'm hoping for a more scientific explanation of why I got so obsessed with the game in the first place and why I literally wanted to see heads roll when the NGE hit.

Thanks for that long post though, I've always been amazed at how much time and effort you put into your punctuation and grammar lol.

[Mobus]

Thanks Lez.

I've often wondered myself why I got so obsessed with the game, and why I remain sour over the NGE to this day. I've come up with many explanations, none of which are particularly scientific, but they are at least a little logical.

I can only speak from my own personal experience and viewpoint. However, after talking to other veterans and reading their thoughts on the matter, I think there are a few things that are pretty universal when it comes to MMO obsession and the anger that results when a MMO gets turned on its head as SWG was.

First off, MMO's are social games. They are designed for thousands of people to play and interact with each other at once. The players become each other's hooks to the game. Do a survey of why people play an MMO for years and the majority will likely say it's because of the other people playing. They are what make the game not only fun, but special. MMO's have something that other types of games just don't have - deep, social interaction. And SWG was an especially social game, even for an MMO. From cantinas to player cities, the game did a great job of making the player feel like part of a social structure, a community, another world. For many, this other world may even seem better than their own.

The virtual world you find yourself in is vast and wondrous, full of other people and unpredictable occurrences. It's like life only it doesn't hurt as much. And you get to be a part of it, live in it, effect it. Only you're not yourself. You're someone better looking, more wealthy, more powerful. You're someone much more interesting in an MMO. And this, in my opinion, is where the obsession with the game, and seething anger over any injustice done to it, stems from. Once you start feeling like this virtual world is more interesting, like your avatar's life is way more fun than your own, you gain an unhealthy attachment to this perceived virtual utopia. You become obsessed. You play way too much. You shirk real life responsibilities, real life friends, and real life fun. You now favor Star Wars Galaxies over the Milky Way. It's so much cooler!

At least that is the answer I have come up with. We become fascinated by this virtual world because it is such a welcome respite from our own, and eventually, like someone doing drugs, it becomes a bigger and bigger part of our lives until it is a legitimate addiction.

There is one last thing, though. One thing that has a more powerful affect on us as players than anything else. Friendship. The friendships we make in these games are real. The rest is fake, imagined, generated. But this one thing is real. As such, when a change (or overhaul) of the game causes our friends to become disillusioned and leave, nothing is a more powerful incentive for anger. There is a real sense of loss, more so than we feel when our game gets ruined and it is no longer fun to play on its own merits. It's when our friends start leaving that we get really angry, feel a real sense of loss. And the blame for that is the NGE.

I've maintained contact and friendship with many of the people from SWG. Yet I still feel that sense of loss. We lost that world we shared together. Those unforgettable moments we had together, gallivanting across the galaxy together, are gone. We're left with the memories; memories soured by the fact that those times are gone. We're veterans not of a war, not of bad times; but of good times, of golden years. Yes, we look back on those years and tend to forget all the things we hated about the game, but they all just seem part and parcel now. We'd gladly take back the good and the bad if it meant we could have our beloved SWG back.

Now, let me say that while I think that is the case and those are the reasons, I also think it is wrong. It's wrong to obsess over a virtual world, to basically choose it over your own. We can't neglect our real life friendships, families, responsibilities, etc., no matter how much more appealing the virtual ones may be. But it happens, and as I said, I think it happens because whether we realize it or not, we become hooked on getting away from our boring and mundane lives in favor of, well, in this case, spectacular intergalactic adventure.

The ironic thing is that once we finally do break away from the game, whether by choice or by NGE, we find that our real lives were not so boring and mundane after all. Yes, for some, the pain of living remains, but hiding from such miseries is usually not the best way to break free from them. Our lives are largely what we make of them. And I choose for my life to be fun and fulfilled.

For example: I've found hiking through the woods with my dogs to be far more enjoyable than shooting down Imps in my X-wing because, well, it's real. It's meaningful. The only truly meaningful thing we can take away from an MMO is the friendships we form within it. I am glad for those friendships, and grateful to the game for them. For me, they are SWG's legacy.

[Mobus]

Aug 21, 2009 23:42:39 GMT -5 negilum said:

I'll probably check it out, but somehow I just don't think I'll enjoy SWTOR that much. I'm more interested in us.jumpgateevolution.com/ and www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php

DO YOU RIKE IT?!

Ahem. Why don't you think you'll like it, Neg? Did you like KOTOR? It's my favorite game ever, only approached by JKII and KOTOR2. While I dearly wish they had made a KOTOR3 instead, I am interested to see what Bioware does with SWTOR. I'm sure it will be a great game.

However, as I've said before, I hope it sucks! I don't need another MMO addiction, and I just don't see how I can resist a Bioware Star Wars MMO set in the Old Republic time line.

Maybe by then I'll have the time-management and self-control skills necessary to play an mmo healthily. /shrug

[Lezaro]

I agree with everything you said Mob, that's the best post I have read on the web.

The really weird thing about my case is that my personal life outside of the game was really good before I started to play. My friends and I would hang out every day after school and we would chase girls and what not, I was actually one of the more popular guys.

Then one day I got introduced into SWG and found that I could meet all of these people online, and if I worked hard enough, I could achieve, what most people in game considered, amazing feats. I obviously made friends online that I wanted to hang out with quite a bit, but I also had a lot of friends outside the game.

To me, I think that I had set my goals in game, higher then my goals outside because they were out of the norm. Sure I could go hang out with Tyler and play basketball like we had been doing our entire lives, or I could go and master TK and then slowly work my way up to Jedi. A lot of people who play MMORPG's just set their goals too high, and don't realize what they are missing in real life. By trying to accomplish a goal that, in the end, really doesn't effect any part of your life, you are just wasting it away.

I still play WoW almost every day but I think I have discovered a balance between a virtual environment and reality. Reality always comes first, the game is for my free time.

A study that I would really love to see is, the effects of obsessive gaming for teenagers over an extended period of time. Negative effects are: grammar and punctuation severely drop; my sentence structure has collapsed over the years; believe it or not, my reading got worse; weight gain is obviously a big problem with gamers; stress issues; social skills appear to drop, and with that; self-esteem drops.

Positive effects seem to be: trading?; strategy?; uhh... I can't think of too many lol, maybe you could.

[Mobus]

Thanks Lez!!

That's the most important thing – to be able to balance your real life with your virtual one. I've never been able to play an MMO (that I liked) without becoming way too absorbed in it. I'm hoping I can do so with SWTOR. There are millions of people who become unhealthily obsessed with MMO's. But there are also millions of people who can balance the game and their lives just fine, treating it like any other game or any other pastime. You are living proof that not only does it depend on the person and the point in a person's life, but also that someone who used to be obsessed with them can learn to find a healthy balance and treat it like a normal hobby. That gives me hope that I can do the same when SWTOR comes along... We'll see!

I'll be at a different point in my life by then, though – as I am right now. My success and entire future will depend on my continued focus on my actual, real life. That means that the incentives to not obsess will be there. However, it also means that the consequences for becoming obsessed will be much higher than when I was 15! So it will be an unwise and potentially devastating risk on my part to start up an MMO again, especially that particular one which has so much potential to be my very own digital crack.

I'll make that self-assessment and “risk analysis” when I get there, lol. But for now, thinking about what you said and reflecting back on my life and the inordinate amount of time I have spent playing SWG and WoW, I wonder if I would do it again given the choice. I would. Yes, I lost an awful lot. My social skills took a dive, going from mediocre to horribad. My family and friend relationships were all either strained or shattered. I got monitor glow. (kidding!) Not to mention how physically unhealthy it is lethargically sitting in front of your computer all day and all night.

Yet, given all those negatives, I would still do it all over again. Now, let me make clear that I believe that all things we experience throughout life shape who we are. And so to take away any one thing from our past is to take away a part of us, to change us and make us someone else, no matter how bad that thing may be. So there are very few things I would change about my past, if anything. Even the most horrible traumas I would, years after, not say I would go back and change, because after overcoming those traumas I have become a stronger, wiser, and better person. But only after overcoming them.

I put MMO addiction in that same category. It was something to be overcome. I'm better for it. However, I do feel I gained a lot from the game whilst playing it, before realizing I was addicted and before breaking that addiction. During my playtime I met great people, made great friendships. They can't be put into the same category as real life friendships, if you've never met in person, but they aren't necessarily lesser, either. They're just different. That's the biggest thing I took away from the game(s).

I also obtained some valuable knowledge and learned some new skills along the way. While playing MMO's my typing skills improved dramatically. I learned a lot about the internet, computers, addiction, other cultures and other people. I was also introduced to many things I probably would never have been introduced to before. The things I saw, learned, and experienced probably cannot compare to the things I would have experienced were I not spending all my time on a game. That's pretty much a given. However, when it comes down to it, it has made me who I am today and for that reason I think in the end it did more good than harm.

Even if the benefits of never having played an MMO would far exceed the benefits of having played them, that isn't what happened and so I'll never know. A drug addict comes out of their addiction with, yes, a lot to learn and a lot of catching up to do. But they also have a lot to teach and a lot to give. They've lived a different, possibly lesser life than they could have, but that experience is still unique and still makes them unique. And in the end, after they've made that transition back to addiction-free, obsession-free living, they're probably a stronger person than they would be otherwise. Perhaps less experienced, less popular, less healthy and less wealthy. But they've overcome something tough. You learn a lot from that, and you gain a lot from that.

All it really is is a different path. But more importantly, it's the past. And there's no sense worrying about that.

Not to say that you are worrying about the past, Lez. I didn't get that impression at all. But I have, and I've wished I had done things differently. My conclusion, though, is that it's just not worth it. I believe that when we wish to change the past, we belittle what we have in the present.

[Lezaro]

Reading that actually helped me out quite a bit, I often wonder what I my life would be like if I never started playing SWG. After some thought, I came to the conclusion that I would have started playing MMO's sooner or later. Ever since I was a little kid I've been really into gaming, whether it be Super Mario Bro's back in the early 90's or 007 Goldeneye in the late 90s, I've always gotten hooked to a game in one way or another.

SWG may have been a stroke of luck for me. What if we had started with another MMO and gotten hooked to that one? The only thing that separated me from SWG was its destruction (NGE), and even after that I still played for a year in the hopes that it would recover. If I had started out on WoW, it's unlikely that I would have found that balance between life and game. An example is my buddies friend, Matt. He started WoW back in '05, his first MMO, and he still plays obsessively to this day in his dorm room. Rumors are that he realized he was addicted, but I'm not sure how long he will be away from the game due to its constant stream of new content and abilities.

Thanks to SWG, they made the game suck so badly that all of our friends quit, and gave us the chance to catch our breath and think, "Wait, I could have spent that time more wisely." I'm typically pretty bi-polar when it comes to SOE and LA, one day I hate them and the other I thank them, but in the end, they probably did more good than harm to us. If SWG was an even better and stronger game than pre-NGE, I would probably not be writing this, I would be killing noobs with my jedi.

[Kindreth Kin]

Well I can promise you that you will see me.
As far as SWG and all the reviews about how people felt after the destruction of the Galaxy, I cant realy say about other people but my ownself, I felt betrayed, anger, sad, lost, and confused all at once. I still find myself every now and then wanting the old game back. I miss playing with everyone of yall.
I am praying that SWTOR will bring back some of the old excitement that i use to have when I logged on. The feeling of having to go do missions and pvp battles with yall. The exictment of every level.
And just to let yall know we will more then likely never here from Xaira again. I havent herd from her in over a year.
But we all need to stay in touch so when TOR is released we can reform RSF.
But I agree with balancing real life and gaming life. It is something that I have learned to do with WoW. Although I dont play WoW anymore.

[Kindreth Kin]

Neg, how is this jumpgate game you play? I looked at the website but is it fun to play?

[Lezaro]

I'm sure we will be in touch by the time TOR comes around, hell.. we've been in touch without any game holding us together for what? almost two years now? hehe!

[negilum]

Aug 23, 2009 13:39:55 GMT -5 Kindreth Kin said:

Neg, how is this jumpgate game you play? I looked at the website but is it fun to play?

Dunno, it's still pre-beta.

[Neek]

I read most of this thread and I have to say that I too got suckered into playing online games because my life was boring. That's probably the case with many people too.

By day, you have your regular day-to-day routine that is not very exciting, but by night, you get to tank giant monsters, or be the savior or the raid with your awesome heals, or top the DPS meters after completing a raid run. That sense of accomplishment you don't get at the office, you can totally get from finishing your raid and killing that final boss and parading your super loot in the middle of a busy city.

I failed at playing SWG or WoW in a reasonable manner which is why I will probably do everything I can not to buy anymore online games because I know I'll be suckered back in. I can feel my addiction come back simply by playing stupid flash games on facebook about taking care of virtual farms and restaurants.

Am I 100% sure that I won't buy the new star wars game, no, I'm sure I'll want to check it out. The rest test will be, can I play it reasonably.