A couple of years ago I was not much of a gamer, but I found a unique Multi
Player Online game that had the highest level of submersion I could of
conceived at the time. It was Star Wars Galaxies...

I was not a big Star Wars fan, but the game had several unique aspects to
it, that truly took you into this world that was created by original game
designers.

Since that time, being a Sony and Lucas Arts controlled game, the original
developers with the original vision that made the game unique have left.

This has left the game in constant turmoil. If you do any research on the
Sony forums regarding this game, you will see where the problems start and
continue almost forever.

In the Spring of this year, they brought in a new development team from
EverQuest II, this team did not ‘get’ what made SWG different than all other
online games, so in their attempts to bring new items to the game, they
changed it completely.

Now SWG is not much different from any other online game. Whether it be WoW,
EQII, etc. And there are a lot of people like myself that are literally
screaming for an online game that doesn’t follow the cookie cutter rules that
all these other games follow.

Here is a basic list of what made SWG unique and is no longer existing in
the game.

1) Instead of a Level based Online game, it was a Skill based online Game.
Talk to players and developers from the Pre-CU (as they call it) version of
SWG. Your abilities in the game were dictated on what you learned and what
skills you aquired, and had nothing to do with a Level.

If Microsoft wants to create a vast and unique Online Game, make it skill
based, that is virtually limitless in the amount of skills an strengths of
each profession in the game that can be obtained. Instead of just becoming a
Master Swordsman for example, don’t let it stop there, let the player become
as ‘skilled’ at being a Swordsman as they like. SWG had an end game for
professions, but you could do better by not providing an end point for any
profession and still keep it fully skill based.

Offer no ‘end’ game in the progression of ‘skills’ (and NOT levels)

This also includes the ‘animals or foes’ in the game, they should not be
level based either, and as in the original SWG, should be based upon the
creature or NPC’s abilities and skills as well.

2) The other unique feature of SWG was the interaction and vast
customization allowed to the players in the Worlds. There are no limits to
where players could travel – even if it meant they would easily die.

This also includes player structures, housing that forms the landscape, like
almost no other Multi-Player Online game does. We can build Cities, houses,
decorate the Cities and Houses, show off our trophies, even decorate the
living room.

This gave us an immersion level, no other game fully achieved.

3) In addition to the customizable immersion, it created economies of
crafters beyond other Multi-Player games. I know many players that were not
combat players and enjoyed being Doctors or Architects and just providing
these services and ‘living’ in the game as these professions.

From custom clothing to custom designed housing, you could create a game
that even surpasses the cookie cutter in game housing designs by letting
advanced architects for example design their own housing creations for other
players.

4) With the Xbox 360 and the immersion that you are offering with the live
system, these concepts don’t even have to be limited to one game, but a game
like this is badly needed now, and it is obvious that Sony doesn’t care
enough about their customers to even keep the game we original bought.


This is a request from a Fan of Microsoft’s Xbox products and also Microsoft
insight into finding what the customers needs – as a developer, Microsoft has
always been on the cusp of knowing what people want, and I hope that someone
out there reads this and at least these thoughts will stick in their head for
some magnificent from Microsoft.

Right now there is NO Multi-Player online game that has massive
customization, adventure, and is a Skill based game instead of a Level based
game. We don’t all want to be forced into WoW or all the other basic Level
based online games.

The original SWG proved that you could build a skill based online
Multi-Player game without a ‘Level’ system, and this is what has kept its
popularity, even though Sony has let developers from its other games slowly
destroy everything that was good and unique about the game.

So this is a plea to Microsoft – Make or find someone to give us a
Multi-Player online game (both PC and Xbox 360 based) that we can join our
friends and be skill based in our professions, not limited to quests only,
and actually live in the world and create content in the worlds and shape
them, as we have gotten a taste for doing so in SWG.

PS – I have been a beta tester for Microsoft Products since 1992, and I am
the lead manager at a development company myself, just not in the gaming
industry.

If you are reading this, and know someone with influence above my
connections at Microsoft, please forward this to them. Also contact me with
any questions or assistance I could provide in explaining these simple, but
unique concepts further at martin@(nospam)simplypowerful.com

MartinSPT