Star Wars MMORPG: Isn’t it time for a new release?

A wide variety of selections

Star Wars games have one of the widest race and class selections of any MMORPG on release (Trandoshan Teräs Käsi Image Designer, anyone?), and the Galaxies advanced tier system let you customize your character with a degree of precision unlike almost any mainstream MMO of its generation. The crafting was equally intricate, involving mining resources from worlds and making iconic Star Wars gear.

PvP was an exciting and varied thing, with the introduction of temporary enemy flags (TEFS) that would let others hunt you down if you overtly aided the Rebellion or the Empire. Wearing faction gear, stormtrooper outfits or Rebellion uniforms, always enabled this flag. Spaceflight was fun and well-integrated to the setting, and ion weaponry was a thing of beauty. These elements deserve a new home.

What deserves to be lost to time is the very thing that the New Game Enhancements patch tried to do. It flooded a game where Jedi were once a rare and mysterious thing with overpowered heroes in a bid to secure more players. The mechanics were dumbed down to the level of casual or arcade playstyles.

The result was almost a complete loss of the core player-base with a few new players sticking around after the initial surge of change. The game went F2P following this and officially ended in 2011. (Of course, there are alternatives to shutdowns.)