Who here played Star Wars Galaxies before SWTOR? I know I am not the only one. We’ve brought you coverage here of SWG and its closing ceremonies but here’s story from a player who says he helped destroy Star Wars Galaxies.
What does this mean? What is this all about? In just under 2,000 words, Patrick Desjardins shares his story.
He explains:
Spring 2002: The first sandbox alpha builds were being tested. Over the course of spring and summer, they got a little more advanced, and I could see the game starting to take shape. I got into the friends and family alpha tests from my involvement in the online community. I made copious suggestions, everything from combat to social aspects. I complained for a week about how the zabrak horns should look. I got involved, deep.
One day, I inquired as to how the economy would be structured. The answer I got very literally changed my life.
“We haven’t really planned for much of anything. I think the players will structure it organically.”
I was dumbstruck. I didn’t respond and started taking notes. I took a lot of notes — entire composition books sat next to my monitor. In hindsight, 90% of what I noted was useless, but that 10% — that was worth something.
On we travel throughout the saga of Patrick’s gaming life and we learn more of what would transpire. Many of you reading might even be able to relate as he recalls:
I spent a lot of time in starports, counting players arriving and leaving. Establishing traffic patterns. Corillia, Naboo, Tattooine — the big three. I started running projections: where would I go first? Tat. Surely Tat, but…where would I want to live? Not in the desert. No way. Naboo, lush and green, pretty scenery, Fambas walking in the distance. Yes, this is where I would live. But there is also Coronet, the central hub for travel. If you want to go anywhere, you have to go through Coronet. That’s the meeting place, the staging point; Coronet would be the key to power. If I wanted to hold the cards, I needed to hold Coronet. I started looking at the most efficient way to place buildings outside the c-net starport. I was placing them for hours, plotting the perfect placement to not only have the closest buildings, but also to force other players to build elsewhere.
He goes on to tell us his story of SWG and how he prepared for the launch, took time off work, planned his play time and was ready to launch. The first two weeks he played hardcore. He describes it as being all a blur. He built credits, he completed tasks, he progressed in the game.
Then he describes 6 months down the road:
Six months in and I realized I had more money than I could ever possibly spend. I needed to off-load it, and I needed help. Enter the Thai.
His name was Tan, and he needed a reliable stream of credits. See, Tan worked for a re-seller and my little enterprise was making his job difficult. He had no problem on other servers, but on those that I was on, his percentages were way down. Why not work together? Why not indeed. After a week of negotiations and arrangements we were set and money was changing hands, with an interesting side-effect.
The same people who were buying my credits from Tan were turning around and using them at my vendors, usually with more of their own credits as well.
Read his story to learn more about how he developed the economy in SWG, made money and progressed and what would lead to the eventual destruction of SWG.
Source: Medium Difficulty
