Ruminations on Star Wars Galaxies

I've recently been talking to a friend about how cool Star Wars Galaxies used to be. I've recently moved my old character over to a new account, and wanted my friend to see the character's house, starship, etcetera. Well, last weekend she logged into the game and I gave her the grand tour. Later we talked about it. What follows is some ruminations I shared with her.

One thing I liked about Star Wars Galaxies is that you could make toons old and you could make them fat. In World of Warcraft and Everquest II you can make your toon bulkier, which is kinda reminiscent of weight, but they don't actually look fat. And age is just a few hints of lines in the face.

For some reason I thought of this commando I saw in SWG one time. Whoever created him made him lean and muscular, but old. And in his bio he presented himself as a grizzled veteran of the Clone Wars who was poetically struggling with creeping age and reflecting on his own mortality. It was very well written.

That's the kind of possible personalization that made SWG so cool. Because of the complex skill tree and the large range of options during character creation, a creative person could create a toon that was pretty unique.

What made that commando such a well-rounded character was that whoever created him had done just about everything you could with a toon in SWG (play-wise). So if you looked at his accomplishments (which you can do by inspecting his character sheet), along with the bio it completed the effect of a grizzled old commando.

I mention this because of the time and creativity it took to create a character like that. It wasn't some kid who made that toon. Those are the kind of players Sony ran off by ripping the guts out of the game.