THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK [Author: lum]

All you wookie watchers can breathe easily: the Star Wars Galaxies web site is finally up, with the requisite FAQ, message boards, and anonymous “Comments From The Team.”

This has been a great experience — Star Wars is a fantastic setting for a massively multiplayer game. It’s a universe that many of you love and have come to know as your own. We want to make sure you have fun in your galaxy, and we’re going to work hard at keeping open channels of communication with the players.

Three weeks later: “Your feeble messages are no match for the power of the dark side! Now you will pay the price for your lack of vision!”

Star Wars Galaxies is about exotic worlds and epic adventure. It’s about the struggle between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, with the outcome decided by the actions of players. It’s about large-scale political battles (which have now escalated into war) to take control of the galaxy. There’s a lot of exciting stuff to show you in the months to come, and a great team behind the game. As time goes on, you’ll get to meet them too — folks who worked on massively multiplayer games such as GemStone\’e2\’84\’a2, Meridian 59\’e2\’84\’a2, Ultima Online\’e2\’84\’a2, and EverQuest\’c2\’ae!

AND DON’T FORGET ADULTIMA, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Speaking of people in their own galaxy, Brian Hook, who is rumored to have crafted Verant’s second-generation graphics engine for use with SWG and other Verant titles, has left the company. An interview with VoodooExtreme reveals that he recently discovered Sony was a very large company. You know, with the really dedicated genius coders, it takes them time to pick up on the small stuff like this. Cut him some slack.