Star Wars MMOs: A Different Point of View
The release of Star Wars: The Old Republic has been a mixed experience for me. Knights of the Old Republic is one of the finest RPGs I’ve ever played (certainly one of the best Star Wars games), and was my first exposure to BioWare. I still haven’t played some of the “must see” BioWare games like Bulder’a Gate and Neverwinter Nights, but Mass Effect is my favorite franchise and I thoroughly enjoyed the first Dragon Age. I am also a diehard Star Wars fan, and a huge fan of MMOs in general, so why am I not champing at the bit to hop on the TOR train?
As odd as it might seem, I was a big fan of the previous Star Wars MMO, the critically panned Star Wars Galaxies. I should clarify though that the last time I played was sometime in 2005 or so; I was only a fan of the version of Star Wars Galaxies that existed before a patch called the “New Game Experience.”
I’ll try and summarize my history with the game. I bought SWG on boxing day the year it came out. I was 13 and while I wouldn’t say I was a bigger Star Wars fan than I am now I was definitely more intense about it. I waited for boxing day so I could buy the game, the strategy guide, and as many timecards as I could for as good a deal as possible (which was necessary considering how little money I had at the time).
I got home and played the game immediately, and I think my first session was upwards of 12 hours. I recall that I sat at the character creation screen and read through the strategy guide to make sure I didn’t fuck up my upcoming amazing Star Wars experience.
The character I created really reveals a lot about me: my character was a human male named “Ark Rendar,” sharing the last name of an obscure Star Wars character named Dash Rendar from the N64 game “Shadows of the Empire” (my favorite Star Wars game at the time). I imagined that he was Dash’s younger brother, and even designed his facial features to look like a younger, less grisled Dash. For his profession I chose medic, because that was a profession that wasn’t really explored in the movies, and for his homeworld I selected Corellia purely so I could join the Empire and give him a Corellian bloodstripe (the red stripe that Han Solo had on his trousers in A New Hope). Keep in mind there is nothing stopping you from putting a red stripe on your pants if you’re not from Corellia…but it wouldn’t be authentic.
I played that character in that game for 3 years, from age 13 to 16, from 2002 to 2005. It was a turbulant time for me for a number of reasons, in addition to the difficulties inherent to being that age, but SWG was my constant companion. For those years I really felt a connection to the Star Wars universe that deeply affected me (keep in mind that I was playing this game while the prequel trilogy was being released). I would have continued playing that game till the end if it hadn’t been for the NGE.
