With the mildly anticipated Bioware MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic on the horizon, no one, besides the regulars, paid attention as Sony aimed a Death Star-caliber ray at the original Star Wars MMO. On Dec. 15th, the long running Star Wars Galaxies was closed for good. Brian Taylor was on the spot to report the final minutes.
The chaos builds. I look at the log and can barely make out anything that happened. Players can damage one another. Wampas run rampant. At some point, I am killed. My smuggler, cosplaying as Han Solo, falls on his back in the digital sand. Occasionally other avatars die on top of me. They disappear; I don’t know if they’re players who’ve respawned or unloaded or NPCs whose bodies are programmed to vanish. Players thank their friends, declare their love for the game, and shout angry spam toward SOE and LucasArts. Some players profess their happiness that even at this late hour, they can still add people to their ignore list. There is at least one bit of shock speech: “GOODBYE AND HEIL HITLER” (in Shyriiwook, the Wookiee language).
-Jason Johnson
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