For many gamers 2005 was marked by one of the stupidest decisions by a company in gaming history. Sony's online gaming division (SOE) released an update to their game Star Wars Galaxies, known as the New Game Enhancement. This update eliminated 2/3s of the professions in the game, as well as rendering an expansion pack that was due to come out in two days, completely pointless. Not only did Sony have to refund all the preorders of the expansion, they also lost almost all of their subscribers, essentially killing the game.
The reason for the NGE? They wanted to dumb down the game so they could attract a wider audience. The game is still going, but it's like a ghost town, everywhere. There are literally hundreds of abandoned player run cities alll through the game. It was such a big thing that even the New York times ran an article on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/ar...rssnyt&emc=rss
But now 5 years after sony messed the game up, there is hope for the far away galaxy. Since 2008 a ragtag team of players have been developing a free emulator, to fight against the tyranny of the Sony Empire. By the looks of things, it is nearing completion.
http://www.swgemu.com/
I have been playing the emulator beta since friday now, and already I can tell you, everyone in there is hopefull, already there are thousands of former players comming back. Maybe, if we can get all the old players together, and get a bunch of new players, we can make the game better than it ever was under the rule of Sony. Frankly just the struggle to make this emulator makes it feel even more like a star wars game.
Also to any programmers, they are accepting any voulenteer help for working on the emulator.
***warning** since the emulator is currently in beta, when the beta is over they are going to wipe all the characters.