Star Wars Galaxies: The Final Moments
So that one might live, another must die. And so it was that Star Wars Galaxies went the way of Mark Hamill's leading man status last week, having been ushered out of existence by the dark forces of licensing in order to make way for The Old Republic. We've already posted news of the closure, but it's well worth having a look at the below player videos of its final moments. As well as all the epic space battle stuff, the death of an online world makes for a strange, and sad affair, where the evident outpouring of emotion is so often hampered massively by the constraints of the game. Yet for all that the stiff animations and looped emotes somehow make these farewells all the more poignant.
Also: watch Luke Skywalker get murdered by Ron Burgundy.
Here's the climactic invasions of Theed (by the Rebellion) and Coronet (by the Empire), which looks pretty awesome at around the four minute mark:
Here's how the end of the universe looked from Mos Eisley, on the Europe-FarStar server. The uploader notes he had to turn off some graphical whizzbang to cope with the number of players and fireworks:
And here's someone's music video, which sets assorted vignettes from the last day to a very sad song.
This is oddly moving, in terms of what's lost from a personal perspective when an MMO closes: a player touring their in-game house, carefully built and decorated across the years, for the very last time:
FInally, and all too aptly, here's the Luke Skywalker NPC getting mobbed to death in the twilight moments of the game. I particularly like that one of his assassins is called Ron Burgundy.
Farewell then, old Galaxies. You were, if nothing else, fascinating.