10 Updates To Video Games That Completely Broke Everything
9. "New Game Enhancements" Ruined The Game For Legacy Players - Star Wars Galaxies
Upon its 2003 launch, Star Wars Galaxies seemed like a dream come true for fans of the franchise: a rich, sprawling MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe.
But in November 2005, developer Sony Online Entertainment announced a "New Game Enhancements" update, intended to make the game more accessible to a wider range of players.
The problem was that the NGE took a complex and rewarding loop and simplified almost all of its major functions, in turn undermining the hundreds if not thousands of hours some players had invested in reaching their current point.
With its massive dumbing down of fundamental mechanics, many felt that Galaxies had become a mediocre World of Warcraft clone overnight.
The straw that broke the camel's back was allowing Force-sensitive characters, previously heavily gated and unlocked by only the most dedicated players, to be a starting profession.
This caused many fans to ask for their money back from the recent Trials of Obi-Wan expansion, and Sony surprisingly agreed.
Despite Sony reportedly unleashing the NGE to ensure player retention, the irony is that it sparked a mass exodus of legacy players, causing many previously bustling player towns to become deserted within weeks of the update's release.
Years later, Sony's John Smedley called the game's treatment of NGE "stupid." Given that it effectively killed Galaxies dead, he's not wrong.