8 Massive Online Community Events That Changed Video Games
3. The NGE Update For Star Wars Galaxies
Next up is a more evolutionary kind of event, one that would shatter a once massively popular MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was the original attempt to bring the popular space opera to the multiplayer scene.
Many thousands of members would head to the galaxy far, far away on launch and the numbers would continue to grow with further updates. Jump To Lightspeed, Rage of the Wookies and Trials of Obi-Wan all contributed new environments and content to the package. But the biggest and most damaging changes would come through the developer's NGEs.
The new game enhancements ripped up most of the game's systems and narrowed them into something more accessible. The aiming and combat systems were tweaked, the quest and reward cycle shifted to more instant gratification and finally the class system was condensed down into nine selectable classes. One of these was horrifying to long-term Galaxies players; making a Jedi selectable from the moment you booted up the game.
A set of controversial changes that gutted the deep gameplay and caused players to leave in droves. A vast majority of players felt the NGE decimated galaxies, neutering the journeys players had taken their characters on in the years leading up to the update.