Monday, July 18, 2011

Getting There Was Half the Fun

It's C3-PO and R2-D2! They have missions you can take!

Look in the back! It's Wedge Antilles! He's at his desk, and he's doing stuff! (Nikki offered to bring him coffee).

Wow, look at that box by the wall. I mean, everything was made up of 100% awesome as we ran around the newly discovered Rebel Base on Corellia. We were yelling to each other from different rooms, announcing our discoveries. We were no longer playing characters in a Star Wars universe, but were fans of the genre dropped into the middle of our favorite story as key players.

Then, it got even better.

Leia! Someone shouted it out. Maybe it was the forgettable Mon Cal, or even the recently blue-dyed Shakkara. It didn't matter: someone found Leia on the second level, overseeing Rebel strategies and intel.


She was a bit shorter then expected, but was quite pleasant - and tolerant, despite Nikki's lack of respect. But there she was: Leia Organa, a beacon of hope and light for freedom in the galaxy. For lack of any proper words to describe the experience: it was just the coolest.

We set out - maybe hours ago - with the intention of finding the secret Rebel Base. What we found was a lasting memory of a quest of our own design, achieved at a pace of our own choosing. Star Wars Galaxies provided the reward: the intangible gift of fun in a time before MMOs were boiled down into getting the next big buff to win the next big raid. This was immersion at it's finest, offered via an open-ended gaming framework.

We would walk away with the inventory and skills of our characters no greater then when we left, but we would walk away far better for having come in the first place.

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