SWG and Designing in Public
I’ve been looking at Star Wars Galaxies for a while now, and I’ve been playing it for about a week. There’s been criticism of SWG in the past, but so far I’m enjoying it more than any MMOG I’ve played besides maybe EverQuest… though I haven’t played it long enough to really perceive the larger storyline during play, I already find the story structure remarkably rich, and I particularly enjoy the diversity of profession paths.
I also like that the development team has maintained a lot of transparency into their process, as even a cursory glance at the SWG Web site will show you. ExploreLearning practices this as well, and it’s such a practical and humane way to approach the ongoing process of development and use, for everyone involved. As a programmer, I’m so happy we’re leaving the “fix this now! before anyone notices” paradigm behind and trusting to honesty.
This has to have helped the SWG team improve the game over the months its been public. It’s certainly motivated me to look with a positive eye toward the game as a project.