User blog:Dieredshirtdie/Remembering CWA, Two Years Later

Hey folks.

Two years ago today, the glorious game we all played and loved, Clone Wars Adventures, shut down for good. While it's bittersweet to think about the game and all it meant to us, it's equally as important to look at what's happened since its closure.

The Star Wars universe itself has expanded immensely since the Legends rebrand that occurred when Disney acquired George Lucas' multimedia empire. We've been blessed with the start of a brand new trilogy of films, several stand-alone films, an additional sixth season of The Clone Wars on Netflix, plans for Star Wars-themed Disney Parks, the long-awaited release of a new Battlefront game, and the ongoing, highly successful series Rebels. It's a beautiful time to be a Star Wars fan.

At the core of all of this, though, was the success of The Clone Wars movie and series. Given the poor performance of the prequel trilogy, a new Star Wars project was needed to renew peoples' faith in the franchise (because not everyone was reading the wonderful comics and novels coming out at the time). Enter The Clone Wars. The jump to 3-D animation was a shocking one to many Star Wars fans, but while the movie didn't do so well, the series sure did.

Enter SOE's MMORPG, Clone Wars Adventures.

From its release in 2010 to its eventual termination in 2014, CWA became much more than just a game to a lot of us. We built lasting friendships and flexed our writing and role-playing skills. Many of us devoted countless hours-and even more countless SC Cards and Jedi Membership renewals-to that game.

Unfortunately, we'd all known the end was close. The Clone Wars series itself was nearing the point in the timeline where it was approaching the opening scenes of Revenge of the Sith; with the series ending soon, there was no real urgency to keep its companion game. Not to mention Sony had other issues on its hands.

While it's sad that CWA is gone, it's been both a blessing and a curse. The end of CWA was just part of the end of another era of Star Wars history. The new era we live in is filled with promise.

So, today, while we remember the past, here's to the future.

RIP CWA