Tugg Back, being confused in Bestine. Look, a dancing Stormtrooper!

Earlier today on Twitter, some people seemed to react when I mentioned that I planned to do some AFK-mining with my trader in Star Wars Galaxies. I can understand that, doing things AFK are almost the same as botting in other titles. I thought I’d return to the culture of AFK that is present in SWG in a later post, but inspired by Stargrace’s writings on Vanguard, I thought I’d take a look at crafting in Star Wars Galaxies.

Crafting in Vanguard is awesome. Crafting in Star Wars Galaxies is a science, at least for newbies like me. Poking around in it can be pretty fun, but if you’re going to try to make any credits out of it you’re in for a ride. Something I noticed when I decided to take my poor trader out of early retirement a few weeks ago. He went from simply pulling up worthless materials for easy credits to trying to wrap his poor Ithorian head about the finer details of weapon crafting…

Bear with me, because this might get a bit long.

Tugg Back, my budding crafter, was luckily already level 90. I grinded him to cap through the usual means – going for a structure trader, picking up a grind kit of materials and making statues until my eyes bled. It was horrible, took about three hours of insanity, and I don’t ever want to do it again. Sadly, a trader beneath level 90 is more or less worthless to the current community, seeing how old it is, so it was pretty much needed.

Re-speccing him to a munitions trader, putting my expertise points into weapon smithing (our guild city already has an awesome armor shop), I took a look at what I could put together. From the list of weapons I picked the Advanced Laser Rifle. It sounded basic enough, and “advanced” sounded better than the normal laser rifle. For it, I would need a frame, a receiver, a grip, a barrel, a core and an optional scope, stock and elemental chamber. Reasonable enough.

Then I started to take a look at what materials I would need, and that’s kind of where I am right now. In a state of miserable shock, trying to figure out if this project is worth the effort or not. For the frame, receiver and grip I will need some rather easy stuff – link-steel aluminium, non-ferrous metal and polymer. But the full list of stuff I will need to gather is a bit longer…

Rhodium Steel
Duralloy Steel
Duranium Steel
Ryll Amorphous Gemstone
Polysteel Copper
Carbonite Steel
Crystalline Gemstone
Inert Petro Chemical
Reactive Gas
Chromium Aluminium
Green Diamond Crystalline Gemstone
Corellian Deciduous Wood
Varium Carbonite Ore
Phrik Aluminium
Tolium Reactive Gas

This will get me an Advanced Laser Rifle with an acid elemental chamber. Sweet! Just go out and mine the stuff, right? Run up to a Reactive Gas-node and get the good old mining pick out? Oh, no. I’m just getting started.

Tugg Back placing an elite harvester... in a swamp!

You see, there is Rhodium Steel and there is Rhodium Steel. Materials in Star Wars Galaxies have stats. A freaking ton of stats. All of them don’t come into play when you’re going to craft something, for most of my stuff I just need to keep my eye on Overall Quality (OQ) and Shock Resistance (SR). But I still need to find the darn materials, and they need to have spawned somewhere in the galaxy in the first place. Different spawn, different stats. Luckily, some brave souls keep updating the list on the wonderful website SWGcraft, so lazy traders like me don’t need to scour every planet to find what they need.

All of the stuff on that list isn’t available at any given time. They might spawn, they might despawn, they might pop up when I least expect it and disappear before I have time to get my harvesters there. And then, of course, there are planets like Mustafar where you can’t even place harvesters so you have to rely on sampling – pulling up small quantities of materials from the ground. Which is where my trader is right now, AFK-mining away to get his hands on some sweet high-statted copper. Yum yum yum. I had plans to AFK-mine that really nice gemstone that had spawned the other day, but of course that was already gone…

Are we done yet? No, we’re not. Here comes the whole “you need money to make money”-thing. Because when you finally have the materials needed, you need to put it together. And to get the best result, you need to pray to the Gods of Chance – you will need to “experiment”. And to make sure that the Gods are smiling in your favor, you need to stack up on crafting gear. Which I surely don’t have right now, and can’t afford anyway. During Empire Day, they hand out a nice bandoleer with a lot of bonus Luck, but that’s about it for me right now.

I'm just going to sit here and stare for a bit...

So this is pretty much where I stand right now, confused and scared and excited at the same time. It might sound like I’m complaining. I’m really not. I’m looking forward to getting this project off the ground, slowly building up a nice stock of materials (I haven’t even mentioned things like weapon augmentations…) and trying to put up a small weapons shop in some corner of our guild city. It won’t be the fanciest shop in the world, but I’m going to sell some really nice weapons to my customers. That’s the plan, at least.

Wish me luck. I’m still trying to bend my head around all the concepts at play here. It’s an amazing system, with a nice depth. It’s light years ahead of other titles, and together with Vanguard it has one of the most interesting crafting systems of all time. The only games that come close is Ryzom and in a way EVE Online. And I never managed to get much crafting done in those two…

Or perhaps I’m just making it more complicated in my head than it actually is in reality. Hopefully that’s the case.

                          

Anyway, what I’m talking about is Star Wars Galaxies. I started out in November last year, planning to give the game a month to see if all its bad rep was deserved or not. I ended up falling in love with it, and the week after E3 I hit level 90 – the cap. During that time I have been a Jedi, a Bounty Hunter, a Smuggler and back to Jedi. I have grinded a Trader to level 90, I’ve picked up a second account where I got an Entertainer to cap as well.

Now I am getting ready for “endgame”, which in Star Wars Galaxies I’m not sure really exists. At least not in the traditional sense. I’ve put my foot in one of the heroic dungeons, the Temple of Exar Kun, and I’m hoping to finish up the few remaining heroic pre-quests I have left this week and see the rest of them soon. I’ve started to dabble in invasions, I’m trying to re-decorate my new house, trying to learn about crafting enough that I can actually use my Trader for…well, for something.

I feel at home in Star Wars Galaxies. It’s a great game, with a long and sad run. Seven years of constant controversy. But also seven years of sandboxy goodness, with a dedicated playerbase and ideas that haven’t been seen in other MMOs. I plan to stick around for a long time coming, even if I’ve started to feel the call of the classic fantasy MMO. My Lord of the Rings-account is still active, and Vanguard’s server merge has put it back on my radar…

What a long strange journey it’s been. And what a long strange journey I have yet to look forward to.

                          

Die, stupid flag!

Since I resubscribed to Star Wars Galaxies I’ve only managed to ding 8 levels. What burned me out last time was this obsession about getting to level cap, and I got stuck on doing terminal missions until my brain bled. They are not very fun, trust me. So this time I gave up on that, even though I do look forward to reaching level 90, and I’ve been doing whatever I’ve felt like at any given moment. Such as…

• Hunting on Kashyyyk. The design of the Wookie planet is a lot different from the other planets I’ve visited so far, and the long quest chains serve to slowly unlock different areas. I’ve so far gathered three different hunting trophies that are now hanging on the walls of my house. I’ve also ordered myself a new mount from a beast master in my guild, since my regular means of transportation are not available in the forest and I have to rely on my really slow (and ugly) cliff-jumper. A crafter in the guild is also buying any hides I might gather, which is a small cash bonus.
• Decorating my house. Moving stuff around, hanging new paintings and putting some things on display on top of my aquarium. Hanging a huge bantha hunting trophy next to my bed. Dear me, that will give me nightmares.
• Flying around in space. I’ve been moving up through the space tiers, currently working for Jabba the Hutt. Space is awesome, and I do hope that Bioware will include something similar in The Old Republic. I doubt they will though, unless it’s planned for an expansion in the same way Jump To Lightspeed was for Star Wars Galaxies.
• Finding random quests. If you don’t count the Legacy Quest-chain, there are no big arrows pointing out where you should go in SWG. You can run into a quest more or less anywhere. If it sounds interesting, and I believe I can pull it off, I’ll accept it and see where it takes me. I got my fancy clone trooper armor that way. I’ve also started to make my way through the Meatlump theme park, investigating the largest criminal gang on Corellia.
• Taking part in PvP invasions. Sure, I’m only level 55 right now, so I don’t go full PvP and fight other players. But I’ve joined forces together with a couple of guildies and attacked Bestine a couple of times. Epic and a lot of fun, with walkers and stormtroopers everywhere. I haven’t turned off my flag since last time, so I constantly get to fight stormtrooper NPCs while in Mos Eisley.
• Doing smuggler missions. I respeced from Jedi to smuggler and I don’t regret it at all. Doing smuggler missions for the Underworld faction might not be the most exciting activity in the world, but it’s a nice distraction and adds flavor.

I’m also considering taking my trader out of early retirement, perhaps respecing him to a chef or giving him an instrument and turn him into an entertainer, playing music and buffing others for tips at the Mos Eisley cantina. We’ll have to see about that, so far I haven’t had any money problems. Sooner or later I will, though.

Twitch-based pew pew in space. Eat your heart out, landlubber.

What Star Wars Galaxies has taught me this time is how shallow games like World of Warcraft is. I need at least some sandbox elements to stay happy. I haven’t logged into Lord of the Rings Online in the last couple of days and I don’t really feel like doing so either. I have to log into Age of Conan, since I’m reviewing Rise of the Godslayer, but I seriously doubt it would be able to keep me occupied over a long period of time.

Cataclysm, despite all the cool screenshots, has never looked as uninteresting as right now. I know I will never get my friends to play Star Wars Galaxies with me, since they only tend to go back to what they know or only see flaws where I see merits. That’s fair enough. But more than ever I’m quite sure that I want more sandboxes, more immersion. I want Vanguard more than I want Warcraft, I want Galaxies more than I want The Old Republic (of course I’ll play it when it comes out, it does look awesome).

                          

I has pretty horsie!

I’ve had a really bad day today, which culminated with a long discussion/argument with Openedge over Twitter (no hard feelings though). But instead of being a typical MMO-blogger/player and complaining about something game related on my blog when I’m in a bad mood, I’m going to do the opposite. Instead, I’m going to be all happy! See, I did promise a happy post on DFTM!

You know what, I am happy when it comes to the MMOs I’m in right now. I’m truly to starting to feel at home in Lord of the Rings Online, for example. My rune-keeper has hit level 36, which is way beyond anything I’ve reached in the game before. He’s a ton of fun to play, and getting the horse from the Spring Festival made me even happier about him. There is something about getting a proper mount in a MMO that always makes me feel that my character is more…well, real.

The kinship I’m in has been nothing except great, even though I hardly ever see any of the bloggers that’s in it as well (I’ve seen Syp once, still no sign of Blue Kae or the Casual Stroll-guys – damn your make-believe time zone). I’ve started to dabble a bit in skirmishes, trying to figure out which soldier will work the best together with my rune-keeper. So far, the warrior has been working better than the protector. It’s tricky to try to do both healing and some extra DPS with a rune-keeper…

I also decided to re-sub to Star Wars Galaxies the other day. It was a combination of the producer note for April which details some really cool changes, the neat stuff you get during the 30th Anniversary of Empire Strikes Back, and a brief discussion about the game with Ark. I was happy to find my house intact and myself still guilded. All I’ve done so far is putting some decorative things on top of the aquarium on the upper floor of my home, but it felt nice seeing Prometheus, our guild city, again.

And a cool aquarium. Beat that, World of Warcraft.

I’m considering respecing my Jedi as well. That’s the nice thing about SWG – you can actually respec over to other classes and retain your combat levels (it comes with an increasing cost, of course). I’m considering a bounty hunter, or a smuggler, but I have yet to decide. I’m also thinking about deleting my level 90 trader and replacing him with an entertainer (don’t want to respec him, he wouldn’t look too good on the dance floor).

To be honest, I’m actually pretty confident that MMOs will come out alright in the end, despite money grabbing F2P-games and sparkly ponies. I’m with Syp, the APB business model gave me back some confidence that it’s all not doom and gloom. Everything will be just fine.

                          

Big, hungry, not very cuddly. Soon to cut into pieces with my lightsaber.

One month. Wow, that was fast. Time is speeding up, man. Nothing beats keeping track of time like checking your MMO subs and finding out that the next billing cycle starts today. Calendars are so outdated and clearly not Web 2.0. In other words, my month of Star Wars Galaxies ends today – it’s actually been that long since I started.

But this post is not about me getting older by the minute. I haven’t had time to blog as much as I would have liked over the course of the month, but that’s how it goes sometimes. But I think that a summary of what the time in SWG has been like is in order. After all, I feel that I can now, at least partially, answer the question I asked a month ago – is Star Wars Galaxies really such a bad game as its reputation would have us believe?

I’ll break it up in two parts, the pros and the cons of the game, starting with the cons. I’ll also add a TL;DR at the end, in case you’re lazy or feel like flaming me no matter what I write. I aim to please.

Disclaimer: Do keep in mind that I only have a Jedi at level 39 and a trader at level cap (after a grueling grind). I have not experienced the game fully, including things like heroics and PvP.

Hit the jump to find out the good stuff!

THE CONS

Ri'Kali, my Jedi. The helmet is only for appearance, a system that works really well in SWG.

All is not well in the world of Star Wars Galaxies, of course. After all, the game is six years old – even with the NGE-reset, there’s still a lot left from the “old” ways of doing MMOs. This is no World of Warcraft, people.

The PvE follows the “kill ten rats”-model. Even if the Legacy questline and the flavor texts of the missions try to hide it, there’s no escaping the fact that questing is filled with typical kill- and loot-quests. Kill 11 of these mobs, collect 8 pieces of loot from those enemies. Rinse, repeat, move on. I’ve quested my way through Tatooine and Naboo, and right now I’m fed up with the Legacy so I didn’t even bother starting on the part of the line that takes place on Correlia.

So far, there’s been very few missions that deviate from that norm – the only one I can think of is a racing mission, where you have to rush between waypoints on a vehicle of your choice. It was fun, but hardly enough to break the rather monotonous PvE-grind. Most quests follow the same formula as well, especially when you have to break into someone’s bunker, and can be very predictable – it’s easy to plan ahead, knowing which mobs to stay away from until you’re done with your current task.

There’s a lack of original content, at least when leveling. Haven’t I seen this bunker before on another planet? Haven’t I been inside a cave just like this already? Those are two questions you will ask yourself, many times. The only good thing is that structures like those can be quite difficult to navigate through, people obviously like to build their bunkers like mazes (no minotaur yet, but one day he will jump me from behind), so you at least learn how to find your way through them after a while (which, to me, would be a rather far-fetched pro). The overhead map is your best friend, trust me.

The game is old, which means the community is old, which means some things can be hard for a new player. While an old community, with players that’s been in the game for years, can be a good thing as well (I’ll get back to the community during the pros too), it’s hard as a new player to break into the game. Creating a new guild and finding members to build a city with can be really hard, finding your place as a trader and being able to make money is not an easy task. An entertainer or trader below level cap is completely worthless, who wants to get a buff from a level 50 ent when there is a level 90 standing right beside him/her?

Combat can be confusing, buggy and at times boring. Especially ranged combat got old really fast, while I do enjoy melee. Enemies move around,at least if they are armed with ranged weapons, but they look hilarious while they do – a friend, who I got to download a trial, said that their legs “moved like drumsticks”. Ranged felt like two people just standing there, shooting at each other and hoping to get the killing shot. Melee is better, but it’s still the rather typical MMO combat despite the “aiming” (which is similar to the one in Fallen Earth, but a bit better since you don’t have to tab out of it to loot for example).

Six years old and there’s still some silly bugs, like enemies that can’t be hit or doesn’t react, lag-issues, etc. There’s some really annoying rubber-banding from time to time, even though it’s not a major thing. There’s also some graphical issues, especially with volumetric shadows turned on – buildings outside the field of view have no shadows, for example. Pop-ups, especially from vegetation, are common.

A player made museum in A New Haven, Naboo.

This last con might be a bit controversial but for a new player it gets old rather quickly. While the community is great (see below), the more or less constant bitching about the NGE can become really annoying. I know I will never feel your pain, but some members of the community seem to have personal agendas against new players actually enjoying the game as it is today. Nothing is as good as it used to be, and everyone should be constantly reminded of it. Even I, who never played SWG back in “the day”, need to be told what a great game SWG used to be before SOE “destroyed it”.

With that said, I can understand how betrayed some players felt when the Combat Update and the NGE hit. How the changes were implemented without warning, how one patch changed the whole game. I perfectly understand how you feel, it must have been quite a shock. But it’s been four years, if you can’t let it go, fine. But don’t constantly complain about it in front of the new players – you’re not helping them, you’re not helping the game, and since a lot of you are still playing, you’re not helping yourself.

Those were the cons I’ve experienced so far. There are probably more, and I have no doubt that more will crop up the higher level you get too or the longer you play the game. But those are the most important problems I’ve had with SWG during the month. So let’s move on to the good parts, the ones that truly stands out. Believe it or not, despite the rumors being spread about the game from the people who still hold a grudge against SOE/LucasArts, there’s a whole bunch of pros.

THE PROS

Tugg Back, my trader (crafter). If you get the "Tugg Back"-reference, you are probably Swedish and around 30 years old.

In many ways, despite the NGE changing the game at the core, SWG is still a very unique MMO. To this day, it has sandbox features that I’ve never experienced in any other game. Love it or hate it, the game should get credit for a lot of daring design choices that the developers have taken and keep taking.

The sandbox features, such as player owned housing, is the best I’ve ever seen. Not only can you have your own house, that house is placed in the actual world. No instancing, no magic door that leads to thousands of apartments. It’s your house and anyone can stumble upon it. While exploring the world, you’ll see player owned houses everywhere, you’ll suddenly find a vendor in the middle of nowhere hawking ship parts or collectable items, placed there by another player. It’s an amazing system and because of it, the planets feel alive in a way no other game does, despite them being so large and often devoid of much detail.

The player created cities can be equally amazing. My guild is one of the largest on the server and our city is huge. The central square, right next to our own shuttle station, is lined with shops where you can find everything you need. We have a mall, a crafting house, a cantina and everything else you would ever need. It’s a popular spot, not only for members of the guild, but also for other people who come there to hang out, craft or shop.

The community is filled with good people. Despite the asshats mentioned above, most of the people who are still playing really enjoy the game and love seeing new faces. They are helpful, both when asking questions or helping out practically (my guild leader showered me with gifts, including a house and some starting out money). I’ve yet to be called a nub, despite, you know, being one. You will feel welcome.

Star Wars Galaxies is a very social game and depends a lot on interaction. Guilds work together to better their cities, people hang out in the cantinas to chat while getting entertainer buffs, there’s an advanced “storyteller” system for creating player driven events, some spots are always busy with people doing nothing but talking (at least on the more popular servers, there are reportedly some servers that still – even after the latest server merge – are ghost towns).

There’s so much to do. I keep losing track of leveling because I waste my time fixing up my house, planning my harvesters, foraging, hunting down collection items, looking at the sights, touring landmarks and different player cities, visiting shops, chatting with guild mates, crafting, doing space missions, creating chronicles…people keep telling me that the game doesn’t start until level 90, but I’m constantly busy as it is. The “end-game”, at least from the view of a level 39, seem to be enjoying the world and everything it offers. Not the common one-track gear treadmill of raiding or PvPing.

Space is awesome. It’s a whole different game with its own level progression, there’s a myriad of ships to fly and it’s twitch based. The vistas are impressive, looking down on Tatooine or Lok while shooting down rebel scum, and it can be much more challenging than MMOs usually gets. I’ve also had the opportunity to man a turret while another player sat in the pilot seat – true Star Wars style! Which brings me to another, important point…

It’s Star Wars, man. I know that some players don’t think it’s Star Warsy (love that expression) enough, with all the Jedi and mini-Ewok familars and stuff, but I think it’s just right. Compare it to The Old Republic, whose cartoony style and bright colors fit in with the modern version of Star Wars. SWG feels a lot more like the old trilogy, while including planets like Naboo and the disgusting Gungans seamlessly. It’s dark, it’s gritty, the Empire is evil in that Moff Tarkin-kinda way, there are pirates and scum everywhere.

Theed, the capital of Naboo.

I don’t dislike the graphical style of The Old Republic, I think it looks great. But I’m glad that SWG looks different. It fits the time frame of the game, between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. The architecture of the various planets looks great as well, like the impressive gates in Theed on Naboo or the massive skyscrapers on Correlia.

ENOUGH ALREADY, GET TO THE POINT

Right, sorry. I guess it’s easy to get carried away and ramble on about both pros and cons of a game you’re currently playing. So, how to summarize the whole experience?

First of all, to answer the question I started the whole experiment with – is Star Wars Galaxies really such a bad game as its reputation would have us believe? The answer? No.

I know, I know – it’s not what it used to be, pre-CU and pre-NGE. That doesn’t stop SWG from being a great game now too. Instead of the open class system it used to have, it now has nine distinct classes – but the classes plays differently, and the expertise trees allow for further customization. That’s not enough for everyone, especially not for the vets who remember how it used to be and can’t forgive the developers for doing what they did, but as a new player it is easier to see the game standing on its own terms instead of the memories of the glory days before the NGE changed everything.

Star Wars Galaxies has a lot of things going for it. If SOE would pump in a little more money and keep pushing for it (like the sudden appearance of SWG on Steam), it should be able to become more popular again. It’s hard to say exactly how many players it has right now, some servers being full and some being more or less empty, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some would have us believe. With Game Update 15, which will try to bring new life to the Galactic Civil War, it might also bring back old players while attracting some new people.

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

My first house, in the city of A New Haven on Naboo.

As I said, billing is today. My original plan was to use the retail code I had and give SWG one month to find the answer above. So this is the crossroad, this is where I either keep playing or leave. After all, the 30 free days I had are suddenly over.

Honestly, I can’t see myself letting it go now. I’ve fallen madly in love with SWG. It’s an awesome MMO. I have so much left to see, so much to discover. I want to learn how everything works, how it fits together. I want to reach level 90, I want to try out PvP, I want to become an ace pilot and fly the coolest of ships. I want to set up a shop selling those ships and modules for them. Maybe then I will take a step back and realise that it’s all crap. Who knows?

I’m glad I decided to give it a try, to see for myself if the game deserved all the slack. If you’re interested, SOE offers a 14 day trial, which I heartily recommend you give a try. Even if you’re an old player that left during the CU or NGE, I’d recommend it. It has changed a lot since those days, after all it’s had four years to mature.

I’ll keep playing and blogging about it. I will still be myself, though, and probably keep bouncing between various MMOs. It seems like SOE has activated my EverQuest 2 account during December, for example. But now I have a new home, a house in the city of Prometheus on Tatooine’s moon Lok, from which to base my operations.

TL;DR-VERSION

Despite its many faults, SWG is a wonderful MMO. It has matured a lot since the CU and NGE, has great sandbox features and a lot of stuff to do. I will keep playing it, and I hope that SOE gives it more attention in the future and allows it to take back a lot of the ground it lost when the NGE was introduced. If you haven’t tried it, check out the 14 day trial. If you left after the NGE, still check out the 14 day trial – it has changed a lot.

                          

Busy evening in the Mos Eisley cantina.

How do you gain experience points and levels when you can’t get it from killing mobs? How do you progress your character when combat is more or less pointless?

You dance.

Enter the entertainer. Just like the trader, the entertainer does not gain experience points from killing monsters. But where the trader gets XP from crafting, the entertainer gets XP from…well, entertaining. You got the choice of dancing or playing music, you perform songs or string together dance flourishes. You do light shows, create your personal dance floor or put on your smoke machine.

Compared to the standard combat classes in Star Wars Galaxies, the entertainer is a buff class. Most of them hang out in cantinas (or in cloning stations, the game’s “graveyards”, as far as I’ve gathered – never seen one there, though), sell buffs to the people that watch them (by using the /watch-emote), get tips and socializes. More than anything, the entertainer is a social class.

Not that! Not that!

It’s a fascinating concept. I’ve talked to a couple of entertainers (or “ents” as they are called, quite confusing at first), and they all seem to love their class – one called it the perfect class to “get to know the server”. They meet new people constantly, as most players flock to the cantinas for buffing before they head out into the field (don’t miss out, they got a bonus XP buff). If you’re not a very social player, and don’t like standing in the spotlight (literally), then the entertainer is not for you.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever encountered a class that focuses on social interaction as much as the entertainer (anyone out there who knows?). I’d love to see something like this in other MMOs. Combined with the music you’re able to put together in Lord of the Rings Online (which is really impressive), this could be an awesome idea to include in other games. So many players use their games as fancy chat clients from time to time anyway, give them a reason to flock to the bars/cantinas while chatting away.

Ironforge needs a proper nightclub, Blizzard.

                          

Laugh! Now!

After browsing around on the official Star Wars Galaxies forums, I’ve realised what you need if you decide to try it out. No, it’s not only patience to deal with bugs or with the sometimes twitchy combat. It’s not putting up with the kinda dated graphics, or the questing/mission running to get to level cap.

What you need is a sense of humor, or at least the ability to not take yourself too seriously. Not being prone to go into fits of nerd rage probably helps too.

If you’d decide to pick up SWG, one of the first things you might see when you finally get off Tansarii Station is a wookie with small wings on his back. There’s one on my server standing at the starport in Mos Eisley, giving out Chronicle Holocrons (quests he made himself through the Chronicles system). He looks hilarious. I have no idea how he got the wings, I’ve seen them on other players as well, but there’s just something about a 2.5 meter tall wookie wearing them. It’s awesome.

<3 <3 <3

If you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the adorable, flying, mini-Ewok pet. It’s disturbingly adorable. I want one, but I believe it’s some form of award from an in-game event I’ve missed. And even though the New Moon Festival, SWG’s version of Halloween, ran when I first started out, I’m afraid that I missed getting the Jabba backpack. Better luck next year?

If your right eyelid is twitching from Star Wars-fueled nerd rage from reading about a flying mini-Ewok, then SWG is probably not for you.

I guess it’s understandable, though. If you came to Star Wars Galaxies, hoping for a 100% perfect Star Wars-experience, then…well, you might be out of luck. Personally, I came to SWG looking for a fun game and a world second, with the Star Wars-universe being a nice backdrop. I don’t even mind all the Jedis running around (hey, I’m playing one), something I understand gets under the skin of a lot of people (let’s not get into how hard it is to market a Star Wars-game without playable Jedis, shall we?).

Relax, put your feet up, come watch the Twi’lek entertainers at the cantina, buy some blue milk or Correlian wine, dance with a Jedi and pet your mini-Ewok. If you can’t do that, due to SOE not strictly following the lore, you might want to stay away.

In the eternal words of Malaclype the Elder  – “the human race will begin solving its problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously”. Don’t be so glum, chum!

How far are developers working on license-MMOs able to go? How much creative freedom should we allow them? What comes first? The license, the game, the marketing, the world? Either way, I want a mini-Klingon in Star Trek Online.

                          

The Jawa trading post, filled with junk.

My first week in Star Wars: Galaxies is coming to an end. I ditched my bounty hunter after, again, realising that I am much more of a melee character kind of guy than a ranged one – I guess all those years playing as a rogue really got to me, after all. I tried the smuggler class during my first trial period and didn’t feel like going back to that, so I ended up picking a Jedi.

I know, I know. It’s bound to be the most popular class, and it’s not a very creative pick. Yet, I’m glad that I did – melee combat in SWG feels a lot better than ranged. I don’t know why, but it always seems like developers have a problem when it comes to ranged combat in MMOs. Tabula Rasa did pretty well, but in both SWG and Fallen Earth ranged feels clumsy. Most of the time it looks incredibly awkward, just two (or more) avatars standing around, shooting at each other, hoping to score the killing shot.

And as iconic as the laser sounds from Star Wars are, they still get old really fast. Replacing my blaster rifle with a two-handed lance was probably the best choice I could have made.

A burned-out village, destroyed by the Dark Side of the Force. Imperial March, please. Thank you.

This means I’ve gone through the tutorial part of SWG three times now – as a smuggler, a bounty hunter and a Jedi. All classes and races start in the same area and do their first couple of missions on the Tansarii space station. Usually that kind of design bugs me, but Tansarii is an exception. The missions and storyline there are different depending on what class you choose – the smuggler gets quests from Han Solo, the bounty hunter from Bobba Fett and there’s some random Jedi master (in full Jedi robes, someone note the proper Empire authorities, please) to give out Force-related quests to the fledgling Padawan.

Compared to, for example, Aion (and Warhammer Online these days) where all classes do the same quests in the same starting area, Tansarii is a lot closer to Tortage in Age of Conan than anything else. The main difference is that the part on the space station is short. I dread going back to Age of Conan (which I will, at some point), thanks to having to slug my way through the first 20 gorram levels again. In SWG, you can be on solid, planetary ground in just a few levels, while still having enough new content during the tutorial to keep up your interest for every class you try out.

It’s a completely different deal when you end up on Tatooine. The Legacy quest line, which starts on Tansarii and follows you for the next 40 levels or so (it’s long, trust me), can luckily be skipped though. There should be enough missions from various NPCs and mission terminals to keep you busy – I’ve gone through the Legacy past the initial White Thantra-infiltration on all my three characters (the Jedi is the only one I kept playing beyond that), and I don’t plan to ever do it again. Ever. It’s well-written and pretty exciting, so if it’s your first time in SWG, I do recommend following it.

Also, you get to work for the great Jabba. You get Jabba-rep. Screw you, Argent Dawn, Jabba is the guy you want reputation with.

No! Don't dance there!

At the end of my first week in SWG, I’m at level 22. 4 more levels until I get my lightsaber, after which I plan to experiment with one of the non-combat classes. Am I having fun? Oh yes. Do I regret starting out on the project? Absolutely not. I’ll get back to impressions of actual game mechanics and my first steps into the sandbox-part of the game over the next couple of days. If you feel like contacting me in-game, look up Ri’Kali on FarStar-Europe – the bounty hunter is going the way of the deletion button any minute now.

                          

Central Mos Eisley.

It sure is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, might even be the best place in the galaxy if you’re into that kind of stuff. Mos Eisley is hardly pretty, a bunch of yellow houses crammed together around a crashed spaceship, but I doubt anyone goes there for the magnificent view. Come to think of it, I doubt anyone goes anywhere on Tatooine for the sightseeing.

Let’s not pretend that Star Wars: Galaxies is an especially pretty game. It’s not. It’s old, after all – 6 years is a long time. Tatooine is just as depressing as a desert planet is supposed to be – the only things you’ll see if you travel by land between Mos Eisley and Anchorhead are some banthas and a couple of player built houses, sharing the bleak and sandy landscape. The only other features are hills and ravines, none of them especially detailed. No “gasp, look at that thing!”-moments to be found.

What the game does have, though, is ambiance. Compared to a lot of modern MMOs, Tatooine feels like an actual planet. Not only because of the large, expansive areas filled with absolutely bloody nothing, but because the mood and atmosphere conveys a strange feeling of realism. The houses outside of town have been placed there by players, not everywhere you look or go is designed to fit a quest or a lore purpose. You can see and hear spaceships passing above your head, you have to buy a ticket for the shuttle between the various ports. It’s all in the details, without designing the environment so hard that it becomes stale.

It’s a desert planet, it’s supposed to be stale.

Mos Eisley, seen from a nearby hill.

I gasp when I look up and see two Star Destroyers hovering somewhere high above me, probably right outside the atmosphere. I feel dwarfed. When a sand storm hits Mos Eisley I first contemplate if it’s my speakers that have gone haywire or if it’s the wind. It’s not until I get inside that I realise that it’s the weather, it feels like I’m taking cover to get away from a potential lethal weather hazard that would probably stuff up my speeder’s engine and wreak havoc on the moving parts of my blaster rifle if I had remained outdoors.

Mos Eisley, this wretched hive of scum and villainy. My bounty hunter fits right in. Nobody seems to like me, but they have no choice but to hire my services anyway. I don’t care, I’m just looking forward to getting off this piece of sandy rock.

Ambiance. That’s the key. No matter if I will write off Star Wars: Galaxies as outdated garbage or embrace it like a marvelous MMO when I reach the end of my 30 day subscription, I will at least give it that.

                          

Anioo G'tak, armed and dangerous. Level 7 dangerous, at least.

Since there’s no interesting MMO coming out until next year, I thought this was as good a time as any. I shall play my bounty hunter and see how far I can get, how interesting the sandbox and leveling/questing mechanics are, and if the game – 6 years after release – still has anything to offer me. And, perhaps, you.

The NGE-fiasco has given Star Wars: Galaxies a terrible reputation, just like Vanguard’s launch blues ruined a lot for that particular title. I really like Vanguard, I think more people should keep an open mind and try it out, and who knows, perhaps the same goes for SWG. Worth a shot.

I’ll start out with a typical fighter class, playing as a Zabrak bounty hunter. It feels like a safe bet, since I have no clue what I’m doing. My character is called Anioo G’tak and I’ll be setting up shop on the Europe-Farstar server. If you see me, or feel like helping me getting accustomed to my new life in a rather confusing MMO, feel free to send me a tell. If not, just send me a friendly message or wave to me on the streets of Mos Eisley!

I’ll keep blogging about other things as well, but I shall try to keep as much focus on this project as possible. Wish me luck, if it turns out that SWG is a big pile of Bantha dung I might need it.

(Just for the record – I’m also one of the cool kids. I’ve been playing Dragon Age: Origins like crazy and I’m totally and madly in love with Torchlight. I’ll leave the more interesting commenting on those titles to great minds like Dusty and Syp for the time being, though.)