Chilling in Bestine, Imperial controlled on my server, when a citizen from a nearby player city rode in on his bike calling for help fending off Rebels. Rode out with a dozen others, had some great PvP, and joined my first guild. Never had an experience so organic since SWG.
Player made cities, I will never cease to want that in a game. As a child I was blown away by the massive amount of cooperation in that game and massive scale.
My childhood best friend had a memorial in the game. In the final days, people gathered at his memorial flag and chatted, did fireworks. My best friend was Nathan Larkins, aka Moraj Markinnson. He got into the first beta test and actually had to use my computer for it. He was highly active in the forums but died in a car wreck shortly after the beta began. The developers, the forum community, and the beta testers wanted him remembered. This, the flag was created at the original beta spawn in point on Tatooine.
They also made an in-game food item called the Maroj Melon, I didn't even know about it's origins until way after the game got shut down, it reminds me of the Freeman Memorial in the Heroics guildhall.
I had a mon calamari master doctor who traveled the galaxy trying to setup gathering machines to gather the best materials I could to buff players so they could do the hardest content or to help a newer player grind easier. I literally spent no time fighting but was engaged in trade, shops etc. If I needed to setup a gathering machine near hostiles, I'd hire a commando or something to clear it out for me. The game was so much fun where you actually felt like you were in a vibrant and breathing galaxy.
Master artisan, master droid engineer, expert weaponsmith, expert armorsmith, and a novice shipwright, Spidar Testackles, at your service. Never shot a round, or swung a weapon. I dug in the dirt, helped build a huge guilded city, gave back to the community by giving out free swoop bikes and good starter gear to new players. So, it's awesome to meet up with another player, that didn't "have to fight" crap. being a Jedi didn't interest me, those were always the main forefront of Star Wars, I wanted something different and this game truly delivered. Until they broke the game. Remember the community? They were really great. Ahhh, the days before Trolling was commonplace. The lifeblood of this game, was us "background characters" as this dude's called us. Once they broke us down and we left, the game died quickly.
My second character ever was an entertainer that a raiding group dragged around the galaxy with them and when I wasn’t buffing them on the go I’d be posted in the theed or mos eisly cantina
I loved players like you! I would jump on and get a group together to slay some beasties and gain xp, but the first stop was a cantina where a good doctor would be buffing players, the cooperation in the game was by far one of the best aspects.
There will never be a game with as great of a community as SWG, 30 years of playing games and I never once ever met a community quite like it. Best game in my entire life just based on how many lifetime friends I met. The player cities, player ship battles, cantinas, Restuss PVP nights, community parties with in game props and jukeboxes etc. just an absolutely incredible moment in history. For me this was my magnum opus and I’d give anything to go back and relive every moment, good or bad Flurry Server Jadaan/Joraan/Joranus
Yes, no MMORPG has come close to SWG early days. I miss it so much. I did the Bounty Hunter progression without any transportation. Had to run the whole thing on foot. It was fun though. If I remember correctly I was on the Naritus server. Character was Yrab Dranya. Started out as a Carbineer and moved to Bounty Hunter.
Closest thing you can get to a live experience is the Legacy server which tries to stay true to what NGE felt like at the time. However, it is too difficult for your average "do it all for me" players. Sadly, its not got that population yet to have the community feel.
@@BoloSparks Ive been playing on the SWGLegends server and have been having a blast honestly. I was way too young when it was released and when I finally started getting into MMOs it was the year SWTOR released. I played that and all 8 classes but just recently got into SWG and love every second of it.
@@BoloSparks NGE was terrible, the reason most players left. A NGE server is not what most would call a "live experience" and I've never heard anyone call NGE "difficult". NGE, like he said in video, is for casuals.
I was a day 1 player. One of the big things that upset a lot of people and started the decline was what happened with the release of the expansion Trials of Obi-Wan. From WIKI "One week after this release the entire character development process was changed in the New Game Enhancements (NGE). Major changes included the reduction and simplification of professions, simplification of gameplay mechanics, and Jedi becoming a starting profession. This led to a number of players demanding their money back for the expansion. After a week or two of protests Sony offered refunds to anyone who asked for it. Many player towns became ghost towns due to the reaction of long term players who decided to depart en masse."
I asked my Parents for the expansion for my birthday. Worst Present ever. 3 years having a Jedi and top jedi on Gortah server. I quit. all the years having fun and like having the rug pulled underneath me. Atleast I made a house with most of the server and that was a graveyard with alot of lost friends. thanks for WOW to reconnect with them all. I miss SWG and tried the EMUs but still not the same as all the years playing the game :(
@usonly101 idk but the launch was a disaster, and things remained broken the entire time. Precu had sandbox endless skills, but alot of them were broken. For example, carbines were worthless. Holocron grind made it so jedis were EVERYWHERE. Got to the point where u had to join in to compete. Other combat skills became shit. They released a shit game that they just kept making WORSE trying to fix it... precu JTL, however was a masterpiece.
I played SWG back in Beta, in fact SWG motivated me to build my first computer, when the NGE released, I really did try to enjoy the game, but everything that made SWG fun for me was gone. Shortly after the launch of the NGE there was one post in the forums that EXPLODED into an all-out war between the players and the Devs, the Devs were mad that many players were not playing the quests that the devs works so hard on, and the players were hitting back on the removal of many of the class options, " Noone wants to be Uncle Owen, they want to be Luke or Han Solo" was the Dev mentality, there was a meme for a while that stated " I want to be uncle Owen!" this is where that came from, The post drew so much attention in one day that you would read one page and there was 10-15 more pages created. It got so heated that the President of SOE chimed in. at the point he joined the post the players were demanding more freedoms with house and city customizations, the Dev refused and went on a rant about how they are not going to allow weather control, not sure how the two related but I may have missed a page or two lol. It was at this point that the SOE president said his most infamous words, " If you don't like it vote with your feet". and that day thousands left. It was enough of a impact that national news picked up the story. The MMO that benefited the most from SWG collapse was not WOW but EVE Online, most of the SWG players, mainly the ones who loved crafting, went to EVE online, enough that the other players were calling them SWG refugees.
respectfully disagree. it was the players unable to easily choose jedi that were complaining and led to the trials and then the nge. Played since launch, quit when sony announced they were pulling the plug.
@@Redmow51 post nge yeah, the absolute scarcity of them and the permadeath of the early times made them an absolute gem of the game. That is however only early on. By the time anyone could make a jedi we knew the combat mechanics too well and they were usually paper tigers.
I am old enough to remember seeing the original Star Wars in theaters, all the way back in 1977. I started playing Star Wars Galaxies right after SOE released the 'New Game Experience' (NGE) and continued playing it all the way through till the night the servers shut down. I still remember sitting on the lawn in front of my house on Naboo, watching the clock tick down until my screen went blank. I admit, Star Wars Galaxies spoiled me with regards to open sandbox MMO's after that. The game had so much freedom, even after the NGE, that other MMO's that followed, including Star Wars: The Old Republic couldn't compare in game play even though they were aesthetically much better. To this day, I have bounced through various other "open sandbox" MMO's, but none have ever captured my imagination like Star Wars Galaxies. The game was revolutionary for its time. I have tried a few of the emulators, but they simply don't have the sense of community that the original had. I have often wondered what it would be like to see Star Wars Galaxies re-released while taking advantage of the technological advances in CGI and game design we currently enjoy, and I'll be honest. If Star Wars Galaxies was released today, with the same original game format, but updated graphics, I have no doubt it would be a smash hit! Thank you for this little stroll down memory lane, I truly enjoyed it. I'm going to dig up some of the old screen shots of my custom X-Wing and reminisce now. Cheers!
I played on the Sunrunner server from launch until the class system implementation. The game was sensational. So in depth. A living breathing sandbox full of people. Sprawling player cities. Completely player driven open world PVP, assault's on each other's player owned bases, pvp in space, everywhere. It was a blast. Battles that lasted for literal DAYS. Guilds had cities and places in vicinity of each other for defence purposes. I could honestly talk about how great the game WAS for hours. So many stories. So many friends. And so many enemies. Nothing has or probably ever will come close to what it felt like playing that game
Bro it was legendary and there will never ever be another game like it and there never was before it. Guild wars, community driven PvP, player cities and housing with super in depth customization etc. I met more lifetime friends on this game than I ever did in real life at that time. I’d love anything to go back
@@jackr7550 I always wondered why more MMOs didn't make houses like SWG or Ultimate online. Where you could just put the houses out in the world, which was great for player cities, or creating interesting areas. Seems like at that time everyone just started copying world of warcraft, which has shit housing. The only community you have is you go raid stuff together.
also played on sunrunner back at launch, was part of an imperial group that had a city on dantooine, we built walls using the naboo homes, pretty much turned out city into a fortress, was so much fun back then.
@@Lilitha11 mainly because the average MMO player these days wants a watered down theme park with instances and gear that replaces your gear over and over again with no real purpose unfortunately. People dont like challenge anymore or depth, just cookie cutter games
Adding to the nostalgia, I don't think any other game I've ever played matched the first year of SWG in terms of fun. Best part was helping a crew of Imperials take out the first Padawan on our server. A trade deal was set up to lure the Padawan to a small, player made town on Tatooine. While the trade was being conducted in the cantina, we all gathered outside and set up a perimeter around the cantina. Everyone had their stormtrooper and AT-ST pets deployed. The moment we got close enough for our red dots to appear on the Padawan's mini-map, all hell broke loose. Our Teras Kasi fighters ran into the cantina first to engage the Padawan. The Padawan managed to escape the building only to be met with a small army of Imperials. The Padawan did not escape that town. I tried one of the emulators a few years ago. Everything looked exactly as remembered, a universe frozen in time. There were a few player cities and the population was friendly, but the old feelings of excitement and adventure were gone. Cities no longer reverberated with merchants hawking wares and entertainers selling buffs. Long gone were the days of massive PvP battles that roamed across landscapes and faction cities. My guild was no longer around to form expeditions to the most dangerous regions of the game to support the crafters who produced our weapons, armor and equipment. The experience did help me to appreciate what the game was like at it's height even more than before, and also helped me understand that those moments can't be replicated, allowing me to set aside the notion and begin exploring other gaming experiences. It was like visiting the grave of an old friend and finally finding the closure needed to move on.
Yeah... the issue with SWG emulation is that it is a world frozen in time. There's never going to be new developments, new adventures, new anything. It's a ship in a bottle, and it's more melancholy than anything.
loved SWG, some of my best gaming memories come from it. Games like wow are still missing mechanics like player houses, guild raidable bases and automated mining, oh and player shops. I remember fondly my guild building our own city, complete with barracks that other guilds would try to raid, it was great fun
One of the best experiences I had in a game. Even my nickname is still the one I created for my character. I learned English to almost fluent in two months because of it (no sarcasm). The community in it was top notch and it taught me empathy. The space game was very cool and the art that people created inside their homes was just on another level. I still remember how some person created curtains from placing dozens of skirts. I’m forever grateful to this game. Just in case leaving here my SWG credentials: Bovius Lorgarn from sever Wanderhome
Ye, I learnt English through/because of this game as well :D ... and I was one of these "Home Designers". I just had a lot of fun designing a house's interior with the few resources available... and at some point people saw my work and started hiring me to decorate their homes. I've never made that much Credits, so easy and fast before :D It became my new full-time job :'D
@@Maryondo You just unlocked a memory of when I realized my character was ugly so I hired an Image Designer to remake them and have them look good. Was so neat being able to find people who knew what they were doing creatively with what the game had to offer!
I would LOVE a remaster of this game, suchhhhh a good idea, Also, the fact that Lucasfilm thought that for the game to be successful they'd need everyone to be a jedi is Absolutely RIDICULOUS
@@lawriehinchliff the Jedi were the ones who commanded the clone army, without the Jedi there would have been NO clone wars, if the Jedi didn’t exist then the clones would never have been made to one day betray them, the clone wars were only orchestrated to help finish the Jedi order, they were not needed for anything else
Starsider represent!! I led the TRGA, The Revenant Guard of Alderaan. We were one of, or, the oldest and largest guilds on the server by the time it ended. It was one of my biggest accomplishments. I didn't have a job, my dad was dying of ALS, so this game and my guild helped me get through it. I loved it and I miss it very much.
@@jarlfisk Its an emulated server of Star Wars galaxies. Ran by a huge team of very hand-on devs. Populated server.. thousand+ people on ever day,. Its literally Star Wars Galaxies. Just on a private server. I'd recommend it to anyone. Google search SWG Legends
My best MMO memories were playing SWG. Had so much fun with the 7th imp battalion on shadowfire. still remember most everyone's name even after all this time. Thanks for the memories Rynn, Baxe, Aryeth, Scoriss ,Ayane, Aecio, Zephar, Krazy, Inossk, Oskozz, Jesto, Witjay, Rendar, Kecir, Kanar, Blunai, Omif, Davke, and the people I'm sure I'm forgetting. :P ~Trias
Worse is that SOE held a poll before they released NGE and the combat upgrade. Overwhelming playerbase said no. 85% said if you do this we will leave. They did it anyway they lost most of the player base and NEVER GOT IT BACK
They did it because the game was vastly underperforming, because most people’s idea of SW is action, not world simulation. Granted, it failed, but it was done out of necessity, not spite.
@@furrygecko umm no first they polled the player base the response was overwhelmingly no with 80% of the playerbase claiming if they did those changes they would leave. And they never got that playerbase back, never even got enough new players to make up for it. The game was literally the 3 most popular MMO when it was out. So no they were doing fine this was what killed the performance.
@@furrygecko It was NOT underperforming. Basically, they got scared because Warcraft. So many MMOs got put into early graves because they were trying to be WoW, all the while not realizing that NOT being WoW was a better path to having a long-running MMO. And even if it was, when over 80% OF YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS say, "Do it and we'll stop paying you", it's just a shit idea.
@@furrygeckomost peoples idea of SW is action BUT importantly, most people playing this game was otherwise, it was not necessary… it was successful and profitable and rewarding…
I started Galaxies after the NGE but it was still my first MMO, even before WoW. It will always be special to me. Some really awesome memories were made in that game.
I'll never forget when they did all this.. I was so close to being a Jedi. I was a Combat Medic and a Rifleman. I had to do an externship for my school at the time. Was gone for a little over 3 months. Came back, saw there was an update. And the next thing I know, the game is asking to pick a class! I stopped playing. Got into "City of Heros/Villains". Cool video Dude! Good job. ❤
I played it back when it first came out. It was amazing back then. What killed it IMO is probably the same thing everyone else has stated, but it was the simplification of the game, and adding in a path to become Force Sensitive then Jedi/Sith. Originally players were just supposed to be normal people in the star wars universe and that's what made it special, because they didn't just make it focused on a bunch of Jedi or Sith like every other game/movie out there. I'd love to see another Star Wars Sandbox MMO like Galaxies. I'd like to see it start prior to Episode 1, then gradually move through the events of the movies, and we as players can choose to support either side during those events if we choose. Overall I'd want it to remain a sandbox though with the different planets being a big wide open zone.
Every time I think of this game it is such a bittersweet feeling. Such an amazing way to explore the universe. Not only be your own character, but the closest it ever felt to actually living in the Star Wars universe. Great experiences, great friends, and so many good memories. Really miss this game and I always wonder what it could have been if it just stuck to its guns and built on the unique foundation it had.
I can't describe how much I loved this game growing up, even despite its flaws post-CU & NGE. There was just nothing else quite like it, and the other people playing made it such a unique experience. Played up until its last day, and still dabble in the SWG Legends emu from time to time. Honestly probably my favorite game of all time.
Man I miss this game so much. It was one of the very first MMO's I ever played even before WoW and it holds a very special place in my heart. I still talk with the people I played this game with all those years ago. I came around right as the NGE dropped and continued to play long after and had a blast doing it. I loved the storyteller vendor and creating wonderful stories and events using them. I loved that the devs played with and created fun events for the community. I loved being able to choose how I took part and made my living in the galaxy whether it was to stay out of the way and do my thing or fight for either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. The space aspect of the game was next level and one of the very best even today. By far second to none on that front and the char creator was amazing. I really miss this game and all its glory. I played on Bria and I was part of many fun guilds and even part of JEDl back in the day lol. I stayed on Bria all the way until the game died. The community was awesome and I'm glad to have had the chance to witness the greatest saga ever told in the star wars universe - mine. :P
When I picked up the game it just right after the NGE started. I was fortunate to have found a rebel guild that were full of vet players, really enjoyed it a lot. I played till the game shut down, during my time I started as Jedi class, worked my way to Knight, then Master. I worked with a friend of mine who played the game pre ENG, he hated the fact that the game changed. I won't feel back about my time playing, but it would have been nice to have been apart of the original. Great vid, thanks for sharing.
SWG was my first MMO and set the bar for social interaction, dependency on the community, and interesting crafting that I have not found in any game since.
Was a kid when I played cause my mom had gotten into it. The community was amazing and no mmo will come close to those early years of swg. Shadowfire for life
Have played since Pre-CU and often times I go into these videos expecting blatantly false and incorrect information on the downfall of this game, but this video was very to the point and correct about pretty much everything. NGE was the moment of obliteration for this game. Other UA-camrs would like to play up the forums reactions to things happening ingame, like the negative drama taking place during Pre-CU. These people have no clue that the ingame forums for any MMO do not matter to the main playerbase whatsoever. I'm glad you didn't bother to bring them up as they did not represent anything to do with the game.
Beta to day one here as well and It had some missteps before the NGE, but you are 100% correct in that the NGE absolutely killed it. I was irritated when Jump to Lightspeed came out because it destroyed the communities around space ports and the CU tripped them up but I worked through both and still had fun.
I played on the Kauri server from launch. To this day I've never found a better community in a game. I remember unlocking Jedi just before the village update dropped and it felt so good. My characters were Hiko my Jedi and Kurz my Bounty Hunter /Commando. There were so many great times to remember: from the Krayt Dragon hunts pre CU where a huge group would walk out into the desert and half wouldn't even make it to the dragons lol. To leveling my Jedi in the wilderness of Endor and fighting off both player Bounty Hunters and the mighty Gorax who spawned ontop of me and scared the absolute crap out of me! I've never felt like that in a game since. Just a few of the amazing people I got to play with were Clowd, Yrkan, Icetip, Bridgette, Eve, Buddha, Jiub, Valin, and Sidnee who crafted my full set of Mando armor. Thanks for all the good times SWG! I'll never forget.
When you speak of SWG, you speak of two very different games. There is the game I played and enjoyed, the one that came out at launch. The one that I still miss and once tried to return to. Then there is the 'NGE'. That is not the same game, and it removed what drew me to the game, what kept me there while I was. I was fortunate to not be there to see SWG murdered and it's skin worn by a game that didn't even try to imitate the original. Let me tell you what I did and loved doing, as my reasoning will tell itself. I made a Doctor/Dancer. This meant that I had essentially zero combat or crafting skills, not even truly meaningful gear really. So what was I doing? I healed peoples depleted stats. I could heal ALL of them, physical or mental, you could sit down by me and as I slowly fixed what ailed you, I would ask "How did you get this damage?" And so people would tell me their stories of adventure while I fixed them up. Basically no one had this build, because of that singular focus, but I loved doing it. It was a laid back, social experience with no time pressure and at that time I needed that in my life. (As I was sixteen at the time.) I tooled around Mos Eisley and hung out in one spot enough players would actually direct others to me like I was an NPC. Funny enough, I had an extended conversation with a particularly beat up player once that consisted of musing on 'If I was a really good AI NPC, would this conversation still matter?' and the like. But the memory that sticks with me the most is the one time I went out into Tatooine's wilds to help a group who'd decided to hunt Kryat Dragons. They'd gotten beaten to a pulp so badly they couldn't escape the area, and when I pointed out to their friend "You realize this will be an escort quest, right? I have no combat stats, abilities or gear." He just said "But your not an idiot, right?" So I followed along as he and a couple of others (who had been begged to help their friends by getting help.) escorted me through area's I knew nothing about, with them being paranoid I'd be aggroed so they blasted apart anything that came near. We had to wait and skirt things too dangerous to fight off for tense minutes sometimes. Until there, huddled at an edge of a cliff to avoid being aggroed, were a dozen people with more Wounds (stat damage) than I'd ever seen on anyone, each. So I listened as those too beat up to defend us if something noticed us there told me of the trainwreck that had ensued, while one by one I fixed them up. They'd been stranded out there so long most wanted to just log off, but when I asked them for an escort back to safety, they all decided "Better to log off in town anyway." Was a great time I still remember today. A unique experience no other MMO would ever consider giving me.
These are the experiences i remember. Sounds like this was before mounts & Speeders. I had trips like this all over just exploring and charting. Then I would carefully lead my guild through places like Dathomir to a nightsister stronghold or a good spot to fight rancors or find whatever beast the CH's were wanting to tame, whether or not they could actually tame the damn thing. Rez kits were rare back at the start as were doctors in the wild, so we had to make sure nobody died when we were way out there.
Thank you for the video! I started playing Star Wars Galaxies back in 2003 (Corbantis server). Met a lot of great people in the game. Ended up starting an Imperial guild/alliance with a great group of players. We actually had a couple of in person meets in California and Nevada. I played daily (a few days after it officially opened) until the very last day. The CSR's from SOE were very good to deal with (I met a CSR in-game one day. She asked me questions, what I liked about the game, what I didn't like about the game and also asked for suggestions to make the game better. One thing I suggested was to hold more live events. She and another CSR would always keep in contact and I would help organize some of the events with them. We ended up having some of the largest live events in the game). The game had great potential and was very fun. We played through all the updates/upgrades and downgrades. We still managed to have fun. I stayed in game until I lost connection and the last servers went down. It was very sad. Back in 2021, I started thinking of the game and randomly typed it into Google. I ended up coming across a page about Star Wars Galaxies Legends. One thing lead to another, I watched a few UA-cam videos and 20-30 minutes later I was playing Star Wars Galaxies Legends. I'm really enjoying the game and the Legends server has added new content and they are adding more in the future. If anyone wants to play again, install the game and the Legends launcher. I'm sure you will like it!
Adored SWG. I started off planning to be a smuggler, but honestly wound up just being a merchant/carrier. I remember when the holocrons started as a thing and nothing I was doing for fun was unlocking the force for me. I never really wanted to be a jedi, but like everyone else I kinda leaned into unlocking the force for myself because I thought a merchant with a lightsaber would be neat lol. Realized about 2 months later I wasn't enjoying it anymore and it was a job I hated going to. So I just stopped playing. I loved SWG because it was unique. When they watered it down...I didn't care anymore.
Played for a long time, specialized in armor making. Loved it and it really engendered a community to get ahead in the game as to craft high end, you needed high end materials and thus you'd end up with a crew of suppliers who'd bring you materials to craft with in exchange for discounts on equipment that let them do their end of things. Truly taught alot of young players how an economy works. I also have yet to find another game that had such a bevvy of in game emotes and features that served no point aside from make things fun and interesting. Safe Haven of Corbantis - Kazianna Revanni
Really good and accurate video! SWG was the best MMORPG ever made, and still is by a lot of metrics. The crafting system is still the best MMORPG crafting system on the market, and the scale of player interactions from entertainers and doctors in major cities to player cities with malls and vendors is only matched by games like Mortal Online. I had a bounty hunter that I used to hunt newly unlocked Jedi and it was amazing. Hunting players across the galaxy, studying the situation, making a plan, ambushing them while they are traveling or trying to headshot them while they grind XP out in the wild? It was so good. It was a game that was made for you to exist in, not for you to just chase thrilling combat or specific quest loot/items. You existed among and within a community, learning the names of the entertainers that you saw at the cantina, and the doctors at the hospital, that one vendor you were talking to while waiting to get buffed who sells you composite armor for cheap.... haha good times.
I enjoyed my time with it for a few months and I'd even started some of the jedi steps with some tips from guildmates. I don't think I was truly ready for the mmo grind at that point, as that would come with WoW. Still got my old boxed game to this day
I loved the original Star Wars Galaxies so much. The first time I stepped into the world, I felt like I was really part of the Star Wars universe. I loved surveying for high-quality minerals to craft the finest wares, which I would then sell outside the busiest cantinas. It was such a unique experience, and no other game since has been able to give me the same feeling. The music as we traveled to different planets still gives me chills when I hear those same sounds today. It's a shame the game died the way it did. The emulator projects are great, but they really need thousands of active players to truly make it feel like the old days. I'm surprised that so many people my age have never heard of SWG, and it's not surprising at all that the younger generation doesn't know about it.
Same here. The music, the environmental sounds. I had such good times with new friends. The PvP battles with opposing guilds. The armor and weapon stores players created in order to sell their wares.
I was in a bad accident when I was 12. I was basically confined to a wheelchair with minimal movement allowed for about 6 months while I recovered. The game came out right when I got out of the hospital. I was able to spend my days in Star Wars instead of a wheelchair and back brace. I was a trader and crafter mostly so I had a whole community of people I could talk to while I was out of school. I’m forever grateful and equally saddened by SWG. This game really might have saved my life. I wish that it didn’t go out the way that it did.
Ah, yes, I remember it now with clarity that surprises me even after all these years. It was late September '03 when Trek and I set foot on the desolate lands of Lok, our hearts filled with the thrill of exploration. We ran tirelessly, it seemed, until the vast expanse of the map finally yielded to our determination. Nym's Fortress on Lok stands out in my memory as a place where we paused during our journey-a fortress of intrigue and danger, where every corner held the promise of discovery and peril. Leaving Lok, its orange wastelands etched into my mind, I found myself on Naboo. It was there, if memory serves me right, that I achieved a significant level milestone. For hours, I perched above a cave, engaged in a relentless battle against the formidable Kungas, each victory bringing me closer to mastery. The encounter with the Jedi on Tatooine remains one of the defining moments of my virtual adventures. It was a busy Saturday afternoon outside Ancorhead when I spotted her-the lone Jedi, a beacon of mystique and power amidst the throng of players. In those early days, she might have been only the second Jedi, if not the first, encountered on our server (Bria), a rare sight that sparked both admiration and curiosity. But as fate would have it, the dreaded lag, an inevitable companion in our digital escapades, soon disrupted the bustling scene. It was during one such moment that my imagination took flight, inspiring my Bounty Hunter to embark on a quest for the elusive Hermit-a journey filled with anticipation and the thrill of the hunt. Despite my efforts, the Hermit remained elusive, a mystery waiting to be unraveled another day....
I played Day One. I was a Master Bounty Hunter and quit after they updated the classes and added Jedi. I did play during the Holocron days. I had a good spot where i could solo the elites for holocron drops. Had a lot of fun playing the game. I started a Bounty Hunter Guild that had both Imps and Rebels. We changed factions to fight for certain groups and guilds for credits.
I was playing this from the start. Even had the collectors edition that came with a small starting armor set. I stopped shortly after the Combat Evolved patch. I logged in to find that hours and hours of grinding were reduced to garbage. Admittedly I was on the bad side of the conversions, some made out like bandits though. So I rerolled to a commando build and gave it a good attempt, but the magic was gone. Needed buffs, over half the doctors were gone. Needed to remove the fatigue (the black bar) good luck finding a dancer. So many player cities just disappeared. It was damn near perfect right before CE
It was a great game for it's time. I very much enjoyed being a creature resource gatherer for hire as a MRanger/MSwordsman - I had contacts in the chef and armourer professions that would regularly hire me to hunt specific creatures that had specific resources that given week, be it milk, meat or hide. This made me a surprisingly large amount of credits and let me tip my favorite dancers accordingly. It's surprising to me that no MMOG since then has tried to build a similar crafting/resource gathering system, or systems based more on XP rather than straight up levels. But I suppose that's the WoW curse.
PreCU combat is awful and seen through rose tinted nostalgia goggles. It was slow and turned based style. The main positive from preCU was the complex expertise trees, but the classes were horribly unbalanced with broken mechanics like knockdown dizzy stun. The game is alive and well with an array of content updates and improvements in the form of SWG Legends. It’s been up since 2016 with an active development team and consistent player base. It just recently surpassed the duration of the Sony servers. Check it out!
Absolutely loved SWG in the beginning. Bloodfin for life!! I played through the beta and up until around the end and nothing beats the beginning even with huge flaws. The leveling and skill tree system was awesome, being able to choose Master Pistoleer and go up a couple different branches in Pikeman, Media, and Bounty Hunter was awesome and added so much to customization. The crafting system was so bad ass too, I loved creating and setting up a huge store full of items to sell. They really messed up from the beginning though which you highlighted perfectly. The lack of Star Wars elements in a Star Wars game was a huge let down. You knew you were in the Star Wars world, but barely. Most of the settings included Star Wars characters but the B team for sure. Barely anything you knew from the films that would have added so much. They really missed the mark with armor too but not giving us recognizable pieces to choose from and wear and even when they added it, it sucked compared to composite armor which everyone defaulted too. Just thousands of people walking around in the same composite armor that you could eventually change the color on. LOL The CU really killed some of the experience, space expansion killed the communities that would hang out around the space ports and once the Holocron told me I had to grind out Master Entertainer for my next Jedi step was beyond pissed at what they had done to this awesome game.
This was my first mmo and I had no idea what to do. I met a random player and joined their guild and fell in love with the micro-community I’d found. I had some of the most enjoyable times playing a multiplayer games ever. I regret the way I didn’t make more of an effort to keep in touch with them. Many left ‘temporarily’ for a ‘break’ but never came back. I’m not sure the gaming community is quite the same these days
Great Video man! I was there back in the day hunting for the hidden Jedi stats! I mainly went out into the galaxy to merc ships for salvage, the ship to ship combat was well ahead of its time! Its a shame that they didn't cater to current player base and went off chasing casuals. That kind of short sightedness rarely if ever works out...
They made the game more fun, forgetting entirely that people who play MMOs don't play them for fun, they play them to have a second job that they pay someone else to be able to do for no real reward, for reasons only they can understand. If you introduce fun you undermine and completely remove the appeal.
Yup. Having the jedi linked to the profession system killed the game. Such a shame too, SWG had one of the best profession systems in any game I've ever played, even with the fact that some professions were very bugged/broken. TBH I didn't want jedi in the game at all.
I still have the demo videos of mounts and Jedi knights that LucasArts sent to me for my Galaxies website back in the day. I believe this game was way ahead of it's time - imagine being a Bounty Hunter and actually hunting Jedi/Sith. Amazing game, where you could be literally anybody you wanted to be.
I was a weaponsmith/armorsmith on Bloodfin, and one thing I always see left out of retrospective videos on this is the effect on crafters. With the Combat Downgrade, every single weapon--even crates FULL of high-end weapons--were rendered useless overnight. They all reset to base stats...all that work experimenting to get the perfect blueprint was gone instantly. But that wasn't the worst part. All your raw materials. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of units of Diatium copper, Link-steel aluminum, fiberplast, Kammris iron...all useless. Basically everything we had worked to build...gone. One crafter I know--JUST ONE--continued to play after this. Dude was an architect, so mat quality didn't matter nearly as much. I left and never looked back. I do miss my friend, Naga-t, though.
I agree. I was a weaponsmith (Wanderhome). I spent so much time collecting the best materials to make the best possible weapons. The excitment then a new good resource spawned and you were rasing to get as much as possible before everyone else. I even got my weaponsmith character force aware to be able to get a few extra points better weapons. Final nail in the coffin was NGE and then I finally left.
I was in the first wave of beta testers.... it was a buggy mess, and at the time it was a ton of fun! SOE, Smedley, Holocrons and the NGE are what did it in. I tried the emulators but with the old crew (both Reb and Imp) it just wasnt the same. The community made it enjoyable to come back to. I am happy to remember all the fun and good times from back in the day (AHAZI SERVER REPRESENT!), and just let it RIP. GG, SWG. GG.
love your videos. never even heard of the game but as always very entertaining to hear you break down the timeline for these games. have a great day robo.
I loved this game. The community was unmatched. At launch there was nothing to do so you had to use the community to make your own fun. I miss it. (1 hour of EMU and i dont miss the death debuffs)
It can't be understated exactly how bad SOE was at handling their MMOs in the early 00's. They created EQ2 instead of focusing on original EQ, then they tried to change their existing MMOs to the product that was already beating them. They wore down their talent, shuffled them across too many projects, and ultimately, dug their own grave. It's why SOE no longer exists -- Sony eventually realized they did not have the desire or knowledge on how to manage such a company, which is why it was sold off. SOE wouldn't have ever even been a thing Sony management had their way and shut down the original Everquest development as they had tried to a number of times. And of course, by the time Sony management had taken over the overwhelming popular Everquest project, they in very short order completely killed it. To anyone who wasn't around to experience MMOs in the early 00's, all I can say was it truly was the Wild West of not only MMOs but also the internet in general. It was a very different time, and many of us looking back do so with rose-tinted glasses because it truly, truly was a community unlike and dissimilar to what we see today. You would get into a game like Everquest or SWG and spend hours just talking to people, interacting with them, exploring (which is just walking around and looking at things). You would kill the odd creature every now and then, but grinding gear and levels just wasn't a focus for a lot of people. So when you saw that guy in a full stormtrooper set, damn that was so cool. When you saw a bounty hunter, you instantly had a distrust for them, even if you weren't on a PvP server. Instead of fostering these types of interactions, games and the people who played them, shifted to grinding levels and gear and every player was given easy access to everything they could want if they were willing to keep their monthly sub going long enough for them to grind it out.
Played from launch. So many great memories. The Krayt dragon hunts, hanging out in the cantina after work. The celebrations by the dancers and muscians with fireworks were a great memory. I played right up to the server protests where people were getting ejected. Good times😢
I actually picked my nickname signing up for the Star Wars Galaxies newsletter, because you had to pick a sydonym or username. Ive used it to this day. We ended up playing on Kettemoor with a small band of europeans, and mostly did end game PVE / small group PVP. The community element in this game was insane, so many fond memories and stories to tell....
I had a scout/artisan/rifleman, all master. Hunted and collected meat to sell to bioengineers, sold minerals and speeders in my vendor and it was fun :) Didn't care about pvp and always remained neutral. Didn't care about Jedihood either. I,ve had to work long hours so my playing time was short and precious. I loved being the Uncle Owen type. And PvP is the least fun activity with so many other activities to do. Even doing stuff in space or hanging out in the cantina, relaxing and healing BF after the fighting/hunting, was fun. That social aspect is gone though.
I started playing this game a couple of months before the NGE. What excited me about the game was the complex skill trees and free form progression paths you could forge yourself. What kept me playing was the community. I had found a group who had a settlement and started becoming a member of that community. The shops, the professions, the way in which the interactions took place and people formed a genuine community to help each other progress in the game were like nothing any game has ever managed to create since. The shock of this community being violently torn apart by the decisions made by SOE and LucasArts was significant. I went into the changes with an open mind as I didn't have a ton of time into the game and didn't think they would be so drastic as to destroy it. I was so wrong. The day I logged in after the NGE was one of the worst of my gaming experiences ever. Everything I had worked hard to gather or build was useless. All my skill progression - gone. In it's place was a brief class selection and linear skill progression wheel. I tried the Jedi and the first skill power was literally Sith lightning. I mean, you took the most iconic evil Force power and granted it to Padawans... Aside from the multitude of bugs, the simplistic classes, and the betrayal of Star Wars lore; I watched my community evaporate. I actually was upset when I logged off for the last time. Since then I've looked for a game to match that sense of community, but nothing has ever really compared.
Favorite game of all time. Made a lot of friends on the Kettemoor server. I was Mazz Eroz on that server and had one of the first Jedi characters. Awesome memories :)
I loved alot of things about SWG pre NGE. Like the skill systems, the non combat classes and the fact you couldn't understand a Wookie until someone taught you the skill. It promoted interactions with other player outside of questing. What i hated was the balance. I started a Rebel Sharpshooter, by the end i was an Imperial Commando sporting an AT-ST for tanking and making a million an hour farming Dathomir and Endor.
Thanks for this video; it was an elegant game for a more civilized age. I miss my flamethrower commando who was also an interior decorator. I was the guild leader of an Imperial RP guild and we had so much fun RPing out of Theed. We'd get dressed up in our stormtrooper armor then walk around Theed and into the cantina accusing random players of being rebels. We of course would be flagged for open PvP and it was so much fun when rebels would just show up out of nowhere. RIP SWG.
I sank so much time into this. I loved it. I don't think I've seen a player run economy work this well in an MMO. I did have a jedi but mainly used a smuggler and trader.
I was there the day it came on line. Played as a master tailor and eventually opened my own shop, combining it with dancer hanging out in the cantinas and hardly ever touched a gun. When they crapped on the non combat classes in various ways, the game took a hit that it never recovered from (for me, anyway). RoboKast is right--they had a pearl of great price that offered an alternative to WoW style games but they were too short sighted to appreciate and capitalize on it.
I played SWG for years on the official servers. It was a game primarily focused on the social aspect of its universe, where everyone had a meaningful role. Unlike every other MMO, I never felt like being "powerful" was something important in the game. Some people spent their days dancing in the cantina, organizing events, others crafting spaceship components, playing exclusively in space.. Everyone played the game the way they wanted. They were part of the Star Wars Universe, doing and being the character they wanted. Personally, I was just happy to venture into the wild, train and find baby Cu Pas, raise them, and sell them to other players in front of the Mos Eisley Starport. :D
They should have just started an additional version of the game - like "SWG lite" so that causal players could have fun, but the idea that there was a more challenging and beloved version existed. Meanwhile the fans in hand wouldn't be disappointed / disrespected. DUMB to change the success they had for a new "Hope this works" venture. Excellent video explaining the whole story.
Ah, SWG... So many fond memories hanging with the homies on Bloodfin, those days shall be missed. I tried, really tried to get into SWTOR, but it was mid at best in my humble opinion. Tried too hard to be a "WoW killer" and was far too easy.
As someone who played from launch to shutdown, one of the biggest things that made the game successful was the codependency it created. Initially only one character per server (unless jedi unlocked). You had to interact with others to accomplish certain goals. E.g. hiring a ranger to track kimogilas or krayt dragons (before the krayt boom), hiring a tailor to get your exact look down or for a specific occasion. Needing buffs from a doctor, musician, and dancer. The list goes on. We all needed each other. That all went away when we were allowed multiple characters. More people became self-sufficient. The CU killed it for some. Early NGE took more. Late NGE was fun, but the damage was done. Also, the fact that people who worked for jedi got the shaft. SWG was an exceptional game that fell victim to a series of bad developmental changes.
Yeah, I remember I used to play it with a bunch of friends who came from ultimate online. I don't remember why I quit, though I think it was because of all the confusing and weird jedi stuff, and possibly a lack of content early on. It was kind of fun when they added mounts to the game but I still remember it taking forever to get any where and stuff being mostly empty.
I was on Naritus in 2006-2009 and then Starsider for a few months. I never experienced pre NGE, but the game really shone after a few big updates and late 2007-early 2008 with the creature handler system returned, raid like instances, and the space update. Unfortunately by the end of that time period the server had emptied. If I had started on a bigger server I probably would've stuck to the end. Nothing like the experience in a guild, exploring, making houses on every planet...it was incredible.
I remember playing the beta for this. Played it for about a year after it came out, but when they changed the way jedi was unlocked it went downhill from there. It was a fun game for its time.
I seriously miss this game. My handle here was started when I was playing it. It was seriously an RPer's paradise in how it began, and even the CU wasn't the stake in the heart that it had the reputation of. The NGE was just too much. Luckily, I've stayed friends with the folks I gamed with, and we've moved from guild to guild across multiple games ever since.
This was my absolute favorite game! The non-combat roles were the best. I was a Master Doctor which meant that I was the class who could remove perma-debuffs that were put on players by certain effects or death. I had to operate out of a medical center for the highest effect, so I'd spend my days hanging out, hearing adventuring stories, and healing people for tips, gear, and resources. Then they changed the game completely and the non-combat roles became less important, so I had to take up a fighting skill. I miss those early days
One of the overlooked things that the CU did was screwed over entertainers. I was a dancer and loved just hanging around in the cantina putting on routines with my fellow dancers, when the CU came in Cantinas died and so did entertainers.
😂😂 you're funny, no TF it wouldn't they could rerelease this exact game tomorrow optimised for modern machines and fans of the franchise would bitch unendingly about how it has caused all the ills we have seen in society the past, kicks the walking sticks out from elderly people, pushed a baby in a pram over a cliff, went back in time to do loud sex to their mothers in front of them AND murdered Bruce Wayne's parents. "Create a lot of good will" 😂😂 that simply is not the game star wars fans are playing and hasn't been since before Disney bought the IP, be real dude.
I got Star Wars galaxies and jump to lightspeed for christmas 2004, one of the best years of my life lmfao. was so gutted to watch a character I worked so hard to get force sensitivity on slowly keep getting rerolled until I had to just pick a Jedi or some other class. all that work just down the drain.
I loved the guild war PVP i was in a very active guild we had a few hundred members at or zenith and the PVP (when it worked without fps dropping to zero) was a lot of fun and overall i really enjoyed becoming a billionaire and have tons of shops and could source the best crafting material for the best armor (depending on what you were) i would love to have a redone version done right...i understand theres the unofficial servers but offical support would be amazing. (If done right) 😂.
Star Wars Galaxies: Legends is how the game was during the final years before shutdown during the NGE era. Although supported with new and additional content by supportive devs. It's also known for having the healthiest playerbase with around 800-1K active players, and peaking around 1.9k active at one time.
The NGE was the kill shot. The devs, led by Julio Torres, knowingly made drastic changes in order to copy WoW. What happened was disaster. Rage of the Wookies changed the game from a free-roam open world to a path based level design. It killed the the exploration aspects and the bugs were horrible. I fell through the map too many times and needed a dev to help relocate me. The change in the combat system caused unimaginable lag. Any time you would get more than 16 people in the same area, things would slow up drastically. Faction battles were awful. The ridiculous amount of faction buffs was idiotic. Some people would have rows and rows of buffs that tipped combat in their favor. SOE were a bunch of fools for allowing this. Do not even get me started about what they did to professions. They went from something dynamic to something that was stupidly linear.
This was my first MMO and entrance to the Star Wars universe. I remember being a Teras Kasi Artist and loving it. Left when people did in droves. Still think fondly of it though.
This game died because the video game industry was starting to ramp up their trend of false marketing in 2010. The Old Republic was not what it was being pitched as to the public, the developers and lucasarts knew this presumably, so they got rid of Star Wars Galaxies the moment the internet started to compare the two games close to TOR’s launch. They even made a statement saying it didn’t want people lingering on Galaxies when everyone could be enjoying their new title. They just wanted to force the player base to their new game that was awful and soulless at launch. Which they knew was going to be the case, they didn’t want the launch to flop. The end of this game had nothing to do with the rocky launch and big updates of the title.
I loved this game from it's very onset! I did not even mind the NGE. I was a Teras Kasi and i got Jedi before they changed "the village" Being in a Guild was fun because we all talked everyday and did quests and the whole lot. Like someone else said, I made lifelong friends. The guild i was in was pretty cool but, on my server there were guilds that you could not break character while in game. I remember one that was called JEDL or something. Great times were had by all.
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Only played it after it was shut down with the emulators, loved it one of the best mmo’s I’ve ever played
SWG was amazing. I unlocked my force sensitive slot in Pre-CU.. Once CU hit I quit like it was going out of style.
Chilling in Bestine, Imperial controlled on my server, when a citizen from a nearby player city rode in on his bike calling for help fending off Rebels. Rode out with a dozen others, had some great PvP, and joined my first guild. Never had an experience so organic since SWG.
Player made cities, I will never cease to want that in a game.
As a child I was blown away by the massive amount of cooperation in that game and massive scale.
I love star wars galaxies! I still play it on the Legends server and its so much fun!
My childhood best friend had a memorial in the game. In the final days, people gathered at his memorial flag and chatted, did fireworks.
My best friend was Nathan Larkins, aka Moraj Markinnson. He got into the first beta test and actually had to use my computer for it. He was highly active in the forums but died in a car wreck shortly after the beta began. The developers, the forum community, and the beta testers wanted him remembered. This, the flag was created at the original beta spawn in point on Tatooine.
They also made an in-game food item called the Maroj Melon, I didn't even know about it's origins until way after the game got shut down, it reminds me of the Freeman Memorial in the Heroics guildhall.
I remember when we learned what had happened. Really sad. Was nice that the SWG community stepped up in the ways that it could.
Cool story
holy shit thats the origin of the maroj melon???
Oh wow, never knew that.
I had a mon calamari master doctor who traveled the galaxy trying to setup gathering machines to gather the best materials I could to buff players so they could do the hardest content or to help a newer player grind easier.
I literally spent no time fighting but was engaged in trade, shops etc. If I needed to setup a gathering machine near hostiles, I'd hire a commando or something to clear it out for me.
The game was so much fun where you actually felt like you were in a vibrant and breathing galaxy.
That seems so unique and fun to do, I wish I could have played this game
Master artisan, master droid engineer, expert weaponsmith, expert armorsmith, and a novice shipwright, Spidar Testackles, at your service. Never shot a round, or swung a weapon. I dug in the dirt, helped build a huge guilded city, gave back to the community by giving out free swoop bikes and good starter gear to new players. So, it's awesome to meet up with another player, that didn't "have to fight" crap. being a Jedi didn't interest me, those were always the main forefront of Star Wars, I wanted something different and this game truly delivered. Until they broke the game. Remember the community? They were really great. Ahhh, the days before Trolling was commonplace. The lifeblood of this game, was us "background characters" as this dude's called us. Once they broke us down and we left, the game died quickly.
My second character ever was an entertainer that a raiding group dragged around the galaxy with them and when I wasn’t buffing them on the go I’d be posted in the theed or mos eisly cantina
SOE was the downfall of everything good about late 90s early 00s MMOs😢
I loved players like you! I would jump on and get a group together to slay some beasties and gain xp, but the first stop was a cantina where a good doctor would be buffing players, the cooperation in the game was by far one of the best aspects.
There will never be a game with as great of a community as SWG, 30 years of playing games and I never once ever met a community quite like it. Best game in my entire life just based on how many lifetime friends I met. The player cities, player ship battles, cantinas, Restuss PVP nights, community parties with in game props and jukeboxes etc. just an absolutely incredible moment in history. For me this was my magnum opus and I’d give anything to go back and relive every moment, good or bad
Flurry Server Jadaan/Joraan/Joranus
Yes, no MMORPG has come close to SWG early days. I miss it so much. I did the Bounty Hunter progression without any transportation. Had to run the whole thing on foot. It was fun though.
If I remember correctly I was on the Naritus server. Character was Yrab Dranya. Started out as a Carbineer and moved to Bounty Hunter.
Closest thing you can get to a live experience is the Legacy server which tries to stay true to what NGE felt like at the time. However, it is too difficult for your average "do it all for me" players. Sadly, its not got that population yet to have the community feel.
@@BoloSparks Ive been playing on the SWGLegends server and have been having a blast honestly. I was way too young when it was released and when I finally started getting into MMOs it was the year SWTOR released. I played that and all 8 classes but just recently got into SWG and love every second of it.
@@BoloSparks NGE was terrible, the reason most players left. A NGE server is not what most would call a "live experience" and I've never heard anyone call NGE "difficult". NGE, like he said in video, is for casuals.
I was a day 1 player. One of the big things that upset a lot of people and started the decline was what happened with the release of the expansion Trials of Obi-Wan. From WIKI "One week after this release the entire character development process was changed in the New Game Enhancements (NGE). Major changes included the reduction and simplification of professions, simplification of gameplay mechanics, and Jedi becoming a starting profession. This led to a number of players demanding their money back for the expansion. After a week or two of protests Sony offered refunds to anyone who asked for it. Many player towns became ghost towns due to the reaction of long term players who decided to depart en masse."
Yep... that's when I quit.
This was the only MMO I got the collector's edition. I still have the strategy guide.
Sad
You mean you were a day 2 player? :p
I asked my Parents for the expansion for my birthday. Worst Present ever. 3 years having a Jedi and top jedi on Gortah server. I quit. all the years having fun and like having the rug pulled underneath me. Atleast I made a house with most of the server and that was a graveyard with alot of lost friends. thanks for WOW to reconnect with them all. I miss SWG and tried the EMUs but still not the same as all the years playing the game :(
When you worked for months to become a Jedi, only for it to be given away to new players was a huge slap in the face to fans
One might even say it was outrageous. Perhaps unfair.
It was salready dying because EVERYONE was already doing the jedi grind. There was nothing else competitive in pvp.
@@jonc2914 perhaps. In hindsight, what do you think could have enhanced the game or brought in new players? We now know the CU was a huge disaster
@usonly101 idk but the launch was a disaster, and things remained broken the entire time. Precu had sandbox endless skills, but alot of them were broken. For example, carbines were worthless. Holocron grind made it so jedis were EVERYWHERE. Got to the point where u had to join in to compete. Other combat skills became shit. They released a shit game that they just kept making WORSE trying to fix it... precu JTL, however was a masterpiece.
I played SWG back in Beta, in fact SWG motivated me to build my first computer, when the NGE released, I really did try to enjoy the game, but everything that made SWG fun for me was gone. Shortly after the launch of the NGE there was one post in the forums that EXPLODED into an all-out war between the players and the Devs, the Devs were mad that many players were not playing the quests that the devs works so hard on, and the players were hitting back on the removal of many of the class options, " Noone wants to be Uncle Owen, they want to be Luke or Han Solo" was the Dev mentality, there was a meme for a while that stated " I want to be uncle Owen!" this is where that came from, The post drew so much attention in one day that you would read one page and there was 10-15 more pages created. It got so heated that the President of SOE chimed in. at the point he joined the post the players were demanding more freedoms with house and city customizations, the Dev refused and went on a rant about how they are not going to allow weather control, not sure how the two related but I may have missed a page or two lol. It was at this point that the SOE president said his most infamous words, " If you don't like it vote with your feet". and that day thousands left. It was enough of a impact that national news picked up the story. The MMO that benefited the most from SWG collapse was not WOW but EVE Online, most of the SWG players, mainly the ones who loved crafting, went to EVE online, enough that the other players were calling them SWG refugees.
respectfully disagree. it was the players unable to easily choose jedi that were complaining and led to the trials and then the nge. Played since launch, quit when sony announced they were pulling the plug.
@@markb8361 Sorry, to me having the Jedi profession ruined the whole freaking game.
@@Redmow51 post nge yeah, the absolute scarcity of them and the permadeath of the early times made them an absolute gem of the game. That is however only early on. By the time anyone could make a jedi we knew the combat mechanics too well and they were usually paper tigers.
Thanks for the synopsis. I never got into SWG but my friend played it 24/7. Now he plays on one of the restored servers, either legends or emu
The disconnect of the devs and higher ups is like a mirror image of Disney writers and higher ups with modern Star Wars. It’s insane!
Rather than devs please say designers. The coders and artists weren’t the problem. Higher ups definitely were.
So you are saying Disney is doing the same thing Lucas arts did with Galaxy's but to Star Wars as a whole? Yea I can see it.
Don’t forget John Smedley having a different vision than what the players wanted
I am old enough to remember seeing the original Star Wars in theaters, all the way back in 1977. I started playing Star Wars Galaxies right after SOE released the 'New Game Experience' (NGE) and continued playing it all the way through till the night the servers shut down. I still remember sitting on the lawn in front of my house on Naboo, watching the clock tick down until my screen went blank.
I admit, Star Wars Galaxies spoiled me with regards to open sandbox MMO's after that. The game had so much freedom, even after the NGE, that other MMO's that followed, including Star Wars: The Old Republic couldn't compare in game play even though they were aesthetically much better. To this day, I have bounced through various other "open sandbox" MMO's, but none have ever captured my imagination like Star Wars Galaxies. The game was revolutionary for its time. I have tried a few of the emulators, but they simply don't have the sense of community that the original had.
I have often wondered what it would be like to see Star Wars Galaxies re-released while taking advantage of the technological advances in CGI and game design we currently enjoy, and I'll be honest. If Star Wars Galaxies was released today, with the same original game format, but updated graphics, I have no doubt it would be a smash hit!
Thank you for this little stroll down memory lane, I truly enjoyed it. I'm going to dig up some of the old screen shots of my custom X-Wing and reminisce now. Cheers!
‘Catering to the casual’…How this hasn’t aged well in Star Wars to this very day
All these years later...chasing that mythical "wider audience."
I played on the Sunrunner server from launch until the class system implementation. The game was sensational. So in depth. A living breathing sandbox full of people. Sprawling player cities. Completely player driven open world PVP, assault's on each other's player owned bases, pvp in space, everywhere. It was a blast. Battles that lasted for literal DAYS. Guilds had cities and places in vicinity of each other for defence purposes. I could honestly talk about how great the game WAS for hours. So many stories. So many friends. And so many enemies. Nothing has or probably ever will come close to what it felt like playing that game
Bro it was legendary and there will never ever be another game like it and there never was before it. Guild wars, community driven PvP, player cities and housing with super in depth customization etc. I met more lifetime friends on this game than I ever did in real life at that time. I’d love anything to go back
@@jackr7550 I always wondered why more MMOs didn't make houses like SWG or Ultimate online. Where you could just put the houses out in the world, which was great for player cities, or creating interesting areas. Seems like at that time everyone just started copying world of warcraft, which has shit housing. The only community you have is you go raid stuff together.
also played on sunrunner back at launch, was part of an imperial group that had a city on dantooine, we built walls using the naboo homes, pretty much turned out city into a fortress, was so much fun back then.
Sunrunner Rebels!!! King of the hill pvp on Rori was awesome!
@@Lilitha11 mainly because the average MMO player these days wants a watered down theme park with instances and gear that replaces your gear over and over again with no real purpose unfortunately. People dont like challenge anymore or depth, just cookie cutter games
Adding to the nostalgia, I don't think any other game I've ever played matched the first year of SWG in terms of fun.
Best part was helping a crew of Imperials take out the first Padawan on our server. A trade deal was set up to lure the Padawan to a small, player made town on Tatooine. While the trade was being conducted in the cantina, we all gathered outside and set up a perimeter around the cantina. Everyone had their stormtrooper and AT-ST pets deployed. The moment we got close enough for our red dots to appear on the Padawan's mini-map, all hell broke loose. Our Teras Kasi fighters ran into the cantina first to engage the Padawan. The Padawan managed to escape the building only to be met with a small army of Imperials. The Padawan did not escape that town.
I tried one of the emulators a few years ago. Everything looked exactly as remembered, a universe frozen in time. There were a few player cities and the population was friendly, but the old feelings of excitement and adventure were gone. Cities no longer reverberated with merchants hawking wares and entertainers selling buffs. Long gone were the days of massive PvP battles that roamed across landscapes and faction cities. My guild was no longer around to form expeditions to the most dangerous regions of the game to support the crafters who produced our weapons, armor and equipment.
The experience did help me to appreciate what the game was like at it's height even more than before, and also helped me understand that those moments can't be replicated, allowing me to set aside the notion and begin exploring other gaming experiences. It was like visiting the grave of an old friend and finally finding the closure needed to move on.
All I remember about jedi hunting, was 1 gimp BH, and a bunch of TKA's.
Yeah... the issue with SWG emulation is that it is a world frozen in time. There's never going to be new developments, new adventures, new anything. It's a ship in a bottle, and it's more melancholy than anything.
i'll literally always click a star wars galaxies video
Why watch when you can play❤️
My dad actually has a collectors edition of this game. Had an art book and everything.
I have that. It’s pretty cool.
loved SWG, some of my best gaming memories come from it. Games like wow are still missing mechanics like player houses, guild raidable bases and automated mining, oh and player shops.
I remember fondly my guild building our own city, complete with barracks that other guilds would try to raid, it was great fun
One of the best experiences I had in a game. Even my nickname is still the one I created for my character. I learned English to almost fluent in two months because of it (no sarcasm). The community in it was top notch and it taught me empathy.
The space game was very cool and the art that people created inside their homes was just on another level. I still remember how some person created curtains from placing dozens of skirts.
I’m forever grateful to this game.
Just in case leaving here my SWG credentials: Bovius Lorgarn from sever Wanderhome
Ye, I learnt English through/because of this game as well :D
... and I was one of these "Home Designers". I just had a lot of fun designing a house's interior with the few resources available... and at some point people saw my work and started hiring me to decorate their homes. I've never made that much Credits, so easy and fast before :D It became my new full-time job :'D
@@Maryondo You just unlocked a memory of when I realized my character was ugly so I hired an Image Designer to remake them and have them look good. Was so neat being able to find people who knew what they were doing creatively with what the game had to offer!
@TheBovius Same here on the name. "Feidry" was my Zabrakian Rifleman/Smuggler character on Bria server. I've used that name ever since.
I was also on Wanderhome. Was a weaponsmith. Also use my swg credentials, Bermag.
I would LOVE a remaster of this game, suchhhhh a good idea, Also, the fact that Lucasfilm thought that for the game to be successful they'd need everyone to be a jedi is Absolutely RIDICULOUS
@@JackShore-jr9vt Eh, I think the original system was really cool, but I'll be honest, I just want to be a gunslinger not a jedi lol
Project SWG is post NGE, and SWG Legends is Pre-NGE, iirc. Just in case you want to look into it :)
It’s a star war game lol 😂😂 imagine thinking a Star Wars game DIDN’T need Star Wars characters in it…..JEDI ARE THE DEFINITION OF STAR WARS
@@zachall101 I mean not really, The clone wars definitely proved that
@@lawriehinchliff the Jedi were the ones who commanded the clone army, without the Jedi there would have been NO clone wars, if the Jedi didn’t exist then the clones would never have been made to one day betray them, the clone wars were only orchestrated to help finish the Jedi order, they were not needed for anything else
“And when everyone’s super… no one will be”
- Syndrome
Starsider represent!! I led the TRGA, The Revenant Guard of Alderaan. We were one of, or, the oldest and largest guilds on the server by the time it ended. It was one of my biggest accomplishments. I didn't have a job, my dad was dying of ALS, so this game and my guild helped me get through it. I loved it and I miss it very much.
Was on Starsider. So bad with guild names. Do you remember the afk fat guy that just danced naked right inside the space port? That was always lol.
@@michaels8878 Haha I do remember him now that you mention it.
Played from release until the servers shut down. No MMO has ever scratched the itch that SWG did. Ahazi gang
Play legends! populated server and amazing devs. Ive been playing Legends server for 7 years
@@krufty47what is legends ? Can u explain
@@jarlfisk Its an emulated server of Star Wars galaxies. Ran by a huge team of very hand-on devs. Populated server.. thousand+ people on ever day,. Its literally Star Wars Galaxies. Just on a private server. I'd recommend it to anyone. Google search SWG Legends
@@jarlfisk It's one of the emulator projects this video also notes in the end.
AHAZI SERVER was in Tie then Imp and then platinum guilds .. was day one and ahazi was always a blast❤
Swg Animus is the big thing right now, come join us if you get that urge to play again (and we all know you do).
My best MMO memories were playing SWG. Had so much fun with the 7th imp battalion on shadowfire. still remember most everyone's name even after all this time.
Thanks for the memories Rynn, Baxe, Aryeth, Scoriss ,Ayane, Aecio, Zephar, Krazy, Inossk, Oskozz, Jesto, Witjay, Rendar, Kecir, Kanar, Blunai, Omif, Davke, and the people I'm sure I'm forgetting. :P
~Trias
Worse is that SOE held a poll before they released NGE and the combat upgrade. Overwhelming playerbase said no. 85% said if you do this we will leave. They did it anyway they lost most of the player base and NEVER GOT IT BACK
They did it because the game was vastly underperforming, because most people’s idea of SW is action, not world simulation. Granted, it failed, but it was done out of necessity, not spite.
@@furrygecko umm no first they polled the player base the response was overwhelmingly no with 80% of the playerbase claiming if they did those changes they would leave. And they never got that playerbase back, never even got enough new players to make up for it. The game was literally the 3 most popular MMO when it was out. So no they were doing fine this was what killed the performance.
@@furrygecko It was NOT underperforming. Basically, they got scared because Warcraft. So many MMOs got put into early graves because they were trying to be WoW, all the while not realizing that NOT being WoW was a better path to having a long-running MMO.
And even if it was, when over 80% OF YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS say, "Do it and we'll stop paying you", it's just a shit idea.
@@furrygeckomost peoples idea of SW is action BUT importantly, most people playing this game was otherwise, it was not necessary… it was successful and profitable and rewarding…
@@dragonstryk7280 This is probably why CIG won't put out official polls for what they're doing in Star Citizen.
I started Galaxies after the NGE but it was still my first MMO, even before WoW. It will always be special to me. Some really awesome memories were made in that game.
I'll never forget when they did all this.. I was so close to being a Jedi. I was a Combat Medic and a Rifleman. I had to do an externship for my school at the time. Was gone for a little over 3 months. Came back, saw there was an update. And the next thing I know, the game is asking to pick a class!
I stopped playing. Got into "City of Heros/Villains".
Cool video Dude! Good job. ❤
Hologram jedi grind ruined swg..
I like how you used Darth Maul igniting both ends of his lightsaber as a visual for "double edged sword"
There are great private servers. The game is still very much alive :)
I played it back when it first came out. It was amazing back then. What killed it IMO is probably the same thing everyone else has stated, but it was the simplification of the game, and adding in a path to become Force Sensitive then Jedi/Sith. Originally players were just supposed to be normal people in the star wars universe and that's what made it special, because they didn't just make it focused on a bunch of Jedi or Sith like every other game/movie out there. I'd love to see another Star Wars Sandbox MMO like Galaxies. I'd like to see it start prior to Episode 1, then gradually move through the events of the movies, and we as players can choose to support either side during those events if we choose. Overall I'd want it to remain a sandbox though with the different planets being a big wide open zone.
Every time I think of this game it is such a bittersweet feeling. Such an amazing way to explore the universe. Not only be your own character, but the closest it ever felt to actually living in the Star Wars universe. Great experiences, great friends, and so many good memories. Really miss this game and I always wonder what it could have been if it just stuck to its guns and built on the unique foundation it had.
I can't describe how much I loved this game growing up, even despite its flaws post-CU & NGE. There was just nothing else quite like it, and the other people playing made it such a unique experience. Played up until its last day, and still dabble in the SWG Legends emu from time to time. Honestly probably my favorite game of all time.
Man I miss this game so much. It was one of the very first MMO's I ever played even before WoW and it holds a very special place in my heart. I still talk with the people I played this game with all those years ago. I came around right as the NGE dropped and continued to play long after and had a blast doing it. I loved the storyteller vendor and creating wonderful stories and events using them. I loved that the devs played with and created fun events for the community. I loved being able to choose how I took part and made my living in the galaxy whether it was to stay out of the way and do my thing or fight for either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance.
The space aspect of the game was next level and one of the very best even today. By far second to none on that front and the char creator was amazing. I really miss this game and all its glory.
I played on Bria and I was part of many fun guilds and even part of JEDl back in the day lol. I stayed on Bria all the way until the game died. The community was awesome and I'm glad to have had the chance to witness the greatest saga ever told in the star wars universe - mine. :P
When I picked up the game it just right after the NGE started. I was fortunate to have found a rebel guild that were full of vet players, really enjoyed it a lot. I played till the game shut down, during my time I started as Jedi class, worked my way to Knight, then Master. I worked with a friend of mine who played the game pre ENG, he hated the fact that the game changed. I won't feel back about my time playing, but it would have been nice to have been apart of the original. Great vid, thanks for sharing.
SWG was my first MMO and set the bar for social interaction, dependency on the community, and interesting crafting that I have not found in any game since.
Was a kid when I played cause my mom had gotten into it. The community was amazing and no mmo will come close to those early years of swg. Shadowfire for life
Have played since Pre-CU and often times I go into these videos expecting blatantly false and incorrect information on the downfall of this game, but this video was very to the point and correct about pretty much everything. NGE was the moment of obliteration for this game. Other UA-camrs would like to play up the forums reactions to things happening ingame, like the negative drama taking place during Pre-CU. These people have no clue that the ingame forums for any MMO do not matter to the main playerbase whatsoever. I'm glad you didn't bother to bring them up as they did not represent anything to do with the game.
Beta to day one here as well and It had some missteps before the NGE, but you are 100% correct in that the NGE absolutely killed it.
I was irritated when Jump to Lightspeed came out because it destroyed the communities around space ports and the CU tripped them up but I worked through both and still had fun.
I played on the Kauri server from launch. To this day I've never found a better community in a game. I remember unlocking Jedi just before the village update dropped and it felt so good. My characters were Hiko my Jedi and Kurz my Bounty Hunter /Commando. There were so many great times to remember: from the Krayt Dragon hunts pre CU where a huge group would walk out into the desert and half wouldn't even make it to the dragons lol. To leveling my Jedi in the wilderness of Endor and fighting off both player Bounty Hunters and the mighty Gorax who spawned ontop of me and scared the absolute crap out of me! I've never felt like that in a game since. Just a few of the amazing people I got to play with were Clowd, Yrkan, Icetip, Bridgette, Eve, Buddha, Jiub, Valin, and Sidnee who crafted my full set of Mando armor. Thanks for all the good times SWG! I'll never forget.
When you speak of SWG, you speak of two very different games. There is the game I played and enjoyed, the one that came out at launch. The one that I still miss and once tried to return to. Then there is the 'NGE'. That is not the same game, and it removed what drew me to the game, what kept me there while I was. I was fortunate to not be there to see SWG murdered and it's skin worn by a game that didn't even try to imitate the original.
Let me tell you what I did and loved doing, as my reasoning will tell itself. I made a Doctor/Dancer. This meant that I had essentially zero combat or crafting skills, not even truly meaningful gear really. So what was I doing? I healed peoples depleted stats. I could heal ALL of them, physical or mental, you could sit down by me and as I slowly fixed what ailed you, I would ask "How did you get this damage?" And so people would tell me their stories of adventure while I fixed them up. Basically no one had this build, because of that singular focus, but I loved doing it. It was a laid back, social experience with no time pressure and at that time I needed that in my life. (As I was sixteen at the time.) I tooled around Mos Eisley and hung out in one spot enough players would actually direct others to me like I was an NPC.
Funny enough, I had an extended conversation with a particularly beat up player once that consisted of musing on 'If I was a really good AI NPC, would this conversation still matter?' and the like.
But the memory that sticks with me the most is the one time I went out into Tatooine's wilds to help a group who'd decided to hunt Kryat Dragons. They'd gotten beaten to a pulp so badly they couldn't escape the area, and when I pointed out to their friend "You realize this will be an escort quest, right? I have no combat stats, abilities or gear." He just said "But your not an idiot, right?" So I followed along as he and a couple of others (who had been begged to help their friends by getting help.) escorted me through area's I knew nothing about, with them being paranoid I'd be aggroed so they blasted apart anything that came near. We had to wait and skirt things too dangerous to fight off for tense minutes sometimes. Until there, huddled at an edge of a cliff to avoid being aggroed, were a dozen people with more Wounds (stat damage) than I'd ever seen on anyone, each. So I listened as those too beat up to defend us if something noticed us there told me of the trainwreck that had ensued, while one by one I fixed them up. They'd been stranded out there so long most wanted to just log off, but when I asked them for an escort back to safety, they all decided "Better to log off in town anyway." Was a great time I still remember today.
A unique experience no other MMO would ever consider giving me.
These are the experiences i remember. Sounds like this was before mounts & Speeders. I had trips like this all over just exploring and charting. Then I would carefully lead my guild through places like Dathomir to a nightsister stronghold or a good spot to fight rancors or find whatever beast the CH's were wanting to tame, whether or not they could actually tame the damn thing. Rez kits were rare back at the start as were doctors in the wild, so we had to make sure nobody died when we were way out there.
I'm with you. 100%
Thank you for the video! I started playing Star Wars Galaxies back in 2003 (Corbantis server). Met a lot of great people in the game. Ended up starting an Imperial guild/alliance with a great group of players. We actually had a couple of in person meets in California and Nevada. I played daily (a few days after it officially opened) until the very last day. The CSR's from SOE were very good to deal with (I met a CSR in-game one day. She asked me questions, what I liked about the game, what I didn't like about the game and also asked for suggestions to make the game better. One thing I suggested was to hold more live events. She and another CSR would always keep in contact and I would help organize some of the events with them. We ended up having some of the largest live events in the game). The game had great potential and was very fun. We played through all the updates/upgrades and downgrades. We still managed to have fun. I stayed in game until I lost connection and the last servers went down. It was very sad.
Back in 2021, I started thinking of the game and randomly typed it into Google. I ended up coming across a page about Star Wars Galaxies Legends. One thing lead to another, I watched a few UA-cam videos and 20-30 minutes later I was playing Star Wars Galaxies Legends. I'm really enjoying the game and the Legends server has added new content and they are adding more in the future. If anyone wants to play again, install the game and the Legends launcher. I'm sure you will like it!
Adored SWG. I started off planning to be a smuggler, but honestly wound up just being a merchant/carrier. I remember when the holocrons started as a thing and nothing I was doing for fun was unlocking the force for me. I never really wanted to be a jedi, but like everyone else I kinda leaned into unlocking the force for myself because I thought a merchant with a lightsaber would be neat lol. Realized about 2 months later I wasn't enjoying it anymore and it was a job I hated going to. So I just stopped playing. I loved SWG because it was unique. When they watered it down...I didn't care anymore.
Same here. The holocrons marked the beginning of the end for me.
Don't forget SWGemu, the original emulator. There probably wouldn't be other servers if not for them.
Swgemu is dead... they went to long without jump to lightspeed
Played for a long time, specialized in armor making. Loved it and it really engendered a community to get ahead in the game as to craft high end, you needed high end materials and thus you'd end up with a crew of suppliers who'd bring you materials to craft with in exchange for discounts on equipment that let them do their end of things. Truly taught alot of young players how an economy works. I also have yet to find another game that had such a bevvy of in game emotes and features that served no point aside from make things fun and interesting. Safe Haven of Corbantis - Kazianna Revanni
Really good and accurate video!
SWG was the best MMORPG ever made, and still is by a lot of metrics. The crafting system is still the best MMORPG crafting system on the market, and the scale of player interactions from entertainers and doctors in major cities to player cities with malls and vendors is only matched by games like Mortal Online.
I had a bounty hunter that I used to hunt newly unlocked Jedi and it was amazing. Hunting players across the galaxy, studying the situation, making a plan, ambushing them while they are traveling or trying to headshot them while they grind XP out in the wild? It was so good. It was a game that was made for you to exist in, not for you to just chase thrilling combat or specific quest loot/items. You existed among and within a community, learning the names of the entertainers that you saw at the cantina, and the doctors at the hospital, that one vendor you were talking to while waiting to get buffed who sells you composite armor for cheap.... haha good times.
I enjoyed my time with it for a few months and I'd even started some of the jedi steps with some tips from guildmates. I don't think I was truly ready for the mmo grind at that point, as that would come with WoW. Still got my old boxed game to this day
I loved the original Star Wars Galaxies so much. The first time I stepped into the world, I felt like I was really part of the Star Wars universe. I loved surveying for high-quality minerals to craft the finest wares, which I would then sell outside the busiest cantinas. It was such a unique experience, and no other game since has been able to give me the same feeling. The music as we traveled to different planets still gives me chills when I hear those same sounds today. It's a shame the game died the way it did. The emulator projects are great, but they really need thousands of active players to truly make it feel like the old days. I'm surprised that so many people my age have never heard of SWG, and it's not surprising at all that the younger generation doesn't know about it.
Same here. The music, the environmental sounds. I had such good times with new friends. The PvP battles with opposing guilds. The armor and weapon stores players created in order to sell their wares.
I was in a bad accident when I was 12. I was basically confined to a wheelchair with minimal movement allowed for about 6 months while I recovered. The game came out right when I got out of the hospital. I was able to spend my days in Star Wars instead of a wheelchair and back brace. I was a trader and crafter mostly so I had a whole community of people I could talk to while I was out of school. I’m forever grateful and equally saddened by SWG. This game really might have saved my life. I wish that it didn’t go out the way that it did.
Ah, yes, I remember it now with clarity that surprises me even after all these years. It was late September '03 when Trek and I set foot on the desolate lands of Lok, our hearts filled with the thrill of exploration. We ran tirelessly, it seemed, until the vast expanse of the map finally yielded to our determination.
Nym's Fortress on Lok stands out in my memory as a place where we paused during our journey-a fortress of intrigue and danger, where every corner held the promise of discovery and peril.
Leaving Lok, its orange wastelands etched into my mind, I found myself on Naboo. It was there, if memory serves me right, that I achieved a significant level milestone. For hours, I perched above a cave, engaged in a relentless battle against the formidable Kungas, each victory bringing me closer to mastery.
The encounter with the Jedi on Tatooine remains one of the defining moments of my virtual adventures. It was a busy Saturday afternoon outside Ancorhead when I spotted her-the lone Jedi, a beacon of mystique and power amidst the throng of players. In those early days, she might have been only the second Jedi, if not the first, encountered on our server (Bria), a rare sight that sparked both admiration and curiosity.
But as fate would have it, the dreaded lag, an inevitable companion in our digital escapades, soon disrupted the bustling scene. It was during one such moment that my imagination took flight, inspiring my Bounty Hunter to embark on a quest for the elusive Hermit-a journey filled with anticipation and the thrill of the hunt.
Despite my efforts, the Hermit remained elusive, a mystery waiting to be unraveled another day....
I played Day One. I was a Master Bounty Hunter and quit after they updated the classes and added Jedi. I did play during the Holocron days. I had a good spot where i could solo the elites for holocron drops. Had a lot of fun playing the game. I started a Bounty Hunter Guild that had both Imps and Rebels. We changed factions to fight for certain groups and guilds for credits.
I was playing this from the start. Even had the collectors edition that came with a small starting armor set. I stopped shortly after the Combat Evolved patch. I logged in to find that hours and hours of grinding were reduced to garbage. Admittedly I was on the bad side of the conversions, some made out like bandits though. So I rerolled to a commando build and gave it a good attempt, but the magic was gone. Needed buffs, over half the doctors were gone. Needed to remove the fatigue (the black bar) good luck finding a dancer. So many player cities just disappeared. It was damn near perfect right before CE
So many great memories about the game. Thank you for this reminder and your respectful look back at it.
Always good to have a Video remembering SWG, because modern MMOs still haven't come close to capturing some of the good aspects of SWG.
It was a great game for it's time. I very much enjoyed being a creature resource gatherer for hire as a MRanger/MSwordsman - I had contacts in the chef and armourer professions that would regularly hire me to hunt specific creatures that had specific resources that given week, be it milk, meat or hide. This made me a surprisingly large amount of credits and let me tip my favorite dancers accordingly.
It's surprising to me that no MMOG since then has tried to build a similar crafting/resource gathering system, or systems based more on XP rather than straight up levels. But I suppose that's the WoW curse.
PreCU combat is awful and seen through rose tinted nostalgia goggles. It was slow and turned based style. The main positive from preCU was the complex expertise trees, but the classes were horribly unbalanced with broken mechanics like knockdown dizzy stun.
The game is alive and well with an array of content updates and improvements in the form of SWG Legends. It’s been up since 2016 with an active development team and consistent player base. It just recently surpassed the duration of the Sony servers. Check it out!
Absolutely loved SWG in the beginning. Bloodfin for life!!
I played through the beta and up until around the end and nothing beats the beginning even with huge flaws.
The leveling and skill tree system was awesome, being able to choose Master Pistoleer and go up a couple different branches in Pikeman, Media, and Bounty Hunter was awesome and added so much to customization. The crafting system was so bad ass too, I loved creating and setting up a huge store full of items to sell.
They really messed up from the beginning though which you highlighted perfectly. The lack of Star Wars elements in a Star Wars game was a huge let down. You knew you were in the Star Wars world, but barely. Most of the settings included Star Wars characters but the B team for sure. Barely anything you knew from the films that would have added so much.
They really missed the mark with armor too but not giving us recognizable pieces to choose from and wear and even when they added it, it sucked compared to composite armor which everyone defaulted too. Just thousands of people walking around in the same composite armor that you could eventually change the color on. LOL
The CU really killed some of the experience, space expansion killed the communities that would hang out around the space ports and once the Holocron told me I had to grind out Master Entertainer for my next Jedi step was beyond pissed at what they had done to this awesome game.
This was my first mmo and I had no idea what to do. I met a random player and joined their guild and fell in love with the micro-community I’d found. I had some of the most enjoyable times playing a multiplayer games ever. I regret the way I didn’t make more of an effort to keep in touch with them. Many left ‘temporarily’ for a ‘break’ but never came back. I’m not sure the gaming community is quite the same these days
Great Video man! I was there back in the day hunting for the hidden Jedi stats! I mainly went out into the galaxy to merc ships for salvage, the ship to ship combat was well ahead of its time!
Its a shame that they didn't cater to current player base and went off chasing casuals. That kind of short sightedness rarely if ever works out...
Smedley is a name that still echoes to all who played SWG, from that day on I really hate SOE, even now whatever they have I don't want to touch it.
why did you have to remined me of that name...
I stopped buying Sony products altogether after what SOE did to SWG.
Smedley. That name is a curse. Lol.
"Jedi. Jedi killed Star Wars Galaxies. (and the combat update)"
-Saintmillion
I never really care about becoming a Jedi. When they deleted the professions I had, then I became a Jedi.
@@cpltrickie sadly, even if the vast majority of players didn't even want jedi, the corporate overlords demanded they be
They made the game more fun, forgetting entirely that people who play MMOs don't play them for fun, they play them to have a second job that they pay someone else to be able to do for no real reward, for reasons only they can understand.
If you introduce fun you undermine and completely remove the appeal.
@@cptsteele91 they took immersion away. Not everyone thinks WoW is fun
Yup. Having the jedi linked to the profession system killed the game. Such a shame too, SWG had one of the best profession systems in any game I've ever played, even with the fact that some professions were very bugged/broken. TBH I didn't want jedi in the game at all.
The single most meaningful heartbreak of my gaming experience. I still haven't recovered from this and I dont think I ever will.
I still have the demo videos of mounts and Jedi knights that LucasArts sent to me for my Galaxies website back in the day. I believe this game was way ahead of it's time - imagine being a Bounty Hunter and actually hunting Jedi/Sith. Amazing game, where you could be literally anybody you wanted to be.
I was a weaponsmith/armorsmith on Bloodfin, and one thing I always see left out of retrospective videos on this is the effect on crafters. With the Combat Downgrade, every single weapon--even crates FULL of high-end weapons--were rendered useless overnight. They all reset to base stats...all that work experimenting to get the perfect blueprint was gone instantly. But that wasn't the worst part.
All your raw materials. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of units of Diatium copper, Link-steel aluminum, fiberplast, Kammris iron...all useless. Basically everything we had worked to build...gone. One crafter I know--JUST ONE--continued to play after this. Dude was an architect, so mat quality didn't matter nearly as much. I left and never looked back. I do miss my friend, Naga-t, though.
Day one Bloodfin here!!
I agree. I was a weaponsmith (Wanderhome). I spent so much time collecting the best materials to make the best possible weapons. The excitment then a new good resource spawned and you were rasing to get as much as possible before everyone else. I even got my weaponsmith character force aware to be able to get a few extra points better weapons. Final nail in the coffin was NGE and then I finally left.
I was in the first wave of beta testers.... it was a buggy mess, and at the time it was a ton of fun! SOE, Smedley, Holocrons and the NGE are what did it in. I tried the emulators but with the old crew (both Reb and Imp) it just wasnt the same. The community made it enjoyable to come back to. I am happy to remember all the fun and good times from back in the day (AHAZI SERVER REPRESENT!), and just let it RIP. GG, SWG. GG.
love your videos. never even heard of the game but as always very entertaining to hear you break down the timeline for these games. have a great day robo.
thanks, you too!
I loved this game. The community was unmatched. At launch there was nothing to do so you had to use the community to make your own fun. I miss it. (1 hour of EMU and i dont miss the death debuffs)
It can't be understated exactly how bad SOE was at handling their MMOs in the early 00's. They created EQ2 instead of focusing on original EQ, then they tried to change their existing MMOs to the product that was already beating them. They wore down their talent, shuffled them across too many projects, and ultimately, dug their own grave. It's why SOE no longer exists -- Sony eventually realized they did not have the desire or knowledge on how to manage such a company, which is why it was sold off.
SOE wouldn't have ever even been a thing Sony management had their way and shut down the original Everquest development as they had tried to a number of times. And of course, by the time Sony management had taken over the overwhelming popular Everquest project, they in very short order completely killed it.
To anyone who wasn't around to experience MMOs in the early 00's, all I can say was it truly was the Wild West of not only MMOs but also the internet in general. It was a very different time, and many of us looking back do so with rose-tinted glasses because it truly, truly was a community unlike and dissimilar to what we see today.
You would get into a game like Everquest or SWG and spend hours just talking to people, interacting with them, exploring (which is just walking around and looking at things). You would kill the odd creature every now and then, but grinding gear and levels just wasn't a focus for a lot of people. So when you saw that guy in a full stormtrooper set, damn that was so cool. When you saw a bounty hunter, you instantly had a distrust for them, even if you weren't on a PvP server. Instead of fostering these types of interactions, games and the people who played them, shifted to grinding levels and gear and every player was given easy access to everything they could want if they were willing to keep their monthly sub going long enough for them to grind it out.
Played from launch. So many great memories. The Krayt dragon hunts, hanging out in the cantina after work. The celebrations by the dancers and muscians with fireworks were a great memory. I played right up to the server protests where people were getting ejected. Good times😢
I actually picked my nickname signing up for the Star Wars Galaxies newsletter, because you had to pick a sydonym or username. Ive used it to this day. We ended up playing on Kettemoor with a small band of europeans, and mostly did end game PVE / small group PVP. The community element in this game was insane, so many fond memories and stories to tell....
I had a scout/artisan/rifleman, all master. Hunted and collected meat to sell to bioengineers, sold minerals and speeders in my vendor and it was fun :) Didn't care about pvp and always remained neutral. Didn't care about Jedihood either. I,ve had to work long hours so my playing time was short and precious. I loved being the Uncle Owen type. And PvP is the least fun activity with so many other activities to do. Even doing stuff in space or hanging out in the cantina, relaxing and healing BF after the fighting/hunting, was fun. That social aspect is gone though.
I started playing this game a couple of months before the NGE. What excited me about the game was the complex skill trees and free form progression paths you could forge yourself. What kept me playing was the community. I had found a group who had a settlement and started becoming a member of that community. The shops, the professions, the way in which the interactions took place and people formed a genuine community to help each other progress in the game were like nothing any game has ever managed to create since. The shock of this community being violently torn apart by the decisions made by SOE and LucasArts was significant. I went into the changes with an open mind as I didn't have a ton of time into the game and didn't think they would be so drastic as to destroy it. I was so wrong. The day I logged in after the NGE was one of the worst of my gaming experiences ever. Everything I had worked hard to gather or build was useless. All my skill progression - gone. In it's place was a brief class selection and linear skill progression wheel. I tried the Jedi and the first skill power was literally Sith lightning. I mean, you took the most iconic evil Force power and granted it to Padawans... Aside from the multitude of bugs, the simplistic classes, and the betrayal of Star Wars lore; I watched my community evaporate. I actually was upset when I logged off for the last time. Since then I've looked for a game to match that sense of community, but nothing has ever really compared.
Favorite game of all time. Made a lot of friends on the Kettemoor server. I was Mazz Eroz on that server and had one of the first Jedi characters. Awesome memories :)
I loved alot of things about SWG pre NGE. Like the skill systems, the non combat classes and the fact you couldn't understand a Wookie until someone taught you the skill. It promoted interactions with other player outside of questing.
What i hated was the balance. I started a Rebel Sharpshooter, by the end i was an Imperial Commando sporting an AT-ST for tanking and making a million an hour farming Dathomir and Endor.
Thanks for this video; it was an elegant game for a more civilized age. I miss my flamethrower commando who was also an interior decorator. I was the guild leader of an Imperial RP guild and we had so much fun RPing out of Theed. We'd get dressed up in our stormtrooper armor then walk around Theed and into the cantina accusing random players of being rebels. We of course would be flagged for open PvP and it was so much fun when rebels would just show up out of nowhere. RIP SWG.
I wish more MMO did that same thing.
Secret stuff that requires you to play the game and it was random for every player.
I sank so much time into this. I loved it. I don't think I've seen a player run economy work this well in an MMO.
I did have a jedi but mainly used a smuggler and trader.
I was there the day it came on line. Played as a master tailor and eventually opened my own shop, combining it with dancer hanging out in the cantinas and hardly ever touched a gun. When they crapped on the non combat classes in various ways, the game took a hit that it never recovered from (for me, anyway). RoboKast is right--they had a pearl of great price that offered an alternative to WoW style games but they were too short sighted to appreciate and capitalize on it.
I remember when the first Jedi showed up. I was at peak happiness as a kid when this game launched.
I miss this game so much. I wish it would still be possible to play it.
It is, there's a number of emulator communities active currently, this video also mentions at least two.
@@tormdk5879 Yes I know. I tried a few but none of them worked.
I played SWG for years on the official servers. It was a game primarily focused on the social aspect of its universe, where everyone had a meaningful role. Unlike every other MMO, I never felt like being "powerful" was something important in the game. Some people spent their days dancing in the cantina, organizing events, others crafting spaceship components, playing exclusively in space.. Everyone played the game the way they wanted. They were part of the Star Wars Universe, doing and being the character they wanted.
Personally, I was just happy to venture into the wild, train and find baby Cu Pas, raise them, and sell them to other players in front of the Mos Eisley Starport. :D
They should have just started an additional version of the game - like "SWG lite" so that causal players could have fun, but the idea that there was a more challenging and beloved version existed. Meanwhile the fans in hand wouldn't be disappointed / disrespected. DUMB to change the success they had for a new "Hope this works" venture. Excellent video explaining the whole story.
i miss my bantha mount :) - this was my first serious MMO and i miss it everyday
Ah, SWG... So many fond memories hanging with the homies on Bloodfin, those days shall be missed. I tried, really tried to get into SWTOR, but it was mid at best in my humble opinion. Tried too hard to be a "WoW killer" and was far too easy.
Day one Bloodfin here!!
I saw this while playing SWG Restoration. Servers are still alive and well still. Restoration server is Pre-NGE with NGE content.
As someone who played from launch to shutdown, one of the biggest things that made the game successful was the codependency it created. Initially only one character per server (unless jedi unlocked). You had to interact with others to accomplish certain goals. E.g. hiring a ranger to track kimogilas or krayt dragons (before the krayt boom), hiring a tailor to get your exact look down or for a specific occasion. Needing buffs from a doctor, musician, and dancer. The list goes on. We all needed each other. That all went away when we were allowed multiple characters. More people became self-sufficient.
The CU killed it for some. Early NGE took more. Late NGE was fun, but the damage was done. Also, the fact that people who worked for jedi got the shaft.
SWG was an exceptional game that fell victim to a series of bad developmental changes.
Yeah, I remember I used to play it with a bunch of friends who came from ultimate online. I don't remember why I quit, though I think it was because of all the confusing and weird jedi stuff, and possibly a lack of content early on. It was kind of fun when they added mounts to the game but I still remember it taking forever to get any where and stuff being mostly empty.
I was on Naritus in 2006-2009 and then Starsider for a few months. I never experienced pre NGE, but the game really shone after a few big updates and late 2007-early 2008 with the creature handler system returned, raid like instances, and the space update. Unfortunately by the end of that time period the server had emptied. If I had started on a bigger server I probably would've stuck to the end.
Nothing like the experience in a guild, exploring, making houses on every planet...it was incredible.
I remember playing the beta for this. Played it for about a year after it came out, but when they changed the way jedi was unlocked it went downhill from there. It was a fun game for its time.
0:27 "Those who say 'No pun intended' are weak! Intend your puns, you coward!"
I still remember logging in one day and seeing a "CHARACTER ROLE SELECT SCREEN" with the first role as Jedi lol
I can relate to this.
I literally cried when they scrapped the console versions. Im just not a pc gamer, and it feels like ive missed on so many good games due to it.
This is the way.
I seriously miss this game. My handle here was started when I was playing it. It was seriously an RPer's paradise in how it began, and even the CU wasn't the stake in the heart that it had the reputation of. The NGE was just too much. Luckily, I've stayed friends with the folks I gamed with, and we've moved from guild to guild across multiple games ever since.
This was my absolute favorite game! The non-combat roles were the best. I was a Master Doctor which meant that I was the class who could remove perma-debuffs that were put on players by certain effects or death. I had to operate out of a medical center for the highest effect, so I'd spend my days hanging out, hearing adventuring stories, and healing people for tips, gear, and resources. Then they changed the game completely and the non-combat roles became less important, so I had to take up a fighting skill. I miss those early days
One of the overlooked things that the CU did was screwed over entertainers. I was a dancer and loved just hanging around in the cantina putting on routines with my fellow dancers, when the CU came in Cantinas died and so did entertainers.
Chilastra reporting in.
I still remember the player protests in Theed and the warnings/space teleports from the devs. Fun times.
A game in this vein could create a lot of good will with Star Wars that has been lost this last decade
😂😂 you're funny, no TF it wouldn't they could rerelease this exact game tomorrow optimised for modern machines and fans of the franchise would bitch unendingly about how it has caused all the ills we have seen in society the past, kicks the walking sticks out from elderly people, pushed a baby in a pram over a cliff, went back in time to do loud sex to their mothers in front of them AND murdered Bruce Wayne's parents.
"Create a lot of good will" 😂😂 that simply is not the game star wars fans are playing and hasn't been since before Disney bought the IP, be real dude.
I got Star Wars galaxies and jump to lightspeed for christmas 2004, one of the best years of my life lmfao. was so gutted to watch a character I worked so hard to get force sensitivity on slowly keep getting rerolled until I had to just pick a Jedi or some other class. all that work just down the drain.
I loved the guild war PVP i was in a very active guild we had a few hundred members at or zenith and the PVP (when it worked without fps dropping to zero) was a lot of fun and overall i really enjoyed becoming a billionaire and have tons of shops and could source the best crafting material for the best armor (depending on what you were) i would love to have a redone version done right...i understand theres the unofficial servers but offical support would be amazing. (If done right) 😂.
Star Wars Galaxies: Legends is how the game was during the final years before shutdown during the NGE era.
Although supported with new and additional content by supportive devs.
It's also known for having the healthiest playerbase with around 800-1K active players, and peaking around 1.9k active at one time.
The NGE was the kill shot. The devs, led by Julio Torres, knowingly made drastic changes in order to copy WoW. What happened was disaster.
Rage of the Wookies changed the game from a free-roam open world to a path based level design. It killed the the exploration aspects and the bugs were horrible. I fell through the map too many times and needed a dev to help relocate me.
The change in the combat system caused unimaginable lag. Any time you would get more than 16 people in the same area, things would slow up drastically.
Faction battles were awful. The ridiculous amount of faction buffs was idiotic. Some people would have rows and rows of buffs that tipped combat in their favor.
SOE were a bunch of fools for allowing this.
Do not even get me started about what they did to professions. They went from something dynamic to something that was stupidly linear.
Holocron grind already ruined the game. There were jedis EVERYWHERE before nge even hit. With no balance
This was my first MMO and entrance to the Star Wars universe. I remember being a Teras Kasi Artist and loving it. Left when people did in droves. Still think fondly of it though.
SWG was so much fun. Bria was on the server. I miss my home. Spent hours decorating.
Star Wars Galaxies didn't died it was killed for a quick buck.
And Disney continuing that mistake with the rest of the franchise.🤦😭🤮🤬
This game died because the video game industry was starting to ramp up their trend of false marketing in 2010. The Old Republic was not what it was being pitched as to the public, the developers and lucasarts knew this presumably, so they got rid of Star Wars Galaxies the moment the internet started to compare the two games close to TOR’s launch. They even made a statement saying it didn’t want people lingering on Galaxies when everyone could be enjoying their new title. They just wanted to force the player base to their new game that was awful and soulless at launch. Which they knew was going to be the case, they didn’t want the launch to flop. The end of this game had nothing to do with the rocky launch and big updates of the title.
Amen brother your speaking truth
Was the server population stable in 2010-2011?
Yea swtor was a disgrace... just a syar wars skinned wow.. no sandbox.
I loved this game from it's very onset! I did not even mind the NGE. I was a Teras Kasi and i got Jedi before they changed "the village" Being in a Guild was fun because we all talked everyday and did quests and the whole lot. Like someone else said, I made lifelong friends. The guild i was in was pretty cool but, on my server there were guilds that you could not break character while in game. I remember one that was called JEDL or something. Great times were had by all.