So, I'm here to tell you about
Starwars Galaxies Emulatorand why you should maybe play it.
The game, SWGEMU, is a project to recreate and host the server side of Star Wars: Galaxies, the old school MMO, from before the much hated updates that ultimately led the game to financial failure. Now, the fan-made emulator project using SOE's source code is available for free!
The basic premise is that your character is some random buffoon on one of the small handful of large, open planets available in from the Star Wars universe. You play typical side characters- like, say, a bounty hunter, angry wookiee, and even a crafter, entertainer or doctor. You do NOT start the game as a Jedi, in fact it's a very big deal to become one. Currently, they aren't even in the emulator version of the game. It's very possible to be an entirely noncombatant character and the game provides a lot of roleplaying tools, even if the only real meaty gameplay is combat (such every MMO tends to be).
The combat system is a typical hotbar affair, where you queue up skills to attack your enemy with on a time interval- not very exciting. But the system is unique in that there's no separate mana bar- just health, activity, and mental energy. Some skills drain these, and some attacks damage them. If any goes to 0, you are incapacitated, so you can be defeated just by being exhausted.
What really makes the game neat is that even though it's pretty grindy, it has a largely player driven economy and the
ability to make entire player-built cities in the back country, complete with homes, shops, NPC trainers/quest givers, and shuttle docks so that anyone can fast travel to and fro. There's also interesting PvP, and later they'll add the Jump to Lightspeed expansion pack, which lets you fly space ships for twitch combat (a relatively fresh idea in an MMO, when it came out).
Make sure to read the getting started section first. Also be aware that the game has no complete tutorial and you will have to refer to the wiki and forums a lot. Once we're in, I recommend we meet up in
Mos Eisely, which is one of the busier cities. We can talk about making a guild if there's enough of us, or just assimilating into an existing one- but more important, I'd like to team up for fighting and crafting purposes, and get a good friends list going.
I've been using the last name Twelfth for all my characters, I think we should be able to all do the same.Downsides: Like I said, the game is pretty grindy, even though I think that the combat is somewhat interesting on a mathematical level. It's also
very hard to start out, you'll find yourself piss poor with no direction, at first. You also won't be able to win the starting combat missions on your own, and unless you're a hunter and can skin animals the easy-to-kill mobs will provide XP, but no loot at all. It's also ugly by today's standards, if that bugs you. The game runs smooth but occasionally crashes on loading a new area, and it's quite beta in general- there's a lot of yet-to-be-implemented features.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: AVOID WASTING MONEY ON SKILL TRAINERS IF YOU CANOther players can act like skill trainers, if they already have the skill you want to be trained in. Try to save money by learning from eachother, as skill trainers are expensive. It also gives apprenticeship XP to the person doing the training, which is necessary to master professions.
I hadn't actually played the game before the emulator, so if some old veterans have general tips, let me know.
-First you'll need to install the game. There's a guide to doing so
here. Mainly, you'll need to install the old game from discs (if you pirate them, don't go talking about it), install their launcher, and update it.
-Make a character on BASILISK server. Ignore the fact that it says Nova Test Server is recommended. BASILISK is the one with players actually playing the game, use Nova Test for experimenting with character builds and recreating bugs. Don't go a-using Basilisk Test either.
-Once you've created a character, and chosen a race and a class (you can change your class or multiclass freely by talking to trainers, if you're an artisan and want to fight just talk to a marksman or brawler trainer and you're good to go minus a weapon), you're in the game. Let's meet up in Mos Eisely, it seems to be the populous area.
-Most hotkeys are accessed by pressing CTRL+SOMETHING or SHIFT+SOMETHING, pressing buttons direction always types- WASD doesn't work, you have to walk by right clicking or using the arrow keys. F1, F2 and so on use hotbar skills- you can change these in and out with the abilities menu, CTRL A. CTRL O is options, and you can use SHIFT ESCAPE to exit the game. CTRL V and CTRL M are the planet map and local map, both very useful.
-The default mouse setting is OK for walking and looking around, but doesn't let you click on the UI. Press ALT to go into normal mouse mode.
-The easiest low risk way to make some starting money (crafting aside) is to use a generic Mission Terminal to take Delivery Missions- find the ones that give about 1000 credits, refreshing missions if you need to as they are randomly generated on the spot. You can go to the spaceport and spend 100 credits on a ticket to fly to the appropriate city (use ticket terminal, then ticket taker at the actual landing site). If you look at the end location of the mission, you can get two at once for a profit of about 1900 credits for 5-10 minutes of running around, which is really helpful getting starter gear.
Sensei: Achenar Twelfth (Marksman/Scout), Atrus Twelfth (Artisan)
joemoben: joemoben(Artisan)
TheBronzePickle: Braedil Hivela (marksman/medic)
Kaitol: Vrrael Ceryel (Artisan), Rakshara Yorazu (Marksman/Scout), Ravana (Entertainer/Brawler)
Sergius: Breggen Degroove (Artisan)
Vlad: Flogo Kosp (Marksman)
Charmander: Ataref Kellrunner (Artisan)
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Topic: Star Wars Galaxies Emulator: Episode IV, A New Thread (Read 24156 times)