Those of you who know me know that for the past few years, I’ve been heavily into World of Warcraft. Well, lately it hasn’t really held my attention. Oddly, the storyline continues to intrigue me, but the actual gameplay is losing my interest. So what do we do when an MMO loses its charm? We find a new one!
No, I didn’t move to Aion. To me, that’s nothing but WoW with a graphical upgrade and change in art style. I went backward in time. Many remember a game from Sony Online Entertainment by the little title of Star Wars: Galaxies. It was such an epic game: no direct leveling path, the ability to cross class in countless ways, and the long struggle to unlock your very own Jedi character. It… was… awesome.
Then the Combat Upgrade rolled around. Lots of things that made SW:G interesting were removed or made bland. Eventually, the Jedi grind was simplified into a timesink of “work on this skill this week and get ‘x’ million experience”. It was always a “grindy” experience, but this actually felt like a grind.
A bit later in SW:G’s lifespan came the dreaded NGE: New Game Enhancements. This was Sony’s pathetic attempt to turn their Star Wars universe into WoW with a Star Wars overlay. It failed miserably. The vast majority of pre-NGE players left. Today, SW:G is nothing more than a shadow of its former self. It has a severely low population and is teetering on the brink of disappearing.
So why the long story about a game that I outwardly admit is a steaming pile of trash? SWGEmu, that’s why. For any who don’t know, SWGEmu is a labor of love that began in late 2004. There were people upset enough about the Combat Upgrade that a community developed that wanted to make a pre-CU server. Over time, they’ve steadily progressed and today have a very impressive piece of work to show for their efforts.
The project is still in a beta state. Some classes are incomplete, and there are plenty of bugs still floating around, so I would think that they’re probably about 85% complete (and the updates have been coming exponentially faster lately). That does not take away from what they’ve achieved, however. They currently have a test center up and running that is capable of handling around 900 people with minimal lag (barring live events that tend to boost the lag). This test center is running on hardware not far above what most of the players are using to play the game. On top of that, they’ve stated that their big issue is bandwidth, not hardware. Their hardware is running at about 50% capacity with 900 people online, but the 100Mbit shared pipeline is holding them back.
Well, this has turned into more of a ramble than I’d planned, but that’s how I get when I’m honestly excited about something. This project could be the revival of a great game. On top of that, the team has stated they will give server operators tools (or at least the ability) to change anything from mob spawns to the path required to become a Jedi. Good times are ahead. For me, they’re already here. I’m loving being back in the Star Wars universe already.
You must be logged in to post a comment.