There’s a group of developers who are trying to resurrect the old, fun version Star Wars Galaxies with the Star Wars Galaxies PreCU Emulation Project. The “CU” stands for Combat Upgrade, a term Sony Online Entertainment, the game’s harebrained developers, concocted to described the game-breaking changes it made to the combat engine. Longtime players of Galaxies, my brother Gabriel included, hated the Combat Upgrade.(“Upgrade? More like downgrade!”) Gabriel, who helped me write that Hitler Twitter video and is now a freshman at NYU, spoke with the project’s developers last week in order to figure out what makes them tick.
This is their story, as written by young Gabriel.
I’ve played Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) since February of 2004. I’ve been through the Combat Upgrade (CU) and the subsequent New Game Experience (NGE) that followed six months afterwards. (SWG has a very interesting MMO history for those interested in doing a bit of digging). SWGEmu is a project that’s dedicated to resurrecting the original iteration of Galaxies. The project grows stronger every day with a dedicated community as showcased with their bi-weekly updates on www.swgemu.com. Just as interesting, if not more so, is the emulation project itself. The community, as well as the development staff, has had ups and downs. I interviewed a roundtable consisting of developers and staff members alike from the project. I joined (in no particular order) Aaron “Kellina” Eaton, Ramsey Kant, Jayson “Ultyma” Marion, Kyle Burkhardt, Tanner “Seaseme” Kalstrom, and Joe “Bobius” Sylve, Sawyer “PhantmLdr” Towne, and Todd “Thoop” Hooper in an IRC chat room.
The project, known as SWGEmu, started on December 24, 2004, before the first Combat Upgrade. Ramsey and Ultyma were part of the original development team that actually had a shaky beginning. “January – April we were pretty quiet, lurked on free forums trying to break the encryption,” Ramsey said. “A lot of the project’s time in the beginning was spent reversing the client and documenting the protocol… I had helped out with a few smaller server emulators here and there, but most of us were new to the game.” Aside from a difficult encryption (which they successfully cracked), the original builds known as Core1/2 were bogged down by bugs, a rough community, and yes, even an ego. “When our project first started, we were completely closed source. Part of the reason for that was our ego,” Ramsey continued, “We didn’t want to open up to the community at the time, because the original mentality was it was ‘our own work.’”
That was years ago. When asked about the progress they’ve made since the Core 1 days, the sentiment is unanimously proud and positive. Today, the community is strong, united and dedicated. What started as a small group of people working closed source has grown to “what, 30+ staff members? 60,000 thousand people” Seaseme, a 2 year vet on the project, informed me. PhantmLdr, a silent hero of the community, quickly corrected Seaseme and said it was 60+ staff members.
“I, for one, am always amazed by the progress this team has made,” Bobius, one of the developers, commented, “both technologically and socially. I remember when I first heard of this project. I believe it was from a digg article declaring the project over. Ha! This project had been declared dead more times than Duncan McCloud. What we have now is on such a different level that what was around during the core1 days,” said Bobius.
“The project started when I was still in high school and it’s been in my routine almost every day, so it’s awesome to see how far the project has expanded,” added Ramsey.
For Kyle, the developer who brought crafting in the emulator, it was much more simple. “The moment struck almost a year ago when it became more of a downhill ride, than an uphill climb,” he said.
“I will still always look back to the very first stress test that we had. I think it was like 3-4 months into development,” recalls Ultyma. “We had 452 people online at the Mining outpost on Dantooine, and every single player was in combat.”
The SWGEmu team is actually preparing for a second stress test on December 6. Since their previous test they’ve added more core features (like crafting) and want to test them out under a heavy load. They want as many people as humanly possible to help out. They don’t need to do anything specific, just logging into the test server and standing around will suffice. Instructions on how to setup the emulator and login are on SWGEmu’s website. The purpose does more benefit to the players than the actual development team. Several of the developers explained that the stress test that will take place is meant to determine the type of hardware needed to host an actual server. That means all the planned servers that will come up when the emulator finally launches will have just exactly what they need to host the server.
For those of you wondering about the developers hosting their own servers, Kyle answered, “We plan on making that decision by christmas and announcing our intentions then =).” However, feelings are generally mixed. They still need to look at the pros and cons of such a decision but rest assured, they are thinking about it.
When asked about the progress of the project as a whole, Bobius said, “I think we’re very near something that is ‘playable,’ not a release, mind you, but something more game like than just a testing ground.” Ultyma added that the game, when finished, will have very few holes that could not be filled because of complete lack of documentation missed out on from the Pre-CU era, but it will be as close to 100 percent as possible. Add to the fact a Client-Dev team that will be creating custom content, players will be able to pick up the game where they left off or simply start anew.
Overall, there’s a fun atmosphere. The team has matured along with the project. I asked if there were any final thoughts PhantmLdr would like to share for the interview and he said, “SWG wasn’t just a game for people, it was something extremely special, and when it was changed, many people died a little and lost hope in the MMO industry. We want to renew that hope and bring alive a game that people fell in love with and show people that sometime people can do something amazing just out of passion for the game without caring about their bottom line.”
Kyle then added, “Unlike the other emulators out there, we are NOT trying to bypass paying someone for their work. I will guarantee you that virtually the entire community would still gladly pay for this game monthly if it still was available, but it isn’t, and this is proof that the customer is always right.” The project has had its share of drama, ups, downs, points of hardly any progress and periods where progress couldn’t be stopped. Today, the emulator shows consistency and progress. The bi-weekly updates on www.swgemu.com detail each weeks progress. With strong support from their community, there will be a day when we’ll be able to re-realize our world in the Star Wars universe (God that was nerdy, smite me), and when it comes it will be a great day for Galaxies fans.
Full chat log with the developers: http://paste.littleaton.com/99999
I have dreamed a dream…. and soon, it will be realized…
Thank you soo much for not letting THE best geek game not die….Hopefully we will have at least mounts or even the AVs to ride around in.. trekking across the expanses was painful…. ‘Autorun’ (goes to get a drink while avatar gets to the other side of tatooine….)
I am willing to pay 50$ a month for pre cu server is this real? I played on wow private server it is not like the original game how do you know this wont be like private wow servers?And it seems like it took 4 years to make a game a little playable how long will it take to finish 4 eyars more? I can wait no problem but people will move on.
I need answers
This is not like wow private servers. This is a group of people that are 100% dedicated to remaking the game the way it was. There are NO major game changes. Only very minor ones. What i have heard from our community is an estimated 6 month ETA. If you want more info on the community information go to http://www.truegalaxies.com
Check out http://www.swgemu.com for information.
Check out the website http://www.swgemu.com i think you will be surprised. Pre-CU all the way.
And it’s free btw!
Waiting for… every day!
Oh My, Muhahahaha , For Years Now SOE and I have had a love/hate relationship. First SOE bans my account for totally Lame , wussy reasons then 22 months later after they realized that they butt F’ed themselves with the CU , SOE let’s me return to play the Bantha Turd of a game.
SOE is run by a bunch of Nazi idiot – Muahahaha , Always good for a laugh and they – Love that Jestor!
the emu runs like crap and plays even worse
it offers little in true spirt of the pre-cu
instead of building a game reflecting the true cu times,, they are tinkering around and doing nothing better the sony did when ‘tweaking” the game
the attempt is honorable, but the product so far is far from impressive
untill they releae a game with the same things and nothing changed from pre-cu only then will it be a sucess based on whats been preached
as of right now, the game is reflecting a “what they want in pre-cu” not the “true cu”
the community seems to influence things without much in the way of pre-cu…
tons and tons of people who obviously never touched the game in the days of the pre-cu all with a say or comment about what the game was like
there gonna run into the same problems sony did that lead the the cu in the 1st place, and in changing the game in that respect, they are in fact crating something thats not pre-cu
theres reasons some things worked or didnt work during pre-cu, and changing them now, ruins the game as much as sony did when they implemented there own changes
keep it as it was,, bugs, what did or didnt work etc…
changing it puts em in the same spot as sony
This is quite untrue. There is a reason it is “in development”… its still being developed… hence some features won’t work at all, some won’t work perfectly, and some will work wonderfully. The game is not being changed – it is being developed in stages. Please learn something about game development before making such accusatory comments.
Felton, have you actually played the emu? I would suppose not by reading your post.
It runs fine for an emulation of a game which was buggy in the first place.
Please don’t be a downer, and just shut the fuck up.
I agree with the man of little importance.
The SWGEmu community has really pulled together recently in the spirit of cooperation. The level of progress that has been made lately is really amazing.
I hope we get a really great turnout for the Dec. 6th stress test. Everyone bring your friends!
I have to say that I’ve been thrilled to watch this project grow. Not just because it’s Pre-CU. Personally I could care less about Pre-CU, Pre-NGE, etc, etc. I’ve been with SWG, official servers, since it started and I’m not whining about the changes. They happened, people need to get over it.
What I am thrilled with is that someone is building a way to play the game without relying on SOE. I was one of the unfortunate few who lost a beloved game, in my case Earth & Beyond, because a company (EA) wasn’t making enough money off of it. Without the E&B Emulation project my dreams of ever playing the game again would be forever lost.
Every MMO out there needs an emulator created for it, no matter the state of the emulator or it’s “accuracy”. One day the official servers for these games won’t exist anymore, and that’s not fair to the next generation of gamers.
SWGEmu all day.
I love all you guys.
<333333
* Gives Devs big hug *
When can we able to play the game? I mean my guildies dont know anything about swgemu and i dont want to hype them . They will play nge because tis the only game with star wars and old memories.
Please save us from Evil NGE.
Nobody even talk in nge they just do quests get their loot from quests i m alone in my cantina HELPPPPPPPPPP….
Lovely.
Oh Lord this is exciting !
For the people who are afraid, they’re rebuilding the original game, they’re not changing anything, they will only fix all the Pre-CU known bugs to give the World a game even better than is was.
Don’t forget everyone, 4 days left until the biggest SWGEmu Test Center Stress Test ever done happens!
http://www.swgemu.com
The community needs you, enlist now!
Kayliah, proud SWGEmu community member.
I will para-quote (i.e. take bits)
“I will still always look back to the very first stress test that we had. I think it was like 3-4 months into development,” recalls Ultyma. “We had 452 people online at the Mining outpost on Dantooine, and every single player was in combat.”
That’s not true. The number is true – they capped it at 500 but had problems reaching that. At the maximum number they reached, everyone was asked to stop what they were doing (maybe 50% were in combat but otherwise standing around or running to test the server) were told to all go back to the outpost for a photo shot. Those not there in first couple of hundred or so lagged really badly and never made it before they lost conn or the event was over. They were not on there way back – anyone that said they couldn’t because of lag was muted or banned. Still perhaps his memory is not so good as those that remember Ultyma very well at that time.
So EVERY SINGLE PLAYER was NOT in combat. Unless he’s referring to a different time or place or planet or memory storage device that selects and edits the way things were.
They have moved on since then. But that was not the best time in SWGEmu and it’s very rude of him to say it was.
The number was 452, ok they weren’t all in combat, but large chunks of that was, several of us had multiple clients running and obviously weren’t able to do stuff with them all. That being said, each connection taxed the server, even by just being connected the server had to deal with that client and the fact that only 1 server was dealing with that many people is hugely impressive. Yes, it crashed every now and then, but face the fact that the official servers would have caved in under that pressure long before 452.
There have been other stress tests over the past year but none quite reached the number of that one, then there have been other milestones like the server staying up for weeks on end.
Hurry! Quick as fast as you can, intall you SWG disc, go to SWGEmu.com, join up, download the Launchpad Enhanced, and get to testing, the more testers, the more bugs found, the more bugs found the quicker the emu is finished!!! Long Live SWGEMU!!!!
Yeah, it took 4 years to reach where they are today. But the team was less than 4ppls when they started and they were all unexperienced. But they got more and more knowledge about how to remake the game and the progress in the last month have been some big steps.
THIS IS PRE-CU!!!!!!!
In one planned pvp event on Ahazi I recall crashing the entire planet of Dantooine. That was roughly 300 people in 1 player city at the time.
1 server handling more than that number is quite good considering at peak grind time on dant you would expect around 100-200 people on the entire planet spread out over the various static/player cities. Most in the Mining OP tho =)
We are now in March 2009, and the test server for SWGEmu is actually very playable atm. I could list all the working things but it would be easier for you the reader to just install SWG again and try for yourself.
Oh, and just for the record – a little known fact about SWG [because it was nerfed] is that during the server select screen there was a time when you could actually see the # of logged in people.
That number at peak play time [for PST at least] on Bria, Bloodfin and Ahazi was usually 2000-3000. The other servers were usually less.
I very much doubt sony upgraded their servers between that time and now due to the game generating little [if any] profit.
It was my understanding also that the original SWG servers were clustered per planet, so that lag effecting 1 planet did not hamper another for the most part. That was info from beta 3 forums posted by dev team tho, so who know what the truth is =P
Ive been playing/ beta testing swgemu since around november 08 and the progress since then has been nothing short of breathtaking.They say they are almoast at a playable stage but let me tell you somthing since i joined i have 97% droped all other games and have enjoyed playing this game. every day is a nother step closer.
Big shout out to all from the DEVS to the Comunity.
center.warcry.KD.dizzy :)
I just recently started playing on the test center
and I must say that I am very impressed, it seems they are shooting for *rumor* has it a christmas release date, wouldnt that be a wonderful christmas gift for those of us that havent truely found a game we loved as much as pre cu swg,
Hope to see you all there, well all except Felton kel ,
we can do without his downers, :p
I am super stoked at how fast this project is gaining momentum. I quit MMO’s after the CU and this is bringing me back into the fold. It’s the one game that i’ve been wishing to play since it’s public execution by SOE. The devs teams have risen to a nerw level iof professionalism and have grown into a world class team. When the project is over I think we’ll see companies begging them to come work for them.
Check out SWGEmu’s new promo video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyG9vl8u1cg