Who could’ve imagined the current state of Star Wars Galaxies emulation back when the game shut down in 2011? Oh sure we had the early-in-development SWGEmu, which at least gave us the ability to run around our favourite worlds and experience the ambient thrill of being in the Star Wars universe, but from my perspective at least, the prospect of the game once more being truly playable just didn’t seem at all likely.
Alas, here we are in 2023 – where handfuls of content-rich servers have been running for years. New communities have been established, and many players now have characters which are older than the ones they had on the official servers.
As the volunteers who operate these servers look ahead not only to the new year, but the years to come, many have decided it’s time to bolster their hardware.
We saw Beyond upgrade their server hardware in September last year, and now Legends have done so as well. The Empire in Flames server have similarly announced their intentions to purchase new hardware later this year.
With a gameplay experience that’s smoother than ever and such a rich variety of different server types to choose from, it’s becoming harder to argue that in some ways this isn’t the best shape Star Wars Galaxies has ever been in.
Usually I like to arrange the servers in these roundups by listing the most exciting updates first. This month there’s been a whole lot of updates, but no major developments, with many servers instead focusing on events such as the annual Ewok Festival of Love, as well as the aforementioned hardware upgrades. As such, I’ve listed each server alphabetically this month.
Beyond (NGE)
Having kicked off the year by releasing their new player species update – one of their longstanding major goals – the Beyond server gave players a glimpse of what’s coming next in their 2023 roadmap.
The two major highlights are a revamp of their three Legendary World Bosses, which will include new mechanics and new loot, as well as an upgraded version of the Marauder Theme Park with a new Heroic alongside it.
The server also celebrates its fourth anniversary in April, and a major celebration has been announced to honour the occasion. Players can expect new quests, events, and items to mark the occasion, as well as a “Refresh of exclusive Beyond content”.
In the meantime, the server has been bolstering its existing daily event schedule, making it easier than ever to get immersed in the community and experience the exclusive content which the server has to offer.
Dark Rebellion (D20)
The tabletop RPG-inspired SWG server Dark Rebellion celebrated its first anniversary in February. Server admin Borrie BoBaka took to Discord to reflect on the progress made so far in establishing the project’s foundations, as well as look ahead at what’s still to come.
As has been teased previously, server-unique versions of planets such as Corellia, Mandalore, Nal Hutta, and Korriban are on the cards, alongside droids and fleet battles.
Evolve (NGE)
New year, new SWG server. Evolve is an NGE-based server which has just entered public testing. Those interested can hop on to sample their hybrid profession system allowing players to pick skills from multiple expertise trees that mimic the skill system from the Pre-CU. You can also choose from an expanded pool of player species.
Legends (NGE)
Following several days of downtime, the Legends server sprung back to life with new hardware and two concurrently running holiday events.
The Ewok Festival of Love returned and as usual, the team are pulling out all the stops to ensure that there’s more to the event than simple dailies. A string of events throughout the duration of the event will culminate at The Heart/Breaker Gala (11 March). Players will decide whether the event is in support of the Ewoks or their oppressors the Blackscale Trandoshans.
Over in Mos Entha, The Days of the Aned-Kla festival has returned to the server for the first time since it debuted two years ago. New rewards for this year include a bust of a Togorian Jedi and a decorative tribal drum. To celebrate the server’s seventh anniversary players can also enjoy double XP from March 3rd to March 6th.
Yet another big patch this month delivered a host of quality-of-life changes and bug fixes.
Sentinel’s Republic (Pre-CU)
The long-running Sentinel’s Republic server hit a milestone this month with the release of its Chapter 3 update ‘Rise of the Sentinels‘. The highlight of this patch is its integration of the latest SWGEmu codebase – no mean feat considering the amount of custom content and features that the server offers.
The other major inclusion in this update is the Mandal Motors Theme Park which takes place on the server’s custom planet of Mandalore. Sadly the Theme Park has been taken down for extra testing and fixes, but it shouldn’t be long before it’s back online again.
The server also has an escape house event coming up on Sunday 5th March.
In other news…
- Infinity (Pre-CU) casually went and dropped another 3 patches full of quality-of-life adjustments and bug fixes again this past month.
- Restoration (CU) published two patches full of bug fixes, as well as activating the Droid Army instance and phase II of their Jedi unlock process.
- Sunrunner II (Pre-CU) sent out a short message reassuring their playerbase that all the major systems from their roadmap are still in development and that smaller patches would be more frequent in the meantime.
- SWGEmu (Pre-CU) published their end of year report which reiterated their intentions of bringing the Jump to Lightspeed expansion to the server.
In modding…
- Version 2.0.0 of the MSH/MGN Blender add-on has been released by its creator NoStyleGuy.
- SWGLegends community member sniper_fox22 has created a mod which transforms the Naboo N-1 starfighter into the modified version used by Din Djarin in The Book of Boba Fett and season 3 of The Mandalorian. He’s also working on another mod to bring the Razor Crest into the game.
In the media…
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