Unfortunately, March was another month where not a huge amount has been happening in the world of Star Wars Galaxies content development. I’m not going to complain of course, because these are volunteer projects after all, and I appreciate that many of the servers out there are cooking up additions which are pushing the game in extreme and unexpected ways.
As usual, in this month’s roundup, I’ll be running over all the past month’s news from the world of SWG, but as there are no big splashy stories to cover I thought I’d take a moment to shed some light on another important aspect of the game’s continued success.
Events have always been the backbone of what makes Star Wars Galaxies special. Back on the live servers Pex (aka Jason Ryan) and the events team helped hundreds of player events come to life every month across SWG‘s 25 servers, and later on, the Storyteller and Chronicle Master systems handed players the controls to do it themselves.
Whether it was a seasonal celebration, a roleplaying storyline being told, or just a good ol’ fashioned cantina crawl, SWG‘s events were arguably what held the community together through the long months of content droughts and controversial changes.
That legacy continues on the Star Wars Galaxies rogue servers and it’s something that richly deserves to be celebrated. As such I’ve highlighted some of the events which servers hosted throughout the past month, as well as looked ahead to those which have been announced for the near future.
An Empire in Flames (Pre-CU)
The Empire in Flames server adds to its extensive repertoire of immersion building quality of life features with a new ability to activate and deactivate craftable schematics. When activated, a hologram of the craftable item will display above the schematic, making this not just a useful change in terms of actually being able to see what the item is you’ll be creating, but as a decoration for home and shop owners.
The team also reminded players that their annual Egg Hunt is just around the corner, with the Sixth Anniversary Celebration to follow in May. This will involve “showcasing a week of player-driven events in addition to the server-wide Riddle Hunt” – no doubt there will be some fun rewards for players to seek out in both events as well.
For a completely unique event offering, EiF staff member Mina hosts a weekly Pazaak Tournament at The Idiot’s Array in Eventide Trading Outpost on Dantooine (/way -3690 2665). Each week will set you back 50k credits to enter, with the victor taking home the pot. Players are encouraged to attend in character, with those not wanting to partake in the games welcome to enjoy the atmosphere and ambient roleplay.
Beyond (NGE)
The Beyond server has its own regular weekly event – Friday Night Fights. This PvP event rallies players to the battlefield as they compete in a GCW activity suitable to the number of players who attend. This may be classic SWG content such as Restuss and Battlefields, or it may be Beyond exclusive content such as Hoth Ball (think SWTOR‘s football-inspired Huttball but on Hoth), or the Battle for Theed Palace invasion event.
Other regularly held events similarly work to gather players together to create group content, such as Beyond‘s Legendary World Bosses, and endgame quests such as those found on Mustafar and in the Quarantine Zone. A recent player event gathered players together for a factional Conflict in Kashyyyk Space. Only player-crafted ship parts were permitted for use in this event, and those who took part earned an exclusive painting to hang in their homes in remembrance of the battle.
It’s not all war over on Beyond though. In a more lighthearted diversion, the Where’s Wampa event had the community combing the galaxy to find the hidden beast and earn the title of Wampa Stompa.
Dark Rebellion (D20)
Being a roleplay server, the entire gameplay experience of Dark Rebellion is, in a sense, one big player event. The server’s alternate timeline – one in which the Empire defeated the Rebellion at Endor – gives players and dungeon masters alike the ability to tell fresh stories with grand consequences.
Although I’ve yet to jump onto the server myself I tried to do a bit of digging into what has been happening in the course of Dark Rebellion‘s first year of operation. Piecing together story fragments from the forums and Discord I saw mentions of Rebel splinter groups and an ongoing bout of trouble between a faction of Mandalorians and the Imperial occupying forces on Tatooine. There were also plenty of deep-cut references to Legends Star Wars stories such as the Zann Consortium from the 2006 RTS Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption.
This server would always rely on finding at minimum a core group of players who would embrace its unique gameplay offerings. Thankfully that seems to have happened. With lead server developer Borrie BoBaka hard at work building more locations for those players to enjoy it’ll be interesting to see how Dark Rebellion‘s storyline plays out in the years to come.
Evolve (Hybrid NGE)
SWG‘s newest rogue server pushed out four patches in March, the most significant being Patch 8: Class Revamp. Refining the server’s hybrid class system, Patch 8 attempts to further distinguish the many expertise trees which players can dip into. Based around the CU’s many class choices, the folks at Evolve have their work cut out trying to make each one play differently.
The other three patches focus on quality of life changes and bug fixes.
Infinity (Pre-CU)
A slew of patches hit the Infinity server in March, with big changes coming to the server’s handling of player cities. After six years of operation there’s need for a little bit of a clean-up, so inactive cities are being prepped for demolition to make way for new ones. There’s also a new sixth city tier – Megalopolis.
The team at Infinity are also prepping for their May 4th celebrations, with applications now open for a faction-based Best Dressed City Contest. The winner is to be announced on the big date with a 135 million credit prize up for grabs.
Legends (NGE)
No new patches from Legends this month, but it’s now confirmed that the second part of the Jedi Theme Park has entered internal testing.
The team hosted another of its Novice Player Events in March, helping to give new players a foot up in the game. These events are held every three months, so if you’ve been waiting to try out the server keep your eyes peeled for the next one as it’s a great opportunity to acquire a few helpful items, and get acquainted with some newbie-friendly guilds.
April 15th sees the return of the Battle at the Bastion event. This is the second time that the event has been held, with teams of five duking it out to take home 250 million credits among other prizes.
The long-held tradition of the Galactic Homeshow also continues on the Legends server. Submissions for April’s Homeshow are now open, and as there’s no theme this month any abode is welcome to enter. The last winner, announced at the start of March, was Pixidale’s fabulously Ewok Festival of Love-themed Bespin apartment – an incredible example of what can be done with these Legends exclusive homes.
Restoration (CU)
Since launching last year the Restoration server has seen a healthy RP community flourish, with weekly events being hosted that welcome new players wanting to drop in on the action. Other events hosted in the past month include a community night, dice tournaments, and Entertainer performances.
March also saw Restoration opening up The Droid Factory 2 instance alongside a sizeable patch of bug fixes.
Sentinel’s Republic (Pre-CU)
One of SWG‘s longest-running rogue servers, Sentinel’s Republic has a thriving regular events schedule. Their community manager Coz organizes a host of different events so that something is going on almost every weekend. In March alone players could take part in an escape house, the Never Underestimate a Droid dungeon crawl, a hitman event, and the Pirates of Pandath city invasion. Each event is story-driven to help immerse player’s in the activities.
April already has an Easter event lined up (Sunday 8th) where players can expect a treasure hunt, a world boss, and ‘bunny chaos’. The very next day the Searching for Gree Tah event will have players scouring the galaxy for Jabba’s runaway musician.
Sunrunner II (Pre-CU)
In some very sad news, server admin Takh announced that the Sunrunner II server is set to close later this month. As one of the SWG rogue server communities’ most cohesive and ambitious visions of what could be accomplished with the game, it’s a shame to see the server meeting such an unceremonious end, but alas, that’s the nature of the beast.
The door isn’t closed completely on a Sunrunner III, but it seems unlikely that it would be coming anytime soon. If you want to check out SRII‘s original planets and content before it vanishes you have until around April 23rd to do so. I certainly recommend it.
In other news…
- ProjectSWG (NGE) announced that they’ve begun work on implementing the space portion of the game to their emulator. Hopefully, the final release includes the atmospheric flight and player capital ships that they’ve teased.
- Resurgence (NGE) released Game Update 6 which mostly consists of bug fixes and QoL changes. Oh, and you can also get a House Targaryen banner if you ever wanted to indulge your fantasies of a Star Wars x Game of Thrones collab.
April Fools shenanigans…
- An Empire in Flames (Pre-CU) had players butting … legs with the mechanical remains of Darth Maul.
- Legends (NGE) made the galaxy a more dangerous place by unleashing a hoard of overpowered nasties.
- Restoration (CU) announced that players no longer had to worry about their midi-chlorian counts as they were doing away with the Jedi profession.