For those of you who may not know, Star Wars Galaxies was an MMORPG created based on the Star Wars universe. This game was a huge turning point for MMOs, as it was the first that allowed you to play several different roles on one character. Players were given the option to choose which professions they may like to try, including combat professions such as Teras Kasi (my favorite) and Bounty Hunter. If combat was not something you were interested in, you could choose to make an artisan character and craft items to sell to other players. These professions included Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Droid Engineer, and more. There was also the oh-so-fun Creature Handler profession, with which you could tame and train creatures as you raised them to adulthood.
Ultimately, no matter the profession, most had the goal of eventually attaining Jedi, which, in this game, meant several months to years of work. Upon release, the Jedi system included holocrons in which you were given professions to master on the path to force sensitivity. Jedi also at this point had what was called permadeath, which meant upon death they would need to start completely over... thus making it even more important that they didn't use force powers or lightsabers in public, as this would generate visibility and eventually lead to bounties placed on their heads.
I feel that not too many people got to enjoy the game before Sony decided to make "upgrades", which led to the downfall of the game. Jedi became attainable from the start, gameplay got less smooth and felt more like a first-person shooter. Overall, the game just took a gigantic dump.
To those who don't know, however, there has been hard work put in to rebuilding the game and keeping it at a level prior to Sony's downgrades. This pre-CU emulator, titled SWGemu, can be found here.
Be sure to take a look at the wonderful work these developers have put into the game so far. I would say for any MMO fan this is a definite must-see!
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