Star Wars: Galaxies -- a MMORPG by Sony Online Entertainment set in a Star Wars world -- was once a thriving online galaxy where thousands met to mold their destiny. But now it's a defunct memory of what it once was. Sony's upgrades to the game, such as the New Game Enhancements (NGE), have left only a few diehard fans of the Star Wars universe to traverse the open plains of Tatooine. Every forum post vying for the reversal of these upgrades has been met with swift and fierce expulsion.

Fear not, however, as the community's prayers have been answered. That answer is SWGEmu.

SWGEmu is being developed by a handful of programmers in their spare time. They make frequent updates on the status of the build and are kind enough to answer questions on the forums, within reason.

The version of SWG in development is Publish 12.1, something to rejoice over for many SWG players. Publish 12.1 resides before the newly added NGE, as well as the largely contested Combat Upgrade (CU), which also drastically changed the game. That's right -- SWGEmu will be "Pre-CU."

The SWGEmu team recently announced that they've gone open source, meaning the entire program is now free for public download. You may be thinking something along the lines of, "Isn't this illegal?"

The development team sure doesn't think so.

Taken from the SWGEmu FAQ:

We built the server from ground up, so what exactly can they sue for? Yes it is against the SWG EULA to reverse engineer any communications between it and the server, but that is not (to my knowledge) a legal implication.

There you'll find a community ready to relive the glory days of what Star Wars: Galaxies once was. Programmers will also find instructions on how to obtain the source code and how to submit any changes or additions you make.

To put it simply, it's about damn time. The hideous monster that is SOE's "improvements" has finally driven the community so far away that they've come around. First came forum complaints, then account cancelations, and now a revolution. Since Sony refuses to fulfill the desires of the people, the people have taken matters into their own hands, and things couldn't be better.

The SWGEmu development team is doing their hardest to recreate the game in its former glory, with an added bonus; they've decided to modify a few of the game's systems. The Jedi system is getting an overhaul.

Awesome.

I've always hated the gimmicky systems used to obtain Jedi status -- They always included a huge time sink where players either sat and did nothing or grinded away like a machine. Not that I don't agree that the path to Jedi needs to be a long and difficult one, it's just that being "long and difficult" doesn't have to be "boring and worthless."

For the unaware, the Jedi system was originally a huge grindfest. You'd perform some simple tasks for a single quest and were awarded an item. This item would tell you what profession you'd need to master in order to further your potential career as a Jedi. As a result, thousands of players found themselves leveling up professions they really didn't care for, such as musician, just to be that much closer to wielding the Force.

These players then discovered that, upon completion of their leveling task, they were assigned another and another and another, until the final one. When it was time for the final profession to be revealed to you, the item would go blank, indicating that you needed to discover for yourself which profession was next.

Now you're flying blind.

It was a mess and many players gave up, but for those who didn't, it just meant more money for SOE as countless hours were wasted leveling the wrong profession.

Blah.

After much complaining, SOE decided to change the system. Its replacement? The "Jedi Village." Players needed to complete six quests and grind the skills associated with those quests to unlock their entry to the Force. Not too bad right? Think again.

Every three weeks, four different quests were available to perform -- each quest from one of the four different sets of skill types. However, only one quest could be completed per cycle, which on average took around half an hour to complete.

So now you're sitting there, a whole half-hour into the cycle, with two weeks, six days, and 23 1/2 hours to go.

Fun times huh?

Not so much.

Anyway, now that the system is up in the air, we might just see something worthwhile -- perhaps a system that doesn't sucker you in for months at a time for no reason.

Personally I'm really excited to hear about the project and the progress that it's making. The slightest notion that I might one day be able to replay my Master Architect on Tatooine would make even the most unstable server worth playing on, don't you think?