(Click the images for full size)

I Remember When...

We used to goof around waiting for the shuttle at the startport... To be honest... the occasinaly 10 minutes of waiting time didn't feel that long with such great community...

We sat at the Med-Center getting our "black wound bars" treated. It was a great moment to debrief the group after a hunt or raid on a enemy base . I always wanted to try out the Doctor profession, but sadly I never did.

In the beginning we had to run everywhere, because there was no mounts or vehicles in the game yet. We were so fresh to the game that we needed to run in groups otherwise we got our butts kicked by the vicious Squills.

We formed up hunting groups and each group could be filled by 20 players. There were no levels, no matter if you played a crafter/entertainer/doctor/newly started toon/vet toon... as long as you brought a gun with you were welcome to join a group, we were all there in the mix. It was some crazy and fun days.

While we were hunting, we sometimes had to ask a scout or a ranger to put down camp sites for us. In the camp doctors and entertainers could heal our wounds and it was a welcomed short downtime for RL stuff(a snack or a bio). We also teached each other new skills as we gained xp and filled our skillboxes or handing over spare equipment to people in need. The scout/Ranger often used the time to craft some traps or new camps.  Some of the funniest moments could be found in the chatter going on in these camps. Yeah we just sat there talking sometimes and yeah it was fun.

The major citys was bustling with commerce and goofy stuff. Sweet deals with the merchants at the bazaar or standing in line waiting to buy a buff from the Doctor outside the starports. Sometimes whole citys was like battlefields with Rebels and Imperials blasting away at each other. It was always something going on in the citys, they felt alive.

We had a pretty basic UI, but I think it was alright.

I sometimes remember a game called "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided". It's gone now. Sometimes I really miss it, other times I just remember and smile.

Good times! Thanks for posting Niim!

Thanks for posting dude.

Now I'm all emo... (Nerd inorite)

Thank you! Yeah great times indeed. :)

Anyone else want to share a memory or a picture?

(Forgot to mention that non of these pictures are taken by me, I just googled them. But I sure remember the feeling of the great community!)

Originally posted by Krilster

Thanks for posting dude.

Now I'm all emo... (Nerd inorite)

Hehe, go for his mind.   When more than two bars meant something.   I miss my purple bar.    

Too bad I got nothing to share, all my good pics went bye bye two rebuilds ago.     Nothing like your first mmo and SWG was my first.     Too bad they messed up a good thing, but hey nothing lasts forever and who knew its was only going to last a couple years.   

Anyway Im excited about the new V series coming out on Tuesday on ABC.   SyFi channel is playing the old V movies this sunday.     Hope its like the old one, that sure messed up my mind when I was 8.     Lizards coming to get you.....

I had one of the if not the first master ranger on Tarq my guild would send me running out ahead of a guild event to set up a camp for a meeting location they would also become the fall back healing location when the endor wildlife got a bit overwhelming, of course this was when the endor wildlife could take out 15 people lol.  I always enjoyed the social aspect of the camps especially before vehicles were added.  

I wish I could find all of my screenshots and I would post some, I'm pretty sure I backed up hundreds of them to a CD ages ago but I cant for the life of me find them, was some great ones from one of our beach parties too, my purple Trandoshan TKM dancing in his hot pants while the Band played on the beach (the band we actually hired, they were part of a full on RP guild of crafters and entertainers that we knew), good times indeed.

Yeh the whole instant travel in JTLS, moving the waits to 5 mins aswel really had a negative impact on the game and the duels and chatting in the starports went. The no levels was greta because your friends could come into the game like EVE Online and play with you straight away without having to grind up to get to the good part. Loved pre vehicles and post mounts because everyone had pets and their animations and sounds gave the cities life. The death penalty was great aswel cause it was very social and brought the community together aswel as fearing death so things seemed harder.

Now you walk into the game and every city is empty and everyones fast traveling everywhere and you just get people where you start now.

Wow this takes me back!

You could truly play the game any way you wanted, and the worlds felt so huge before vehicles were introduced.

I remember training my Master Doctor at the Kor Vella Med Center on Corellia.   Chatting with everyone while they were sitting around waiting to be healed.  I made some excellent friends there.  Even knew a couple that got married in real life that met there.

My guild building our first city on Lok, and then our new one on Dantooine.

Good times.

those are some great pics you posted there.

brings back some excellent memories. i really wished i had taken the time back in those days to take some screenshots.

Man, it still gets me all choked up. Good times.

Reminds me how I love this game's art design. Some say "realistic", but really it's not, not that much. It's stylized with a good deal of retro-futuristic design (see the futuristic illustrations from the first half of 20th century)... And it does feel pleasantly like a graphic novel (if you read the right ones ).

I wrote this way back when:

We were Explorers, Adventurers and Soldiers
The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group's
"Planet Side" testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over
8-10 different games.

I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to here the accounts of
things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to
be a part of this.

I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star
ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and
nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The
Corellian plains and the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great
place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.

The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying
the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc...

The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.

The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund ]the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.

Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.

Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went "hot" hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.

Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad [align=justify]thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.

I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few knew I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the [align=justify]tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.

Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.

Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and
just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At
one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing,
when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before
she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more "Star Warsy" scene then a fight breaking out
in a Star Wars bar.

You didn't have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert.
NPC's could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town.
For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time to be extra careful. But if laying low
was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your
factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun
Bunker, etc... The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.

New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend's lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.
You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours... and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.

Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. [/align]Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.

For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm's End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend's list and log off.
Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times.
 

Hey Robb! Great seeing you again :)

Some words/phrases that come to mind for SWG while in its prime.

1. Unmatched

2. Top - notch

3. Unique

4. One of  akind

5. Exciting

6. Simplistic

7. Only game to keep my interest in years...

Thank-you for those wonderful screen shots Niim. The screen shots I had from Pre-CU are all gone due to upgrades, reloads , new computers, etc. Had I only known what was coming....

it is hard to believe that the game era we reminisce about was 4 1/2+ years ago. The relationships forged during those golden days have faded with time, and I now often wonder what has become of my old in-game friends and guildmates. SWG (Pre-CU) was not my first mmo nor my last, but it certainly was my favorite by far.

/salute all SWG vets

Very good times indeed..

A long, long time ago, in a SWG far, far away...

Did that one pick actually have a "mountain dewback" in it???  LOL!  I never caught that when I played!

Originally posted by Nikopol

Reminds me how I love this game's art design. Some say "realistic", but really it's not, not that much. It's stylized with a good deal of retro-futuristic design (see the futuristic illustrations from the first half of 20th century)... And it does feel pleasantly like a graphic novel (if you read the right ones ).

 

they definitely had the music right, too.  I remember when you'd enter a big city in your speeder, there'd be that big grandiose long shot city entry music from the films...

...and when the sun would set, Lukes theme would trigger. 

It's weird because I looked at my Collector's Edition Concept Artbook the other month when I had a free come back trial to SWG. I logged in and looked at all the old art and it matches perfectly with alot of effort put into it. You see side by side comparisons to the art and it looks perfect. However seeing everything added like post 2005 and it's like the art team have put in no effort what so ever. Everything is rushed, reused over and over again and dungeons are the same old now, the esact same cave or bunker with npcs standing in them wearing random clothes and a few boxes placed about. Seeing Hoth and that with the big monster thing looks like an existing mob with a white paint coat and Hoth looks like Tatooine with a white paint coat.

Kash and Mustafar aswel are just so poor and you have that HK47 fight wich is basically a z shaped room with mobs standing in it. Then you look at like Jabbas Palace or anything from World of Warcraft and wonder why they can't put that much effort into things.

Instead all the art seems to have gone into TCG and the loot cards and even now they're putting less effort into that because the first round had nice models and they've been declining in quality as they've rushed the expansions out.

Thats why I wont buy another SOE game cause they do the same thing for all their games.

Allthough I did play SWG briefly before the NGE , I guess I did,nt really get into it enough to understand fully , but heck I do really feel for you guys .... its all kinda very sad even though it's only a game, it obviously meant a whole lot to a lot of good honest gamers .. :(

Back when games were a break from reality, and you could go in and make another reality.

This doesn't happen anymore, there is no making a mark in a game world anymore, it's just all about how fast can you get your purplez.

User Deleted. Too bad. I was on Euro-Chim during those days and it's the last mmo I gave two pents for...Good times. From what I understand my old guild is doing well with the server merge last month...I also understand my friends list would still be empty. I have also read the "We were explorers" post a gazillion times, quoted in many forums.

All this for a ten minute wait. Somehow, it seemed to work for a few of us...