Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided

Star Wars Galaxies is in many ways your typical massively multiplayer online role-playing game. You take the role of a player character caught up somehow in the galactic civil war between Empire and Rebellion, at a time right after the movie Star Wars (but before Empire Strikes Back). Players can, over time, join either side overtly (that is, openly), covertly (your allegiance is hidden normally), or just be a neutral. Many races, body types, faces, and other characteristics are available for those to custom build their personas. Six basic professions are available to choose from, after which players can move on to hybrid or elite professions once enough you accumulate enough skill, depending on the profession.

The skill/profession system is one of the nicest things about the game and really defines the character. You have a grand total of 250 skill points to spend on, and each profession has 4 branches or ladders to ascend with. Each branch has a further 4 levels, so a profession has a total of 18 levels to spend the skill points on (the novice level, 16 internal levels, and the master level). Only experience points allow you to ascend in level for that particular skill, so killing something with a rifle gives you Rifle experience, and harvesting a creature gives you Scout experience.

With only 250 skill points to spend, you can only gain so many skills and master so many professions. The nice thing is that once you tire of one skill branch, you can "surrender" your skill points and go train on something else. So if you get sick of being a Master Scout, you can surrender your skill points in that profession and go train to be a Medic. It does take a long time to get to the top, which is nice.

Star Wars Galaxies is interesting because you don't have to just kill things to advance - the game is well suited for those that want to be just medics, or to build things, or to entertain other players by dancing or playing music, etc. This requires a nice balancing act to make it all interesting, and for the most part it is, though some professions seem either under- or over-balanced, sometimes to extremes. The other problem is that, though distant, you can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. That is to say, there's a skill "end-game" that is clearly defined, and when you get there, what else? Sure, you can always change professions, but there is only so much you can really do. One hopes Sony can keep players intrigued with new things.

Of course combat does play a huge role in the game - it pretty much fuels everything else - the player-driven economy, the medics, the entertainers, etc. Combat itself is somewhat simplified; target a creature or NPC and attack. Given your skill, you can also execute special moves in a queue, as well as other actions. It works but it isn't particularly innovative.

Player vs. player combat involves attacking the other faction's players that are "overt," either by choice or because they became overt when they openly aid an overt in their faction. Factions also have battlefields, designated areas where pretty much anything goes. I like the overt/covert system generally, but it leads to a lot of frustration and feeling that there probably is a much better way of doing it, particularly as the entire covert/overt system seems to be full of bugs.

Bugs are part of the reason why Galaxies is generally disappointing; there's a whole lot of them. The first few days after launch was disastrous to say the least, and the game is quite literally a system hog. 512MB of RAM is simply not enough in busy cities. Many important game systems like inventory and chat still have major issues.

What's more disappointing is really how so little of the Star Wars feel is actually in the game. You can only travel between a handful of planets - and you never really get into space. On the planets themselves, cities are squashed into an area less less than a dozen or so kilometers apart - that's it. I guess the rest of the planets are uninhabited. What's worse, the galactic civil war as backdrop is simply that. While there is the Empire and the Rebellion and you can join them, there's no overriding battle or strategy - no end-game. Just a bunch of guys that decide to get together and go "attack" another town or fight each other on a designated battlefield. Lastly, where are the Jedi? Supposedly, there are ways to become one in the game, but very difficult to get to that level. That is, if Jedi are in the game at all. Maybe it'll just be secretly introduced in a patch in a few months.

There's no question that Star Wars Galaxies is a tremendous game filled with potential. The problem is that the starting basis for that potential was set way too low, in an apparent effort to get it out for the summer. It can still be fun, but it still has a long way to go before being truly great.

The player to player interactions are amazing. You have such freedom to become what you want. From a merchant to Bounty Hunter to Bio-engineer. Or tame creatures, sell spice or slice and computer system. Drop a rancor with a group of friends or storm an Imperial outpost alone. HOkey religions and ancient weapons can be no match for your blaster or you can become the galaxy foremost architect. Explore strange new worlds or live it up in the big city. This game allows you to choose your own path. You can be a pure fighter or merchant or mix it up and become whatever you want.

And with the addition of monthly story lines characters who have sided with the Rebels or Imperials can actually have an effect on the course of the cival war. (A noticable effect)

So many new things are going to added to this game as time goes on. Player cities, vehicles and mounts. Who wouldn't want to fly a swoop or ride a dewback...?

Plus the big expansion, SPACE.

I totally recommend this game to any one.