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Star Wars Galaxies Emulator Test Server Hits Alpha
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CoffeeHedake continues "This all comes after much very bad press for SOE, after completely changing the game mechanics of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. The game has had a rocky history, with nerfs and bugs abounding, but the latest 'NGE' or New Game Enhancement patches have led to the detrimental decline in player population. SWGEMU was formed with the hopes of allowing players to 'roll back' their experiences to a Pre-'Combat Upgrade' state of the game, months before the ill-fated NGE was implemented."
"The SWGEMU will allow private, emulated game servers to be run by anyone with the hardware and bandwidth to support the load, possibly allowing customized environments, and game mechanics, as well as a 'dungeon master' control of the server, possibly even over a LAN."
"News has spread, even throughout the Sony Online Entertainment forums of SWGEMU's latest success. No word from Sony, as of yet."
That this goes the same way that the everquest server emulator went.
You might notice that if you click a link with a swgemu.com base, it redirects you to Crayola, Teletubbies or Lego's site. This is because of how the hosting service is implemented. Almost all the swgemu sites I go to require me to cut and past links into the browser and to make sure they are preceded with http://./ So for instance, paste "http://forums.swgemu.com/viewtopic.php?p=24081#24 081" into your browser and you should see the linked forum.
This is, of course, with the exception of the screenshots hosted by gamerspace or the video (which really just seems to be a transition of the stills). Note, I'm not sure if the YouTube video is the same as the one from the mirrors, I'm still downloading that.
I should also point out that the forums are tightly moderated as swgemu is not looking for trouble with legal issues regarding SOE. I think they've had tangles with them in the past and don't enjoy discussing it. I don't actively post on swgemu but am thrilled by the idea of what they are trying to create. The concern by SOE is not only stealing paying customers but also the fact that if this is open sourced, then anyone will be able to see the reverse engineering work which means a whole lot more attempts on hacking the servers.
Most importantly, there are no dates set whatsoever for this project. I am just sitting back and waiting for hopefully a chance to play a game I once knew and loved. A game that exists no more. Pre-CU SWG.
I guess it had such a huge client that most of the functionality had to be sitting on each client machine and the server required some interaction. Hopefully this reverse engineering provides a stable alternative. If you'd like to contribute, help them with the datapack done in a Wiki format! If you're interested in development for the team and know C/C++, check out this post.
My work here is dung.
That they will see their first take-down demand by EOD?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sony files lawsuit in 3..2..1..
http://religiousfreaks.com/For the two people that still have the client installed!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
...i think George Lucas's gonna sue somebody!
Well, that definitely opens SWG up for continuation for when SoE decides to flush the project, and it makes it possible to implement some of the changes that people have been clamoring for forever, unhindered by Sony's jackassed design philosophy
And it's going to make it possible for Sony's legal team to achieve their "absuive lawsuit quotient" months ahead of schedule.
Seriously. It's like they're begging to be crushed. I can't think of a company with less sense of humor than Sony, and I really can't think of anyone who protects his IP better than Lucas. They're going to combine to form some sort of mega-legal-robo-proctologist, and they're not going to stop until they get to the back of the SWGEMU team's teeth.
I guess I'm happy and sad for them. They're like happy little lemmings.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
When I read that title, all I could see was eight well dressed lawyers also wearing the garb of the village people dancing to the tune of YMCA, but instead shouting "DCMA!" "I make use of the DCMA!"
To be honest, a big fat SO WHAT.... truth is, SOE screwed the game over so hardcore that even die-hard star wars fans have already moved on. It's splendid that they're creating an emulator, kudos, BUT I seriously doubt they'll see the fan support required to grow further than a curiosity to gamers.
Those of you weeping over this, try http://www.eve-online.com/ Sure it's nothing like SWG, but it's a MMORPG that actually seems to give a damn about it's userbase and isn't catering to the largest $$ segment of the population.... Not that I'm bitter or anything! (Rest In Peace SWG.... Rest in Peace).
May the Emulator be with you!
Unless Sony's legal department shows up with the police, then you may want to ditch the Emulator instead.
Imagine the interesting content and rulesets that could be created by people not bound by the revenue-focus of Sony.
I am curious if the developers have done anything to avoid suffering the same fate as bnetd, which the courts found to have violated the DMCA and the EULA. Blizzard's main complaint appears to have been that bnetd did not verify CD keys. Does the same issue exist here?
Its just like Ep 4 ANH. Lucas is the Emperor and Sony is Darth Vader. Ironic and funny that the shoes on the other foot now.
*Waves hand*
These aren't the emulated servers you're looking for.
Allowed by lawyers, this will not be.
The lead programmer for the SWGEMU (Star Wars Galaxies Emulator) Team was found dead in his home today. Coronary exams reveal that he died of acute and forceful asphyixiation but no sign of breaking and entering was found. Police were baffled but after an anonymous tip from a young moisture farmer they are now on the lookout for a man in black who is said to breathe very loudly.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
i played this game several times for a couple months at a time (launch, during the CU, during the NGE) and all they did was make it suck more and more as time went on. sony killed the star wars mmorpg, let it be dead.
Reverse engineering a SWG server is like staring at someone's poop to guess what they had for dinner.
I am not entirely sure the correctness (and want someone to clarify if I am incorrect) of these next few statements. Purchasing the game is different than playing online in the SWG servers. Some may find there is no distinction, however Sony sells the game, and bundles a FREE 1-2 month pass to the servers. The game is sold separately. From a contractual standpoint, does this not mean the consumer has ALREADY paid for liscensing costs for SWG? The server does not manipulate the actual Lucas Arts IP, mearly gameplay aspects. Adding to the fact that this should fall under "fair use" exemptions, so long as the core Lucas IP is not messed with. Sony mearly provides some algorithm development and a data storage/serving SERVICE for a FEE. Supposing it was all clean room reverse engineered, as stated above, so long as the actual data on the install CD's (or updated to whatever patch #) are not altered, we should be in the clear. The instructions residing on the server are probably not covered by copyright. Am I wrong?
It took them this long to get it to Alpha because they couldn't figure out how to implement the Sony root kit inside the original (joke, joke).
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
After all their pissing consumers off, this would be an ideal time to make nice and put a foot forward to explore user-run servers as a wave of new interest, rather than an assault upon their business model.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Everybody recall BNETD?
If you want anybody to be able to reverse-engineer things for compatibility purposes then you better speak up right now. Otherwise this will be smacked down as hard as BNETD was.
And BNETD wasn't even substituting for a pay-to-play service so you can imaging what Lucas The Hutt's lawyers will do on this one.
You thought Vivendi was bad...
"Bah!" - Dogbert
The only defence I got for my taste is that it was a unique game, the above poster could have simply moved to WoW and found the game he wanted. Or even Everquest 2.
As for the grind accusation, well that is partially true. If you wanted to be a jedi pre-nge you had an ungodly grind ahead of you.
For the longest time in SWG the way to unlock jedi was to master a number of random and unknown proffession to master. This lead to a lot of people grinding to jobs they didn't want. For instance you character might require you to master chef and commando and doctor. Not exactly a logical combination.
This unlock method did give the game something unique though. It had lots of experienced players in the end game giving up their high levels in job X and starting over in Y. This made for a very dynamic game with more people in mid level then you will find in other MMO's.
But they changed this and unlocking Jedi became a pure XP grind. You had to convert your various XP points into jedi XP points at a bad exchange rate. This meant a couple of things. First nobody grinding for jedi bothered with learning new jobs. Because of various game mechanics people just grinded the easiest proffesion to master and then grinded XP like mad. They needed a truly unholy amount of XP too. Far more in fact then you needed before to grind different proffesions. And while before you got to experience different types of playing you now had to grind XP in one job.
So before to unlock jedi you played a scout, then became a dancer and then went on to craft weapons for lets say two months. To unlock Jedi after the village was added you just grinded XP in a combat class for six months. Whoo!
Ah! but you don't need to grind a Jedi at all do you? Well no, and before the village if you avoided the jedi/holo grind you could have a really fun game playing the mixed job you wanted and if you wanted a change, well there were plenty of holo grinders around to make sure that the game was very welcome of job changers.
SWG was far more a sandbox game and the holo grind that a lot of people choose helped in that aspect by supplying the game with a load of mid level players. Imagine a WoW or EQ where 50% of the players are NOT at the top level. This would mean that you no longer need to race for the top. That it is the mid level game that is most important.
Sadly SOE never managed the game well, all the "special" stuff was very high level indeed. It ain't just SOE fault, I don't really know of any MMO that adds extra mid level content.
But the NGE changed all this. It is now far more like an EQ or WoW game in that you choose a proffesion and then just ride it to the top and sit there running the same high level content until a new expansion comes out wich adds a few levels.
Offcourse some people prefer it but they are not "right" they just got different tastes. My beef with them is that they already got plenty of games for them. Why did SWG have to become another run off the mill MMO like all the others.
Imagine if I said that America Football would be better if you couldn't touch the balls with your hands, except the goalie, and the goals should be smaller and the balls should be round. Would you not say to me, go play soccer?
SOE turned SWG into a WoW wannabe probably because they wanted the WoW subcriber numbers. That is understandable except that it didn't work and never could work. First of WoW is already WoW and trying to out WoWing WoW is as likely as say out Coca-Colaing Coca-Cola. There is a market for clones but if you really want to stand a chance you usually are better of making a product that is unique or at least offers a safe heaven for people who do not enti
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The CU and NGE versions bled that potential away. When SOE decided back in 2004 to scrap the core game rather than to fix bugs and inconsitencies and add content to it, they destroyed SWG's growth, and laid waste to the best MMO engine ever produced.
/target Smedley /rude /db
In Pre-CU SWG, you could NEVER SPEND A MINUTE in combat and still be just as vital a part of the game community as a Jedi Master. It had a combat system and UI that was awesome, you spent time on strategy, not toolbar watching and button mashing. It had no levels, only skills.
The CU took the heart out but left the body mostly intact. It was a boring and slow combat engine and nerfed player power to the point of requiring a group to do mundane things like level grinding. Non combat roles got marginalized at that time as anti decay kits and uber loot rewards from the expansions replaced crafted items.
The NGE then destroyed the body, taking away the skill system completely and reducing 32 mix and match professions to 9 static ones. Jedi ceased to be a long term game aspiration and became selectable on startup. There ceased to be anything at all to work towards.
Throught ALL of this we have been screaming for classic servers, which would make the pre-Cu vets like me very happy. No, says SOE, play THIS or else.
Well, even John Smedley admitted on the SWG forums that SWG players have been voting with their feet and that subscriber numbers have been falling since the NGE. Their response has been to shove half assed versions of stuff taken away since NGE back into the game slowly but surely. Rumor has it after the latest combat revision (yes, they are STILL changing the combat system every 6 months) that subscriber levels dropped even more, and consequently, the lead developer recently posted about bringing back turn based combat with a target lock (like all other MMO's use).
So now we have the pre-Cu emulator. The time has come for SOE to either give us our game back, or else, we will take it out of their hands. The Emu project is about to go open source, and no matter what they do with lawyers, just like DeCSS they won't be able to stop it once that code is out there.
Corporatism != Free Market
Please don't tell me this is true? You've wasted your braintime on the most milked franchise in the history of mankind only to be sued to chunky kibbles by Sony/LucasArts/YouNameIt the instant this goes gold? Please, no, don't tell me this is true.
If only they had put their efforts into Planeshift to get it on with a viable open source alternative to WoW and GuildWars. But, no, they had to ripp a commercial product. Great. Wonderfull.
What a waste of brainpower.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I played UO for 7 years, and not once did I pay for it, except when I found the CD in a bargin bin (4.97!). From shards with 26 people to shards with 2000 (In Por Yelm/RunUO), hell I even was Co-Admin of another. And as far as I know, alot of shards are still going quite strong. But I really think that UO was the exception to most free shards programs. The emu was created very quickly, and the fact that all the client had todo was change their login.cfg made it very easy. Also the fact that UO was the "first" of it's kind, alot of the fanbase (that didn't defect to EQ) finally got fed-up with Origin when they started going "Trammy" and pretty much destroyed the PVP system helped the move to free shards. Good to hear that abbreviation though, it's been a while ;P
Fractured Element
As was said, have you _played_ SWG? SOE has been just about the most oppressive and heavy-handed publisher to date. Their approach has always been along the lines of "fuck you, we're Sony and we're right, and you're probably just some whining idiot and a cheater to boot." Deleting any threads even mentioning a game shortcoming, banning people for unfair reasons like unknowingly being tipped with duped money (as if they could even know or refuse), beaming people into space when they had an in-game protest, etc, etc, etc.
Now OK, I know that US constitution amendments don't apply to Sony's private property, but it's hard to not draw some parallels, especially (like the GP post was doing it) in a sarcastic way. It's perfectly valid to say that someone is acting in a dictatorial manner, or compare them to a dictator (e.g., Palpatine), especially in a parody context, if they did half the shit that SOE did. Even though, technically, they're not the ruler of a country or galaxy, so they can't technically be a dictator.
At the very least, Sony shows the same respect for other people that Palpatine and Darth Vader showed. Sure, they're not in a position to physically murder anyone (and get away with it), but they're just as sociopathic anyway. The only difference is that it's the corporate kind of a psychopath rather than the axe-murderer (or red-lightsaber-murderer) kind. But that's pretty much it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
They probably _are_ full of shit. It's just some funky way of bragging that their game is too complex to be emulated. And, let's face it, bragging is half of what the SWG team is all about. They're too busy polishing their own statue to even fix the damn game. So whether they'll actually make a job offer or not is pretty much irrelevant there. The main point was just to brag.
Mind you, with something like this on one's CV, one can probably get hired anywhere anyway. So it's not like SOE is their only option, or like that dev was saying anything we didn't already know.
I can see SOE trying to hire them just to give them a non-compete aggreement that makes them stop working on the emu, though... Then again, nah, that wouldn't be Sony. They'll just try to sue them into oblivion.
And finally, even if they did get a job at SOE, don't set your hopes too high. It's not like some netcode programmer will be allowed to give much input in game design issues, especially issues that would require getting past some continent-sized egos there. I just can't see it going too well, trying to tell them that you know better then them how to design a game that player would like.
I don't know... I've never worked for them, so I can't say first hand, but seeing the kind of half-arsed run-of-the-mill stuff they churn as content, SOE doesn't strike me as the kind of company that values personal creativity and vision. (And if you read some Penny Arcade rants about EQ2, they seem to be left with the same impression, albeit in their case about the artwork.) Their games are chock-full of such mass-produced illogical crap as getting bone by chopping wood (EQ2), killing deers and bears to find which of them stole a manuscript (EQ2), a sniper scope for a sword (SWG), and other stuff that just makes you wonder. I just can't see someone implementing that kind of idiocy unless they're (A) completely retarded, or (B) just a jaded cog in a corporate machine, that gave up long ago on trying to make sense or to "rock the boat". And it's probably not A.
I mean, seriously, everywhere else you'd get the scripter implementing that coming to the designer and saying "excuse me? did I get this right? I'm supposed to code a quest that has a sniper scope for a _sword_ as a reward? And how? We don't even have the code to attach anything to any weapon." That they went and just coded it half-arsedly as a strength potion that just looks like a sniper scope, makes me really think about it. It's the kind of half-arsed job that people usually do when they're just jaded about their work, and gave up on trying to be anything other than a brainless slave to the wage. It's the kind of half-arsed job you do when you realized long ago that noone gives a damn about your input, thinking isn't rewarded, and you just want to get it over with and set that task as "completed", go home and forget about it all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.