Star Wars Galaxies was truly ahead of its time 20 years ago as a trailblazer for incredibly deep open-ended sandbox MMORPGs that don't rely on quests and gear grinds to keep players interested. Instead, the game was beloved by players for allowing them to exist in the galaxy far, far away in any fashion they choose: players could be bounty hunters, dancers, pilots, interior decorators, or master weaponsmiths. When it was essentially replaced by the more modern-styled Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2011, the genre lost one of its most compelling sandboxes.
In the years since, volunteer-operated servers have been reviving this classic Star Wars MMO with Legends being one of the most popular. Although Legends is focused on staying true to the spirit of Galaxies in its waning days, the server has also continued to develop original content and updates almost as if the game had never shut down. In an interview with Game ZXC, Legends project administrator Lokee went in-depth about the team's vision for the server, their relationship with the player senate, and how the project has steadily grown over the last seven years. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Legends strives to recapture Star Wars Galaxies as it was in its final days, but also introduces lots of original content as well. What is your philosophy toward adding new things to Star Wars Galaxies? What would you say have been some of the most significant Legends-specific additions?
Lokee: Once we finally got up and running seven years ago, our vision has been that we want to be able to create new worlds, gameplay, and meaningful original content while still maintaining the original spirit of the game. Somebody who played in the game’s heyday can log in today and everything they loved about the game during its sunset is still here, of course, minus atmospheric flight and the RLS system.
As far as significant pieces of content, there are a couple that I want to touch on. The first one for me, and the one that really stands out, is the Tree Raid that we added to the Galactic Moon Festival – by the way, the Galactic Moon Fest is my favorite in-game holiday. I love the creepy stuff. It's just great.
This was the first true piece of original content that we as a project added to the game. Not just getting the Witches of Dathomir Theme Park built back in, not just getting everything back to where it was when the game was sunset; this was our first true piece of real, active content that we put inside the game. For me, that's important because it let us know that we could do it, it let us know we could use the tools we had available to actually add our own concepts inside the system.
Our hard mode Avatar Platform showed us that we could adjust the content that was already in the game and that we could make it more engaging and more challenging, and the first part of the Jedi Theme Park showed us that we could create engaging heroic instances that are still challenging as well. And then, of course, our piece de resistance, so to speak, is Bespin. That showed that we could create entirely new worlds with fully fleshed-out quest lines built from scratch using all of our own assets, without using things that were already inside the game.
That also bleeds into GMF; the spooky heroics we've been doing every year are just fantastic. I think it's another nod to our design and development teams and their creativity and trying to keep things interesting – even the older content – for everybody, the new and old.
Q: Legends maintains Star Wars Galaxies’ original Senate system where players are elected to represent various community interests in order to guide the game’s development. How have player senators influenced Legends’ development, and what are some significant changes that started with the Senate?
Lokee: The Senate is something I hold pretty near and dear to my heart as well. I know we're not the only server out there that has a Senate system, but it's something that we really enjoy. Both the Senate and the Senate committees are a complete asset to us. They're able to offer insight into a lot of the different aspects of the game we might otherwise not be able to see. All of our staff obviously love this game. We all play, and we're all into different areas whether it be space or ground combat, PvP, PvE, crafting, entertaining, doing endgame events, and we all have different areas that we like. So we're kind of like a jack of all trades and masters of none.
The Senate and the committees allow us to bring more people from inside the community who might have more experience in some of these areas than we have. They help us to test new content, they've helped us build and decorate the different Flashpoint maps that are out there, and they often offer criticism – sometimes loudly. But you know, sometimes you need to speak louder to be heard, right? They'll offer criticism that is often really constructive, and it's more than just saying “I don't like this change.”
They offer feedback on some of the different projects that we have worked on and continue to work on, with our veteran rewards overhaul being one of the most recent ones that they've helped us with. We knew that we had a problem that needed a solution with the vet rewards. We pitched it to the Senate and said, “Hey, this is our issue. How would you all like to see this? How would this work?” So now, instead of handing out hundreds of items within the first 10 days of playing, we've added it back into the game inside of engaging content so that new players can come in and feel rewarded from areas they might not otherwise have. That was thanks to the Senate and the committees for being able to do that.
Outside of that, we offer or reach out to them to get feedback on any proposed rule changes, or things that are happening inside the game that we might need an outside eye to look in on. It's not so much that we're asking them for permission to install rules into the game or anything like that. That's definitely not the Senate's role, but we do look to them to see how it's perceived. If we were to say, “There is no more AFK combat grinding as of today, and that's how I'm going to say it. How do you as part of the community perceive that?” They would give us feedback on something like that.
Full disclosure: we're not getting rid of AFK. I just used that as an example, but their conversations with members of the dev team and the design team and the team’s ability to receive that feedback has led to some pretty large updates in the game.
One of the most recent notable ones is the entire ranching and farming system. That's an entirely new system that was built into the game based on an idea that came out of the Senate. The crafted ship part reworks, the ITV travel pads inside Bespin, Flashpoint map updates, bazaar search updates, the weapon “freedom of skin” updates, and the museum painting election reward updates. They've helped us to make changes to invasions, space PvP, and to decrease the spawn time of The Hand inside Restuss so that it's easier for those new players to come in and be able to complete the collections they need for their Jedi. They helped us find and point out different areas where we needed to increase or decrease no-build zones around creature lairs and POIs.
They've really done a lot to help us. I know sometimes it can seem like the Senate doesn't have as much of an effect, but that's quite contrary to what actually happens inside there.
Q: Are there any Senate proposals that the team would never implement? Are there any hard lines or internal rules or philosophies that you stick with in terms of balance, gameplay, or mechanics?
Lokee: That's a really good question. There kind of is. When it comes to Senate proposals or Senate ideas, they have to propose it to the community anyway, right? They have to put a public proposal out for a minimum of 10 days and get feedback from the community to get a feel for how the community would receive these updates. The big thing that we're looking for though, as far as whether or not we would be declining, is that we're not looking to make easy modes.
We believe in proposals and changes to the game that are going to bring meaningful content or some kind of quality-of-life changes into the game, but we don't want to go into that and make everything easy mode. We still want people to be able to play the game, and we still want people to be able to enjoy the game, but we don't want to make it to where they just turn on the computer, log in, and everything's done for them.
It sounds like you're trying to avoid falling into the trap many MMOs in the last 15 years or so have where each expansion or update makes the game a little easier and the original feel gets lost along the way.
Lokee: No, and that train of thought is exactly right.
We also won't do anything that requires the use of assets or items from other SWG emulators. It's not that we feel like we're above anybody. I don't mean it like that. It's just that our designers like to be able to create our own material. We don't want to be ripping other people off, basically.
Ultimately, we're going to do what we feel is best for the project. Sometimes that means doing something unpopular. One of our little mottos when we're reviewing these things is that sometimes what is popular isn't always what's best for the health of the server. It might be fun today, but what's the downstream effect? What's that going to change tomorrow?
Q: The Legends community is also very active in the sandbox generating interesting content for itself. Are there any player-driven events or community moments that particularly stick out to you?
Lokee: Some of my favorites are actually the ones that are around different holidays inside of the game. Whether it be Galactic Moon Fest, Life Day, or Ewok Festival of Love; Empire Day can be a lot of fun, too. So there's not one event in particular that stands out in my mind. I try to actually go to quite a few of them as these different seasons come through.
The main reason that I choose holiday seasons as far as my favorite player-driven events is that it's fun to go and see what these different city leaders and guilds are doing with their player cities: how they're decorating it, how they're sticking to the themes, what they're doing with it, especially around GMF – because again, I really liked the spooky stuff. I love getting to see all the spider webs and the zombie death troopers floating around the city, and seeing some of the contests that people do. The costume contests and the different get-togethers and the entertainment kind of things that they do.
But I also need to throw a little shout-out to the PvP community. As rough as some communities can get, the PvP battlefield community in particular is actually quite a bit of fun. They have a separate Discord server they use to set up battlefield runs. They're very open and welcoming to new members of the community who are just learning how to do it. They offer advice and build ideas. They've got videos that they share with people. They've been kind of slow lately, but when they get up and running, they run at least two or three times a week to get those things set up. There is a little bit of banter that goes on with them, but overall those are really fun events to get involved with as well.
Q: Similarly, the Legends team also hosts its own events that are unique to the server. What are some of your favorite staff-run events, and which ones do players seem to attend most?
Lokee: I think my favorite events that we put on are always going to be the ones that require the greatest amount of community interaction. Like recently, when the Senate election opened a couple of weeks ago, that's an event that I run every six months to get the Senate up and running, to get the elections out there, and to get people together to actually vote. An event like that doesn't have a lot of interaction. The folks show up, they listen to what we're saying, they vote, they get a badge, and then they're done.
The ones I liked the most are the ones where we have them interact, like the Beastmaster battles. Internally, we call them the Pokemon fights. We set up, and we have the people fight with their pets.
One of the newer ones we've been doing is called the Battle of the Bastion, where we set up squad-level PVP battles, and we block off an area where the squads can go through and they can battle. It's kind of like NCAA Sweet 16 bracket-style double-elimination tournaments. But also things like Wampa Rampage are really good, too. Those are the ones I liked the most because we get that kind of engagement.
I can tell you our largest event this year was the Order 66 event we did during Empire Day. That brought in 267 individual players who showed up to have fun with that. So far this year, we've done 43 staff-sponsored events with an average of 107 players at each.
Q: There are a lot of MMOs out there today including Star Wars: The Old Republic competing for players’ attention. Why do you feel that Legends players prefer to spend their time in Star Wars Galaxies?
Lokee: You could probably list a few reasons. I can't really speak to how some of the other MMOs out there run or anything like that. That's just not my style. But I believe what sets Star Wars Galaxies in general apart, and especially Legends, is that we have captured something that other games have kind of failed to take notice of, and really dive in to see different areas of what works.
We have some pretty robust features inside this game, whether it be the crafting system, the player city systems, or the player-based economy, which is huge. The economy in-game is entirely player-based; we have very little influence at the staff level over what happens with that.
And then, of course, our space content. I would almost say with 100% certainty that there is not another game out there that handles space content the way we do. Where else can you fly together with a crew and battle against other crews in a non-instanced space area where any other player inside the game can just show up and watch or take part in the fight?
Q: As our conversation has illustrated, Star Wars Galaxies is a massive game with a lot of deep systems. What are some of the biggest challenges that the Legends team faces when trying to operate this project?
Lokee: I would say that the challenges are pretty similar to any other game that's out there. I don't want to say working with volunteers is a challenge because I don't want to make it sound like we can't handle anything like that, but we are a completely volunteer-based staff now. None of us take any kind of payment. None of us are paid for anything, we don't get any extra special privileges in-game or anything like that. As a matter of fact, anything to do with what we do on staff is completely separate from in-game.
Even with all of that, we have – and I think this is part of what makes us successful – our leadership model. The way we run the project. We're not like a typical gaming company where you’ve got one person at the top who’s making all the decisions, and everything just snowballs downhill from there. We have leadership in almost every role without micromanaging. We allow our leaders to actually run their teams, and we offer that assistance as they need it inside there. I joke around and say that in the admin team, we’re a triumvirate. There are three of us, and when we have to make major decisions, we do it together. That way we're getting viewpoints from all kinds of different directions.
As far as the challenges, though, what really makes it challenging is finding that correct balance of working on new content versus squashing the bugs. If we spend too much time developing something new, then we're not necessarily focusing on things in the game that might be broken text files that might need updated grammar and things like that. But if we spent too much time on the bug fixes, then we might not get around to getting some of that new content out. If I had to say what the biggest challenge is, it's finding that balance and making sure that we're meeting the needs of the community.
Q: As far as adding new content, what’s your view toward the new Disney material when it comes to Legends?
Lokee: We are definitely aiming to stay true to the time period in which our universe is currently set. Obviously, we're open to “advancing the timeline” a little bit as we did with the Bespin storyline which advanced the timeline. We're also open to some of the ideas and concepts that have come out with some of the newer canon that has been released.
However, our primary focus is not the newer canon, so to speak. Ultimately, we want to stay true to the current time period and true to the way it is inside Legends. I mean, if you think about it, if we stay true to the new canon, we’d have to wipe Dathomir, right? There’d be nothing there anymore because the Nightsisters are gone.
Q: In the long term for the server, do you have a vision for future content or other changes? What do you envision Legends looking like in five years?
Lokee: It kind of goes back to our vision, right? We want to make sure that we're engaging our community and that we're giving them meaningful content while still maintaining that original spirit of the game. I think that's a key thing. Whether people played when the game was originally released all the way through sunset, all the way up to new players, we want them to have that same experience that they had when the game was live, but we still want to be able to keep up with the game to be able to update and add new things without losing that original game.
Q: Everybody starts somewhere. Can you talk about what it was like in the server’s early days? How did you go from those first five or so players to being one of the most popular Star Wars Galaxies communities?
Lokee: If you want the truth, it was rough. Personally, I didn't join in until the server was about two years up and running. But in the very beginning, it was a little bit rough. The server was almost completely wiped after about three months into its original run, and it was called Reborn at the time. It was basically differences of opinion between the few people that were starting it up.
Once that all got taken care of and we got a team in place, the rebuilding took a few weeks to get back up. The community was extremely supportive during that time. Once that was complete, we restructured the team. About mid-2018 we started restructuring the way that the teams operated, with each team having their own leadership team and three admins to make the decisions, and basically running it the way that we are now.
That structure and the management of the team is, in my opinion, what sets us apart from a lot of the other projects that are out there and our player base sees that, and they're very, very supportive of that. I actually think that's how we've gotten to be one of the more popular servers out there. We manage the game, we manage the community, and we put in the work to make sure that we're fair across the board and are doing everything that needs to be done.
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Q: AFK has an important place in Star Wars Galaxies with AFK medics and officers supplying buffs along with AFK farmers bringing items and resources into the economy. How do you balance between encouraging at the keyboard play, while also making room for those passive gameplay roles?
Lokee: I'm kind of glad you asked that. That's been something that’s picked up a lot over the last couple of months. This is something that requires constant monitoring and making sure we're keeping our pulse on what's happening inside the game and the community. To be honest, we know that AFK gameplay has been an issue. There have been folks who have found ways to generate large sums of credits in the game far beyond what anybody had ever intended. We have developed better systems to use in the background to track this kind of information. It's information that we actually share with the Senate on about a monthly basis. I don't know if you follow our Developer Diary inside our forums, but we've started to give out some of the numbers that we're following inside there.
The short answer to your question is constant monitoring of what's happening and making live changes to the way different loot drops from different NPCs. We adjust the credit amounts and the drops per kill and everything like that to ensure that we're not continuing to increase the influx of credits and items into the server that were never intended to be that big. We have too many credits being generated in the game, and not enough ways for players to spend it. We're kind of at a standstill with that. We've been monitoring, we've made a few changes over the last couple of months that have definitely started to help in that area. We will continue to monitor and make more changes moving forward.
As always, our credo with that is that at the keyboard gameplay will always take priority. Most people don't remember that Frosch Bunker is an actual quest area. So if that bunker is filled up, and all kinds of people are down there grinding, and a player comes along and has that quest and wants to complete that quest, we will clear out that bunker so that that player that's at the keyboard can complete that quest.
Q: In the past, the team has made some balance changes regarding various ships. For example, broadening the distinction between the X-Wing and the Advanced X-Wing. Are there any other outliers in space like the often-criticized KSE Firespray that the team is interested in revisiting?
Lokee: I'm going to give a shout-out first to NoStyleGuy. He is one of the developers that we have here at Legends, and he primarily focuses on space and space content. As a matter of fact, pretty much anything that has come out in regards to space – whether it be ships that change, updates, or anything like that – has all been directly from him and feedback from the Senate and the space committees. So he has definitely been a driving force in keeping the space community going.
I reached out to him to talk with him about this, and this is what he asked me to bring forward.
NoStyleGuy: The team's goal is to make all ships fit into at least one of three niches: Worthwhile for grinding to Ace, Worthwhile for endgame PvE, or Worthwhile for endgame PvP.
Of the 70+ ships in the game, this is now true for all but essentially 3 ships, and we have plans for all of them.
Kihraxz: A 40k mass one-gun ship that is totally eclipsed during leveling by multiple ships and doesn't have enough mass for either endgame PvE or PvP. Our plan is to turn this into a Freelance "medium fighter", a la the Starviper, and the recently changed (non-Advanced) X-Wing. This will mean adding a second gun and upping it to 100k mass. These ships' niche is PvP, where they are a great counter to traditionally dominant "interceptors."
TIE Fighter: The 20k mass version which is completely eclipsed by the 97k mass TIE Fighter Heavy Variant and/or the 80k mass TIE/ln (whose niche is being a capable grinder that is cheaper to produce than the Heavy Variant). Our plan for this guy is a little less set in stone, but it likely involves changing the model to the "Modified TIE" model that's already in the files and making it a copy of the Heavy Variant stats-wise, so players have a cosmetic choice (similar to the Freelance fleet with 3 Heavy Sycks to choose from).
The KSE Firespray: A strictly worse Ixiyen since they have the same number of weapons and ordnance and the same mass, but the KSE is bigger and has a horrible spread. Our plan for this guy is to buff its handling stats, add a 3rd weapon slot, and angle the "foot" gun hardpoint up so that it converges with the primary weapon at a typical combat range (500m or so).
There are lots of other sub-optimal ships that aren't the best-in-class (the regular Y-Wing, the (non-Royal Guard) TIE Interceptor, etc., but we have given all these ships some love in past updates to the point they are at least valid, if not optimal, choices.
Lokee: That's another part about why I feel that we're successful. This is something I was just able to do that's not something that the community at large always gets to see. Even as a project admin, I'm not an expert in every area of the game. But just like any good leader should, we're going to surround ourselves with people who do have that information or who do have that knowledge so that if something comes up, we can answer. We might not have a general understanding of it, but we're going to bring them to the table so that we can get that feedback.
Q: Mos Eisley is the main hub for players in Legends and other Star Wars Galaxies communities. It’s where everyone grabs their buffs and where many players hang out. Do you feel that it's best if this remains the case, or would you like to see more focus on other locales? If so, how can that be achieved?
Lokee: I think it would be neat to be able to see other areas be hubs, but the truth of the matter is, especially with Mos Eisley, that's where all the new players get dumped out, right? Whether they finish or skip the tutorial and come straight into the game, they all converge right there in front of the Mos Eisley starport. That's where all the entertainers hang out because that's where all the work is. That's where almost all the medics are inside the hospital right outside of the starport handing out their medic buffs, especially now that those buffs can last two hours.
I think it would be interesting to see other areas become a hub, and we've started to hit that a little bit with the 9000 Z001 Landspeeder ITV. If you use the ITV, it will take you either to Theed, Mos Eisley, or the Bespin cantina.
Q: There are a handful of other Star Wars Galaxies servers operating today. We’ve touched on this a bit today, but why do you feel many players have chosen Legends as their home? What do you do differently from other servers?
Lokee: To start, we don't talk negatively about the other servers. When we're representing Legends, we aren't negative toward the other servers, we're positive. There are a couple of them in the background where we actually work together with different exploits and bug fixes. Kind of a “you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back,” thing, but we also don't want people taking advantage of us here. I'm talking about major exploits.
The main thing I’d like to get out there is that we’re not out there trying to bring anybody down. Short of a few bad actors – because every community has a couple of folks running around that try to get out that misinformation – I think that the community at large sees that. It's earned us a fair amount of respect, not just from our community, but some of the other communities that are out there. I think that's one of the things that people really start to see. If somebody wants to go play on one of the other servers, go have fun, try it out, and guess what: we'll be here whenever you decide if you want to come back.
That's kind of the thing there. Even with the different servers that are out there, the big thing to remember is that almost every one of those servers represents a different era in SWG's life whether it's pre-CU, CU, or some niche combination where maybe they're running NGE but with pre-CU builds or something like that. So not every server is going to be for everybody. While we appreciate the competition, it keeps us sharp and keeps us on our toes getting things together for folks to come in.
Not everybody wants those niche experiences. I think being consistent in our vision there and being able to deliver the same thing and maintaining that original spirit of the game is one of the big reasons that people come here. They pop into Mos Eisley, and it's like, “Oh my goodness, this is just like it was, you know, X years ago when I played it. I remember this.”
That kind of thing plays in again with consistency. The community knows that we're here, they know we're going to be here, we've been here for over seven years now going on our eighth year. So even when people leave for a break, they know we're still going to be here. A lot of other projects come and go. There are some solid ones out there, but a lot of the smaller ones will pop up, stay for maybe a year or two, and they'll vanish again for various reasons. Players know that we're always going to be here. We've proven that we can withstand the tides over the years even though you have your highs, and you have your lows.
I really think that's why so many people are really attracted to Legends. It's that consistency. They know that we're going to be here and that they are going to be able to enjoy the same game they enjoyed years ago.
Q: Most modern MMORPGs tend to focus on things like combat, but players in Star Wars Galaxies can be anything from cooks to dancers to interior decorators. Can you talk about some of your favorite alternatives to combat in the game and how those interact with the sandbox?
Lokee: As far as favorite non-combat gameplay, I would have to say the ranching and farming system that we placed in the game. It's not something I've had the chance to dabble with, but it’s amazing to watch how the community came together with that and really buckled down and figured everything out.
We try to release things the same way it was done years ago. “Hey, here's some new content, go have fun, figure it out on your own.” Seeing players put together a document called The Seed Project for the community to help figure out the best ways to use the farming system was just fantastic.
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Q: What’s your “elevator pitch” for Legends? If you had to describe the game and convince someone to hop in, how would you describe the experience?
Lokee: That is a very interesting question. I tried to think back on how I first got into Star Wars Galaxies. Bear with me for a short story.
The way I heard about Galaxies originally was in about 2008. I was in the military at that time, and I was talking with a friend. I had just gotten done playing The Force Unleashed, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this was so awesome. I used the force to pull a star destroyer down. I wish there was another game out there that would let you experience stuff like that inside of the Star Wars universe.” My friend looks over to me, and he's like, “Oh, you like Star Wars?” Within the next 15 minutes, he was helping me get the game downloaded and logging in. I played on the Radiant server. That person still plays on Legends today, by the way. He’s a really good friend of mine.
If I'm trying to convince somebody who’s never played this game, it's kind of hard to put into words. It's almost like a conversation because it's a great experience for anybody who wants that sandbox style. I think that's kind of the angle that I use when talking to folks. It's like, “Listen, if you want something that's not on the rails, if you want something that's truly designed to be played with other people, to play with friends, or to make new friends, if you want to feel like you're a part of the community, why don't you come try us out?” And that's the thing for me: it's all about that community experience.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?
Lokee: I think we’ve covered everything pretty in-depth. But we’re a welcoming community, we have the player's best interests at heart, and we always strive to continue to maintain that original spirit of the game. There might be changes that we make with some of the gameplay adding our own content and things like that, but at the end of the day, it's still Star Wars Galaxies.
We welcome everybody to join us and relive their saga.
[END]
Star Wars Galaxies: Legends is free to play on PC with a copy of Star Wars Galaxies.
