With all the excitement surrounding the imminent release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, it is easy to forget that for the last 8 years there has been another Star Wars MMO that some of us spent some time with. Star Wars Galaxies was released in North America on the 26th of June in 2003 and has since then seen several expansions, updates and overhauls, some more appreciated than others. Today the twin suns of Tatooine will set for the final time in the world of Star Wars Galaxies and in a short 5 days time they will officially rise (and technically never set) in Star Wars: The Old Republic. This makes for the perfect opportunity to take a look back at Galaxies, reflect on the things we enjoyed and take those moments and game elements and see how The Old Republic can use the experiences of its predecessor to improve… Read more»

With Early Game Access in full swing, and after getting a great taste of playing today, we at StarWarsMMO.net are ready to provide you with coverage for everything surrounding the game’s early access and impending launch.

Remember that Early Access is being divided into waves, with multiple waves being sent out each day. On day 1, there were 5 total waves of emails sent out, and it seems most players that pre-ordered within the first few days were let in. You can follow this thread on the new official forums to track when waves are being sent. Stephen Reid also made a post in that thread highlighting what the actual goals of the early access program are. Let us know when you get in in the comments!

You can view a full list of servers for the game on the official site. Remember to check out the guild on LucasForums, where myself and the other StarWarsMMO.net staff will be playing. See our guild forum for more information.

Weyhey, I’m Lynk Former and this is my very first entry on Star Wars MMO. Usually the most I’d ever do around here is work on the site design and manage the forums, but now I’m also going to be starting a new article series which I will be posting simultaneously and in full on both my personal blog, Twilight Lynk, and StarWarsMMO.net.

I will be starting a “Trooper Log” which I will update every so often as I progress through the game. The idea of these logs is to allow people to follow my actions through the game as I make unique decisions that affect my character as well as my interactions with NPCs and real life people. I’ll be splitting up the log into different sections to make it easier to read and will try to include plenty of pictures as well.

To get a sense of what’s to come, here’s an outline of the sections these logs will feature:

• Mission Log: This log will outline what’s happened on my adventures as I go on various missions throughout the galaxy.
• Ship’s Log: This log will keep track of events that occur on my ship such as crafting and space battles, etc.
• Personal Log: This log will keep track of my relationships with companion characters and other people who play the game with me.
• Computer Log: This log will have a real world perspective of the game unlike the three in-universe log types listed above.

Finally, at the end of the log I’ll have a status report listing all of the characters I have created for the game and what level they are at. The characters will only be listed if I have raised their level or have made any other significant changes to them by the time I post up the log entry.

So, with that it’s time to twiddle my thumbs and wait impatiently to gain access to my first moments of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’ll promise to post up my very first Trooper Log as soon as I can!

As we get closer to the start of Early-Access for Star Wars: The Old Republic, the days feel longer and the nights grow more and more restless. You step out into the cold winter mornings heading to work and images of the frigid, biting winds of Hoth are all that sweep through your mind. The boss informs you that he’ll need those TPS reports this afternoon and without skipping a beat you loudly proclaim, “That’s impossible! Even for a computer.” Well you aren’t alone, we’re all right there with you as the anticipation to finally start playing the release build reaches its apex. Redirect all that pent up Old Republic energy and use it to prepare yourself for your journey in a galaxy far far away. Here’s just a handful of ideas to get your creative juices flowing and some tips learned from the beta to help you start out.
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Short answer: at launch, you can’t.

That is not to say there will be no good looking gear in The Old Republic. Just that you will probably have a lot of mis-matched pieces as you level up. At one point during beta, there was a feature in the game called ‘Unify Color to Chest Piece’, aka Color Match. As its name implies, when toggled this option changed the colors of players’ gear to match that of the chest piece, creating a more unified look. This was a very popular feature among fans, as in other MMOs it was often difficult to consistently have a matched set of armor until the endgame.

So why did BioWare remove the feature? In short, to make something better. As Emmanuel Lusinchi explains, there were still some issues with the feature, such as gear not feeling as satisfying of an upgrade when it looked the same as the previous piece. Read the full (long) developer post below, and look forward to an improved version of this feature post-launch.

Welcome to one of the last Friday Updates before launch! You may have been thinking it would never come, but the Sith Inquisitor character progression video has been released, with a full dose of Force Lightning. Check out what the different armor sets for the Sith Sorcerer and Assassin look like in the video below.

Starting today, a new Community Blog has been added to the official website. The blog will feature more frequent updates from the dev team, and get this – they won’t always be posted on Fridays. Currently, with the forums to be wiped soon, they will be re-posting some pertinent dev posts from the forums to the blog to make sure everyone has a chance to read them. Also expect some future entries that showcase different aspects of the community. Check it out here.

Excited about the launch of TOR? Live in a major(ly lucky) city in the US or Europe? Then make sure to attend one of the launch events for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will have official presence from BioWare. In the US, head to Best Buy Union Square in New York City and the Best Buy South Austin in Austin, Texas on December 19. In Europe, events will be held at the Virgin Megastore in Paris, France and at Oxford Street GAME in London on December 14. If you are able to attend, know that we are extremely envious, and we expect photos.

A few days back we published an article featuring a handful of our forum members and their opinions on their time spent testing The Old Republic. This time, myself, our Editor-in-Chief Jeff, and our Site Designer Lynk Former got together and recorded a conversation about our time testing the game. We started off with just a bit of background information on ourselves then dove straight into discussing various aspects of the game. You’ll hear us give examples of our best experiences and moments during testing, talking about our favorite classes, planets, companions and more. To round out the discussion we ended by talking about what we would like to see in the future from The Old Republic. So tune in, listen to our oft times nonsensical rantings and then chime in with your own comments.

Thought you were all ready for SWTOR Early Access to start on the 15th? Requested work off and everything? Well we are in for a nice surprise, as it has been announced today that early game access will actually begin in less than a week – December 13.

To prepare for that, you can begin pre-loading The Old Republic now if you have pre-ordered the game. After early access has ended, there will be a short period in which the servers will go down for short maintenance. Afterwards, players will be required to enter a product registration code to continue playing. There will be no grace period for players waiting on their copy of the game to arrive. See the Official Site for more details, and make sure to refer to the pre-order FAQ, which has been updated.

Just in time for the holidays, as well as The Old Republic’s release, 60 day pre-paid time cards have popped up on Amazon.com. So if you’re looking for an alternative to subscribing with a credit card, this is your ticket out. Or maybe you’re not old enough to have your own credit card, it’s time to make that last minute change in your letter to Santa! At the moment there appears to only be physical time cards and not any directly e-mailed codes, but that could change, especially after the release of the game.

This week’s Facebook image is that of a beastly Rancor squaring off against a group of Imperial players. See all previous Facebook images here.

On Belsavis, a group of Imperial forces defend one of their strongholds from a deadly rancor.