I've been looking forward to SWG EMU for a long time now.  I used to be a little bit involved with the project, I wrote some how-to's and trouble-shooting guides and so fourth for an early open-source version.  For the uninitiated SWG EMU is an attempt by a group of skilled developers to build servers which mimic the old Pre-CU (Combat Upgrade) Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG.

SOE really screwed everyone over big style, when they release NGE, it was possibly one of the poorest decisions in the history of video games to implement something so game-breaking, so quickly with so little feedback from a community... And it cost SOE, it cost them big.

I think part of the problem was SOE's team were being managed from above - their seniors had seen the success of WoW and asked themselves the question, Blizzard are getting over 7 million subscribers?  Why do we hover around 250,000?  The reason of course is Blizzard are actually very good at developing games, the game has to come first.  A bad game built around a great licence is still a bad game.

Now I'm not saying Pre-CU SWG was perfect, there were certain things that were really borked about it... But only certain things, and they could have fixed those in a more clever way.  The first mistake SOE made was to introduce Holocrons, the method of unlocking Jedi should have been kept secret and hidden at all costs - or we wouldn't have suddenly had the galaxy wide grind-athon.  The Village was stupid too.... The professions weren't balanced, the species were unbalanced... There was a lot that needed fixing.

The mistake SOE made was to try to copy something successful rather than build on the good aspects of a game that they already had. 

As it stands, to make a character, jump on a speeder and go off running missions again... There IS something magical about SWG, I don't know what it is, whether it's the licence, or the core mechanics... I don't know...

What I will say about it is, although it's definately a game you can solo in, it somehow... I don't know - people talk, they help each other, they 'thank' each other.  I tried playing Guild Wars again over the weekend - sure it's a great game, but over the several hours I played not a soul spoke to me.  My experience of WoW was similar....

I hooked up with a guy and had great fun hunting and running missions together...

Yes, in many ways SWG is flawed.... but it's a flawed diamond, and I'm glad to have it back!