SWG, what a long strange journey it’s been.

So I’m here finally quitting Star Wars Galaxies for the last time. I don’t play anymore and the latest CSR announcement about accepting AFK gameplay as the norm was the straw that broke the camel’s back. One person said I need help if this is the reason I quit. I retorted that since I don’t play and have continued to pay as token support for SWG and Intrepid’s survival I’m more mental about continuing a subscription.

The long journey with Star Wars Galaxies began almost 5 years ago. I purchased that game at launch and dealing with the launch day crashing I managed to create a character on Gorath. My wife played with me and we oohed and ahhed at the online world. It was the first MMO for both of us and we loved it.

Two days later Gorath was down and I wanted to get in and explore some more. Originally I wanted to be a smuggler ala Han Solo, but I decided for a laugh I was going to create an Entertainer. Intrepid was the server that was available and chose to land there. Choosing my planet and destination I landed on Talus. I went to Tyrena since that was where I hung out for a day on Gorath and I was familiar with it. After earning enough money on Talus I moved to Tyrena and never looked back.

The first day in Tyrena was an experience. I hooked up with other entertainers; of course, they were all ATK since AFKing didn’t exist yet. The pseudo-leader of the cantina at the time was Kathryn, who more or less had business ideas galore. She had us running advertisements around the shuttle port for a tailor named Bifein. There were many of us there in Tyrena, and while I’m sure I’ll leave some important people I’ll give out some of the names. The entertainer crowd was formed by Agaar, Neena-Marie, Silentbob, Xie ‘lanthia, Candyce, Punasti, Moya’, Alich, Kathryn, and Lanfear. Most notable customers were Astrolite (Sliced the first Light Saber in SWG), Blood (founder of EIS), Shinjo (Intrepid’s Original Bad Boy), Nemo (Intrepid’s First Master Architect), and Davinci (arguably the best Weapon smith and quest master that Intrepid ever saw).

The group of Tyrena Entertainers formed Star Dragon Entertainment, I was the spokesman and comedian of the group, and Xie more or less controlled the dancers and organization of the groups. She also named the band. Star Dragon entertainment folded into SCO which became SGO. Some members like NeenaMarie stayed with them until the NGE hit. SCO was Intrepid’s first guild ever built by Nemo. I was asked to be head of the entertainers but I declined I wanted a guild of my own.

Back when we had to pay for training all the entertainers would pool money together to get a new skill since the person getting the skill could then train others for free. We were very communal and worked together to get things done. Xie and I mastered Entertainer and decided to go out in the big huge world. We visited Mos Eisley, the busiest and most bustling area of activity in the galaxy; there were 4-5 full groups of 20 players playing in groups at the same time in the Eisley Cantina. It was insane and fun but definitely too busy for me. We journeyed to Naboo, where the people there acted like they had a pikeman’s lance shoved up to you know where, but almost as busy as Eisley. Finally, we wandered to Coronet where we met the second group of people that we would forever refer to as friends, Imcus Vree, En-chi Lada, and Chon Wang. We performed together and called ourselves the Def Stars.

Around this time period a tailor outside of Coronet had just mastered a certain box of field wear that allowed him to craft gunmen’s dusters. The place was insane with shoppers and Mokilok was the king of tailoring on Intrepid for a time because of it. I still own the Mokilok Duster I purchased that day. When I managed to visit once to get a custom order he had built himself a throne surrounded by torches and to say the least he was a unique individual. A weapon smith outside of the Coronet was close to mastering and was known for making the best guns at the time. His name was Idunno Udunno. While I know I won’t remember all of them, Idunno, Zarina, and Mokilok were pivotal in creating the group that was known galaxy-wide as the Corellian Mafia.

During this time I made money traveling from Cantina to Cantina across the galaxy selling instruments. I made a healthy profit off of it. Though one time I got stuck on Rori for a few hours until Davinci could wire me enough credits so I could fly back to Naboo. I was known for crafting instruments and was one of the main sellers in the Galaxy. So much so that Moya’ made everyone promise not to mention that he was selling instruments and cutting into my sales. I do know that Neill who still posts on the Entertainer forums made a special request for me to fly all the way to some out-of-the-way Cantina to deliver him a specially crafted instrument. Thankfully just as prices were starting to kick up I managed to start buying weapon power-ups off the bazaar in Coronet and taking them to Tyrena Bazaar and sealing them for a profit. I made a pretty penny (for this time period) and then one day I was tipped 276521 credits – still an important figure for me. All my friends at the time thought I was rich, and I thought for the longest time that it was credits gotten through an exploit (that should tell some of you how bad inflation is today).

One day Xie and I being master entertainers were invited to a “Masters Ball” since there were so few masters of any profession at that time it was an honor and a select few. We wanted to take friends to share in the event as we were allowed to bring any guest we may like. Xie took along Moya’ and I took along Alich. They were both still working in the entertainer profession and thought it would be nice to have them mingle with us. Little did I know that the two Wookiees thought that these were traditional dates. This became apparent when Xie lost her life and Moya’ mourned the loss, I had to explain to Alich that my lekkus don’t swing that way. Though I still heard about it from Moya’ for years. I just mention that Moya’ managed to watch his date murdered and didn’t do anything to stop it.

Moya’ did manage to get me back. Talking in the Tyrena cantina with En-chi Lada, Moya’, Candyce, and Xie I believe; I was complaining that the cantina didn’t have any restrooms, and as far as I could decipher I couldn’t find any public restrooms at all.

Moya’ then told En-Chi and me that he had seen a restroom over in the Tyrena hotel. The Tyrena Hotel? Why that was just across the street. I had been holding my bodily functions for so long and salvation was so close? Why had the Galactic gods tormented me so by having a restroom so close by?

En-chi and I rushed over to the hotel in hope of relieving ourselves. We searched that hotel from top to bottom (ok it’s only one floor but there was another argument with Moya’ over elevators). We started screaming at Moya’. Moya’ came over and started trying to find this infamous restroom. It seems the Wookiee thought a decorative alcove was a restroom – it seems that you should never tell a Wookiee how to get to the indoor restroom – always walk them there. On a side note because of this incident, I finally built a restroom in my house and that toilet got a lot of use.

I parlayed my money into more buying and reselling and eventually got the credits over 1 million after a couple of weeks. Around this time period Davinci sent me a tell while I was performing in the Tyrena Cantina, he told me “Ding, I did it”- after clarifying he had made the highest damage laser rifles in the galaxy. He named them the widow maker – there was another customer so Davinci held a number guessing contest to choose the buyers. Since I was buying two I got two guesses. All said and done I managed to get both the highest DPS rifle on the server (I still own it) and the lowest mind cost rifle on the server (Xie still owns hers).

Going back to the funny incidents there was a player named Clark Griswold on the Intrepid who managed to lose the waypoint to his house. A server-wide search north of Theed went on to look for his house. Out of a joke En-Chi and I managed to buy an identically styled house and place it down. Naming it Clark’s house. The next day cheers were going on that someone had found Clark’s house. En-chi and I were rolling over this. Clark went to the waypoint and tried to get in but didn’t manage to get through the door. He then figured out the ruse and realized it wasn’t his house. A big outrage started from certain people on the forum and En-Chi and I owned up to it instead of slinking away. Afterward, it was quite a joke and everyone laughed.

I worked on starting the first museums on the Intrepid server, trying to catalog and save every little thing I could find. Padre helped me in my hunt on collecting anything and everything rare. I never sold a donation and every donation I received when I closed the museums later were donated to other people, or I still have them. It was never for me, I never made a dime off it. I did it for the server community and that’s where I spent most of my money. Unfortunately, two days before my public opening someone else opened a museum. I can say I started the first museum on Intrepid, but mine was the second opened to the public. Mine was made of 4 medium Naboo buildings filled to the brim. I was quite proud of that.

A new person came onto the scene at this time. His name was Keltrien. He had big ideas and bigger ambitions. After working through some starter thoughts on the message boards for a few weeks he decided he was going to run a server-wide festival. He pulled it off with Xie and I gathering entertainers to perform and his working the money makers on the server for donations. Groovefest was born and Keltrien said it was good.

Keltrien went on to run many more Groovefest and whether it was from direct help or indirect (renting vendor space) I helped him whenever I could. I can say the other festivals the server has seen since have never been as big as the ones Keltrien threw. This was an atmosphere with hundreds of people milling about, shopping, and having a good time. Keltrien managed to start a city on Tatooine just to hold Groovefest events. Keltrien went on to start a regular weekly speeder bike competition and a droid fighting competition. Keltrien did a lot for Intrepid’s community and he shouldn’t be forgotten for that.

Keltrien however didn’t own a monopoly on large-scale events. Another event started was a music performance competition and it was arranged by Jerik. Jerik started the IJB (Intrepid Jam Bonanza) competition. Most of the Def Stars had stopped being entertainers, but Xie and I thought we would enter one last competition as the Def Stars. There were only two of us and we needed a third. We recruited Moya’. We rehearsed and polished our macros for the competition. On the day of the competition, we managed to get our guild hall. We showed up at the competition with the DEF guild tag above our heads. Ironically you would have thought this was a normal music competition, by today’s standards it was but then it was something different. They wanted to know who wanted to go when we fought for and won the right to go last place. The entire competition went on and then we were on. Everyone thought that it was going to be the same song arrangement. For the entertainers in the group that can audiolize it, we played Starwars1 – with 2 mandoviol’s and an omnibox. So we had a true rock and roll sound. Not only that we sang lyrics. Singing lyrics was unheard of in the cantina or in competition. None of the other competitors sang, some think we demeaned the competition. But to every other non-entrant there it blew them away and we won. Ironically for all those on Intrepid that have to endure all the entertainers singing in the cantina now, you’re welcome.

Here are the lyrics as performed at the IJB by the Def Stars

The AFK Entertainer

I’m the afk entertainer
And I know just where to stand
Another AFKer
Another macro band
Today I am your healer
I may have won your creds
But I know the game
You’ll forget my name
And I won’t be here for a jawa beer
If I don’t stay on the star charts

Chorus:
Oh yeah, macro baby macro
Oh yeah, macro baby macro

I’m the afk entertainer
And I’ve had to pay my price
The things I did not know at first
I got free training, NICE!
Ah but still it comes to haunt me
My tailor I need to pay
So I’ve learned to dance
With a macro and hot pants
I rub their neck and give my macro a check
As they tip because their BF goes way

Chorus:
Oh yeah, macro baby macro
Oh yeah, macro baby macro

I’m the afk entertainer
Been all around the worlds
I’ve said “tip me” in every cantina
And I’ve spammed with my dancer girl
I can’t remember faces
I don’t remember names
Ah but what the heck
I give my macro one last check
‘Cause after a while and a thousand galactic miles
The grind is still the same

Chorus:
Oh yeah, macro baby macro
Oh yeah, macro baby macro
Oh yeah, macro baby macro
TIP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now we won a million credits and to put it into Intrepid’s current inflation terms – that would be between 150-200 million. That’s how much purchasing power that bought. I wanted to use the money to start a city – “New Tyrena”. We purchased our city hall and were ready to go, I was going to be mayor and Imcus was going to be the city planner. Well, the city planner profession was scrapped, but Imcus was still the designer. We spent weeks looking for a spot and finally found one. We were ready, the City patch came, and we were too slow. The planet was already capped. A week or two later SOE decided to raise the planetary caps and we managed to get our city down. Symphonia was born and it still stands there today.

We spent a couple of nights packing up and moving all the museums from their current location to Symphonia, these buildings became the back wall of Symphonia’s main quad. We grew and flourished and focused on DEF being an entertainer-only guild and Symphonia a city dedicated to the arts. Then because of personal reasons, I had to quit the game suddenly without telling anyone except I sent a message to Moya’. I gave Moya’ access to my accounts to move things around but I wasn’t logging in. They held a funeral for the character Creeva in Symphonia, and it was SWG’s first as far as anyone could tell (this was Jan 2004). Looking at screenshots I’ve seen of that day it seems at least 50 people showed up. This was to a funeral in a video game. Imcus and Moya’ wrote a song called Sgt. Creeva’s Band. I was touched even being outside the game. The museums were saved and life would go on.

After a month or two I managed to get things straightened out so I could log back in. At this time I was welcomed with joy. Imcus had taken over as mayor and still is to this day. The museums grew and life went on. Well, I’m sure there are some significant issues that happened around this time, more Groovefest and such. A dark peril started circling the galaxy the AFK entertainer and the hologrind. The AFKing had been growing for months but grew to a peak when Monika unlocked the first Jedi Akinom on the Intrepid server. I was there in Coronet the first night the first Jedi was wandering SWG. It was awe-inspiring. My RL friend Astrolite managed to slice her lightsaber, getting the no-trade item across via the droid storage compartment – now that’s a true smuggler. The appearance of the Jedi showed that unlocking professions were the path – this led to the hologrind.

The hologrind was a way of life the cantina was piled full of AFKers just trying to master the profession so they could move on to the next one. What made matters worse in SOE’s attempt to encourage this they gave everyone Holocrons for x-mas. Some people received two since there was a bug where some players never received the first one. This further increased the use of holocrons to discover what profession you needed next to finish your path onto Jedi. I can say that I never opened my holocron and it is still on display at the Entertainer Museum in Symphonia. The golden age of SWG was over and a new dawn was coming. I was a strong anti-AFK advocate but in the minority, the ATK entertainers were overwhelmed.

There were good times and bad times during this stage, DEF added more members over time. Amber and Siri are the most notable. Outside of Moya’ and Imcus, Amber has been the longest member of DEF. Siri was the largest cross-server superstar (outside ourselves of course :P) to join the guild. The guild however wasn’t growing and disagreements on who to bring and who not to lead slowly to a partial dissolution. Xie had wanted more of a consensus instead of taking weeks to guild a member and she wanted to step down from being the decision maker of the guild, she was mostly the decision maker since she was the tie maker or breaker and was kind of the unofficial leader because of it. Moya’ and I were doing the museum thing, especially with starting the Wookiee Cultural Center in Symphonia. Imcus was busy chasing his Jedi dream (no holocrons were used as far as I know) so Xie was kind of left holding the back. Things had come to a point and the SWG combat upgrade hit us smack in the face.

Xie and I forced the issue with the guild on two fronts. Because of the combat upgrade, I was going to leave the guild for a while, I was respeccing out of entertainer and I didn’t think I should be in a guild called the Dedicated Entertainment Foundation without being an entertainer. Xie wanted more cantina time for the guild and thought that while DEF should remain if they weren’t going to be in the cantina and actively working as entertainers we should take entertainment out of the guild name. Ironically Siri left Intrepid forever to get away from the fame and because DEF never really supported her in the guild. Things were quickly creeping up.

SOE finally decided to give entertainers a little bit of love and brought out a new song and dance via a theater quest and at this time Jerik decided it was time to do another IJB. There had been IJBs since the first but DEF resisted entering them this one was rumored to be the last one. DEF had members enter in the other bands to perform in the IJB but we didn’t compete as a group. For the last IJB, we came together again (except Xie who sat it out), since Xie wasn’t there we weren’t going to use the Def Star name. So we came up with the Def Spurs. The Def Spurs came in second, there was some controversy over this since the winning band had gotten a do-over because they screwed up. I still think that comes with the territory. I still performed a lot at this time and with the big credit duping scandal there were massive in-game protests. Xie relayed the news to me at work and a fledging Intrepid organization came into being. The INN – the Intrepid News Network. Ironically their news coverage made it to the major gaming blogs and they were an Intrepid staple for some time to come.

Whichever Groovefest it was at this time – I did my own protest song. Which caught on quite a bit:

Soe Idiot

Don’t want to be an SOE idiot.
Don’t want a galaxy that under the new regiment.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The SOE mods tried silent it.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the Intrepid nation.
Everything isn’t meant to be okay.
More nerfs and bans coming tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
Well that’s enough to argue.

Well maybe I’m the sad little boardy.
but I’m not a part of a duper minority.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the Intrepid nation.
Everything isn’t meant to be okay.
More nerfs and bans coming tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
Well that’s enough to argue.

Don’t want to be an SOE idiot.
Giving bans to 11 year old innocents.
Merchants are all in hysteria.
It’s going out to idiot developers.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the Intrepid nation.
Everything isn’t meant to be okay.
More nerfs and bans coming tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
Well that’s enough to argue.

Everything building up and Xie and I took the guild aside and explained our concerns about what had been happening and our thoughts. Because of a continual lack of consensus and everyone wanting not to hurt anyone else’s feelings, Xie and I left the guild. Her for lack of entertainer focus and not changing the guild name to reflect it, myself for leaving entertainer. From my understanding, the members left behind in DEF feel we betrayed them and had a united front against them in our leaving. Xie and I each had our own reasons just the timing that happened the same day.

I stayed a member of Symphonia and maintained my museums and my vendors. My vendors were pulling in millions a week, that’s saying a lot for a player who only bought low and sold low. I would say I only crafted less than 1% of everything I’ve sold. For this sake of argument, I will also include gathering resources as crafting since I never had lots for harvesters. I kept all my resources regardless of quality at identical pricing and maintained some of the best prices on the server with the largest variety. For my rarities, I would buy out other vendors and then make my prices the cheapest in the galaxy. I made huge profits on quantity instead of price gouging.

The combat upgrade was in full effect and the silver age of Star Wars galaxies had come to a halt.

I could discuss the village and other grinds and stories that go along with this time, but I still have more to tell and this tale is already quite lengthy. We fast forward to the NGE, ironically because I was moving across the country and internet service would be spotty I quit SWG for a while. Xie had quit a few months before me.

After settling into a new house I bought I decided it was time to check out SWG again. I conned Xie into coming back with me. We both wanted to be in an Entertainer guild again but knew DEF had not focused on that anymore. So we started STARS.

We did fall into the same stagnation as we did with DEF though and it fell apart. It just proves that no matter how passionate or dedicated you are that no true entertainer guild that promotes ATK survives on Intrepid. We also managed to start a new city called Pirates Retreat on Rori, it started falling apart after the housing cleanup. That’s fine, I never really wanted a shuttle, but many residents did. So all in all I founded two cities dedicated to entertainment and two guilds dedicated to the same.

For my, in-game tales I’ll leave it at that. I’ve been an active member since the launch of the Intrepid and Entertainer forums. I was in the running for being the first musician correspondent. I wrote many tipping, etiquette, and performance guides for entertainers on the forums. I did what I could to promote ATK entertainers all the time. I started the infamous IPS on the Intrepid forums and it lives on today in its fifth generation. I will miss it. I will keep posting until I can’t anymore, but my account runs out on March 1st. 2008. And with that, I’ll be gone from in-game so I’m posting this now while I still can.

Some of you are going to deride this tale that I’ve relayed. That’s fine, you are not the ones I’m trying to reach. SWG has been a place for friends and communities. Friendships crafted here transcend the game and forge real-life bonds. I may not be an entertaining superstar in real life, but I am now playing in two real-life community bands. The friendships I have there are not as strong as the ones I’ve made here. I’ve spent 1/6 of my life on Intrepid. It has been a good journey. I’ve made friends I email daily. I’m working on a real-life business venture with Keltrien. I have had dinner on the coast with Moya’. These are real things and real people.

Some people think this is just a game. It never was met to be. It was a community. A community you can’t find anywhere else, I’ve looked. You can’t get both sides together and socialize and have fun. Either the social side is terrible or they keep factions apart. For those who understand what I’m saying and have that, hang on to it. Literally, 99% of the people I counted closest to me are gone. It is my time to join them. SOE not policing any AFKing for any profession was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

No, you can’t have my stuff. I will be logging in tonight though. I do make one last promise to Intrepid and then I will be silent on what I can offer. I promise as long as there is at least a notice, I will be back in the final month of the game. On the final day I will be performing in the Tyrena cantina, I will perform there that day until the servers go black and never again alight.

To end on a corny note, May the force be with you, always.