End of Year Update

[Ramsey]

SWGEmu End of Year Announcement

Four years and eight days ago, two men began a task of enormity; the task of building the greatest online game of all time. When Ramsey and his team began their work in December 2004, SWG was a sinking ship, and before long the game they wished to create had disappeared entirely. With these changes came a challenge which had never been overcome, a hurtle which had never before been attempted: recreating a lost game.

Now we are experiencing the fruit of their labour in the first person. Every day thousands of watchers and viewers, participants and posters, chatters and jokers, players and testers, visit the SWGEmu network to connect with others, assist development, watch for updates, and most importantly test their game. Not the game belonging to Sony, nor the game belonging to the SWGEmu Developers, but the game developed by the community for the community. This is the message SWGEmu wishes to share. Players come and go, Games come and go, years come and they do go. But a great community stays strong forever, and proven this we have.

With close to one hundred new people signing up every day, one to two hundred on the test centre at peak times, our recent stress test hitting a massive five hundred and fifty players and two thousand visitors to the forum daily, as every day passes the anticipation and awareness grows. Advertising can sell games, but only sharing and passion can create and uphold one.

The last year has seen SWGEmu evolve from a closed lipped and closed sourced project into a fully functioning development studio. New features and code is committed sometimes on an hourly basis, with almost eleven hundred revisions so far. The team of SWGEmu Developers working daily with only their passion, vigour and spare time, are some of the most talented and intelligent of individuals. Their hard work is the foundation of all that has been created, and all that will endure.
2008 carries with it the memories of so many achievements, so many improvements, and so much growth, they are too numerous to mention. Let us share with you those we feel stood out over the year:

[added] basic vendor/bazaar functionality
[added] Resource/Survey
[added] dancer and musician /commands, flourish
[added] New Characters now spawn with appropriate clothing and gear
[added] All shuttle paths
[Added] Creature Harvesting
[Added] Harvesting, Survey XP
[added] Vehicle Deeds to Blue Frog
[added] Faction Rank System
[added] Medic/Doctor
[Added] No Build Zones/Areas
[Added] Vehicle Crafting
[Added] Starting Location Selection
[Added] Rest Of Galaxie NPCs to SVN
[added] experience gaining for most actions
[added] spending experience (and credits) to gain skills
[added] consider levels
[added] exp for lairs

2009 will be a year that we hope dwarves 2008. It will be a year not of rashness but responsibility, not of normalcy but nuance, not of procrastination but perfection.
So many of the key features to which there has been such devotion will finally come to fruition. As the game approaches a playable state, as announced on Christmas Day, we will be launching Sun Crusher; our fully playable test centre running in tandem with our current Core3 Test Centre, Nova.

For the next year we are looking to bring server communities closer to SWGEmu to expand the options for new players on release. If you are operating a server community and have ideas on how SWGEmu can do a better job of integrating server communities (in general) with the SWGEmu player base, please do not hesitate to post on the forums. Over the past few months, the bigger SWGEmu community has fragmented into smaller server-based factions with ideas only being circulated in the smaller groups. The PreCU experience on any server would be much better if we try to reestablish connections to server communities that do not participate in the growth of the emulator. The SWGEmu team looks forward to working with server communities this year, more so than we have in the past.

2009, and the changes it brings, will no doubt go down in history as yet another vital step forward in the growth of this project, of open source projects worldwide, and of the gaming world. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it will never forget what has occurred and will occur here. History will be made here, and it is an honour to be here to share it with you all. Thank you. From everyone, from all times, from across the world; thank you for the opportunities you have given us, the support you have provided for us and the commitment which fuels us. We shall work without sleep, we shall solve the unsolvable, we shall continue to smash the odds and figures; until such as time as SWGEmu is absolutely complete. We shall never give up.

A Happy New Years to all of you. May good fortune follow you in all that you do.

--Team SWGEmu

[Ramsey]

Developer Perspectives

Originally Posted by Anakis

I started coding for SWGEmu in September of this year. Since then, I’ve implemented forage, medical forage, and a randomized weather system. I’ve also reworked the Teras Kasi meditate and powerboost skills to fix bugs and make them behave more like they did during pre-cu. At the present time I am working on force of will, the Teras Kasi incapacitation recovery skill.

My focus thus far has been on skills and features and I think that’s what I’ll continue to work on as we begin 2009. I’ll also step on some bugs here and there. Thank you all for supporting this project. We will deliver what you have been waiting so long for.
- Anakis, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Bobius

2008 has been the year of SWGEmu. While many know that this project has existed for a few years, what they may not realize is that Core3, the current version of the source code, was only open sourced in December of 2007. This means our current code base is only a little over a year old, and I'm wowed by the progress that has been made. I encourage all of you to check out [revision 20] and see exactly how far we've come. I joined the development team in April 2008, since then, our repository has changed over 700 times, each time adding a feature or fixing a bug. That is the power of open source.

I am thankful for the past 8 months that I've been allowed to contribute to this project. Now that we're about to make the next big leap forward in this project's history, I can not really express the excitement I have for what is to come.

What is Bobius working on?
I've just finished the framework for Active Areas. Active Areas, allow us to trigger certain events when a player enters or exits a certain area. This will allow us to make more dynamic events, implement features such as badges and sarlacc poisons, and bring new content to the table (think ambushes). The problem with active areas has always been coming up with a method of tracking player movement without adding extra overhead. I'm happy to say that I believe that we've come up with a way to add these features, while only adding the overhead equivalent of spawning a single creature to the planet. Check out the fountain outside of the cloner in Theed. I've set up an active area stress test there. If all goes well, you should start seeing more dynamic areas soon!

I'm also working on faction stuff. Pretty soon all creatures will have assigned factions. You will be able to gain and earn faction points for things other than the Empire and the Rebellion. This also means that other NPCs will interact with each other as they should. You'll see hutts attacking imperials, thugs attacking policemen, etc..

With missions, lairs, and player housing getting ever closer to completion, I can also start finishing my work on the GCW. Expect to see Imperial and Rebel missions and factional bases as soon as the underlying framework is complete.
- Bobius, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by cRush

I came to project in July of 2008 with the mindset to make a difference here at SWGEmu, and hopefully motivate others to do the same. Although, I have been programming for roughly 11 years, my experience with C++ is rather young, as this is my first real project with it. Fortunately, I spent nearly three years with the RunUO project coding in C#, and making major core modifications to that system. I found that the experience I gained in that endeavour, coupled with my 7 years of web development and strong object oriented design skills, have proved invaluable in overcoming the overwhelming sensation of the massive scope of this project.

My contributions to this project are with great reward, as I have learned quicker than I could have ever hoped possible with traditional training, and I have opened windows to many new areas of thought in this process. I adapted to the C++ language in about a week, and through the help of some of the existing developers, was up to speed and contributing before I knew it. Now, over six months later, I am proud to take my place among a community that has helped recreate a dream that a corporate giant told us was impossible.

My first major contribution to the project was the implementation of Medical and Doctor skills, but since then I have added in many small bug fixes and optimizations that have helped in the creation of other systems.

Moving forward, I look to continue to help polish up the code base and push for the release of TC:SC as a stable working beta copy of our hard work. With food, drink, and spice on the threshold, awaiting a few other systems completion, I have much still to offer the project. Furthermore, as the project nears completion, the much awaited PCP project will resume, and I do plan to head that project once again. I know many of you are interested in being able to contribute, and as soon as we are ready to continue in that direction again, we will be sure to inform the community about this project.

I just want to thank all of the other developers and staff members for all of the hard work they have put in to maintaining the professional image that we strive for here at SWGEmu.com.

Finally, I want to thank the community for sticking with us and believing in us. None of this would be possible without your support. Look forward to 2009 being even more productive than 2008!
- cRush, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Dannuic

Comments
I am relatively new to the team, joining in the later half of this year, and I have been working on mostly adding new stuff to the server. I started out with a couple of simple things like adding secondary color customization (which I think actually found it's way off trunk). Secondary color led naturally to fixing a large quantity of entertainer bugs/feature fixes, and of course dice to round things out. Eventually, I implented experience and training onto trunk after rigorous testing on CombatTest, thanks to Thrin and his team.

In the immediate future I intend to do some cleanup and bug removal, because that is something that is currently necessary before anymore major additions are added. After it seems appropriate, I plan to work on adding pets sometime in 2009. I'm sure some other major projects will surface later in the year, and hope that we can get some phenomenal input from the community as people test out our work. The faster bugs and unintentional features come to our attention, the more able we are to work them into what we are doing.

And with that, I'd like to thank the community for the feedback I have seen, and I hope that we, as a community, are able to put together what is shaping up to be an excellent product. It's exciting.
- Dannuic, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Kellina

SWGEmu CSR/EC Team:
The CSR/EC Team would like to thank you all for a wonderful year, we have been working hard at keeping the peace, as well as offering support on the forums, irc and our support site.

We are also working hard at continuing to plan events for all those to enjoy. Please remember that we have a forum and irc channel (#swgemuevents) if you would like to discuss anything that would interest you for a event.

Also a heads up to those who enjoy the events on TC, there is something rather large in the works, so keep your eyes peeled.

With the latest news of our Sun Crusher server we will be in need of more CSRs and ECs to cover the TC (Nova). Our team is fairly new, yet it is very important, keeping the players and the developers up to date on what each other is thinking/doing. As we expand to our new Server, more CSRs and EC will be incorporated.

We have created a CSR/EC application for all those to feel free to apply, the last day you can apply will be Jan 31st.

CSR/EC Application <- Click To Apply.

Current CSR list:
Kellina – CSR/EC Lead
Ekaika
Learningdisease
Max
MrBlonde
Tolbat
Vashman

Current EC list:
Kellina – CSR/EC Lead
DavinFelth
Towlin

On Leave CSR/EC list:
Aremathiea
Serpentkaa
Sperg


We would like to thank everyone for a wonderful year and are excited to experience the days/months/years to come!


Creatures/NPCs – Caves/Dungeons:
We have come a long way with creatures on the TC, currently we are finishing up the skills for the last of them which should be done in the next week or so. Our next step is finishing up all the city NPC spawns and converting any creatures/npcs that are inside of cities to attackable objects.

Once all the creatures/npcs are complete we will be moving on to getting lairs all finished up, as in getting each creatures lair scripted and working.
Once lairs are complete then everything will be ready for Missions and random spawns etc.

We are also going to continue to finish up all the rest of the caves/dungeons/instances as time goes by, and new features permit us to do so. So keep watch for those.

I’m very excited to get to this point, that means we will have full world spawns! And will be great on the new Sun Crusher playable server once it’s up and running.

Thanks to all those that are and have been part of my Creature/Npc – Caves/Dungeon Team Keep up the good work! (Kellina, LearningDisease, Kaigeos, Hashman) and I would also like to thank those that have helped in the past. (Farmer John, Macrona, Kasea)

Loot Table:
The loot table is a ongoing project, and is huge! we are continuing to work on it and get it as close to pre-cu as possible. currently we have just about everything that could be crafted/looted available, but as time goes by and items are made craftable we will be removing things and tuning/finishinig it up to how it was with a few tweaks.

Thanks to the loot table team for all the work you have done! Keep it up!
(Kellina, Farmer John, Hashman)

- Kellina, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Kyle

2008 has been a enormous year for SWGEmu. A full year of open source has yielded many talented individuals doing various things for the project including scripting, artwork, writing, coding and researching. I have been on the dev team since the moment it went open source, and before hand with the Launchpad development. 2009 means three major things for the work that I do.

1) The completion of crafting for all professions.
2) The birth of more realistic AI
3) The revamp of Launchpad Enhanced to be much more community friendly.

Crafting

There have been a number of breakthrough's in crafting behind the scenes over the last few weeks / months. Vast amounts of new and old data have been merged together into a new database containing what seems to be approximately 80-90% of all relevant data needed to bring exactness to the process. The last portion already has a majority of the data collected and entry should begin again in the next few weeks. I am at a time now where getting this data together is an immediate priority, followed by getting it into core 3. I envision the completion of crafting to be an enormous turning point in this project.

AI

This is something I have be very excited to work on. When crafting is in and ready, we will begin working on making the creatures and NPC's move, plot, stalk, flee, attack, tank, kite, and perform a lot of actions to make combat much more engaging. There are a number of cool things that AI will do for the game to make it feel more pre-cu. This will be an area to watch with interest when we get started on it.

Launchpad Revamp

This is also an area of deep interest for me. The launchpad in it's current state has far surpassed its' original intentions and design. It is rapidly approaching 1 million hits on the status page (See the bottom of the TC announcements in the launchpad). The next incarnation of the launchpad will be with server administration in mind. It will be designed to make client file distribution easier for server administrators to customize the client required to connect to their server. The short list of potential features would include:

Custom installation distribution
Optional Online profile storage
Portals for community submissions of things like Loading screens, login backgrounds, launchpad skins and other custom content.
Tools to allow admins full control over many of these features as pertains to their own server.
A centralized location for servers to be listed, without requiring them to be physically associated in any way.

The launchpad is and will be further designed with the community server in mind so that any server can use it regardless of their size, status or location. In reality, regardless of even what incarnation of the client patch level, server codebase or other situations, the launchpad should be able to handle login, distribution, and many more features.

Thanks for the support, and I look forward to the coming months because of the exciting things coming down the pipe.

- Kyle, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Link3978

Hey guys,

Long time no see. For those of you that don't know me, last January Ritter, Kyle, and I did a lot of work with crafting. With help from Ritter and Kyle, I wrote the first implementation of our schematic system. Some of you might remember that.

On to current things. I have just recently finished with all my post graduation stuff and am starting to get back into coding. I have just spent the last couple days working on fixing heightmaps. Player housing and correct mob movement should be able to continue being worked on now. I am currently trying to find something to work on ... might end up being cells/structures, but dunno yet.

Thank you all for supporting SWGEmu over the years.
Happy Holidays SWGEmu community!!

~Link
- Link3978, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Nincb

Hello Everyone,

Most of you probably do not know me yet, so let me introduce myself. I have joined this project some time ago and I have been very impressed with the progress that has been done. I have started work on several areas of the code including finishing up bazaar/vendor. My main focus lately has been finishing up all of the packets which have not been fully documented, and that is pretty much almost completed. I have also been fixing/cleaning various other things.

As far as 2009 is concerned, I will probably move into the profession area (ie. Combat Medic). There are also various things which we have packets on but are not completely implemented that I will work on as well. I also plan on going over crafting in the coming months (although that is something that is pretty much finished). Another item on my schedule is working on documenting a lot of the existing code. Finally, there are also some client stuff that I will begin work on.

Again, as most will say...2008 has been a very successful year, and we want to remember 2009 being even better. To do this, I highly encourage everyone to take part in the community, even if it is not contributing things to the emulator code itself. Even just testing on the SWGEmu Test Center helps out a lot! Attend all of the devchats that run monthly, and be sure to always check back on our biweekly updates as well. Also keep an eye out on any stress tests / other events that are planned throughout 2009, the more people that attend the better!

With that, I hope everyone will have an excellent holiday season and I wish you all a happy New Year!

- Nincb, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by PanchJr

I joined the team soon after the project went open source. The first thing I found out was that writing code for such a large, complex project was nothing like anything I had done before. Luckily help was on hand from the original team.

Once I had familiarised myself with the code by doing various small changes, my first big project was the bazaar/vendor code which involved a lot of packet work. Once that was in a fairly stable state I somehow managed to get talked into looking at the combat code.

The combat revision is currently one of the biggest projects for the emulator. Every change to the code is thoroughly tested, by QA and the profession reps, and changes made as required. It also involves a lot of research to find details of how all the skills worked. The current implementation is much closer to what pre-cu was like than what is available on the test centre and getting more like pre-cu every day. You probably want to know when you will see the result of all this work on the test centre all I can say say is it will be added 'when it is ready'.

Here's hoping 2009 is as productive as 2008
- PanchJr, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Ramsey

SWGEmu is now 4 years old as of yesterday (12/24/08). We've gone from a station server dummy server to an MMO engine powerhouse on the spare time of many generous individuals. We've finally began to make steps towards separating our testing environment from a playable PreCU and I could not be happier. Spending my late teen years growing with this project and to finally see what it has become feels amazing. I would like to thank all of the developers that have joined the team over the last few years and pick up the hard work that had to be done when the older devs like myself were plagued with other distractions

Of course SWGEmu's infallible community is why we are surviving today. It is nice to know that so many people have backed our efforts, even though we have been far from perfect, and have continued to do so coming into 2009. The final few turns to v1.0 are coming up on the road and I believe the fruits of our efforts will make the wait feel worthwhile. I have yet to play a live version of SWG and I am excited to enjoy the game for it's content, not the formation of bytes its sending over the wire in the background.

What I'm doing: I'm grinding through various actions for the NPC AI scripts. These npc actions will be what you use in the script to tell the object what to do based on certain rules. It sounds more exciting than it actually is. I'll be doing this through break
- Ramsey, SWGEmu Developer

[Ramsey]

Developer Perspectives (Cont.)

Originally Posted by Sytner

Hello all,

Since joining the team back in May I’ve been working on various client-side tools, research and modifications; most notably the world snapshot/terrain editor and restoring the previously unfinished planet Taanab.

I’ve been out of action for the past couple of months due to real life demands, but have had some time over the holidays to begin work again. During this period I’ve focused mainly on the snapshot side of the editor, polishing existing features and adding some powerful new ones; it would be tedious to list them all, but a few worth mentioning are:

• The ability to copy and paste objects between different files (trickier than it may sound)
• All functions can now be carried out on any number of objects at once – rotation, translation, basic add/remove functions etc
• Far more powerful rotation and searching functions, such as rotation about a point, finding objects within a certain radius etc

UPDATE: Here's the Taanab teaser trailer. Only a short one - more to come soon.

Looking to 2009, I have another busy couple of weeks coming up but then I’ll be back to regularly working on the editor again and polishing up Taanab.
- Sytner, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Thoop

Hey guys. I'm pretty new to the team so I don't have a whole lot of fixes under my belt yet, but I plan to continue working hard and helping out in any way possible. This is a great team of people who are great at what they do! Currently, I have implemented things such as resource deeds that will hopefully help Kyle test crafting, craft-able Master Artisan speeder deeds, mood fixes, and miscellaneous bug fixes to make TC more enjoyable.

Now I am working on re-implementing resource spawns so that they are exactly how they were pre-cu, so that the Resource Manager can finally be finished. After that I might begin gathering creature info for DNA sampling or helping Kyle finish implementing crafting professions with his crafting system. It all depends on where I'm needed for now.

Thanks to everyone that is helping out!
- Thoop, SWGEmu Developer

Originally Posted by Ultyma

Comments
I just want to first of all thank the community for sticking with us for so long. Your support means everything to us, and without you, there would be no point to even working on this project anymore.

Secondly, I want to thank all the new developers that have joined our team over the last year. There has been amazing progress and we have some very talented people working on things now.

I don't really have much more to say, other than Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. We hope you will continue to stay with us, as we are in this till the end.

May the source be with you.
- Ultyma, SWGEmu Developer

Client Developer Perspective

Originally Posted by DavinFelth

Hey all, it's Davin here with some little info for you, Uli and Valkyra have updated you on what they're up to below so I'll try to keep out of that stuff.

So What have I been up to, well, very recently I've been working on buildings and ways to get the new buildings from Live to our beloved pre-cu, things like the bunker. Unfortunately it's not a simple case of copying the appropriate files because one of the most important files used by enterable buildings uses a new version in NGE and so is incompatible with our pre-cu client. These POB files (Portalized OBject) contain various bits of information vital for the construction of the interior of the building, without it, no building (or at least no non-crashing client ). So I've been working on converting these new versions to Pre-CU and I think I'm making quite abit of headway but perhaps more on that when I have some more interesting news on it.

Some of you may also remember that I was working on an instance called "Flashpoint" it was a very basic map but the first to be created completely from scratch, which I did without the use of any terrain editing tools etc. (). Well, I've not forgotten it but I've not worked on it much either, I was waiting for the Core3 creatures system to be abit more complete (which it very much is now) and also for the missions system to be in (which it is now ) so hopefully I'll begin work on that again soon, but it'll be a toss up between working on that or working on POB's.

Uli I think has mentioned his translation work on the client which is good stuff, it should enable a much wider audience to be able to enjoy the work that everyone has put into the server. We've also taken some brief looks at Hoth, mainly just the simple stuff like armor which is easily implementable. I also looked at Faction armor a little while ago, you can see that working in Core3 here: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...enShot0044.jpg, I also tested putting in new schematics (for the faction armor) and that worked out quite well.

Well that's about it really, I hope you all had a great Christmas and I hope that the New Year brings you exactly what you're looking for, see you soon!

- DavinFelth, SWGEmu Client Developer

Originally Posted by Uli

Well, 2008 has been a decent year.
Uli Client Developer, work this year has been good as I managed to gain information and expanded my knowledge out.

Things I have done tool wise this year are some programs which I did not finish too long ago which are the FPS Cap Changer as well as the settings over rider. People have asked for a RAM Cap changer however I do not A) Feel it is needed B) Think it will work without a hitch, I'm more worried about the possibilities that changing the RAM cap may do especially when if someone changes it and they do not have that much RAM in there PC and 750mb should be a decent max cap anyway. (The Settings Over Rider and FPS Cap Changer may be found in the Darjani.org Download Section or the Truegalaxies.com website.)

Mods I have done are things such as pod racers, new species and quite a few others, a list of screen shots and what currently might be possible to do (Here) and also have began work on Client Translation however this might take a very long time to be released because of how much editing there is and also I'm just sticking it through a translator currently it will only do French and Spanish, Japanese is already done thanks to SOE and to do other languages it will be complex because what we need to do is do a lot of alterations such as add in texture of the text and designate them and then alter the string files but hopefully we will have that done all in the future sometime and we may make a tool for it since it would definitely be needed

Been a great year, got some good documentations on certain files and the actual client hopefully we will be able to uncover more in 2009.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Also
http://trac2.assembla.com/swgemu/changeset/449
I'm Glad to say Kyle has not become a Buddhist Monk!

- Uli, SWGEmu Client Developer

Originally Posted by Valkyra

Hey SWGEmu fans and followers,

This is Valkyra, one of the client developers for SWGEmu. I specialize in the client-side modifications and development, whereas our SWGEmu Developers specialize in developing the server-side aspect of the game.

Our job can be construed as easier or not so much depending on how you look at it. Sure, the client is technically done, but when you want new features, content, and miscellaneous things added (or maybe even fixed), we're the team to call!

2008 was an interesting year for me, because at first I started work on world-building for Kashyyyk, which as you all know, was a pretty much complete planet that was found in the TREs unused. However, I had envisioned it as an adventure planet, full of quests to complete, strange new areas to explore, and fun to be had all around with your groups and guilds. However, I believe that unfortunately at this time, we don't simply have the resources to make it a full and thriving adventure planet. What I mean by that is, that sure I can edit the terrain. put down some caves and instance entrances, but will there be new quests, beasts, and all kinds of other stuff that makes adventure planets fun? Not really. For this reason, until I get a dedicated work team to help me brainstorm ideas for the planet and help implement them, Kashyyyk has been put off, but I am confident that it will be returned to.

However, I've been working on another planet named Chandrila that will not be an adventure planet similar to Dathomir or Endor. It will be a calm planet, where you can settle and build up your player cities on it. It will also feature a space sector too for you JTL fans! But it will also have it's own secrets for you to discover!

I haven't unfortunately been able to work on Chandrila much for various reasons, but the main one would have to be because Sytner is still working on his TRN/WS editor, which means that the terrain of the planet is still having to be made. But in the meantime, I have been working on level design for a MOD. The mod being developed is from my own personal game studio I started called ALTiReA Games, and we are essentially taking Crysis's CryEngine 2 (which simply put owns) and making a mod for it, which will feature an exciting brand new story, new main characters, new vehicles, weapons, and an assortment of other things! So needless to say the Sandbox 2 editor is GREAT xp for when I am going to be doing Chandrila's world-building.


Well thats all for now, have a great New Years everyone and may the force be with you.

- Valkyra, SWGEmu Client Developer

Originally Posted by webbwbb

I have not really worked with C++ that much until very recently. I had other experience with another language called GML that in some ways is like C++ but is very different in others. I've managed to add in an administrative command that should help for future events and am currently working on implementing vehicle garages. It takes me a long time but I am able to figure out things after awhile. Even if you are not that familiar with C++ you can still contribute in some ways, large or small.* When cRush came in he had little to no experience with C++, same with Kyle.* It can be intimidating trying to get into everything but if you think you can code something and do it well you should still push through.* In the coming year I plan to become more active in testing and development and possibly act as a sort of link between the Developers and the QA team.* I've recently started a competition on the forums to decide who the "King of Nerds" is. If that receives enough attention more contests may follow.
- webbwbb, SWGEmu Quality Assurance

Oru, TheAnswer, and McMahon were not available to write statements for this update, but each of these individuals have proven to be invaluable members to the project.

Oru and TheAnswer is the mastermind behind Engine3. Core3 would be NOTHING without these men. Not only are they constantly fixing bugs, they are always willing to assist team members in times of need even with the time difference between the US and Europe. If you are to remember ANYONE from SWGEmu, it should be these two. Recently, they have led the conversion to a new String class for Core3 (as we have jettisoned the standard library) and worked with link to convert and implement heightmaps. These two are legendary members of the project and probably isn't receiving the thanks they deserve. The next time you are on IRC, please thank them for the work they have done.

McMahon has done a lot of work with housing (installations) and cells. He has contributed an amazing amount of code in the time he has been here and is one of our most talented developers. He has recently been busy with a new startup called Frugal Mechanic (http://frugalmechanic.com). It's a brilliant idea that can save you time and money with any vehicle related repairs. His company has garnered quite a bit of attention and from what we've heard and it's been keeping him very busy. It is extremely nice to see the talents of a SWGEmu Developer at work and we wish him continued success with Frugal Mechanic!

[Ramsey]

Team Perspectives

From the Community Service Team

Originally Posted by ekaika

Aloha, I'm Ekaika. I thought I'd provide a little bio on myself for those interested. No links of requests for action this time

I joined this project sometime in '05, before the new forums went up. SWG was my first MMO, and I enjoyed the friendships and pvp so much I felt compelled to follow the project and help it succeed.

After a year or two of forum posting I eventually I ended up on staff as a Profession Rep and researched Squad Leader for future implementation. I enjoyed working with other Reps testing mechanics on staff servers polishing up our Profs.

Later I joined the initial CSR team, and spent many a late night manning IRC support for our European supporters and insomniacs, as well as helping folks on Test Center. We've run some great events I think everyone can agree have been a lot of fun. The CSR program really found its step in this project, having created the Trellis Ticketing System, wrote/rewrote much of the Support and FAQ entries, and cleaned up TC through in-game moderation.

My duties branched out to Forum Moderation most recently. likely due to my obsession with forum organization: "Hi this is in the wrong place, sorry. Is the server up?" You know who you are In all seriousness, the Moderation team has done a great job in the past few months really cleaning up the forums. They're now a safe place for new people to come get involved and help out.

I also help out with Community Relations and organizational tasks. Ties into my Public Relations background I suppose. We've come a long long way, with many new tools in place to facilitate effective communication on Staff. Everyone from Devs to Admin to Team Heads and members have full access to one another. This allows us to deal with issues live as they come up and move quickly. I've never been more excited about this project than I am now. Gasp...Heightmaps!

That's about it. I have to express my appreciation to this community for its continued support through the years. Something about this project seems to breed controversy and challenges, but with your support we've persevered and have blown through barriers. Your reward will be to have your game back again, better than it was and with the pride that's yours in knowing you helped to make it happen.

For all the friends I've made, work we've done, and laughs we've shared... thanks SWGEmu

- Ekaika, SWGEmu CSR/Mod

Originally Posted by learningdisease

I joined the team originally working on Dungeons/Bunkers/Caves, and slowly began to do more community support, especially on IRC. I guess that is where I spend most of my time, rather than on the forums.

The time I've been working with the team has been great, and I have helped to implement most of the cave-type POI's and strongholds that are currently on the TC. Kaigeos has taken over the huge task of compiling and writing the skills of the creatures on all the planets, along with the NPCs. This has made populating the dungeons a much simpler project, and I encourage everyone to help him compile the correct information in the Creature/NPC Weapon Discussion Forum so that we may see more and more POIs and dungeons becoming available.

I also spend a lot of time working with the CSR team, trying to keep the TC civil (as civil as it can be ), and also to have fun with the community. It really is the most enjoyable part, playing and just chatting with all the people who love PreCU. I'm glad to see more people using the support/ticket system we implemented this year to report all the inevitable bugs that occur in development.

As far as my work with the Profession Reps goes, early on I had compiled a whole bunch of information on Droid Engineer, as I am more aligned to crafting type work. Once we start seeing the completion of schematics and other data, I will be very involved with making sure they are working correctly on TC. Testing and checking out the other crafting issues (resources/harvesters/factories) will be on my todo list in the upcoming year.

Thank you to the whole community for getting us to where we are today, without you guys this couldn't happen. Looking forward to seeing everyone on the TC and on IRC in 2009.

- learningdisease, SWGEmu CSR/Profession Rep

From the Profession Representative Team

Originally Posted by TAfirehawk

About the Prof Rep Program

The Profession Representative Program ("Correspondent Program" as SOE called it back in the day) was started in April of this year. I was asked by the SWGEmu Team to put together a group of people like what SOE had in the pre-NGE days. The community here was/is very responsive to the idea of funneling player information through organizers so it is better presented to the Devs. I have received a few hundred apps for what was about 30 positions.

The Rep Program has went through a major change since its April introduction by reducing the total numbers of Reps a few months ago. They now are covering all Profs while focusing on a "Prof Category". This was done for various reasons from me not having time to manage 30 people to there often isn't enough to do in 30 Profs all the time. The fact that the SWGEmu Staff has grown, in part from the Rep Program, to include CSR's, Event Coordinators, QA's, etc has made it more logical to have reduced numbers right now. The members of the Rep Team are still the go-to people for any information on every profession. But that doesn't mean we don't need help from the Community....we ALWAYS need player help in the Profession Forums gathering info, discussing things and testing things on TC now and throughout 2009.


I joined the SWGEmu Team in March, 2008 after my brother-in-law told me about this project. Boy was I excited about the concept and jumped in with both feet when asked to be Lead Tester and start the "Corr Program", similar to what I was in on the SOE forums as Carbineer Correspondent pre-NGE.

My current work schedule finds me putting in less time than I want around here, but I can certainly say my excitement and JOY about bringing back "My Precious" is still as strong as it was from Day 1.

- TAfirehawk, SWGEmu Profession Representative Team Leader

Originally Posted by Tolbat

As 2008 wraps up I am working on updating, and correcting the combat lua's for the upcoming Combat Revision. The QA Team, and Profession Reps are currently assisting in gathering data for this task. Once complete more accurate profession testing can begin. This should assist Panchjr and the many other Devs who are working on this revision.
I look forward to 2009 when the Combat Revision is added to TC. Once this happens Players can begin to report Combat related bugs to www.swgemu.com/support.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

- Tolbat, SWGEmu Profession Representative/CSR

Originally Posted by Tow'lin

I joined this project almost 2 years ago in a hope that I could relive the greatest MMO, much like everyone else. What I didn't see was me joining the staff of the great project and contributing to a worthy cause. I always felt strongly about my profession and when I was given the opportunity to represent it, I took it. I was one of the original 30 or so members to join the rep team, and one of the few who remain. I am proud to have served this community through private testing for developers, extensive research, some PCP development, crafting schematics, and even some code that I wrote for shuttles. This community and project really mean a lot to me and I can't wait for us all to unite in one great PreCU.

- Tow'lin, SWGEmu Profession Representative/Event Coordinator

Originally Posted by vorta

It has been a good year. I was one of the original profession reps that were picked for the great honor and a page in the history books. I couldn't ask for any better team to test and setup the professions.

Our goal is too get the professions exactly the way they were back from the original game. I mostly worked on all the data for Bio-Engineer with help from other community members. Without your help nothing would be possible and we wouldn't be as far as we are now with the professions. Since we have been restructured we are currently working the professions that are currently in testing. I ask come to us if you find bugs in the profession, summit a bug report every little bit helps out for our goal. As long as people get the ball rolling a huge snow ball effect can occur.

The community has grown so much more then I taught possible. There has been so many advancements in the game this year I am looking forward on what we can achieve in 2009. I set a goal for my self to not only just work on profession rep duties put to help out other departments. I will leave you with a quote:

"Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating."

- vorta, SWGEmu Profession Representative

Originally Posted by WickedHangover

I started following this project long before it was possible to load into zone and 500 people in the community seemed like a lot. I remember chasing packets, pulling apart old hard drives looking for log files and reading the forum on a daily basis waiting for any news that would indicate some sort of timeline.

It's been a long time and has come a long way and as much as I would like to code on the project, I just don'd have the time committment to offer right now. So when TAfirehawk started asking for profession reps last March I felt it was my calling. Just the type of position I needed that would keep me in my daily routine of trolling the forums, gathering information and continuing to test various features before, during and after release on TC. Lately the bulk of my focus has been in researching and chasing down details regarding combat.

The development that has taken place in the last year has been astounding and it not only brings me back to the days of playing pre-cu, it brings me back to the days that I started to follow this project wondering if it could really happen. Well I think this team has proven without a doubt that it will happen and I look forward to 2009 being another amazing year for this project.

- WickedHangover, SWGEmu Profession Representative

From the Quality Assurance Team

Originally Posted by Thrin

I rejoined this community in June when Kyle posted the "Olive Branch" thread. I had been the head of testing for ANH and Joined SWGEmu with the same position. 2008 has been a great year for all of us. It saw the inception of the Quality Assurance department which has done a lot of work in finding bugs and verifying that things match how they were Pre-CU. I appreciate all of the testers, both in and outside of the QA program and know that they have contributed to a more accurate Pre-Combat Upgrade feel for the game and a more stable, bug free server. I'm looking forward to the new year where we will continue to thoroughly test each and every new feature that is added as well as do occasional retests of all previous game features. This is the only way we can ensure that we offer the community what they have waited so long for; this is the only way that every player can re-experience the greatest Star Wars saga ever told... Their own. I would like to again thank the testers for all of their work. I would also like to thank the community who has made all of this possible and the developers who fix the bugs we find.

- Thrin, SWGEmu Quality Assurance Team Leader

From the Web Development Team

Originally Posted by _DM_

Are you ready to Reborn a legend? We need you!

Ello! I'm _DM_, known in Russian communities as Pe Ell.
Our company has been developing WiseMon's «CyberCog» in laboratory for about a two years. The foundation stage is finished and we've started the realization of the projects on it. We grant a free lifetime license to SWGEmu.com as the first project that really makes our wishes come true.
We are very glad to be the Web Developers of SWGEmu.com.

Enough introduction, time to tell what the hell is going on!

It's content management framework that will help us to improve the community. What we'll have?

» Completely new interface of new redesigned SWGEmu.com website (My previous design is obsolete. It was just for a time, while we working on new concept);

» We'll be able to handle all our web resources on one core. Only one account will be needed;

» Fully multilanguage community, so, we will be able to translate news, articles, FAQs and all other info we want to any languages. Unicode makes miracles;

» Members of the community will be able to affect on it.

Core is ready for optimization while working on SWGEmu. More sw33ty things to come.

We want you enjoy the power of strong community. WiseMon's Lab.


^^ an old concept screenie


I'm working on a unicode client chat. All languages are in, but needed to draw new symbols of each alphabet. I'll do that for latin and cyrillic alphabets in 2009.
Russian language


Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!
- _DM_, SWGEmu Web Developer

[webbwbb]

Happy new year!

[Seaseme]

(sorry cRush.)


Happy new year everyone! Hope you all are well and safe!

[Kellina]

Woot, This year rocked!

Cant wait for next year!

[Valkyra]

This year was indeed great for us.

May next year be just as great if not greater!

[nincb123]

Happy New Year!

[cRush]

I call speed hacks on seaseme....

Happy New Year all! Can't wait for Suncrusher to go live!

[Chayn]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! -1 hour 46 min Super Christmas and a Super New Year... YAAAAAAA!!!!!

PS. Whats the diff between a Mod and a Super Mod???

[TAfirehawk]

Happy New Year everybody....looking forward to an even better 2009 for the Emu!!!!

[Rook]

Immense year for SWGEmu, bring on the next.

Happy New Year to all!

[DrFeelgood]

This post has me so stoked for 2009. Thank you all the devs, csrs, prof reps, etc for providing us with such a great project I used to be an admin at swgmods (formally swgemumods and swgemods) and I've been slowly getting back into client side modding. Once more things open up from server-side developments and school things slow down, I plan to fully join the client development team

[Shotter]

Keep on doing what you're doing, the monumental success so far from this project is inspiring and jaw-dropping.

An idea has never been in better hands.