News

Restoration: Year 4

Four years ago, Star Wars Galaxies Restoration launched to a highly anticipated, albeit chaotic, start. We often forget that the original Combat Upgrade era lasted a mere 200 days –And by the end of 2021, SWG Restoration had surpassed that milestone. Since then, we have been venturing into uncharted territory furthering the game in the spirit of the Combat Upgrade.  Ithorians are the superior race confirmed

Why Choices Make SWG Special

Expanding the Horizons of Combat

What's Next for SWG Restoration

Hello there, Restoration!I’m extremely pleased to reintroduce myself today as the new Lead Developer, and bring you up to speed on the exciting changes happening now and in the future.Development TeamFirst, in case you missed it, I've recently completed the transition into the Lead Developer role as Aconite just posted yesterday. I've been a primary contributor to the project for over a year and a half now, and have already been at the helm for the past few major updates to the game, helping drive the project forward with some updates I'm really proud of. I really believe that this server represents the best of what Star Wars Galaxies can be, and I'm humbled to be a part of maintaining that vision. Our team continues to grow, and I am extremely grateful for all of the help and dedication that our staff continues to provide. I am proud of how far we've come and excited about how much more we can do.Halo, one of the founders of Restoration, has also recently returned to the project in a more active role as well. He's currently hard at work on some big combat updates that we're working on together (I'll share more on that below). We are very grateful for the years of effort that went into building the prior iterations of this server and showing how much passion the community can have for this shared vision of a CU inspired server. You can expect to see more of him around.Aconite will continue to be a part of the project in an advisory role and helping with operations and technical consulting, but he's largely retiring to civilian life. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, but truly this server would not exist without all the effort he put into it. He brings years of wisdom drawn from being a core part of the development of so many projects out there, and I don't know if I'll ever match his level of deep expertise on this massive and complex project. Once again I would like to thank him for building the foundation that I'm merely stepping into as we step forward to our next chapter…Project VisionThe Restoration of Star Wars Galaxies is something that the entire team has a shared passion for. As the team grows and changes, and priorities need to shift to adapt to the needs of players, I want to share the big picture vision for the server and my own personal tenets for how I plan to go about making changes in the future.My favorite way of describing the server is "If SOE had never done the NGE, and instead kept building on the CU". Or, even shorter, "Post-CU". On our team, we have people that played in all eras of the game, and so we have love for many different fun features that existed throughout the lifetime of the live game. Our hope is to combine the best of each of them into one game, and improve and expand the things we find the most fun. Through it all though, it is extremely important to preserve the things that make SWG great at all costs:- Living in the Star Wars universe- Best in class Social and Crafting systems- Player driven economy- Endless customization- Profession identity, diversity, and differentiationThrough my time on the development team so far, I've started writing down some core tenets that I try to hold myself to. These are ultimately my own personal values and beliefs for what will help us build the best and most successful version of this game that we can. I am sharing them today because I want you to publicly hold me to these values:Players are here for SWG: As fun as it would be to warp this game into something new, the most important promise we are making to players is that this will continue to be recognizably Star Wars Galaxies at its heart.Fun > Balance > Lore/Flavor > Nostalgia: When it comes to deciding whether or not to preserve a gameplay feature that people might be nostalgic for, or rebuild it into something more fun or balanced, we are going to go the Fun route (as long as we still stay true to #1!)Don’t make players play the way they don’t want to play: The most impressive thing about Star Wars Galaxies is how big of a tent it is for so many different types of people with varying playstyles. From PvE to PvP, from Roleplay to Crafting, we need to make sure that people can play the way they want, not force them into unfun situations (even though it's usually easier that way).Give players tools, not rules:  This is a sandbox game, and players will always come up with new and often horrifying ways to play that you never saw coming. Whenever possible, it is best to put tools in the hands of players to make it the game they want (and avoid the parts they don't want), rather than try and strictly enforce rules for how we think it should be played.Roadmap updatesToday we posted an update to the Project Roadmap on the site. This reflects our plans for the remainder of 2024 and beyond, as we get ever closer to completing the "Restoration" phase. There has been a lot of progress this year on that front.As a quick recap, If you haven't checked out any of our recent updates, here are a few recent highlights of things that 2024 brought:Unlock the Village and learn the ways of the Force, while staying hidden from Bounty Hunters… or worse.Play through entirely new content in the Marauder's Theme Park and Celestial DiscoveriesChallenge yourself on Krayt Dragon difficulty mode on the revamps of Champion of Mustafar and Heroic EncountersBecome a proud member of the Idiot's Array, where only the most elite Pilots can play.Fight for control of the Galaxy, or at least the most PvP kills, in our overhauled Galactic Civil War planetary control game.The linked roadmap above includes some new major updates that I would like to share more about here:Heroic Jewelry and Combat EvolutionWith the addition of the final Heroic instances, we are entering the next chapter of combat and bringing a new sweeping set of changes to existing professions. These will include potential advanced profession requirements, ability changes, moving things around, etc. Anything is on the table. Halo and myself will be working on these updates to come out alongside Jewelry and make combat more exciting for ALL professions. Yes, even Ranger.The goals for this update are as follows:Ensuring that every profession has an important place in combat, and forging a strong and unique playstyle identity into each one with new and inspired mechanics and abilities.Reducing the impact of food and items in combat, lowering the barrier to entry and helping each profession's identity shine more.Preserving the slower pace of combat to ensure that strategy and communication are the key factors in determining a victor.Redesigning game warping abilities like Center of Being to ensure that Melee has more variety and paths to viability.Balancing the skill trees to ensure that every tree has something interesting to dabble into or master.Introduce brand new capabilities into the game with the dozens of new Heroic Jewelry sets, which will allow new players to play the professions largely the way they remember them, and then expand into this new era through the endgame content.RestussWe're finally bringing back this iconic PvP warzone, and with the special twist: new, Restuss-specific abilities that are designed around massive group battles that the area is best known for. These "ultimate" abilities will be tied to specific professions and playstyles, and only usable within Restuss itself, allowing it to become its own open world game mode. Commendations will be granted for PvP kills on top of the quests in the area, and used to fuel these abilities alongside all new rewards. We're still designing these new abilities, but we intend them to be abilities that are charged up throughout combat, and built specifically to favor the side with fewer numbers, which will ensure that open world PvP isn't always just decided by sheer numbers. We'll share more about this soon.Jedi KnightJedi is always going to be a class that can't make everyone happy, but we're going to be taking steps to help it fit better into the game and fit into more playstyles. The Force Ranking System is still a ways off, but we are shifting the first part of this system forward to introduce a higher-risk, higher-reward mode of gameplay.Jedi Knight, which will have a different name in-game, will include access to 5th Generation Lightsabers, and more Force bar to help you stay in the fight longer. It will also introduce higher stakes: A longer ghost timer, Breaching charges for all bounties, and the ability for any player to attack you after issuing a Report, if you're visible. This will also open up opportunities to make sure that visibility consequences are also appropriate for those players that wish to remain at Padawan.We will be making these changes extremely carefully. We want to make sure that everyone can feel a sense of progression and viability in this game, not just Jedi Knights or Masters. We will have more to share about our plans for the FRS, and additional ranking systems for non-Jedi, at a later date.Identity CrisisFinally, for my own sanity, I need to come clean about something. On the live game, I went by Zedd. I was a pretty prominent PvPer, and pseudo Smuggler Senator, that got to play with some of the best players and guilds the game had near the last several years of the NGE. I jumped across servers taking me from Bria, to Chilastra, Flurry, and Starsider. Look me up on YouTube, I killed Xaos Kun once. I came to Restoration under the name Zeddco, and after playing with some real life friends for a few months decided to join the team, which slowly but surely that just took over my life. I end up finding it more fun to develop the game than play almost any game, really. But I'm also planning on hopping on more often to get to play alongside you all.I'll still go by ornj here, so all this really means for most of you is that I'm switching back to my original Discord account, but I am also hoping to finally be able to tell my old friends from other servers to come give us a try! If you knew me on live, please come say hi.

The Force is Imbalanced: Managing Jedi Population

BackgroundSurprising no one, adding Jedi to Star Wars Galaxies is a very tough thing to get right.We believe in the original vision of a high risk, high reward class. It adds an extra layer of depth to the game, and it makes Jedi feel special… which it should, because this is Star Wars. However, we also believe that Star Wars Galaxies is still a fun game without Jedi, and we don't want to create a game that excludes or diminishes the role and balance of other professions just because Jedi are in the game. It's also one of our core design tenets to make sure that playing the game lets you feel like you're living in Star Wars… and, as we’ve talked about before, Star Wars in our time period of 3ABY doesn't have a lot of Jedi.As we shared when we originally released Jedi, getting the balance right of Jedi’s role in the server and balancing their gameplay will be an ongoing journey. It's not something that any version of SWG has gotten right. Jedi in the Pre-CU period with the FRS quickly became plagued with overpowered Jedi, where playing almost anything else felt like a waste. The opposite approach, which the NGE took, also had plenty of Jedi running around everywhere, but balanced combat to such a degree that Jedi weren't even all that useful in PvP. It turns out that most people want to play a Jedi, and will do whatever it takes to do so, making it challenging to meet these goals.Jedi by the numbersOn the evening of February 29, the first Jedi was unlocked on Restoration. Since then, at time of writing, 145 have been unlocked. At one per account, that's about 9.6% of our weekly active player base. Many more are in the process of unlocking Jedi as well, with 161 others that have completed Phase 1 of the unlock, a good indicator that they intend to go all the way.By the numbers, the online Jedi population is not as scary as some might think. It hovers around 5-10% most of the time (average of 6.48%):Online Jedi Metrics

Roadmap Update

General Availability of x64 Client Beta

Roadmap Update - What's Coming in 2024 and Beyond

Jedi - Part 4 - It's the Emperor's Galaxy and the Jedi are Just Living In It

This is Part 4 of our Jedi Developer Diaries (see: Part 1: The Inciting Incident & FaQ, Part 2: Life, Death, and the Jedi Ecosystem, and Part 3: The Tools of the Jedi and The Consequences of Using Them). In this diary, we’re sharing the high-level setting and shape of both the Jedi Storyline and the historical context that the Jedi in our world live in, demonstrated as episodic milestones: The Exile and The Revision, which are the historical events that happen before our story takes place, The Incite and The Path, which are the journey events your character progresses through, and finally The Hunt and The Order, which is where the core gameplay loop pans out.A note on nomenclature: SWG Restoration officially takes place in 3 ABY after the Battle of Hoth. While game mechanics and systems use the term “Jedi,” you won’t find much usage of the term in-game as part of our dialogue or story. This is because we respect that The Jedi, as established canonically in the movies, is an extinct religion. In other words, in-game, (generally) no characters will refer to you as a Jedi. Likewise, pursuing the Dark Side doesn’t make you a Sith. While we refer to these game systems collectively as encompassing the experience of playing a “Jedi” (e.g., Jedi Skill Trees, Jedi Combat Mechanics, the “Jedi” Developer Diaries, etc.), this is for ease of reference and understanding only. Ultimately, only you decide what to refer to your character as in our story, whether that’s a Jedi or something else. More on this later.The ExileThe Exile sets the stage for the rest of the story by outcasting the Jedi into the void. This is a crucial point of the story because we shape the remainder of our experience around the lack of organization and chaos in the galaxy.“The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger. The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society.”The RevisionWhile not a component of the main unlock storyline, players will learn more about The Exile and The Revision through side-quests, content areas like the Menagerie for the Bestine Humanities Society, and other adventures.“The Jedi, and some within our own Senate, had conspired to create the shadow of Separatism using one of their own as the enemy's leader. They had hoped to grind the Republic into ruin. But the hatred in their hearts could not be hidden forever. As last, there came a day when our enemies showed their true natures. The Jedi hoped to unleash their destructive power against the Republic by assassinating the head of government and usuring control of the clone army. But the aims of the would-be tyrants were valiantly opposed by those without elitist, dangerous powers...”The InciteThe Mysterious Figure is your first hint that you are entering a larger world, but not a world that you expect to be easy. Yet as soon as they arrive, they disappear. This might be a path you have to begin alone.“I've heard you're looking for someone to help with your "connection to the world." We should speak soon, but I want to make sure you have what you claim”The PathThe next phase of the journey brings you in contact with this new faction and eventually to the Village itself. The Village is where you can finally learn from those with the knowledge you have been seeking and train Force Sensitive skills. This will work similarly to how it existed in the original game, completing quests for village members who can train particular aspects of the Force Sensitive trees and converting your earned experience points into Force Sensitive XP to spend on them.“That is why I have called upon you, my loyal followers, to join me in this righteous crusade against the last remnants of the Jedi and all those who practice this witchcraft. Together, we will root out the corruption and restore order to the galaxy. We will show these so-called Force users that their time has come and gone, that they can no longer impose their twisted beliefs upon us.”After completing your training and aiding the Village against this siege, you will again be reunited with the Mysterious Stranger. They will guide you in the next steps of your path if you so choose to abandon your current life that exists in relative safety and obscurity.You will face the Initiate Trials (formerly the “Padawan Trials”), where the Mysterious Figure finally puts what you have learned at The Village to the test. If you pass, you will be shown into The Path, a series of safehouses and sympathetic volunteers that the Mysterious Figure themself relies on. In the walls of these safe houses, there is no conflict; it is a place of learning and rest. Here you will train your “Jedi” skills with the Mysterious Figure and other characters you will encounter along the way.The conclusion of The Path is where the player begins their new life. They are now involved in the cyclical gameplay loops of The Hunt, The Order, or both. More on that below!The HuntPlayers that have elected to play Jedi will be restricted from Combatant status in the GCW and will always need to be wary about how they act in the game world. As we explained in more detail in our last dev diary, most combat actions you take will incur “visibility,” and you never know who you can trust. NPCs will have their views on the Jedi, and any players or other characters that see you perform your seemingly impossible feats, or wielding the gear of the old Jedi, can turn you in. The Emperor pays well for loyalty.Players will spend their time building their lightsaber, hunting for cloaks and holocrons, and learning new skills. It may turn out to be a lonely and dangerous life. You must watch out for signs that you have been seen and do what you can to lay low or throw off the trail. This may mean times when you can’t attend events with your friends or fight on the front lines of the Galactic Civil War for too long. Seek out friends that can help you. To survive in this new environment, you will need trusted allies to aid you in content. As a Force user, you have a lot to offer in both group PvP and PvE, but you will need to remain ever vigilant. The Inquisition, and indeed Vader himself, are always after you.“Thanks to the Empire's rule, I've had to learn the hard way. I've been on the run, betrayed, and hunted by those I trusted. So, kid, remember this: the path you're on holds both hope and deception. Stay cautious, and above all: trust The Force.”The OrderThe Force Ranking System (“FRS”) manifests in our game as The Order. Led by a survivor of Order 66, the Order is their attempt to rebuild what has been lost, reconnect with The Force, and to remind the galaxy that the Jedi were once the guardians of peace and justice. However, The Force is unbalanced, and the state of the galaxy complicates this plan.We note here the mention of a “political divide” that is a secondary consideration to your participation in The Order. Here, we mean that your alignment to the Rebel or Imperial factions is effectively irrelevant as far as The Order is concerned. The Order is about preserving the sanctity and way of life of those that wield The Force, and with so few left, it can’t afford to discriminate in its membership by political views. Likewise, users of The Force face separate internal conflicts among their ranks, such as whether and how to use the Dark or the Light side of The Force, or both, to achieve their goals.This position effectuates another change: combining the traditionally separated “Dark” and “Light” FRS into one. It is just “The Order,” and there are two unique dimensions at play: Dark vs. Light and Rebel vs. Imperial, all inside one entity that will be entirely unrestrained to run in sandbox fashion. At the highest ranks of the FRS exists the Council, which players will fill to guide The Order as it sees fit. The Council will rotate periodically to prevent Dark or Light from retaining power for too long. The Council of The Order will dictate how its ranks are filled and promoted, with the flexibility of choosing diplomatic, combatant, or other means to rise in the ranks. The Council will also have control over many other aspects of The Order, such as the color of the robes for each rank and even how its members are trained, affecting the combat balancing of their ranks over time, allowing them to place weight on one of the following:Force Control to increase healing and defenseForce Manipulation to increase the efficiency of abilitiesForce Power to increase the strength of offensive attacksYour individual and collective actions (and those of higher ranks in larger orders of magnitude) will have a profound impact on the Balance of The Force. And an imbalance either way, towards the Dark or the Light, will have tremendous consequences on a Galaxy-wide scale. This doesn’t mean the abilities you choose to use dictate your Force Alignment, but rather your behaviors and choices will—more on that in a future Developer Diary.“You don’t understand— I must bring back the Order. It is my failure that left us where we are. The galaxy has gone too long without our protection. Before the fall, we were beacons of light, defenders of peace. Palpatine blinded us, and Skywalker betrayed us. The galaxy now suffers under their grip. It's my duty to rebuild. I'll gather the remnants of the Order, anyone strong with The Force, train these new acolytes, and reform the Council. Failure won't define us; we'll rise, dispelling the darkness and restoring hope... I hope you will join us again.”

Jedi - Part 3 - The Tools of the Jedi and The Consequences of Using Them

This is Part 3 of our Jedi Developer Diaries (see: Part 1: The Inciting Incident & FaQ and Part 2: Life, Death, and the Jedi Ecosystem). In this diary, we’re talking about how Jedi will attain and use the tools they need, as well as the consequences thereof.Jedi FashionOne key change we’re making right off the bat is that Jedi will wear both Robes and Cloaks. Each providing a specific purpose as described below. We’re working with our art team to modify the assets to work together, and to ensure all species can equip them.RobesA Jedi’s robes are a symbol of their rank. Outside of the Jedi Padawan and Jedi Knight robes, which are attained from their respective trials, Robes will be attained through the Force Ranking System (FRS) and can only be worn while maintaining the respective rank. Robes contain stats related to the Force (e.g., Max Force Power, or Force Power Regeneration). Other features of robes include that they do not decay and they can be recolored by Force Ghosts using a consumable mechanic (excluding the Jedi Padawan Robe). The following Robes will be available as part of our core design: