World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you view what your team is doing as a hack of the SOE's Star Wars Galaxies?

Ramsey: Not at all. The software that we are developing, called "Core3", is a platform that can be scaled to meet the needs of any computing environment for MMOs. The only hack-like portion of Core3 is the implementation of the network protocol used to communicate with the PreCU Clients. In other words, it knows how to speak in an encrypted "language" using some proprietary protocol developed at SOE. Researching, reversing, and documenting this language is what has taken most of the development time. Once we figured out the majority of the proprietary SOE protocol (granting the ability for us to "speak" to the client), the rest of the code is crafted and written as our own implementation. Core3 is running our own code that is written to mimic the behavior of the old SOE PreCU servers. It, of course, does not have to be this way and we allow huge portions to be changed either through script or the code itself.

Missions and creature handling recently made their re-introductions to the game

Ten Ton Hammer: How much of the game had to be recreated to avoid copyright infringement and other legalities? Could you salvage art assets, animations, any part of the graphics engine?

Ramsey: Contrary to the belief of newcomers, what we are doing is perfectly legal. The software we develop uses no code from SOE, it just knows how to "talk" to the old PreCU clients. Nothing on the visual side has to be recreated since Core3 is essentially telling the client "spawn model ____ at x,y,z then do action1,2,3". The client understands these commands and loads all of the same artwork available during PreCU. What the server IS responsible for is to make sure the game world runs as intended by synchronizing all of the expected events. These "normal" events can be manipulated with ease since it is our code, we simply chose to make the world function like it did during PreCU. It is easier said than done, which is why the codebase is huge and continues to grow.

The limits of what we can do with PreCU SWG are only bound by the commands the protocol supports. Going forward, after restoring the PreCU SWG, the community as a whole can expand upon the vast Star Wars universe without the intervention of hardliners at Sony. For example, we have a group within the SWGEmu Team that is working to restore an additional planet to the game - opening up a wide variety of exploration options that would otherwise never be available to players on SOE's service. The SWG client loads the custom assets like any other file while our server manipulates them throughout the game world. We also plan to develop in the near future a web interface to track statistics of players, the economy, items etc. galaxy wide, similar to the WoW-Armory. All of this is legal (as long as we do not use SOE artwork to create the new assets) because everything is our own original work and opens up exciting pathways for future expansion of the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: You've taken great pains to ensure that SWGEmu doesn't encourage piracy by ensuring your gamers have purchased a copy of Star Wars Galaxies and not allowing players to play on trial accounts. And while you welcome donations, you don't charge a fee. Nevertheless, has SOE or LucasArts given your team any grief? What's been their response to the project?

Ramsey: The SOE/LucasArts response to the project is not what most would expect. The team did engage in a conference call with a few people over at SOE & LA about 2 years ago. The impression I've gotten from them, over and over again, is that they simply do not care. It may seem almost trivial for SOE to simply switch back to PreCU after the huge subscription deficit since the NGE, the community outcry, bad press...whatever. However, the people that have the ability to make the necessary changes at SOE in the interest of the player base will remain silent. The company is not willing to sit down and say, "Alright, we've made a mistake, how do we fix the mess we created" with their own customers. I suspect they are just doing the bare minimum to maintain the NGE version of SWG until their Star Wars contract runs out with LucasArts and SW:TOR by BioWare launches.

Ten Ton Hammer: How large of a volunteer team have you assembled, and are you looking for more help at present?

Our current roster has about 30-40 active staff members. Not all are developers - we've had to create subgroups within the staff to handle various responsibilities such as Development, Quality Assurance, Community Services, Event Coordination etc. The problem with volunteer projects over the internet is that not everyone can be active on a daily basis and it is especially hard to compensate when the realities of life hit hard. We are, in fact, short on Developers that can contribute code on a regular basis. The talent in this area is very thin even in the industry, which makes finding people that can devote time without pay extremely difficult.

Ten Ton Hammer: Many gamers view emulators of games and consoles long past their prime as essential to preserving the golden age of gaming, before just about every game went the way of mainstream appeal. Do you view SWGemu as part of a growing movement? Do you think other MMOs will see their own *emus in time?

Ramsey: Emulators in general are not very successful. SWGEmu is an exception because SWG PreCU was such a unique experience and was a game unlike any other. The drastic changes that have been made to the live version of SWG have driven thousands in the community to pursue the vision of this game. There is nothing else on the market that has matched it since, and the newer games continue to follow safe WoW-like formulas. I do believe that the preservation of an MMO will be sought through the means of an emulator if the behavior of SOE is, for the lack of a better word, emulated :p.

What I find most comforting, in terms of the future for SWGEmu, is that expansion has no limit. After the golden age of PreCU is restored, we have the option of taking the game much further by adding new content (all within the bounds of what is server controlled). There isn't a single MMO out there where the GMs of the game can say, "How does the community feel about _____", call a vote, and within a few DAYS the changes can be implemented.

Learn more about the project at http://www.swgemu.com/ .

A big thank you goes out to the many personalities that shared their knowledge and helped put this article together!