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Later this year a brand new 'appearance' system will be added to SOE's Star Wars Galaxies MMO. Like similar systems found in Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II it will allow players to appear to be be wearing whatever they wish, while gaining the mechanical benefits of specific 'loot' pieces. In a way the system reintroduces one much beloved portion of pre-NGE SWG, which often saw players wearing varied outfits. Loot, in those days, didn't have mechanical benefits.

To accompany the new system, the official site has up a Friday feature explaining how the system is to be used. Making use of the system couldn't be simpler, and allows an unchained range of possibilities for customization and personal expression. Check out the piece to learn the full details of equipping and customizing your character's newest look.

Update: We originally said the system was already live; currently it's only available on Test at the moment.

Early last week Star Wars Galaxies players and TCG fans received a holiday treat: the launch of the first expansion for Champions of the Force, the in-game card game for SOE's Star Wars MMO. The expansion is entitled Squadrons Over Corellia, and was just announced late in November. The new card set has added a number of novel game elements to the card-based title, not least of which is new cards featuring Han Solo and the Emperor.

New design elements include starship battle components, additional avatar races, new loot, and much more. The card game has also been revamped card event scenarios and one-on-one events, for players who want to pit their TCG decks one against the other. And, of course, the whole thing is wrapped up in a brand-new storyline centered in the Correllia system during the Galactic war. A recent 'Friday feature' on the official game site has numerous insights into the new loot cards and fun elements added to the game. For full details on the expansion check out the official site, read into our card gallery below, or click through below the cut for the official press release.

Is one MMO ever enough?

Lots of people play more than one MMO. Among the staff here at Massively, you would be hard pressed to find a writer with only one active subscription. Ever the exception however, I am a one-game kind of guy.

"Is that through choice, or necessity though, Craig?" I hear you cry. The answer is that it's a little of both. It's easy to say that I don't have enough time to play a couple of MMOs, but if I was really honest with myself, I'd admit to that being a lie. If I'm able to free up a couple of hours every couple of nights to play World of Warcraft, then why can't I alternate those nights, for example, between WoW and another game?

When I started thinking about this subject, I remembered reading something on the subject a while back on the Daedalus Project.

Going by the figures Nick Yee collected back in 2006, less than a quarter of the players he spoke with had more than one account.

I can't help but wonder if that number will have increased or decreased with time.

Without getting too much in the state of the world-economy, as we all have to tighten our belts that little bit more, we'll end up looking for cheaper ways of relaxing and blowing of some steam. I wouldn't be the first person to point out that the average cost of a monthly MMO subscription is less than you'll spend on one night at the cinema.

While it's absolutely not my place to fault Dr. Yee's work, and I certainly don't intend to, I would have liked to see him also ask about how many players had more than one account active for the same game, and the reasons why.

The reasons given for having subscriptions to more than one game aren't surprising. Players maintain several subscriptions due to having friends and family still active in the game; or they feel that the time spent so far with the game will be wasted if they cancelled the account; or for financial reasons like waiting for the subscription plan to expire, or simply forgetting the subscription was there.

If people were asked why they play more than one game, I'd expect to see similar answers, but I'd hope to see some others, too. Game mechanics, for one. When I went back and looked at Star Wars Galaxies a while back, I didn't feel like it was a game I'd really want to play on a regular basis. That said, the crafting in the game was still as interesting as I remembered. A crafting system that isn't a simple pass/fail mechanic, rewarding time spent hunting for high-quality raw materials, and classes whose sole purpose is to craft rather than quest ticked a lot of boxes for me. And while the ground game left a lot to be desired, there was still a lot of fun to be had in space, hunting Rebels or Imperials, depending on which side your bread was buttered on.

My point is that it's a rare game that provides you with everything you want. Maybe you play one game because the combat system is second to none, but another one because the RP tools in it haven't been bettered yet. Graphics are a big thing for a lot of people, and the cartoonish graphics of WoW have put off more than one person in the past, without a doubt. Realistic graphics and presentation, on the other hand, won't stop your game from being slated if it deserves it – see Age of Conan for proof.

Your turn now. Do you run more than one MMO at a time? Which ones are they, and why? Hit the comments, and let the world know.

Kicking off tomorrow is another annual Life Day event, the Star Wars Galaxies version of the Christmas holiday. As we discussed earlier, while the holiday has always been based on the Star Wars Holiday Special this year is especially grounded in that ... unique ... television moment. The official SWG site has full details on the event now, showing off some of the questing and rewards that are available to holiday fans in that place a Long Time Ago.

Rebels will be tasked with decorating trees, while Imperials will be stomping presents and goodies with abandon. Unaligned players can do either, but if you're declared for either faction you'll get a ton of 'Life Day currency' for participating. Sounds like PvP players will have something to celebrate as well. Turning in that Life Day currency will net you a ton of great holiday gear. Everything from a Pocket Aquarium or a Proton Chair to a personal Wroshyr Tree. Head over to the official site for the details.

In an article on the official Star Wars Galaxies website, the developers have unveiled the servers they've chosen to be highlighted in a post-merger era. We discussed the server merger decision early last month, and noted their plans to decide 'later' which of the servers would be options to transfer into. Now complete details for the free character transfer service are available, and which servers are getting the thumbs-up will probably come as no surprise if you're a part of the SWG community. Here's the list of servers that can be transferred to starting January 13, 2009, and ending on March 31, 2009:

• Ahazi
• Bloodfin
• Bria
• Chilastra
• Eclipse
• Europe-Chimaera
• Europe-FarStar
• Flurry
• Gorath
• Radiant
• Shadowfire
• Starsider
• Sunrunner

If you have a character on a server that's not on this list, it doesn't mean your server is being shut down. That said, if your server isn't on this list it's likely to get mighty lonely on there starting early next year. Full details on the free server transfer program are available, including questions of transferring between destinations servers.

As a followup to the announcement of Sony Online Entertainment's Station Cash system earlier this week we had the chance to speak with Mr. John Smedley, CEO of that company. The full interview with Mr. Smedley will be posted tomorrow, but one question we've seen here in comments and elsewhere in forums seemed like it was worth addressing right away. The initial rollout of this Station Cash service was only to EverQuest and EverQuest II. The question naturally follows: will this see use in other SOE titles?

As you might have guessed, Station Cash will play a prominent role in the company's upcoming free-to-play title Free Realms. It's also likely to play some role in DC Universe Online and The Agency, though Mr. Smedley was unwilling to commit to any details on those plans. As far as other, already launched SOE titles, the answer is probably a no. According to Mr. Smedley they haven't even raised the issue of using Station Cash in Star Wars Galaxies with LucasArts, and at this time they don't have any plans to bring the service to their other titles. This would mean Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, The Matrix Online, and Planetside will remain without the Station Cash service.

We'll have a full interview writeup on the site early tomorrow, including details on future additions to the program. Tune in then!

A brand-new Producer's Letter from Chris Fields brightened this week for Star Wars Galaxies players. Coming sometime in the middle of the month is the newly revamped Life Day event. This year they've taken heavy cues from the Star Wars Christmas Special, that horrifying cultural relic from the 80s. You may wonder about the wisdom of doing so, but keep in mind that the special (despite its many flaws) is 100% canon content. The event will see players smashing presents, decorating trees, and getting awesome presents like a pocket aquarium, a holographic table, a proton chair, an in-home wroshyr tree ... and perhaps even a Kowakian monkey-lizard!

The letter also contains a lot of previews for upcoming patches, great-sounding content for players of all stripes. Game Update 6 will see the addition of an appearance tab, expanding the roleplaying-friendly game feature seen in other games like EverQuest II and Lord of the Rings Online. Make sure to thank AdeptStain if you like it! Update 7 will see the long awaited updates for Spies, and Update 8 will see major changes to Player Associations and Cities. There are a ton more holidays and goodies coming down the pipe ... check out the full letter for the details.

Earlier this week SOE announced a brand-new expansion to the Star Wars Galaxies TCG, Champions of the Force. That trading card game, released back in August of this year, puts players of the contentious Star Wars MMO into their favorite setting in a wholly different way. From what we've heard, it's been fairly well received by the players - well received enough to warrant an entirely new expansion to to the game. Squadrons Over Corellia will offer the usual level of quality we've come to expect from SOE Denver expansions - some 250 new cards, incredible artwork, and a heaping helping of all-new loot cards to boot.

Players will be able to create Rodian and Wookie avatar cards for the first time, make use of powerful iconic characters like the Emperor and Han Solo in their deck builds, and engage in space-based gameplay new to the Champions of the Force card game. You can see all the details on the official website, or get a big taste of the expansion's potential in the official annoucnement below the cut.

Just a bit ago we noted the launch of the Hoth heroic encounter in Star Wars Galaxies. Chapter 11, as it is also known, has been a long time coming. It's a project the developers have put a lot of work into, and they were eager to share with us some of the background on the mega-patch's development process. The folks at SOE Austin were kind enough to send over a document detailing just that, written up by the game's former Lead Designer Thomas "Blixtev" Blair and its current Lead Designer, Jesse Benjamin.

Join the two developers as they walk through the challenges of fully exploring the Empire Strikes Back movie, the thorny issue of one side being guaranteed to lose, and the critical need for detail and finesse in this difficult development challenge.

Making It Real

Jesse: Shadowbrak worked closely with CancelAutoRun to bring a sense of speed and firepower that mirrored the movie snowspeeders into the game. I think they did an amazing job. I really feel like I am flying around in a snowspeeder just like in the movies. Flying a snowspeeder elicits a real strong feeling of excitement - especially when gunning down all those Imperials. Setting up a pass on the AT-AT's while trying to avoid taking heavy damage from the AT-ST and snowtrooper escorts is very addictive and fun.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team worked on the other game-play elements. Michael "Fiasco" Farone was recruited to start working on our Wampa Valley area of the encounter. I remember sitting in my office brainstorming all the fun things we could have our wampas do. We came up with some really exciting attacks that bring a lot of fun and personality into the Hoth encounter.

When we had our first play test in Wampa Valley we could tell immediately that the fun factor was already there. There were bugs to address, and tuning to implement, but everybody came out of that play test smiling. Following the first game-play test Fiasco came up with a list of more things to add to the encounter. I don't want to spoil the surprises, especially since you have to figure out how to enter the valley to begin with, but there are a lot of cool aspects waiting to be discovered in that area.

The SOE Austin team may not be working on an expansion for Star Wars Galaxies, but today it sure feels like the players have gotten one. The enormous content drop, Chapter 11 in the SWG saga, hit the live servers early today like the main blaster on an AT-AT walker. The Hoth heroic encounter is now live on the servers for all players to enjoy. The complete patch notes for The Battle of Echo Base are available in the official forums, and there's an informational press release included below the cut.

Highlights from the patch include:

• The expansive battle itself, which pits Rebel and Imperial heroes against NPC opponents in a timed experience. The Imperials seek to destroy as much of the ragtag fighting force as they can, while the Rebels aim to flee the battle with as many resources as they can. This is easily the most ambitious offering in SWG history, and we explored it thoroughly in a feature from Fan Faire 2008.
  
• A new holo-pet system, which will allow players to add fun holographic creatures to their homes.
• New collections and other side-elements were added to the game to suppor the addition of Hoth.
• Several classes recieved slight gameplay tweaks and balancing fixes.
• The character transfer service recieved a big upgrade in advance of next year's free transfer initiative.
• The Aurilia Guildhall, which serves as the hub for heroic encounter play, has a new memorial to former SWG developer Jeff Freeman.

It's great to see a much-anticipated chunk of content go live in a game like this. Check out the developer insight SOE passed on to us as a developer diary, and read on below for the official release for the patch.

Sony Online Entertainment is a unique company in the MMO industry. Not only do they have a stable of games, they try to make it easy for you to play all of them. Our giveaway today celebrates this with an SOE game sampler. We have a great box with 30 days of gameplay for Planetside, EverQuest, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and EverQuest II all included! Plus, we'll throw in two additional 30 day time cards. Extend your play of one of those games to 90 days, or try out two games for two months. We've got a ton more swag for you on top of that greatness; we'll throw in an SOE podcast t-shirt, SOE-branded binoculars, and a DC Universe Online pen/flashlight that shines the Bat Symbol! Estimated total retail value of the pack is $130.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling us what your favorite SOE game is and why. To get this unique prize pack you'll need to comment before 7:00 AM EST Friday, November 7th. You can only enter once per person, and after the contest closes we'll ship out this fantastic prize to one randomly-selected winner. Give us at least a week to ship out this massive pile of swag, though. To win you must be age 18 or up and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec). For full eligibility details, we suggest you read our official rules. Good luck!

The official Star Wars Galaxies site has a followup to Producer Chris Fields' announcement that free server transfers would be coming to the community. They now have an FAQ up, attempting to answer some of the the numerous nitpicks players will have with this daunting project. The actual transfers won't kick off until early next year (as originally indicated by Dotanuki), but it sounds like they're already prepping players for server closings. One of the FAQ points is "Where can I find a list of servers that will be offering a free transfer?" This would seem to indicate certain servers are seen as stable enough to keep 'whole', while others should probably be emptied.

The document notes that the server transfer list won't be made available until about a month before the project starts, as the developers track detailed server information. Other notes about the project:

• Houses need to be packed up; they won't automatically transfer to a new server with you. Yes, that probably means you're going to lose your house's spot.
• Vendors need to be closed out and their inventory removed. Vendors will be destroyed by a server transfer.
  
• Players will need at least one slot free on their new server to transfer an existing character in. Players with an unlock slot (from the pre-NGE days) will be able to transfer three characters to their new server even if they didn't unlock a slot on that new server.

Full details are available on the official site, and we'll continue to watch this ambitious reorganization of the SWG playerbase as it unfolds.

If you're a die-hard fan of Star Wars Galaxies, there's a good chance you've heard of the Yivvits and MrBubble SWG podcast. This show has been going on since 2005, and has finally just released their 100th show. Why is this news? One hundred episodes of a podcast about one specific MMO is quite a feat, as any regular podcast fan can attest.

"When we started the show in 2005 we had no idea where it would lead or if we'd even make more than six episodes," The two wildly popular hosts write in the episode's show notes. "This episode is packed full of everything you love about our show. Who is the Grand Admin and what the heck is "The SWIG?" Join Yivvits and MrBubble as they find out just how important their show is... to everybody! Two very special guests join us for this milestone episode, we play the dozens of congratulatory messages you left us, and we round things out with cake!"