This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. 1358 (Talk) 11:42, November 15, 2011 (UTC)
All right, I know that probably many of you already know this, but I am posting this here to inform everyone that Star Wars Galaxies is closing down and all the characters, items, and other things from it will be very difficult for us to write articles on. A lot of you probably do not care about the game, which is understandabvle, but I find it disturbing that so much information could slip into oblivion. If something is not done soon, we will have numerous articles that we can no longer expand and many more things that will never have articles created for them.
I for one, am not very good at playing Galaxies, I never have been. I have only played it off and on, but when I saw the announcement I got back to playing it so that I could get screenshots and information before it was lost. I would appreciate other people who are still playing galaxies to try to help grab some of this important information. Screenshots, quotes, quest information, anything that we do not have currently. I posted this to the Senate Hall because I thought that the loss of so much information was worthy of being talked about here. So, if anyone would like to contribute to the effort I hope to start here today (tonight where I am), please sign your name at the end of this message with a comment saying what you are going to focus on (equipment screenshots, character screenshots, character information, quest information, quotes, etc.). All contributions to this effort will be appreciated.
- Exiled Jedi
(Greetings) 04:31, July 16, 2011 (UTC) (Equipment screenshots and information, along with some other miscellaneous quest and NPC information) - I will attempt to contribute (as I have been doing for the past 2 years) but after the announcement, I lost any desire to play the game. OLIOSTER (talk) 08:22, July 22, 2011 (UTC)
- Haven't played much in the last year, but got quite a lot screenshots from all over the game (excep the high-end content). --Craven 15:30, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
Your hyper-inclusionist friend,
Exiled Jedi 
(Greetings) 04:31, July 16, 2011 (UTC)
- I think I know what our new BarnBurner should be. -- Riffsyphon1024 10:45, July 16, 2011 (UTC)
- Update: I have slightly over five thousand screenshots from Star Wars Galaxies at this time (mostly of low-leveled equipment and from Tansarii Point Station).--Exiled Jedi (Greetings) 12:39, August 5, 2011 (UTC)
- Hi guys. From what I can tell, the parts of the game that aren't covered yet or only partially covered are:
- Space (POIs, space stations, named NPCs, the 9 pilot profession quests, quests from space NPCs, various starship classes)
- the last legs of the Legacy quest line (spiders on Talus)
- Rebel theme park (old and new version)
- Nym's Theme Park (old and new version)
- Meatlump Theme Park
- now defunct Marauder Theme Park and Valarian's Theme Park
- new Witches of Dathomir Theme Park
- Death Troopers conent
- high-end content on Mustafar (Droid factory, Kubaza beetle cave, Fate of the Galaxy)
- various quests, areas, NPCs and creatures on Kashyyyk
- most of the small camps, bunkers and caves scattered across the planets
- profession quests (the missions from the books you get while leveling up)
- Swoop racing tracks
- I'm now in the process of compiling a list of all the missions from the various mission terminals, taking screenshots of all of them, figuring out which planet(s) they are available on and then creating a small database with all the mission texts (and conversations with the delivery mission NPCs). But that's a lot of boring work, so it will probably take some time. I guesstimate that there are around a thousand different terminal missions. --Craven 15:30, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
- Fear not! Though more help would be wonderful, I'm taking hundreds upon hundreds of screenshots of virtually every item, piece of dialogue, location, NPC and more that I can think of. It'd take quite a while to update and create every article to every standard, but I can send any screenshots for sourcing if needed. Unfortunately, there are some things I cannot get my hands on. For example, NPC's and quest info from the Rebel themepark, NPC's from the Rebel Hoth, and other NPC's and quest info of most of the piloting quests. Also, it should be noted that there are long extinct quests and NPC's, which while canon, are difficult to find info on. Nonetheless, there are some screenshots online of long gone quests. StarsiderSWG 19:13, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
- All right! Keep up the good work you two!--Exiled Jedi
(Greetings) 20:34, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
- All right! Keep up the good work you two!--Exiled Jedi
Game update 20 was added to the game recently. Just letting everyone know. By the way, I now have over 8000 screenshots mostly of equipment and quests from Tansarii Point Station and Tatooine, although I have done a few on Lok. Man is this going to be a lot of screenshots, I wish we had a few more people helping us, but I guess we're doing pretty well.--Exiled Jedi (Greetings) 20:14, August 18, 2011 (UTC)
- Also be sure to use sites like SWG on Allahkazam or SWG Wiki to find more info on quests and NPC's. There may also be screenshots on their you can use, or use as fill-ins until you take better ones in-game. StarsiderSWG 20:48, August 18, 2011 (UTC)
I don't own and have never played SWG, but I too find it disturbing to be losing so much canon info. Has there been any news about LucasArts making an offline version so people could still retreive information from it? I've never played MMOs before, so I wouldn't know, but if there is someway to keep the game going even after they shut down the system, then we could retrieve the data more at our leisure. Does anyone know anything about this? Cal Jedi
(Personal Comm Channel) 16:23, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, no :(. To run the game, you need not only the files installed on your computer but also the programs/code that run on the server. And the chances of SOE releasing their server code is almost zero, as no publisher/developer of a big MMO so far has released their code after the game was shut down. And Lucasarts wants people to play TOR instead. There's the SWG Emulator project where fans are trying to write their own server side code to recreate the original game play. But they try to emulate the game the way it was before the first big overhaul (Combat Upgrade) in 2005, so most of the big quest lines and major content added to the game over the last few years won't be available in the emulator. It's possible to access the game files to extract at least some mission texts or game models, but it's pretty complicated and I guess only few people really know where and how all that information is stored in the files. Indeed pretty sad to know, that all those places, characters and adventures will vanish in a few months... --Craven 17:29, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- I do find it quite disturbing as well. If it would be possible to extract the mission text and game models, that would be awesome. It would be nice if the Devs could at least release a database of the NPC's and their text before this game shuts down. I suggest making pleas for this on the official SWG gameplay forums. The more who bring this up, the greater attention it would bring. StarsiderSWG 19:43, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- I've downloaded a program called "InsideSWG" a few years ago, that can open at least some of the .tre files. But these files are containers for all kinds of texts, code, models etc.. I think I found some of the mission terminal texts and some game models that could be viewed with other programs (forgot which ones). --Craven 20:42, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- TRE Explorer (can download it here) is an updated version of this program. Unfortunately, it can't open .tre files that were created after a certain patch to the game (Publish 12 I think it was), but it can open the ones before that. OLIOSTER (talk) 23:11, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- The TRE explorer is a good find. I can see lots of useful quest dialogue that I can use. But is there any way to actually see the CGI images of any NPC's using it? Furthermore, will it be usable in the same way after SWG shuts down? StarsiderSWG 02:20, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- No idea about viewing the model and texture files correctly but it should work fine after the shut down as long as you keep the game installed on your computer. The program doesn't connect to their servers or anything, it just searches through the assets already installed on your computer by the game. OLIOSTER (talk) 02:23, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- Viewing how a NPC looked won't be that easy, I think. I was able to view some static objects like items, space station, etc. when I tried it a few years back. But NPCs might not be stored as single objects, but rather as a set of parameters (gender, race, skin tone, hair color, type of pants, shoes, shirt, etc..) that the game engine then uses to create the NPC's appearance. Now, I don't know if that's really how they did it, but to me it seems the most likely way to code it. So a simple model viewer might not help. But if the programs can only open the files from the first few patches anyway, then it will be probably be easier to just use the emulator and take an actual in-game screenshot. --Craven 13:45, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, I was quite pleased to see quest dialogue for long removed NPC's in SWG. This will allow me to expand many articles I created. To be able to see images of them in EMU or elsewhere would make completing them fully possible (of course, as someone else said, the TRE explorer is only useful for things before 2005). We'd need to continue taking screenshots of everything while we still can. But would it be possible, instead of just EMU, to mod in extinct NPC's in the place of some other character... say Vader, in the live servers? This would allow me to easily take screenshots of them before the game shuts down. StarsiderSWG 14:51, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- Good question. I guess it might be possible. I found this forum, which might contain useful information. --Craven 22:50, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, I was quite pleased to see quest dialogue for long removed NPC's in SWG. This will allow me to expand many articles I created. To be able to see images of them in EMU or elsewhere would make completing them fully possible (of course, as someone else said, the TRE explorer is only useful for things before 2005). We'd need to continue taking screenshots of everything while we still can. But would it be possible, instead of just EMU, to mod in extinct NPC's in the place of some other character... say Vader, in the live servers? This would allow me to easily take screenshots of them before the game shuts down. StarsiderSWG 14:51, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- Viewing how a NPC looked won't be that easy, I think. I was able to view some static objects like items, space station, etc. when I tried it a few years back. But NPCs might not be stored as single objects, but rather as a set of parameters (gender, race, skin tone, hair color, type of pants, shoes, shirt, etc..) that the game engine then uses to create the NPC's appearance. Now, I don't know if that's really how they did it, but to me it seems the most likely way to code it. So a simple model viewer might not help. But if the programs can only open the files from the first few patches anyway, then it will be probably be easier to just use the emulator and take an actual in-game screenshot. --Craven 13:45, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- No idea about viewing the model and texture files correctly but it should work fine after the shut down as long as you keep the game installed on your computer. The program doesn't connect to their servers or anything, it just searches through the assets already installed on your computer by the game. OLIOSTER (talk) 02:23, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- The TRE explorer is a good find. I can see lots of useful quest dialogue that I can use. But is there any way to actually see the CGI images of any NPC's using it? Furthermore, will it be usable in the same way after SWG shuts down? StarsiderSWG 02:20, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- TRE Explorer (can download it here) is an updated version of this program. Unfortunately, it can't open .tre files that were created after a certain patch to the game (Publish 12 I think it was), but it can open the ones before that. OLIOSTER (talk) 23:11, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
- I've downloaded a program called "InsideSWG" a few years ago, that can open at least some of the .tre files. But these files are containers for all kinds of texts, code, models etc.. I think I found some of the mission terminal texts and some game models that could be viewed with other programs (forgot which ones). --Craven 20:42, August 19, 2011 (UTC)
Another question: Is there some place around here to talk about SWG articles and SWG related requests/problems/information? --Craven 22:50, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
- There is the WookieeProject Galaxies Forums here. I'm not sure that anyone will see it there though, I put something there over a month ago and no one saw it. But I guess that if we say that we are discussing it further at the WP:SWG forums then maybe someone would come and look.--Exiled Jedi (Greetings) 23:05, August 22, 2011 (UTC)
- Ah, thanks. I had almost forgotten this WookieeProject. --Craven 19:00, August 25, 2011 (UTC)
I have well over 10,000 screenshots now. I think that we should save all of the articles about Star Wars Galaxies from the SWG website. That way when the site closes down when the game is shut down, we will still have access to the information in the articles. What does everyone else think of this?--Exiled Jedi (Greetings) 17:47, September 10, 2011 (UTC)
- Sounds essential, so long as we don't post it on the open web. Is there any way this can be done systematically, though? jSarek 23:49, September 10, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, are we certain that sites like SWG Wiki or SWG on Allakhazam will be shut down as soon as SWG shuts down -- if at all? I do agree we need to get stuff off the official SWG site though, because that'll most certainly be shut down in December. StarsiderSWG 04:27, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
- I would say that the SWG website will be gone for sure, SWG on Allakhazan might stay around but I wouldn't count on it, and the SWG wiki will probably stay around at least for a little while. I don't know if we can assume that any of these places will be around much longer than December 15 though.--Exiled Jedi (Greetings) 11:21, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
- Most of the official site seems to be available on the Internet Archive, even some of the content from the old site and some of the stuff that was removed from the site after the NGE. --Craven 23:05, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
- An official announcement has been made regarding the official closing of SWG Wiki after SWG closes -- so definitely pull as much info from the Wiki as possible, in addition to any other info from the game itself (and Allkhazam just to be safe). StarsiderSWG 21:18, September 20, 2011 (UTC)
- Most of the official site seems to be available on the Internet Archive, even some of the content from the old site and some of the stuff that was removed from the site after the NGE. --Craven 23:05, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
- I would say that the SWG website will be gone for sure, SWG on Allakhazan might stay around but I wouldn't count on it, and the SWG wiki will probably stay around at least for a little while. I don't know if we can assume that any of these places will be around much longer than December 15 though.--Exiled Jedi
- Well, are we certain that sites like SWG Wiki or SWG on Allakhazam will be shut down as soon as SWG shuts down -- if at all? I do agree we need to get stuff off the official SWG site though, because that'll most certainly be shut down in December. StarsiderSWG 04:27, September 11, 2011 (UTC)