First off- you need a pretty beefy computer and graphics card. They recommend 1gig CPU speed or better (I play on a P2-400 just fine, but have to turn off all the graphics options), and you need lots of memory (512megs or more is highly recommended, but it will play jerkily at 256megs). Requires a newer graphics card with "hardware transform and lighting" and 32megs. Can't get around the graphics card requirements. This means get a GEforce 2/3/4, or newer Radeon card. I bought a GEforce 2 for 30 bucks and it works pretty good. The more you spend, the faster the game will play. Memory is probably more important than the video card, so if you need to get both, spend more on memory.
The game is a Star Wars role-playing type, where you create a character which represents yourself (or your alter-ego!). You view the in-game world through your character's eyes, and since this is Star Wars, you are in a futuristic setting with several alien races, a dozen known worlds, and commonplace sci-fi technical aids. You can't be Luke or Darth Vader, but you can be your own new person in the Star Wars world, and eventually interact with Luke or Darth. The game has an ecomony using Credits as money, and you can make credits by selling stuff that you collect or crafting items that other players need. The more you play, the more advanced your character becomes. Since this is a multi-player online game, advanced characters get lots of attention and recognition from newer, lower-level characters, as well as questions and requests for aid. There is no real end goal, other than to explore the known worlds, advance in your chosen profession(s), and generally have a good time.
Starting the Game, a 10 step guide: (after you've installed and gotten past the logo screens):
1. The game does not have "levels" as with traditional role-playing games. Instead, it has skills and professions, and tons of them. The better you get at your skills (or combinations of skills), the more you are likely to tackle that Rancor successfully, or tame a Dewback, or make an experimental Blaster weapon, or whatever you want to do.
2. After you install the game, when you create your first character you have to pick a server to play on. I think there are 15 or so now. I'm on Kauri. If you want to play together, you have to be on the same server, and you can't jump from server to server. I also have a second character on the Kettemoor server, which I only play when the Kauri server is down. In the beginning, the servers were down often, but lately they are all up almost all the time, so I've only played on Kettemoor twice ever. So, please pick the Kauri server.
3. Starting Planet and City (this is actually picked later in the character creation process, but seems logical to cover it now). This is not too critical, but it is simpler to buy things from other players if you choose a more popular starting city/planet. I'm in Mos Eisley on Tatooine (you will never find a more disreputable hive....). You can easily travel between cities and planets using transports which cost just a few hundred credits.
4. When setting up your character for the first time, you choose race and starting profession (skills).
Here are the general descriptions:
* Human - Average at all skills.
* Wookie- Stronger, has special attacks, special armor, but cannot speak all languages which can be a big limitation in some situations.
* Twi'Lek- Tentical-heads. Makes good artisan, medic or entertainer type. Bad at melee (hand-to-hand fighting).
* Trandoshan- Lizard-like, has regeneration, good for physical stuff like brawling (melee), but can't wear certain armor types.
* Zabrak- horned humans (like Darth Maul), makes a good scout-type.
* Rodian- Agressive Greedo-types. Makes good hunters. Not welcome in some areas.
* Mon Calamari- Fish-guys, like General Ak-bar. Good artisan or entertainer, bad at melee.
* Bothan- Short furry dudes (no, not hobbits). Average skills, good at communication and spying.
Starting Professions:
* Artisan- A builder/crafter/merchant type. You gather materials and make stuff, and sell it to other players.
* Brawler- A melee fighter, toe-to-toe combat. Run up and bash them over the head type.
* Marksman- A long-ranged combatant, uses rifles and long-distance shots to take down enemies.
* Medic- A healer. Heals damage on other players, sometimes for money.
* Entertainer- A different type of healer. Heals "mind damage". All players need to visit entertainers regularly, can make good money.
* Scout- A skill everyone should have but probably not start with, improves travel speed, and self-reliance when outside of town.
Advanced professions: Once you master a starting profession, you can move on to advanced professions like Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Weaponsmith, Animal Handler, Musician, etc. If you know now that you want to be a Bounty Hunter for instance, then there is a skills tree which shows you what you need to master to get there.
Once you choose a starting profession, your skill bonuses and stats are adjusted to fit that profession. But, after you start playing you can learn the skills from all the different starting professions (and adjust your stats too). In fact, it is highly advisable to learn all starting professions right away because it helps you stay alive. Learning skills costs skill points, so eventually you hit the limit and have to give up skills in order to advance in others, but that won't happen for a long time.
5. Tutorial. Once you pick your characer, you get dropped into the tutorial. This is you verses the AI, and has lots of explanations and people telling you what to do next. You can skip it if you want, but I recommend doing it. It can take up to an hour. If you miss picking up some items (like your first blaster pistol), don't worry because they end up in your bank account when you actually start playing.
6. Game play. You start in a city. Run around, and enjoy the eye-candy. Check out the various screens, maps, and options. Talk with NPC's (AI driven game characters) or other players. Run a few delivery missions to make some cash and learn your way around.
Things you need to find while running around (use the map, Control-M):
* Trainers: Find the trainers for all the starting professions (if you start as a Marksman, its a good idea to train in Scout and Brawler as well. I trained in all six starting professions).
* The Bank. You need to "join" a bank to store/get stuff in your safety deposit box. If you go to a new city, you need to quit your old bank and join new one).
* The Bazaar and Mission terminals. Bazaar is for buying stuff, generally near the bank. Mission terminal is for missions, duh. Delivery missions just have you find NPC's and talk to them, which is easy money.
* The Cantina. This is a hub of activity, and where entertainers heal wounds of the mind. Target an entertainer and choose "Listen". Don't forget to tip them when you leave.
* The Medical Center. This is where you heal wounds of the body. Also a hub of activity.
* The Cloning Facility. This is where you come back to life if you die. Starting players get 3 free clonings, after that it costs 1000 credits. Get your DNA copied BEFORE you die, not after. This is a save-game type of thing.
* The Starport and Shuttle Port. Starports go to other planets or cities. Shuttle Ports only go to other cities on your planet and are much cheaper.
7. Skills training. As you do stuff (or kill stuff) you get experience in several skills categories. Once you build up to a certain point, you're eligible to be trained in the next level skill. To get started in each profession, you must visit an NPC (computer conrolled) trainer for each profession. But, after that, other players can teach you each skill in that profession. To see your progress in your skills, look at the skills screen (control-s). You can use the NPC trainers if you want, but they cost 1000 credits for each training after the starting profession (which only costs 100 credits). So, its much cheaper to train with other players. In order to be taught a skill, you have to group and stand next to another player that has already learned the skill you want to learn. Teaching other players gives experience to the teacher, which is required to progress to the "master" level skills.
8. Beginner stuff. If you start or train as a brawler, marksman or scout, you'll be killing the local vermin that hangs around just outside the city. This is pretty safe. When you target an animal or NPC, there will be a colored dot after the target's name. This tells you how likely you are to be able to kill them. Blue is easy, White is even with you, Yellow is likely to kill you, Red will mop the floor with you. If you get damage, just sit and heal for a minute or two. For marksman, go to "prone" position before firing and your target will not see you for several shots. If you have the Scout training, you can harvest bones/hide/meat from your animal kills which can be sold for between 5-10 credits per unit, or used to make stuff for yourself. You'll need to make some money to buy a decent weapon if possible, or maybe armor. Your starting CDEF pistol will not get you very far. Easiest thing to do to make money is run some delivery missions. Build up some skills and venture out further and further. Group with other players to hunt bigger game. Come back into town to get your wounds and battle fatigue healed. Try not to die. If one of your HAM bars (Health, Action, Mind) goes to 0 from damage inflicted by combat, you will generally become "incapacitated", and that stops the combat. In those cases you don't die, you just are a lump on the ground until enough time passes and you wake up. But, if they really whack you hard, you can actually die and end up at the cloning facility. Your stuff will remain on your corpse until you retrieve it, unless you've insured your stuff in which case it appears on your clone. Clone often if you can afford it so you don't loose too much experience.
If you start as an Artisan, you'll need to gather raw materials and make stuff. This involves using a Survey Kit (there are several types: Mineral, Flora, Chemical, Wind, Water, etc.) to gather resources from the ground. These resources move and change from week to week, so you'll have to keep searching for new locations when you run low on a material. Or, you can buy what you need from other players or the Bazaar terminals. If you need organics like hide or bones, you need to start shooting the vermin that hangs around outside the city and harvest the meat/hide/bones (requires Scout skills), or just buy from others. Once you have some raw materials, you use your General Crafting Kit. It has a list of stuff it will make, which will get more complete as you improve your engineering skills. You get experience for making anything, but more experience for more complex stuff. There are also Crafting kits specific to weapons and droids, armor and clothing, etc. For the most complex stuff, you need to use a specific crafting kit. There are public crafting stations in towns which will allow you to enhance what you make. Just stand near the crafting station and use your kit to gain the experimentation options, and this allows you to differentiate items you make from items others make. In the long term, you can set up harvestors to get your raw materials for you, factories to craft your items, and merchants to sell you stuff direct to other players. You can also build player houses, guild halls (called Player Associations in SWG), cool weapons and armor, and other neat stuff. A high end crafter is everyone's friend.
For Medic: Similar to Artisan, but you make stim packs and then go sit in the medical facility waiting for people to show up and be healed. When out of stims, go out and make more (or buy them). Some people pay for healing, some don't. Some medics charge, some don't. Up to you. After you get the basics, you can go out with hunting groups and heal players in the wild, with some limitations. If you get a surgical droid, you can do almost everything in the wilderness that you can do in a medical facility, and can definately charge for your time.
For Entertainer: Head for the Cantina and start dancing and/or playing music. You get experience for healing others. Ask to be tipped, most people will give you something. When you make some decent credits, go buy better instuments and more interesting clothing. For this profession, being noticed is the key, so pick a name that will get you some attention, and get some bright colored clothing. An Entertainer named Stevie Nyx got lots of tips last I saw. Eventually, you can go with groups and heal them in the wild, or make a deal with a merchant type to build a special structure for you to entertain in and charge a cover (or build one yourself).
9. Cool stuff. Once you get comfortable with the basic game play, and get a few skills under your belt, you can start looking around outside of the city. On Tatooine, you will find Jabba's Palace, Luke's home, and even Old Ben Kenobi's Hut. On Dantooine, you will find the Rebel Base, and on Naboo is the beatiful Place straight out of the movies. Most of these places are called "Points of Interest" or POI's and they set you up with a mission or take you on a short tutorial-style romp. Most will give you faction points, which start to affect how you interact with the rest of the world (like Jawa's stop liking you, or Jabba's thugs start helping you). There is also the overall Rebel vs. Imperial struggle, in which you will have to choose which side you want to be on. Declaring yourself an Overt Rebel or Overt Imperial earns you points which you cash in for cool stuff. As an imperial, you can check out an AT-ST and go destroy stuff, or take a few storm troopers out for a hunting mission. As a rebel, you can visit the rebel base on Dantooine and take a mission from the Princess or go blow up a storm trooper base. There are also battlefields which have ongoing fights between rebels and imperials. This is almost an arena type thing where you join up on one side or the other and just go blast stuff, which can be loads of fun. Additionally, there is Player-vs-Player (PvP) where you can hunt or be hunted. Again, these are zones on the planets that you just go find. Planets are quite large and it can take several hours to run from one end of the map to the other, and there are often interesting sites. Once you get into more advanced skills, you will probably be asked to join a Player Association (PA) or guild. Your PA may be at war with another PA, and you may find satisfaction in snipering the enemy and sneaking away, or making cool items for your fellow PA members to use.
10. In the future: Some game enhancements that will be coming out soon: Space travel- this is highly anticipated and will allow you to have your own space craft and explore, or even dog-fight with other players. Vehicles: buy a speeder to travel around, race with friends. Player Cities: Cities created entirely by players, and involving a new profession: Politics, so you can be the Mayor. New Planets: Every now and then, a new planet will be introduced, with all new challenges and rewards. Other storyline changes occur frequently. The game is updated almost every day at this point, mostly to fix bugs and balance out professions and keep the player economy flowing smoothly. Expect to see lots more weapons, armor, and other useful items be discovered in the game as time goes on.
As player-cities emerge, and storyline changes occur, the game will slowly change in response to the actions of the individuals playing the game. This creates a history and sense of community amongst the players and enhances the immersion factor. Just don't get so immersed that you quit your job and lose your family! A few hours on weekends or a couple nights a week is plenty and you will gain skills quickly. No need to be a hard-core gamer to enjoy this game.
Feel free to Email me in-game, Zathros Redblood for questions. Good luck!!
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