Newbie guide for SWGemu by Vlade Worth v.1.1

Okay, after monitoring those threads on /vg/ you've finally decided to install this game and join us to help with our holy crusade about banthas. Well, it's not that simple because the game is not like the other MMORPGs, it's actually, in my opinion, the last bastion of "Old-school Hardcore MMOs", so cherish it. So, before you've created blue Twi'lek and got killed by a butterfly, hold on a second and let's take it step by step (just Ctrl+F and type the necessary number for quick access):

1. Installation
1.1. Acquiring & Installing SWG
1.2. Installing Launchpad Enhanced
1.3 Running The Game In The First Time
2. Character Creation
2.1. Classes
2.2. Races
2.3. Factions
3. First Steps
3.1. Options Tweak
3.2. Interface
3.3. Basic Commands
4. Skills
4.1. Abilities
5. Combat
6. Quests
7. Crafting
8. Surveying
9. Grouping
9.1. Teaching
10. Troubleshooting


1. Installation

1.1. So, yeah, there are two options, basically.
a) if you've played this game before and can ACTUALLY locate your dusty CDs and by some miracle they still work - you can successfully proceed to 1.3.
b) If you're new to the game and wondering where the hell can you get install files for a game that has been officially closed I have to tell you one thing: hooray for piracy!
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/3506104/Star_Wars_Galaxies__Pre_CU_(including_Patches_00-13)

Get this version of SWG (remember, we all play pre-NGE) mount those bad boy CDs, copy that little file into a root directory of a game (for me it was C:\Program Files (x86)\StarWarsGalaxies)
Don't patch it, though. The game will update itself, because some things were included in this version and some weren't.

1.2. Installing Launchpad Enhanced

Proceed to this link
http://lpe.ocdsoft.com/installer/LPESetup.exe

NOTE:
Oh, and in order to work properly Launchpad Enhanced (LPE) requires NET Framework 2.0 or other newer version (2.0 SP1, 3.5 SP1, 4.0) to be installed.

Install it to anywhere you like, really. It will locate the game itself.
When you've downloaded it - DON'T run it just yet. First - you gotta give Launchpad Enhanced.exe a privilege to be ran in Administrator Mode every time.
So, to do it, locate your Launchpad Enhanced.exe, right click it, select Properties, go to Compatibility and set "Run the program as administrator".

1.3 Running The Game In The First Time

Okay, now you're good to go. Run LPE.exe and poof! Nothing happens. Why's that?
No, it's not your fault that your parents don't love you and this thing doesn't work. It's supposed to load for a while in the first time. So don't run it for 500 times and just WAIT.

So, when it loads up it will tell you that it has successfully located all the necessary files and you can continue.
If your Firewall check has failed, make sure to add LPE to your Firewall (Windows firewall) and Anti-virus exceptions.

NOTE:
Sometimes LPE will fail to detect your SWG installation, it happens when you don’t install SWG in default location in which case you will have to go to option Change and manually try to find it. If you have installed SWG in its default location and LPE still cant find it, just run LPE over and over until it detects your SWG installation.

Okay, so, press continue. Oh, what's that? Another update? Yeah, told you. So now you just have to wait for a bit until it will load all the necessary files. You can go drink a cuppa or do some shitposting or 4chains or 9gag, whatever.

Okay, now what? So, in the upper-right corner you have to click on a little triangle and choose "Official SWGEmu Servers".

NOTE:
Before you click the Play button I would advise you to go to Game Option and mark Skip Intro Sequence, as this will get you to our Login Screen much quicker. Also, do not forget to change your in-game screen resolution, because those graphics can scare some of you, who plays the game for its graphics and VA. Well let me tell you - for it's time - these graphics were the shit, got it? And if you feel lonely - then just listen to the voices inside your head, don't complain.

2. Character Creation

Pretty much self-explanatory, nothing to be confused about.

NOTE:
In the "Character Summary" where you will select your name do not unflag "Show New Player Tutorial", because if you skip it - you won't get a gun.
SIDE NOTE:
You can get one from me. Just text me in game and I'll get you a better one instead.

2.1. Classes

Okay, this is where it all begins. There are so many classes that mixing all of them will take at least couple months of non-stop playing, so you have to decide carefully.

We have:
Artisan
Marksman
Scout
Medic
Entertainer
Brawler

Let me just stop you right there. Don't choose between them, just don't. Pick Brawler or Marksman. Why? I'll tell you why.

Imagine, that you're holding a gun in a real life. The man cannot kill anyone else without it, and the gun itself cannot fire without being held by a real person, right?

That's the same shit. You can't become a successful Smuggler if you don't know how to shoot pistols\riffles properly.
Think about it in this way: you have to choose one COMBAT profession (like Rifleman or Pistoleer or whatever) and you have to choose your main profession (like Doctor or Smuggler or Commando).

So in order to survive in this game you have to know how to shoot\kick ass with your bare hands.
Of course you can pick up other professions later, but now it's all about survival.

And if you choose a Medic or Scout - welcome to die, you won't kill a thing.

It doesn't apply to an Entertainer because it's a social. So if you're going for a dancer - pick Entertainer, skip the fucking tutorial and proceed to a nearest cantina to get dosh.

So it's not really a choice between doctor\scout\etc\etc, it's a choice about Melee or Ranged combat. Got it? Moving on.

NOTE:
Be advised that professions like Creature Handler, Bio-Engineer, Droid Engineer don't work at all.
And professions like Commando and Squad Leader are only partially working.

2.2. Races

Holy shit, you saw them all in KOTOR (with an exception of Bothan though), my sincerest congratulations, sir.

They don't really affect your gameplay, sure they have some racial starter bonuses but you won't pay much attention to them in game. I'll just briefly tell you which classes get a real advantage if you play them with a following race:

Bothan: an excellent Ranger
Human: good Squad Leader, also they get a bonus in Artisan-related professions
Ithorian: starship crafters, good Creature Handlers, slight bonus in melee attacks
Mon "Visage Quand" Calamari: Good Weaponsmiths and Architects
Rodian: good Swordsman, also got bonus in weaponcrafting
Sullustan: good Scouts, also got bonuses in crafting Starfighter's parts
Trandoshan: Teras Kasi Artist all the way through
Twi'lek: Social race, good with Imagine Designer, Dancer, Entertainer, Musician
Wookie: Good Brawlers, Scouts and Rangers
Zabrak: Nothing special, just got resistance to Stun\Intimidation\Shock


2.3. Factions

Yep, we've got Empire, Rebels and Freelancers.

I'm going to tell you right now that Empire\Rebel missions, Galactic Civil War,Factional Item Perks and Faction Base Placement are not yet implemented, so don't expect a full-scale Civil War around you.
You still can earn reputation among Empire\Rebels and there is even some kind of a ranking, but it's not working properly just yet.

Freelancers are the biggest dicks though, they can work for either Empire or Rebels or they can successfully work for both sides, say hello for double agents!

3. First Steps

Okay, you've come this far, no way out now, little one. The game doesn't have fucked learning curve, you just gotta know the ropes, man. And by the time you'll finish this guide - you'll know the same amount of  shit like me. So don't back down yet.

3.1. Options Tweak

Okay, first problem related to tank constrols (arrow keys, we meet again) and constantly opened chat. Guess what, not gonna happen!
You do this: press Ctrl+O, go to "Controls" at the bottom you'll see "Keymap" button, click it, at the bottom of newly opened window you'll see "Load a Standart Keymap", choose "MMORPG modeless". Close the window. Welcome to WoW controls.

NOTE:
You can fuck with other options as well: turn the graphics up to 11, turn off the music, all that shit is pretty easy even for a guy like you.

3.2. Interface

Okay, well, this is happening again - you have to learn all the keymappings for all windows, shit. And from the looks of it - there are a lot of windows.

Well, I can't say it's a lot of windows, but it's a lot of windows.
Here we have:
Ctrl+V for Planetary Map. Pretty useful, it's easy to get lost while harvesting some shit so turn it on once in a while to get to know your surroundings.
Ctrl+M for Local Map. This one is even more useful, because unlike WoW where there are buildings that can offer you to buy backpack or basic enchantment ingredients, cities in SWG are filled up with useless buildings and you can easily get lost in them without a map, so in order to get into cantina you have to turn at least 6 times, so always turn on local map while in city.
Ctrl+D for Datapad. Here you can check POI as in "Places of Interest" on your planet, just available schematics for craft items and of course, here you can browse you active quests (they're located in "Data" folder).
Ctrl+S opens your "Skills" window. It's one of the most important ones in the game, so check it frequently. We'll discuss them later.
Ctrl+O opens your Options as you've noticed earlier.
Ctrl+J Journal. Empty. Doesn't do shit. Close it. Quests are in Datapad.
Ctrl+E Your Mail.
Ctrl+P Community window. Like in Lineage 2 and shit. Friend list, LFG window, ignore list.
Ctrl+T Same as /t [name here]
Ctrl+R used to respond to your latest interlocutor who has send you a private message
Ctrl+G opens up a group chat.
Ctrl+H Holocron. It's like "Help" in-game.
Ctrl+L Turns on a cool flashlight.
Ctrl+< and Ctrl+> decreases and increases the size of font in chat window.
Ctrl+I opens up an inventory, duh.
Ctrl+C shows your your character sheet, i.e. HP, Stamina, Mind, Reputation, Battle Fatigue (the more you have it - the slower you regain your Mind points)


3.3. Basic Commands

There are a lot of commands in this game, but right I want you to remember these

/t [insert name here] - this is a private message command. Be warned, that while we all name First name and Second name in game, when you text someone, ALWAYS USE THEIR FIRST NAME ONLY.
/way [insert coordinates here] will lead you to that place.
NOTE:
/way 3800, 1500 on Corelia to get to the Best Korelia (vg's town)
/dump - to cancel your macro's actions. You won't be able to move properly until you've executed this command.
/tip [insert sum] always remember to tip your medics\dancers\musicians, they're helping you so you have to help them!
/watch  &  /listen - when you get to a cantina, the easiest way to start relaxing is to listen to some rap and watch some hoe shaking her hips for you. To do that - focus on some dancer\musician and type /watch or /listen.
/addfriend -self-explanatory
/addignore -same
/invite [nickname] - guess again.
NOTE:
You can watch and listen at the same time.

4. Skills

Okay, this one is pretty important, don't skim this part. Skills are like levels in a usual MMORPG, you level up your skills and you become a better shooter, hitter, crafter, healer etc. etc.
You have 250 skill points, you may think that it's a lot, but at the end of the day, when you'll become a master Medic or master Marksman - you won't have many of them. So spend them wisely only on those skills you ABSOLUTELY MUST level.

NOTE:
In order to get an exotic profession (any other profession that isn't available at the character creation) you have to level a bunch of skills to get it. As you may have noticed, there're a names of different professions listed above some skills. That means that if you want to get that profession - you have to level this skill three. And be sure to check all basic professions to see what skills are needed to be leveled; example: in order to become a Combat Medic not only you have to level all Medic skills, but you also have to learn Marksman's Ranged Support skill tree.

4.1. Abilities

As we've discussed, Ctrl+A open up Abilities panel. Here we have Combat, Mood, Social, Macro and Other abilities. I'd strongly advise you to put "attack" and "peace" commands on your F1-F12 bar (which you can increase in size by dragging in down by its corner) because it's much easier to engage into combat using buttons, not right clicking.

5. Combat

Combat, being an essential part of any game, is a little bit different here. Sure, you use abilities and kill stuff, but you have to be sure to have not only HP bar on its maximum amount, but also Stamina and Mind, because if any of those three bar will be depleted - you'll become incapacitated or you'll die. Same goes for mobs that you kill - you don't always have to focus on draining its HP, you can poison it or stun it or shock it  so it will lose precious Stamina\Mind points.

Levels of mobs on this server are pretty bugged, so in some situations you may find yourself on the brink of extermination, so, in order to escape you have to SPAM LIKE A FIST OF A NORTH STAR "Peace" button. Just run away and spam it. It's you only hope.

Usually, to find a good mob to kill you have to look on the color of a circle which is located right from his name.

Red means he's very strong.
Green is a little less weaker than red.
Yellow means he's stronger than you.
White is a match for you, can be actually strong in some cases.
Light blue means he's weak.
Dark Blue means instagibololo victory.

But as I said - it doesn't work on EVERYTHING, if you see him hitting really hard - don't risk it.

NOTE:
If you're leveling in Corelia, here's a list of mobs you might want to kill first.

Corelian Butterfly
Gubbur
Durni
Plumed Rasp

These are piss-easy to kill.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT ATTACK VYNOCKS.
 They are impossible to kill. They have 99% dodge and they flinch all the damage you do to them. So do not attack them. And don't take missions that are related to them.

6. Quests

First of all, I have to say that Recon Missions, Escort Missions and Junk Missions DO NOT WORK AT ALL. And some Delivery and Survey Missions are bugged, so if you can complete it - abort it.

Missions are the one of the main sources of income in this game, while repetitive, they offer you a wide range of monsters to kill and things to deliver. You can get missions at Mission Terminals that are scattered around every city. You can take up to 2 missions at the same time.

Let me tell you something really important about Destroy missions.

They always offer you to destroy some creature's den. Well it's not that simple, man. Here's what you do.

First of all - you check your quest data - find out which monsters does it spawn. Then, locate it. After that you need to kill every mob (that suits the description of your mission info) that wanders around that den. Only then you can start attacking it.

What's that? It regenerates and spawns more mobs that are attacking you?

Too bad that you haven't read this part yet.
Remember that AFTER ALMOST EACH ATTACK MONSTER DEN SPAWNS MORE MONSTERS THAT HAVE AN ABILITY TO HEAL THEIR SPAWN POINT. Get it? Okay. So this is how you need to operate this shit.

You kill everything that surrounds that spawn point. You shoot it ONCE and quickly leave the combat. Now it's not regenerating and has spawned one mob that isn't even aggressive. Good. Now kill the mob and lather, rinse, repeat. Congratulations on doing the destroy missions successfully.

As for deliver missions I can only advise you one thing: use shuttles. Deliver missions are called "Deliver" because they need you to go far-far away from the mission terminal and to do so you either go by walking or you fly on shuttle. Ticket costs like 100 credit and deliver mission gives you ~1k of credits roughly. So do the math and decide on the quickest way to earn money.

7. Crafting

Oh, crafting system, you so crazy. if you started as an Artisan - you have your "Generic Crafting Tool". If not - ask me or someone else in thread to make you one. It's real cheap, so don't buy it from jews.

It's pretty easy, you just have to remember two things:
a) Quality of resources

When you craft something - you always want to look on the quality of resources, some of them are of low quality and that's why you crafted item will suck and will have low stats (in case you're making armor\weapon) but if you use good materials that show green bar on material list where you pick you resources for crafting - you can get a pretty sweet item, amigo.
b) Chance of doing something right

We all know that feel when we have right material and we get bioware-quality item or vice versa - we have shitty material, but somehow we done good. That's the issue here. When you craft something - you might wanna check how you performed: whether the crafting was "an amazing success" or you did a horrible or average job. So pay attention to it.

8. Surveying

Okay, to get resources you have to have "survey tool". Mineral, flora, water, gas, etc. For each material there is a survey tool.

And this is how you do it - you open it up, look through the list of resources and press "Survey". It will (or sometimes won't) show you the results of your survey. You can do it anytime you want, but be advised that it drains your Mind points.

As soon as you got good results (something like 70% or more), you press "Get Sample". You kneel and you start mining. And this is how you get your minerals in this game. Pretty sweet system, right? But damn, it drains your stamina. And you're supposed to monitor all your progress? Nope, here's a macro for you.
Reminder: Macros are created in Ctrl+A panel.

/sample;
/pause 4;
/sit;
/pause 14;
/stand;
/pause 1;
/macro macroname

With this, you can go to sleep. Be careful, you may be disconnected from the server in times of server cap, so check on your progress once in a while.
NOTE:
Sometimes you will get "Survey Choice" when you, apparently, found a huge ass deposit of minerals not far from here or even right on your spot - I strongly recommend you to use these opportunities, as they will net you a pretty decent amount of resources.

9. Grouping

The more the merrier, right? Grouping is very simple in SWG. You right click on any person, and click "Invite to Group". You can also use /inv or /invite command to invite someone to your group.

There's one catch though. You can invite someone if you don't see him. You have to see that person to invite him, otherwise it won't work.

9.1. Teaching

Yet another unique feature of this MMORPG. Teaching allows you or someone else to learn skills (or languages) from another person instead of NPC trainer.

Why do you want to do that?
It's free. Completely free. Instead of paying thousands of credits to an NPC trainer, you can find someone who can hook you up with needed skills for free. Of course, you can always tip your helper and make his day, but who am I kidding you won't do that.

So, how do you do it? First of all, find the skill you want to level. Now, how do you tell you want to level it?

You've noticed, that every profession has 4 skill trees. So you do this, you look which one you want to improve and you yell this message in chat:

LF [insert your profession here] teacher xxx1 or xx2x or x3xx or 4xxx. Where[x] indicates skill trees you DON'T want to level, and number 1\2\3\4 indicates the skill and LEVEL of the skill (hence, number from 1 to 4) you want to learn.

NOTE:
You can teach or learn skills while ONLY being in group with your student\teacher. So firstly - invite in group and then right-click that person and press "teach".

10. Troubleshooting

>Wrong password issue

A very common problem within our /vg/ brothers.

Here's what you do: you go to SWGemu forum and change your password there until it actually fits in game, I, myself, had to change my password 6 times until it worked. Protip: don't use numbers or symbols. SWGemu system doesn't like them.

>Everything froze and when I asked if the server is down, they said it's up. What happened?

You've become a victim of "Server Cap" issue. When there are a lot of people who're trying to log into game, sometimes someone gets kicked from it. Just like now.

>But now it says "Server cap reached. Please, try again later"

Easy, bro. When you get this message - just spam Enter. You'll get through eventually.

>Where should I start?

If you want high traffic area - go for Tatooine, Mos Eisley.
If you want to get bro-op with us - go for Corelia, there are a lot of resources and fun.

>What class should I take?

Already discussed in "2.1 Classes".

>But why shouldn't I take Artisan profession? Why is it only brawler or marksman?

Yes, I know how you feel. You want to be a crafter and all that. But bro, if you're reading this guide - that means that you're new to this game, and as a gamer, you know that tutorials are essential. So, I recommend you to get your tutorial and create your first character as a combat class, so you wouldn't be killed during training fight. And after that - for 100 credits you can become an Artisan. And if you want to get crafting tools - ask any one of us, we'll give you one for free and some survey tools as a bonus, isn't that a better offer, hm?

>But what class should I be in order to be of use to the guild?

You have to start from Artisan and work your way to Weaponsmith or Armorsmith.
And also, it's not about classes, it's more about just helping the guild in general ways like helping noobs to get familiar with the game or gathering resources for the the guild, etc. Contact Gabe Newell, or Vlade Worth or Brunas for details.

>What class should I be in order to get fun?

Easy enough. Take Bounty Hunter (they have special missions), smuggler (hacking computers, enhancing weapons and making drugs), Doctor (jewing people for money so that you give them buff, run your own hospital), Teras Kasi Artist - become the Nortern Star itself.

>What hasn't been implemented in the game?

Check this list, bro.
http://www.swgemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75

>When is the next update? What will it do?

No idea, devs usually post something about it albeit rarely week before the update itself.

>Can I be a jedi?

No. Not yet.

>Ride a starship?

No. Not yet.

>You've got a survey macro, why don't you post a combat macro?

Because macrofags are the cancer that is killing this game. They grind in the areas where real people who're actually playing are trying to grind. So no, no combat macros.

>Where do I find...
Ask in thread. Seriously.


This concludes my guide, I hope it helped you in some way or another. If you still have questions, you can find me in game (name's Vlade Worth), in threads or add me in Steam (ID: Vladeworth). See you, space cowboys.