Star Wars Galaxies rogue server SWG Legends is the home of the event we called the most cursed Valentine’s Day event in MMOs as well as the winner of our 2023 Golden Yachtie award for most cursed object in an MMO – and it’s back again for another go with new items. OK, we’re mostly just teasing it here, as this is an old-school SOE event that the rogue server team has heavily expanded with ridiculous and cute Ewoks and hearts and flowers. In particular, we spy a few new things from the last year or two, like some cute plushies and a playable harp and flute (new instrument graphics, but old sounds; the flute is held vertically, and the harp uses mandoviol animations – it’s actually very clever).
But the real meat of the latest patch is actually the city revamp, and honestly, there’s so much packed into this that I’m shocked the devs aren’t shouting it from the hilltops. Instead, they’re leaving it to the game’s Discord to figure out, and players have done just that. There are apparently 120 new items for player cities, including structures, arches, bridges, skyscrapers, and roads; new city wall additions allow the reskin of some houses (complete with functional rooftops); and bazaar utilities for player-run towns. The patch notes also promise a full revamp of zoning, a new city expertise system that benefits even residents.
What this patch doesn’t appear to tackle is the underlying problems with the player city system – like urban sprawl, trivial upkeep costs, border-camping, limited supply, abandoned houses, and the founder’s effect that dominated cities even in the live game. And since control of player cities is still limited to a relatively small number of players and guilds (some of whom openly own multiple cities), this isn’t going to be an update that everyone or even most people can just log in and play with, which is obviously going to be frustrating. I don’t live in a city myself, so my pics below are from other people’s land. But it certainly creates far more incentive for players to run, live in, take over, and actually utilize the cities that already exist in the game.
Here are a few of the pics we snapped this afternoon!
And there’s an official video now too:
