The day a loved one went into hospital....

It was more than just....well...it was a fucking monolith. A giant pillar of...well....perfection, even in the ways that it was completely flawed and broken, it still absolutely stank of pure, complete and utter, 100% A-Grade win. Some of my best friends, well - in certain circles at least - were made stronger by this loss, some I was even forced to go to University with...3 years later.

It was a golden age, an age where nothing ever mattered. You get back home, and do what you wanted, hang around with friends, or go out into the wilderness and see what we could find. There were massive galactic wide organisations spanning...well...the galaxy, trading and arguing, working in such sync that many Governments would be envious of.

People came together, met through a mutual interest, and thrived and thrived. Between us, we created the best god damn community ever seen in an MMO.

Star Wars Galaxies was, and will ever be, one of the greatest MMO's ever made. Not because of the game - as such - but because of the players, because of how we, as a player base, pushed the game past even the most extreme estimations of the developers. Creating items that were so powerful, that even the toughest mob's in the game had to be made ever-increasingly harder every week. Where gamers from all over the world could come together and relate through their love of Star Wars, their love of the game, and more importantly, their fear of the real world.

SWG was the first MMO I ever played, and it took my breathe away. A story I've told many a time, is how Congo and I downloaded the trial (taking a grand total of 24 solid hours...thanks 512kb/s internet!) logged into Eisley, and crashed out within 4 minutes due to his PC simply not handling it. After a play around, we get back in, lag our ways outside of Eisley, and get lost, very, very, very lost - as it turns out we find ourselves in a place that neither of us came back to for over 5 months (nearly 12 months for me in fact).

We have no idea how to load the map, how to create waypoints, barely work out how to talk, NOT A CLUE as to how to send private messages, open mail, open the datapad. Actually, instead of listing what we can't do...We could walk, and click shit....that was all.

From that moment, we knew we had found something special, something that would be with us for the rest of our lives. Even years later we still sit up all night talking about it, everyone I know that used to play does this as well, so at least I know I'm among fellow addicts.

Euro-Chimaera was the server of choice for 99.99999999999% of a game time, it was the most active Euro server, and one of the best servers on the game - and no I'm not being biased.

No one can really put a finger on the 1 thing that made SWG better than all other games - many people saw it as a Marmite scenario. My conclusion, it wasn't just one thing, it was the entire game, every little aspect, every little detail, every little nook and cranny - that, when they came together, created the most epic experience and game time I have ever had in my life.

Zulac - a bloke on my course at Uni, and the guy I get pissed with on most occasions - I met on SWG, and later on the Euro-Chimaera Emulator Community website/forum. I'd have to use both hands, and maybe a foot (or maybe an auto-incrementing int, but thats another story) to count the amount of times - even in one day - that SWG is mentioned either in jest or as a "OMFG you remember...?!".

I've been gaming since I was about 5, possibly earlier if you count the kid-next-door's NES. There are a few franchises that have ruled my life since I can remember - Half Life and Call of Duty spring to mind straight away, but even they pale in comparison. There is a saying that there are two types of games that make you miss meals, first, ones that are so shit they actually make you feel ill, and second, ones that are so good you completely loose track of time. CoD, HL and SWG are all the second type - but SWG was worse. Your typical example, with the other games, is missing a meal by a few hours, and at around 2200h thinking "OH SHIT, I HAVEN'T EATEN!". SWG though, I'd get up at 9am, log in, think about lunch at around 4pm, think "meh, i'll just get a snack, it's tea soon." 2300h rolls round, feeling really hungry, but instead of eating, "meh, just go to bed". The next day wake up and promise not to do it again, as I'm still hungry, don't eat breakfast - as is my way - and go to Tesco's and get a multipack of pepsi.

And only drink pepsi.

It was an addiction, 100% complete and utter addiction. But it was good, SO good.

Scuzzmonkey.