SWG:ANH, Officially Open Source Software!

[apathy]

Seven years ago today, Star Wars Galaxies introduced the world to an innovative take on the Star Wars Universe that drew players in from all corners of the globe. It provided huge, expansive worlds in which players could play out their own destinies in a galaxy far, far away. If not for a vibrant and passionate community of developers, modders and players that game would be lost to us forever. It is with that spirit of unity, people from all walks of life coming together with a common purpose, that we are please to announce that from this date forward, June 26, 2010, that the SWG:ANH project is officially Open Source software!

While this is not a final release it is a huge stepping stone towards making that goal a reality. For the last year the team has been steadily moving forward and incorporating industry "best practices" for developing large scale software, improving the stability and design of our existing code-base, and most importantly learning to come together as a team and accomplish what some have deemed the impossible. It is through these accomplishments as a team that we are able to open up our doors and invite the community at large to come and see what we have to offer and provide a place for interested developers to contribute when and what they can. It also gives us the opportunity to invite everyday players who are just simply missing the "old days" to help ensure that we're getting all the features right by testing at one of the several communities who have already opened or who have planned to open test servers.

Speaking of communities the team would like to extend a big thanks to several communities and individuals who have gone the extra mile to help us test not only the server, but how we can best interact with communities, developers and players to accept code contributions and bug reports. Without these group and individual efforts this milestone would have been much harder to achieve:

Aurora - http://www.aurora.fr.cr
Bria's Forsaken - http://briasforsaken.com
SWGCanon - http://www.swgcanon.com
True Galaxies - http://www.truegalaxies.com

And a special thanks to Unicron, while not part of any community in particular he's been a big help in hosting a test server.

If you're not a developer or a modder but still want to help out be sure to check out these communities as well as those listed at http://www.swganh.com/anh_communities/ for more information on how you can help the cause!

I want to also personally extend my thanks to the entire team, including all developers, QA and data teams. Over the last year I've seen this group go through it's ups and downs and in the end we've all managed to come together and work hard on this vision. (speaking directly to the team) You've all done a great job and should be extremely proud of what we've accomplished together. I look forward to the future and completing this mission as a team!

Finally a brief note on our next milestone, version 0.3.0, for which more details will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. Our goal going forward from Open Source is to begin polishing and completing the basic game mechanics and professions with a end goal of being able to maintain a working economy in the game. We will be taking each basic profession one at a time starting with the Artisan profession, and will be examining what work has been done and what is yet to be completed and then making it a reality. This is an exciting time for the project as we begin taking our first steps in making these worlds we've been working on for so long living and breathing places where players can experience the magic that began 7 years ago.

[Raiden Nar]

Nice guys!!! Hope i can get to play!! How do i get to play?

[zetlaux]

Very nice. Thanks for everything you're doing, ANH.

[SniperMissile]

This post makes me smile.

You people have no idea just how happy I am right now.