SWG Legends, the rogue server of Star Wars Galaxies, is taking action against unscrupulous game mods

Attention users of ancient emulator mods: The Star Wars Galaxies rouge server SWG Legends is initiating a mod crackdown, but hopefully, it won’t affect mods commonly used.

“To maintain equity and enjoyment on our server for everyone, significant changes will be put in place starting from January 1, 2025,” declared the developers this week. “These changes aim to restrict certain file types from being modified (commonly known as ‘modding’), to stop game exploits and uphold a level-playing field. […] We’re not against mods—we value the creativity they contribute to the community. These measures are strictly aimed towards the safeguarding of fair gameplay.”

Mods that will be prohibited include those that affect terrain (presumably meshing), ambient footstep sounds, object templates, collision, CDFs, interior designs, meshes with collision, and several datatables (such as buildouts). Interpreting this, we assume that it could mainly relate to PvP; it stands to reason that discerning enemy footsteps distinctly or removing collision with in-game objects like walls would bestow an unfair advantage over other players following the game’s original design.

What won’t be affected? Aesthetic mods including textures, music, other sounds (excluding footstep noises), particles, harmless meshes, terrain color alterations, and UI modifications. This also covers all the housing texture modifications I use and made myself, so most players should be unaffected.

However, I can identify several entirely harmless applications for some of the banned mods – eliminating an unattractive tree from your garden! constructing an extra wall in your house! muting footstep noises indefinitely! – indicating some ambiguities here, and the developers are conscious of these. Modders who think they should be exempted can reach out to the developers for review.