Star Wars Galaxies has many great ideas, but unfortunately it also has some major problems. *very long*
BAD: Rough around the edges; repetitive grinding combat; becomes a chore to advance to next skill later on; bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, and more bugs; performance so terrible that the game is essentially umplayable; patches failed to fix performance issues; graphics became outdated fast
Star Wars Galaxies has many, many problems, and although there is lots of content to the game, these problems make all the rest of the game worse, and many, many patches failed to resolve these problems despite continued fan complaints.
So, let's get down to the basics. You start by choosing from one of ten races (bothan, twi'lek, wookiee, human, trandoshan, rodian, zabrak, mon calamari, sullustan, ithorian), and six classes (artisan, marksman, brawler, entertainer, medic, scout). There are slight bonuses for each race, but for the most part it's superficial. The game does, however, feature an impressive character creation system, and most characters do look very distinct from each other. The classes are a far more important choice, as once you master a certain branch in each class you can advance into a more advanced and specialized class (such as teras kasi artist, pistoleer, combat medic, bounty hunter, creature handler, etc). Instead of being based on levels it's based on an extensive and complex skill tree, and there are noticeable differences between even one level on the skill tree as you gain abilities and hone previous abilities. Obviously, what you can earn is capped by skill points, but you may drop one of your previous abilities to focus on a new area at any time you want, and you may train abilities from any class. This skill system is amazingly flexible and very effective, and I wish that more RPGs would replicate it. However, advancing takes longer and longer as you move up, and can become frustratingly difficult and repetitive at times. Only two characters are allowed per server per account, but I prefer it this way, as it's easier to keep track of friends and you can explore many different options for one single character due to the advanced and effective skill tree system.
Also when you start out, you may select one of 5 starting worlds (Talus, Corellia (my personal favorite), Tatooine, Naboo, and Rori), as well as 5 more experienced worlds (Dantooine, Lok, Dathomir, Endor, and Yavin 4) you can travel to at any time. The core planets have many major cities you can do just about anything you want to in, while the "advanced" planets feature much harder creatures and a few scattered outposts.
The game is interconnected in ways others only wish they were, and features a massive variety of options. You can deposit and pick up cash or objects at "bank terminals" scattered throughout each city, and may pick up anything you deposit at any bank terminal. Mission terminals in each city give you missions, which mostly feature taking out a den of wild animals or a band of marauders or outlaws, and give you a cash reward once finished. The worlds are scattered with a vast and impressive array of creatures which range from easy for beginners to massive beasts that can only be taken out in groups. The game offers a great opportunity for solo players and group players alike, as there are many quests that can be done as a group or solo (although as you get more advanced, you need to focus more on getting into adventuring groups). The item system is completely player-driven, with artisans crafting and selling their wares over the market, where other players buy and use their merchandise.
One of my favorite aspects of the game is the community involvement. For whatever reason, people seem to be friendlier and more accepting on this game than just about any other MMORPG. Joining a guild is an awesome experience, and I experience nostalgia for the game from time to time just so I can chat and hang out with mu guild again. Guilds can set up massive player-built cities, and as yout guild gains more members you gain the ability to construct more things (such as your own shuttleport so you can travel there instantly), and some of the player-built cities are truly impressive. It really give you a sense of guild involvement and attachment. Any player may also purchase, maintain, decorate, and build a house at any time and just about anywhere. You can even have more than one, so you can maintain one in your guild city and another private retreat in the wilds of the countryside.
Also, guilds are generally alignment-based (rebel or imperial). You have the option to choose of either being rebel or imperial, although many players choose to remain neutral. You can also either be overt (meaning your allegiance is bared for all to see) or covert (your allegiance remains hidden). The PvP system, while hardly the focus of the game, is well-implemented, involving friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) duels and also occassional skirmishes between imperials (imps) and rebels and assaults on player-built cities. Advanced guild cities can develop their own personal defense systems, and I can recall several particularly immersive and impressive assaults on my guild cities. Guild cities also give you a special attachment not seen in other games. I felt nostalgia for my old city after my guild moved their guild city from one location to another.
One of the most impressive aspects of the game is the massive scale. Each of the 10 planets is truly massive and 100% explorable (you can walk up nearly 90-degree mountainsides). The environments are massive and fun to explore and there are a variety of vehicles and animal mounts to make travel faster and easier. And while creatures are scattered everywhere, there's an easy-to-use system in which you can tell how powerful they are and animals are clearly marked on the mini-map as either aggressive or non-aggressive. The interface, while daunting at first, provides a variety of options, including a simple waypoint system to guide you to your mission location or to mark a location for your friends to find.
Now that we've talked about the massive variety of options to be found in the game (and I really only scratched the surface) and how ambitious they are, let's talk about the many downsides to the game. First off, while the game is generally great for soloers, missions tend to become grind-fests similar to many other RPGs, and combat is repetitive, dull, and downright boring at times. Luckily, dying is no big deal, as you can insure your stuff to make sure it is lightly damaged, and you simply respawn at a cloning facility and keep going. Since combat will be the major part of this game for many people, this is a significant drawback. Also, as I mentioned earlier, advancing up the skill tree can become difficult, repetitive, and time-consuming as you go on.
Now we come to the major, major issue of this game: performance. The performance of this game is terrible. The frame rate bogs down even on fast systems, especially in the large cities (and especially Theed and Mos Eisley), to the point of becoming unplayable. I found myself hating going into large cities, simply because it would take, literally, hours to walk from one end to the other and get to the starport to catch a shuttle, and I would even get kicked out from time to time. In addition, I had a major connection problem (other people I know had this problem as well), where sometimes I would have to attempt to log in multiple times when travelling between planets just to actually log on, as it would go through an exhaustive ten minute loading period just to kick me back to the login screen. Usually I can handle performance issues and bugs, but it became ridiculous to the point of me just giving up playing after a while. There are an excessively ridiculous number of bugs that reduce performance. The worst bugs were never fixed while I was playing, and each new patch introduced new bugs. Sometimes a patch would eliminate an annoying bug just to have it come up in a later update. Also, each new update made my performance worse, even as I updated my computer to help it run this game better.
So, this game had many great ideas and positive traits, including a flexible, revolutionary, and effective character development system (although I heard they replaced that with level-based characters in a recent update), a massive number of worlds to explore (and lots of content for each one), a great community, lots of great ideas, an excellent online community, with memorable and nostalgia-producing guilds, and a useful and generally easy-to-use interface. However, this is counteracted by the many problems this game had. A large variety of bugs, some of which were newly introduced in patches and some of which were never corrected, repetitive hack-and-slash grind combat (and combat is the focus of the game), and terrible performance issues which just continued to get worse and eventually made the game ultimately unplayable. And so now I come to the end of this excessively and unnecessarily long review, with these final thoughts: Star Wars Galaxies could have been a great, revolutionary game, but the potential was squandered. I hope they don't repeat their mistakes if and when they make a Star Wars Galaxies 2.