Star Wars Galaxies

The game was first announced in 2000, when LucasArts Entertainment began a partnership with Everquest creators Verant Interactive Inc. The staggered release schedule of the space component of the Star Wars Galaxies series was said to benefit players because they would have time to establish their characters and explore different elements of the core game before adding the space layer. Traveling between planets would be accomplished through the use of public shuttles, which would ferry characters from world to world. The closed beta test began in July 2002. SOE would share more information on the game as the beta moved forward. The game was originally to be released on April 15, 2003. They also announced on December 20, 2002, that the ground-based component of Star Wars Galaxies would be called An Empire Divided and that the game's online community had grown to over 400,000 users since its inception in November 2000. A localized version for the Japanese market was published by Arts Japan on 23 December 2004. Most attacks specifically targeted one of these three pools and any action the character took also depleted one or more of the pools.