Star Wars Galaxies: An IGN Q&A Discussion with lots of the Dev's!

Jonric(IGN): Which of the planets in Star Wars Galaxies is your personal favorite, and what's a specific location that you consider particularly interesting, fun or otherwise special?

John Roy
Lead World Artist
It's hard for me to choose one planet since I've been involved with making worlds for some time now. Looking at the incredible work of Will Kier with Endor and Dathomir (and his other worlds), and Jeff Dobson on Yavin 4, it's amazing how much we've accomplished. We have made a set of truly rich and interesting environments.
Because I spent a fair amount of time making the Agrilat Swamp, I would say it's one of my favorite places. The swamp is located in North-central Corellia, hidden in a misty fog of moisture. I set up the region so that it is discovered from the open grass plains, by dropping down gradual outside slopes that lead into canyons. Enclosed by a series of sheer rock faced mesas, these canyons break the region into a maze of waterways and pools.
The interior concept by Arnie is wonderful - a region of crystallized rock formations surrounded by mineral tainted waters, embellished by towering rock spires and arches. Rob Cuenca, one of our world artists, made these beautiful formations, which include crystallized trees, geysers and shrubs.
Several spires are geysers that occasionally spew hot steam and water, just like Yellowstone Park! It's really amazing to see. But be careful; crystalline spiked shrubbery makes hiking in this area a bit treacherous. When you get to the center of Agrilat, you'll find a large circular basin, where rocky arch monuments have broken over time. Last, like finding a hidden jewel, the huge, multi-tiered central geyser monument explodes gloriously over time.
Agrilat is kind of eerie. Receiving only a filtered, pale sun, to light the sentinel spires in fog, I would say its one of my favorite places in Star Wars Galaxies.

Calan Throw
Software Engineer
My favorite place is the city of Theed on the planet Naboo. The artwork for the city is beautiful, and many of the buildings are interesting to explore. It looks like a place I'd love visit on a vacation. In fact, sometimes when I need a break from programming I'll log into the beta and just explore Theed for a while.
Theed is also a favorite of mine because I used to use it as a test case. It was one of the first cities the designers built out in detail, so early in the project, I used it when I needed a place with lots of buildings. There were some surreal moments when things weren't working right and I had all of the buildings from Theed floating in the air over the Tatooine desert.

Cinco Barnes
Lead World Builder
Singing Mountain on Dathomir is my favorite location. You start at the foot of a giant rock face and follow a narrow path lined with lush ferns and shadowed by giant tree branches. As you climb upward, you come across many Force Witch settlements carved into the mountainside. In the daytime, the landscape is cool, fresh and inviting. At night, rows of luminous flowers guide you up into a heavy gray fog. Once you reach the top of the mountain, you can feel the darkness of the mountain sky crowd in around you. The Singing Mountain witches patrol the gloomy peak in silence - waiting for that bold traveler who just can't stay away...

Reece Thornton
Designer
My personal favorite planet in Star Wars Galaxies is Tatooine. It was the first locale I was exposed to from the movies. The sandy dunes and rugged, rocky landscape found in the various regions of the planet contribute to a decidedly desolate atmosphere that is beautiful in its own way. Combine that with the dust storms and other extreme weather and it just 'feels' right to me.
My favorite location on Tatooine is the crash site for the Tantive IV's escape pod, where the two most important droids of the Star Wars saga made planetfall. More than any of the other locations pulled straight from the movies, this one makes me feel like I'm an "insider" and part of the movie. The pod is an abandoned hunk of junk with no visible sign or notes about what it is and where it came from or what it's significance is, but because I saw the film, I make a personal connection. It makes things more real for me.

John Watson
Software Engineer
My favorite location is usually my testbed location. There is one particular place where I do all my programming and testing, and this place usually changes every few weeks. Right now my testbed is a bit west of the site of Moenia, on Naboo.
The area is between a river and some distant mountains. The green grassy hills roll out all around. If you zoom down and take a look you will see several clusters of objects. A giant column of light is a waypoint I've created to find my way back in case I wander. A small crowd of NPCs stands near it, waiting to be grouped with, conversed with, attacked, traded with, or anything else I can think of. A commodities market terminal sits in the grass nearby, looking strangely out of place.
Equally out of place is the large crafting station and factory, which stands on the next hill. A large crowd of Wookiee NPCs stands nearby. Looking around through the swaying grass, you can see the indigenous lifeforms of Naboo going about their business. During testing, I frequently encounter herds of Kaadu, Motts, Nunas and others. Sometimes, if I stray from my test site, I encounter a Gungan fortress, a small installation or prison and other interesting encounters.
As I stand near my crafting station on the hill, working on my latest blaster design and tracking down that last elusive bug, I hear a roar from overhead. Looking up, I see a giant shuttle fly overhead. The shuttle gracefully lands at a shuttleport over the next hill, which I had forgotten I had created.

Will Kier
Artist
My favorite spot in Star Wars Galaxies is the Dathomir Misty Falls area. All the environments in the Star Wars films have been very Earth-like. I mean there'd be the occasional Muppet character but the environments were all real places. With Star Wars Galaxies, we had a chance to deviate from the realism a tad while making the planets that weren't featured in the films, and gratefully, Haden Blackman encouraged us to do it as much as possible. So when Jake Rodgers and John Roy gave me Dathomir to build, and explained that it was a dark and creepy place where witches and Rancors reside, I couldn't have been a happier artist.
The trees of Dathomir are my greatest success, very twisty and exaggerated with a lot of character, and real enough so you don't feel like your wandering through McDonald land. In the Misty Falls area I've added a few glowing plants, sparkling pools, and colorful atmosphere. It's both haunting and beautiful, and the perfect secluded spot for a picnic with Princess Leia.

Todd Bailey
World Designer
My favorite planet is still Tatooine. That's a hard thing to say given our development process. Almost all the work I've done since I started here was done on Tatooine - either because I was doing something specific (like coding the spawner for the Sarlacc Pit) or something generic, like just needing a flat space to test out some NPC clothes or whatever. Everybody's probably a little tired of Tatooine by now, but it still holds something special for me. It's been in four of the five movies (Empire being the only exception), and we've gotten to see different parts of it each time. There's the Cantina and the "wretched hive of scum and villainy..." Mos Eisley in A New Hope.
There's Jabba's Palace and the Sarlacc Pit in Return of the Jedi. Then, in Phantom Menace, we got to see Mos Espa and the Pod Racing circuit. And in Attack of the Clones we got to see some of the more generic landscape, when Anakin is racing across the desert to find the Tusken Raiders and his mother. But even though we've seen so much of the planet, there's still so much more to explore.
Maybe it's due to the mysteries that Tatooine still holds that draw me to it. I still want to know more about the Sarlacc and where it came from.
How did Jabba find it? When did he start using it as his favorite dropping off point for people he didn't like? Where do the Tusken Raiders come from? Do they have a big city somewhere? Or are they just nomads, like the ones in Attack of the Clones? What happened to all the monks that owned the B'omarr Monastery before Jabba took over and made it into his palace? And why did Jabba choose that as his headquarters in the first place?
Maybe it's because I like Jabba so much that I like Tatooine. It's his home planet and certainly every time we see him, he's there. There's something intrinsically interesting about gangsters and criminals, their code of conduct and the way they transact business. It's probably the same reason people like mob movies or stories about jewel thieves. I can't really explain it, but on some deep level there's something viscerally exciting about the criminal underworld, their dialog, their actions and the resolutions of those actions.
Because of that, I'd have to say that my favorite location on Tatooine probably is Jabba's Palace. I like the dungeon-like construction, with long stone tunnels and tall stairways that curve around taking you into each new room. I like the guts of the place where prisoners are watched by Gamorrean Guards 24 hours a day, and the torture room that EV-9D9, the cruel overlord of Jabba's droids has made her home.
And yet, there's still more to Tatooine. Jawas, banthas, the Imperial headquarters in Bestine and the petty politics that go on there between Prefect Talmont and his superiors. If I had more time and more space I could probably write a couple of novels about the things on Tatooine that I like, but in the interest of getting more work done, I'll just stop here.

Shawn Pitman
Assistant Designer
That's a tough choice. I'd say Naboo, just because of how gorgeous the cities are, but Tatooine takes first place because it has what no other planets have - Jabba's Palace! No matter how much of a wretched hive of scum and villainy Mos Eisley is, it doesn't come close to what Jabba's managed to collect. The moment you see his Palace rise out of the dunes, you *know* you're in the Star Wars galaxy. If you still have any doubts that you're not in a galaxy far, far away, all you need to do is just step inside.
The first time I walked into Jabba's Throne Room, I was blown away by seeing Max Rebo pounding out some tunes, while Jabba's dancer, Oola, danced for everyone. To see Jabba on his dais was impressive indeed, and if I had any thoughts of double-crossing him, seeing Boba Fett guarding over the room in such vivid detail made me think twice! I felt just like an extra on the set of Return of the Jedi... except it was REAL! Well, kinda... it's hard to tell at times when I'm there. (psst... I'm still going to sneak in Naboo as my other favorite, just because of the chance to bow down on bended knee in front of the greatest man who ever lived, The Emperor!!!)