Star Wars Galaxies: Player Spotlight: Nebaf

Where in the real life world do you live? I live in Connecticut.

How long have you played Star Wars Galaxies? I've been playing since July of 2004, so a little over three years.

What other MMOs have you played? The only other MMO I've played was Vanguard, which I only played for about 3 months before coming back to SWG full time.

What type of work do you do? I'm currently an undergraduate student at UConn, majoring in Computer Science and Engineering.

How long is your typical gaming session when playing Star Wars Galaxies? I usually play for a couple hours. It's definitely easy to lose track of time and end up playing for several hours, especially when you're PvPing.

What does a typical Star Wars Galaxies day consist of for you? It varies. Currently my typical day consists of logging on and PvPing. When there isn't much PvP going on, I usually switch to one of my crafters and make armor, weapons, powerbits, or powerups. However, there's almost always a fight somewhere, so I'm rarely on my crafters.

Before I decided to take a break from crafting, I'd usually spend my entire time on my munitions trader. When I logged in I would immediately start receiving tells from players looking to have armor made. I'd usually spend a couple hours completing custom orders and stocking my vendor. When I was done crafting for the day (or so I thought) I'd switch over to my main character, only to receive more tells from people looking to buy armor, so back to my crafter I went. Needless to say, I'm enjoying my break from crafting.

What was the race and profession of your very first character? My first character was a human commando. When I first started I knew I wanted to be a ranged profession, I just didn't know which. After discovering some of the commando weapons (namely the flamethrower and launcher pistol) I immediately decided to go commando.

What got you into gaming and what sort of games do you like the most? My grandfather is the one who got me into gaming. He was the one that gave me my first computer when I was about 5 years old, back in the good ol' days of MS-DOS. I still remember the first game I played, it was a very simple MS-DOS game called archery where a target would slide down the side of the screen and you had to time shooting the arrow just right. I've pretty much been playing games ever since. Gaming has come a long way over the years, that's for sure.

MMO's are definitely my most favorite type of game by far. There's no other game genre that can rival the amount of content and depth of an MMO, not to mention has the community associated with them. I do enjoy FPS and RTS style games, but I usually get bored with them after a month or so. I've been playing SWG for 3 years, and there are still plenty of things I want to do.

What other hobbies or activities do you take part in, other then playing Star Wars Galaxies? When I'm up at UConn I spend a lot of time studying, watching the occasional TV show, hanging out with friends, etc. Since I'm an engineering major, I don't get a lot of free time. When I'm at home, I spend a lot of time playing with my dogs as they constantly want attention. And then of course, the usual things like watching TV, spending time with family and friends, going to the occasional Yankees game, etc.

What is your highest character level in Star Wars Galaxies? All my characters are level 90.

What race and profession is your main character? My main character is a human medic.

What do you like the most about the profession you have chosen for your main character? I love the ability to revive other players, and I especially like stasis. I also love the support role and the challenge it provides. In addition to making sure the enemy dies, I have to make sure my group stays alive, meanwhile because I'm a medic I'm usually one of the first to get targeted. So overall it's definitely a fun and challenging class to play. I also love using stasis on Jedi; it provides me with many jollies.

What faction is your main character? He's a Rebel. Always has been, always will be.

What is your favorite player owned ship? My heavy X-Wing. It may not be the most maneuverable ship, but with three guns in certainly packs a punch.

What is your favorite ground vehicle? It's a tossup between my jetpack and BARC Command Vehicle. The jetpack is definitely the most fun vehicle to ride, but I like having the BARC as it has more hitpoints than other vehicles.

How did you choose your main character's name? I'm not the most creative person, so I kept randomly generating names until I found something I liked. Nebaf Panef had a nice sound to it, so I went with that.

Which current professions in Star Wars Galaxies have you NOT played? I haven't played smuggler, spy, bounty hunter or Jedi (at least the current incarnation of Jedi).

What is your favorite expansion? That's definitely a tough call between Jump to Lightspeed and Trials of Obi-Wan, but I'd probably have to go with JTL. Space is one of my favorite aspects of SWG, plus it added another crafting profession when it was introduced. Space is a great break from fighting on the ground, plus the JTL loot and crafting system was designed very well.

JTL also made traveling much, much easier. Not having to wait on the for the shuttle was an awesome improvement, especially since I think the wait was still 5 or 10 minutes at that time.

What is your favorite planet? My home planet, Tatooine. I also first started out on Tatooine so there's quite a bit of nostalgia associated with Tatooine. Some of my favorite activities took place on Tatooine like Krayt hunting, grinding up marksman at Fort Tusken, fighting the Tusken Observer/Executioner/Witch Doctors outside the Squill caves, and the base defenses in my home city on Tatooine.

What is your favorite NPC? The Rebel Recruiter in Anchorhead, where I first went Rebel.

Which expansion do you like the least? Rage of the Wookiees was a good expansion but it didn't offer the amount of content that JTL and Trials of Obi-Wan did. Once you finished the quests on Kashyyyk there's really no point to ever go back there, however JTL and ToOW still are sources of content long after they have been released.

Which planet do you like the least? Mustafar is probably my least favorite. It's definitely a cool planet, however it's not the most fun to drive around on and it also doesn't have the nicest scenery.

Which NPC do you like the least? Any Wookiee NPC. I'm not a fan of the Wookiees. Gungans too, but that goes without saying :P

What is the most credits you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? I spent 110 million on an AT-AT holopet. I've also spent a couple hundred million credits on resources all at once, but those technically aren't one item.

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so, what is it and why do you keep it? I'm a giant packrat so there are lots of items I keep around just because I don't want to delete them. One thing I specifically keep around is my lightsaber from when I was Jedi during the CU. I loved being a master defender Jedi, avoid incap FTW! It was also a great accomplishment to unlock and level a Jedi, although I had it much easier than a lot of others who leveled a Jedi character.

What do you like best about Star Wars Galaxies? Definitely the community, and of course my guild. It's really neat to play with players from all over the country, and even from other countries that make up the Bloodfin community, as well as my guild. I've meet some really awesome and interesting people playing SWG over the years.

Another great feature is the overall depth of the game. SWG is a game where there's so many things to do. PvP is one of the best features as it's the most challenging and dynamic. I also enjoy the crafting system and economy a lot. As someone who has spent years crafting, it's pretty cool to develop a reputation as being one of the top crafters on my server.

What do you get out of playing Star Wars Galaxies? Definitely a lot of fun and enjoyment, but that's given. I've met and continue to meet a lot of great people while playing SWG, which is not something most people would normally expect from a video game. Being one of the leaders of a guild and just from playing the game itself, I've even learned a few of life's lessons. It does sound silly, but with the amount of interaction between people playing SWG, I've experienced and witnessed a lot of interesting things over the years, some good, some bad, and some scary.

Describe your best experience playing Star Wars Galaxies. In over three years of playing, I can't pick any one experience. There are so many things I've experienced in this game that I never would've expected when I first started playing. Some of my favorite experiences have been organizing the Bloodfin Wars PvP events, being one of the leaders of VoD, and participating in the base defenses in our home city.

During the beginning of the NGE, there really wasn't a lot of PvP on Bloodfin. It mainly consisted of small battles that were the result of guild wars. This was a time before there was Restuss, GCW Bases or the /pvp command to stimulate PvP. As a result, a lot of players missed the large scale GCW battles, so a guild member of mine named Mayge came up with the concept of Bloodfin Wars. We organized weekly battles that took place all over the galaxy. We fought at pretty much every POI SWG had to offer, and overall the events were very successful.

Being one of the leaders of VoD has also been a great experience. I joined VoD at the start of the CU, and have had the privilege of being a member ever since. Unfortunately our numbers began to decline throughout the course of the CU, and with the launch of the NGE we were down to three active members including myself. It was at the time that I took up a leadership role. As time progressed the guild slowly began to grow again, with both old players returning and new players joining. Today we are fortunate to be one of the most active Rebel PvP guilds on Bloodfin.

Finally, I can't forget to mention the base defenses in our main city, Valley of Death. Many nights our city was under siege by Imperials attempting to destroy our bases, which were situated inside our infamous "compound". Those were some of the most fun PvP battles I've ever participated in while playing SWG.