Deathstryker: Many of our readers at the SWVault are especially concerned with role-playing. Does Star Wars Galaxies have any systems in place to encourage this behavior, or at the very least to allow role players to put their preferred playing style into practice without interference?

Kevin: We definitely want to support and encourage those people who choose to role-play in game. As for tools, we have an extensive communication system in the game to promote playing in-character, such as over 100 animated emotes, dozens of moods to set your character to (per dialog line or indefinitely), a large variety of "/say" style commands many of which have unique chat bubble styles and a prose style of dialog ("How are you," asked Kevin inquisitively). In addition to communication tools, we feature several full professions that lend themselves to the socializing type player, such as dancer, musician, and image designer.

The settings themselves are crafted with role-playing in mind. Cantinas have tables and chairs you can sit at and theatres have stages and rows of seat for player created events. We have several writers who, under the guidance of LucasArts, have written thousands of lines of NPC dialog to help immerse the players in the Star Wars environment.

Ultimately, of course, it is up to the players to define their own play style. We do recognize that there are a lot of people who aren't interested in role-playing or who have different definitions of what it means to role-play. Set them on /ignore. ;) (kidding)