You can start off in any one of 6 basic professions - Artisan, Brawler, Scout, Medic, Entertainer, Marksman, each of which has 4 different skill areas in which you can earn xp (experience points) as you perform your profession's duties. You will most likely also decide to learn a couple or more of the other basic jobs, in order to allow you to move onto the more advanced professions. When you have a high enough skill level in the correct areas, you will be able to move onto whatever advanced profession(s) you have been working towards (there are 26, so there's a lot to choose from). You can mix and match skills as you wish, although you're restricted in the number of skills you can gain at any one time (there's nothing to stop you from dropping certain skills so you can pick up others though). Overall, this goes into making a very complex character skill set builder, adding a level of uniqueness to each player as they improve their abilities.

   

Now, the most interesting part of all these jobs is that they are somewhat reliant on each other. For example, scouts will harvest hide from the creatures they kill, which they can give to a tailor. The tailors can use the hide to make clothes for entertainers, who will help heal the battle fatigue of other players. Similarly, the artisans can harvest metals, which they can give to armourers to produce weapons for marksmen. The relationship is quite complex, although there are currently still some occupations that have very little impact on the game.

The galaxy that you actually play in is vast - there are currently 10 planets in the Galaxy, although others are expected to be opened in the future. Each planet will generally have 2 or more cities, in which you will find the basic facilities you need for everyday life. Each planet itself is also vast - running from one side of a map to the other will likely take you half an hour, and that's without taking any detours to avoid some of the nasties in the wild.

Whilst you run through the wild, you'll no doubt notice that the game can look quite nice at times, although in cities it can get downright jerky. It's not the best-looking MMORPG out there - that's Asheron's Call 2 at the moment - but it's quite good really. I wouldn't recommend playing the game with less than 512MB RAM though.

When you reach higher levels of skill, you will no doubt participate in the Galactic Civil War in some way - be it in PvP, or as a support class for the fighters. Currently the only real aim of the game is to get involved in the GCW in some way - and that's where the game comes somewhat apart. Although the very nature of MMORPG games is to do an activity, gain xp in it, get better in it, and then do it some more, there's just not enough of an incentive to keep playing in SWG. At first, you'll see a good level of progression in your character, with lots of new skills, but after the first couple of weeks play, the progression slows right down, and you end up repeating the same activity again and again (and again). Although you have a vast choice of occupations, each one doesn't really have enough variation in it to keep things interesting. This wouldn't really matter if there was an actual game to work through piece by piece as your skills improve, but there isn't. There are missions given to you by NPC's (including Leia, C3PO et al when you reach a high enough level), and there are the monthly events, but aside from that, there's nothing to really work toward.

   

Also, despite the vast planets, there aren't enough points of interest around - places that players can talk about together, or share experiences together. Be it dungeons, or just some randomly crashed space ship in the middle of nowhere, there's very rarely anything that makes you go "oooh, I wonder what's over there". However, this situation is changing, and more points of interest are being added.

Despite these faults, finding a good bunch of people to play with can really help you through things - hunting the big creatures can be quite fun in small groups, especially when you're all working together with your different skills. I had a blast in my time in SWG, and it was mainly down to the great people I was playing with, but in the end, the game just didn't have enough to keep me coming back.