Just ran across this today and figured some of you may want to give it a shot....people are reverse engineering the old swg engine and putting up servers for pre-cu and NGE. all you do is install SWG like normal and install the emu patcher and you are set.

http://www.swgemu.com/?module=Frontpage&action=Show

I tried this out maybe a year or so ago.

Unlike many people, I have super super fond memories of SWG.
To be honest, I probably did the MOST roleplaying of any game I've ever played in SWG.

I played pre CU, and sure, balance was totally fubarred.
I also quit pre CU, so I may have avoided some of the hatred that many people have towards the game.

I quit when I found out that the untold hours I put into farming Jedi Holocrons and changing my class combos over and over were all going to go out the window when they made Jedi a starting class.

So back to the emulators. When I tried it out, I played on a few of the larger named emulated "shards" and they were all still in Beta testing, still rebuilding code.

There were vendors who would hand you out whatever profession combo/item combo you wanted. Many abilities didn't work, and there was really absolutely NO feel from the original game as far as I'm concerned.

That may have changed if everyone is out of beta now...I'm not really sure.