preparing the jump to lightspeed

Having multiple email addresses can be quite hazardous, and I've been doing my best over the past few weeks to consolidate all former points of contact to this domain. Something possessed me to check one of my Hotmail accounts after a number of weeks, and I found a notice for acceptance into the Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed beta that I signed up for during the summer. The notice is almost a week old, categorized as spam, and was just few days away from permanent deletion. A stroke of luck or meddling with destiny? I'll let you know if the 2.5 GB download was worth it.

Regardless of my comments to the contrary, I'm not about to pass up this chance to check out what SOE is planning to unleash upon Galaxies players later this month. SOE's non-disclosure agreement tries to seem menacing, but I'll probably be posting some brief notes as they coalesce. One thing I will make a point of doing this time around - unlike my short time in World of Warcraft - is trolling the Beta forums, to salvage this spacefaring experience somewhat. From one night of play I can already see where this expansion is headed. It's really hard to avoid putting spin on this initial impression, but for anyone that's considering this expansion please play Freelancer and X-Wing Alliance first.

Shrouded negativity aside, I consider this opportunity another stroke of good fortune. I guess now I'm just waiting for my email from ArenaNet.

a full blown case