(Wolfgang) Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Star Wars Galaxies House of Commons Chat.
(Wolfgang) Tonight's chat is focusing on "mounts and the recent update"
(Wolfgang) I will be our moderator for this evening.
(Wolfgang) Before I continue, I believe Den has a special announcement to make. Den? =)
(Den) Thank you Wolfgang
(Den) On behalf of Stratics, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate two very wonderful people on their wedding, which is beginning as I write this.
(Den) They've already gotten married in SWG and have now decided to transfer their nuptials to real life - crazy kids! In order to commemorate your union, this HoC is dedicated to you!
(Den) To Ryan James "RJO" O'Sullivan and Tammy "Thalia" Davies, I wish you a very happy life together and wonderful memories yet to be made. *toast*
*Q-3PO toasts
(Wolfgang) In order to submit questions please /msg or /query [QT]Snake, [QT]Ghosty, [QT]GreyRed, or [QT]Ryu_Knt. Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from Dev. Team or myself. These questions will be ignored.
(Wolfgang) Remember that the Dev. Team may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if the Dev Team feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
(Wolfgang) The log of this chat will later be posted on http://swg.stratics.com so be sure to tell your friends if they missed it.
(Wolfgang) We'll start with a quick introduction from everyone, we'll then begin accepting questions.
(Q-3PO) Hello everyone, I'm Kevin O'Hara the Community Relations Manager. I'm just here to keep the rest of these guys in order.
(Blair) I'm Blair, or J. Allen Brack. Associate Producer on the project.
(oodBnar) Hello everyone- I'm Jake Rodgers, art director of SWG
(Thunderheart_) Im Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl Assistant Community Manager
(ronda_lucasarts) And I'm Ronda the Community Relations Specialist at LucasArts.
(Blair) Greetings, and thanks for being here tonight.
(Blair) Just wanted to spend a few moments talking about how we implement new systems these days. When we identify a new system, we form a strike team. They generally consist of a designer, an art lead, server programmer, client programmer, and a producer. In the case of mounts, Jake Rodgers was the art lead, as well as the owner of the strike team for Mounts.
(Blair) So Jake is on hand to field most of the mounts questions tonight.
(Q-3PO) But feel free to ask art questions too.
*synnarc* Is there any plans to give wookies some kind of armor or composite wookie gear? In PvP we get incap'd in about 2-3 hits.
(Blair) Great question. We are planning on addling lots of wookiee wearables in the future.
(Blair) I think everyone agrees we didn't go far enough with the wearables for the first release.
(Blair) So look for more wookiee stuff in the future.
*Markarian|Eclipse* Will the “extinct” pets ever come back, for example the Arachne Webmaster? And what about those pets who doesn’t have babies, such as the Fambaa?
(Blair) We don't allow all creatures to become pets for balance reasons.
(Blair) Also, some like the Fambaa are quite large.
(Blair) We will add more creatures as pets as time goes on.
*TheRealTK421* Question: Will mounts take up one of our 5 PCD (pet) slots in our Datapad or will you be extending this number to 6 (to include one 'mount' spot)??
(oodBnar) Yes- a pet which becomes a mount will take up a slot in your datapad just like other pets. Number of stored pets will remain tied to skillmods.
*Avatar* Do the devs honestly think it is fair that the holocrons drop off very challenging mobs that crafters and/or entertainers have no real chance in killing without joining a large group where ninja looting will be running rampant?
(Blair) It's true that the current plan favors the combat classes. We are working on adding new ways to drop holocrons that I can't really comment on at the moment as it is top secret! But We do know that it is unfair and have a few ideas for solving this problem.
*Eter* Why didn't the devs planned on releasing Mounts craftable for bioengineers? Their market is limited to selling only pet medicine and tissue cause the animals they make are either bugged or not really better than the ones CH can tame themselves, BE could have used the help by letting them craft at least one of the types of Mounts
(oodBnar) mounts are craftable by BE's - I've been making Kaadus all day. . Bio engineers will get several new creatures to craft soon. The creatures that are bugged are being fixed.
(oodBnar) and soon there will be a much better demand for their skill
*BlindTyldak* Question on SWG Art: is there any chance that we may see the current creatures get new art so they are not such copies of one another? (Example, gurrek/wrix)
(oodBnar) The creatures that exist now are hued different colors and scaled- that's all we have planned at the moment- but we have several ideas about making more changes, and adding several new creatures.
*TimTheSloth* It has been over a month since the smuggler profession has had a specific developer comment directly or through our correspondent. When will smugglers and other neglected proffessions (SL, DE, Chef etc.) be able to hear specific answers to the issues and known bugs we have to deal with? Is there a program set up for regular reports from developers to correspondents?
(Thunderheart_) I am currently working on a program with the Player Correspondents. The Correspondents gave me their feedback on reporting and we will have something in place by the end of next week. Once we get the process in place I encourage you to work with the Player Correspondents to get all the issues to the forefront.
*Fionn* will there be a way to move objects in houses up or down without using stairs
(Blair) The house placement interface is one of the worst in the game.
(Blair) In fact, it may be the worst.
(Blair) We are working on a new placement system that will make it a nice experience to place things in game.
*Baredor* What is the status on the wildly unpopular death/incap penalty now on TC?
(Thunderheart_) On the Death and Decay issue, we here your cries and the changes that are CURRENTLY ON TEST are: NO DECAY for incapped, 1% decay on death IF YOU ARE INSURED and 5% on death if you are not insured.
*Anaconda* Question to Devs: I have been on the Test Center recently to observe and test mounts. I feel quite uncomfortable about the idea of others having the ability to get on and ride off on your mount if you have gotten off of it. Will there be an option or improvement to make sure that your mount will be private to prevent theft?
(oodBnar) Yes- that is a bug that has been fixed, but isn't up on TC yet. You will only be able to ride your own pet.
*[Avian]Warnel* Pets are slow when moving up hills, will mount use the terrain skills of their owner to help them keep a strong pace going up mountains?
(oodBnar) They won't use the terrain skills of the owner, no
*[Avian]Warnel* Are you going to relax the placement of buildings so that more space can be uses and we don't have to worry about small dips or ditches?
(Blair) We can relax the placement of structures at any time, but don't have any plans to do that at this time.
(Q-3PO) no worries
(Blair) We have a lot of map area to lay structures out on, and with the introduction of player cities will help structures that are far away from designer cities.
(Blair) We can always relax the limits though.
*Onemanarmy253* What will happen to holocrons after jedi start appearing? Will you make them stop dropping or just make them much rarer?
(Blair) Great question.
(Blair) We see holocrons as a part of the game now and have no plans on removing them.
*Tecker* will mounts be banned from entering buildings while mounted (would make a noisey room) and also will mounts take damages while in battle?
(oodBnar) You will not be able to enter a building while mounted
(oodBnar) Yes- mounts will take damage- but they will not be able to attack
*Sumer* Ronda, thanks for being our community relations specialist. Are you in charge of organizing SWG Conventions much like UO and EQ have had? Or is that still a bit far off? Thanks!
(ronda_lucasarts) Hi Sumer. It's a great job to have :-) And yes, I will be working with Q3PO on organizing
We really looking forward to doing them. Player events are always fun.
(ronda_lucasarts) the first SWG Fan event.
(ronda_lucasarts) (well a series, actually)
(Q-3PO) It won't be in this calendar year though
(ronda_lucasarts) We're putting a lot of thought into the planning stages now.
(Q-3PO) and looking at potential locations
*Ossoi* can you ask if "are holocrons 100% essential to unlock force slot, or can you do it without them"
(Blair) Holocrons are not essential to unlocking the slot.
(Csavin) with mounts coming in game, are there any plans to skew the game back to star wars and away from pokemon? CH's being so prevelant is starting to ruin the "starwarsiness" of it all
(oodBnar) oohh..
(Q-3PO) Actually I hear George is going back and adding CG pets behind all the main characters in the special special edition of the original films... I'm kidding (don't kill me Ronda)
(oodBnar) We are actively working on vehicles.
(ronda_lucasarts) sigh @ Q3PO
(Thunderheart_) Tomorrow, I will post the first first stage of our Droid Engineer plan
*Cloudrak* What are you preparing for AFTER you put mounts and player cities live?
(Blair) Great question. Vehicles is our next big priority after Player cities and mounts.
(Q-3PO) The final act of The Cries of Alderaan story arc.
(Q-3PO) and then prepare the prologue for the next story arc
*Ranger_Richard[Sunrunner]* Why did you decide not to make Mount taming and training a master CH ability?
(oodBnar) It is at a very high level-
(oodBnar) but no it isn't a master level skill.
*Riya|Naritus* Are there any plans to make ATSTs more than just a FP sink, I mean they get diseased/poisoined, can't be healed. No way to heal wounds. Soon won't be allowed in PvE and in PvP they die in seconds... they are just huge FP sink... any plan on making them not suck?
(oodBnar) We're talking about reorganizing some things about the CH skill tree- I believe TH is going to post about it tomorrow...
(Blair) Great question, this is something we struggle with a great deal over here.
(Blair) When we started out, ATST ruled and essentially nothing could kill them.
(Blair) We have a balance plan for the atst that I'd like for Thuderheart to post next week and get your feedback on.
(Blair) We haven't completed the design yet.
(Blair) So stay on the look out for that soon.
(Blair) Lots of things need to happen to make them balanced though.
*TomtheBitx* How will the winner in the Cries of Alderaan Act II be determined?
(Q-3PO) The community had an excellent suggestion for us that we are implementing for Act 2. The winning side will be determined by which side gets more badges in ration to how many total members they have (covert and overt)
(Q-3PO) So if there are more rebels than Imps on a server, your individual contribution is just as valuable to your side
(Q-3PO) I hope that makes it seem more fair
*ShadowLight* Are all 6 mounts the same speed or are some faster than others? How will the initial vehicles compare speed wise?
(oodBnar) Mounted creatures typically run faster than a player, and their burst run speed will be relative to their natural run speed, but capped at some reasonable level.
(oodBnar) Vehicles will typically be faster than mounts.
*[Avian]Warnel* I saw some old concepts of creatures in different armor and some in different saddles then what is shown in your creature update page. Is there any plan to allow mount owners to buy armor to protect their mounts? Or different saddles other then the default? Maybe a saddle that has storage space in it like a droid storage mod?
(Blair) We've talked a lot about how armor would work for creatures.
(Blair) We've done some internal work on it to figure out the technical challanges as well.
(Blair) I'm sure you will see armor on creatures at some point in the future, but it isn't on the plate at the moment.
(oodBnar) Creature armor is too cool to not have in the game! We will do it eventually. (sorry J)
*Boba* Question: Currently loot is terrible in SWG. Are there any plans to add more items to the loot tables to make hunting more worth the effort?
(Blair) Good question.
(Blair) We are working on adding lots of additional loot to the game at the moment.
(Blair) One of the issues we have is we don't want to undermine the crafting market by adding loot that is better than what players can make.
(Blair) However, getting cool loot from creatures and npcs is cool.
(Blair) It is a difficult problem.
(Blair) We are working on adding different types of loot that isn't player crafted for one.
(Blair) And we have a lot of ideas for non-weapon and armor loot as well.
*Ramir* When players are riding a mount. Will there be any way to attack the mount in order to knock the rider off?
(oodBnar) You will be able to seperately target players and mounts, so effectively, yes.
*Wolfgang* What's the status of the mounts and player cities publish on TC?
(Blair) Good question.
(Blair) We have had a few TC stability issues getting this stuff working right.
(Blair) We have a handful of issues we are working through, but expect to have this update live within the next 2 weeks.
(ronda_lucasarts) And for those who want to see more of the coming mounts, some of our fansites will soon be hosting
(ronda_lucasarts) short videos and concept art
(ronda_lucasarts) check out swg.warcry.com and swgvault.ign.com and starwarsgalaxies.nl :-)
*Kagero-fef* ask them if the holocron system is going along as well as they planned in terms of giving people the extra hint to achieve jedi status
(Blair) So far, yes.
(Blair) We have the ability to tune the drop rate for holocrons and are checking jedi stats a few times a day at this point.
(Blair) In fact, we have a few bets going around the office here on when we are going to see our first one.
(Blair) So stand by.
(Blair) I sure do appreciate you spending time with us tonight.
(Thunderheart_) Take care and see you on the boards! Look for the Creature Handler Post, the Droid Engineer Plan and my Weekly Update Thread!
(Wolfgang) I would like to thank everyone for attending tonights Star Wars Galaxies House of Commons chat! The logs of tonights cta will be posted soon over at http://swg.stratics.com
(ronda_lucasarts) I'd like to thank Stratics for hosting these monthly chats. I hope you guys found the hour to be informative :-)
(Q-3PO) Thanks everyone. As always we got tons of questions we couldn't get to. Tomorrow Thunderheart will be posting some more answers on the official SWG forums. Thanks Stratics for hosting these. Looking forward to the next one.
(Blair) We've got a lot planned for the next few weeks.
(Blair) Stay on the lookout.
(Blair) Thanks for your time.
(Q-3PO) Later Gators
(ronda_lucasarts) Good night!
(oodBnar) sorry if you didn't get your questions answered- I think we should put up an faq on mounts, eh TH?
(oodBnar) Thanks for your time- and see you in the game
In order to commemorate your union, this HoC is dedicated to you!
