* Welcome to the Star Wars Galaxies House of Commons. Tonight’s topic is Jump to Lightspeed and the loot revamp. Please send your questions to [QT]Nadia or [QT]Elm_*
Brekkee - Good evening and welcome to another great Stratics House of Commons chat, tonight our guests are the developers of Star Wars Galaxies! Tonight’s topic is Jump to Lightspeed and the loot revamp so please keep your questions related to those topics.
Brekkee - Please send your questions to [QT]Nadia or [QT]Elm - to do so type /query NICK and type in the window that pops up. Questions sent to me or the developers will not make it into the lineup, so don't bother. Full logs of the chat will be up on http://swg.stratics.com shortly after the chat.
Brekkee - We'll start with a brief introduction from the developers, now would be a good time to send those questions.
TH - Hail and Well met SWGFANS! This is Kurt Stangl, aka, TH
TH - Glad you could make it
ronda_lucasarts - Hi everyone... thanks for stopping by tonight. :-)
TH - and Id like to add a special thanks to Professor Doug and his class who have joined us in the pursuit of academia...kind of ;)
swgdevrthornton - Hello everyone and thanks for coming in tonight. I'm Reece Thornton, aka, swgdevrthornton.
madtoad - Hello, I'm Todd Bailey, and I'll be answering questions about the NBA Season...no, wait, scratch that. I'll be answering questions about Star Wars
swgdevrthornton - I was assigned to JtL as a systems designer.
Darth_Platypus - Hi everyone! I'm William 'Darth Platypus' Wallace, and I'm a designer on SWG:JTL. You may remember me from such professions as Shipwright!
Brekkee - *[UK]Shuri[ChimaeraSmuggler]* Q: When is the loot revamp planned to come up, and are there any more interesting new mixtures other than that posted by TH?
madtoad - The loot revamp will be coming shortly (in the next couple of weeks) and mostly what will be happening is behind the scenes stuff right off.
madtoad - You will see an increase in the amount of loot that you get
madtoad - when fightin NPC's
madtoad - There are definitely going to be new mixtures, I think we're talking about the things like the fixed datapads, fixed datadisks, etc.
madtoad - Lots more of that coming shortly after. :)
Brekkee - *Tator* If I'm Jedi Knight and perma overt. Will I be able to level pilot without getting killed by opposite faction overts in space?
ronda_lucasarts - You will lose pilot experience, but your Jedi experience will not be affected by any death in space.
ronda_lucasarts - So you may still get killed by opposit overts
ronda_lucasarts - but it won't count against your Jedi experience.
Brekkee - *[KGM]Kiorys* hi, i would like to know if GreenMarine is assigned to some work on the loot revamp, and if not why he doesn't show up on the smugglers boards
TH - Actually, GreenMarine is off on assignment crushing worlds as an alien cyborg....
TH - Seriously though, GM is hard at work on polishing JtL and getting ready for his next team assignment.
Brekkee - *Gillette* this loot revamp will include a 'balance' between creature level and loot drop?
madtoad - Absolutely.
Brekkee - *LadyJade* For Darth_Platypus: What specific changes do you think JTL offers that appeal to SWG players who have canceled their account for various reasons?
Darth_Platypus - Well, I think the first thing that JTL offers that should appeal to past SWG players is that you can fly starfighters, and blow stuff up in space
Darth_Platypus - The crafters can, of course, play the Shipwright profession, harvest new resources
Darth_Platypus - And I think that it really completes the Star Wars experience. What could be better than building your own ship, flying it into space, and shooting TIE fighters?
Brekkee - *Sace* Are there any plans to have a Firespray Trade-in system for folks who spent heavily on a Firespray, and that Firespray is now second rate to the new ones?
Darth_Platypus - I do not intend to put a trade-in system in for the old Firesprays. Those ships are still very formidable, and the logistics of retroactively changing the stats on all the old firesprays is kinda difficult.
Brekkee - *Seomon* my question - What's in the works for people who have already mastered their Pilot profession and now find themselves with nothing to do in space?
ronda_lucasarts - There are the two high-end content zones
TH - There are also a lot of POI's for players to visit...
ronda_lucasarts - which while there's a focus PVP action in those zones, we've just introduced
ronda_lucasarts - PVE elements to the Kessel zone
ronda_lucasarts - also...
ronda_lucasarts - we'll be publishing new missions towards the end of the month
ronda_lucasarts - So just like with the live game, we'll be continually updating space with new missions and content.
ronda_lucasarts - There's more for you to explore :-)
TH - And mastering PvP in Wildspace will always be a challenge because of the live elements.
Brekkee - *USCgames* How does JTL fit into the dev's vision of the elder game and how will it interface with the vision for the GCW ground game?
swgdevrthornton - The addition of JtL brings SWG closer to what our original visions of the product were...
swgdevrthornton - Although they are currently a bit disconnected in order to allow for the production of JtL...
swgdevrthornton - On a shortened cycle without worrying about out of the ordinary trouble-shooting of high-end game mechanisms
swgdevrthornton - Now that JtL is out, we're going to be concentrating on closely intertwining the two portions of the game more and more closely.
Brekkee - *Kadayus* Will JTL ever include non-combat content such as cargo delivery and exploration missions and hopefully other better things I haven't thought of; and will there ever be non-combat ships like freighters ownable by players?
swgdevrthornton - The original dreams of the space portion of SWG included non-combat stuff, but we needed a tight focus to appeal to the most people...
swgdevrthornton - And get it out more quickly... Now that it's out, we'd love to have more transport and a space-based-component of ground profession mechanics...
swgdevrthornton - I can see us possibly adding more transport-oriented ships in the future, but they'd definitely have the ability to defend themselves because space will almost certainly...
swgdevrthornton - always be a dangerous place. It's still quite too early to divulge details of our thinking on where we are going with this, specifically...
Brekkee - *[UK]Shuri[ChimaeraSmuggler]* It was mentioned that the loot had been raised in space..however I have seen no change from a day blasting pirates last week and today, has it been raised or just the cash looted?
Darth_Platypus - The actual volume of space loot hasn't been raised
Darth_Platypus - What HAS changed is that mobs should be dropping more tier appropriate loot
Darth_Platypus - High level mobs had just as much of a chance of dropping really low level loot as the low level mobs, so now the high level mobs should be dropping more tier appropriate stuff
Darth_Platypus - So that its a little easier for you to find gear that you might want to put on your ship at the higher pilot levels.
Brekkee - *zoom* Will the fs luck skill effect a looted items quality after the revamp?
madtoad - I think it's very important that the luck skill be closely intwined with the loot, and not just in the matter of quality, but also in the matter of how often you'll see loot drop on mobs
madtoad - So, yes, I'm definitely incorporating luck into the new loot system.
Brekkee - *WesBelden* Question: Given that the loot system is being completely overhauled, can we expect to see content that is linked to it overhauled also? i.e. junk vendors and something especially interesting to Smugglers, the Jawa trash mini game?
madtoad - There is content that will be linked to the loot system, I think the two things go hand in hand
madtoad - There will be some updates to the junk vendors at some point
madtoad - To make way for the new loot that we're adding.
Brekkee - *Rhett* hey guys, thanks for doing such a great job for all of us :) i was wondering if formerly useless looted items in the game would ever be made to actually have a use? such as being able to record your own information onto datapads, worklights actually shining a light visible to you, etc.
madtoad - That was a very important part of the loot update to me. Some of the first things I did were make it so that corrupt datadisks, broken datapads, and dud fireworks would be fixed in the new loot system.
madtoad - You'll be seeing those things shortly.
madtoad - I always wanted to make those items more "useful" even if it's just to add some fictional context to the game. And I've gotten the opportunity to do that. :)
Brekkee - *Paxicon[CF]* Any chance we'll ever see players operating star destroyers and the like? ;)
ronda_lucasarts - Star Destroyers are super Star Warsy and iconic and lots of people have asked us about this.
ronda_lucasarts - It'd definitely be a very cool thing to play. Getting multiplayer ships in with Jump to Lightspeed was huge actually...
ronda_lucasarts - 20 people on one ship like the Lady Luck was an amazing feat.
ronda_lucasarts - Player controlled Star Destroyers are an even bigger technilogical challenge.
ronda_lucasarts - The tech isn't quite there yet for so many people operating one ship in unison...
ronda_lucasarts - super cool though!
Brekkee - *Monthigos* Question: Right now the mass for TIE Interceptors is woefully low. Is there any plans to increase the mass?
Darth_Platypus - The TIE Interceptor is also one of the fastest ships in JTL
Darth_Platypus - The interceptors are balanced to be very fast, and thus very light
Darth_Platypus - So for now, I do not intend to increase the mass on these, because they already have a significant advantage in their speed and handling
Brekkee - *ddragos[Chilastra]* Any new loot kits ?
madtoad - The fixing of the broken datapads, datadisks, fireworks, etc. all work like new loot kits.
madtoad - If you're interested in whether we're going to do more loot kits in the future, then the answer is absolutely again. There are more of them coming...
Brekkee - *USCgames* How much of the content of JTL was intended to be part of the original release and how was the decision made to release it as an expansion, rather than as part of the initial release?
ronda_lucasarts - The Original design for SWG did include space travel.
ronda_lucasarts - As development progressed we realized that the size of the overall game was so huge that we decided to break it into two
ronda_lucasarts - components
ronda_lucasarts - The scope of the ground game was pretty huge and we also expected Jump to Lightspeed to add an entirely new level of game play
ronda_lucasarts - It seemed natural to get the ground game out and then spend a significant amount of development time on space as well.
ronda_lucasarts - So in short, it was always a part of the design, but the scope dictated it come in two parts.
Brekkee - *TC-Rark* Are you going to be using test center for the loot revamp or will it be a seperate server like the combat upgrade?
madtoad - Loot is going to go through Test Center, so everyone will get a chance to see it. :)
Brekkee - *Gillette* is there any space loot quest included with the revamp?
madtoad - Space loot and ground loot are separated by the gameplay styles that go into each area, so right now they're not tied together.
madtoad - The loot revamp is focused on making the loot much more rewarding and fun in the ground game
madtoad - And in the future I think it's definitely important that we keep in mind that we have space loot and ground loot and make some connection between them
Brekkee - *Sace* What do we have to look forward to in the near future, we're slowly sifting through the JTL content, mastering pilot, what is the next step?
TH - First, we will see some new JtL missions and the loot revamp.
TH - Following that, we will be getting into the meat of the Combat Upgrade, but that wont begin in earnest with the public until after the holidays.
TH - Between now and then we are doing prep work for the CU. Be sure to sign up the Combat Upgrade Beta!
Brekkee - *Killez-Valcyn* and with the loot revamp will krayts fall into this and will be harder to obtain a pearl or will they still drop at the same rate they do now?
madtoad - The loot revamp will touch all the ground creatures
madtoad - The krayts drop rates will be effected to some degree
madtoad - At the moment the drop rates for everything are going up a little bit, but based on playability and how often we see those loot drops we may lower it later if it's the right thing to do
Brekkee - *MiniVader* Will there be a way to assign Joystick functions from the Options/keymap in JTL?
ronda_lucasarts - You can actually remap all the joystick functions for the flight controls
ronda_lucasarts - er... with the joystick
ronda_lucasarts - but you have to be in space to do the remap.
Brekkee - *zoom* For madtoad: Are you planning on adjusting the drop rate of 'junk' vs tangable reward from higher level mobs in the ground game? It's frustrating to kill many nightsister elders and only get a blue rug part.
madtoad - For sure. The drop rates are going up across the board so hopefully you won't have to kill a frustrating number of nightsisters to get a piece of loot. :)
madtoad - Secondly, the higher level mobs should drop more tangible, useful rewards, and not as much junk loot.
madtoad - So those are things that are being taken to task with the loot revamp.
Brekkee - *Tato* Will the Loot revamp make changes to crystal drops? And will there be a bigger chance to get good stats on High end crystals? compared to low end crystals?
madtoad - Currently the loot revamp isn't touchin on the crystal drops
madtoad - We're currently happy with the rate at which they drop, and don't feel a need to make a change right now
Brekkee - *Guest37* When Will the new loot be implemented? Is there a date?
TH - The first phase of the loot revamp will be in the very next mini-publish (11.3)
TH - and we can look forward to more developments in the future :)
Brekkee - That will wrap it up for tonight. Thanks for coming! The log for tonight’s chat will be up shortly on http://swg.stratics.com
Brekkee - You can join #StarWars to chat more about the game.
ronda_lucasarts - Thanks SO much for coming out!
TH - Thanks and good night to everyone who made it out tonight - - we're glad you came :)
ronda_lucasarts - And all your great questions :-)
ronda_lucasarts - See you again next month.
