Brekkee - Good evening and welcome to another great Stratics House of Commons chat, tonight our guests are the developers of Star Wars Galaxies! The topics for this evening are Publish 28, 29, and Community Summits.
Brekkee - We'll start with a brief introduction from the developers, now would be a good time to send those questions.
Rogue_5 - Hello everyone! My name is Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel, and I am the SOE Producer for Star Wars Galaxies. I have been on SWG for over four years, and I am a HUGE Star Wars fan.
SOE_Vapor - Hello everyone, my name is David Jones and I am an Associate Producer for SOE. I have enjoyed the privilege of working on SWG for over 3 years so far, and I look forward to the future of SWG as well.
Helios_SOE - Hello. My name is Helios; I'm the SWG Lead Designer. I create worlds... as sun gods tend to do.
rsmith - Hey! I'm Ryan Smith, Lead Live Programmer on SWG.
TH - Evenin' folks! Thunderheart here; SWG Community Guy I hope everyone is doing well!
Tunso - Hi there this is Mark Halash and I’m a Game Designer for Star Wars Galaxies.
juliot - Hello everyone! My name is Julio LucasArts Producer for SWG
FireFistAce - What kind of skills are you planning to add for the new jedi and bounty hunter elite skill trees?
Helios_SOE - While I don't have any specific abilities to share, I can tell you that a large part of the Jedi trees will focus on light and dark side powers in addition to general combat abilities. For bounty hunters we're looking at things like limpet droid specialization using a new combo-attack system.
NiKtheALiEN - I have a question please: Firing from Kneeling and Prone, will we be able to do this? any idea when?
SOE_Vapor - This is under consideration but do not have this in our current schedule
[Radiant] SylentSavior - What is the eta on Publish 28?
Rogue_5 - Publish 28 looks like it is almosst ready for live release. I expect that it will likely be released on April 25th.
TheReborn - Will you guys be making changes to the GUI or giving a "classic GUI" option for the people who don't like the silver graphics everywhere and want to be able to use the UI Palletes exclusively again?
juliot - We will not be returning to the old GUI but we are open to suggestions and feedback on the current new one to improve it and take it to the next level.
[Chilastra] Sundell-BVC - what is the benifit of aceing each squardon, ie what other than a badge do you get for 9 squadrons?
TH - GLORY and BRAGGIN' RIGHTS! There are also Ace Pilot helmets and other rewards
Bria - I cant seem to find any information on the new expertise system could you enlighten us
Helios_SOE - You can get some more detailed information about the expertise system on R5's comlink at Dev Discussion
TH - And if you miss a Rogue_5's comlink you can find them all here: Rogue_5's Comlink
Tiema - are there any plans for the village?
juliot - We are discusing many cool locations in the universe to add compelling content including the Jedi Village. We will share any new info when we know more.
stricky345 - Hey.. here is my question : Do we have any chance of seeing the DWB being revamped and with that the way how the mandalorian is obtained? I mean it is pretty to keep sanity, when you are camping the same mobs for many many hours, just to see one item drop..
Tunso - We are working on adding more high end content. There are no specific plans for the DWB at this point but that doesn’t mean it won’t be part of the revamp. The way Mandalorian armor is obtained may be effected by the crafting revamp in the future but there’s no specific plans for that yet.
Anon1932 - I have been hearing conflicting information from the community summits about droids. Are you going to try to fix any droid bugs and or add new droids or modules with the trader update or some time in the near future?
Rogue_5 - We have a lot of other things that we need to concentrate on first. Droids are an important part of Star Wars though, so we would like to find a way to integrate them into the game in the future.
Vaelr - In publish 28 with the addition of Jedi clothing will there be clthing that will be relatively close to the protection as the Elder Jedi robes?
Tunso - With luck it is possible to find jedi protective clothing that is comparable to the existing robes. Keep in mind that the armor is designed with built in trade offs as far as protections are concerned so you might build yourself a suit of specialized armor that was particularly effective against energy for example that would have superior protection over a robe.
Tiema - do you have any plans for politician?
Helios_SOE - No conrete plans for politicians as of yet, but we do know that we'll probably want them to have a role in the Galactic Civil War.
Anon4319 - I was wondering if the devs could talk about rumors of forced pvp?
Rogue_5 - We have no plans to force anyone to engage in PvP. It is a game play choice, but not something that should be required as part of SWG.
Gassygunslinger - What are your plans for Publish 29? Do they include Entertainer/Traders "ultimate fate"? Will they include Smuggler?
Helios_SOE - Pub29 will not include any entertainer, trader or smuggler updates. Pub29 will focus on building the framework for the expertise system along with some pretty awesome high end, GCW flavored content. Entertainer & trader revamps as well as the smuggler updates are slated for a later publish.
SagardonTarquinas - We heard from many summit sources that amongst the three player gunboats, there is to be a new single-pilot fighter as well. Some sources have indicated that there would be three of those. Could you clear this up for us? Any information on these ships would be nice as well.
SOE_Vapor - We currently do not have any plans to introduce a new single pilot fighter.
[Chimaera] LeskiL - Could you give us some more details about the new targetting enhancements you announced at the summit for Publish 27?
Helios_SOE - The targeting enhancements are for ground-based combat. These changes will bring some of the targeting assist mechanisms from space to the ground. This includes a "lock-on" bracket that lets you visually track your target. We're also including a "safety" button that makes it so you only hit the target you're "tracking".
[Chilastra] Avimeso - After testing the stats agility,precision,strength and luck i saw no improvement in my characters combat ability. Is it planned to make changes to this any time soon?
Tunso - While the stats do have an impact right now its not as dramatic as we like. For example, luck does effect your chance of getting a lucky strike that does extreme damage and also gives a chance to get a better price at the junk dealer. As part of the underlying expertise system changes, these stats will have a greater effect on game play.
Thornos - wondering about the final details on pvp bh hunting, has bounty check been removed? will more than one player be allowed to take the same mission? will there be a reward for surviving a bh attack?
Tunso - Bounty check will remain PvE only, it won’t be part of PvP hunting. Up to three players can hunt a single target but that’s the luck of the draw since there are no names on the terminals. We’ve discussed some additional things we’d like to add internally but there’s no concrete plans to do anything like rewarding the mark for surviving.
[Chilastra] Avimeso - Some respect issues I'd like to clarify. What happens to the traders vendors if he/she respecs to combat? Will traders be able to switch class ie. Engineering, munitions, dometics with the respect NPCs? If so will they remain a full template Master Trader?
Helios_SOE - Whenever you respec to a combat profession you'll respec to the highest combat level you've ever had. If you've never had a combat level (post-nge) then you'll respec to level 1. It has to be like this for now to prevent exploits involving macro-grinding entertainer skills to easily gain combat abilities via respec.
Duragoth - what happend to the decission to remove "no trade" and bio-linking" from certain items? This was supposed to be in for pub 28... I havent heard anything more on it.
Rogue_5 - The original announcement to relax the “no trade” and “bio-link” restrictions on items was based on a new PvP death penalty that we were planning on implementing, where players would randomly lose one of their items from their inventory. The community was overwhelmingly against this type of penalty, so when we removed it, the need to make this change went away. We have heard a lot of feedback at our community summits about the no-trade
Nikoziara - Question: Is it true that you will be looking into putting gunships into the game? And if so are these going to be the same as we currently see in space, just player owned, or different altogether?
SOE_Vapor - We have plans to put player owned gun ships in the game. The Rebel and Imperial gun ships can already be seen in space as NPC ships. The neutral ship is a ship that has never before been seen in Galaxies. =)
[Radiant] SylentSavior - Will there be a new Jedi robes/clothing to wear?
Tunso - There are no plans on the table right now to add new clothing pieces.
Fordaith - Will we see any increase in item count on POB style ships in the near future? Many ship layouts such as the Yacht and Y-8 are entirely too large for the item count they have. Possibly 250-300 items or even more?
Helios_SOE - While I won't speak specifically to storage count for POBs, we are indeed discussing veteran player rewards that will give you increased storage in your structures.
Taze - Question; Those of us that have cancelled accounts with ancient characters Pre Publish 10, what happens to them/what can we do with them or what exp credits do we get if we reactivate the account?
juliot - All canceled accounts in SWG that reactivate will have the opportunity to re-spec their past character (s) to any of the cool professions they want. They will end up with a character at a similar level they used to be plus all the new weapons and enhancements they would have earned.
cay-den - How will medics be affected in the upcoming publish 28 and 29?
Helios_SOE - Everyone will pay action to use heals. We've adjusted the costs to not be as high as before. We've also just (about an hour ago) reduced the healing costs for non-medics.
Thornos - decay? coming? not coming? please clarify
Helios_SOE - We're putting decay off until we figure out exactly what will happen during the crafting revamp.
[StarSider] Saevio - Once the trader profession is revamped, specifically tailor/armorcrafter, will the new clothing/armor loot drops be able to be reverse engineered for duplication?
SOE_Vapor - We are still working on the initial design for the traders. Right now we do not have information detailed enough to share. I would expect to see more information as we draw closer to the publish.
Yoto - Will the limpet droid system for Bounty Hunters involve Droid Engineers at all?
Tunso - Though its still early in development, the limpet droids will not be actual “droids” that need to be crafted. They will be more like specials or a series of special rather then a consumable item.
Fordaith - Talks about ranger-esque skills being added, are these gonna become generalized expertise skills, or specfic to a certain profession?
Helios_SOE - The expertise tech we're building does indeed open the doors for many kinds of skill sets, including some of the ones you mentioned. At this time, however, we want to first concentrate on bringing the core professions up to par. After that, we can look at diversifying the skill sets further.
[Scylla] DRew - The LA Summit mentioned a GCW revamp. Several guild leaders I've spoken to are considering cleaning up old faction bases but we don't want to do so if they'll count for anything in the "new" GCW. Can we get *any* info on the future of the bases?
juliot - This year we are planning on enhancing the over all GCW experience: improving the bases making sure they are fun and engaging, we are working on a ranks and rewards plus we are adding battlegrounds for PVP action!
[Radiant] SylentSavior - Will the 20k limit on the local Bazaars be removed in the next publishes?
SOE_Vapor - We do not plan on removing the 20k limit from the bazaars. We posted the idea to the community and the majority of the feed back guided us away from removing this restriction.
[Bloodfin] Andross - Will Buff macros ever be aloud? AKA: Favor of the Elders buff macro. or Maybe Officer ability macros?
Helios_SOE - Probably not. The goal is to not have a game where you need to use macros. If there's a problem with the user interface, we should address that problem directly instead of relying on a macro crutch.
[StarSider] Saevio - You mentioned you planned on returning to the old GUI: Will this happen any time soon? Will there again be more hotbelts? Will pre-NGE Jedi recieve their additional GUI colors again?
juliot - We will not be returning to the old GUI but we are open to suggestions and feedback on the current new one to improve it and take it to the next level.
Botam - Will Jedi Clothing be Stackable with Cloaks?
Tunso - Jedi cloaks and jedi clothing are mutually exclusive since the robes are rather powerful. There are no plans right now to allow them to stack.
[Chimaera] LeskiL - With the new collision system there is gonna come and the dark/light side abilitys thats gonna come to Jedi. any chance we are gonna see something like Force push or Force jump?
Helios_SOE - While we'll certainly see abilities like Force Push in some way shape or form, we're still investigating how far we can push the tech for gameplay mechanics.
[Radiant] SylentSavior - When will moe High Level Quests be introduced for cl 80 through 90?
Rogue_5 - We will be adding high level content to our game on a regular basis with our publishes, starting with Publish 29. I can't yet share the details, but we are adding something that will really start to bring the Galactic Civil War to SWG.
[Bloodfin] Darius - Will being a combatant and Killing npc's for faction points cause a bounty on you after publish 28 and will swg be adding forced pvp of any kind back as some like myself are not pvp'ers
SOE_Vapor - Killing faction NPCs will not cause a bounty to be placed on you. Galaxies does not now and will not in the future have any type of forced PVP.
Fariq_Asaka - Could you explain the weapons retrofiting you plan on introducing in Publish 29?
Helios_SOE - Currently most of the damage a player causes to a target is based purely on the level of that player. The "weapon retrofit" refers to us removing the "free" damage based on level and putting it back into the weapons themselves. This means that we'll need to touch all the weapons to "retrofit" fit them with additional damage.
IbrahimGaunt - With the development of RE'ing into other trades, will resource gathering become a thing of the past, or will it be simplified?
Helios_SOE - Harvesting millions of resources and producing items in factory quantities is gameplay that's predicated by gameplay that dictates rapid item loss/decay. I'm sure that there will be resource harvesting, but we won't know for sure what the exact mechanics will be until we have more concrete designs for the crafting revamp.
[FarStar] Viggo - Is there any current plans to revamp the Themeparks (e.g. Rebel, Imperial, etc)
SOE_Vapor - Yes, we have plans to revamp the Imperial and Rebel themeparks. We also have a touchup of Nym’s on the schedule.
Brekkee - That will wrap it up for tonight. I’d like to thank the folks from Star Wars Galaxies for coming!
Rogue_5 - Thanks everyone! Be sure to keep an eye on our forums for more detailed information on Publish 29.
SOE_Vapor - Thank you everyone=) As always, keep the feed back coming!
juliot - Thank you all for coming! Thanks for all your questions, see you next time!
