Friday Feature Jan 9th: Transmission Interception - Imperial Crackdown

With the new Imperial mandate to crack down on the rebellion, spies have leaked some information into SpyNet.

(Answering some questions from the GCW forum...)

GCW: After the huge surge in rebel activities after the destruction of the death star at yavin, the empire is about to begin it's strike back. The publish may only be a few bugfixes and pvp adjustments, but what would you really like to see in this patch? What do you think would truely add to the GCW?

SWG: There will be PvP Adjustments, fixes, and much, much more. And this is just the beginning.

GCW: Empire seizes control of all capital cities! Coronet, Bestine and Deeja Peak (yeah yeah it aint a real city.. Theed should be the capital) become locked down and put on high alert. All these cities should have upped imperial spawns, more static (I.e. Unattackable) content including walls, turrets, faction HQ's and maybe an ATAT or two for show. The empire cannot continue to let a major city such as Coronet defy imperial order so openly.

SWG: The Empire will be enforcing its will in almost all cities to one degree or another. Some cities will clearly be under Imperial control while other cities will not. Player cities will of course maintain their own factional alignment

GCW: Not for show! For real! Not forever mind you, but for a bit, to show that the Empire is taking over complete control of the major cities, making rebels be afraid. And letting them have a challenge when raiding Imp cities.

SWG: This is correct, it will not be just for show and not just in cities. There will be an Imperial presence in cities, the fringes of cities and in the wilderness. The degree in which Imperials harass players will have much to do with factional alignment.

GCW: How about some covert scanners in some cities? That would keep us rebels on our toes!

SWG: No Covert Scanners in cities, but how about contraband scanners? ...and the scanners will be Imperial Troopers. Expect Imperial Troopers to stop you and scan you. They may find contraband and they may not. Who's to say?

GCW: When are we going to see those huge imperial walkers?

SWG: Not yet, but as soon as we can. The live events team has started working with them a little bit, but we still have some aesthetic/technical issues to work out. They dont look right when they climb up slopes.

GCW: I like the idea of every once in a while either an NPC or a PC would be dragged off by a group of stormtroopers for "questioning" too.

SWG: All sorts of players are going to be harassed. No one is going to be dragged off, but there is a variety of ways, the Empire will scan players for contraband and to send out patrols. In some cases, Imperial Stormtrooper NPC's might just stroll into Cantinas to harass rebels.

GCW: I want to see large scale invasions of places like anchorhead that rebels will have to repel.

SWG: There are three cities that have been claimed as Imperial Garrisons. Not only have they been fortified with an Imperial base, and the towns will be heavily patrolled.

GCW: I also want the 1% decay to be removed for PVP.

SWG: Done. We've removed decay for PvP death. It's just the first pass though. In the future as the developers sink their teeth into the GCW changes, we'll keep the "no decay on death" in PvP, but it will most likely take the form of "Faction Insurance" or some other in-game mechanic, rather than be automatic. For now, it will just be automatic. Have a great weekend.