Q-3PO: Welcome to the 6th Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Developer’s chat (whew, that’s a mouthful)! We are going to answer as many questions as we can in the next hour.
Q-3PO: This is how it works, I read through the loooong list of questions sent by you. I call out appropriate ones (No, we aren’t talking about how to become force sensitive ?). Then someone on the dev team either says “pass” or answers it.

BoShek: Hello Everyone...welcome
Q-3PO: We're going to focus on questions related to E3, but we'll try to take a wide range of questions including "newbie" questions that may have been answered already, and "hardcore” questions for those of you who have lived on the boards.
Q-3PO: This is a moderated closed chat, that means only the devs can speak here. Send your questions as a private message to Marluka (/msg Marluka)
Q-3PO: So let’s get things started by asking our panel of devs to introduce themselves. I’m Keven “Q-3PO” O’hara, your community relations manager.
Shug_Ninx: I’m Haden Blackman, Producer for Star Wars Galaxies at LucasArts.
Holocron: Hi, I’m Raph Koster, and I am creative director for the project at Sony Online Entertainment Austin…
BoShek: I’m Rich Vogel, Executive Producer of Star Wars Galaxies.
Admiral_Griff: Hello - I'm John Donham, I'm the producer for Sonly Online on SWG

Marluka: *keio* Will Star Wars KOTOR be competition for SWG?
Shug_Ninx: We don’t see it that way, no. They are two totally different games. Knights of the Old Republic is a story-driven RPG set 4,000 years before the original Star Wars.
Shug_Ninx: Galaxies is a Massive Multiplayer Online Game set during the classic time frame.
Shug_Ninx: The games are so different in fact, that I’m looking forward to playing both of them

Marluka: *JairunCaloth* What is the dev team doing to combat lag?
Admiral_Griff: Lots of things – we take lag into account on all of our systems, from the design on up. The technical architecture of the game is built to be lag tolerant, and the game design is more roleplaying-paced instead of action-based to help deal with the problem.

Marluka: *stevemuenn* Hi and will there be a certain number of droids you can own… and can they be attacked by anyone at any time?
Holocron: There will indeed by a cap—we don’t know what the cap is, just yet, but there will definitely be one.
Holocron: And no, they won’t be attackable by just anyone, attacking a pet will be treated just like attacking a player as far as the PVP rules are concerned.

Marluka: *Azis* What is the best question/most surprising question received about the game while you were out at E3?
Holocron: It was kind of funny. Everyone is coming up asking things like, “How do you move?” or “What machine is this demo running on?”
Holocron: And then up comes folks from SWG Database, the Gernman site, and they ask, “So, if you have a PA hall and it’s full and you decide to upgrade it and you have the ability to upgrade it in place, or maybe you move it, would all the furniture move with it?
Holocron: And I said, “You must be from the boards.”

Marluka: *Fub* What were the Dev's biggest worries during E3?
Shug_Ninx: Making sure combat looked great, with animations working, etc.
Holocron: Whether combat would be cool. Whether servers would be stable
Admiral_Griff: Getting it all done? :) We're working on multiple paths at the same time: working towards beta, providing screenshots to press like CGW, and having a strong showing at E3. It's been a tough balance making sure we make progress on all those fronts at the same time.

Marluka: *TheLeader* In a player-run city, will we be able to move buildings as the city grows to create room for new available structures?
Holocron: That's what eminent domain is for; mayors have that power just that they can clear space.

Marluka: *VaderHelmer* hi, could you explain the combat system in more detail, will it be dynamic, or will we just hit "A" and hope for the best??
Admiral_Griff: You can do more than just "hope", we'' have a "pray command too. :)
Holocron: Well, there's not much room or time in a chat like this to go into huge amounts of detail...but the short version:
Holocron: You do indeed start attacking with a single command, but there a host of special moves and commands you can do.
Holocron: Including moving around (and running vs walking affects combat btw)
Holocron: posture changes (prone, kneeling, etc)
Holocron: special attacks including target hits, special moves, suppressing fire, etc
Holocron: So we’re hoping to make it tactical and interesting and visually exciting.

Marluka: *Haack* Can you change your appearance after the initial character creation?
Admiral_Griff: Yup. There are player professions to support it too – like having hair dressers to change your style and color of hair.

Marluka: *LarsRen* What forms of information can be traded using the token system? Will the game require you to use the token other than just finding a site that has the info and using it?
Holocron: Types of tokes include waypoints, tokes for specific objects, structures, and types of objects and structures.
Holocron: You can trade them pretty freely, just as if they were objects (though they use up memory in your in-game datapad)
Holocron: You also use them to build missions with using the mission wizard.
Holocron: Lastly, you should be able to mail them to one another within the game using the in-game communications system.

Marluka: *NotAWookiee* Can we tame rancor’s and krayt dragons?
Shug_Ninx: These are two of our most dangerous creatures. Whether or not they can be tamed is still TBD. Its a tough decision because it would represent the pinnacle of taming, but it would also be strange to see someone with a rancor walking into Mos Eisley. If we do it, we might put limitations on where you could take that creature, how long it is table, etc.

Marluka: *ToelessWookiee* Is it possible to turn on/off the big blue beacons for waypoints?
Holocron: Well, we hadn’t planned on it, but based on the reaction on the boards, we may make it an option. :)
Shug_Ninx: We have lots of things that can be turned on/off - chat bubbles, etc. We're trying to give you the tools to customize the experience to your tastes.

Marluka: *sonofhud* Did you guys see EPII yet? What were your favorite scenes?
Shug_Ninx: The last fifty minutes :)
BoShek: The one with Yoda and Dooku fighting...wow...that rocked!
Q-3PO: I loved the scene with the bar. The whole bar scene was great.
Holocron: The fights with Dooku, especially Yoda...!!! The car chase scene. "You want to go home and rethink y our life." "You'll be the death of me." "Good job."
*Holocron has seen it three times in the theater

Marluka: *romagoma21* Do you buff your animations for E3, or is it actual game play?
Admiral_Griff: Animations for E3 -It's actual Gameplay, using all real assets. We were running on a pretty high-end machine, but running on a lower end machine wouldn’t have much impact on animation quality.

Marluka: *Daman2517* With the announcement of Resident Evil Online, the Matrix Online, and Neverwinter Nights and other MMORPG on the horizons, how do you like Star Wars Galaxies chances to survive in the big sea of MMORGS in the coming years?
Shug_Ninx: We're pretty confident that we can survive. We're offering a unique experience for Star Wars fans. We're also very focused on growing the audience for MMORPG’s which is good for everyone.
Holocron: I’m always looking forward to more MMO Games!
BoShek: I am glad to see more MMO and I like to see our genre grow.

Marluka: *Caella* Will we be able to build on Dathormir? If no, why not?
Holocron: We haven’t finalized all the zoning laws yet, but you'' be able to build some things there in limited spaces.
Holocron: As for why not more, well, because of continuity.

Marluka: *JobiWanKenobi* how will elections work in game?
Holocron: Whenever an issue comes up for a vote, it appears on your house’s control terminal for you to vote on (and probably also notified by email)
Holocron: The voting stays open for a time period (Multiple days) so that people not on ever day have a chance to vote.

Marluka: *ImmortalFury* What accomplishment are you (the devs) most proud of so far in this game?
Holocron: I'm really happy with the terrain system; because of hot it met with a wide array of goals pretty elegantly.
BoShek: Character personalities - lots of emotes and customization options.
Admiral_Griff: So far, I'm most impressed with our algorithmic terrain generation. It really feels like the right way to make these massive worlds.
Holocron: I also like how UI has come along, it's really coming together.
Shug_Ninx: The thing I’ve been most concerned about is also the thing that, right now, I'm happiest with: combat. Ranger combat hasn't been done to this degree before, so it was quite a challenge. But I think we have a system that is easy to understand, but very complex beneath the surface. It also looks dynamic.

Marluka: *Dromaga67* At E3 did anything go wrong for you guys?
Shug_Ninx: I lost my voice by the last day.
Holocron: Yeah-- once the fellow demoers weren't up by the Stormtrooper spawn point with me, and an AT-ST had came down the hill, and I got killed because I had no backup.
Admiral_Griff: We tried to do a new server build half-way through the show to add more stuff to show. That went poorly, and we had to back up to the version from earlier in the show. Never try and recompile the game halfway through a convention.

Marluka: *YuLaw* Any future emotes planned?
Holocron: You guys haven’t even seen 95% of the ones we have yet.
Shug_Ninx: We have six separate dance SYTLES!
Holocron: Wait till you see the belling dancing. It looks great on a fat Bith… ;)

Q-3PO: Just wanted to let you know we’re halfway through the chat. Keep those questions coming.

Marluka: *LedMirage* In the E3 presentation movies we saw how you can enter a building like the cantina without any loading, is this how it works for all the buildings in the game?
Admiral_Griff: Yep, that’s how it works. The only time you “zone” is when you travel from planet to planet. While walking around on a single planet, there’s no zooming – ie, loading while you walk around. So you can walk inside, outside, anywhere you want on the planet.

Marluka: *Nyphur* Will it be possible to obtain a point in every skill? So to complete every tree?
Holocron: No, you cannot pick up every skill in the game.
Shug_Ninx: You can sell back skills , though, so technically you can explore every tree over time.

Marluka: *GotBlueMilk* How much of EP II were you guys privy to before release and will there be elements from the new movie in the game?
Shug_Ninx: I read the script about the time filming started. I also saw various versions of the rough cut.
Shug_Ninx: I'm in the loop on everything Episode II-related. In fact, it was information from EP. II that led us to include cloning as part of the respawn system.
Shug_Ninx: We hope to have some equipment, clothing and creatures from Ep. II. Later, we might add locations.
Shug_Ninx: Oh, and some characters - NPCs. :)

Marluka: *Misanthropy* What type of weather effects will we see in-game? Rain on Naboo? Sand storms on Tatooine? Blizzards on ... ?
Admiral_Griff: Yes, we’ll have rain on Naboo, and Yes we’ll have sandstorms on Tatooine. We’re working to have some pretty neat weather effects, I think everyone will be pretty impressed.

Marluka: *Vossk* What’s being done to avoid congestion at cloning facilities?
Holocron: The first thing is planning the architecture of the structure--for all high traffic structures like that, we try to lay it out so that there’s multiple entry and exit points, that sort of thing. But also, for cloning in particular, there’s a couple of things we’d love to see more discussion of on the boards…
Holocron: We’re discussing two big things—one, letting you “save” remotely (et, not needing to visit the cloning facility) and two, having death not actually cost XP.
* Holocron waits for the boards to explode…

Q-3PO: As promised, I’m taking one question from the boards. I sent a selection to the devs and this is the one they wanted to answer:

Marluka: *UseDaAgression* What was your favorite game besides SWG at E3?
Shug_Ninx: I’m really partial to our other titles, like Gladius and Knights of the old Republic. But, I was also really enthralled by Relic’s Impossible Creatures.
Admiral_Griff: Dead or Alive’s beach volleyball.
Q-3PO: My favorites were Age of Mythology and NeverWinter Nights.
Holocron: I barely got to see the show. I checked out several MMO titles (Worlds of WarCRaft, AC2, Shadowbane, Sims Online)… I did get to see a big of Sea Dogs II. Plus of course, everything in the LucasArts booth.
Holocron: I mostly spent time demoing.
BoShek: NeverWinter Nights and WarCraft III.

Marluka: *YuLaw* How do you plan to start the economy at launch? All of the player merchants will have nothing.
Holocron: We’ll bootstrap it, of course, as needed. We have to have good controls on the economy to keep it balanced long-term.

Marluka: *LilWookie* Any misconceptions that came out of E3 that you would like to clear up?
Holocron: Yes, a bunch! Glad you asked.
Holocron: In the IGN movie, that was NOT a vehicle. It was just running speed.
Holocron: No, the camera did not zoom into first person automatically when you went into buildings, that was us using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out manually.
Shug_Ninx: Combat is rules-based, not “simulation” or traditional “pause-and-attack” turn based.
Holocron: Yes, the critters were frozen in place for the demo. So that womprat you saw wouldn’t normally be there. ?
Shug_Ninx: We’’ have a rules system that determines whether or not you hit based on your attributes, etc.
Holocron: Lastly, no, you can’t usually take out an AT-ST with blasters. We had an “instakill move” set up for the demo.

Marluka: *CrayWilliams* How diverse is the architecture for each world? And will the styles be swappable to other planets as well?
Admiral_Griff: There are four different styles of architecture – Tatooine, Naboo, Corellia, and a generic” (Imperial) kind too. So depending on the type of planet is the type of structures you get.

MR *idswkk111* How much will wookiees be affected by the language barrier?
Admiral_Griff: Rooorrroorrr.
Holocron: A lot, probably. As you know, initially we planned to have them carry translators so that there wasn’t as big an impact.
Holocron: But role-players on the boards asked for a stricter restriction. I have the feeling that this is something well really know more about once we see how people play with it.

Q-3PO: Why don’t you guys release anything about the Jedi’s?
Shug_Ninx: We want Jedi to be rare and Mysterious, so we don’t want to reveal how to become a Jedi, what it’s like being a Jedi, etc. We can say that becoming Force sensitive is really the most secretive part of the system. Once you become a Jedi, progression is similar to other professions.

Marluka: *Adyreon* When you decide to “sell back” a skill, will you have to “earn” the points back to place in another skill? (In other words, temporarily giving up experience to relearn for a new)
Holocron: You do have to earn XP all over again, yes.

Q-3PO: 15Mins to go.

Marluka: *Leia_4loot* Will ever sever (Galaxy) be the same, or will there be certain ones for PvP, Role-Play, etc like the current EQ system?
BoShek: Right now we are launching the game with all of the servers with the same rule set, but have not rules that out.

Marluka: *SettlerUW* What does “combat is rules-based* mean? Real time?
Shug_Ninx: It means that there’s a rules system that determines whether or not you hit something when you attack. It takes into account your attributes, skills, weapons, etc.
Shug_Ninx: You determine your moves during combat and your skills, attributes weapons, etc determine how quickly those attacks or moves “fire.”
Holocron: Combat does go by in real time.. it is not turn based.

Marluka: *UsagiCanlo* Will Mobs agro on us until we die, or will there be some sort of limit to hunting you down after provoked?
Holocron: A mob is short for “mobile,” meaning an AI-controlled creature or character…
Holocron: So yes, there is a limit on how much they hunt you down.
Holocron: When we were setting up for the E3 demo, actually, I put down a womprat next over the hill you started behind, and when I went near it, the womprats attacked me, but when I moved away over the crest of the hill, they backed off, because all they wanted was me to back away from the next.

Marluka: *Thursdaze* Will you have swoops like the one Anakin rides in Ep. II at launch?
Admiral_Griff: We’re currently planning on two types of player vehicles – a swoop and a landspeeder.
Shug_Ninx: We’re focusing on vehicles that will allow yo to cover ground – our worlds are HUGE!

Marluka: *VelexRose* The blaster shots in the E3 videos appeared to follow their target, will this be tweaked in later versions?
Holocron: That’s because the issue of whether or not the bolt hit was already resolved on the server. So we make sure that you get accurate representation on the client. A lot of it is just the speed of the bolts flying…the faster they go, the less noticeable it is.
Holocron: So yes, we’ll be tweaking it more to make it look better, but we value good feedback in combat more than whether they travel in a straight line. ;)

Marluka: *LordIblis* How will the creation of player-generated missions work? What possibilities are there?
Holocron: There’s only a few types: delivery, retrieval, destroy, kill, and we’ve kicked around escort and a few others…
Holocron: setting them up is pretty simple—you click “new mission” in your datapad, and you drag your tokens into the wizard.
Holocron: You drag in what to get/deliver/kill, where it is, and select by when and what filters there are on the who is allowed to take the mission.
Holocron: You set what bond is required, and that’s about it…
Holocron: There’s quite a lot of combinations possible there because there are so many variables…

Marluka: *Dirga* Does a bounty go away after one kill?
Shug_Ninx: Yes. Once you kill your target, you get the reward and the bounty hunting mission is over, regardless of whether the target was a PC or NPC.

Marluka: *jimson* will there be marriage in the game?
Holocron: In fact, we do have planned the wedding dress from Ep II.
Holocron: How much more formal structure we can give to marriage, though, I am not sure.

Marluka: *arkfear* Can you tell us some professions, other than jedi and boundy hunters?
Shug_Ninx: Image designer and Squad Leader might be two you haven’t heard yet…
Shug_Ninx: We’re saving these for future FAQ’s, though. ?

Marluka: *CreeDakota* Can you give us some examples of how a player will earn EXP? Will it be dependant on the skill, if so how?
Holocron: Yes, it is dependant on the skill. You can’t earn rifle experience by using vibroblades—or cookie pies.
Admiral_Griff: Mmmm, pie.
Holocron: For combat related things, you earn XP by killing things using particular weapons or moves. For crafting, it’s by having people use your goods. For merchants, it’s based on selling things successfully… and so on…

Marluka: * PrPleWookie* I heard that there will be strict rules to follow while choosing a name so it will fit with the species, it this true?
Shug_Ninx: Not necessarily “strict.” You can have a first name and a last name (except Wookiees, who only have a first name), and they have to be unique. They’ll be checked against a name filter so we don’t have a bunch of “Lukes” running around.
Shug_Ninx: We’ll also have a name generator that was created using a bunch of rules that we came up with in conjunction with Lucasfilm Licensing – it includes “rules” like which syllables repeat within a given species’ names.
Shug_Ninx: You aren’t stuck with the rules from the name generator when you create your name though.

Marluka: *Cuintar'* The latest CGW article mentioned terrain playing an important role in combat. How important will strategy be in combat?
Holocron: It primarily affects movement rate. Holding the high ground is important because you move slower going uphill than going downhill. And many of the tactics that you can use when in ranged combat involve choosing to restrict your movement (going prone, kneeling)

Marluka: *TigerzHawk* now as far as story and missions in the game will you randomly get missions or will you have to talk to certain people for a mission to become available and the story to unfold
Admiral_Griff: We'll have both types - missions that you can take from a mission terminal that will include computer generated missions and player-provided missions, as well as missions that you get from NPCs, such as taking a mission from Jabba - which may be part of a larger story.

Q-3PO: We've got time for one more question:

Marluka: *MaiqJeBrok* What did the team do after E3 (besides sleep )
Admiral_Griff: and drink?
Holocron: We all went to Mann's Chinese Theater to see Ep II on a digital project.
Q-3PO: Saw Episode II at Groman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood
Shug_Ninx: I went to Santa Cruz for the long weekend and did a comic book signing.
Q-3PO: then slept for 2 days straight
BoShek: I went to see EPII again in LA at the Mann's Chinese Theater. Wow digital is awesome!
Q-3PO: (It is Groman's again, by the way)

Q-3PO: Any list minute comments, guys?
Holocron: It was great meeting so many fans at E3.
Shug_Ninx: Later! Thanks for stopping by - keep up all the goods posting on the boards. We're recovered from E3 (well almost) and should be part of the community again.
Admiral_Griff: Was that an hour already? Thanks for coming everyone - it's starting to get exciting.
Shug_Ninx: I hope the cloning stuff Raph mentioned gets talked about at length...
Holocron: Shout out to "msgnomer" who handed me parody lyrics entitled "Get This Beta Started" while at the SOE booth.
BoShek: I’d like to welcome John Donham to our chat… he has been behind the scenes working as the Producer of SWG.

Q-3PO: Thank you all for taking the time to join us dev’s today. There are a ton of questions we didn’t have time for. I’ll forward these to the dev’s later and give them the opportunity to answer them on the forums.
Q-3PO: We’ll now open this room back up so you can chat again. Thank you!