Hi everyone! I'm Tony "Teesquared" Tyson, Technical Director for Star Wars Galaxies. The programming team has been busy lately adding some great new systems to the game. Here are the details.
Voice Chat
CancelAutoRun just wrapped up integrating voice chat support. This went out with Game Update 5.
In order to do this he used a Software Development Kit, SDK, written by our voice chat provider, Vivox. By using this SDK, he was able to focus his efforts on the user interface. In the end, we have a great new system players can use to talk to each other in our game.
Web Browser
Everyones favorite campfire burning Wookiee, AdeptStrain, integrated the Mozilla Web Browser into SWG, also for Game Update 5. He was able to re-use some work done by the EverQuest II team, which already has web browser support.
He added some rendering changes needed to draw the web page in our client and tracked down some tricky input issues. In the end, we have this very cool feature that players can use in many different ways.
Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game: Champions of the Force
Both DevH and I have been busy working on the new Trading Card Game. This will be coming out soon. Players will be able to enjoy this game while playing SWG. DevH focused on the server side changes, including adding support for players to claim the cool new loot items that will be available with this product. I focused on the client side, getting the card game to work inside our game.
I was able to reuse work done for EverQuest II and Legends of Norrath plus some of AdeptStrains work on the web browser. We hope you really enjoy this great new game and good luck getting some awesome loot cards!
Team Work and Team Play
This month some of the team members came by my place for a board game night. The board game we played was Talisman: The Magical Quest Game. It was a lot of fun. We had AdeptStrain as the Assassin, Millbarge as the Druid, CancelAutoRun as the happy Elf, Trandoshyar as the evil Wizard, Fiasco as the Prophetess, Shadowbrak as the Troll, and me as the Sorceress.
Shadowbrak the Troll had a great start until he met up with Death (and some crazy dice rolls from Trandoshyar). Despite a valiant effort from CancelAutoRun the happy Elf with his unicorn and pixie army, the winner and possessor of the crown of command and the kingship of the realm was AdeptStrain the Assassin. Well have another board game night soon.
