A lot of blood, sweat, and tears are poured into each Game Update; Game Update 10 is no exception. Take a look behind the scenes on just a week in the life of making Game Update 10!
Monday
Just like in any other office across the country, everyone comes in to work on Monday morning bleary eyed and reserved. Arriving at our new building, however, always manages to put a smile on my face.
Jesse "Loche" Benjamin is always the first one into the office.
He gets here early so he can check out the forums, read his reports, and start going over his notes on what needs to be finished during the week.
Mondays are spent planning for the week and what content is going to be worked on, updated, and created. This obviously involves a lot of meetings; of particular note is the Monday Leads Meeting. In our new building, this meeting takes place in a room called "Jabba's Palace."
This meeting is where the leads of each department (marketing, QA, design, production, art, community, and engineering) meet to discuss the week ahead. Producer Christopher "Dotanuki" Field was absent from our meeting this week because he was out sick.
One of the issues discussed during this meeting were the new PvP buff decay system that will be released in Game Update 10. Loche and Matt "AdeptStrain" Boudreaux have been working on the new system for quite some time.
The new buff decay system in Game Update 10 is as follows:
If you have a buff that would normally be removed on death, the remaining duration is instead cut by 10% of its total duration. For instance, if you have a brand new buff with 60 minutes remaining on it (full duration) and you die in a PvP related death (death caused by a player, NPC owned by a player, pet owned by a player, droid owned by a player, etc.) then you would revive with that buff at 54 minutes left on the duration (60 10%(6) = 54). If this happens again it would be (54 6 = 48). Yet again would be 42, etc. Let's clarify some details:
The duration subtracted from a buff is 10% of the total duration, not 10% of the remaining duration. This means if you just zerg rush someone over and over, you can get maybe 8 9 deaths before your buffs are gone for good. If you have a 60 minute buff with 4 minutes on it and you die, the buff does not come back (since the time remaining is less than the amount we would subtract).
The 10% is completely adjustable from script's side.
This affects only buffs that would normally be removed on death. Buffs that persist through death are not adjusted in any way.
This is for PvP only (any PvP, not just within the new battlefields).
Tuesday
On Tuesdays, just like every other day, members of the team meet to have what are called SCRUM meetings.
It is in these meetings where everyone gets to update everyone else on what they are working on that specific day and how things are going with it. Each task is assigned a certain number of hours, depending on the effort needed to accomplish the task, and once a person is finished with their task, they move it to the "Completed" portion of the board.
Here members of the QA team move items from the "In Testing" section to the completed section. Every single thing put into the game, whether it is a new piece of art or completely new game mechanic, undergoes rigorous QA testing.
Also on Tuesdays, we have a meeting with our customer service team in San Diego . This meeting is always very interesting because it's in this meeting that the CS team, QA team, and Community team share the various issues we have uncovered or had reported over the course of the last week or so.
Engineering and design also take part in this meeting. We discuss what things we can realistically fix and update and we also address any major issues that may have sprouted up that need immediate discussion and action.
A couple of examples of items that have been fixed or updated as a direct result of this meeting are: the larger footprints for medium houses that were inadvertently changed in Game Update 9 and an update to the /savedecorationlayout and /restoredecorationlayout commands that allowed for better use with stackable items. These issues were reported by members of the forum community and through our customer service system; through our direct communication with players and each other, we were able to get a timely update out for these items.
Also on Tuesday, our studio celebrated Cinco de Mayo by bringing in some great refreshments for everyone to enjoy!
Wednesday
Just like every other day of the week, the team spends Wednesday's working hard on their assigned tasks.
Here we see Lead Artist Alexis Allen working on the brand new Rebel armor coming out in Game Update 10.
Jeff "Jaskell" Haskell and James "Millbarge" Michener are working hard on their respective projects for Game Update 10.
Although not currently their main task, both have worked with Loche to help get tweaks to spy in Game Update 10. These tweaks include the following changes:
Tied Without a Trace to Smoke Bomb. This means that there is no WaT button anymore. If you have purchased WaT, then when you use Smoke Bomb, it will automatically use WaT instead. It will continue to use the Smoke Bomb cool down, instead of the slightly longer WaT.
Covert Mastery is now tied to WaT. This means your DOTs will only clear when you use WaT (now tied to Smoke Bomb).
There is now a 5 second recourse debuff applied to the spy when they attack from stealth. This debuff will block you going back into stealth, unless WaT is used.
Spies are getting an expertise reset due to these changes.
While Jaskell and Millbarge work on projects for future updates and releases, their contributions have helped make Game Update 10 the best it can be.
Our Technical Director Tony "Teesquared" Tyson is seen here working on the server configurations for the battlefields released in Game Update 10.
Thursday
Work continues on Thursday as the team crunches to complete tasks by the end of the week. This day was also the same day as a hotfix which our QA team signed off on the day before.
Taylor Hayley and Mikkel "Hjal" Jensen are our main point men for QA and they must sign off on everything before it hits our live servers.
Chris "Binky" Launius is our Associate Brand Manager and works hard every
Chris "Binky" Launius is our Associate Brand Manager and works hard every day on optimizing events like the House Pack Up, Empire Day, and Ewok Love Day.
Here, Binky can be seen working on the latest email blast for Game Update 10.
LucasArts Associate Producer Tim Temmermen spent a good portion of his day Thursday doing some audio work for Star Wars Galaxies.
"This week I had to meet with the audio team at LucasArts to record and supply the latest and newest sound effects for SWG. In these meetings we recently recorded some Watto voice-over, some pod racer sound effects, and voice over for everyone's favorite Gungan! Much of the sound effects are re-sampled from the movies, though many times we record fresh effects just for the game."
Speaking of LucasArts, Thursday is the same day we have our weekly conference call with them. This is not the only time we're on the phone with one another, which happens on a daily basis, but this weekly call gives all the leads on SWG a chance to catch each other up on the status of our various projects and it also gives us the opportunity to bounce ideas back and forth off of each other.
Be sure to come to Fan Faire and let your imagination run wild as you hear about the new and exciting things coming up in Star Wars Galaxies. Many of these things are direct results of these meetings!
Although Christopher "Dotanuki" Field usually ends his busy day by catching up on email and checking on everyone's task statuses, today he works on his Producer's Note.
He assured me he has lots of great info to share, so be on the lookout for it!
Friday
Fridays are the day I (Smith "Elias" Getterman) put up the Friday Feature! After sending it off for approvals, usually early in the morning on Thursday, I load the whole thing to our website and post it to the forums.
Lydia "Zatozia" Pope works with me from San Diego and it just so happens that this Friday she's also working on our Fan Faire LiveQuest.
This year, she has been tasked with planning, writing and preparing for the Live Quest for Star Wars Galaxies. "Lightsabers.. check.. Lasers check embarrassing activities... check. Yep, the Live Quest is ready to go!" Be sure to bring your sunscreen and water for this year's Live Quest; it's the polar opposite of last year's theme!
Although the weekend is almost here, the devs are still hard at work tweaking what they've worked on throughout the week. HanseSOE is hard at work on the mysterious fourth battlefield while next door to him Matt Boudreaux, DevH, and Christine Chugon all work on their own tasks for Game Update 10.
Although not an artist himself, Matt "AdeptStrain" Boudreaux offers his opinion on the look of the new armor, being shown off by Artist Christine Chugon, on the Twi'lek species.
Finally, you can see from this picture that DevH is working hard on the underlying infrastructure nuts and bolts to support GU10 content.
DevH has recently been upgraded and now works 24 hours a day without need for rest, food or drink. What powers DevH is a mystery but some suspect it is love that keeps him going.
Game Update 10
As you can tell, a lot of people and a lot of work go into making Star Wars Galaxies great. This was just a brief glimpse behind the scenes of a week in the life of making a game update; there are more people and more tasks working on Star Wars Galaxies that we just didn't have room to feature here!
Keep your eyes on the official website and forums for more information about Game Update 10!
