Its Star Wars Galaxies. Its an empire divided. Its our passion. And, its a galaxy at war.
This update will bring with it the most engaging GCW content we have ever put into the game.
AT-ATs will take siege upon the cities.
Every profession must be ready to participate and fight for their cause.
GCW information will be at your finger tips. This is the one-stop-shop for everything that is GCW across all Galaxies.
Has the rebellion taken over Yavin IV or are the imperials holding them off? What faction is dominating Tatooine? Hit the galaxy map and youll find out.
Have we lost Tatooine? Whats the status of Bestine? Has Mos Eilsey fallen to the Imperials? Is Anchorhead still a rebel stronghold? Check the planet map and find out.
Contribute to the GCW from anywhere in the game not just these regions.
Battles in space will make an impact on the conflicts on the ground.
We will bring the entertainers and traders back to the cities.
The cities will be alive again.
The war is ON.
Wookie Life Day 2009
Wookie Life Day will be back this holiday season. Well be adding more rewards and, of course, a new badge. We'll be posting some sneak peaks of the new stuff youll be seeing under your Life Day Tree this season. Stay tuned!
Whats next?
Were currently working on the plan for next year. A few things we know well see more of next year are GCW, Chronicles, and game improvements. Ill have more details in the next producer note.
Questions about the update from the SWG players and Answers from the SWG Development Team followed:
Melchizedek: Will this be a PvP Update, or will there be an adjustment to the PvE GCW as well. Also, what has been done abour rank decay? Alteris: Hopefully both. I know both sides of the fence where wanting GCW content and I believe it was mentioned this was geared for PvP and PvE. Could be wrong.
HanseSOE: Those screenshots (aside from the posed AT-AT) are geniune pictures at the locations they were taken at. Those are all NPC's that will be spawning to assault and defend the cities, so PvE and PvP are both considered part of this update. The defenses in the pictures are constructed prior to the invasion by tradeskill players.
GothicPoodle: Thanks for the update. Can you provide additional information on how you plan to get traders and entertainer involved? I'm hoping it more than just traders spending their resources crafting stuff that is meaningless (like the pre-destruction of Restuss quests) or for Entertainers to just go to some area controlled by the other side and inspire people of their faction and try not to get killed by NPCs.
Teesquared: During an invasion timeframe, entertainers and traders can pick up quests that use their skills. Completing these quests will influence the battle.
ShelbyF: So what is the incentive for players to fight as SPECIAL FORCES in the attack or defense of a city... instead of just hanging around Restuss or in Battlefields?
Teesquared: Yeah we're still working out the details on this but the goal is to scale the results based on the difficulty. However, we want to make sure players feel challenged and rewarded when participating as PvE only.
JediKnightDasst: Will there me new rewards? Teesquared: Yes
JediKnightDasst: will old reward items be making it back? (marine pack, faction pets etc) Teesquared: Maybe. We'll take a look at those and see.
JediKnightDasst: what about professions that doesnt have a Pre/post-combat role? IE officers and Jedi, they cannot hunt, smuggle, nor heal....will there be non-combat quest for them? Teesquared: We'll take a look at that too.
JediKnightDasst: what about the lag? is this being looked at as well? Teesquared: The goal is to have a lot of activity in various locations around the Galaxy.
JediKnightDasst: also, will there be capes? Teesquared: Yes!
Matt_NZ (Imperial Senator): Since there's going to be alot of different places the GCW plays out, will there be indications on the new maps to show where the activity is happening? As in your face as something like a blinking icon or such? Probably not. However, the maps update as they recieve the updated scores from the servers. So if you look at Tatooine and see a zone that is 53% Rebel controlled, go fight somewhere, check the map again and it's now 75% Rebel controlled - well, that's a pretty good hint that you have people over there right now.
AdeptStrain: As in your face as something like a blinking icon or such? Probably not. However, the maps update as they recieve the updated scores from the servers. So if you look at Tatooine and see a zone that is 53% Rebel controlled, go fight somewhere, check the map again and it's now 75% Rebel controlled - well, that's a pretty good hint that you have people over there right now.
AdeptStrain: I take this back. DevH just spammed my email and the answer is now 'maybe'...but probably only for your server, you can't watch other server's and see their hot spots. So we'll see. No promises just yet.
Zin: Looking good guys
Just curious, are those rebel walkers in the first couple shots? Are we going to be about to drive them? How about the turrets? Player or NPC controlled?
HanseSOE: The AT-XT's are the equivalent combat vehicle that the Rebels have appropriated to counter the AT-ST's Imperials are using.
The AT-XT has problems because it has not been used in this manner before in SWG. It has bugs being passed through our art department. If those bugs are not fixed, I'm not sure what we will do for Rebel combat vehicles.
Currently, you cannot drive the combat vehicles and the turrets are automated.
Red-Dwarf (Testing Senator): That looks rather suspiciously like you've got the battle of Dearic up and running on an internal server?
Given how important this update is to so many of us, any chance you can shift the Dearic battle out to TC and TCP while you carry on working on space, and the wider zone implications? Just so we can test the battle and try to iron out the bugs in that before we all get overwhelmed with how much stuff there is to test in the full update.
I understand it isn't as easy as "just put it on test", since the internal server will be set up rather differently to a full server like TC/TCP, but I suggest it would be worth tweaking the battle so it works without the space and wider gcw control changes so we can get some useful focus testing done.
There's a lot to test, and not enough of us (never is) to test it all so any advantage will be appreciated.
HanseSOE: The entire battle sequence is not ready for prime time players, yet. We have a lot of quests to make and some of the defensive structures are not working, yet. So, it won't be going on to test any time soon.
Eveas (Gameplay Senator): This looks very promising while at the same time not being really detailed to any extent. I have a few questions. How will specific combat professions effect the GCW? You hinted that if I am a spy I might have a role different than a commando. I hope this means profession specific content with different bonuses for the side you are helping instead of just their standard roll in a mass battle. Will pilots have to keep landing to get missions? I hope this brings space PvP back outside deep space. What cities were selected to have these battles?
HanseSOE: 1) We're not giving profession specific content to each profession. However, we are giving some out to groupings of professions (combat, entertainer, and trader).
2) We do not have specific GCW quests for pilots, so you do not need to land.
3) Bestine, Dearic, and Keren have been chosen. These cities are subject to change, if we find them too problematic or an issue arises. Restuss may be included, as well, but not have construction quests.
ShelbyF:
Its what I imagined.
Tee.... I see there will be Factional NPCs / Creatures / Turrents involved in attacking/defending cities right?
So what is the incentive for players to fight as SPECIAL FORCES in the attack or defense of a city... instead of just hanging around Restuss or in Battlefields?
I am not suggesting we need something 'special' for SF players.. I am simply asking WHY would they fight SF when they could as Combatant.
HanseSOE: If you are SF, you get a better reward than you would in another state. Atleast, that's what we plan to do.
scout3000ranger: i'm going to take a guess that those defenses are going to be SF oriented verses Combatant. in addition, i bet the defenses can only be placed when SF.
HanseSOE: We are not requiring tradeskill players go special forces to construct defenses, currently.
Trixie9819: Pretty pictures, what I've heard so far is great, but I do have one fear. you say 'before the invasion' Entertainers and Traders will affect the battle. But.... is it one battle? One ongoing battle? A battle lasting a certain time before everything resets?
My fear is that once the battle begins, Ents and Traders will have no part in lifting the moral of the troops or creating supplies for the war effort. Please double check your plans so that the things that Ents and Traders do are as continuous as the combat profession's fighting.
Other than that, I love the ways to keep track of who's doing good, and where we rebels need to beat back the evil Imps.. *cough* I mean, where the tide of battle is turning.
I also want to remind you of something I brought up at fanfaire. The Lifeday Proton Chair, it is sexist currently. The female voice was (of course) because Grandpa was a male wookie. We females would like a nice, soothing male voice to take a nap to as well.
Oh, and consider boards...just, plain boards to make shelves out of that we control the distance and height. I don't care if it's a Chronicle reward or what, I'd just like to have some planks to make things out of.
HanseSOE: The construction phase lasts one hour and the invasion phase lasts up to an hour or until the final boss fight is completed.
Entertainers and traders have roles to play in both construction and invasion phases and are specifically designed to play a major role in both phases.
JediKnightDasst: define "Boss". we talking about some random gold elite? or a heroic NPC like Luke or Vader? (be cool to fight along side with them)
HanseSOE: The commanding general of the city defenses is the end goal for the battle. He/she gets weaker as the defenders lose more defenses (so you can't insta-gank the general). I watched one general take on a couple hundred NPC's the other day for kicks.
ACEoj: Ok, on population control, since there has been no answers forthcoming at all , might I suggest some responses?
An announcement is coming soon on this matter. (Only works if there really IS an anouncement coming soon however) Our official position is we have no official position at this time. We understand the population concerns some players have and are working on a solution to be announced soon. We are not planning to revisit the population balances in the near future.
Care to make any of these official? We would love more detail than this of course, but something...anything...please?
HanseSOE: We've already discussed overpopulation issues surrounding the new content. I don't have specific information on how it will be handled at this time, though.
ACEoj: Wait wait wait! Please don't misunderstand me...I am not complaining about OVERpopulation...I am worried about under population. Those of us on 'dead' servers would like to be included in this new GCW content, as opposed to being gated out of it.
HanseSOE: You can still participate. The invasion system will still function on your server. It works on any server regardless of player population.
Skinmeister: So is it like Hoth in that respect, i.e. the attackers always win, it's just quicker if players help?
HanseSOE: No, the attackers can lose. Spies can destroy NPC spawners with explosives.
Inat-Mivea (Rebel Senator): hanse, how to player cities get involved?
HanseSOE: You get GCW points through factional terminals. You can place GCW bases in your cities and influence the region surrounding your city through the factional terminals.
We have other goodies for player cities on paper, but currently do not have a finalized design to discuss for player cities.
Cigaran (Player Cities Senator): Are these new factional terminals or is this a new function being added to the already existing one's we can place as Mayor?
HanseSOE: They're existing ones and we're looking at making them more interesting, too.
Vincent76 (Former Game Play Senator): Try again, and watch the Area Activity meter during the fight. If it goes above Medium (even spikes to Extremely Heavy), you'll need to add more server resources.
During recent GM events and the AT-AT walker events it was confirmed that some servers are unable to handle the load of +10 players shooting at 1 MOb at the same time.
HanseSOE: I'm sure Teesquared will have the servers adjusted for the new content being added to load balance it. I've evesdropped on the conversation about it, but I'm not directly involved in making those adjustments.
black666label: Hope it's not just PvP changes... I want Equal PvE content gains for GCW
AdeptStrain: I have a card to make the life of players on a planet controlled by the opposite faction a never ending abyss of pain.
So, yea, expect faction based spawns in the wilds and other places.
Erusman: Yep. That is the only thing i am concerned about. LAG. All those NPC battles going on and explosions. Hopefully there is a way to tweak the settings on the servers or something to compensate. With this update server performance should be top priority. I am sure you guys are working on it. This looks like one awesome update. Thank you devs!
/airguitar
HanseSOE: I have made sure maximum spawn quantities do not get out of hand, since it is player constructed. I had a bug with it running out of NPC's spawning due to traders being able to influence the difficulty of NPC's, but I fixed that recently.
scout3000ranger: Hanse, after participating in todays live "event" at Nym's and observing the "area activity" you can see very quickly how an area which has dozens of players and dozens of mobs, can very quickly go from "light" to "extreme". this can cause gameplay issues with some players, just wanting to participate in "mass battles". that is what most players complain about when they say "Lag". in regards to space, is some of you had read other notes/posts, you would see that space IS being included.
HanseSOE: Space directly affects planetary control and is part of the GCW calculations.
Zaile: I wouldn't mind seeing the trader class work in somewhat of a combat Engineer style (blow up bridges, repair on field vehicles, etc). But I would be very surprised if that kind of system would be included in all this too. wow.
HanseSOE: I'm working on combat vehicle repair quests right now.
Red-Dwarf (Testing Senator): Just to be clear Hanse, I'm not worried if it isn't ready yet (the pic had me hoping) and I'd prefer you take the time to get it broadly working so we don't just crash the server constantly, I'm just asking if WHEN the battle itself is ready we get to test that.
Without waiting for the rest of the update to be finished.
Logic being that the battle itself is likely to be a bit buggy (no offense, SWG just wasn't designed to turn Dearic into a warzone back in 2003). So give us a chance to iron out the bugs by focussing just on that test.
Then, once the battle there has been through the ringer a few times we can move on to test the other battles, to test the wider control system, to test the space interaction. There's a lot to test, I just want to try and focus players one bit at a time rather than present us with the entire update, and some of us head to space, some to dearic, others to keren etc and each bit gets tested, but not as well tested as it might if we focussed on it bit by bit.
We did it with Hoth where only one side was opened up so we bashed on that for a while, I just want to get confirmation up front that we'll be handling the GCW update test in a similar fashion, given how important it is to everyone.
HanseSoE: I understand your concerns and your wanting to test this soon. I'm not the person in charge of making that decision.
On the flip side, I do have a fully functional battle working, although it is a very rough version.
Scoser: Are points/token/rewards/control % tied to the level of NPCs killed as well, or just the number of NPCs killed? Otherwise I see a lot of opposite faction alts creating CL1 NPCs for their combat alts to farm.
HanseSOE: They will be. The reward system is currently not granting the rewards, yet. We'll be tweaking all the rewards in a week or two.
4thPlaceSwooper: Can we at least get a hint of what kinds of rewards we would get?
AdeptStrain: We're still making that list. Hence no details yet.
CharlsBigbooti: So does this statement directly from you mean that this willbe affected across THE SERVERS.
Adeptstrain: You can only affect your server's score (via planet control and such), but you can look at how other servers are doing and the final "Galaxy Wide" score is the score for all the SWG servers. Galaxy Wide (SWG Total Score) <- Other Servers Scores / Your Server's Score <- Your Server's Planet Scores <- Your Server's Gameplay/ Region Scores
