This week's Friday Feature takes you behind the scenes into the design process being used to develop Game Update 15 - Galactic Civil War:

Players of Star Wars: Galaxies have been eagerly awaiting additional features to the GCW. It has remained our hottest forum topic for months and now it's time to reveal a little insider information to fuel the fires!

Galactic Civil War: Game Update 15 Features as of January 15^th 2010:

-New, massive invasion/siege warfare scenarios will appear in three major cities Bestine, Dearic and Keren these include new quests for all professions, interactive structures and new rewards.

-Protect your city and earn tokens with defense-specific quests such as protecting barricades, manning turrets and treating wounded soldiers.

-Lay siege to your opponents and secure tokens with invasion-specific quests. Take out defense structures and key enemy personnel, or unleash the might of AT-AT or Hailfire missile attacks.

-Dyamic changes occur in the affected cities based on which faction is currently in control. Cities will display Imperial or Rebel banners and faction-specific NPCs, quests, terminals and pylons depending on which faction is on top.

-Mayors of player cities are able to set their city's factional alignment from the management terminal.

-Win battles within newly implemented Planetary Regions, which determine which faction controls the entire planet.

-The new Planetary Region Display interface shows which faction is in command of regions and planets.

-Cash in tokens for new rewards, which include faction-specific wearable capes, cloaks and battle-scarred armor, entertainer glow sticks, bombing run binoculars, an upgraded personal shield generator and numerous new weapons.

 

Design Intent:

One of the first things the development team wanted to do was to deliver a system that immerses our players in the Galactic Civil War (GCW). To do this, they knew the war must affect all professions, have a high profile through easily visible elements, have battles, and have regional control by faction. The war needed to affect each planet in a way that is readily apparent through factional buildings, props, items and NPC's. Battles needed to be fought over territory, allowing the players to participate in the conflict. Quests for each profession will support the GCW in some manner that the players feels they are helping their side of the conflict.

 

GCW FEATURE OUTLINE:

Planetary Control:

As regions of the planet are conquered, the planet has a tipping point where the planet shifts from Imperial to Neutral to Rebel control. The planetary map reflects what regions have been captured by whom and have waypoints to designate conflict locations that are currently active. Those waypoints display what type of conflict is at their location on the planetary map.

 

Planetary control is lost when a faction is ahead in GCW points by 2% over the opposing faction (51% versus 49%).

This is an example map of Tatooine showing which regions are controlled by which faction.

Above is a sample map of Corellia, again showing regions of factional control.

Dantooine has an imperial base in the southwest and a rebel base in the southeast. Although no Rebel mission terminals exist on this planet at present, they need to be added in future (not in GU15).

Dathomir does not have a Rebel base. An Imperial prison is located on the west side of the planet. Dathomir has major PvE centers in the south, so there are no factional regions over that area. Rebel terminals will need to be added (not in update 15).

Endor does not have any factional mission terminals and needed new ones added. The two battlefield kick out locations are in the central NW (Rebel) and the SE (Imperial) regions.

While both factions have bases on Lok, the Rebels do not have a factional mission terminal (to be added after update 15).

Naboo has a Rebel mission terminal in Moenia in the SE. The Imperials have nine mission terminals. Naboo features the Emperor's Retreat in the central south region of the planet.

Rori has an Imperial base in the SW and a Rebel base in the SE. Restuss offers both Rebel and Imperial mission terminals, but terminals are planned to be added to the two bases in the south, as well (not included in update 15).

Talus has a Rebel base near the origin (0,0), but it does not have factional mission terminals. Nashal has one Imperial mission terminal and the Imperial Outpost (northwest of the rebel outpost) offers many Imperial mission terminals.

Yavin 4 does not have any mission terminals for either faction. However, there are two battlefields on this planet and their kick out locations are SE for Rebels and N for Imperials, at outposts.

 

Regions:

• Regions are gained and lost based on the amount of GCW points that have been awarded within their borders.
  • GCW points gained are the sum of all different activities performed to gain the points: PvP, entertainment, GCW quests, Battlefields, GCW missions and so forth all have an effect on the total amount of regional GCW points.
• Regions are customized to the planet they are intended for.
  • GCW Regions cover every inch of a planet's surface. Where a region does not show on the planetary map, a separate region is used, which is part of the final planetary score.
  • A region is typically located over a planet point of interest.
    • The major points of interest are cities.
    • Each city will have its own region centered over it.
    • In the case of two cities being close together, one region will encompass them both.
• A region must be large enough to contain a POI and an invasion location.
  • This is so that the regions may overlap the areas where there will be heavy GCW gain.
  • However, GCW regions do not overlap each other because logical bugs might occur, such as not knowing which region to assign GCW points to.
• Planetary Region
  • If a region does not exist over an area of the planet, then the planetary region as a whole gains the GCW points.
  • The planetary region is considered one of the regions on the planet. This means, during calculating which faction "owns" the planet, if there are 11 explicit regions on the planet the planetary region is added in as the 12^th region.
• Region color and symbol is based on the current factional "owner" of the region.
  • A faction "owns" a region, when their GCW points exceed the opposition by at least 2% (ie: a 51% GCW point lead over a 49% GCW point lead).
• Flipping a region:
  • City spawns (guards, patrols, etc) for the non-controlling faction are switched to the controlling faction.
    • This is extremely important during a city battle as NPC reinforcements are effectively turned off.
  • City quest givers are unaffected by who controls the region/planet. This allows our legacy quest system to keep offering quests.
• Flipping a planet:
  • GCW points in a region are not capped. However, the average of the regions is taken for planetary control.
  • If the average of all the regions on the planet has a margin of 2% between the factions, then the topmost faction has control of the planet.
• Planetary ownership:
  • The skybox has floating capital ships in orbit of the faction that is control of the planet.
  • The dynamic spawner for random spawns will spawn more of the faction that controls the region.

 

GCW Point System:

 

Points are the core system behind how regions, planets, and the entire galaxy is calculated for who is currently ahead and winning the GCW. GCW points are dynamic and auto-balance themselves over time, which means they average back to being evenly matched.

 

Region points start at zero for both factions. The points increase as players perform tasks that are GCW related, such as factional missions and PvP. As GCW points increase, the ratio between the two factions changes. Once a threshold 2% margin occurs in a region (51% versus 49%), it is flipped to the higher faction's side and the region is now owned by that faction.

 

Points for players are gained through participation in the GCW. These points are the source of the regional point gain. As an example: If a player performs a factional mission, that mission grants GCW points and affects the player's score as well as the region score.

This is an example chart showing how the percentages of points are distributed amongst regions of a planet.

GCW Point Systems:

Participation within the GCW system is available to all professions.

 

1)PvE factional NPCs

2)Factional missions from mission terminals

3)PvP with opposing factional players

4)PvP Battlefields

5)GCW base combat

6)GCW crafting in invasions

7)Entertainers helping factional players in invasions

8)Factional combat in a planet's orbit

9)GCW quests

10)GCW city invasion rewards

 

Quantity of GCW Points:

The difficulty of the task performed determines the quantity of GCW points awarded.

 

Examples:

1)A PvE normal creature awards lower points than an elite creature and an elite awards less than a boss.

2)Factional missions from terminals that require more work/distance/time than others award more points than missions that are easier and shorter.

3)PvP versus a higher ranked factional player awards more GCW than versus low ranked players.

 

GCW Invasion Point Display:

The invasion system has a score board associated with the city that was recently or is in the process of being invaded. This display shows the top players for participation within the invasion itself and can be accessed using the "/gcwscore" command within the city.

GCW Planet Point Display:

Planetary display shows the GCW regions, once the option has been clicked on the planetary map. The regions are displayed on the map itself, as well as the percentage of points a region's owner has. At the bottom of the map will be a total planetary percentage for the two factions, which shows ownership of the planet.

Point Distribution:

Categories:

1. PvE
   a. Factional NPCs
   b. Quests
   c. Mission terminals
2. PvP
   a. Factional player kills
   b. Battlefields
3. Trading
   a. Supply quests/missions
4. Entertainment
5. Space

 

City Control:

Once a region is switched to a faction, the banners/factional objects swap out to the current faction that owns the city. This was hooked up for all the cities that can be invaded.

 

On Naboo, the city of Keren performs the same tasks except that it spawns factional quest NPC's, crafting terminals, and pylons. These objects give quests to set up the city's defenses, kill enemies, entertain troops, and patrol around the city.

 

Outside of Naboo, the opposite faction is given quests to begin preparations for an attack on the city. Equipment needs to be manufactured, scouting the city defenses should be performed, troops must be entertained, etc.

Defending the city will be performed through turrets, information from towers, building barricades across choke points (bridges, alleys, entries, etc), turret emplacements, and patrol outfitting.

 

City Invasion:

After thirty minutes of preparation, the city switches to invasion mode. Invasions last thirty minutes, during which the objective is to defend the city from the enemy. Preventing the enemy from killing the defending general in the center of the city wins the conflict for the defenders. Killing the defending general in the center of the city wins the city for the attackers. This win grants GCW points for the region and a substantial number of tokens to participants of the battle, with a bonus for the winners.

 

Once the invasion is over, the objects all clean up and the city has a cooldown of two hours before it starts up again. The region's owners are the defenders of the city, when the cooldown expires.

 

Quests are available at objects sprinkled all over the city that were crafted for defense. A turret may have a quest objective over it for shooting enemies. A barricade will have an enemy faction count to kill quest. Wounded soldier quests are available in the hospital. Sabotage quests are available for destroying objectives for spies. All quests grant GCW points to the players and have token rewards. Entertainers may encourage low morale troops to rejoin the battle.

 

Conversely, the attackers have quests to kick off AT-AT/Hailfire attacks, sabotage barricades/turrets, kill enemy faction members, etc. All quests give GCW points and have token rewards. The invasion camp will have quests to kill specific quantities of enemies, as well.

 

Quests were made to be short and to the point. Many quests will be factional specific, so two quests of the same type may be required.

An AT-AT approaches the southern bridge of Keren on Naboo.

GCW Planetary Interface:

The planetary interface is accessed through the planetary map. Once the "Show GCW Activity" check box has been checked, regions and percentages are displayed.

 

All planets will have waypoints pointing to a static factional base, where players may find GCW missions. Those static bases cannot be assaulted and/or captured.

Space GCW:

Space is not divided into regions. The entire area over a planet is considered one region and factors into the planet's GCW average.

 

Factional PvP/PvE also allows GCW to be gained in space. Space that does not contain a planet does not count towards the GCW total (owning empty space does not help achieve an advantage).

GCW Token Rewards:

Each quest completed grants a specific amount of tokens, based on how challenging the quest was to complete. Rewards are designed to be impressive and we want to offer a large selection of rewards. Participation in the GCW offers rewards that are worth working for and have some exclusivity to them by the amount of effort needed to achieve them.

 

Here are some samples of rewards available in the GCW update.

We are excited to be so close to finishing Game Update 15 and are happy to see all the players that are currently playing the update on Test Center. We continue to listen to your feedback and we appreciate all the ideas shared with our team on the forums during the latest playtests.