It's 2010 and the first term for this year has started for our Galactic Senate. Over the next several weeks we will bring to you, our fans, a special look into the people we all know as our Senators. Our first featured Senator just happened to sneak in front of the line which is appropriate, seeing that he is our Spy Senator. So let's take a few minutes to get to know "TheRockStar".

Senator: Spy
Forum Handle: TheRockStar
Server: Europe-FarStar
Character Name: Tal'yn Sun

1.  How long have you been a contributing member of the Spy profession that you represent?

The Spy profession was new to the game at the beginning of November 2005.  I took a break from the game at the time and returned some 6 months later, to find I really enjoyed what Star Wars Galaxies had developed into.

I had unlocked Jedi under the old system and I was reluctant to not play this profession anymore, but when I saw how much fun the others were I just had to try.  I don't know what it was about the Spy profession but I really wanted to give it a bash, it just looked so devious and sneaky!  At the time those who played it seemed to have a really good grasp of how the game worked, whereas my play style was just to put up Saber Block, hit things, and heal occasionally.

A Spy took me around the Death Watch Bunker, and showed me the real potential of stealth.  Of course the system was a lot different back then, but I was really intrigued by a profession that could pop in and out of stealth.

 

During the CU period, I dropped a lot of Jedi boxes to pick up Master Bounty Hunter.  I kept hold of Force Stealth and hunted marks from cloak... it was good fun!  The Spy profession reminded me of this a little bit; I could see how it could be fun in a PVP situation.

Eventually my friend, DGF, convinced me to respec, and I haven't really looked back since!  My first post in the Spy forums was in February 2007.  In every profession, in every combat system I had played up until this point, I just stacked what I thought was best but never really analyzed the effects.  With the Spy profession, I wanted to know every detail of what I was doing.  How certain types of protection worked, how damage was calculated and modifiers were stacked... I really delved into the mechanics of the profession.

I learned a lot and also became a regular name in the Spy forums.  I found that a lot of information I had spent time learning was regularly enquired about on the forums, and I really enjoyed helping out other players come to grips with the profession.  Prior to becoming the Spy Senator, I had done a lot of study on the Camouflage system, how detection worked, and eventually created a reference for other Spies (and those who would wish to detect them) to take advantage of.  I had also done a lot of research into our expertise - the positive and the negative aspects, and how it might be improved.  I think the community was largely on board with my way of thinking and when I applied for the position of Senator. I really felt like we were united in our cause to improve many aspects of the profession.

Joining the Senate program was a big eye-opener.  Like so many casual readers of the forums, there was a perception that Senators made decisions about the game.  This was probably in part due to a period where Senators could submit "Bills" which proposed changes to the benefit of their own aspects or professions.  I'll bet that there are still players out there now who believe that the Senator who shouts loudest gets the most for their aspect or profession!

In actual fact the position is more about serving the community than helping out with the game development.

Yes, we maintain a list of bugs and issues, however, whether people believe it or not the QA developers are likely to know the details of them without our assistance.  From time to time we'll pick up on something before they do, but, they spend a huge amount of time in-game and know what is going right and wrong.  A visual list of bugs and issues will help other community members who may not understand why something isn't working as intended.

But the true value of the program comes from how community leaders can influence topics of discussion in a constructive and positive way, excite the community, generate new ideas, bounce around solutions to problems and of course help new players to learn the ropes.  Being a part of this, on behalf of the Spy profession, has truly been a wonderful experience!

2.  What type of gameplay style do you enjoy the most that is NOT specific to your Senatorial seat?

 

 

I used to be a huge fan of Space quests.  When JTL was launched, I tried the beta and hated it.  I tried it on live and hated it.  I had seven different accomplished Pilots try and teach me how it worked over the course of two years, before an eightth finally drilled it into my head.  Once I knew my way around space, there was no stopping me.  Getting into the numbers of the ship components, reverse engineering, and striving to build the most perfect ships became an infatuation.  Inevitably I got quite into the PVP aspect as a result; however I found that once you have built two star ships to a supreme spec, you tend to be in something of a stalemate that is difficult to break.  After being involved in a 'turn war' with our server's best pilot for in something in the region of 20 minutes (and feeling the Repetitive Strain Injury kicking in) I really lost interest in space PVP.  I still love the quests though and really enjoy participating in space content when it's released.

In other areas, I have three characters on one account so usually my second character is a combatant and the third is trader.  I play other professions as much as I can on my second character. I would probably say the most fun profession I have played is the Officer profession.  When you absolutely have to nuke a group of Special Forces players, this is the only choice - I love it.

When I began playing SWG, Medic was my first novice profession.  I hadn't really played Medic a great deal in the until a couple of months back, where I respecced to give it a bash.  I had tremendous fun and being something of a Heroic Instance fanatic, I and a couple of friends started plotting an attempt at completing the Exar Kun instance with just the three of us - myself as the Medic.  This was a really fun challenge, and after a dummy-run to try out some tactics, we completed it without any casualties.  You can view the videos here! [3-man EK Videos] and here's a neat little screenshot:

In every game system, I've played Bounty Hunter too.  I just love the hunt, and the pure one on one encounter.  Last time I played BH the only real frustration I had came from actually catching up with my mark.  In times gone by, travelling across the galaxy was a major time sink in itself.  To get from Lok to Rori might take half an hour in travelling time!  This worked well for a Bounty Hunter planning to hunt on Lok.

Now, with instant travel, by the time an arakyd droid has landed, you've gone to a planet and got your first seeker update, your mark could have visited half a dozen different planets.  This took the fun out of the hunt for me as you really do need your mark to spend a lot of time on one planet, and with instant travel vehicles and group pick up points, they could be elsewhere in the blink of an eye.

Still, it's an awesome profession and sometimes it's easy to forget how cool and unique the player bounty system actually is to SWG.

My crafter is currently a Munitions trader, specializing in weapon crafting.  I spent a lot of time as a Shipwright during the days that I was more obsessed with Space, but I have built up a little customer base as a weaponsmith now and I think the weapon crafting system is in really good shape.  Of course for fun, I take the crafter into combat situations every now and then - I simply had to complete all the heroic instances with him!  The highlight was beyond doubt being the Wrath Tank in Exar Kun.

Finally, one of the more breathtaking aspects of Star Wars Galaxies comes when you see what people are capable of creating.  I have always been a huge fan of player creations and decorations.  I'm far from an expert myself, but I'm quite proud of my miniature chess set.  If anyone ever wishes to take a look, look me up on FarStar!

3.  What is the first thing that you do when you log on? What is your typical gameplay session?

When I'm on my Spy, it's usually a quick email check, then I find PVP wherever I can.  I'm quite impatient when it comes to PVPing; I just want to get out there and pew-pew or stabby-stab things.  I don't know quite how to explain this, but anyone who PVPs regularly will know there's just something fuzzy about when you see an opponent turn from red to grey!

One of the things that disappointed me about the direction of the game over the last couple of years was the huge emphasis on buffs.  I thought the days of having to buff up for combat were long since gone... I'd sooner log in, and go PVP.  Many times I do, but in a lot of circumstances it's not a wise thing to do and these days you're better off finding an Entertainer, Medic and Officer to help you buff & stim up prior to combat.  I actually wish that you had to be grouped with Medics to get the benefit of their buffs (like with Officers) and that Officer tactical stims were just made into another group buff.  This way I think we'd see less of these two professions being used as buff/stim bots, and more emphasis on their importance in PVP.  I don't think this will happen, but, it would give us back a bit of interdependency in PVP.

4.  What is your favorite part of the game?  What do you enjoy the most?

Fighting Bounty Hunters.

Consistent with fighting BH's, I could also say I enjoy Bounty Hunting, fighting in tournaments, or any other one versus one encounter.

I just love to pit my skills against the best duelists out there, and every now and then I'll meet a Bounty Hunter who really knows how to push me to my limits.  The best fights I can remember are ones I have actually lost to BH's!

5.  How long have you been playing? (/getvet)

2161 days or 5 years, 336 days!

6.  When not ingame, what are some of the things that you enjoy doing as a hobby?

 

Well as the name suggests I like music and I'm a semi-professional singer.  I also play a little guitar, although not to a semi-pro standard!  There are recordings of me out there on the internet but I prefer to keep my real life a little more private so you won't find any links amongst the forums hehe.

I'm also a keen snow boarder; in fact I've just returned from a trip to Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada - definitely my most favorite holiday destination and Canada's best kept secret.  I enjoy rock climbing and of course, being English, I'm an avid football fan - Manchester United of course!  I live quite close to Old Trafford (Manchester United's stadium) and get to games when I have the free time.

I somehow managed to run a marathon last year in spite of minimal training, and since then I've been pretty into running... thinking one day it may be cool to go and do the New York marathon!

7.  If you could change one thing about the forums, what would it be and why?

The search functions, without a doubt.  There's so much more they could be used for -

• Multiple word searches - you can only really search for one term at the moment (e.g. "Spy").  If you try to search for more than one word it isn't interested (e.g. "Spy screenshots").
• Date searches - the old lithium forums had the option to search for posts within the last week, month, 3 months, and year.  I found that quite limiting, but in its absence, I wish we still had that sort of functionality - the ability to specify a date period would be great!
• Images - the numbers of times I can't find a screenshot but I know I've posted it somewhere, it would be great to have tick boxes to include/exclude posts with images and links in the search filter criteria.

I'm sure there are further ways it could be improved too - and trust me, so many people just give up using the search function because it isn't adequate enough at answering their questions.  Every Senator will see on a regular basis the same questions popping up on the forums because the search tool just doesn't give them to tools to find the info they need.

8.  If you could change one thing about the game, what would it be and why?

A pretty loaded question!  Really tough here.  I'd like to see more interdependency amongst the professions; I'd like to see PVP be less about buffs and more about skill, but I think above all else I'd like to see something that could address problems with line of sight that we experience in combat.

It's my belief, be it right or wrong, that the game engine isn't well enough equipped to handle the actual speed of combat and movement.  The latter is a big issue; the rate of movement that players can achieve causes too much confusion.  Any player who has ever PVPd will have experienced a situation where on their screen, they're stood within 1 or 2m of an opponent and have gotten the fly text "cannot see target" when trying to attack.  In actual fact the person has of course moved out of range or line of sight, but the game engine is unable to reflect this.  I don't know if we'll ever see something put in place that can address this, but it really does take the enjoyment out of combat.

9.  What is your favorite emote and are there any stories surrounding that emote?

/bounce - you bounce around with excitement

It's just something an old friend, Spacedoggy, used to do when we met up, and brings me a smile.

I also like /fuzzy because I'm a warm and friendly person!

10. Who has been your favorite (most interesting) Senator that you have worked with and why?

I think Jod. She's probably the most social member of the Senate and usually involved in the organization of anything that brings us together, such as Senator meetings in-game.  She is a really good influence on other members of the Senate, and reading her posts and her work you can see why she's become integral to the program.

11. Describe what it is like to work with the other Senators.

Sadly I've only ever managed to attend a handful of the in-game meetings, partly due to the time-zone differences between myself and most of the Senate.  But those meetings are usually very, very good.  There's so much constructive discussion between people truly passionate about the game - and you can guarantee if two hours has been set aside for a meeting, it'll be double that time in length and people won't have noticed the time fly by!

12. Who was/is your mentor in the game?  If you had to thank ONE and only person in the game, who would it be and why?

My mentor... well I couldn't even list all of the Pilot mentors I ever had!  But the one person who's been a key factor in me playing Star Wars Galaxies is my best in-game friend, DGF.  He talked me into playing Spy, and if he isn't the person that's getting me into all sorts of shenanigans, he's the person rescuing me from them!

13.  What do you do for a living?

Out with the singing, I run a Leisure Centre in Manchester.  I do try and work as little as physically possible though, thankfully I'm in a position where I can spend more time in music.

14. What in-game item do you wish you had a RL version of and why?

Oooh tough one...perhaps Ulysses my Rancor, Uncle-Owen my Droideka, maybe a little spice, I'm sure the girls would love the NS Bicep... oh maybe my star ship, Secks Machine? nah...

I think it'd have to be the Blacksun Medallion for a super-funky look, I could pretend to be DGF!

 

Thank you, TheRockStar, for sharing some of your insights from the Spy Senator's viewpoint!