Greetings,

As some of you may know, I've been working on the update notes for Publish 27. It's taken me a little longer to prepare these and now I know why!

Much to my surprise, I found a lot more stuff in the latest update notes than I expected.

Now, this is an early look so this list of notes is subject to minor changes and edits (quest titles and other small items), but nothing major. In the mean time, I thought you should really see this.

Don't forget, all of this is now currently on Test Center , so you can go experience the changes if you log on to TC!

Here there are....



Publish Gift

We have a new publish feature that will be starting with publish 27. Publish gifts will be given out to everyone for the duration of the publish to make each publish more special. For this first round of gifts, we have a Nickel Plated Launcher Pistol and a Concentrated Bacta Tank.


Heavy Weapons

Heavy Weapons are coming back to SWG! As the masters of Heavy Weapons, all Heavy Weapons are Commando only with the exception of the launcher pistol and the light flame thrower.

The Acid Rifle and Launcher Pistol, and rocket launcher have a new type of targeting called "Location Targeting". Location Targeting is basically a big aiming target (or reticle) that will appear on the ground. Once the aiming reticle is on the ground, you can use your mouse to move the reticle around on the ground. Once you find your targets you fire the weapons and launch a ruthless attack on all of your opponents in an area.

Profession: Jedi

All of the Jedi profession enhancements are also included in this publish - - Jedi Mind Tricks, Sweeps (a new class of 360 degree strikes), Jedi Focus and Stance Buffs and a variety of other new abilities

Stealth and Traps

New Spy abilities, traps, hiding skills and the ability to find hidden players.

Art

* Improved the Lava Cannon visual effect.
* Ithorians can now equip a tech ops pack, but it will be invisible.

* Dead or incapacitated characters will no longer reload their weapons.



Badges

* Players can now earn badges for mastering combat professions.

* Fixed an issue that prevented some players from receiving their badges for completed accomplishments. Any player who is missing badges will have them granted retroactively upon login.

* Fixed an issue that prevented players from receiving a badge from Dartas Pytin, after completing all of the pilot quests on Tansarii Point Station.

Client Improvements

* Made performance improvements for the GeForce FX series video cards. These video cards should see a significant frame rate increase.

Combat

* The 25 point skill modifier cap for equipped clothing has been removed for the following 6 character attributes: constitution, stamina, luck, strength, precision, and agility.
* All professions will now receive terrain negotiation of 50 as part of their profession advancement. Spies, Commandos and Jedi get an additional 50 Terrain Negotiation for a total of 100.
* Disabled all weapon reloading animations.
* The combat fly-text damage numbers should now report correct values when targets take damage.
* Commandos using Damage-Over-Time (DoT) attacks will now be in full effect.
* Multiple Damage-Over-Time (DoT) visual effects will no longer stack on a player and slow them down.
* Special attacks will now do the correct damage even when a player is unarmed. Previously special attacks would do very little damage unless the attacker had a weapon equipped.

* Aggressive creatures that have appeared as part of a quest should no long appear inside of other objects, and should always be aggressive towards the player.

* Fixed some situations that caused creatures and NPC's to stand on top of players, creatures or NPC's in melee combat situations.

* Damage on weapons slower than pistols and carbines has been increased.
* Delayed attacks will now use the trap object on the ground for Line of Sight checks instead of the attacking player's location.

* Fixed an issue preventing cool-down timers to be reset for some special abilities. (examples: The Bounty Hunter's Bounty Check, Officer's Supply Drop, and Spy Smoke Grenade).


Combat: Heavy Weapons

* Heavy Weapons will no longer repeat their firing while clicking on mission terminals and other non-combatant items.
* Using Heavy Weapons will grant combat experience points.
* Buffs and Self-Heals will work when holding a Heavy Weapons.
* All ground targeting Heavy Weapons will do an immediate hit when fired (with the exception of the launcher pistol).


Experience Points

* Characters will no longer gain ground experience points (XP) in space once you have reached combat level 90.



Fishing

* All players should be able to filet fish now. You can do this by accessing the item's radial menu.



Hyperspace Home

* A " Home Port " button has been added to the toolbar in space. While in space, you can use this button to hyperspace back to your launch location. This is a small button that resembles a space station in the lower left of the Space Heads-Up-Display.

Quests

* Rage of the Wookiees: Nak'tra Crystals and Knives: Urnsor'is now drop loot again so the items needed to complete this quest can be acquired.

* Trials of Obi-Wan: Fixed an issue that was preventing Obi-Wan's ghost from appearing for some players.

* Help the imprisoned Geonosian, Phase III: Added a waypoint for the location of the Geonosian Bio Lab. It will trigger when your character is near the hidden facility.

* Theater Manager Quest: Changed the quest so that the Theater Manager will give both Theatrical 1 and 2 as the crowd pleaser reward.

* Theater Manager Quest: Fixed an issue preventing entertainers from earning the Theatrical dance or Western song rewards from the Theater Manager quests in Mos Eisley.

* Rage of the Wookiees: The Imprisoned Geonosian: Added a "Gather DNA Strands" to the radial menu for the mag-seal container on final step of this quest.

* Boba Fett, Tatooine (Part V): Added additional information so players could better understand the steps of the quest.

* Legacy Quests: Head Start: If you have deleted this quest, talk to Watto again, and he will give you the quest again.

* Legacy Quests: Putting it Together: If you deleted the quest task, 'Find the Head', and spoke with Watto to take the quest again, Watto would not speak to you. He will now offer you the Squill quest.

* Legacy Quests: Watto's Droid Quests: Changed the Body and Legs tasks on this quest to require less travel.

* Legacy Quests: If new players are level 10 or higher, they may now chose to either move on to new quests or continue helping the mayor.

* Legacy Quests: Tap the Communications of the Four Major Criminal Groups: The quest information has been updated so that players can more easily find the control panels (outside by the antennas).

* Rage of the Wookiees: The Road to Exemplar, the Final Battle : When you kill all of the Wookiee warriors, your quest journal will update and you'll receive a task to return to Dahlia to get your next waypoint.

* Legacy Quests: Doing Darkwalker Deeds: If you did not receive a waypoint to Eckner or if you cancelled the conversation with Jorgellansel, you will be able to get back into the quest by speaking with either of these two NPCs (Eckner or Jorgellansel) .

* Legacy Quests: Doing Skaak Tipper Dirty Work : If you stopped conversing with Toff Henrou before you took the next quest to get back to Hugo and didn't get a waypoint, you can go back to Toff Henrou and get the waypoint you need to continue the quest.

* Legacy Quests: Rescue Karl Eckener: Added a new version of this quest to the game. The new version will give waypoints to the Skaak Tippers and the Darkwalkers. Only players who take this quest for the first time will get this version of the quest. Note: Players who have already taken the quest and need the locations can return to Hugo. Converse with him and he will give you the locations.

* Legacy Quests: Finding Huff's Rifle: The quest information will now describe where Borvo the Hutt resides and provide a waypoint.

* Legacy Quests: To Naboo: If you have deleted this quest, you can now talk to Watto and he will grant you the quest again. This will make it possible for players to return to story path and go on the Naboo storylines.

* Legacy Quests: Thieves, Thugs, and Hoodlums: Players on these quests will no longer have to return to Paewp for each quest task in the series. As players finish each task on the quest, Paewp will contact you via a com-link, explain the next task in the quest and grant the next part of the quest. Anyone who is on the original quest series will be granted the new version of the quest upon completing their current quest task.

* Tansarii Point Station: Frelka's Folly: You can no longer take this quest without talking to Frelka on Tansarii Point Station before going to E-5KL on Station Gamma.

* Rage of the Wookiees: The Clone Relics: Working for Boba Fett Phase V: The bodyguard ( Dearic Hotel on Talus 714, -3000) has been changed to be invulnerable so he won't join in the fight.

* The First Step : Trehla will now give you a small amount of credits when she says "Take these credits".

* Rage of the Wookiees: The Clone Relics: Hunter Qakee (Tatooine -1011 -3544) will now correctly reward and mark his first quest as completed.
* Rage of the Wookiees: Arena Challenge - Face Wirartu: The arena on Kashyyyk will now reset if the quest holder dies. If a player should die during the Arena Challenge quest they are kicked out of the arena and will have to speak to Chief Kerritamba again.

* Rage of the Wookiees: Business as usual: Ardon's quest will now correctly update when you complete the quest by killing the Outcast Assassins.

* Trials of Obi-Wan: The Strike (Side Quest): The Mustafar Mining Suit quest reward will show the correct appearance for Wookiees and Ithorians.

* Legacy Quests: Finding Huff's Rifle: The Darklighter guard will now recognize you when you have the Tusken Rifle. Huff's guard will now take the rifle from you.
* Legacy Quests: Runaways: During the space portion of EV-9D9's "Runaways", the RA-316 escort will appear closer to the player so that the quest can be completed.

* Legacy Quests: Runaways: The runaway droids and Untas will appear more often.

* Legacy Quests: Runaways: Runaway droids will now appear more frequently in the Darklighter Cache.

* Find the Rebel Alliance Pilot Trainer: Da'la Socuna now has a waypoint when you take this quest.
* Legacy Quests: Go See Watto: If you have deleted this quest, Captain Carh'la Bastra (128 -5428) or Commander Barrezz (-1146 -3893) will give you the pointer quest to go talk to Watto so that you can continue the quest.
* Rage of the Wookiees: Myyydril Caverns: "N-K Necrosis": This quest journal no longer shows that this quest is supposed to grant quest experience points (XP) since it doesn't (and isn't meant to).

* Goto Vourk: Vourk will now know if you are on a quest for Trehla. The quest from Trehla back to Vourk will now complete when you talk to him.

* Rage of the Wookiees: " N-K Necrosis": NK-Necrosis no longer needs to recharge his power cells during combat.

* Trials of Obi-Wan: An Archeologist's Problem: Vansk can now be found more often.

* Legacy Quests: Go to Tanoa Vills : You will now be able to complete the quests and tasks for this quest series.

* Legacy Quests: Runaways: Jonni Skaak will now drop the Journal once more so you can complete the quest.

* Legacy Quests: Runaways: Changed the space portion of the quest for EV-9D9 to send the player to the nearest ship terminal, which is next to Jabba's palace (instead of the starship terminals in Bestine).

* Legacy Quests: Recover all Six Pieces of the Scattered Gungan Artifacts: The quest counter will properly update as you recover each of the artifacts.

* Jabba's Palace: Pod Racers: Barada will provide players with a better waypoint to kill the Valarian Pod Racers, Crew Chiefs, and Mechanics.

* Jabba's Palace: Pod Racers: Moved the Valarian Pod Racers, Crew Chiefs, and Mechanics out of the mountain hideout.

* Legacy Quests: J awatracks: You will only have to speak to Carh'la Bastra once to start this quest series.

* The Trials of Obi-Wan: The Trouble with HK-47: Milo Mensix will correctly track what quest task you are on. Speak with Milo again to clear up any issues that may have been caused by abandoning his quest and attempting to restart it.

* Rage of the Wookiees: Cyrans the Unfeeling and the Sayromi Queen: now gives out quest experience upon completing the quest.

* Rage of the Wookiees: Clone Relics - To the Queen's Aid (ARC-170 Ship reward) : The Wookiee prisoner for Queen Kylantha 's clone relic quest will properly appear so you can complete the quest.
* Legacy Quests: Tipping the Balance: When you kill the Skaak Tipper Leader, Jonni Skaak, you can now examine the journal (by clicking on it) to continue the quest.
* Legacy Quests: The Tip-off: When you kill the Skaak Tippers you will get A Radio as part of the "A Tip-off" quest. You can now use the radial menu on this item to examine it and continue on the quest.

* Trials of Obi-Wan: Clear out Beetle Nest: will now correctly reward quest experience.

* Legacy Quests: Sennex Bunker: Moved two of the NPC's in the first room of the Sennex Bunker so they can be seen.

* Legacy Quests: Sennex Bunker: Ephant Mon's quest now includes a description of the location for the Sennex Databank.

* Valarian Crew Chiefs are now more clearly named so they can be clearly identified.

* Princess Leia will check to see if you are declared as a Rebel Combatant or Special Forces before offering the final Cries of Alderaan 3 Mission.

* New Entertainers and Traders will no longer be shown a blue trail upon arrive to Mos Eisley.

* The Droid head from EV-9D9 is no longer a container.

* Renamed Barada's quest tasks, to better fit the story. The new quest names are: "Steal Pod Parts from Valarian's Pod Racers", "Steal New Fuel Cells from Valarian's, Mechanics", "Steal Fuel Tubes from Valarian's Crew Chiefs", "Kill 15 of Valarian's Men" and "Return to Barada at Jabba's Palace"

* Fixed an issue that prevented neutrally aligned characters from speaking with Queen Kylantha in the Naboo palace. She will now speak to neutral players.

* Commander Barrezz will now be fixed retroactively for all players who were gated. Try to talk to Commander Barrezz and he will give you the next quest.

* The Entertainer Quest given by Anetia Kah'ryn (3438, -4834) will only be available to entertainers.

* Players who have previously completed Jabba's Themepark can now talk to Jabba even if they haven't done the new Palace quests.

* If you caught Bossk in the cantina and completed his third quest, the informant Stanic Wavingstar stiffed you out of a promised carbine. Now you can return to Stanic in the Wayfar cantina and demand the carbine from him. Furthermore, if you completed Bossk's final quest you can threaten or cajole Stanic to fix your gloves so they have more appropriate stats.

Loot

* Re-breathers can now be looted in the Death Watch Bunker and the Geonosian Bio-Lab once more.

* Black Sun operatives are once again dropping bounty hunter armor and the jet pack stabilizer for use in the Death Watch Bunker.

* Bounty Hunter Armor Schematics can be found as loot again.

* Rage of the Wookiees: Urnsor'is will now drop loot again.

* Altered loot tables to bring back special items on Elite mobs.

* Altered loot tables to bring back collectible items. The items that can be found include (but are not limited to) rug pieces, gong pieces, power/color crystals and other prized items.

* Fixed an issue that prevented items from "auto-looting" when a group member won the group loot lottery for an item. Items won in a loot lottery should now correctly transfer to the winner's inventory.

* Corpses will remain in the world for at least one minute after opening a loot window before the corpse decays.

* Removed an erroneous error message when looting credits in loot lottery mode.



Player Associations

* Fixed an issue affecting the radial menu for Player Association elections. If a player selected "Enable Elections" and then viewed the radial menu option again right afterwards, it will still read "Enable Elections". If this was selected a second time, it would actually disable the election.

Player Cities

* Civic Structures placed in a registered city will now be correctly updated to the planetary map when placed. For existing Civic Structures not on the planetary map in a registered city, the mayor will need to un-register and then re-register the city.


Profession: Commando

* Heavy Weapons are coming back to SWG! As the masters of Heavy Weapons, all Heavy Weapons are Commando only with the exception of the launcher pistol and the light flame thrower.

* Commando Grenades now have a range of 30 meters.


Profession: Entertainers

* Gendra will now give a new Slitherhorn to starting Entertainers who find themselves without an instrument.

Profession: Jedi

* All of the Jedi profession enhancements are also included in this publish - - Jedi Mind Tricks, Sweeps (a new class of 360 degree strikes), Jedi Focus and Stance Buffs and a variety of other new abilities.
* Lightsabers that were created before Publish 25 will now have a full melee attack range of 5 meters.

* Jedi Elder Buffs now stack with other buffs.

* A Jedi's long-term buffs will now correctly work according to their cool-down timers.

* Saber Block will no longer block attacks from mines, grenades, bombs, etc.


Profession: Medics

* Fixed an issue that allowed Medics to use revive abilities on NPCs.


Profession: Officer

* The Officer abilities Paint Target, Called Shot & Fix Target will now show a targeting visual effect on the de-buffed enemy while the buff is in effect.

* The Officer abilities Artillery Strike, Aerial Bombardment & Orbital Strike can no longer be executed while indoors.
* Added 3 new Officer abilities that are useable indoors: Shock Grenade, Compression Grenade and Seismic Grenade.


Profession: Spy

* The Level 26 Spy quest "Corporate Espionage" can now be completed. You can now "steal" the stolen datapad from Jubai Laetli at the Imperial Outpost on Tatooine.

* The rewards for the 14th level spy profession quest ("Spies Like Us") now has Ithorian-friendly reward. Two alternate bracer items for Ithorians have been added.

* Spies can now use a smoke grenade before going into stealth mode to bypass the witness check.

* Updated the level 26 Spy profession quest conversation so that once the quest is completed you can't take the same quest again.

* The Spy ability "steal" no longer causes the enemy NPC to attack you get caught stealing.

* The Spy ability "steal" now correctly enforces restrictions for its maximum distance to a target.

* Added a small poison Damage-Over-Time bonus to the Spy's Fang.


Profession: Traders

* NPC Vendors can no longer wear bodysuits (Previously this caused their appearance to be incomplete).

* Domestics Traders will now be granted the schematic for the Armor and Crafting tool.

* Shipwright Crafting experience points (XP) will now correctly count towards the Artisan Profession.



Publish Gift

* When you log into the game, you will see a pop-up window listing your publish gift items.
* All players will receive a Concentrated Bacta Tank' that allows you to completely heal yourself outside of combat once an hour (or you can put it in your house).
* All players will also receive a Nickel Plated Targeting Pistol. This is a Heavy Weapon that everyone can use.


Sound

* The Quest Journal has new sounds. You should hear new sounds when you accept, complete, or advance a counter on a quest.


Space

* If you own more then three ships, the ship texturing kit will allow you to customize your 4th ship and any additional ships you may have.

* A Starship pilot can now be found in the Mayors office in Mos Eisley. He will help direct players to Pilot trainers so they can begin their pilot careers.

* YT-2400's will now have the proper engine sounds.

* Reduced the Player-versus-Player damage multiplier in space.

* Player-versus-Player damage in space has been slightly reduced to minimize the likelihood of 1 shot kills.

* Decay for Player-versus-Player space combat has been changed. If your spaceship is destroyed by another player in combat, you will receive a free 100% repair to your ship and components with no decay (the very last shot that destroys your ship must come from another player).

* If you manage to eject safely from PvP space combat, you will receive a free 100% repair to your ship and components with no decay.

* Player-versus-Environment (PVE) death and decay and repairs to your ships from space stations have NOT changed.

* Female Ace Pilots will now receive their medal as they should. These medals can only be earned once per faction type.

* All weapons added to space ships should appear and work correctly.

* Fixed an issue with the space ship ability "Weapon Overload 3" that lowered your energy cost while increasing the damage. Weapon Overload 3 will now work correctly by increasing your energy cost like other weapon overload abilities.

* The space ship ability "Weapon Overload 4" will now drain less energy so that it can be is a more viable combat option.

* The Ionic Pulse Blaster (and other weapons) will now be visible when placed onto an Advanced X-Wing.

* Entry to the Deep Space zone (PvP) will no longer require players to spend Prestige points.



User Interface

* If the "Middle mouse button drives movement" is not checked, the middle mouse button may be re-mapped to other actions.

* Improved the look of the experience bar and corrected graphics issues.

* /waypoint now works in buildings.

* Fixed an issue causing secondary toolbar actions to wrap around empty slots on the toolbar.

* Mouse-only movement options will now work while moving around in multiplayer ships.

* You should no longer see the radial menu placed above objects in the air.

* Detaching a chat window should no longer lock your player into its current position.

* Additional chat logs will not spawn new logs in detached chat windows when logging into the game.

* A tool-tip has been added to the Lightsaber indicator on the Space profession roadmap that will show how far you have until you next space skill box. After tabbing to the Space profession, place your mouse over the Lightsaber on the profession window to display the tool tip (Press P to access the Profession window).

Vehicles

* All vehicles will travel approximately 25-30% faster. Previous differences in vehicle speeds have not changed; the fastest vehicle is still the fastest and the slowest is still the slowest.

* All vehicles will now climb slopes much faster. Faster vehicles will have an almost imperceptible change in speed when they hit a slope due to their momentum.

* All vehicles except for the V-35, the Transport Skiff and the Lava Skiff have had their collision radius reduced. This will make traveling through cities less cumbersome (All vehicles should fit through the smaller arches in the cities).

* Fixed an issue where vehicles would sometimes be "un-callable" for players. If a vehicle is left unattended for 10 minutes, a vehicle will now store itself.

* Vehicle customization tools are now used directly from your inventory or from the active ability slot. The tool will automatically work on your active vehicle.

* You can now click to exit a vehicle.
* Improved the location selection of the radial menu for multi-passenger ground vehicles. If you are a passenger, you can click to exit the vehicle. The owner, however, must invite you before you can enter the vehicle.



World

* Death Watch Bunker: Alum Gas will once again damage players who don't have the Gas Mask.

* Fixed an issue that was causing some players to either be moved out of or prevented them from entering an adventure zone. Players that experienced this issue received a message "You do not have proper authorization to be in this area" when trying to access certain game zones. You should now only receive this message when trying to improperly enter an adventure zone.

* Fixed an issue where you would get the message "You are too far away to use that" after using the elevator on Tansarii Point Station to go down from the atrium or up from the droid level.

* Dynamic Points of Interest (small NPC buildings in the world) should no longer be spawning. This will prevent players from being trapped while traveling.

* Huff Darklighter is now properly clothed.
* Banks now have two Junk Dealers so that they can be more easily found.

* Fixed an issue where some bank terminals were partially sunk into the floor of the bank.

* Added six new appearances for Junk Dealers.

* NPC's around Mos Eisley on Tatooine have been changed to be at least level 5 to increase the challenge for new players arriving from Tansarii station.

* Mos Eisley Police should no longer be factionally aligned to the Empire.

* NPC Shipwrights in starports have been removed.

* Removed a Hutt base that existed on some galaxies that was located too close to Great Pit of Carkoon.

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Community Relations Manager

-- Edited by audiem at 18:40, 2006-02-09