Development Cycle Archive

Star War Galaxies
Suggestions
Holonet

I. The Problem

There currently is no Holonet, at least not on a player interactive level. Oh we can attribute certain abilities in SWG to the Holonet but it’s not really all that interactive and it is definitely limited in functionality. I know some people say the Empire held tight control over the Holonet which is why it’s unavailable. This is true, The Empire did control the Holonet, but they didn’t prevent its use by the general population. They mostly monitored it for rebel transmissions and only shut it down in areas with high concentrations of rebel activity. The Rebels in turn employed all kinds of Slicers to code, send and receive transmissions and to keep the Holonet accessible for their needs. A side effect of not having an actual Holonet is everything is scattered across the city.

II. The Suggestion

There should be a Holonet, even if it’s just combining the current game features into a single location for now. The Holonet should be as ubiquitous as real world Cell-Phone Networks. Some remote locations won’t have access or reliable access whereas populated areas will have complete coverage. All functionality that was provided in the various terminals should be moved to the datapad and the terminals removed from the game. I propose dividing the datapad into various categories each a function of the Holonet. Some functions would be available everywhere there was access others may only be available in close proximity to a major city. The core planets had complete coverage across the entire planet while mid rim and outer rim planets usually only had coverage in or near the main city(s).

I also suggest access fees for using various features on the Holonet. The fees could be structured in a similar manner as city taxes currently are where citizens make monthly payments or it could be a pay per use system. You could even charge different fees for different services and allow city mayors to vary the fees or even offer free hotspot service much like Starbucks and McDonalds do in the real world. This would also allow cities to collect taxes on Holonet use within their sphere of influence.

I know the original purpose of the terminals was meant to be a gathering place for people in the game to socialize. I think that this has turned out to not be the case. The only place I see a large number of people hanging around because of the terminals is the Dantooine Mining Outpost and this is largely due to people trying to get into a "Solo-Group" to get more spawns from the missions they take and to also get higher paying missions. Since these terminals are not fulfilling their original purpose, lets remove them and create a system more in-line with the level of technology available in the Star Wars Universe.

III. The Categories

I propose two main categories:

A. Local – This contains all the data that currently resides on the datapad from your waypoints to your schematics. There should be separate sub-categories for each type of data.

1. Control Devices – Things such as Droids, Pets, Troops and Vehicles are handled in this category.

2. Draft Schematics – All your learned crafting schematics are stored here.

3. Manufacturing Schematics – All your created manufacturing schematics are stored here.

4. Points Of Interest – All programmed POI waypoints are stored here. A nice option would be to have visited POI’s change color to reflect the fact that they have been visited. Another nice option would be to allow mayors to submit for SWG approval 1 POI for a feature in their city. The POI is tied to the current mayor so if that mayor leaves the POI will disappear. The mayor also has the option to remove a city POI and submit a new one. Limiting this to level 5 cities will probably be a good idea to prevent massive amounts of mayor submitted POI’s. A bonus to this idea would be to grant the city that has had the most people visit their POI certain benefits like reduced maintenance costs or something similar.

5. Waypoints – Every user created waypoint that you have input to your datapad is stored here. A nice option would be to allow group leaders to create group visible waypoints that are kept in each group member’s datapad as long as the waypoint exists and that person is in the group. These waypoints should be a different color than normal waypoints.

6. Equipment Status – Every structure you have currently placed is displayed here along with information about its status. The display shows Current Harvesting Information such as what resource is being harvested, how full the hopper is and what percentage is being harvested. It also shows the current condition of the harvester’s power and maintenance. A nice bonus to this would be to allow you to start and stop the harvester remotely as wall as pay maintenance and change current resources. (Of course you would be limited by whatever resources were present at the location and by the concentrations available there.) Another nice bonus would to allow players to setup certain automation protocols such as if a resource disappear to automatically switch to the next highest concentration or the net resource you have listed etc…

7. Character Information – All the character sheet info should be here. The faction should be organized better and separate out those badges into sub-categories.
a. Event Badges
b. Exploration Badges
c. Profession Badges
d. Achievement Badges.

B. Holonet – This is where one accesses the various features of the Holonet. I understand that the Holonet is supposed to be capable of 3-D holographic projection but seeing as not even our inventories are 3-D, I don’t expect the Holonet to be 3-D.

1. Missions – Each player is able to select and accept missions via their datapad. The datapad essentially a portable mission terminal.... missions spawn in a radius around the player just as they would if the player were at an actual terminal. A nice bonus would be a filter to allow players to select what mission objective they wish to complete …. If I am looking for Bol’s to kill, I should be able to filter out all non Bol missions and only display the missions I am looking for, if I only want high paying missions I should be able to filter by payout and if I only want missions in a particular direction I should be able to filter by those criteria as well. I think Star Wars technology should at least be on par with Google.

2. Banking – Each player should be able to remove credits remotely from his/her account onto credsticks/cards. This works like cash just about everywhere, even on backwater worlds like Tatooine. The current standard if I remember correctly is the Imperial Credit which replaced the Republic Credit. Star Wars technology should at least be on par with my debit card.

3. The Bazaar – Essentially the same interface as we currently have but please for the love of the force add search filters!!!!

4. Travel – Essentially the same interface as we currently have but since you are not bound to a terminal all possible departure/arrival points should be available. Making the hops is fine but I should be able to input a departure point and a arrival point an have the system take care of everything in between for me so I can just go go go… Come-on…. If I can setup a complete roundtrip flight with southwest airlines via the internet I should be able to do the same in star wars. I would never fly in real life if I had to buy separate tickets at each leg of my journey. I’m not asking for magic beans here just a technology level equivalent to or better than real life. Budget airline companies shouldn’t have anything over galactic space travel.

5. News – how about news from around the galaxy. I’d love to see stories created based on events that happened, like an imperial base being destroyed or sports scores, Market trends, what people are buying and what they are paying. A little information can really help stabilize the market. How about adding a little depth and background to the game …. The game currently feels barren because the only thing we know happens is what we do or see ourselves.

6. Email – Why is email separate from the datapad anyway …. What exactly am I reading this email on? Make it a category under the Holonet portion of the datapad and have it show up in the datapad. Add a window for adding attachments to emails similar to what we have now in real life. Or allow multiple windows open on the datapad.

7. Holosites – I can’t believe we don’t have an equivalent to the internet in SWG yet. City Mayors, Player Association Leaders, Merchants and Entertainers should be able to create Holosites. Want to prevent obscene Holosites? Create an archive of graphics and only allow those to be used on the sites. Use the same filters you use on chat to blur out obscene words. Allow players to report sites that are offensive just as we report players who are offensive. Allow links to only work with other in-game sites. With no way to bring in outside material or link to outside material control should be as simple as it is for current chat.

IV. Slicing

Adding the Holonet to the game can only add to the experience. I’d love to see actual slicing abilities accorded with the introduction of the Holonet such as rebels being able to slice into the Holonet to post things that only other rebels can see, or Rebel Slicers trying to hack encoded imperial posts and Imperial Slicers doing live counter-slices to prevent that information from being cracked. To actually be able to participate in an online slicing battle would be interesting indeed. I’d also love to see Slicers be able to use the Holonet to hack into defense systems of bases and other military structures via their datapad allowing for defenses to be cracked etc... (Of course this relies on a previous idea I had for changing the way bases work)

V. Conclusion

I am a Star Wars Freak but the current game doesn’t feel all that much like star wars. It feels just like any other MMO but with guns. There are a lot of changes I’d like to see made to this game. Some simply improve game play like my architect revamp ideas and faction changes. Others are intended to make this game more like the Star Wars Universe that I know and love like the above idea.

VI. What next?

In my next major game idea I will delve into Cybernetics, Attachments, buffs etc…. I hope to do one major idea a month an I will also try to constantly update old ideas as I think of new things. I will post my previous major ideas after I clean them up a bit.