Game Guides Archive
Thread: Space Expansion
WylotheUber wrote:
I think the devs would lose a lot of sales in the expansion if they didn't have multi-person ships. From what I've read, this is what the majority seems to really want that will probably make it into the expansion regarding the ships themselves:
- Multi-Person ships/crews
- Walking around inside larger ships
- Real-Time (twitch/arcade) combat
- Faction ships
- Spacestations
- Modifiable ships
- A vareity of ships, some cheaper, easier to modify, more powerful, etc.
That's all I can really think of that have a sure chance, anyway. If any devs want to give us a hint, I'm sure we'd never speak badly about the game again if we "inconspicuously discovered with slight assistance"
thatwe could walk around ships and have multiple people in one ship at the same time.
I dont really think to many people WANT space stations that muchm tho i could be wrong. Think.... when have you ever seen one in Star Wars? I Mean there is the Death Star but thats really more of a ship then a space station.
But with the rest of it i would have to definatly agree. If we cantwalk around on ships,and you can only fly fighters, or huge ships you cant move around on, then the game will float like a led ballon.Also if itsRPG space combat I think almost everyone would quit........ however someonementioned in another post that the devs said in the AprilUK PC Gamer that the game is arcade/twitchty. So Who knows. That post can be found in this thread http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=GCW&message.id=146215&page=1
Holy flaming canaries... I'veposted several threads on the subject of the Space Expansion over in the Core Systems forum, but none of them have run to 17 pages and over 8000 views.
I must be living wrong. Or living in the wrong forum.
FWIW, Blair and Haden(AKA "Shug_Ninx")said a number of things at the recent dev chat over on Stratics. Among the statements about the Space Expansion were:
- Hadenhas been shooting down Y-wings over Tatooine.
- Blair says that several skill trees just for piloting have been implemented.
Additionally, Artistan has posted a message from a friend of his at Gamestop who claims to have seen some factlets about the SE, including:
- multiple new professions will be available
- multiple ships will be available
- "military" ships like X-wings and TIE fighters will be bought with faction points
- non-military ships will be player-craftable
- it will be possible to walk around inside some ships
- some ships will allow several players to man gun turrets
Excited yet? 
If you're interested in this kind of thing, you're welcome to browse the relatedmessages over in the Core Systems forum (under the Professions forums). There are many, butonesyou mightenjoy include:
Core Systems 10329 Space Expansion: List of Questions
Core Systems 9512 Space Expansion: Summary of Ideas
Core Systems 4781 Space Expansion: Proposed New Skill Trees
Core Systems 5072 SE Starship Weapons?
Enjoy!
--Flatfingers
Sloyet wrote:I am not sure how the SWG engine is ran, but I am assuming that the initial load, loads everything. All planets, models, textures, etc. are loaded into the memory and stored. This is why (I think) that when you travel, you have an almost instant load time. However, I don't know, if anyone knows any different, please correct me!I am really looking forward to E3 and the Space Expansion this year. I hope it renews my interest in SWG.
It only loads the planet that you are on, and your character. It loads everything on that planet however. This is why when you tarvel to another planet, it has to load again.
Another idea I thought of is would you be able to logout of SWG while in Space fling your ship? I don't think you could because i doubt you'll be able to stand still in space, most games won't let you. That means a lot of ships would be fling around unmaned ships fling around. Also this brings up the fact of if you can even go afk while in sapce. I don't personnaly believe that you could, but that would suck also because if I have to answer the phone and I'm in the middle of a fight that I would either have to get up and answer it, and possibly get blown up in the game, or not answer the phone and potintally miss an important call. Yes I have messages and caller It but this also pertains to going to the restroom, getting a drink or food, and anything else you have to leave the computer for.
Message Edited by IdahoJedi on 03-23-2004 07:47 PM
- Multi-Person ships/crews
- Walking around inside larger ships
- Real-Time (twitch/arcade) combat
- Faction ships
- Spacestations
- Modifiable ships
- A vareity of ships, some cheaper, easier to modify, more powerful, etc.
That's all I can really think of that have a sure chance, anyway. If any devs want to give us a hint, I'm sure we'd never speak badly about the game again if we "inconspicuously discovered with slight assistance" thatwe could walk around ships and have multiple people in one ship at the same time.
i like the ideas. just a thought. lucas will have a company that rivals microsoft. if the devs intend to add a space game that has the requirments that are being requested and continue to update this game and make changes, well then things are going to be tuff. i wonder how many programers they have working for this game? my guess is they are going to need hundreds in the near future. just for starwars. we ask so much of the creators of this game.
they are doing a good job so far.
I've read it and your optimism for space wont be lost
We'll talk a lot about it after E3...
Take care
th
This is a direct copy and paste form what he had to say. Man I can't wait!
IdahoJedi wrote:
Guys! Great news! I sent a PM to Thunderheart about this thread and this is what he had to say:
I've read it and your optimism for space wont be lost
We'll talk a lot about it after E3...
Take care
th
Be aware that E3(conference and expo) takes place May 11-14, 2004. That's just under two months from now (late March).
I don't know about you, but that seems like a looooooong way away to me. 
Some potentially good news here is that Haden Blackmanmade it clearat the Stratics dev chat that everybodyworking on SWGunderstands how important the Space Expansion is to SWG players. He went on to suggest that there might be a few very minor bits of info released before E3.
Bearing in mind those words "minor" and "might," I for one would be very pleased if the folks in Marketing gave their blessing to cluing us in on one or two small points. I'm frankly amazed that the lockdown on SW info has been so complete for so long -- I suspect there've been a meaningful number of player defections frompeople whogot tiredof waiting for any"here are some Space Expansionfeatures to look forward to"reasons to stay with SWG.
Maybe SOEproducersare counting onplayers to come back to SWGonce the SE ships... I dunno. They get paid to know these things and I don't, but it just doesn't seem like good business to jerk people around like that. (Or is this really more a case of some players just being so impatient that they jerk themselves around?)
Personally, I just hope to see a Space Expansion forum soon --and before the SE ships. That, more than anything else, will tell me whether SOE is serious about listening to players concerning desiredSE features.
I'm still looking forward to seeing what they've implemented, though.
--Flatfingers
I don't know about you, but that seems like a looooooong way away to me.
Some potentially good news here is that Haden Blackmanmade it clearat the Stratics dev chat that everybodyworking on SWGunderstands how important the Space Expansion is to SWG players. He went on to suggest that there might be a few very minor bits of info released before E3.
Bearing in mind those words "minor" and "might," I for one would be very pleased if the folks in Marketing gave their blessing to cluing us in on one or two small points. I'm frankly amazed that the lockdown on SW info has been so complete for so long -- I suspect there've been a meaningful number of player defections frompeople whogot tiredof waiting for any"here are some Space Expansionfeatures to look forward to"reasons to stay with SWG.
Maybe SOEproducersare counting onplayers to come back to SWGonce the SE ships... I dunno. They get paid to know these things and I don't, but it just doesn't seem like good business to jerk people around like that. (Or is this really more a case of some players just being so impatient that they jerk themselves around?)
Personally, I just hope to see a Space Expansion forum soon --and before the SE ships. That, more than anything else, will tell me whether SOE is serious about listening to players concerning desiredSE features.
:
--Flatfingers
In a way I can very much understand why they are taking their time releaseing Info. Think back to last year, they told us there was gonna be a lot of things in the game that ended up being cut from release. Such as vehicles for example. If they go and release a lot of info about SE and it ends up not containing everything becaue it had to be removed for release..... then people again will get mad, and possibly quit. The same goes for a release date.Now with the release date lets also go back a few months.... even years to Mid 2002. Thegame got pushed backtwo or three times from mid-2002, and one of thoes delays was for 5 months. If they did that with SE a LOT of ppl would quit no question.
As for listening to players about SE features....... all they have to do is read these threeds.You can see from the threeds what the people want.... Twitchy combat, Walking on ships. and landing ships on the planetsurface.There are even threeds about what planets people want to see. So they really dont even need to ask about feedback.
Personally, I would love to see informations concerning the Space Expansion. However i have a good feeling we wont get ANYTHING till E-3.Screenshots would be even better... I would think we would see screenshots before we get information about it. Who knows tho.... guess were waiting till E-3.
Stakex007 wrote:
In a way I can very much understand why they are taking their time releaseing Info. Think back to last year, they told us there was gonna be a lot of things in the game that ended up being cut from release. Such as vehicles for example. If they go and release a lot of info about SE and it ends up not containing everything becaue it had to be removed for release..... then people again will get mad, and possibly quit.
Good point. OTOH, they've gotten better about being willing to clue us in on potential concepts before implementation -- that's why we now have In Concept and In Development forums. It's also why we're able to discuss things like the change to crafting experimentation before it actually goes live (or in this case, before it's live for very long).
Another reason they might want to hold back information is for competitive advantage -- there's no point in telling the competition what you're implementing if that allows them to do it sooner or better.
Butthere's an easy (and obvious to the developers)way around this: release only information directly related to Star Wars, rather than general gameplay information. For example, they could list some (not all, just some) of the ships that are being considered for implementation. We know from the Stratics dev chat that Y-wings are in... why not mention some of the other obvious Star Wars-only ships every now and then until E3, when (hopefully) a comprehensive list of features will be publicized? It's not like any other game is going to turn around and put Y-wings in their game!
Other examples of information that could be released that are sufficiently Star Wars specific toavoid becomingcompetitive issues: new planets, new playable races, and new missions (Kessel Run, anyone?).
As for listening to players about SE features....... all they have to do is read these threeds.You can see from the threeds what the people want.... Twitchy combat, Walking on ships. and landing ships on the planetsurface.There are even threeds about what planets people want to see. So they really dont even need to ask about feedback.
Also true, and I've been as "guilty" of this as most folks (if not more so). But there's still the question of how to implement these things.
Have you seen the List of Questions I've put together as message # 10329 over in the Core Systems forum?There are still a vast number of things we still don't know despite considerable discussion. I would argue that some of them should be saved as surprises (hopefully pleasant ones!) for when the Space Expansion launches, and that some others should be doled out only very sparingly as they're considered very important to a lot of people (and will thus have the most impact).
But others are almost trivial; they're just fun things it would be entertaining to know about and to be able to offer constructive suggestions about. So no, the developers don't need to ask for feedback... but haven't we already seen what developing in an echo chamber (where all you can hear are your own opinions) can produce?
Personally, I would love to see informations concerning the Space Expansion. However i have a good feeling we wont get ANYTHING till E-3.Screenshots would be even better... I would think we would see screenshots before we get information about it. Who knows tho.... guess were waiting till E-3.
Probably right on all counts there.
Just wake me up in May.
--Flatfingers