Smuggler Archive
Thread: State of the Game Leak
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MiniJoras
Thu Jun 03, 2004 11:15 am
#1
For those of you who missed seeing it......here it is:
State of the Game
Last month we saw Publish 8: Droids Rebuilt reach its fruition, with a ton of new utility droids being added to the mix. We also saw two mini-publishes. Mini 8.1 focused on Image Designer enhancements and included some radical new looks for characters as well as a secure transaction interface that will extend to numerous other areas of the game. Mini 8.2 saw the opening of the Death Watch Bunker, where there are some very tough hombres that are none too happy. There are rumors of awesome loot from this starting to trickle out into Live, including Mandalorian armor and Jetpacks!
This year's E3 allowed us to demo Jump to Lightspeed, which was an amazing experience! This was the first time we had shown it to the public and we fully realized just how much fun it already is!! There were countless occasions where we would find ourselves plinking at Hutt Fighters from the turret of a YT-1300, or chasing a Tie Fighter through an asteroid field, and have to tear ourselves away to realize that we were indeed in the middle of a demo. I assure you, this is going to completely transform SWG while tying in seamlessly with the ground game. It is simply incredible!!!<
We will be doing a closed-invite Beta for JTL sometime between August and September. We really want to get a wide variety of players in the cockpit, so we are currently devising the numbers and groups for populating the beta. More on this from Bo'shek (Rich Vogel) in the near future...
Back on the ground, we are in the thick of Jedi Testing for Publish 9: Secrets of the Force. We are going to want to take an extra week or so to fully bake it in, so it may be a bit more than two weeks from our last mini-publish (the Death Watch Bunker). We will keep you apprised at the progress, but we are currently targetting 6/22/04
To test this massive system, we made a duplicate of the existing Test Server. We call it, originally enough, Test Center 2! We needed to create a large and robust test population, so we put together two groups and made them specific ranks.
Existing Test Center players that were active within a certain period became Padawans
Existing Live Jedi that created characters on Test Center within a certain period became Jedi Knights
Over the weekend there were in excess of a thousand simultaneous players on TC2! Much thanks to those of you logged in and helped us with testing. I would encourage you to continue doing so during the next couple of weeks, because we will be giving away starter packs, running some crazy tournaments and really trying to stress the system to its limits! Since Test Server 2 will be wiped at the end of the testing phase, it is really a free-for-all over there. Crazy. We may even try to set a bunch of Live Bounty Hunters loose at some time >:-)
One of the more controversial changes that is occurring with Publish 9 is that characters who unlock their slots Between Publish 9 and Publish 10 will not be able to immediately convert to a Padawan. There are a number of reasons why we feel the need to do this, but foremost is a transition period between Force Sensitive and Padawan that will not be done until Publish 10: The Jedi Trials. If you do unlock you will be notified, but not able to convert until P10. If you do not unlock but are along the way, partial credit will be given. This has been discussed in the past few Friday Features
Looking forward, the three main systems that we are enhancing before Space are: Jedi, Combat Balance, and the Galactic Civil War (GCW). They are turning out to be extremely extensive (and extremely cool!). Accordingly, we want to focus as many resources as we can on them. This is challenging when doing parallel development of JTL, which in some ways is a completely new game. We have made some adjustments to the Live schedule, based on our desire to fully realize each system.
Before I reveal our schedule, I want to shoot very straight with you. When I say things can and will change, I mean it. If we feel that we need to focus more on a particular system, we are going to adjust the schedule to allow it. My job as Senior Producer is to ensure that the overall project is successful, no matter what. This means trying to focus our resources on where they are most needed while keeping them healthy and happy. This also means adjusting the schedule and moving things out when other things are in jeopardy
We could take 4 different approaches in our communications with you
-Not tell you anything
- Give you the party line
-Try to get everything done and not do them well
- Do things right and tell you the truth
I want to tell you the truth. I want you to know what our priorities are, and what we are working on, and why things change. I guarantee some folks are going to scan this entire schedule, find the one line in it that refers to them, and go off about it. The truth is that we want to polish our game as much as we can, and we don't want to put out half-baked publishes. Part of the pain of hearing the truth is that it changes
Without further ado, I present you with our current schedule
Publish #9: Secrets of the Force
Complete overhaul of the Jedi system
-Force Sensitive Specializations<o
></o></SPAN></P>
></o></SPAN></P>-New Lightsaber Construction
-Padawan
Jedi Knight
-Jedi Council - Force Ranking System
Badge Display system
-Loot enhancements
-Hermit Quest fixes
-Revised Master Image Designer Timers and ID XP gain
Additionally our Character Transfer System will be available to move characters between servers and accounts (for a small fee).
Mini Publish 9.1
-Wookiee Armor 2
-Additional Chat Channels
Mini Publish 9.2
-Crafting/ Entertainer Quests
Publish #10: The Jedi Trials
-Complete overhaul of the Path to Jedi system
-Initial Leader Boards
-PvP Kills
-Improved Commodities Market
Mini Publish 10.1
- Massive Emote Package (75
Mini Publish 10.2
- Wookiee armor 3
- CS/ QA/ Correspondent Issues<o
></o></SPAN></P>Publish #11: Combat Balance/ Galactic Civil War - Phase 1
- First Phase of Galactic Civil War revamp (ground base
- Large Scale PvP support
- Squad Leader Revamp
- A Special note on the Combat Balance: This has been pushed again to Publish 11. It has been fully designed, and we have gotten our secure server up. This is an extremely comprehensive change, including
Weapon Rebalance
-Speed Formulas
-Weapon Certifications
-Weapon Statistics<o></o></SPAN></P>
></o></SPAN></P>Ham Revamp
-Drain and Regen
Specials Drain and Regen
Damage Regen
Weapon HAM Cost
-Special Attack HAM
Profession Rebalance
Skill Mod Balance
Special Ability Balance
-Existing Specials
New Specials
Player Difficulties
Additional Balances
Armor Balance
Buff Balance
DoT Balance<
Again, we would very much like to get this out earlier. The simple truth is that it is massive, and needs the proper amount of time for us to develop and test.
The following have moved post-Jump to Lightspeed
>-Hutt Casino - We are REALLY excited about this social adventure, but we are running into art and design restrictions. Space is looking amazing... and we want it to be even more so! We are very strapped for Art resources at this time and can't create everything we want for this adventure until after Space
-Hutt Asteroid Base - For similar reasons, and we really want this to be something you reach by flying through space
-Smuggler revamp - We want to do this right too... and proper smuggling is very much augmented by space flight
I know there will be some disappointment regarding the schedule shifts. Please remember that we want to open our schedules up to you as much as possible so you know what to expect. Live Service is an inexact science (to say the least!!) and will always include some shifts. Things have changed. They will continue to do so. We are giving you our best approximations. All along the way, smaller but vital enhancements are constantly being fixed and come out before and after these main publishes
We are fully focused in making SWG the best MMOG there is out there. The game is very strong due to you, the players. The next few months have some revolutionary changes occurring, and I hope you are as psyched as I am
Finally, some of the team is gearing up to head out to Anaheim this week for the Fan Fest! I can't tell you how excited we are to hook up with the players, and see you folks meeting with each other. There are some great things planned, including several panels where you can grill us on all sorts of topics. Please be gentle ;-)
Best,
- Gary Gattis
SOE Senior Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
zazo
Thu Jun 03, 2004 11:44 am
#3
not til after jtl now huh?
/sigh
yeah dont get me wrong the other stuff does look cool but its hard to get excited about it
Message Edited by zazo on 06-03-2004 02:45 PM
IceMonkey05
Thu Jun 03, 2004 11:47 am
#4
I'm not going to complain b/c personally I don't have a problem with waiting and being patient. I'll let everyone else complain.
Zhagadska
Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:12 am
#5
well..hopefully some of our concerns will be adressed with the combat rebalance. at least, enough concerns to hold us over until our actualy revamp.
i just want mah spaceship..thas all..just my own crappy cardboard box with holes in it that i can fly.. 
Merchillon
Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:34 am
#6
To be honest with you all, when I first saw it was delayed to publish 11, I was like, and that publish is going to be any smaller than publish 9? And I felt that if it was done in publish 11 our revamp would be just as ignored and tiny as it looked like it was going to be before the delay. So I'm really not surprised they couldn't fit it in with publish 11 or before the expansion release... I mean the next 3 publishes (9, 10, 11) are all pretty big. And a real smuggler revamp should also be very big. Big enough that we should have the publish named after us at least! I can't say I'm happy about the delay, but I can say that I'm not at all surprised. (and kind of in a good way, since I don't want the smuggler revamp to be this footnote of whatever publish it's in. I want it to be its own publish!!!)
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