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Final SWG producer's letter thanks community
Community was one of many things that set Star Wars: Galaxies apart from your average MMO, and Sony Online Entertainment's Tony "Teesquared" Tyson took a moment to thank the game's faithful in what serves as the final producer's letter for the shuttered sandbox title. Tyson touches on several highlights including housing, crafting, entertaining, and space-sim mechanics that were unique to SWG, and he ultimately concludes that the game "was, and will always be, a meaningful and memorable part of my life, an experience I'll treasure and share with anyone who wants to hear a good story." SOE launched SWG on June 26, 2003 and powered down the servers one final time early this morning.
SOE welcomes players back, Mark Anderson named DCUO's new game director
"It's good to be back!" Many Sony Online Entertainment customers have said this these past few days as the studio's titles came back online after a two-week absence. They're not the only ones, either; many of the leads to SOE's host of MMOs are saying the same thing today. Eight developers representing a large portion of SOE's library posted "Welcome back!" messages on the Station Blog, expressing a mixture of relief, happiness, and hopeful visions for their games' futures. Several of these developers have also used the opportunity to show that they were working hard during the break. "We're incredibly glad to have our worlds back online again," EverQuest II's David Georgeson said, "and we really appreciate you all being so patient with us while we strengthened the castle walls." There's certainly a lot of information to digest in these eight posts. Lorin Jameson dropped the news that Mark Anderson's been moved up to become DC Universe Online's latest game director, while Georgeson hinted at a "major new feature set" for EQII that's in the works. Several of the devs mentioned that the downtime will result in a delay of future patches and expansions so that they can be properly tested. You can read the full assortment of "Welcome back!" posts at the Station Blog.
Star Wars Galaxies producer's letter talks galactic civil war, Officer updates
Despite the old "make love not war" saying, Star Wars Galaxies' January producer's letter is making both, and it's also crammed full of update news for a galaxy far, far away. Tony "Teesquared" Tyson talks about various high-level design concepts currently in the works for SWG's galactic civil war system, including player city invasions, space-based scenarios, and balance issues. There's also a sizable update for the Officer profession in the works, including a new melee special ability, increased viability for carbine users, increased troop strength, and the oft-requested ability to equip Mandalorian armor. Teesquared also mentions upcoming Galactic Senate nominations, tweaks to the game's bazaar, and the Ewok Festival of Love which kicks off on February 10th and runs for a month. This year's festival features new storyteller props, a new badge, and new rewards to tickle your fancy. Last but not least, new veteran rewards are on the way, the Tyson says they favor function over form this time around. "One will have something to do with profession respecs and the other will be resource related. And they will be tradable in case none of those ideas interests you," he writes.
Star Wars Galaxies begins the Witch trials
The Force witches have ruled Dathomir for over 600 years, and SOE has decided to place renewed focus on these unique characters in Star Wars Galaxies with its new update simply titled The Witches of Dathomir. Limited information has been given regarding what this update entails, but we were given hints in our email interview with producer Tony Tyson. This weekend, the prologue to the update was placed on SWG's test server. Further clues to what this feature holds were given to us in forum posts by developers. The quest starts when you visit Warlord Omogg, who is looking to hire people willing to explore the wilds of Dathomir. The prologue allows the player to align either with the Nightsisters or the Singing Mountain Clan, two major opposing factions of witches. Although the rest of the story has yet to be revealed, Mikkel "Hjal" Jensen, Lead Designer for SWG, assures us in a couple of forum posts, "You'll be able to switch sides so you'll be able to do both sides of the themepark," and "both the prologue and the theme park are going to have some rewards unique to each side [faction] and some rewards that are the same for both sides [factions]." Be sure to sign up for the SWG Test Center in your Station Launcher to get a sneak peek at this highly anticipated update.
Squaring off with SWG's producer, Teesquared
The fans of Star Wars Galaxies are stalwart. Despite all the trouble the game has gone through, it features one of the most active communities in the Sony Online Entertainment library of MMOs. The developers have noticed this and have continued to work diligently on new content for the loyal players. Recently, we took the opportunity to ask SWG's current Producer Tony "Teesquared" Tyson some questions about the present and future of the title. He answered all our inquiries about holiday events, future updates, the Galactic Civil War, and the Trading Card Game. Some exciting things are coming! Follow us after the break to find out what future holds in a galaxy far, far away...
SWG producer's note talks rare loot, GCW changes
Tony "Teesquared" Tyson, producer on Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies, has posted a producer's letter on the official SWG website that mentions a few noteworthy additions in store for the long-running sandbox title. He also takes a brief moment to tease some new content in the works, hinted at in the screenshot above. The letter talks about everything from Galactic Civil War and profession tweaks, to no-trade removal, to a new rare loot system. "The Rare Loot System will allow us to add some really cool loot to the game that players will have a chance to loot off of any mob they encounter. There are restrictions however. The restrictions are in place so that farming mobs or generally killing trash mobs (AOE FTW) won't give you a chance to get this new loot. You have to play the game and fight challenging mobs to earn a chance to find this loot," Tyson says. Visit the official website for all the details.
Star Wars Galaxies interview on player-created content
There's been no shortage of buzz about Star Wars: the Old Republic, but it's good to remember that there is another game in the same universe that's several years older... albeit set many thousands of years later in the timeline. Star Wars Galaxies is about to make the jump that several other recent games have tried and are allowing player-created content to enter the gameworld, opening the doors for would-be quest and dungeon designers to craft their own stories. MMORPG.com recently interviewed producer Tony Tyson regarding the upcoming "Chronicles" system, resulting in a groundswell of new information about the content and how it would be generated. The basic building block of these player-generated quests are known as "relics", which contain information relating to enemies, objectives, and so forth. Relics can be looted from kills, crafted, sold, and similarly passed around, with no "required" path to get them. Answering a question that everyone was thinking after the difficulties other games have had, the enemies in a player-built quest will give experience, but the experience generated for both the enemies and the quest will be entirely based upon the elements used and not in the hands of the creator in any way. There's a fair bit to digest in terms of what the implications will be for the future of the game, so take a look at the interview and see what's coming for Star Wars Galaxies when the system goes live.
