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FanFaire ’07: Star Wars Galaxies Activity and Panel Overviews

A Report from the Inside

By Chris “Spare” Higgins

Despite its scandalized background and shaky past, Star Wars Galaxies still played a prominent role at this year’s SOE FanFaire. As a avid player of Star Wars Galaxies (and many SOE games in general), I was invited to attend the Fan Faire and proceeded to fly down to Las Vegas, Nev. for the event. While at the show, Fan Faire attendees were treated to many different SWG activities ranging from dressing as a Stormtrooper for the costume contest to the various events put together by the SOE developers.  

A concept drawing of the Tusken King charging into battle.

One of the first events was hosted Jason “Pex” Ryan along with individuals from the 501st Legion. The event was broken down into physical challenges and puzzles. The physical challenges were things like marksmanship training with Stormtroopers or keeping a ballon in the air with lightsabers and even building a space ship out of Lego blocks. The puzzles were fun as well and you really had to know Star Wars and SWG to solve them. It was a fun event and many SWG people were there to compete.

After the live event, SOE was offering Q&A panels with the SWG team.  There were seven panels in total, and the first on the list was “Bringing Star Wars to Life”. This panel focused on the art of Star Wars and was hosted by Alexis Allen (SOE) and Jake Neri (LucasArts).  In this panel, SWG players were treated to concept art from the upcoming village revamp and some Tusken King artwork. SWG players were also shown a new instant travel vehicle that will be coming to the SWG play space, but no dates were given as to when the new ship might arrive. The new gardening system was also highlighted showing gardens and flowers that might make there way into the game. Once the presentation was complete the panel then answered questions from the attendees.

A new gardening system may end up making its way into SWG in the near future.

A comment was made stating that players needed more wearable outfits for their characters.  The panel explained that it’s not as simple as one thinks to add an outfit to the game.  In fact they argued that it can take upwards of 3 weeks for an outfit to be added to the game, simply because of the diversity of the shapes and sizes of the player characters.  The topic of player housing and furniture was also brought up and the panelists responding that there is more furniture on the way along with new houses for players.  Looking at the art work, I can’t help but get excited for this new content..  

We then moved on to the next panel called “What’s your Story?” hosted by Jason “Pex” Ryan and Mark “Tunso” Halash.  This discussion focused on the newly added Story Teller component and what players think and want added to the system. Judging by the thunderous applause after Pex asked players what they thought of Story Teller, it’s safe to say most individuals in attendance enjoyed the new Story Teller functions. Some of the concerns that were brought up were event crashers and what can be done about these players. The panelists explained they cannot do much as this can lead to a lot of griefing.  A system that allowed players to ban or push people away from an area will eventually be misused and exploited, so they are hesitant to add something like this and more concerned with keeping overall balance with the game. A concern was also raised that players have been using Story Teller effects in PvP areas. Some people seem to be using effects such as fog and other particle effects to increase chances of lag while in PvP. The panelists said they would be looking into this and maybe putting in a limitation that you have to be out of combat to use the Story Teller items. More Story Teller items were also asked for, and objects like trophies and plaques were suggested. Everyone thought this was a good idea and said they would look into it. Overall the feedback on this new system was positive and SWG players seem to be enjoying the Story Teller system.

Instant travel may be coming to Star Wars very soon, as shown by thie "instant travel ship".

The last panel I’ll discuss in this article was hosted by Thomas “Blixtev” Blair and Jesse “Loche” Benjamin. This question and answer session centered on Traders and Entertainers.  After a brief update from Blixtev with the changes made over the past 6 months, he opened the panel right up to questions. A few Entertainers asked about new dances and if there are plans to add more to the game. Blixtev explained that when the game was developed a whole bunch of dances were recorded using the motion capture for SWG. He was not sure how many players have access to right now but if there is more then expect to see more dances added. The topic of drifting (while dancing) was also brought up and it was explained that not much can be done about this because it would take rerecording the dances so they end in the same place they start.

A revamped village on Dathomir.

Traders were also discussed and most of the major questions were tackled.  Some players were concerned about Weaponsmith and looted items being better than crafted items and Blixtev said they are aware of the problem and are working on fixing this. The new RE system was a step in this direction and these issues are being worked on, so expect to see more in the upcoming chapters to fix this.  Decay was also brought up in this panel discussion.  Blixtev explained that there are no plans to bring back decay the way it was, however, the SWG devs are very concerned with increasing the amount of repeat business for traders.  So while decay will not come back, expect to the number of systems that use crafted consumables to increase.  In the upcoming chapters we will see more item schematics introduced for items that are already in the system but cannot be crafted at this time.

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