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Zombies may be fun in games, but I don't think I'm the only person that
can't remember ever reading anything about them in any Star Wars media.
I can't imagine George Lucas would ever sign off on anything like that
either. Fortunately for all parties involved, the poster we received
was just a fun piece of artwork and nothing more.
The Big New Thing (as the SWG team is calling it) is a new profession
called the Chronicle Master that will be able to generate new quests
for players to try out and enjoy. Not only will they be able to create
the quests, but they'll also be able to burn them to Chronicle
Holocrons to be sold or traded to other players. The team at FanFaire
2009 gave the panel attendees a demo of the system in action, so let's
get right to the good stuff.
To create longer and more interesting quests, Chronicle Masters must
gather Chronicle Relics. Relics can be acquired by looting them off of
mobs and purchasing (or trading for) them. At this time, they haven't
decided on things like frequency of the drop rate, or what mobs
(perhaps all) will have the potential to drop them.
During the demo, the team showed how a quest gets created from
beginning to end. The order of operations didn't appear to have to be
done in specific order, but they started off by choosing to create the
text for the quest. Rather than just a simple ambiguous person giving
the player a quest, you can choose to use an iconic figure from Star
Wars lore (such as Hans Solo) by way of receiving a communication from
them. In the future, the team hopes to implement other ways players
will be able to interact with their favorite characters.
So as an example, let's say you create a quest for your friend, Spiffy.
You can create a quest to have Han Solo send Spiffy on a mission to
kill 16 Nerf Herders on Naboo. Killing them isn't going to be enough
though. The evil Nerf Herders have been stealing all the Crabby Hooyahs
on Naboo and you want them for yourself.
When you create the quest, you'll be able to create the text, choose
the tasks from a menu, set the location, select the mob desired, create
the name of an item, and even select the drop rate for that imaginary
item on the mob. All quests created by players are meant to be
indistinguishable from those created by the development team in terms
of how they look and feel. When a quest is received, it will show up in
your quest journal just like a normal quest. Due to the coordinate
system used with the creation of the quest, Chronicle Master created
quests will also work with the quest helper system in the game.
The system is still under construction. In fact, the demo we saw had
not even gone through QA yet. On the surface, there is a staggering
potential for abuse with the basics of this system, but the team will
continue working to on ways to inhibit any destructive aspects of the
system while leaving the players free to create the quests they've
always wanted.
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