At the recent Sony Online Entertainment Gamer Day held in New
York, Ten Ton Hammer got a chance to talk to the style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars Galaxies
team about upcoming changes to the game. If you’re an avid
SWG player like me, this year you can look forward to growth in the
development team while SOE adds more content in an effort to
reinvigorate SWG. Chapter Six is a step in this direction and adds more
content with two new game systems and additional quest-based PvE
content.  

Beast Master

Beast Master brings back the old Bio Engineer and Creature
Handler professions as a single class, bringing a new and original
class to the game. No longer a profession, this particular set of
abilities will be an expertise and will allow anyone to incubate a pet
in the privacy of their own home.

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style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">Players will soon be able to
raise their own personal pets inside their houses. Maybe the pets will
be as impressive as these two monstrous lizards.

The system itself is pretty straight forward. 
Players will acquire or craft an incubator, then gather DNA strands and
place them in the incubator. You will then create an egg in which your
pet will eventually emerge.

Throughout this whole process, the quality that you create
your egg and incubator will play a role in the finished
product.  During the incubation process mutations can occur
which can alter color or give the creature feathers or
spikes.  It is possible to have mutations occur in all three
steps of the process creating some impressive looking creatures.
 

I asked if this system would be too easy and was told that the
“crafting” process will be easy to learn but will
require effort to master.  Many of the mutations will require
the player to monitor the process and interact at certain times to get
the best results, therefore making the expertise active instead of
solely passive.

Storyteller

This is a unique game system in the sense it allows you - the
player - to create your own custom content and make your vision in the
Star Wars Universe a reality.  Players will begin by talking
to Storyteller vendors placed in theaters around the galaxy. 
These Storyteller vendors will allow players to purchase tokens which
can be from these categories: props, persisted special effects,
immediate special effects, flavor NPCs, and combat NPCs.  

After you build your encounter you can invite people to your
story and allow them to participate in your unique creation. 
With combat NPCs you control the combat level so this can be tailored
for high and low level characters. Most of the things included in the
Storyteller role are animations that are already in SWG, but now you
can control them on command to enhance a story and build atmosphere in
your encounter.

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style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">With the new Storyteller system,
players will be able to enhance their own and others gameplay
experience.

PvE Content

With Chapter 6, players will also see new quest chains
added.  Chapter 6 not only brings changes to the Rebel
Themepark but also adds a new quest series called The Azure
Cabal.  This quest series is aimed more at the high level
players and features enemies in the 85 to 90 range.  It is
based on the expanded Star Wars Universe and looks interesting for any
Star Wars
fan.

All of the above changes are on Test Center now and will be
moving in to game with Chapter 6 in a week or two.  I pressed
for information past Chapter 6 and did not receive any new information
other than the SWG development team is planning to work on fixing bugs
after Chapter 6.  Most SWG players also know about the
“Move It or Lose It” abandoned housing event coming
up in June, but make sure you get your stuff moved so you
don’t lose it.  While no official announcements have
been made for Chapter 7 expect there will be announcement made shortly
after Chapter 6.

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