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.
alt="The Tusken King Charges into Battle on His Bantha"
title="The Tusken King Charges into Battle on His Bantha"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="113" width="150">
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.
alt="Concept Art from the Upcoming Gardening System"
title="Concept Art from the Upcoming Gardening System"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="113" width="150">
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.
alt="The new instant travel vehicle that is making its way into SWG"
title="The new instant travel vehicle that is making its way into SWG"
name="photo_j" border="0" height="113" width="150">
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.
alt="Revamped Village on Dathomir"
title="Revamped Village on Dathomir" name="photo_j"
border="0" height="113" width="150">
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.
Ten Ton Hammer is your
unofficial source for Star Wars
Galaxies news
and features!
Make sure you check out the
rest of our FanFaire
’07
coverage!
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Star Wars Galaxies Game Page.
