Avian Gamers Network

Good evening and welcome to another Stratics House of Commons chat. Tonight our guests are the developers of Starwars Galaxies! The topics tonight will be improved community relations, new loot, and high level combat balance, so please make sure your questions pertain to that.

Please send said questions to [QT]Ishu or [QT]Phineus. Questions sent to myself or the developers will not make it into the lineup, so don't bother. Full logs of the chat will be up on www.stratics.com shortly after the chat.

So, without further ado, we'll start with a brief introduction from the developers and an introduction of our first topic of the evening. Now would be a good time to send in those questions!

Hey everyone, its me Thunderheart! Community Relations Manager - - I’m glad everyone could make it out tonight~!

LEC-Ronda: Hi all... I'm Ronda from LucasArts - Public Relations Chick. Good to see you here tonight!

madtoad: Hello, I'm a designer, working on Looting, so if you have any looting questions I'll hopefully be able to answer them

Keldarin: Hey guys. Keldarin here, glad to be here to answer any questions you have!

Calandryll_SOE: Hi all! I'm Calandryll, Community Relations Director - looking forward to answering your questions!

TH: So we're going to start off our first part of the chat with the changes with Community Relations...

TH: There are more of us here to help you and we are working hard. You may have noticed some of the recent changes such as the addition of SOECalandryll as community Director and also the restructuring of the forums...

TH: Fire away with your Community questions!

LEC-Ronda: If you have any questions about Community Relations, we're happy to take them

TH: So I take it everything is good with you folks, so lets move on to LOOT!

*thornos* when can imperial players look for rebel loot to get introduced into the game

madtoad: Currently what I'm working on is getting fixes to some problems with group looting systems, and shortly after that we'll be on to adding more loot to the game in general

madtoad: This is one of the first things on my list to look into since there's been a bit of a buzz about it in the community

madtoad: So, look for it soon.

madtoad:

*Nexidius* Loot Question: will the loot any shape or form in the future be selable to vendors that will buy it for a few hundred or thousands credits in-game? Instead of having to do mission all the time from Vendors or selling to other players etc?

madtoad: This is definitely something that's on the list of things I have for loot. There definitely needs to be some new ways to make money in the game besides missions and I think loot is absolutely the right place to do it

madtoad: It hasn't been fully fleshed out yet what will happen, but it's going to happen in one way or another.

*WildKarrd* What will be SWG's presence at Celebration III?

LEC-Ronda: Let's not confuse this with a loot question

LEC-Ronda: But we WILL definitely be at Celebration

LEC-Ronda: Celebration III in Indianapolis with Star Wars Galaxies

LEC-Ronda: We're planning our booth now and activities around the show. More information will be coming soon

LEC-Ronda: in the Fan Fest Forum

LEC-Ronda: so stay tuned.

*Night* Q: Hunting high level NPC's or mobs gets very boring very quickly without decent loot... what will be done to improve this?

madtoad: This is a difficult area because we're inclined not to do things that hurt the crafting professions, like giving high level mobs uber weapons or armor. Decent loot is a vague thing to define because decent loot to some players is not decent loot to others. The problem for the longest time has been there hasn't been any loot at all.

madtoad: That's definitely changing now. As more and more things are added to the game that can be used as loot drops we get more and more ideas for new things to do, and new approaches to what constitutes loot. For now I want to make sure that loot comes more often than it used to (WAY more often hopefully) then start fleshing out what the higher level mobs will drop that make them worth fighting.

*Tariel* This is to the loot dev - Will we see a system where everybody in a group gets a certain level loot depending on how much dmg they cause the opponent, like a level 1-10 loot for each person depending on the dmg?

madtoad: Right now the group looting doesn't look at how much damage an individual did like some other systems do. It's certainly something that should be looked into. At the moment we don't have a real group looting system at all, no method for a group to say choose a Master Looter, or to set up a lottery system to let players decide which items they want or don't want

madtoad: At the moment that's what's happening with group looting. The idea you present is worth investigation, but it will be after the system has some of the more base functionality beefed up.

*Aefa* A long time ago there was an in-depth article on server economy describing the money flows and drains. With the recent changes to mission-payouts will we see a change in money-sinks or will the decreased incomes due to this change be accounted for somehow, for example through a loot-oriented income system?

TH: So there are a lot of things to consider when we think about that original write up. There have been many, many changes to the economy since that original paper was written that it isn't really an accurate measure of today's SWG economy.

TH: JTL changed the economy dramatically in fact.

TH: But to get to the core of your question, we *did* consider all the effects the loot changes would have on the economy and it is driving some of our core decisions...like....

TH: Loot should represent an appropriate fawcet and our measures for how much cash is part of that loot are money-in/money-out ratio for sure.

TH: This is just one example of how we will need to look at fawcets and drains with fresh eyes going forward and think about the health of the game as it is instead of comparing to old economic charts...

*TheBlur* More of a comment then a question. I really like the changes thus far that you've made. It makes us feel as if there is a strong push towards customer satisfaction. Thanks

TH: I’m glad to hear you say that - - one of our main goals with the new community structure was to address community and CS and make things work better for everyone.

TH: We hope to keep improving things and will work hard to do that

Please remember to send in your questions to [QT]ishu and [QT]Phineus and NOT myself or the developers, as those questions will not make it into the lineup.

*Epowo* Is the loot revamp going to cover space too? Or is it a ground only revamp

madtoad: The work that's being done on looting right now is just for the ground game. At some point there will be a push to cover both space and ground, but for right now the ground game needed more love

*FL1nT* Q? About loot: A problem I see is, being possible not as strong as other players will sometimes make you loose loot even though you showed up first to kill something. Do you plan to fix it so that who ever attacks firsts gets looting rights? Other than the person/group that does the most damage?

madtoad: So, I see what you're saying, but there's an inherent problem in giving looting rights to the first person who attacks a creature as well. It allows one person to attack a large number of creatures, then wait for someone else to come along, kill all those creatures, and then that person can loot everything.

madtoad: So there's definitely some issues from both sides. For now I think it will probably just stay as it is.

TH: I know what everyone wants to talk about...

TH: Ready for Combat Upgrade?

TH: Ok, so here is the thing. We are still in the early stages so let’s focus on conceptual questions. High level goals and that sort of thing.

TH: Fire away folks!

*neinnunb* My question to the devs is: As it is now, preparing for battle especially in PvP takes too long (applying buffs in particular). This makes it very difficult to join a battle on the spur of the moment. Will this be addressed in the Combat Upgrade? Thank you.

Keldarin: We're definitely looking hard into the time it takes to get up to fighting speed. We want to make sure that you can get everything vital for combat but there will always be certain advantages for greater combat preparations. This should not be a make it or brake it deal... particularly in PvP.

*Quantix* Alright, Combat Revamp! The question I am going to ask to make sure is the reconversion question. Along what lines are things going to be converted? Like for instance, just combat skills? Things such as crafting, Investigation line of BH, and Smuggler slicing should not be allowed to be gained during the conversion. Also Jedi were promised a reconversion and told later no. A lot of the old timers like me are frustrated

Keldarin: Character respec with Combat Upgrade will only be for skills that are significantly impacted by the CU. You will be able to respec combat skill and not crafting or other non-combat skills.

Keldarin: Jedi skills are tough and it will depend on how significantly the skills are actually changes. Minor balance shifts will not need a respec but significant changes to power organization will.

*BountyGreg* Combat Revamp Question: I read the stats for species will change, does it mean trandos will finally be able to wear complete armor?

Keldarin: Trandoshans cannot physically wear boots due to the size of their feet and that won't be changing. We do recognize the game-play impact of this however and will be removing feet and hand as valid hit locations in combat. Armor will not longer be needed in those areas to be fully effective.

*Remisk* Hello and thank you for making such a great game. I would like to ask if you have any plans on implementing Dual Wielding pistols, and if so, how likely would you say it is to be achieved?... Thanks.

TH: Not right now and definitely not part of the Combat Upgrade, but something we do want to do someday

*Dissonance* Combat Upgrade Question: What kind of changes will be made, if any, to the entertainer professions, or will those be waiting till after CU?

Keldarin: We will not be changing Entertainers as part of the Combat Upgrade. Entertainers will be getting updates afterwards with the non-combat profession revamp.

TH: The good news is that the first change coming up real soon is that musicians and dancers will be able to buff in parallel now!

TH: No more waiting to put on two buffs!

TH: And then the other exciting news we have is that we are increasing entertainer mission pay-outs - - all of those changes will come before the Combat Upgrade.

*Sha_Ja[Scylla]* Combat upgrade Question: How will dots and combat medics be affected in the revamp

Keldarin: The power and medical DoTs is being evaluated for the CU. We need those DoTs to be fair and balanced while still being usefull.

Keldarin: We are also making changes to the Combat Medic profession in general to strengthen their role as a medical combatant on the battlefield.

*Kadel* as a pistoleer, my profession is significantly worse than other professions damage wise. Will this be addressed in combat upgrade?

Keldarin: We have completely re-evaluated the balance of all combat professions. Every one will be seeing shifts to make them more balanced. Pistoleers are not intended to fill a strong damage role per se in battle but they will have other abilities to make them vital and useful.

Keldarin: We have also balanced all of the profession skills so that they stack in a much better way. Adding skills from other professions to your template will be more meaningful after the CU

Keldarin: So if you find as a Pistoleer that you want to become a more powerful damage-dealer then you could add Rifle or Commando skills to help boost your damage output... and not just for the weapons you can use but to boost you damage with all ranged weapons you have access to.

*MRCommando* Combat Upgrade Question - The new armor, how is it being made that low-level armor is useful again?

Keldarin: So we've completely reworked the armor system from the ground up. No longer are specific suits of armor going to have set protection ratings.

Keldarin: When a suit of armor is crafted the armor crafter will have a much greater control on what the suit looks like while keeping the stats the same.

Keldarin: This means that you will be able to have low-level as well as high-level powerful armor with any appearance.

Well, that’s all the questions we have for this evening! I'd like to thank everyone for coming out to our House of Commons chat, and special thanks to the devs for answering the questions! Be sure to stick around for some "bone crushing trivia" and a chance to win some phat loot!

TH: And don’t forget, we are going to have an In Dev post on the armor system in the next couple of days - - stay tuned!