Tony "Teesquared" Tyson has published his producer's note for December, and this one provides some information on the Galactic Civil War update and looks ahead at what we'll be seeing next in Star Wars Galaxies. Update 15 should be hitting the public test server soon and will introduce a city invastion system to the game that will be on a schedule and occur multiple times per day.

In addition, Wookie Life Day is coming very soon, and you can expect the team to host an in-game event next year in honor of the 30th anniversary of "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back." You can read Teesquared's letter after the jump.

Update 15 – Galactic Civil War

We have been play testing daily and things are shaping up.  The GCW update will be on public test soon.  We’re looking forward to getting you involved and hearing your feedback.  Here is a detailed overview of the update as it stands now.  The GCW design is in flux and will be influenced by your feedback, once we go to TC/TCP.

The conflict takes place on all planets.  When you earn GCW points, they contribute to the score for the region you are in and the planet you are on.  To view GCW activity and status, we have added a new GCW option to your planetary map, which displays GCW regions on a planet.  A new GCW option has been added to the game menu that displays a comprehensive GCW status window for all planets and galaxies.

When a faction is winning, their GCW score influences systems in the game.  One system influenced by the score is the regional spawner.  The regional spawner is the system that populates different areas on the planets with creatures and NPC’s.  Spawning has been changed to include factional forces driven by the status of the GCW score. This means that if a planet is controlled by a faction, not only will the GCW interface show it, but you'll see it on the planet all around you.

Another system added to the upcoming publish is a city invasion system.  We have built a framework that can be used to populate a city with GCW aware structures, spawners, events, and quests.  The new framework will allow us to quickly add an invasion to more cities in the future.  In the GCW update, we have built out three cities for the invasion system which are: Dearic on Talus, Bestine on Tatooine, and Keren on Naboo.

The city invasions are on a schedule and occur multiple times per day. The faction that has the most GCW points in the region around the city will determine who the defender of the city is.  For example, if the Rebels have a dominant score for the region around Bestine, they will occupy the city during the invasion and be defending against an attack from the Imperials. If the score is tied, the system will select the defenders of the city using other data.

The invasion is broken into two phases:

Phase 1: Construction

The construction phase is the strategy/planning phase. Key activities during this phase are determined by quest participation.

Construction Categories:

• Patrol Points – These are scattered throughout the city.  Building these up will enable them to spawn AI and increase the difficulty of the spawned AI during an invasion.  The types of AI include NPC’s, vehicles, and boss vehicles.
• Barricades – These are defensive structures that protect units near them of the same faction.  Building these up will improve how effective the protection is.
• Turrets – These are AI controlled, armed, and an immobile unit that will attack incoming invaders.  Building these up will increase their health and damage to high levels.
• Towers – These grant intelligence to NPC’s to make them tougher versus other NPC’s.

 

Construction Quests:

There are various quests that influence the construction phase.  These include quests for constructing any object on the battlefield.  A large amount of quests are available to be completed for either side and reward everyone constructing with GCW points and tokens.

Phase 2: The Invasion

The goal of the invasion is to defeat the defender’s general.  When an invasion starts, based on what was accomplished during the construction phase, the game will spawn AI and start the onslaught.  A large portion of the battle is decided by NPC’s, which was determined by player strategy in the construction phase.

Combat:

All combat professions may participate in PvP or PvE combat.  If you are Special Forces, you are at the most risk, and therefore your rewards are almost double a non-Special Forces player.

Invasion Quests:

There are various quests that influence the invasion.  These include quests for repairing objects on the battlefield, medic heal quests for incapacitated soldiers, spy demolition quests, entertainer patrol quests, and more.

Phase activity breakdown per profession:

Trader:

• Construction:
  • Traders craft the tools needed for construction quests.  The resources required to build construction tools are provided by supply terminals in the war zone.
  • Traders are the most efficient builders of structures.  Anyone with the specific structure tool may participate in construction, however.
  • Each trader type has a construction category specialization for experimentation on the tools they craft.
• Invasion:
  • Repair quests

Medic:

• Construction:
  • Standard structure construction
• Invasion:
  • May revive fallen soldiers
  • Combat support*

Entertainer:

• Construction:
  • Standard structure construction
  • Heal fatigue caused by building structures.
• Invasion:
  • Combat support*
  • Entertain their patrol points to provide a bonus.

Spy:

• Construction:
  • Standard structure construction
• Invasion:
  • Combat support*
  • Patrol point sabotage

Smuggler:

• Construction:
  • Standard structure construction
  • Construction terminal slicing
• Invasion:
  • Combat support*

Bounty Hunter, Commando, Jedi, and Officer:

• Construction:
  • Standard structure construction
• Invasion:
  • Combat support*

* Invasion quests are available to all professions.

The new GCW interfaces, the regional spawner changes, and the new city invasion system are the main features in this update. They provide a framework that brings the Galactic Civil War into focus in Star Wars Galaxies.

Wookiee Life Day 2009

Wookiee Life Day is coming very soon.

What’s next?

So what will happen in SWG next year?  There will be more Chronicles and more GCW.  For Chronicles we are planning to add a perform relic and spawn relic.  We will also be doing another large update to Chronicles to add some of the features that didn't make the initial release.  The next GCW update will continue to enhance the current GCW features plus add more space and more rewards.

Next year is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars™ Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back™, and you can count on us doing an update in SWG for this event.

We are also planning to address many issues including profession specific issues and other game improvements.

A fun trip

Some of the team visited Lucas Arts. We had a great time.