Recently Just G, aka Gary Gattis one of SWG's Developers, presented the outline of the next several publishes worth of changes. The future is looking quite good actually and also as the GCW correspondent I was personally pleased that they delayed the combat rebalance an additional publish to make certain they get it right, alot hinges on that particular publish as it basically affects every aspect of the game, from PvE to PvP. One last thing it is important to note, in this outline Just G presents, it shows the expected release outline of each publish, you must realize they are working and developing all of the aspects at the same time, so though the Jedi publishes come before the GCW publish I assure you the aspects for that GCW publish are under development as we speak right now. So with that clarification away, here is the State of the Game Letter: I would like to take a moment to talk about the current state of our game and our goals for the next few months until the Space Expansion arrives. The game and our development process have both undergone major transformations since Launch. We have been moving from the sprint of Development to the marathon of Live service. Last year we finished getting in several key systems after Launch (Player Cities, Player Mounts, and Player Vehicles). This year we have embarked upon a new series of themed publishes that will eventually take us into Space. We have been working on ways to get the community more and more involved in our development process, and it has been tremendously rewarding thus-far. There have been many occasions in the recent past when some proposed changes were met with a lot of passion from the community. And we listened. Some of the biggest changes were the 1% decay in PVP being removed. Perma-death for Jedi was taken out. Vendor bags were kept in. The crafting experiment changes were revoked. Colorization of droids and vehicles by non-master artisans. Raising the player city cap. Wookiee armor!!! (We will see the first set next week). We believe that the foundation of this game is better than any other out there (or any soon to come!) and we are committed to making this the best MMOG of all time! However, as this game has evolved, the need to iterate various systems has become more apparent (in other words, we think some things aren't that much fun either ;-) Our goal is to make the game more fun and rewarding. To do this, we've put together an aggressive plan to address these issues between now and the Space launch. Among the things we plan to improve: The Jedi Path. We don't like the "holo-grind" path any more than you do. We want becoming a Force-sensitive character to be fun, mysterious and engaging... everything it should be. We want the Jedi experience to be exciting, dangerous, and active. We don't want Jedi hiding away, but we don't want them dominating the game either. And we are aiming for a healthy balance. Finally, the GCW should and will be the veteran game for SWG. Runesabre (SWG Lead Live Designer) has a wonderful vision, and it will take a bit of time to implement, but there is a place for every type of player in his scenario. While we are improving a couple of the major systems, we want to continually fix smaller, annoying bugs. Another one of our important goals is to introduce new content into the game. We want to make sure that we enhance and fix the existing professions and we want to add fun new gameplay activities along the way. Our goal is to deliver a steady stream of bug-fixes, content, and features to the players very frequently until we ship the Space Expansion. Our basic development cycle plan will be to ship a large publish, followed by a mini-publish, followed by opening up a major adventure. Intermittent hotfixes will be sprinkled throughout as necessary. Each development cycle has items taken from a variety of sources: *Publish Theme (Main game systems that need revamping like Droids, Jedi, and GCW) *Other systems that need revamping to fully realize the game's vision and make it more fun (Professions, combat, crafting, etc.) *Large Content Adventure *Player Correspondent Issues (Bug fixes, features, game balance, etc.) *Customer Service Issues (Bug fixes, tools, features, etc.) These are issues that CS deals with frequently or tools that would make their job more effective. *Quality Assurance Issues (Bug fixes, features, etc.) These are bugs that QA sees on a regular basis or features that would enhance gameplay. We have been working on hitting regular dates with high quality. We are trying to communicate with the player base, and listen to and act on your input about the game. One of the reasons that development houses are so reluctant to share information with the community is that, by their very nature, things ALWAYS change. We are taking a huge risk here by pushing this information out to you. I need to make a very strong caveat that things may be removed, changed, and added to the schedule. Without further ado, the major features of our publish plan for the next few months include: _________________________ Mini Publish: Wookiee Armor Due to popular demand, we've created some armor for Wookiees only. Right now, the art for the first set is moving through the approval channels at LucasArts and Lucasfilm. We should see it on Test Center very soon. _________________________ Corellian Corvette Opens For those of you who haven't experienced it yet, the Corellian Corvette is our first "space-based" adventure. Basically, after earning a mission from one of several NPCs, you'll be transported to a Corellian Corvette, where you can battle stormtroopers, Rebels, or CorSec agents depending upon your affiliation. There is some very cool and unique loot here. One of the most unique things about the Corellian Corvette is that it is "Instanced". This means that your group, and your group alone, moves through it. No more camping or griefing! We plan to make many of our future adventures instanced. _________________________ Publish 8 (Droids Rebuilt) Utility Droids Droid Power Display Droid Customization Image Designer Enhancements Fix Hermit quests Increase the amount and frequency of MOB Spawns Fix PSG's with Random stats Revise Starport Routes/ Lower Shuttle times Lengthen the amount of time it takes for structures to decay New User: guided experience through starting professions Combat Profession Bug Fixes We have made a decision to address major combat issues only and not do the full combat balance at this time. After the Crafting Experimentation experience, we realized that we need to spend more time than a single publish to truly accomplish our goal, which is to make combat fun and engaging. To have the depth to combat that I think everyone wants in the system we want get much more player feedback and balance on these types of things. We will be developing the Combat Balance separately in a Sandbox over a long period of time, with plenty of Test Center and correspondent participation. We will release this one when it is ready... and not before. _________________________ Mini Publish: (Correspondent issues/ new content) _________________________ Death Watch Hideout Opens According to Shug, the Death Watch are an offshoot of the Mandalorians, the ancient group of mercenaries who were all but wiped out by the Jedi long ago. Fortunately, the Death Watch still survives, and this adventure will allow players the chance to battle these rogue Mandalorians and collect some very special loot! _________________________ Publish 9 Jedi Phase I In this phase, we'll be retooling the Jedi skill trees and the progression model in anticipation of changes to the path for becoming a Jedi. We'll be working with Player Correspondents here and will publish information to the In Concept page as soon as possible. Smuggler revamp CS Issues (Bug fixes/ tools) QA Issues (Bug fixes/ features) __________________________ Mini Publish (Correspondent issues/ new content TBD) ______________________________ "Social Adventure" Opens This will mostly be a non-combat adventure, targeting Entertainers, Dancers, Musicians, Image Designers and fast-talking Smugglers... perhaps set in the Hutt Casino. Loot will be new songs, dances, etc. ______________________________ Publish 10 Jedi Phase II Here, we completely redesign the path for becoming a Jedi. As mentioned before, the plan is to make the "path" much more story/quest-driven. More details coming soon. Squad Leader Revamp CS Issues (Bug fixes/ tools) QA Issues (Bug fixes/ features) __________________________ Mini Publish (Correspondent issues/ new content TBD) ______________________________ Star Destroyer Opens The second of our "space-based" adventures. This time, players will be able to explore the interior of a Star Destroyer! Details are still being worked out, but the interior is already pretty far along and looks great. ______________________________ Publish 11 GCW Revamp As mentioned above, this revamp is going to transform the GCW into the "elder game" for high-end players. Runesabre is working very hard to ensure that everyone - regardless of profession - has a role they can play in the GCW. Again, more details to come as the design takes shape. Merchant Vendors Revamp CS Issues (Bug fixes/ tools) QA Issues (Bug fixes/ features) __________________________ After this will be a lot of integration of the Ground game with Space, so the schedule gets a little fuzzy, but we'll continue to provide content, including new adventures like the Corellian Corvette, on a regular basis. We'll periodically update this schedule as the details develop. We have some really great ideas for our next few themed publishes: we'd like to explore the Star Wars underworld, add more Jedi-related content that even non-Jedi can enjoy, and continue to develop specific regions on each planet (such as the temples on Yavin 4 and the Ewok villages), among other things. As you can see, the publishes get less detailed as time goes on. We are constantly reevaluating the needs of the moment, and want to remain nimble enough to address any issues that pop up. In addition, we really want your feedback on how you feel about the direction. We'll be talking with your correspondents personally, and with you about all this and more, in the In Concept/ In Development/ In Testing/ In Live forums. Once again: This schedule can, and most likely will change. But this is how it looks right now, and we wanted to share it with you. We'll keep you informed as much as we can along the way. Thanks for playing the game thus far, and I am very much looking forward to seeing what it becomes with your help! Best, Gary Gattis Senior Producer, Sony Online Entertainment, SWG