SOE Fan Faire - Star Wars Galaxies Chronicles Panel  

The following are notes from the "Star Wars Galaxies – The Next Big System" panel held at Fan Faire on Friday, June 26th.

Chronicle System Overview

After the release of Hoth: The Battle of Echo Base, the Star Wars Galaxies team began thinking about new ideas to keep players engaged. The team arrived at Star Wars Galaxies Chronicles, a player generated content system. In this new system, SWG players will be able to take on a new profession to create Solo, Group and PvP quests to share with other players.

• Players will be able to take on new "Chronicle Master" profession.

• Chronicle masters will create quests that can be burned to chronicle Holocrons and sold to other players.

• To begin building quests the chronicle masters will need to obtain chronicle relics.

• Chronicle relics are in-game items that have quest task associated with them.

• Chronicle relics can be looted, traded, etc.

• Once the necessary chronicle relics have been obtained, the chronicle master may begin building his/her quest.

A crafted quest will automatically produce rewards and XP based on:

• How difficult the quest is...

• The variety of tasks within the quest...

• The length of the quest...

• The chronicle master may choose to also attach a specific reward of his/her choosing to sweeten the deal.

• The goal was to make playing a chronicle quest virtually indistinguishable from a developer created quest.

• Chronicle Quests are not like missions.

• Chronicle quests will be visible in your player journal and quest helper.

• At the end of every chronicle quest the player may rate their experience.

Iconic Characters

Players will be able to utilize iconic characters like Darth Vader, Han Solo, Baba Fett, Jabba the Hutt and many other iconic characters as part of the quests that they create.

These iconic characters will be featured via quest dialog only.

Fan Faire Attendee Q&A

• Question: Will you be able to make a template if you want to reproduce a quest?

• SOE Answer: Yes the system isn't finished but you'll be able to mass produce the holocrons.

• Question: Will you be able to create quests with iconic characters in where they fight beside you?

• SOE Answer: For now, the iconic characters are limited to just commentary.

• Question: How are you going to be dealing with exploits?

• SOE Answer: That's an ongoing concern and we're going to be balancing it as much as possible so that it's still fun.

• Question: Are players going to be able to create their own NPC's as the quest giver?

• SOE Answer: Maybe in version 2.0 but not for the initial launched version.

• Question: Can we use this system in NPC cities that aren't being utilized or other POIs?

• SOE Answer: Absolutely!

• Question: Will players be able to set a maximum duration or time limit on quests that are created?

• SOE Answer: At one point we talked about putting a timer in, it probably won't be in the initial version, but it's definitely something that we've talked about.

• Question: Are there any plans to cross integrate this system with story telling?

• SOE Answer: We would like to see them work well together. In reality it will probably come down to limitations but I think that's part of the natural progression of where we go with this system.

• Question: Can the system be used for space content?

• SOE Answer: No. Not at launch. There are a lot of things that won't be available in the initial version that we'll be working hard to get in eventually.

• Question: Is this system going to be designed so that group quests can be created?

• SOE Answer: Yes. Additionally, we'll have it open to PvP as well.

• Question: How long can a quest be and can we create prerequisite for player created quests?

• SOE Answer: We're going to try to leave that in your hands as much as possible. For example, you can setup the reward for quest Y to be the next Holocron quest. You'll be able to set prerequisites up that way. There will be a limit to the number of tasks per quests because we don't want to overload the servers. But you can extend quests by having a chain of Holocron quests.

• Question: Will there be any safeguards to protect players against mature content and illiteracy?

• SOE Answer: We will be using our profanity filter to minimize vulgarity and inappropriate content as much as possible. That's a major concern though so our customer service department will likely be getting involved. We don't want to stifle the system too much because of that though.

• Question: Since you're introducing this as a new profession it's probably going to limitations because it won't be available to everyone like the storytelling is.

• SOE Answer: It's going to be available to everyone the profession will just be a way to see your progress and garner different rewards. The Chronicle Master profession is more like a politician in that respect, it's not really a profession that is limited by expertise.

• Question: When is this going to test?

• SOE Answer: When it's ready!

• Question: The Darth Vader voice over that you just showed us was cool but how is that generated and will players be able to generate the same thing with the different iconic characters?

• SOE Answer: I don't have a real answer to that at this time.

• Question: Will there be a method for searching for these on the bazaar?

• SOE Answer: Yes. We're going to remake the bazaar to allow it for more robust searching.

ZAM Initial Thoughts

SWG fans in attendance made it clear how happy they were about this new feature. Many began asking their questions by saying "First of all, thank you!" Star Wars Chronicle is definitely exciting but we expect there will be a lengthy development process that won't be anywhere near complete when the first version hits live servers. We'd love to hear what you think in our forums!

Star Wars Galaxies Wikibase™