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Teh Badger Blog [Q3] - Commentary on What's Hot in SWG

B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Welcome to teh Badger Blog for Q3, where much about SWG is mused upon.

Server Population Imbalance

Transfers to other servers using the Character Transfer Service are now down to $25 with items, although there seems to be a billing issue for non-US credit cards which mean players need to log a Customer Service ticket to get their character processed.

I'm not sure that too many more people will be using the CTS because of this, but it's a nice gesture and possibly long overdue as their other games such as EQ2 featured CTS at the lower price for some time.

They've done away with the budget "Without Items" option which always seemed a bit pointless and also made the account transfers the same $25 price. These were up around the $100 mark before which was extortionate.

Here's the current prices:

  • For moving characters with items on the same account from one Galaxy to a different Galaxy: Each Character $25.00 (plus any applicable taxes or fees)
  • For moving characters with items from one of your accounts to one of your other accounts but not changing to a different Galaxy: Each Character $25.00 (plus any applicable taxes or fees)
  • For moving characters with items from one of your accounts to one of your other accounts and changing to a different Galaxy: Each Character $25.00 (plus any applicable taxes or fees)

Looking at the population stats, the seven low population servers of Ahazi, Bloodfin, Eclipse, Gorath, Radiant, Shadowfire, and Sunrunner all look quite stable but we'll be able to see if there is any significant shift after the CTS price cut.

Overall thought this doesn't really do much to address the problem. Actual solutions such as cross server play, even just a cross server battleground instance were dismissed as too difficult to implement when raised at Fan Faire.

Rare Loot System

More information about this upcoming feature was released after Fan Faire in the August Producer Note.

The three types of Rare Loot will be "Normal", "Elite" and "Boss". Some examples of the drops available are below, these consist of new rewards and some rewards that were given out in old content and one-off events which gives players who missed out the first time around a chance to grab these goodies:

Normal – The Proton Chair - reward from Life Day 2008/2009.
Normal – Target Dummy - TCG card and reward for ESB 30th Anniversary
Elite – Xeno Couch - House Packup Reward
Elite – Office Desk - New?
Boss – Perfect Power Crystal - New
Boss - Aurillian statue part 1 - Pre-NGE Aurilian Village reward.
Boss– Rare Painting - Dusk In Kachiro?


Will the Rare Loot System give players a way to obtain items like this "Dusk In Kachiro" painting, which was the 1-year anniversary gift only for the now closed Japanese servers.

This system seems to feature some code that diminishes the chance of a drop if you are running your character unattended, or just farming the same spawn over and over again. This code has been in game for some time and the Devs have been monitoring it secretly to see where and when the drops would have occured and then tweaking the system accordingly.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out as it seems to be the first real concerted and intelligent effort to safeguard a system against botting.

Having implemented insanely iterative systems such as pet levelling, acknowleging that the systems really suck where players are forced to bot rather than lose their minds and then stating that "It would require too much time to change the system", the SWG development team have a lot of making up to do as far as encouraging attended gaming.

Particularly Thomas "Hanse" Edison, creator of both pet levelling and enzyme foraging which are two of the most heavily botted systems in the game.

Invasions Staggered

Seven months after Game Update 15 brought us Invasions the mad rush that always accompanies a new system has died down and the threat of server killing lag is gone. The building and crafting phases of the Invasions now play out one after the other with some overlap, as you are killing troopers in one city crafters are building offences and defences in another.

This means there is always some invasion activity to be found and no more two hour wait, which seems great to me. I think the Devs need to regularly add more rewards to these systems to keep people interested though.

GCW Leaderboards

A new leaderboard system based on the Regional Defender system is now live.

The GCW leaderboard period runs alongside the current GCW Rank Update Cycle. Characters contribute to the character GCW leaderboard by contributing to the GCW score and in doing so also contribute to their city and guilds score. The current status of the Leaderboard can be viewed using a War Terminal, War Intel Pad or War Table and the Player/Guild/City Winners for the week are notified by in game mail.

There are badges, collections, titles and access to chat channels as rewards for winning but the big draw seems to be instant travel to anywhere in the game via the "Guild/City Waypoint Registry" for anyone who is part of a guild or city in the "Most Recent Winners List"

This is currently in testing but will allow the first and second place guilds and cities two waypoints that they can designate as travel locations for their members and citizens to warp to at any time, except in combat and some other restrictions. 3rd to 5th place get 1 travel point, so this acts as a programmable and mobile Instant Travel Vehicle that is remotely available to all winning Leaderboard guild and city members.

Witches of Dathomir

More content is on the way in the form what looks to be a revamped Nightsister Themepark. We're likely to see the uber rare Nightsister Armband as part of the loot here, as well as all other Nightsister and Singing Mountain Clain wearables.


A Nightsister dancing serenely just before being torn apart by a throng of players intent on her loot.

GCW

Space Invasions are imminent, which is a very clever move given that The Old Republic have revealed that their spin on Star Wars in space involves little more than shooting fish in a barrel.

We've also got some Player City enhancements to look forward to in the way of placeable GCW props such as AT-ATs, Turrets and Shield Generators and factional spawns that the opposing faction can attack and destory, or get owned by as may well be the case.

Unique Spawns

Some of you may remember the Gorax of Endor, he randomly spawns across the northern desert are of the planet and has stomped on many a wandering adventurer. He used to have some useful loot many years ago but now people tend to leave him in peace unless they want the badge available for taking one down.


"Stompy, stompy"

Along these lines we will be seeing new "Unique Spawns" across all planets with associated loot, collections and badges. Some will be soloable, some won't. Hopefully this is something that you may come across in game and have to put the call out to your friends to come help you take it down.

Unique Spawns in space was a discussion point at Fan Faire and seems like an excellent future use of the system.

Misc

Also in the producers note was Chronicler and Storyteller getting some additions along with players being able to submit their tips that will appear on the loading screens in game... but... meh.
 
P

Penti

Guest
Liking the Rare spawn thing alot. I remember well our little Gorax hunting sessions for shards and stuff :)

Any clues as to a projected date? I havent been keeping up with the official forums lately so dont even know the state of TC
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Leaderboards just went live, the new team has a weird habit of pushing update worthy content as hotfixes so some major changes get lost in the patch notes. For example, the patch notes below are for Game Update 17.6, not a full game update!

Maybe the Dev Team are being very careful at what they market as a game update, or they are just trying to push content as fast as possible and missing an opportunity to bundle it all up into something more substantial.

I'd expect rare loot system will be Game Update 18, mate.

Star Wars Galaxies: Galactic Leaders - Game Update 17.6 - Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Highlights

  • GCW Leaderboard – Access the GCW Leaderboard from the War Terminal / War Intel Pad / War Table. It displays the top scores of the Galactic Civil War. Characters contribute to the character GCW Leaderboard by contributing to the GCW score as individuals or as members of a guild or citizens of a city.
  • Guild Waypoint Registry – Guilds with at least ten members now have access to a Guild Waypoint Registry. With this registry guild leaders can upload waypoints for the guild members to download.
  • City Waypoint Registry – The City Waypoint Registry is a new window that allows mayors of player cities to upload waypoints for the citizens of that city to download.
  • Star Wars Galaxies 7th Year Anniversary - The Year 5 gift is now available to claim!
  • Bonus Everything Weekend - Bonus Everything Weekend is returning this Labor Day holiday! Stock up on food and drinks, grab your favorite chair and get ready for double the action! During the Bonus Everything Weekend, everyone logged in will earn Double XP, Double GCW Points, Double Heroic Tokens, Double GCW Tokens from Battlefields and City Invasions, Double Pet XP and Loyalty, Double Chronicles XP, Double Chronicles Silver Tokens and an increased chance to earn Gold Chronicles Tokens! The bonus period starts on Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4am PDT and ends Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 4am PDT.


STAR WARS GALAXIES: GALACTIC LEADERS - GAME UPDATE 17.6

Star Wars Galaxies 7th Year Anniversary

The Year 5 gift is now available to claim!

GCW Leaderboard

  • Access the GCW Leaderboard from the War Terminal / War Intel Pad / War Table. It displays the top scores of the Galactic Civil War. Characters contribute to the character GCW Leaderboard by contributing to the GCW score as individuals or as members of a guild or citizens of a city.
  • The GCW leaderboard period is weekly and starts/ends every Thursday at 19:00:00 GMT / 11:00:00 PST / 12:00:00 PDT (same time as the GCW rank update). At the end of the period, the winners are determined, and the list (and everyone's GCW Leaderboard score) is reset to start a new period.
  • GCW leaderboard tracking will start Thursday September 2 2010 at 19:00:00 GMT / 12:00:00 PDT, and the first set of winners will be determined the following Thursday September 9 2010 at 19:00:00 GMT / 12:00:00 PDT.

Guild/City
  • Individuals need to be the same faction alignment as their city/guild to contribute to their guild/city GCW Leaderboard score.
  • In order to contribute to the score and receive credit for the guild/city GCW Leaderboard the character must have been in the guild/city for the period for which the guild/city won the GCW leaderboard. Characters that join a guild/city in between periods will not contribute to the guild/city GCW Leaderboard for her guild/city will start contributing to their guild/city GCW leaderboard at the start of the next GCW Leaderboard period.
  • The restriction for access to the ImperialWarRoom / RebelWarRoom chat room and the Imperial War Planner / Rebel War Planner title has been changed. Only same faction aligned GCW leaderboard winner for the past 2 weeks, or same faction aligned mayor or guild leader of a same faction aligned city or guild GCW leaderboard winner for the past 2 weeks are allowed to enter the ImperialWarRoom / RebelWarRoom chat room and have access to the Imperial War Planner / Rebel War Planner title.

Messaging

  • Whenever the character/guild/city position on the GCW leaderboard for the current period changes, a message is sent to the GCW channel for the character/all guild members/all citizens notifying of the position change for the character/guild/city.
  • In-game mail is sent to the characters/guild leaders/mayors of the winners when a GCW leaderboard period ends, and the winners for the character/guild/city leaderboards are determined.

Titles, Badges and Collections

  • Title for making the current (i.e. most recent) GCW leaderboard winners list: Reigning Alliance Hero / Reigning Imperial Champion.
  • Title for having won (at any time) 1st place in the GCW leaderboard winners list: Elite Alliance Hero / Elite Imperial Champion
  • Title for making the GCW leaderboard winners list 1 time, 5 times, 10 times, 15 times...: Decorated Alliance Hero - x Time(s) / Decorated Imperial Champion - x Time(s)
  • The Imperial GCW Leaderboard - Current Winner / Rebel GCW Leaderboard - Current Winner title is available to the current character GCW leaderboard winners. The title will be removed if the character doesn't make the next character GCW leaderboard winners list.
  • The GCW Leaderboard section in the Achievement tab of the Collections window displays the count of how many times the character has made the GCW leaderboard winners list and how many times the character was a guild member/citizen of a guild/city that won the GCW leaderboard.
  • The GCW Leaderboard section in the Badges tab of the Collections window displays badges the character has earned from the GCW leaderboard. It also displays the badges the character has earned for being a guild member/citizen of a guild/city that won the GCW leaderboard. Badges (and associated titles) are granted for winning 1st place, and for making the GCW leaderboard winners list 1 time, 5 times, 10 times, 15 times... as an individual and as a guild member/citizen of a guild/city.
Guild/City Travel Point Perk

  • The guilds and cities in the most recent winners list will be given access to guild/city travel points. 1st and 2nd place winners will get 2 guild/city travel points. 3rd, 4th, and 5th place winners will get 1 guild/city travel point.
  • The guild/city travel point privilege is revoked if the guild/city does not make the next winners list. To reiterate, the guild/city travel point privilege is only available to the guilds and cities in the most recent winners list.
  • Using the guild/city waypoint registry, the guild leader/mayor can designate the guild/city travel point(s).
  • There is a 1 minute cooldown after deactivating a guild/city travel point before activating another guild/city travel point.
  • Using the guild/city waypoint registry, guild members/citizens can travel (at no cost) to the starport/shuttleport/camp with shuttle beacon nearest to the guild/city travel point.
  • Only the following locations can be designated as guild/city travel point: Corellia, Dantooine, Dathomir, Endor, Kashyyyk - Etyyy, Kashyyyk - Kachirho, Kashyyyk - Khowir, Lok, Mustafar, Naboo, Rori, Talus, Tatooine, Yavin 4.
  • You must be at the following locations to use a guild/city travel point: Corellia, Dantooine, Dathomir, Endor, Kashyyyk - Etyyy, Kashyyyk - Kachirho, Kashyyyk - Khowir, Lok, Mustafar, Naboo, Rori, Talus, Tatooine, Yavin 4.
  • You cannot use a guild/city travel point if you are in combat, incapacitated/dead, riding on a pet, or in a vehicle.
Guild Waypoint Registry

  • The guild leader can upload waypoint to the guild waypoint registry from the waypoint's radial menu.
  • Guild members can download waypoint from the guild waypoint registry into the datapad.
  • Launch the guild waypoint registry window using the "Guild Waypoints..." button in the waypoint window, or with /guildWaypoints.
  • The guild waypoint registry can hold 25 waypoints.
  • The guild must have 10 members before the guild waypoint registry is available.
City Waypoint Registry

  • The mayor can upload waypoint to the city waypoint registry from the waypoint's radial menu.
  • Citizens can download waypoint from the city waypoint registry into the datapad.
  • Launch the city waypoint registry window using the "City Waypoints..." button in the waypoint window, or with /cityWaypoints.
  • The city waypoint registry can hold 25 waypoints.

GCW

  • Ground PvP kills only contribute to the GCW score if the killer is "factional presence eligible".

Hoth

  • Players achieving a flawless victory during a bonus weekend should now correctly receive the Badge and painting.

Beast Master

  • The amount of loyalty needed to reach BFF has been reduced by approximately 50%.
  • Beast Dietary Supplements now also affect the pet's loyalty gain by roughly the same amount as the supplements effect on experience gain.
  • When receiving a COMPNOR experience bonus from a destroy mission, your pet will now also receive 50% of the experience needed for the pets current level.
  • Active players will see an increasing bonus to the beast XP earned pr. kill, as their pet's level increases.
Restuss

  • All Restuss weapons can now be deconstructed.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Ok, so the leaderboard system is based soley on the amount of GCW you've made that week.

Third place on chim is an AFK ent BF healing bot in bestine with about 115k GCW.

I remember Penti often wishing that weekly GCW wasn't wasted due to diminishing returns, so I guess here's another reason to go for it.
 
P

Penti

Guest
Thats frickin crazy !!!! Mind you I managed about 40k on Friday night, plying with Osoo, then some issues reared their ugly heads again so I had to log at that point. Should be on again tonite though and try and get some more kills/gcw
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Thats frickin crazy !!!! Mind you I managed about 40k on Friday night, plying with Osoo, then some issues reared their ugly heads again so I had to log at that point. Should be on again tonite though and try and get some more kills/gcw
Apparently its not just GCW points that are counted towards the leaderboard, but any Factional Presence you add to region/planets too. I guess if you are moving around gaining GCW in different locations then you stand a better chance of getting ranked.

Still makes it hard to beat an AFK entertainer in Bestine, they should slap some diminishing returns on that quest and have it not could towards the leaderboard after a certain point.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
New producers note was posted last Friday:

Basically reveals plans to add a fishing leaderboard system... and that's about it...

Players can now submit their suggestion for tips on the loading screens in this thread.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Matt_NZ wrote:

So, I've passed on the concerns with the Entertainer invasion quest and it has been heard Changes are coming to the quest (and likely the other GCW Invasion quests) that should bring things into balance for the sake of the Leaderboards. No details yet on what those changes will be.
GCW senator reporting news of impending nerf to Entertainer BF healing quest that rakes in crazy amounts of GCW.

In other news, Free Realms Facebook game launches today, this adds to the existing Agency Covert Ops facebook game, for an MMO that isn't even released yet.

What about SWG? Should this get a facebook game? What should it be like and how would it tie into the real game, would you play it?
 

RainStar

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I just wish they'd do something about baseclubbing. People making the leaderboards by doing that are just cheaters imho.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
I just wish they'd do something about baseclubbing. People making the leaderboards by doing that are just cheaters imho.
Does this really still go on, and on the higher populated servers? I'd love to hear more about where, when and why you are seeing baseclubbing.
 

RainStar

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yup, it's still going on.

If you check the leaderboards for Starsider you can easily find who was baseclubbing.

We stumbled across a bunch of these people one night when we went to take out some bases near our town. They cause considerable lag and we have to leave the area just to be able to craft.

When we arrived we saw a couple guilds there and after we started the destruct sequence we were told to wait until others could log their alts in to get the GCW.

Huh? We weren't there to get GCW we were there to get the faction bases out of our area. We asked them nicely to keep the clubbing out of our neighborhood due to lag issues.

What did they do? They dropped an additional base in the area.

Whenever we see 3 bases near to each other we go check them out.

I see it's not just one faction guilty of this and it's so lame to get GCW this way.

These same asshats are all over the boards crying about the lag.

Well, it might help if those guilds would quit adding to the lag problem.

Those who work for the GCW are the leaders, not the ones who base club.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Mate have you got a screenie of the baseclubbing? I'm hoping that as the Devs are looking at fixing the Ent BF quest that we can get something done with baseclubbing, the bases really dont need to award any GCW on destruction.

A pic may help to stir up some interest.
 

RainStar

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'll get a ss soon.

These people have tremendous amounts of GCW, you can't get the amount they have without baseclubbing.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Got my vote and I'll tell my guild to vote for ya.
Thanks!

Nice to see the fix for entertainers getting too much GCW from the BF heal quest. Not sure that I would be doing much fishing personally, but glad to see some non-combat content for those that like that sort of thing.
 
B

BadgerSmaker

Guest
Nice to see the fix for entertainers getting too much GCW from the BF heal quest. Not sure that I would be doing much fishing personally, but glad to see some non-combat content for those that like that sort of thing.
Well it turns out that the "fix" to crazy Entertainer GCW gain in invasions didn't really work out, so after a week of immersing myself in the system I put together a section on the remaining issues in the following thread:

Game Play Focus: Player versus Player Combat
 
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