Star Wars Galaxies Fanfest Addresses Wookie Mohawk Quandary

Thanks to IGN Vault for its multi-part report on the Star Wars Galaxies Fan Fest, held in Anaheim, California, on the 4th and 5th of June. There's also a summary of a developer's panel, in which the important question "When will Wookiees get Mohawks?" is addressed - apparently: "While the response was not overwhelming, more than a few attendees thought it would be a good idea." Regarding new in-game locations for Lucasart/SOE's MMO title, it's noted that the devs "all want [Coruscant to be added as a location to the game] very much. It's on the list, just as is Hoth and Bespin." There's also a Fan Fest photo gallery up on SWG Warcry, and there's currently a free 14-day trial of the game via FilePlanet.

Comments

oh boy

[NanoGator]

"There's also a summary of a developer's panel, in which the important question "When will Wookiees get Mohawks?" is addressed "

Important... question... ? Now I feel A LOT better about participating in that Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate last week.

Re:oh boy

[aztektum]

As someone who played at launch and went back recently to see how it had changed, I have to say, Wookiee mohawks should be on the bottom of the to-do list for the devs.

The game still suffers from random bugs that have been there, from what I've heard, since beta. Location teleporting happens all the frickin' time (It's a Star Wars game not Star Trek devs).

I know the battle system is getting revamped, but I won't be happy unless Teras Kasi gets a huge nerf. I witnessed 2 TKM's taking on a Krayt and owning it. Come on.

My biggest pet peeve with this game right now is that I pay 4k in credits to repair my Swoop bike and the next time I pull it out, it's damaged. There goes another 4k... oh wait it's worse now it's more like 5k.

Also there are far too many inconsistencies. You can use Bazaar Terminals and Missions terminals on mounts, but I can't seem to use the bank? What the hell is that?

The SWG Devs have had four years to put this game together since it was announced and only now are they taking things seriously in terms of developing a deeper gameplay experience.

I picked up City of Heroes this past week to give it a shot (I'm an ex comic book junkie). It's fun, good atmosphere, could get reptitive though, but so far the only bug I've noticed is some NPC's use to have "null" before their text. I say use to because I haven't seen it since the first day I played (I believe there was a small patch since, whether or not it fixed that I don't know.)

The battle system needs a huge fix. Killing critters is lame, lame, lame. CoH's battle system is cool, b/c I don't have to be a Master Everything to kill things. If SWG had a scaling system that allowed you to battle Stormtroopers that are at ur level, that'd be awesome. Right now, I haven't gone to Rebel b/c I don't wanna play Covert all the time, but will get destroyed by the NPC Imps.

PvP is another thing. I realize for immersion sake you don't want Rebels and Imps crowding the cities and not taking pot shots, but this staying covert b/c you aren't a Master Grinder and will get owned is stupid. Battle between players should be consent only no matter what, unless ur on a battlefield. You could even make cities zoned areas, say if Rebels walk into Bestine then it's open season, but in the middle of Tatooine's desert I shouldn't have to hide out nor worry about being blasted by a passerby who's Master Grinder.

I could write forever about how I'm dissapointed by this game, but it is just a game. I'll look elsewhere for a place to put my entertainment dollars.

The real question

[linzeal]

As an expatriate from the sinking EA MMORPG Earth and Beyond who played it primarily for the spaceship piloting (even it was all point and click) I wonder when the same functionality will not only be present in Star Wars Galaxies but will have the same polish, variety, and depth of their Tie-Fighter and X-Wing games, if ever. The current landscape in SWG even though present over many planets has lagged a little bit in terms of 'feature want and developer do' it will hopefully be a better go around this time, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've done as much research as possible with the scant reviews of the Lightspeed expansion which is due out October 15th to the hordes of anxious spaceflight fans who have come together to show what can be done with enough people who know a Y-Bomber from a B-Bomber, and can make both dance around any defense system the empire can throw up at them.

Re:The real question

[gamgee5273]

...who know a Y-Bomber from a B-Bomber... That's Y-wing and B-wing. The Y-wings were used by the Rebellion in all three movies - they are the ones with the two large engines and needs an astromech (R2, R5, etc.) unit. The B-wing was only used in ROTJ, and has the anti-grav cockpit that allows the ship's main wing to rotate freely and does not need an astromech.

Of those two, only the Y-wing is used as a bomber - heavy defenses, not a whole lotta speed. The B-wing is used for fast strikes in space and isn't practical in planetary atmospheres.

Yes, I know all of this off-hand. Yes, it is scary. Yes, I'm walking away from the computer now.

Re:Why...

[Babbster]

You'd think so, but ESB established that there's life on the planet. Unless that yeti-type dude lived entirely off snow (or escaped from a Rebellion zoo), there have to be other plants or animals native to Hoth.

Re:Why...

[gamgee5273]

Wampas and tauntauns, at least, are on Hoth. Remember, the one officer tells Vader that there are numerous uncharted settlements in that area of the galaxy... don't assume everyone wants to have their character live in a city.

Support the Minority Planets!

[Momomoto]

Why is it always the popular planets that get recognition? Support the lesser-knowns! Get in touch with the nice folks at Sony and tell them that you want to go to Ord Mantell!

Might I suggest a new strategy

[Craig Maloney]

Let the wookies win.

Sadly all to correct

[SmallFurryCreature]

I recently started the game after being to afraid of being disappointed. Kinda the same reason I still haven't seen episode 2.

Anyway the bugs he mentions are a minor thing. Simply warping when you dismount a vehicle is a minor nuisance. A though enemy you just managed to get down to almost zero health warping 100 meters away in the middle of another bunch of critters can be seen as a challenge. The recent bug that stopped people from getting money from group missions except the mission owner could be seen as a test case of how nice players are. (result they are all assholes. I shared the money out and a grand total of 2 other players).

Worse are the braindead interface and game delay choices. There is an old joke that lists the step required on a number of OS's to change the IP. All the unixes have a online command, windows has dozen points to click through.

SWG is a thousand times worse. In the game you can own pets/droids/vehicles. These you can call from a datapad (popup window) by clicking on them, holding the mouse then selecting "generate/call" from the option menu that springs up with a few second delay.

Just double clicking on the opens a popup with the details.

Why is this so bad? Well apart from the fact that the most common act is to call not examine the details in the examine window are also displayed next to the item. So now you get two screen telling exactly the same thing.

This also makes it impossible to put the vehicle/pet/droid on the toolbar for easy calling.

Worse perhaps is the 15 second delay. If you are a master Creature handler you can have 3 critters and 1 droid to assist you in battle. But calling them will take you 4 slow selection procedures and a total of 60 secs waiting (can't call more then one at the time and combat interrupts the calling). So most master CH just use one big pet and not smart tactics with 3 smaller.

The game is filled with these kind of stupid interface design choices and delay tactics.

But worst offense of the game is this. It just isn't star wars. Apart from the stormtroopers everything seems to be made/designed by someone who saw a poster once and just doesn't get it.

The cities look crap, no-one would layout a city like that but there is also the simple absence of something like roads. Cities just sit in the middle of nowhere.

The terrain seems to have been designed by someone who never been outside. It is bumpy as hell wich serves no purpose except to add processor load and make for some very dizzying running around. Dathomir is the worst. It is hard to describe but imagine walking around in a fps with 200 meter tall 90% hills about 3 meters wide.

None of this is helped by a graphics engine wich sucks. On launch the game was applauded for the scenery. It looks nice, just don't expect a framerate above 2 unless you drop everything down wich means you are playing in a landscape that would have been considered outofdate 4 years ago.

Still there is something there and people keep playing in the hope that sony will one day fix it. For now it is clear why SWG is one of the less popular mmorpgs out there.