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April 11, 2003 - We've already covered a lot of what there is to see in Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided in our earlier preview so today we're going to be talking about the things players will actually be doing in the game. Whether you choose the role of a crafty merchant or a bloodthirsty fighter, there's a range of experiences to be had in the new game. Better still, the game gives you a chance to ply your particular trade within a framework that emphasizes the Civil War conflict that lies at the heart of the story.
These various modes of play were outlined to us by Haden Blackman, LucasArts' producer on the title. A few weeks ago he invited us up to the Lucas studio to spend the day following him around Tantooine. Although his lion-faced Bothan artisan tended to gravitate more towards the crafting side, Haden showed us that there was plenty of opportunity for trade skill characters to balance out their manufacturing with a little firefight every now and then.

Although surveying and crafting appeal more to hardcore gamers, the team is trying to make it easy for new players as well, giving them various incentives and conveniences to make crafting more appealing. Since the economy of the game is almost exclusively player-driven the team is hoping that player vendors will fill the roles previously held by NPCs. (NPC vendors in Star Wars Galaxies usually only offer equipment that suits brand new characters.)

The first stage in manufacturing any item is gathering the resources you'll need. To that end, the team has incorporated a form of surveying. Selecting the survey screen reveals all the minerals that are known to exist on the planet. Haden selected aluminum and used a surveying device that he built to send out a ping to locate concentrations of aluminum. The small blips on the radar point out all the nodes while a waypoint directs him to the largest collection of aluminum.

Since his character is not terribly advanced, Haden's ping didn't travel that far. Accuracy really isn't an issue with these devices; if there are resources nearby, it can find them. The difference in quality between various surveying devices will show up in their range, not their precision.

These survey devices are used to extract the resources as well and are rated in efficiency. More efficient survey devices will extract resources at a greater rate than less efficient ones. Once Haden's character obtains the requisite levels in his survey skills he can even build a harvesting structure that rests on top of a node and extracts the resources while he's off doing something else. "If I find a really big deposit of some really cool ore," he explains, "I can build a structure that will harvest it automatically. I can leave and come back the next day to empty the hopper."

Once you've got your resources, you can either sell them to a manufacturer or use them to create items yourself. The manufacturing screen shows all the items you can make. In Haden's case, he was capable of making simple items -- a cloth sash, some food, a knife, a pistol, as well as generic sorts of items like Chance Cubes (what we call dice). Selecting an item brings up a schematic showing the resources required for each component of the item. In the case of the knife we need materials for the shaft, the grip and the blade.

Certain resources are needed for each part and the quality and attributes of the item change based on which resources you've used. Using rarer resources usually yields a bigger bonus or higher quality than a generic resource. These bonuses and advantages are more apparent when you're crafting advanced items but, even so, Haden showed us how switching a few resources around could change even a simple hunting knife.

There are varying chances of success based on your skill and the complexity of the item and depending on the item's complexity, you'll have a number of variations to choose from. Haden showed us, for instance, that he could vary the shape of the knife at his current skill level. There's also the chance to do a little experimentation when creating items. This is really more for the skilled craftsmen because it's harder to do. Still when you experiment and wind up with a knife that does bonus damage, it's all worth it.

The game also features item decay. You'll need the resources that were used in the manufacturing of the item in order to repair it. You'll also need a repair kit, which you can build yourself or buy from another player. If you have a great item that you don't want to use anymore but hate to see decay, you can use one of the game's polish kits. These kits freeze an item in its current state putting a stop to all decay. The catch is that you won't ever be able to use the item again. It's really more of a feature for creating trophies and souvenirs of items you no longer need and don't want to sell.
Even when you sell an item, your relationship with it doesn't end. You'll gain a bit of experience every time the item is used. Once someone eats your food or stabs a guy with your knife or stops a knife with your armor, you gain a small bit of experience. This is meant to help move items to market and make crafters competitive with combat classes in terms of experience and advancement. The better items weight experience more towards the usage end of the scale to encourage the sale of high-end items.

After giving us this overview of crafting, Haden showed us a few examples of the combat system and explained how it fits in to the game. He picked a mission tracking down some thugs who robbed an NPC. He was instructed to head out to the thugs' lair and destroy it to complete the mission. A waypoint appears right away leading Haden directly to the enemies he needs to dispatch.

On approaching the small desert settlement, Haden found a group of Dune Stalkers gathered around a few structures. His target for the mission is a small power structure in the middle of the houses. Unfortunately, the Dune Stalkers wouldn't take too kindly to him marching in a blowing up their stuff. Haden choose to engage the Dune Stalkers first before taking out the power supply. As he rushed in, the classic Star Wars battle music swelled.

There are three pools to attack, he explained, running over the dunes. Each character and creature has a rating for health, action and mind, and there are attacks that target each of these areas. Rifle specialists, for instance, can opt to perform head shots to target the mind pool. This is good for taking out big, dumb creatures like Wookiees and such. (I know, I know, Wookiees are very intelligent. Get over it.) Using special abilities drains these pools as well, so you'll need to use them wisely to make sure that you've not left yourself vulnerable in one area.

"A lot of our combat system is based on auto-attacking and putting special abilities in to your combat queue," says Haden. Apparently for crafters, it also sometimes involves running away. A series of number pop-ups show you the modifiers that are affecting your combat. If he had the courage to kneel and go toe-to-toe with the Dune Stalkers, Haden would get an accuracy bonus. As it turned out, Haden thought running away was the better way to go. Firing on the Dune Stalker as he ran away, Haden's accuracy dropped considerably.

Speaking of running away, Star Wars Galaxies has no trains, those nasty conga lines of monsters that fleeing players can lead towards others. Enemies will only attack those characters that they're mad at and will return to their original spawn location if they run too far. But keep in mind that some enemies will be mad at you even if you're never taken a shot at them. If you've gained a bad enough reputation with a given group, they make attack you on sight. The next time Haden's character meets a Dune Stalker, they'll be more aggressive towards him. And maybe he won't be so lucky.

But even if he dies, death now is only a penalty in time and money, because the team didn't want to take away experience for dying. It costs money to insure your items against their loss and this policy must be repurchased every time you die. If you want to protect your equipment from disappearing when you die, you'll have to put items in a bank. Once your character dies, he or she appears at the last cloning facility you paid to have yourself bound to.

Rather than relying strictly on scripted monster spawns and permanent layers, Star Wars Galaxies also offers randomly generated points of interest. These are small camps for particular groups of enemies that are generated dynamically. These randomly generated spawn points persist until a player character wipes them out. If left too long, these spawn points can even influence the creation of other similar spawn points. (The team will be structuring these dynamic spawns to create specific hunting areas for particular types of creatures.)

Haden explains: "Different layers take footholds. The other day on Tatooine a worrt layer spawned that nobody destroyed. That lair spawned a ton of worrts, way too many for any single player to destroy. Eventually it will spawn other lairs and grow in size. Then you'll have an infestation." The team has added this feature to help cultivate a dungeon crawl feel. (There are no dungeons per se in the game as they don't quite fit with the universe but this layered spawning system still provides the same sort of progressive challenge offered in traditional RPG dungeons.
Monsters will also spawn relative to your strength. This scale even takes in to account whether or not you're grouped with other players. But just because you think you should be able to take out an enemy doesn't mean it's a sure thing. "Gungan hunting is a lot of fun but it's not as easy as you'd expect it to be," says Haden. "We kind of made the Gungans a little tougher so they could be a challenge." Still, Haden admits we may still have a chance to live out our fantasies of taking down Jar-Jar. "We are planning on putting Jar-Jar in the game as well but as an NPC. We're still working out the details but I want to use him as a crazy old hermit in the desert."

There will be plenty of little encounters as well. You can use these encounters, and pretty much every other experience in the game, in a free format and your response to them influences your reputation with other groups in the game. On Naboo you might come across a group of pirates who have enslaved a community of farmers. The pirates ask you to mind your own business and the farmers ask you to rescue them. If you attack the wall to free the farmers, the pirates will attack you. You'll get an in-game badge to display your participation in these types of encounters.

Haden offers another example: "One of Jabba's dancers has escaped from the palace and is being pursued through the desert. After talking to her, a bunch of Jabba's thugs show up on the horizons and come attack her. You can choose to help her or choose to attack. The variables can change too. It might be a rebel running from Imperials, it might be a gambler running Lady Valarian's thugs, or it could be any kind of thing." And since different creatures identify with larger groups, you'll find that Banthas and Sand People share similar opinions of your actions.

The concept of faction factors in to nearly everything you can do. "If I run around the desert just killing Moisture farmers indiscriminately (which is really fun and really easy to do) I gain a negative faction with townspeople," says Haden. "They start recognizing me and attacking me or running away. Authorities in different cities will start to recognize me as well." And you won't be able to please all of the people all of the time. Jabba's missions bring negative faction with another crime lord named Lady Valarian, for instance.

Once we were done looking at combat, Haden said it was time to create a guild hall. As the producer of the title, he was placed in charge of setting up the artisans' guild on his server. Once he secures the deed for the hall, the next step is finding a nice flat piece of ground on which to place it. The footprint shows up in the game world and you can rotate the hall to take advantage of nearby features. The next step is waiting nine minutes while the thing constructs. The guild halls are one of the newer features in the game and are still just a bit buggy.

Haden's new guild, Crafter's Union 101, can be turned into a variety of structures. Making the guild hall a hotel, for instance, allows for safe log out when you're inside. You can even allow entertainers and medics to set up shop in your guild and offer their services for whatever tips they can make. Haden can also manage the membership of his guild, seeing a list of current members and sponsoring others for memberships.

Guild halls aren't the only place players can call their own. Star Wars Galaxies includes player housing as well. It's currently pushed way off to a specialist track in the architect class, but the team is hoping to bring the skills for creating basic housing down to the artisan level so houses will be a bit easier to obtain. The starting houses are simply two or three-room affairs but you can eventually upgrade to a full four-story house complete with a balcony and a basement.

You can use these houses just as a way to store things but you can also set up rules for other players to use them. Simply set up a few rules and you can run your house like a cantina. A door charge can be added as well. You can even hire NPCs to work in your house buying and selling items. If you're ready for the real excitement, you can even work the store yourself.

That wraps up our experience following Haden around Tatooine the other week. Now that Beta 3 is underway there are bound to be plenty of changes and new features to talk about. Stay tuned for more info on Star Wars Galaxies in the near future.

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sieht so aus als hätten sie sehr viel aus EQ und Co gelernt
gefällt mir sehr gut was ich da zu lesen bekam