GateCentral: Star Wars Galaxy: NewsBody

index	language
Weekly Wednesday Beta Update #27		2003-01-17	L
Answers to the BIG questions		2003-01-16	L
A New Holobits		2003-01-15	L
New FAQ-Update: Windows		2003-01-14	L
Tie Interceptor		2003-01-13	L
SWG Tops IGN Gamers Wishlist 2003		2003-01-08	L
Board Fragments: Initial SWG box-numbers		2003-01-07	L
Letter to the community: Dan Borth		2003-01-07	L
Friday FAQ:The game is a service		2003-01-04	L
New Wallpaper		2003-01-03	L

Weekly Wednesday Beta Update #27

Tonight the beta testers are going to see our latest (and hopefully last) revision to the look of the interface. We made a lot of changes to it based on their feedback and that of our internal testing department. We’ll test this out for a few weeks and if we determine that it is likely the one we stick with, I’ll make sure you get some screenshot with the HUD turned on.

As I mentioned before, the Beta Testers were finally allowed off Tatooine and spent a good deal of Saturday exploring the planet of Naboo. After they got all the sand out of their boots and ran around for a bit, this is what they had to say: (I’ll warn you up front this is giddy first impressions from a bunch of people who were marooned on a desert planet for months )

[...]

Complaints were few and far between, but I thought I would share one of them with you so I wouldn’t be accused of only choosing positive comments.

-Kevin O'Hara
Community Relations Manager

Read it all: SWG Boards

Editor: Aysen

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2003-01-17

Answers to the BIG questions

Just so you don’t think we are unaware of or are ignoring the “big” questions, here are the best answers I can give you right now. I’m sorry we can’t give you the solid answers on some of these things yet, but you will find out the final answers in the next several months (we are scheduled to release 3 months from tomorrow ). Feel free to quote me in posts that ask these.

How much with the subscription cost?
This information is still being reviewed by the developer and publisher. Don’t expect an answer until we are closer to release. Please note, this is extremely commonplace to not make pricing announcements until the product is available to purchase.

When will the product release internationally?
The publisher, LucasArts, is still in negotiations with their international distributing partners. As soon as they have cemented their plans, they will make the appropriate press release.

Final word on MCS/SCS?
Like all decisions, things could change before release or even after release. Currently we are still planning on SCS. This isn’t new news by the way. We are still discussing options internally.

What are the Minimum System Requirements?
We are still testing that in Beta. We’ll let you know as soon as we are confident in the answer. We have a number of testers dedicated to compatibility testing with different hardware configurations.

Since I can window SWG, can I open up a second iteration on the same computer with a different account?
The last word I got from the lead client programmer was no, the client will bring up a dialog box stating, "Only one instance may be running at a time."

What is the final feature list for initial release?
We’re getting that together. Expect an announcement early February. We will completely update the FAQ then. We’ll also discuss a little bit of our plans for the post-release update schedule. I’m working on getting another Dev Chat together to coincide with it.

When does Beta 3 start? How many people will it include?
When Beta 2 ends and as many people as we need to sufficiently test what remains – meaning, we don’t have a date to announce yet.

When will we get more screenshots or a video?
Sometime this month I hope to put up some more. I’ll also likely post some images that were only seen in magazines last month. I don’t have a date for another video yet.

What about specific information on systems like P.A. member limits, etc.?
We still have several weeks of Friday FAQs to fill. Please don’t make us reveal all of our info right now and have nothing later. Truthfully though, you have most of the overview of the game now. Don’t expect any new systems in the Friday FAQs, they will likely be additional info that we have tested such as how many people can be in a Player Association.

Blah blah blah blah Jedi?
I’m certain we will release some more information on Jedi before the game comes out, but don’t expect much. We want to try to maintain the mystery of Jedi for now. Like all systems, we are making tweaks during implementation and internal beta testing. Since you don’t know much about the system, there is no point in mentioning the tweaks. (Ok, I know, I’m just being cruel now, I’ll stop).

Have any NDA breakers gone to jail yet?
In the few times that the NDA has been broken, we’ve tracked down all the information we could get and handed it over to our legal department. It is not appropriate for us to talk about it beyond that.

What about MY question that you didn’t answer above?
Did I miss any big questions?

I know this truly didn’t answer any of the questions, I just wanted keep you up-to-date with the current answers.

-Kevin O'Hara
Community Relations Manager

Seen on SWG Boards

Editor: Aysen

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2003-01-16

A New Holobits
In the latest Holobits, Raph provides a sampling of replies he has written in response to testers on the beta boards, without violating the NDA. Boards on www.starwarsgalaxies.com

Editor: Kasim

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2003-01-15

New FAQ-Update: Windows
11.20 Will I be able to play SWG in windows mode? Yes. FAQs on www.starwarsgalaxies.com

Editor: Kasim

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2003-01-14

Tie Interceptor
Da es ja noch einige Zeit dauern wird, bis wir mit diesem Spiel rechnen können, wollen wir Euch hier einen kleinen grafischen Leckerbissen bieten: Das Modell ist von James R. Bassett [click here]. Wir haben sein 3D-Modell im WWW gefunden. Wenn diese Modelle bei unseren Lesern ankommen, werden wir in Zukunft gerne wieder welche online stellen. Viel Spaß damit.

Editor: Raknar

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2003-01-13

SWG Tops IGN Gamers Wishlist 2003
IGN has compiled a top 100 list of the PC games players are most looking forward to. At number one on their wishlists is none other than Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. IGN.com www.StarwarsGalaxies.com

Editor: Kasim

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2003-01-08

Board Fragments: Initial SWG box-numbers

We aren’t going to flood the market with more boxes than we think we can support. Now, I’m not going to recommend everyone rush out and pre-order if they want a copy (I generally don’t pre-order myself and certainly don’t want to be accused of trying to inflate the market), but the initial release will be limited. No I can’t give you initial numbers yet; don’t worry it won’t be tiny. We’ll put more boxes in the channel to pace our ability to support them.

-Kevin O'Hara
Community Relations Manager

Seen on SWG boards

Editor: Aysen

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2003-01-07

Letter to the community: Dan Borth

Continuing the every other Monday tradition of giving you an closer look at one of the team members, this week’s dev comments come from Artist Dan Borth.

...My responsibilities include modeling, texturing, and animating creatures, characters, and wearables for the project. Highlights include making getting to make Darth Vader, the Gammorean Guard, the Trandoshans, the Graul, and shirt_576. All I can say is that the game looks great and you won’t be disappointed. All the work I did on shirt_576 will blow you away!...

Seen on starwarsgalaxies.com

Editor: Aysen

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2003-01-07

Friday FAQ:The game is a service

To start out the new year, we’re giving you 2 FAQs on a very important topic for subscription based games, customer service.

quote:
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12.25 Will there be GMs?
Not in the traditional sense. We will have a large staff of Customer Service Representatives ready to assist players who need help. All issues are put into a petition queue and the CSR prioritize problems based on time in queue and urgency. Unlike traditional MMO “Game Masters, CSRs are not server specific nor do they interact with customers outside of resolving issues. The Digiteers, a separate team, will be tasked with handling special events.
SWG FAQ

12.26 Will there be a volunteer program?
Due to legal concerns, we will not be running an official volunteer program; all customer service representatives will be employees. We will include some tools within the game, such as Player Associations, Apprenticeships and Chat Channels, to encourage veteran players to help new players. Additionally, any player can set a searchable flag to identify them as a new player helper.
SWG FAQ

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I know there are people out there who are skeptical of computer gaming customer service departments. We’ve read the rant sites. We’ve read your posts about it here on the discussion forum. We’ve seen it first hand at several different companies.

Factually, we know that the vast majority of players don’t ever deal with customer service and most companies get tagged with a bad reputation from a relatively small percentage of dissatisfied customers (most satisfied customers go back to playing the game instead of going off to post their good experience on the rant sites ). We also know however that there have been real problems with CS departments themselves in the past and that you can always work harder to bring make the “small percentage” even smaller.

We feel that the CSR system being designed specifically for Star Wars Galaxies will decrease wait times and improve the overall quality of the service. We’ve got Sony and LucasArts committed to providing first-rate customer service.

To those jaded individuals who think I’m just trying to spin the situation, I understand where you are coming from. All I ask is that you give us a chance. The people on this project really do believe that this is a service orient industry and have thought long and hard of how to design the game to minimize customer service calls and give CSRs the functionality they need to efficiently deal with problems.

-Kevin O'Hara
Community Relations Manager

Seen on SWG Boards

Editor: Aysen

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2003-01-04

New Wallpaper
It's post-holiday gifts from the Star Wars Galaxies team: a selection of new cool wallpaper for your desktop. So download a fierce Wookiee warrior, a noble Mon Calamari, an evil Stormtrooper, ubervillain Darth Vader himself, and much more. Seen on starwarsgalaxies.com