Rebooting SWG.

[LordShaithis]

I used to follow the development of Star Wars Galaxies, back in the pre-beta era. As time went by, and features were cut, it became more and more clear to me that there was no particular reason for me to play the game.

Now that the game has been out for a few years, it would appear that I made a wise decision to avoid it. Their latest batch of changes have been so poorly received that they're currently offering refunds to their players, according to Mr Bean's thread in this forum.

Given the experienced development team and corporate backing the project recevied, I'm rather shocked at how poorly the whole thing turned out. So let's imagine that Sony pulls the plug on SWG, and decides to create a proper Star Wars MMORPG from the ground up. What sort of design would you like to see? Will you use a level-based system, or a skill-based one? How will you handle the economy? How will you handle PVP?

[Yogi]

Start with Knights of the Old Republic as a basis, and then build from there. We already have a good RPG system, so there's no need to re-invent the wheel, though to be fair, the Jedi classes would have to be weakened.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I could go on for hours on this subject, half-baked ideas have been thrown around amidst veritable avalanches of bitching and criticism among guildmates and others.

If I'm feeling more motivated I may go into more depth, but for now, I'll state that I rather liked SWG's system, as of release. Eliminate the bugs, obviously, and eliminate Jedi entirely. They should not be in the hands of PCs in this time period. Create an expansion or something that takes place in the Old or New Republic if you really want them. I'd also tweak the graphics a bit, they were IMO way too bland and stale. Something more along the lines of upgraded-Camelot would be good.

Again, more later.

[LordShaithis]

I'd set the game during the period between the second and third episode. In other words, the height of the Clone Wars. It would take no special tricks to make a Jedi character, but...

#1 - Jedi would not be THAT uber. I'd make them more or less equal to an equivalent non-Jedi combat character. Game balance is more important than satisfying people who just want to see Jedi pwnz0r people. And anyway, a top-level non-Jedi combatant (Jango Fett) was able to hold his own well enough with Obi-Wan.

#2 - Everyone will still want to be Jedi anyway, so to keep this in check, Jedi will not be able to own property or hold money above a certain (relatively low) amount. The Jedi we saw in the PT never seemed to own much of anything beyond their lightsabers. This'll make everyone want at least one non-Jedi character, and keep the game from being nothing but half a million reiterations 0b1-w4n k3n0b1.

More to come...

[Stormin]

Screw the whiners who want to be jedi. The only people with force powers should be NPC's or actors for "live" events.

[McNum]

I'd start with *gasp* looking at the source material. The Pre ESB setting is actually a pretty good time to set a game, so let's keep that.

Anyway, Star Wars is at its heart a swashbuckling adventure in space. You got your pirates, your Empire your young idealistic hero, your princess and so on. So two key things should be there from day 1. Adventure and space.

But that only covers the Star. Let's do the Wars now. The Rebellion vs. The Empire. How would this work, while keeping to the source? The Empire are licking their wounds and getting angry after the loss of the Death Star. The Rebels are on the run since the Yavin IV base has been discovered. So the main part of the war will have to be a kind of hide and seek with the Rebels staying hidden and striking exposed Imperial targets and the Empire showing up in force.

There we have it. Star Wars in a nutshell. Now how do we make a game of that?

In an MMORPG based on a storyline that we already know how goes you cannot have the players influence the bigger story. On the other hand if player characters become insignificant in the grand picture it may kill the fun. So how do we let players participate?

The core of the game will be the Civil War. Anything in the game must relate to that one way or the other. As such it should be possible to join both the Rebels, the Empire or even work both sides as a merchant.

For player characters I'd keep a skill based system to encourage character diversity. You'd have basic skill trees such as Combat, Medicine, Subterfuge, Piloting, and Trade. By selecting combinations of these skills you could make your own unique character. The Force would be off limits to any player character since all current Force users are present and accounted for. But a character in the style of Han Solo would be a Combat/Pilot/Subterfuge with a little Trade character. Obviously a high power character.

Items would not be only player made. You'd be able to get a basic model anything at a cost in NPC shops. Players in the Trade line would be able to upgrade and modify certain items depending on what Trades they pick.

Finally the Civil War itself would be a kind of hide and seek in space. The Rebels would have mobile bases which Imperals through subterfuge skills can try to locate. When located the Empire can launch a strike against the Rebels wich would become a large PvP battle where the Rebels must escape. If the Imperals manage to halt the escape they score some PvP points. Likewise the Rebels can sniff out Imperial installations to raid for Rebel PvP points. Of course, if either side lose their raids the opponent side get PvP points, although a lot lower than from a raid of their own. PvP points will mostly be a prestige thing, but they could let players advance in rank within their organisation. Which could grant certail prviledges such as faction specific things like X-Wings and TIEs. PvP could also be in chance encounters when know Rebels and Imperials meet up. They'd be free to kill eachother. After all, what fun is subterfuge without the risk of being caught? A non raid PvP kill would be worth a minor amount of PvP points, but raids would still be the big source of PvP points.

Combat would be based on player skill like playing a third person action game. You can target an enemy like MMO fare to see Health and danger level, but you still have to aim and shoot yourself. Space or air combat would preferably take notes from the Rogue Squadron games.

Finally I'd have server events where the iconic characters are taken for a spin. Like Luke leading a strike on an Imperal convoy with the Rogues and players are welcome to join. Or simply have a chracter like Boba Fett or even Darth Vader travel around from time to time. If you run into him you just got a screenshot moment.

And that is how I would have made a Star Wars MMO. No significant player economy, no entertainer profession, fast combat and seamless integration of air and space combat. Hopefully that would give more of a Star Wars feel than just the name.

[Adrian Laguna]

About space-combat. Naturally there are some pretty dammed good space-combat games out there that Neo-SWG could take a page from (Freespace 2, Tachyon, etc.) but I was wondering if some Newtonian physics could be put into the equation.

In the movies, fighter craft move around like atmospheric fighters, and I'm not suggesting Newtonian physics like in say Babylon 5: I've Found Her, that would be too complicated and alienate most users. However, some simple Newtonian things like no de-acceleration when the engine is turned off, some sliding when a ship makes a turn, etc, would be nice. Alternatively, you could have full blown Newtonian physics but you can turn on compensators to attenuate the effects. So n00bs can fly like in Freespace, but the hardcore will be owning at full blown Newtonian goodness.

I'm going to quote Darkstar here, since he gave me an idea. I know he is a fucking moron, but that doesn't mean that everything he says is automatically worhtless. In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if he is ripping someone off with this.

Here we finally learn what is meant by "S-foils". Given the wing control surfaces and the fact that these are stability foils, there's apparently something very odd about the maneuvering of small vessels in Star Wars. This presumably relates to anti-grav technology in some manner, given that the ANH novel also has a reference to Tantive IV's "main stabilizer fin" for use in landing. And, the only times we've seen S-foils locked into position was during combat near planetary bodies, within the antigrav range. Perhaps it's intended to produce a more stable firing platform somehow? Perhaps it explains the usual non-Newtonianism of SW fighter maneuvering? More analysis is indicated.

So this would fit with the limited Newtonian Physics idea or the Freespace-type game idea. However it introduces the limitation of this only happening near planetary bodies. In deep space, such as an asteroid base, we would have full blown, or near full blown Newtonian so that those that want it can have it. Though I still prefer my idea of having the n00bs use compensators if they can't deal with Newton's Laws of Motion.

[Vympel]

Bah. No Newton in Star Wars space combat games. It'd look retarded. I'm much more interested in maintaining the look and feel of the films than watching a dogfight turn into a silly looking slide fest.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Bah. No Newton in Star Wars space combat games. It'd look retarded. I'm much more interested in maintaining the look and feel of the films than watching a dogfight turn into a silly looking slide fest.

Agreed. I've played a number of 2d-shooters and the Newtonian stuff can get pretty ridiculous. Eventually you have the space equivalent of a jousting match, with both parties building up speed then trying to time a single shot at the other as they pass before turning around to repeat.

[Lord Pounder]

One really good ided would be to make some of the n00b missions closer to town. I played Galaxies for a week, i think, 2 years and my prevailing memory above all else is pressing auto run and watching my toon run, stop and rest and run some more for what felt like hours.

[LordShaithis]

I'd start with *gasp* looking at the source material. The Pre ESB setting is actually a pretty good time to set a game, so let's keep that.

Unless you plan on letting your players rewrite established fiction (which I don't recall LucasArts liking the idea of) it's a fucking terrible setting. Lots and lots of well-known events that the players have no input into, and no Jedi. People like Jedi. If you try to sell me an Star Wars MMORPG with no Jedi, I'm going to go play KOTOR again and save fifteen bucks per month.

[Lord Pounder]

Or if they are gonna allow Jedi move it to the NJO and nerf the fuck outta them. I always thought personally that the NJO ot even post RotJ was a better time because the EU timeline is more flexible.

[desertjedi]

I would love to see Early Republic Era for SWG. Picture players fighting side by side with Ulic Qel Droma or Sunrider against the vast Sith Armies... or being part of a Republic "expedition team" establishing trade and hyperspace routes while fighting pirates and other governments...

[Utsanomiko]

#2 - Everyone will still want to be Jedi anyway, so to keep this in check, Jedi will not be able to own property or hold money above a certain (relatively low) amount. The Jedi we saw in the PT never seemed to own much of anything beyond their lightsabers. This'll make everyone want at least one non-Jedi character, and keep the game from being nothing but half a million reiterations 0b1-w4n k3n0b1.

More to come...

For the record, that's not really different from how SWG originally implemented Jedi; as far as I can recall they couldn't own property and since they could only be Jedi they had few ways of making money. So everyone typically turned their main into a Doctor/Entertainer for healing & buffing. I don't know what they'll be doing now with current main/Jedi accounts, but they're sticking to the 1 character per server and very few people ever played alts regularly unless they had a 2nd paid account. So it's very doubtful the 50% of the player pop who has always been 'omg! I wanna Jedi!' will level an alt just for the property and extra cash in the bank.

[Alan Bolte]

I don't think you really thought the fighter physics thing all the way through. One, you're going to have very limited fuel, so the jousting method is just going to burn up your fuel and quite possibly get you killed. Second, with the reactor at full power and a significant fraction of that power put into your engines (which would of course be the standard in combat), we're talking about ships that can pull hundreds, even thousands of gees. Thrust vectoring and microthrusters with bursts of thrust on that scale mean you'd never go anywhere but the way your nose is pointing unless you wanted to. Newtonian physics would be necessary to have a believable simulation (without resorting to tricks and nonsense), but it would mean roughly jack in terms of maneuvering.

Depending on your flight computer's relative speed control and the amount of power you're putting into the engines, you could slide, brake, or fly backwards at high speed if you wanted to, but for the most part you'll fly like in X-Wing Alliance, except your acceleration time from 0 to 200 m/s would be negligible. Your best acceleration would be forward, and most of the time you'd want most of your power directed into the guns and shields, so there's rarely a purpose in flying differently. Better, it's only with very low forward acceleration relative to rotational acceleration that you get into B5-style combat, so you won't see that. Better still, a chase won't consist heavily of flying loops the way it does in XWA.

Repulsors could definitely make for a very interesting element, not only in low orbit but also with large ships present. The Sanctuary Moon and the Death Star were too far away for repulsors to have been of much use with them, going by the 6 planetary diameters quote. Also, I definitely remember repulsors being used to bounce off ships as small as a Nebulon-B frigate in the EU novels.

Finally, I get a strong feeling that the flight computer or astro-droid does quite a bit more in terms of maneuvering assistance than just keep you flying at the desired speed and direction. Specifically, I'm thinking of ANH and RotS with talking to the droids. One quote that specifically comes to mind is Obiwan saying, "Alright R4. No no no no, no! Nothing too fancy." I really can't think of anything they might be talking about other than maneuvers to evade the missiles. Then of course there's Anakin, "Surge all power units R2. Stand by, reverse thrusters."

In conclusion, I'm confident that space flight could be done in a way that is complex under the surface, but none too difficult to operate and very similar to the movies.

[McNum]

I'd start with *gasp* looking at the source material. The Pre ESB setting is actually a pretty good time to set a game, so let's keep that.

Unless you plan on letting your players rewrite established fiction (which I don't recall LucasArts liking the idea of) it's a fucking terrible setting. Lots and lots of well-known events that the players have no input into, and no Jedi. People like Jedi. If you try to sell me an Star Wars MMORPG with no Jedi, I'm going to go play KOTOR again and save fifteen bucks per month.

SWG is already rewriting established fiction. Lucasarts doesn't seem to mind. Why else do they have Obi-Wan's ghost on Mustafar? Why do they have several thousand Jedi in the height of the Empire? Where do those not very TIE looking TIEs from the Jump to Lightspeed expansion come from? Established fiction is no concern of the current SWG.

The setting is good because it's at the core of the original Star Wars trilogy. It sets up the Rebels as on the run and the Empire as preparing to Strike Back. That makes it a good setting. You get easy story hooks for having factional PvP. There's a lot of EU material here, yes. Good. That makes it easier to make server events and slowly advance the story towards the Battle of Hoth, which would be in the second expansion or somewhere along that.

Jedi would be out of the question. Why? You say you want to be a Jedi above all. That's why. Having thousands of player Jedi running around makes no sense in any setting except pre Phantom Menace. After Phantom Menace the Jedi are getting weaker and a lot of them are named and accounted for, turning them into NPCs by default. Secondly you cannot balance Jedi to any other class while keeping in tune with the source. Jedi are powerful, and by all means should be, another good reason to keep them away from players. You want Jedi? Go play Jedi Academy or KOTOR. You can be powerful Jedi there. Powers of Jedi levels have no place in the hands of an MMO character. That only leads to Jedi envy, nerf calls, continuity whining, and such things. Just like there is in the real SWG.