Friday Feature 3/30/2018: A look behind the scenes.

Staff just sitting around, shooting the sh… breeze early Monday morning before I left for my weekly client trip…

Halyn: Kelta and I won’t be around from Thursday through Monday. It’s the Easter weekend and we want to take the kids to the farm.

Sandi: *in a panic* So can you help me plan something for Sunday?

Abi: *instantly pipes up* Do an ‘easter egg’ hunt

Sandi: What would the Easter Eggs be?

Abi: Storyteller containers outside of cities.

Sandi: Those only last 8 hours…

Abi and Sandi go back and forth attempting to work out how to implement it. What can the community get, how many, how do we prevent people from exploiting? How do we make it fair for everyone?

Anishor pipes up with rewards suggestions, his first comment on the event:  Lightsabers…

Abi works up a proposed list of rewards, over which Sandi drools.

Halyn in the meantime continues to do his own thing, like putting in announcements when a new character is created and extending storyteller items to last for 48 hours.

Abi: Wait, why are we doing an Easter egg hunt? We’re going to have April Fools stuff, iirc.

Halyn: I don’t know what we’re going to have atm.

Sandi heads to the airport. She reviews the conversations in the various Discords, notes the incredibly boring topics the staff has been talking about, which includes the backpacks she doesn’t care about in the least. As her eyes glaze over and she skims the text about the new housing, a few other things, she throws in that she wants a stuffed tauntaun, for which she is teased repeatedly.

Sandi and Abi talk more about how to implement an Easter Egg Event, which she’s now calling the E3. Halyn keeps working on content, tossing up occasional screenshots.

Tuesday morning: Sandi goes off to a client and returns to…

Halyn:    soooo
               I decided to run with your egg hunt thing
               but I’m putting together a screenplay
               screenshots shortly
               the big thing will be getting waypoints to put egg containers at

Sandi holds her breath, looking through the text on breaks and finds a screenshot of an NPC announcing the Great Galactic Egg Hunt!

She notices it’s a bit like the Junk Dealers; you’ll be able to trade the found eggs for stuff. She literally squees loudly, hoping the people in the room next to hers at the hotel don’t call the Front Desk to complain.


The Arcon Multinode Agricorp is sponsoring their first Easter Egg Hunt!

Sunday, April 1st (after the patch in the morning Central time

The event will last 72 hours from when it launches.

The representative for the Arcon Multinode Agricorp can be found in Pandath on Taanab, who will provide instructions on how to find the Easter Eggs.


There are 102 Easter egg containers available, 6 in each of the targeted cities.

Taanab – Pandath
Corellia – Coronet, Doaba Guerful, Kor Vella, Tyrena
Talus – Dearic, Nashal
Naboo – Moenia, Kaadara, Keren, Theed
Rori – Narmle, Restuss
Tatooine – Bestine, Mos Eisely, Mos Entha, Mos Espa

You can hunt eggs on each of your characters.

What would a Friday Feature be without a teaser of a few items which will be available?

NOTE: this is the first time these items are being made available. They will all be available in the future with upcoming content.

 

 

GCW Live Invasion Test – 4/8/18

We will be conducting a third, and with any luck last, live server test of a GCW invasion on Sunday, April 8th at 3 PM EST. Location will be announced shortly before kick-off. Come armed and ready for both offense and defense!

Assuming a successful test, we will shortly after begin rolling out the GCW to the live server, starting with the Senate and Council election system.

Patch Notes – 3/19/18

Due to unexpected circumstances, we patched early this morning, and as a result a few things haven’t made it in. We’ll have a follow-up patch later this week.

Armorsmithing
*Armor can now accept armor attachments. These need to be crafted into the armor at final assembly (e.g. when a fully-crafted armor core is inserted into the final armor appearance piece).
*Armor can accept one attachment per piece.

Attachments
*Armor and clothing attachments now display their stat modifier in the name of the attachment itself. This change is retroactive, but attachments listed on vendors must be pulled into inventory before they will update with the new name.

Bioengineer
*Bioengineered pets have gotten a substantial boost. Talk to your local BE and see what she can do for you!

Bounty Hunter
*High-end bounty hunting missions can now drop schematics for bounty hunter armor pieces.
*High-end bounty missions now have a smaller chance of dropping junk.

Cloning
*Cloning no longer requires a load screen. (Note that this function is in testing and may be reverted if problems arise.)
*Factional cloning implemented for invasions. Defenders will be able to clone at a city’s cloners. Attackers can only clone at base camps.
*City cloners will revert to neutral status after invasions end.
*Cloning at a factional cloner always incurs wounds.
*Neutral players may clone at a factional cloner, but will incur wounds.
*Triple-incap death from a player no longer incurs decay.
*Death from a factional NPC while overt no longer incurs decay.

Combat Walkers
*Combat walkers can now only be controlled by correctly factioned players.
*Combat walkers now protect their pilots from incoming damage.
*Combat walkers can now only target enemies in front of them.
*Combat walkers no longer move or shoot without a pilot.
*Combat walkers now automatically dismount the pilot upon destruction.
*Combat walkers no longer use the rifleman speed modifier to calculate time between shots.

GCW
*Players can now use /requestLeave to set their factional status back to “On Leave” without talking to a recruiter. The time necessary to go to on leave status is dependent upon the player’s factional rank, with higher ranks taking longer to go on leave.

Items
*Rotate left/right commands now work as before (in addition to the improved yaw/pitch/roll commands).
*Rotate left/right on the radial menu is again functional.
*Picking up an object now resets its rotation. (No more dropping items under the floor!)
*Added lootable items and schematics for previously unattainable decorative items.
(Note: lootable items are not yet in the loot tables, but will be very soon.)
*Flash speeders and flash speeder deeds are again no-trade.
*New flash speeders can be claimed with the /flashspeeder command, for the cost of 20,000 credits. (Republic credits will be fine.)
*Weapon decay has been increased. Decay for carbines and rifles has been rebalanced.

NPCs
*NPC resists rebalance is approximately 50% complete. Please provide feedback on new resists to Anishor.

Pets
*Players can now use the /rattle command to speak on behalf of their pets! By targeting a pet and using /rattle followed by text, a player can make their pets speak whatever they’d like. This function is currently restricted to droids and NPC followers.
*Admin characters can now use the /rattle command to cause any creature object in the game to speak.

Smuggler
*Armor effectiveness slice has been adjusted to allow a slightly higher cap.

Travel
*On-planet travel no longer requires a load screen. (Note that this function is in testing and may be reverted if problems arise.)
*Newsnet terminals in starports now have additional functionality. The information on the terminals is updated realtime from the website. Check the terminals for patch notes, GCW headlines, and information on upcoming events!

Friday Feature 3/9/2018 : Emotions in EiF

I am really very excited about this week’s Friday Feature. It was compiled and editied by Agent Orange Juice (AOJ) (Jenniveve in game). If you aren’t aware, AOJ decorated several rooms on Jato, our space station. He is also an amazing artist who has created portraits for several of our community. AOJ… awesome work!

Sandarie, Community Manager


Emotes with Animations

Star Wars Galaxies features a wide variety of canned emotes, a full list of which can be found in-game under the “Social” tab of the “Commands & Abilities” window (Default Ctrl+A).

Each of these emotes has three variations:

  • A “standard” version that has no target,
  • a version that targets the player’s own character—done by typing “self” after the emote,
  • a “target” version that uses a specified target

The general rule of thumb is: if it’s another player, an NPC, or a non-deco animal, simply have it selected. If it’s anything else, you have to type the name of your intended target after the emote. For example: /hug DLT-20 or /laugh Armoire. %TT also works for this).

Most of these emotes trigger an animation when entered. Below is a list of which emotes animate and a rough description of the animation (as performed by a human character, though I think they may be more or less the same for other species). Some emotes have the same animation for all three variations, some only have an animation for one or two of the variations, and a few even have a completely different animation for each variation.

In the interest of keeping this list as short as possible (because it isn’t :P), it only lists emotes with an animation. If you don’t see the emote you’re looking for, then it probably doesn’t have an animation. Or I screwed up and missed it. But more likely the former.

Special thanks to “a durni” for being my target NPC. It led to many amusing chat log entries.

((Sandarie: I’m putting the entire list in this link here.  below is a small sampling. There are 756 emotes with animations)

/adnStomp feet (Same as /stomp and /tantrum)
/adn targetCheck watch (Same as /fidget)
/accuseAccusational point
/accuse selfPoint at self (Same as /pointat self)
/accuse targetSlightly less angry accusational point
/acheA slight shoulder roll
/ache selfA shiver (Same as /fear and /shiver)
/ache targetLike presenting a gift to that special someone. Sort of romantic and sappy (Same as /bouquet target)
/adjustA self pat down
/adjust selfSame as /adjust
/agreeA single nod
/agree selfAn energetic series of nods
/agree targetSame as /agree
/airguitarPlaying an air guitar (Imagine that!)
/airguitar selfSame as /airguitar

Verbs and Emotions

One of the main methods of communicating with other players is by having your character “speak” to another by typing your intended message into Spatial Chat. Simply type what you want to say and the game will automatically append “[Character name] says,” to your message in the chat log. If you want the log to show that you’re speaking to a specific person (or even thing), type >[target’s name] before the message. For example: >Jenniveve Hello! or >Armoire Why am I talking to furniture?

Now saying is nice, but what if you want to shout? Or ramble? Or even prophesize? You can do that with commands!

The following is a list of /commands that can be added before your message to modify what speech verb is displayed in the log, the chat bubble that appears above your character’s head, and in some cases the distance at which the speech can be “heard”. These can also be used with >[target name], just be sure to put the speech type first. For example: /shout >Jenniveve (Please don’t shout at her though. She’s sensitive).

(Sandarie: Just a sample of the list is below. Click here for the complete list.)

Commands marked with * use unique chat bubbles

admit
announce*
answer
argue
assert
avow
babble*
beg
bellow*
blab*

For added fun in a bun, these can also be combined with Moods, a list of which can be found in the “Commands & Abilities” window (Default Ctrl+A). To set the mood for a single line of dialogue, type /[mood name] before the message and it will set the mood for just that message. To set a character’s overall mood, either click on the mood in the Command Browser window, or type /mood [mood name]. Your character will then stay in this mood until you change it.

For example: If I simply want to say “Hello” in a happy manner, I’d type /happy Hello. If I want everything my character says and does to be sickeningly cheerful, I’d type /mood happy. When you’re finished being moody, use /mood none to return to the default state.

If you want to get really verbose and combine everything in one message, the proper syntax is: /[mood] /[say] >[target] [Message]. So: /angry /shout >Jenniveve Hey you! (Seriously, though. Don’t shout at her.)

But I will /shout out to Sandi and Takhomasak for supplying me with the information needed to make this list! 🙂

Agent Orange Juice