SWG FanFic

Peeling off the sodden, peaty smelling clothes and lowering his bruised frame into the tub of hot, scented water ken' ath closed his eyes and reflected on the day. It had started well, a wandering herd of bantha had decided to graze on the hillside below the ranger station. That had drawn in enough hide and meat to cover his repair bills for the week and had allowed him to shake out the cobwebs in his head from spending too long away from the hunt. His neighbours, both young scouts, had joined him while the local doc gave everyone the once over and administered a few homebrewed medicines that helped give the hunters the edge over their prey. They agreed to drop off some meat on their return and headed out to where some ronto had been sighted earlier. The twin suns were just above the east horizon meaning they had time to walk to the hunting grounds before the full glare of the midday sun turned Tatooines sandwastes to one massive griddle, searing any bare flesh with intense heat. Both of the younger members of the patrol whinged about being made to walk, but the old Ranger just laughed, asking if they really wanted to frighten off the animals. Maybe they were too weak to hunt? Perhaps they should have stayed back and helped decorate the new guild hall with the rest of the Watchmen? The scouts followed on, sullenly measuring out the day step by gridging step, amazed at the older man's ability to just trot along without seeming to tire, never stumbling, and barely leaving a mark behind. About 5km south west of Mos Espa the Ranger drew them up, knelt and inspected some tracks in the sand. Bootmarks, military pattern treads. Fresh, clear marks, not used to walking. Nearby scorching on the scrub told the rest of the story. "Imperial shuttle. Troopers, patrol strength, two non-coms" the Ranger mumbled, almost to himself. A few yards further ahead lay the remains of a man. Dressed in city clothes, a rough robe pulled over his face, nearby a pack lay ripped open, it's contents already slipping into the sands. "Don't know what this guys business was, but they've dropped his body out here to be found...." he said, looking carefully around for any other clues. "Don't touch anything, move back a bit and lets go round the long way" The youngest scout stared at the corpse, flyblown, burnt by the sun. "But we should bury him?" "No lad, that's what they're looking for, who comes out here to recover him and give him a funeral. Now, move. Fast." They beat double time, back about 100 metres, then worked their way in towards the rock face. "In here..." the Ranger shot forward and into a narrow gap in the rocks. His two apprentices followed without question. Back in the dunes a dark shape lifted up from its hiding place, bleeped and whirred, extended folding legs to stabilise the weight of its body and began moving towards their hiding place. "Probot. I knew they'd have left one or more out here. Stay down" The Ranger moved to the opening in the rock, dropped to one knee and slipped a heavy military blaster from the oilcloth that protected it from the sand. Tipping his body forward he assumed the prone firing position, brought the rifle to his cheek, aimed, and fired in one smooth movement. Almost as soon as it's head cleared the smaill ridge at the edge of the dunefield, the probot shuddered, a shower of sparks erupting from the camera mount on one side of its chassis and, almost simultaneously, the thin plating on the opposite side blew out, scattering circuit boards and cabling across the sand. "Keep down...." hissed the ranger as the scouts began to press forward. The explosion shattered what was left of the silence as a large anti-tamper charge ripped the probot into a thousand angry flying shards. "Hopefully it didn't get a long look at us, but we better get a shift on. Up the way, over the rocks. NOW!" Popping up from the prone position, stowing his rifle and beginning to scrabble up the rockface, the Ranger seemed to work as efficiently as the machine he'd just destroyed. The scouts followed, with less grace, but youthful muscles managed to keep the pace up. Over the ridge of the cliff, and already they were sprinting over the plateau, dodging rocks and crevasses, watchful for the shape of descending Lambda shuttles. Forced up onto higher ground than had been his intention the Ranger knew that they would be exposed, not only to the full glare of the suns, but to the eyes of anyone looking out over the flat plateau. The best way to avoid detection and the building heat would be to drop into the crevasses, work their way across the plain as best they could. This would mean following the direction of these natural trenches back and forth and that could mean taking twice as long to cross, but better to err on the safe side. For now. After an hour of backbreaking crouched running, ducking in and out of shadows, scrabbling over rocks and avoiding the various small creatures that hunted down here for any scrap of food that’d been blown in from the surrounding desert they stopped for a brief rest. A small stove was produced from a backpack, water was boiled and some leaves from the local kuafu shrub were dropped in to make a strong, reddish brown tea. A reversible sheet, sand coloured on one side, greyish brown and green on the other, was stretched across the width of the trench to give a little cover from the buzzing white light of the day though it did little to stop the actual heat. “Keep a look out up top lad” Ken’ said in a low voice and one of the scouts shimmied up to the edge of the sheeting and peered out over the dirt wastes. The other scout busied himself pouring tea, adding some strong bantha milk and a few spices to mask the milks sour taste. “Food fit for a soldier” the old Ranger mumbled in thanks as the steaming mug of hot t’chai was handed to him. Two further servings were poured and the scouts took up position on either side of the trench, sipping, watching, wondering. Mid-day was not the time to be stuck out on the Mesric Plateau. Not when both suns beat down in full summer heat from a clear blue sky. The ranger party kept still in the shade, quietly watchful, listening for anything that disturbed the natural sound of the desert. As the suns moved from the highest quarter of their progress and the air ceased to sear bare skin the Ranger and his two scouts broke camp, and began picking their way through the crevasses towards the hills south of Mos Eisley. The quiet of the desert was shattered by the sudden explosion. A fireball formed in the air above the desert and the party hit the ground as fast as they could. A wave of heat rolled across the sand, hitting the hillside and setting off a chain of echoes. A new probot droid hit the sand with an almighty thud, lay motionless for a few seconds, then, as legs pushed down from it’s underside, lifted and hovered a few metres above the surface. Even as they watched it scan the horizon they knew it had been called down from orbit, either by a bounty hunter or by Imperial forces. The sound of a vehicle nearby answered that. A bounty hunter. The speeder shot out from the shadows, stopped by the probot while a figure stepped out of the hovering vehicle, walked to the droid, tapped some information into a datapad and then scurried back to the speeder and drove away from the droid, directly towards the rangers party.

SWG FanFic

The morning mists were just starting to burn off the grasslands in whispy ghostlike streamers. His bones ached. Every muscle in his body felt as if it was trying to rip itself off his frame with cramps. The flies, at least, hadn't homed in on him yet. For that at least he was thankful.

From even a few yards away it would have been difficult to spot the hide. Low in the grass, built over a natural dip in the ground, the ghillie suit and scrim net had been interwoven with local grasses to break up their outline. Looking for all the world like another rats nest, the hide had been home to k'alum and his observer te'lia for the past week. The rats that scavenged round the edge of the hide looking for food scraps or worse added an air of authenticity to the disguise.

He dipped his face down onto the dirt beneath him, slowed his breathing and listened. First close, then far. The regular sound of his own breathing was matched by that of his sister, the only other twi'lek k'alum would have trusted to work with him like this. Outside the nest he could ear the rats scurry and then much further out he detected the sounds of the Rorgungan camp stirring.

The unmistakable sounds of soldiers waking in early dawn. Coughing, hawking, passing wind and laughing among themselves, safe in the knowledge that their patrol droids would alert them to any danger. Metal clanged against metal as ration packs were heated and served out. The warm smell of freshly reconstituted meat stew travelled far on the wind.

The rumbling of their stomachs startled both twi'lek into full alertness. "Drink, now" he gestured with his lekku. They both sipped carefully at their own liquid rations, warm from their body heat, alive with bacteria and tasting like nectar as the protein soup trickled into their guts.

A gentle tap on his shoulder alerted him to the presence of a larger figure in the Rorgungan camp. Their target had risen and was walking amongst his men, slapping their backs and laughing loudly, his dark eyes skittering about watching the horizon for any signs of danger. The lack of chatter from the patrol droids had disturbed him, though they were reporting in regularly and didn't seem to have come across anything. The small comms pack in the twi'leks lair made sure that the droids kept on their patrol routes, made sure they only found what the twi'lek wanted them to.

A small glowing green dot to the edge of his vision flashed twice to signify an incoming message. k'alum slipped the mini-HUD into the retaining band on his headress, touched a finger to the pad in his palm twice to indicate he was able to take the message. The green dot blinked out and was replaced by a red dot. The go signal was about to come in. A gentle kick withthe side of his foot alerted his sister who slipped forward a few inches, raised the disruptor rifle on its stand and looked intently through the scope.

"Three, unarmed. East and west of the main tent. One, sentry, armed, south. Facing away. He's... " she laughed quietly "he's getting rid of last nights beers, uch the smell.... Target is centre of camp, seated. Reading a map?"

"kay kay" her brother hissed. His own rifle, a long barrelled, heavily modified blaster was already trained on the forehead of the target. The Rorgungan officer drank his tea, consulted his maps, listened to the chatter of his own comms, totally unaware that barely 90m away two assassins lay in deep cover. Waiting.

The steady red dot blinked twice, steadied, twice, steadied then burned bright green. "Go"

Two clicks, pause, two clicks. The green dot blinked out. "We're on our own now..."

"As always"

A flick of a button on the HUD changed the display to show the nearby hostiles as red dots surrounded with a red circle. Aggressive and deadly. Perfect. Two waymarks glowed, the first showing the camp, the second showing their exit route. There would be no time to think once the target was down, just run and hope the waymarks held up.

In the camp the Rorgungan stood, folded his map, dropped it on the field table and stretched. His great fat green face filled the scope as k'alum gently squeezed the trigger, stopping just halfway to the point of full travel. The officers head tipped forward, his eyes swivelled towards the lair, directly towards the muzzle of his assassins rifle.

There was a flash of light, a barking sound as the highly charged bolt of energy leapt towards its target.

With barely a pause to check that the officer was falling, his head split by the release of energy against unprotected flesh, both twi'lek flicked to full automatic and spreyed the camp with a hail of suppression fire. The patrol droids erupted in balls of flame and shards of metal as the demolition charges blew them into the camp.

Not one shot in retaliation. Smoke and flames burst from tents and bodies as the twi'lek raised themselves to their knees, still firing, and then fled back from their nest, back from the rats, back from the bloody mayhem they'd unleashed. Long legs carried them effortlessly towards the treeline, heavy weapons were slung over shoulders, small spraysticks were readied for any unfortunate encounters and, withthe press off a thumbswitch, a small minefield extending from inside their lair and out for 20m in all directions went live.

"That'll keep them busy, heh?"

Sprinting up the near sheer escarpment the two Antarian Rangers seemed gifted with unnatural speed and elegance as they leapt into the waiting shuttle.

"Good hunting, k'alim?"

"Aye sir, as ever..."

"Grand!! You have both served the Alliance well, this will be long remembered, you will be rewarded a hundred times when the war is over...."

"To be honest sir, I'd settle for some real food, a bath, and a chance to get out of these combats for a day or two" grinned k'alim

The rodian officer turned, smiling to himself, "I've never understood the twi'lek. Marvellous hunters, expert marksmen, and yet you're happiest when you are dancing??"

From out of the breast pocket of her ghillie suit t'elia was already unfolding a pair of hotpants "Somebody mentioned a dance??"

An Old Ranger's Story

I'm salvaging some of my old stories from the SWG rangers forums "Campfire Tales"



What do I miss most, son? No, not the chase, tho, to be sure, that was always a thrill. Walking and crawling, sometimes for days, to get just the right position to pick off the wanderers from the pod. Thinning the herd by taking out the weak, the sick, the old.

Yourself and your brothers riding in, fleshing and skinning the carcasses before the flyers got to them. I'd lay up in the hide, watching you all work, remembering when I was learning the trade and had to rush in, work fast and get out before the bulls got scent of you and charged.

Oh, that mad run back to safety, eh? Leaping over rocks and gulleys, shimmying up the 'scarps as if you had wings in your heels. Hah! True, true, several tonnes of armoured temper right behind you does kind of focus the mind.

Good days they were son, great days. I know I never told you or your brothers, but, well, they're gone now I guess and, yeah, no point in getting us upset. Eh?

What I miss most. No, not the nights we'd all spend, camped up there in the highlands, taking turns on watch in case the locals got wind of our presence and decided to run us off. Or worse. The chat round the fires, seeing you lads beaming with excitement at the memory of the day, aye, that was always worth more than all the credits in Theed.

But no, what I miss most son, it's the smell of fresh clawed earth. The way it used to come in on the morning breeze as the bantha herds began grazing for forage. That musty, damp smell of the nights dew burning off in the dawn suns. I'd lay in there, behind your mother, my back to the wall, sniffing the breeze coming through the ventilators and know there would be one more good days hunt.

She'd stir, we'd say our good morrows, and the day would begin full of hope.

It's not been the same since, well, since we had to move up here to C-net. Aye, I know, we couldn't keep the old place going, just the two of us and with your mother gone I couldn't look after all you lads. Not properly. I only wish I'd tried harder to get you all to go live at your aunts... perhaps then you'd not have been there when the recruiting sergeants came looking for 'a few good men, steady with a rifle and not afraid to fight for their freedom'.

Aye, aye, I know, the Alliance was a noble cause. They're all noble causes. Och, never mind me, am just a silly owd fool. I'll be fine, I'll be fine bye and bye. Just let me sit by the window a little while, pretend I can still smell pantha poodu.



Those were the last words I ever heard from the old Ranger. That evening in the apartment in C-net. Shuttles roaring past outside, the smell of their turbines heavy in the damp air.

My wife and I found him the next morning, head tilted to the one side, his eyes fixed somewhere miles away. In his hands he held some datadiscs, letters from the commander of the Alliance unit we had all served in. Letters that wore my poor mother down, bit by bit, as they arrived.

We burned her remains on a pyre above the old farm on Tatooine, returning her to the planet as ash, the better to bring new life forth. Father promised her he'd come back to her one day and, today we we will spread his ashes on that same hillside, among the sweetgrass that grows there now.

I suppose it's the sweetgrass that's drawn them in, but the local farmers say they've never seen so may bantha in the valley on so many years.

There is a smell of moist, fresh earth from their foraging as I step forward to light the pyre.

There'll be good hunting Father. Travel well.

Second Life Objects Milled in RL

Second Life objects could be milled IRL Interesting article over at 3pointD.com

Mike Beradino and Simon Spartalian (SL IGN Simon Jezebel), students at the Art Institute of Chicago are launching a service offering to mill SL objects (up to a given size) out of anything from foam to stainless steel.

Mike and Simon can also be found at their own place: Recursive Instruments

This kind of crossover tech from a 'game' environment to the main reality really knocks my socks off. Awesome.

The NGE. Six Months In...

Well John, when you unleashed the NGE on an unsuspecting SWG populace back on 15th November 2005 you and the boys (and gals) asked for six months to get everything up and running.

All the bugs would be gone, the new combat systems would be in. Collision detection?

Well, 6 months in and, uhm, last night Theed starport vanished on the Bria server, heals don't fire when they're meant to, specials don't work with your looted weapons, crafters are going out of business left right and centre as their little businesses crumble in reactionto modded clothes and weapons dropping, you can're respec from a master combat to a master trader prof without the risk of getting stuck as a newb again and...

well, I could go on, couldn't I?

The list of bugs that have flared up SINCE NGE is appalling. The fact there are still release day bugs in game is laughable. I'm not even going to comment on the feeble showing at E3....

Six months in and already your team have asked us for another six months. Oh, and no new expansions this year, just bug fixes, polishing and a bit of content...

I'm depserately grasping for a word here John. It means lacklustre but eith even less 'wow' than a ball of laundry lint... if I could think of that word it'd sum up how I feel about SWGNGE 6 months in.

New new stuff for SOE vid from E3...

OK, I know you're hungry to see ANYTHING of the 'new stuff' that's hitting SWG soon, so, here... it's a video cap from E3 and, in the background, in the middle interview (the one with the chunky, excited, nervous looking bloke in the SOE tshirt*) you can see... a teeny tiny video playing that shows another few seconds of exciting excitement.

Remember, and this is key, if it's not starwarsy and iconic, it's not SWG.

Pass me another KrispyKreme, John, the RedBull is wearing off...




(Video is from the Santa Barbara Arts TV's daily coverage of E3)

* OMFG... THAT is Grant McDaniel???

It was the Week That Never Was

YE GAWDz!! That was anticlimactic.......

I think we all just lived through "The Week That Never Was".

Lucas Arts and Sony Online Entertainment present....
Star Wars Galaxies at E3

SOE/SWG had their secret enclave to show those and such as those 'the video' and it seems to have generated a phenomenal null value in media presence.

They had a whole week to release snippets to the waiting masses, ie, the forum trolls like us. You know, maybe a Dev Blog? Come on, how hard would ONE paragraph a day and a photo from a mobile have been?

Some screenshots would have been nice.

Or even a foot in the mouth statement from Chris Cao about how the GCW isn't really iconic cos you only see it as a background to the jedi storyline and anyway, almost everyone ends up dead...

Monday/Tuesday nobody expected much anyway.

Wednesday, 'hump' day, and we're starting to wonder...

Thursday. C'mon, this is getting silly. There's a leaked video of one small part of their presentation taken on shaky cam and released, presumably, without sanction.

Friday? Well, the nearest we got to any signs of Dev life was Helios posting that the combat changes won't be going to TC this weekend as promised as MOST OF THE DEV TEAM are at E3. Whut??? How many of them are over there? From the few reports that I've read it's the usual suspects (Julio, a couple of LA's and a couple of SOE's finest...) oh, and TH. And Chris Cao.

So, no E3 announcement, no official video, no screenshots, no promotion, no publicity, no code going to test....

Tell me, just what the hell was last week for??

Star Wars Galaxies Podcast with Yivvits and Mr Bubble... Episode 41

Episode XXXXI
"Is this thing on?"

Download this NOW and get these two nutters in YOUR head....

http://www.swgpodcast.com/

Are we nearly there yet?

Are we? Are we?

It's Thursday of E3 week and, to look at the SWG official forums you could be forgiven for thinking that there was nothing special going on.

Here's a once a year opportunity to tease, tantalise then treat the player base with little snippets of detail, nuggets of info, glimpses of sexy new stuff. What do we get? A huffy post from Helios that kicks off YAFW on the boards:

---

---

Itadmin wrote:
So far the only E3 content announced is return of Weapon speed and Weapon damage based on weapon not on level.

---

The combat stuff is part of normal development - it's seperate from the E3 demo. I thought
everybody knew what the demo was by now?

-Helios Titan
-Lead Designer, SWG
"I find your lack of faith...disturbing."

---

Link to Original Post

After managing to get one foot in his mouth so effortlessly Helios then went on to showing how easy it was to get both feet in your mouth at once by replying to the mild flaming with "Oh, but I was only joking..."

As somebody pointed out, we don't do 'fun' in SWGland anymore. It's not 'starwarsy' or 'iconic'.

Rumours leak out all over the place. On guy has been to E3, spoke to some of the devs and saw their demo running. Straight to the forums to let everyone know.... They're introducing an exploding city...

like whuh???

And still no official comment from the devs on what it is, how it might work. Damn, it's bad when you've got to ASK them to tease you.

LucasArts are showcasing the next edition of Lego Star Wars and you have got to go see the trailer. There's a link on the E3Insider page... Go! Google! Who do I look like, your butler?

The LucasArts official site has been taken over by their E3 stuff and it's great to see some old, posed, not ingame screenshots of SWG representing our old bitch of a game. As somebody pointed out, Imp players don't wear ST armour (don't ask), you can't fight Vader like that, you don't 'meet' rancors in the Tat desert. But most tellingly of all, especially as we're not a fully polished, highly honed example of the game designers art... What, with all that attention to detail, bug fixing and making sure everything was 'just so' you think it could be otherwise??

You cynic you... QUALITY SCREAMS OUT Screenshot 6 of 10 in the Lucas Arts slideshow Check out that terrain texture. Classy!


So, just half a week of E3 gone and there's old SWG, staggering about like a convention drunk. Her whale tail on show for all to see and she's just looking for somebody to tell her that they still love her...

Sad to see an old friend end up like that, eh?




Travel well friends.
Col. Ken' Ath,
Antarian Rangers, Tatooine

(90HuSp)

Subtle as a what?

"Be as bold as Boba Fett or as subtle as a bothan spy". So goes the blurb in the recent mailshot from SOE celebrating P28.

The above is part of the spiel about the removal of armour restrictions and, disregarding the fact that only a couple of professions can be 'as bold as Boba' *due to armour restrictions* what, just what is SUBTLE about being a bothan spy?

I mean, just from the outset being a bothan surely sets peoples spidey senses jingling? "Hmm, looks a bit like the love child of Scooby Doo and a shauput... must be a bothan. Hey, aren't they the well know spies??" and then announcing the fact, for anyone that had any doubt about your spyishness (Is that spywarsy? spyconic?) that you are, in fact, a bothan SPY kind of kicks the notion of 'subtle' right out of the ballpark.

Now, if you've removed armour restrictions BY PROFESSION, how can anyone be as subtle as a spy if there's no 'spy' armour? No, put away the 'I wanted to be a goth but my mum woouldn't let me wear mascara' black trenchcoat, short, pants, gloves... that's a not-nearly-a-superhero outfit, not armour.

It's not even flippin' functional. Here I am, in the middle of the desert... I need to hide my presence and blend in with these local Tusken dudes... (ping Lighbulb) I KNOW!!! I'll dress head to toe in black and switch on my Master Spy taxi light. Haha!! I'm so cunning they'll never know!!!

Yeah, right. Maybe some seriously dim opposite faction guys will drive past and think "Hey, look at the tall jawa..."

OK OK OK so 'psies' aren't really 'wildernessy'. After all, the mud and gunk and dust and flooz would just gum up the gadgets in your James Bond playset. So maybe 'sipes' are teh urban 1337? Yep, lemme just blend in with the crowd here... nobody will spot me against this sand coloured wall in my BIG BLACK TRENCHCOAT. "No, honest, I'm not a spy, officer, I'm uh, I'm on my way to a Marlene Deitrich fancon..." /sing Fallink In Luff Akain...

Yeah, subtle.

That's us 'piess' all over. eh.

Still the ripples spread.

I guess it's saying something that, 6 months after the event, SWG NGE has become the 'gold standard' for getting it wrong.

Just flailing about aimlessly on the blogs tonight and I happened across this...

"Tweaking a product makes sense in reaction to competitors and to stem melt, but if you start only worrying about what people are switching to you'll end up with a SWG NGE. Instead, EQ2 is a good example of modifying your product slightly and then getting on with just running a service well." Tide's Horizon: Churn & Melt (Garriott interview)

Got to love how SWG NGE has entered the vocabulary of gamers and devs alike as a synonym for "OOPS!"

So is THIS what IRL is about?

If so, I just got to get me one of those...

Begun The Chairs Wars Are.

Deleted scene from EpII

Here I Sit, Brokenhearted...

After the great upheaval of P27 and P28 testing I was looking forward to returning my trader toons to their original spec, Trader (Domestics) and Trader (Structures). There had been issues with people losing levels when respecing from combat to trader/ent, so I hung off till we saw a patch addressing this.

Respec:
When you respec to/from a trader or entertainer your level is now correctly stored. The respec system will now remember your progression through trader, entertainer, and combat professions independently.

Well, I did the drop and pick up shuffle with my Respec Device then headed to the "Profession Counsellor" or whatever they're now calling the NPC.

The dialogue isn't the most clearly written. An attempt at humour sadly obscures the choices (OK, so it doesn't take long to work out that one is 'yes' and the other is 'no' but c'mon, tossing in a reference to Jabba doesn't necessarily starwarsy make). Your first respec is free, but the NPC and you have a 'hilarious' starwarsy moment when you quibble the price and complain that even Jabba wouldn't charge this much...

Took the option to go back to Trader (Domestic) which my toon had had since NGE and instead of Master I'm a Novice again.

GarVa's got a thread up suggesting we put a CSR ticket in. Apparently they'll fix us until the 8th of May, but I wonder if they've realised we have no CSR representation on TC? Ah well. Can't put a ticket in anyway as I'm at my max limit of ONE open ticket. That's one that goes back to the 15th September when my house got buried while testing a bug with the pack/unpack feature.

Guess I'll just have to delete that ticket (Pity I can't delete the damned house) and see if a CSR manages to stumble into TC sometime in the next week...

Well, feeling less than impresed with the new patch I wander into Mos Eisley, flick /pvp and go SpecFor. Just for a laugh.

Oh come on, a lvl1 trader with a CDEF rifle and bright purple civvies? Yeah, took nearly ten minutes for somebody to find their flamer and toast my Mon Cal ass. Stuck a little bounty on the player, had a genuinely pleasant chat with him/her and then laughed as another BH toasted him/her. It's a dog eat dog world out there...

Cloned and headed to the starport to ship out. Hey, look, as an Trader I not only get Clones Disease but I also get "Animal Aggro" where any MoB's will react aggresively, ie, attack, for the next ten minutes. This was added as a disincentive to traders and ents attacking stuff when they themselves were unattackable. Oddly, it wasn't removed when the invulnarability was removed.

Feeling more than a little peeved I slumped down in chair in the starport and promptly landed on the floor.

So, here I sit, broken hearted.
Respec'd my toon
and the trouble started...

OH, and JUST to top it off, happy happy joy joy, SOE are putting the price for Station Access up to $25/month. Can see me having to have a serious think about whether or not to stay subbed or to cancel and maybe look back in in 6 months.

We will be increasing our subscription rates in June. Effective June 1, 2006, the new monthly subscription rate will be $24.99/month. While this announcement may be unpleasant, we have added several games to the Station Access subscription package and the cost of operating the game service for the games included in the Station Access subscription package has increased significantly since we launched Station Access. This change will help us achieve our goal of seeing that every player has a consistently enjoyable experience in our game worlds. You don’t have to do a thing; you will automatically be migrated to the new billing structure under your current subscription plan when your current subscription plan expires. Subscription rates are subject to tax and value-added taxes, as applicable.

New Station Access™ subscription rate as of June 1, 2006:

• $24.99 per Month

When did they say Roma Victor was going Live?

Chibi-Robo

http://www.chibi-robo.com/

I think I just discovered a level of Hell that Dante missed...

30 seconds on this Flash site for the Nintendo GameCube's cheeky chappy and I felt as if somebody had dropped a tab in my super-suger saturated tartrazine fruit juice substitute...






It's the downer I'm scared of

SWGPodcast 39

It's the SWG Podcast with Yivvits and MrBubble - Episode 39

We Were Adventurers, Explorers and Soldiers

A /rangerSalute to RobbHood who posted this on the boards.

(From the SWG Official forums (Game Play Discussion) Link to original )

The game was just out of beta and 40 of my guild started playing. I was one of my group’s “Planet Side” testers/players, having beta tested it. We are 200 strong spread out now over 8-10 different games.

I would tune in the SWG channel on TS and listen, it was amazing to here the accounts of things across the galaxy as seen through the eyes of noobs. Everyone was a noob. I had to be a part of this.

I got the game and away I went. There were people everywhere. Cantinas were jammed, star ports as well. People running across Dath, no speeders yet. Fighting rancors and nightsisters. Squills and Tuskin Raiders were things to avoid on our home planet. The Corellian plains ands the swamps of Talus, filled with big cats and their babies was a great place for the CH, but a dangerous one as well.

The crafting was amazing as well, folks dedicated themselves to mining, harvesting or buying the best resources, looting or buying skill tapes, and the items they made were top shelf. We knew who they were and we haggled for the best price. Weapons, armor, BE clothing, foods, drinks, etc…

The fighting classes would hire out to protect crafters as they tended their harvesters, or just paid us to bring home the best meat or bone, when ever it would be located that month at various places across the galaxy.

The player cites became sophisticated and well thought out. We would hunt in groups to fund the treasury. Recruit top crafters to place their vendors so traffic in town would increase.

Entertainers formed troupes that would travel around and perform at events for hire. Towns would have celebrations, music, fireworks, dancing. The socialization was at its peak.

Bases became focal points for the GCW, defending and attacking, when one went “hot” hundreds of players would be on hand. Theed was a kill zone as was the Bestine-Anchorhead corridor.

Jedi were rare and as the game progressed, more found their way to the Force. But through perma-death, saber TEF and eventually visibility and the BH, showing off with a LS was a bad thing. Removing the BH gank squad made us Jedi more brazen and may have been the first sign of the down hill slide. Jedi should have remained in the shadows.

I remember traveling across many planets and stopping off in a camps on a regular basis. Players just out and about were never hard to stumble across. The Master Ranger camp was a sight to see. If they had a dancer, it was a chance to heal up a bit and move on. Before leaving you could often barter for a new pet or some food or drink. Few new I was a Jedi, it was much safer that way. Regular clothes, carrying a rifle or carbine, with my LS in the tool bar just in case I was not as careful as I thought I was.

Back to a big city, get your speeder, armor and weapon repaired. It was always nice to find a smuggler and get those new items sliced. Stop by the local cantina and enjoy some music and get a mind buff, hit a star port and have a doctor buff you up. Then back out to the open spaces, never far from action.

Player run night clubs sprang up, rented juke boxes, exotic dancers, beauty pageants and just a place to hang out, waiting for the next assault on the enemy or hunting party. At one pageant, with about two hundred in attendance, a beautiful young Jedi was competing, when a BH attacked, the fight spilled out into the street and raged on for 20 minutes before she managed to escape. I cannot imagine a more “Star Warsy” scene then a fight breaking out in a Star Wars bar.

You didn’t have to run around to find PvP, it would always find you if you were not alert. NPC’s could unmask you as well, and many times you would have to fight your way out of town. For a Jedi, that meant visibility for sure. Time o be extra careful. But if laying low was your thing for the moment, there were 100 places to go and things to do. Tend to your factors, restock, shop, socialize, hunt, the Vette, Theme Parks, The Warren, Black Sun Bunker, etc… The server forums served as After Action Reports that made the slow times at work more enjoyable.

New players would seek help, and many did help. Taking them under their wing, showing them the ropes, forging bonds, weaken by the tears of this dying game, and friend’s lists evaporated as gamers left for greener pastures.

You really carved out your own existence, the greatest Star Wars saga ever told, yours… and if you ran the course and wanted a change, you could start over, 31 more times if it suited you.

Many of us have moved on, others stay and pray that the greatness of this game will return. Still others, like me, pay for a month here and there just to check in and see for ourselves.

For me, there is a soothing, surreal feeling when I hear the opening music. I stand above my home on Tatooine, in Storm’s End, a town we forged from the sands in a place called The Valley of the Wind. I watch the twin suns set over the mountains and remember what the game was like. It truly breaks my heart to think of the friends lost and the good times we had, gone forever, like the sands in a storm. I wait a bit longer, check my empty friend’s list and log off.

Yes, we were adventurers, explorers and soldiers, and it was the best of times.

Liz Lawley "Community outreach, or community outrage"

Over at TerraNova Liz Lawley reports on the recent Dev Summits and asks community outreach, or community outrage?

I had to laugh out loud at her son's comment "The game producer, mainly a marketer, but trying to make sure the developers didn't say anything stupid, was there, and he said the words "is key" about a thousand times. "Community is KEY." "Content is KEY." "Players are, (you guessed it) KEY."

"Sure, he sounded like a complete idiot, but he had an awesome jacket."

I wonder who he could have been talking about ;)

I feel dirty...

I'm not giving you the URL, it's just too painful.

But I've spent an afternoon merrily levelling a new toon in a new game and.. it was 'fun'.

Why the angst? It was Disney's ToonTime!!!

Oh the shame...

OK OK, melodrama aside. This is a CUTE game with cuteness in megasized letters all over. Character creation is, as you'd expect in a 'kids' game pretty simple and straightforward. A couple of minutes clickage and my toon, a tall blue monkey thing called something like Dippy Crazy Merrypoof was ready to lock and load, or stock up on pies and go squirt on the bank managers.

Chat, for non members, is limited to picking phrases from a drop down menu. Iconic characters, such as Mickey himself, make regular appearances and are full to the brim with lots and lots of positive reinforcement.

So... what makes it so cool? Well, from a gamers PoV it's just a fun sideshow, but if you're vaguely interested in game mechanics etc, you have GOT to take a look at this. Kill ten rats is there, lots of pacman, loads of 'collect a token'. Every system you've seen with a fancy schmantzy skin is in there. I laughed as my toon ran around thinking 'hey, if he was wearing a stromy uniform this'd be as much fun as the NGE'... give him an axe and shield instead of pies and a squirt gun and we're off to D&D land...

Seriously, find the demo, give yourself over to the power of The Mouse for three days and see how much you can learn about game mechanics.

Right... now I need Animal Crossing to run on a PC.... ;)

YaMB38

Yivvits and Mr Bubble, the latest 'cast at: http://media.libsyn.com/media/swgpodcast/SWGwYaMB_Episode_38.mp3">SWGwYaMB