12. Community
12.01 Do the designers listen to us?
Yes, the designers visit the boards a couple times a day. In addition, we have community monitors who read most every post and bring the hot topics to the attention of the design team.
12.02 Do the other members of the Star Wars Galaxies team read the message boards, such as the artists, programmers, etc.?
Yes, they often read the boards and listen to comments from the community.
12.03 Who are Holocron, Shug_Ninx, BoShek, Q-3PO, Ood_Bnar and quarters?
Holocron: Raph Koster is the Star Wars Galaxies' Creative Director for Sony Entertainment Online. He is responsible for the overall design vision of the game. Raph has a long history of working with massively multiplayer games including being Lead Designer on Ultima Online.
Shug_Ninx: Haden Blackman is the project's Producer for LucasArts. He is responsible for making sure that Star Wars Galaxies meets the expectations of LEC and Star Wars fans and adheres to the official continuity. Haden has worked on a number of Star Wars projects at LEC, including Behind the Magic, Insider's Guide, Battle for Naboo, and Starfighter.
BoShek: Rich Vogel is the Executive Producer for Sony Online Entertainment. He is responsible for overseeing the entire development of Star Wars Galaxies. Prior to this, he was producer on Ultima Online and Meridian 59.
Q-3PO: Kevin O'Hara is our Community Relations Manager and is responsible for helping build a strong and positive community for Star Wars Galaxies. In addition, he will be doing some design work. Before working for Sony Online Entertainment, Kevin worked as a designer on such projects as Meridian 59 and Tachyon: The Fringe.
Ood_Bnar: Jake Rodgers is our Art Director and is responsible for the look of the game. Jake has been in the industry for 12 years, starting out on the Wing Commander, Privateer, and Ultima series of games. He has been production manager and art director for Microsoft, EA, and now Sony Online Entertainment.
quarters: Jeff Grills is our Technical Director. He is responsible for managing the programming team, and personally works on the core engine and 3d graphics libraries. He has been in the industry nearly 10 years and shipped several titles in the Wing Commander line from Origin Systems, including the multiplayer game Wing Commander Armada.
12.04 Who are Quid, Snaykinn and Xahn?
These are our Community Board Moderators. They are responsible for reviewing all of the posts and bringing the important discussions to our development team.
12.05 Will you support Player Guilds?
Yes. We are calling them Player Associations (PAs), and we intend to offer lots of game mechanics to help players manage their associations.
12.06 In player associations, can we designate officers and delegate administrative powers to those officers?
The selected leader will have various powers such as ejection, recruitment, etc, and will be able to grant powers to other members of the guild, in effect building their own hierarchy. So, if you want a treasurer, for example, the leader can name one and give him the appropriate powers for that office.
12.07 Will there be customer support for the game?
Yes. We are investing a significant amount of time in creating strong support tools and backend infrastructure so we can help you more effectively.
12.08 Are players going to be able to maintain a "friends list" in-game to help keep up with their online friends?
Yes, there will be a friends list.
12.09 Will there be an "ignore list" which will block messages from players I can add and subtract from the list?
Yes. We plan to include all the conventional chat filters, so you'll be able to ignore specific players if you feel the need.
12.10 Will you support global chat systems and an equivalent to /tell?
Yes, we will. Given the accessibility of ICQ/IRC, it's a losing battle to try to keep people from communicating long distance instantly with each other. In addition, the social benefits of global communication are enormous. We will however work to reduce spam as much as possible, and will make all channels optional, and supply user-configurable ignore filters.
12.11 Will text appear over the character's head or in a chat box?
We include both. You get to choose which you prefer.
12.12 Will player names float above our characters' heads?
Bringing up the names over people's heads will be an option on a hotkey.
12.13 How can I look up other players that are online?
There is a "who's online" list you can access via your Community window, with a bunch of filtering options for it. For example, you'll be able to filter by types of profession the player chooses to be listed as, by planet, etc.
12.14 Can I remove myself from the 'who list'?
You can take yourself off the 'who list', or choose what profession titles you want to have visible.
12.15 Will there be features that help players find groups?
You can set a flag on the WHO'S ONLINE screen you access via your Community window. That allows you sort by various criteria, one of which shows those looking for a group. You can see what professions the people are (if they choose to show that to others) and communicate with them to build a group.
12.16 Will you support chat channels?
Yes. We'll have lots of channels including ones for specific professions and factions (among others).
12.17 What type of chat modes will you provide?
Players will be able to select from three modes: raw, chat, and prose. In raw mode, all chat appears as a simple message, exactly as typed. If Luke types "Hello. I'm a Jedi," everyone around him sees "Luke: Hello. I'm a Jedi." In Chat mode, players will read a slightly more elaborate message. In the above example, players might see: "'Hello. I'm a Jedi,' says Luke." In prose mode, we're including emotions, grammatical variations, and other additions. Again, using the above example, players might read. "'Hello, I'm a Jedi,' Luke says happily." You can also use alternate verbs like "mutter", "grumble" or "whine" if you like.
12.18 Will I be able to communicate and interact with players who are part of factions opposite my own?
Yes, you can definitely converse and interact with them.
12.19 Will there be in-game bulletin boards?
Not at launch, however we eventually plan to support several in-game boards that range from political discussion forums and Q&A forums to notice boards and social forums. Some boards will be considered restricted; access to these special boards might be based on faction, skill/profession, species, etc. We also hope to allow players to create and moderate their own boards. For initial release we will have official out of game boards for customers.
12.20 When is the Newsletter released?
The newsletter will be released in the first week of each and every month. The first one went out on March 1st, 2001.
12.21 Will there be an in-game email system?
Star Wars Galaxies will feature in-game e-mail. You can send messages to other players even while the recipient is offline, and receive any messages left for you when you log back on. Several game systems will also utilize this system. For example you may get additional mission information messaged to you while in the field or your manufacturing plant may send you a message to tell you its progress.
12.22 What is the purpose of grouping?
Up to 20 players can form a group so they can more effectively communicate in shared tasks such as hunting, skirmishes or forming musical bands. The group leader can set several options such as whether found items/credits are split automatically among group members and whether group members are notified of important events like the incapacitation of a fellow member. Anyone in the group can view the list of options.
12.23 What is the Match Making Service?
We've found that massively multiplayer games are much more fun if you have friends to play with. Under the Community button in the game, and during character creation, there is an opportunity to set up a personal profile for yourself. You can define characteristics about yourself such as what sorts of things you like to read, what hobbies you have, what sort of gameplay you prefer to engage in, and so on. You can also fill out a section for what you'd like to find in a friend, adjust a "sensitivity" slider as to how close a match someone should be, and choose to hide yourself from other people's searches. When you come near other players who are close matches to the profile you're looking for, you'll get notified, so that you can try to strike up a friendship. Some of the factors included for matchmaking are: music, sports, books, movies, crafts and hobbies, gaming styles, gender, zodiac sign, blood type, SWG activities, and more.
12.24 What features will Player Associations have?
Player associations, when founded, grant a number of abilities to the PA leader. The PA leader can choose to grant these permissions to other members as well. Using these features, each PA can decide what sort of structure they want to have; PAs can create ruling councils or more open structures or other structures based on how they set up their permissions for members.
Among these abilities are: Sponsor someone for membership, accept a sponsored candidate as a member, kick someone from the PA, disband the PA, send mail to everyone in the PA, grant a title to a PA member (titles show up in your character sheet and when you are examined), change the PA's name and abbreviation (abbreviations show up next to members' names in the world), withdraw money from the PA's bank account, and declare war with other PA's. Any member can set which PA member they are loyal to. Every week, the PA member with the most people directly loyal to them becomes the PA's leader.
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.
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.
12.27 What are the maximum and minimum sizes for player associations?
When you first establish a player association hall, it's allowed to have only one member: you. But within 7 days, your PA must have at least 5 members, or the PA will be dissolved. We repeat this check every 7 days thereafter. The maximum size for a player association is 500.
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