Chapter 4.3 "Armed and Ready for Action!" Publish Notes, January 4th

Combat

Bug Fix: Being incapacitated while mounted on a vehicle will now correctly remove the buffs from the player.
AI: Creatures will no longer attempt to reveal or attack targets that are cloaked through walls and floors.
Heavy Weapon ground targeting should no longer reveal cloaked characters.
/whisper and other forms of "directed spatial" commands should no longer turn your character to face a nearby cloaked character.

Galactic Civil War

Officer ranked GCW armor sets and weapons will no longer be unique so that you may display them in your house.
The Imperial White Spec Ops Armor Gloves will now actually be white instead of black.

The owner of a faction base will no longer be able to destroy a faction base by using the Destroy Structure option while enemy players are in the facility in order to prevent successful attackers from receiving their GCW point rewards for destroying the base.

Note: Enemy players can still blow up the base by slicing the terminals while players are inside the base.


Player bases will no longer grant GCW points if they are destroyed by the owner.


Profession: Medic

Corrected an issue with Stasis that allowed it to be useable at any range, rather then its intended 48m range.
The volume on many medic sound effects has been reduced.

Profession: Smuggler

The delivery timer for the "Delivery to Isbel" has been increased from 6 minutes to 12 minutes.

Profession: Spy

Fixed an issue that would sometimes lock the action bar when clicking Snipe.
Expertise: Without a Trace cool-down should now be 3 minutes with expertise.
Expertise: Using sneak no longer adds 10 seconds to the Without a Trace cool-down.
Expertise: Fixed an issue that would prevent Without a Trace and Smoke Bomb from properly activating.

Targeting

The target status window now always displays the intended target (the green bracket target) as it did prior to Chapter 4.

There is now a new option to enable a secondary target status window which displays the mouse-over target. The option, which is off by default, is in the Interface section and is called "Show a second target status window for the mouse-over target".

The default location is to the right of the existing target status window but can be moved where ever you would prefer. As a result, the default location of the Quest Helper was moved to right side of the screen just under the radar. Your existing layout should not be affected, but the new target status window may need to be moved.
Tip: If you want to re-locate the new targeting window on your screen, the easiest way to do it is to target yourself (/tar self). That way it will stay on the screen and make it easy to click and drag it to where ever you like.

User Interface

Expertise: The Expertise window has been modified so that the requirements are completely displayed.

SOE games EverQuest II, Vanguard, God's & Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies are all featured in a unique MMO Calendar for 2007 with 100% of sales proceeds benefiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Charity.
SOE games EverQuest II, Vanguard, God's & Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies are all featured in a unique MMO Calendar for 2007 with 100% of sales proceeds benefiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Charity

This unique 12-month calendar features the original artwork of some of todays hottest and most anticipated upcoming MMOs, each dedicated to its own month. As if that is not exciting enough, the artwork has been signed by the developers of your favorite games as well!

It is also with great pride that 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this amazing calendar go directly to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, helping them in the battle to save the lives of children all over the world! Discoveries made through research at St. Jude have completely changed how children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases are treated; giving them hope they did not have before. Is there a better cause to support than helping make ill children better? We don't think so either!

All of the development teams have been simply amazing to work with in putting this together and fully support the incredible work St. Jude does every day. To join us in the fight to save our children and get your MMO Calendar 2007 please visit http://www.mmocalendar.com/.

(A PayPal Account is NOT required; PayPal will accept Credit Cards, e-Check, Bank Transfers etc. through the payment system with no PayPal account).

We got back together after a couple of weeks off to bring you the year in review show. We also talk about what we did for Christmas and what we would like to see from SWG in 2007:

Gihren couldn't keep his mouth shut this week and that is a good and bad thing. It is good because it made for interesting discussion. It was bad because it made the show a PG-13 rating.

During this holiday season we spend time with our friends and family, celebrate religious events, and or look forward to a certain jolly elf to bring us gifts (no, not Brenlo ). There's one other thing needed to really put you in the holiday spirit... The "Yivvits & MrBubble Holiday Extravaganza 2006" podcast!

This year we revisit our favorite (and only) Star Wars Christmas album. Listen along as 3PO teaches R2 how to sing, the workshop droids finally figure out what to get a Wookiee for Christmas, and 3PO performs a thoughtful reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Most large companies have some sort of holiday gathering and we assumed SOE is no different. Our assumptions were confirmed when we obtained a super top-secret recording from the event. Smed and Helios exchanged "secret Santa" gifts; need we say more?

We sum up our personal feelings about SWG for 2006 and discuss what we'd like to see happen with the game in the coming year. Finally, we exchange gifts and are humored (or possibly horrified) that we both got each other... Nah, you'll just have to listen to find out!

Happy Holidays,
Yivvits & MrBubble

Please join me to complete a circle of players around the Village on every server to show we care for this game and we want them to make this game the way we like it! Give the game back to the active players and remove the remains of the players and cities departed and abandoned long time ago. Give us more quests, more PvE, more action and more space in space and the planets.

Name of Event: Luau at The Tropico -RP-
In-game Contact: Tamlee (Club owner), Mayor Arielina, IrvTheMongral
Location: R'n'R Retreat -RP-, Rori ( 4548, 411 )
Date: Every Tuesday Time: 7 pm PST / 8 pm MST / 9 pm CST / 10 pm EST
Description: This is a weekly roleplay part at the Tropico Cantina. It's a chance to meet, chat, dance & play music. We want everyone to have a fun time, relax & enjoy themselves. As such we ask everyone to be respectful, no matter what faction you are and please leave your weapons home. Thank you

I agree. Inflation* is an issue, but it's not something technology can solve. Even if credits were somehow "balanced", it wouldn't change the dynamics of the players in the economy - - which ultimately drives everything.

The problem I see now is the same problem as its been throughout the entire life of the game so far. Earning credits is a number game like any other part the game. Those folks that are real good at it power game the "credit game" and there are a few folks who have amassed impressive fortunes.

And like before, the top percentage of crafters are selling rare items to the wealthiest players. However there are many players who simply who have no interest in focusing their game play on earning credits. As such, they can't buy all the top priced items.

Sure they can make a fair amount of credits, but to buy the stuff you need, you can really blow through a lot of cash real fast because of the high prices (high prices that are driven more by an impression of the market than the market itself).

And since the virtual economy has no where near the amount of economic controls that that the real world economy has, the virtual economy is much more vulnerable to unsubstantiated impressions of the state of the economy.

An example would be that if everyone believes that a particular high prices is "the going rate", people raise their prices to keep up with the Jonses. In the real world prices would fall a bit so that people could take advantage of the market, move stock and then pay the rent on their stores, pay their emplyees, etc. The market forces that are in the real world just don't exist virtually.

What I see is a lot of people selling a whole lot of items at incredibly high prices and then wonder why no one is buying them.

Then I see other good natured merchants sell items at good prices, reasonable prices. In a very short amount of time, a merchant power gamer comes along, buys their entire stock and then puts it on their vendor at incredibly high prices...that few people buy.

There are certainly a whole lot of angles to this discussion, but one thing has remained constant throughout the history of galaxies and that is merchant power gaming drives the price of items more than inflation.

Just my two cents and a holiday wish for an interesting and exciting holiday discussion.

Happy Holidays!


* The definition of Inflation Imusing here is basically: An increase in the amount of currency in circulation, resulting in a relatively sharp and sudden fall in its value and rise in prices: it may be caused by an increase in the volume of paper money issued or of gold mined, or a relative increase in expenditures as when the supply of goods fails to meet the demand.

The Life Day holiday season is gearing up for a lot of great parties and events. There are all kinds of events happening over the holidays that you can get involved with. It's a great way to get in touch with friends and have a great time.

Cities and guilds will be having Life Day events, role playing events, PvP events, competitions and having all sorts of activities. Don't miss out on all the holiday fun!

Happy Life Day 2006!



Feature Scramble

Each week, we take a memorable quote from the Star Wars films and scramble it.

You can assume:

* All the letters from the quote are present
* All punctuation from the original quote is included (periods, hyphens, etc.)
* Capital letters from the quote are still capitalized

Your mission, should you decide to take it is to decode the quote by unscrambling it and posting your answer.

Here is this week's scramble:

2 characters, 5 lines of dialogue

r v I n t u t L e w I m e g t b g s e o C o u r k s g a t u r e y e l h t l e t y I i n o t h e e g t n t n r s k g a v s g h a i i k s n e y n I e Y I w e e g a f t a r n b c b n i s e t C d i e n e l a i e y o T e o g c e h o e i e o r e b d d n i g c O e t o y o k u t d t n i i e h w k n r k l r t o o s o d s o o u e e r h e u e n n n e n f l s e e ba h i a a v e h a h J t d i u a r r o v t e r ..,'.,.,...'.'...!

*Note: Edited posts are excluded from being able to get the Descrambler title

Episode LXVI
"Yivvits and MrBubble at Tanagra"

This is it! Our final "normal" episode of 2006! (normal for us anyway) As usual, we discuss a plethora of topics this week. MrBubble gives us some tips on decorating with your holo-emitters and raves about his G15 keyboard. Yivvits goes on and on about bugs (nothing new there) and enlightens MrBubble on the subject of "the rate of movement in SWG." Some of you have been asking about the enigma that is "Episode 63" and this week we shed some light on the episode that must not be named. More? More did you spake? There is more, but for that you need to download the show!

Episode LXV
"Wat? Is that you?"


Welcome to another episode of SWGwYaMB! It�s been a rather uneventful week for both of us yet somehow we popped out this hour long beauty. We talk about Life Day 2006, listen to a few voicemails, and catch you up on what we�ve both been doing. Inspired by Yivvits� shader quest, MrBubble has started a pursuit of his own: Droids can�t be called in structures. He�ll fill us in on what he�s done so far. Our guest this week is none other than angry teenage Anakin. He�s just so angry; we think he needs a hug� or some anger management.

Enjoy this jocular and lighthearted episode of YaMB!

To start off our community Life Day celebration, we're challenging you to a Life Day Scavenger Hunt!

Here is the challenge:

You will need to collect all 12 items on the list and take a screenshot of your character and all 12 items.

The first 20 people who send in a screenshot that has all 12 items included (in the one screenshot) will get the sparkling Life Day Orb forum icon!

Here's How To Play:

1. Head into the game and collect all of the following 12 Days of Life Day Scavenger Hunt items:

Wookiee Life Day Orb
A striped fish
A Lightsaber Color Crystal
Gaming Table (Holo-Chess table)

Valley View (Painting)
Holo-Emote: Holo Notes
Tatooine Tapestry
Kloo Horn
Bubble Tank
Stuffed Bantha
A Theed Candle
1 Bottle of Vasarian Brandy
2. Take a screenshot that shows your character and all 12 scavenger hunt items together.

3. Email the screenshot to starwars@soe.sony.com