What profession do you like to play in SWG?

Commando! I picked this because I�ve always liked being a tank class. I have a level 90 Commando. I have an Entertainer alt, but everyone does, right?

Jonric: What type of character is the trader? What is this profession's role in the game, and how does its new expertise system work?

Jake Neri: Traders are for players who like to gather and build. They are a critical part of SWG's economy, as they can make things for other players that are both consumable and rare. The trader expertise system in Chapter 5: An Entertaining Enterprise will allow players to spend talent points in two trees, Specialization and Production.

1) Content is the single biggest thing people playing SWG want. - this surprised me. From our perspective we had thought revising the systems in the game (i.e. expertise revamps) was a bigger deal. While they did say this was important, I was susprised they ranked this higher than working on PVP.
2) This lead to a discussion about involving the community in the decision making process. They pointed out that we do a lousy job at this, and they're right. As such, you can expect a poll in the near future to help us prioritize things for the next 6-12 months.
3) Guild Management tools in SWG aren't up to snuff - I went ballistic when I heard you can only manage your guild through the terminal. We need to fix this.
4) Server consolidation - we need to fasttrack this - it's a very hard problem, and the team has had other priorities.
5) We need to explain ourselves and the thinking behind changes a lot better
6) Once we got past the "please bring back the pre-NGE servers" (no, we're never going to do that) the discussion really got down to brass tacks. Many people ask me why I don't post a lot here, and the simple answer is that it's hard to follow a thread when many of the posts end up being "bring back pre-NGE servers" and other issues we've moved past. Please don't misunderstand me on this - I get why some people want this. It's just that it isn't possible and at some point if we're going to move the game forward new ideas are at the top of the list of things we should be discussing. That's my view anyways.

• How do you feel regarding his remarks about content being the number one concern of SWG players?

• What are your ideas to fix guild management?

• What do you have to say about server merging?

This is Podcast 12 and we talk about the EQ expansion, the latest updates for SWG and EQII, also you get to hear from some of our Summit attendees.

This year's Summit focused on Community, its strengths and weaknesses. Roughly, a group of about twenty players and a matching number of employees gathered at a fabulous hotel (too fabulous for me to stay at without feeling guilty!) and discussed how to improve the Community for everyone.

Thomas Blair (Blixtev) is taking over for Kai Steinmann (Helios) as Lead Designer on the project. Thomas is going to continue to enhance and expand SWG by following the work that Kai began last year. Helios (Kai) lead the design of the profession expertise systems, the GCW improvements, the targeting and combat changes, and generally worked at every step to improve SWG as it stands today. In short, he and his team (of which Thomas was a part) were responsible for the significant improvements you've seen throughout the last year. Those improvements are going to continue.

Holo-bands give entertainers a new way to have fun in the game by spawning their own band members. With this entertainer expertise ability, dancers can choreograph new dance routines using their holographic dance group and musicians can create a well rounded band comprised of a variety of different instruments allowing for a more robust sound � but all under one player's control.

Build-a-Buff is a new system of Inspiration Buff that replaces the existing system and gives Entertainers the ability to provide unique, custom buffs for their customers. Entertainers will be able to select from a wide range of modifiers and effects which are combined to create a single buff tailored to the needs of their patron.

Reverse Engineering is a new crafting feature coming to Star Wars Galaxies in Chapter 5. It provides traders with a new way to customize armor, clothing and weapons. These new items will be very competitive in combat making them a more appealing purchase for potential customers. Reverse Engineering is also very handy for traders who provide their player associations with the latest and greatest gear.

Reverse Engineering is really going to open up a huge variety of bonuses and item modifications