Profile: Athela
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• • Astromechs, Friday Features & Other Stuff (2003-2005)

  • Actually, you had a ton of stuff I didn't have.   /deepbow to Vortex500

    Reading through this stuff I love and hate the people who created what was so amazing.  All the new people here and those with short memories...this is what is lost.  The New Game as it is experienced, ack what monstrousness...How could they mess something like Galaxies up? bah.

  • Posted: 7/01/08 6:53 AM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • Astromechs, Friday Features & Other Stuff (2003-2005)

  • Fun stuff Vortex!  I was missing a couple these these items.  Gracias.

  • Posted: 7/01/08 5:03 AM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • Rubenfield's latest revision. Do you believe him?

  • Originally posted by PreCU
    

    rubenfield is definitely contradicting freeman. Are those freeman quotes still on the internet or did you save them before they got deleted?

    
     

    Jeff's posts:   http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm?USERPOSTS=547413&PAGE=10&bhcp=1

    Stratics announcement of the Trials of Ob-wan expansion August 19, 2005 wherein they do not present themselves as bleeding 10,000 subs a month:

    Friday August 19 2005

    Star Wars Galaxies™: Trials of Obi-Wan
    GeneralNews - 11:55 AM PDT | Posted By: Issele
    LUCASARTS ANNOUNCES NEW STAR WARS GALAXIES EXPANSION PACK AS FRANCHISE UNIT SALES SURPASS ONE MILLION Star Wars Galaxies™: Trials of Obi-Wan heats things up – literally! – with all new Mustafar content inspired by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith Leipzig Games Convention – Leipzig, Germany – August 19, 2005 – LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE) today unveiled Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan to the cheers of Star Wars Galaxies™ enthusiasts gathered for a fan breakfast at the 2005 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. This third expansion to the popular immersive online game is scheduled for release on November 1st, alongside the Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith theatrical DVD and Star Wars Battlefront™ II video game. The companies also revealed that more than 1 million units of the Star Wars Galaxies franchise have now been sold, a testament to its ongoing popularity.

     

     

    Grant McDaniel on the Trials and how exciting it will be!

    Tuesday August 30 2005

    Letter from Grant McDaniel
    GeneralNews - 3:32 PM PDT | Posted By: Issele
    Hi, I am Grant McDaniel. I am the Producer for Star Wars Galaxies at Sony Online Entertainment and have been with the team for over four years. I just returned from the Games Convention in Leipzig, which was amazing (over 100,000 gamers!) and also where we announced our upcoming expansion, Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan. Over the past few months, a portion of our development team has been secretly working on this expansion, so I am really glad that I can finally begin to tell you a little bit about what we have been doing (just not everything – we have to leave a few surprises!). Over the upcoming weeks, our community group will be gathering your expansion-related questions from the forums so that I can provide you all with some answers and more information about what we have planned. We have already gathered some of the most common questions from the boards, and I have provided some initial answers to those below. I know there are a lot more questions where these came from, and we will post some answers regularly. Is this a Jedi expansion? Absolutely not. This expansion has content and adventures for all types of Star Wars Galaxies players. I'm not a Jedi...so is there any reason for me to obtain the Trials of Obi-Wan Expansion? Of course. All players will be able to converse with Obi-Wan and help him on his quests. Additionally, there will be many other quests as well as other reasons to explore the planet of Mustafar. And, the planet itself is so completely unique when compared to the rest of the planets in our game, that I think many people will just enjoy exploring and adventuring anywhere they can. (A lot more than Anakin!) Trials of Obi-Wan: Will there be a new playable species? How about new NPC species? We did not add any new playable species. However, Mustafar is home to two new native NPC species that you will find in the expansion (more on them later). Why was Obi-Wan chosen to appear at this point in the timeline since he hadn't yet visited Luke Skywalker? Events on Mustafar have caused a major disturbance in the Force, unleashing unknown dangers that could empower the dark side if not stopped. These events have led Obi-Wan Kenobi's spirit back to Mustafar to investigate how to eliminate this evil presence. With your help, he hopes to resolve the situation so that he can then move on to help the boy who could be our last hope… What are some of the highlights of the expansion? Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan takes place on a harsh lava world unlike anything seen in our current game. There, you'll find a lava river and erupting volcanoes, as well as other dark and mysterious caves and dwellings. The expansion is built around the fiction of Mustafar, so there are many new story-driven quests, some of which revolve around Old Republic technology that has been discovered there. There will be lots of high-level loot, cool new reward items and features (including an increase in the number of ground vehicles that can be stored and used by the player), and many more exciting things that I look forward to sharing with you soon. All of these aspects combine to make this expansion look and feel like you are literally walking into the world of Episode III. Is there anything else you can share about the expansion that hasn't been discussed yet? Yes. There are a lot of new features as I have mentioned above, and they will be revealed over the next few weeks. I would love to reveal them now – but then they would have kill me! However, here is a little bit more background fiction, which gives a hint as to some of what is occurring on Mustafar:

     

     

    Julio, October 27, 2005  interview on mmorpg.com wherein he does describe the NGE and its purpose if only you knew he was about to sledgehammer you!

     

    MMORPG.com:

    With a couple of expansions now under your belts, how does Galaxies appeal to the “new player” without having them feel lost or somehow behind other players?

    Julio Torres:

    This has definitely been a challenge for our game in the past, but has come a long way, especially in terms of directing the player to what they need to be doing early-on. The first experience a player has with a game is incredibly important in terms of design because it is within this initial time frame that a player decides whether they will continue playing the game or move-on to something else. Knowing how important it is to put your best foot forward as early as possible, we are constantly looking for ways to make the game more accessible to more players and improve the overall experience. That being said, we actually have some very exciting things in the works right now to help accomplish this. Stay tuned.

     

     

    Bad dogs, all.

  • Posted: 6/27/08 6:06 AM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • The Escapist to cover Dan Rubenfield Blog

  • Originally posted by todeswulf
    

    I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so.

    It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief.  I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again.  I do want to finish up by saying That  Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers.

    I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on.  The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen.

    Todeswulf out.

    People say "this is my last post" all the time.  Next thing you know, they're drawn back by some tremor in the Force.  See ya soon.
     

  • Posted: 6/22/08 5:41 PM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • The Escapist to cover Dan Rubenfield Blog

  • Fishermage:  "That is quite possible, but it is far more likely that a discussion between Julio, Grant McDaniels, Jim Ward, Smedley, and SOE/LA marketing JOINTLY came up with the stripping of the professions. Remember, each SOE game has a profession structure similar, as does WoW (and most games for that matter).

     

    I feel it was the suits who came up with the idea, but not necessarily LA alone. The design team, who knew the game slightly better, realized that it would be a disaster.

    From what I have heard from various sources, it was a JOINT decision and was corporate and marketing. Those sources feel SOE and LEC were equally to blame."
     

    Julio.

    In the kitchen.

    With the lightsaber.

     

    I think Julio could get an easy pass from Jim Ward who was, from what I could see, a very casual gamer.   Rogue5 was in the Mustaphar test server with his little Rodian outfit, hanging around the Mensix Mining facility pretty happily until about halfway through testing, then he got sort of gruff.  He never seemed comfortable with dealing with what the changes wrought, he never came across as sure that it was super stuff.  I thought at one point he was guilty but now I don't think so.   Smedders, who I am mercilous on, has really just mumbled a line or two now and then saying yeah, NGE, great stuff, rah rah.  So...we wait and see who else squeaks.

  • Posted: 6/21/08 8:30 PM
    Star Wars Galaxies