I'm currently in the dev chat with the guys from SWG, and they've just announced another habitable world for us players:
ENDOR
They have seven planets in total. I wonder if they'll be releasing all of them before the actual game release.
I heard 5 to 20. Thanks for the head's up, Kedri! Any other tasty bits you'd be willing to share for us who missed it /forums/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif
Endor will be cool. One of the better planets anyway.
Yeah, here's another tidbit: you'll be able to hunt down Ewoks. /forums/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif
Actually, there wasn't all too much gleaned from the chat that people didn't already know. Folks in the chat room were pretty frustrated with the questions being asked. A couple things I found interesting, though:
Traveling from one planet to another via spaceship will be a trip that lasts somewhere between 3 and 5 real-time minutes. Something they'd like to develop is a sort of a mini-game you can play to help you while away the time. (at that point I exclaimed something like "Awesome! We'll get to have in-flight rounds of Yoda Stories!")
As they've mentioned that established characters in the SW universe will be making appearances throughout the course of the game, the developers confirmed that at least one Extended Universe character will also be appearing. Whether it's Mara Jade or Kyle Katarn or Dash Rendar, or whoever, they wouldn't say.
Building your own shop in a place like Mos Espa isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility, but what they seem to be encouraging is that players establish their own settlements out in the wilderness. Zoning will allow for that sort of thing to occur. I wasn't expecting for us to be able to do that.
This may have already been stated in the past, but I wasn't aware of the following fact: in order to get a PA going, everyone will need to chip in to buy what they call a PA hall. This is something rather similar to what I've seen in Dark Age of Camelot, wherein a certain amount of money is required to establish a guild, and additional money will allow you establish an exclusive in-game emblem for your guild.
Regarding the PA thing.. Are we talking credits or dollars?
No no, credits. Whatever the in-game unit of currency will be.
What really stinks is some people might want a certain guild and it could be taken before the person who wants it can get it. Take us for example, the Bounty Hunter Guild. We are a Jedi Knight clan that's been around for a looong time. If we don't get enough money fast enough, someone might take our name since the bounty hunters are so well known in Star Wars. Hopefully this won't happen but it very well could happen.
Also, this is a lot better than the EverQuest way of making a guild. In EverQuest you have to have 10 people instead of a certain amount of money. This may pose problems for some but I think it will be better for most.
Also, nice information Juztyn. It answered a lot of questions I had about the game but brought up one.
What do they mean by Jabba's Palace being a theme park?
You should read up on the stuff about theme parks I think. It talks about it in the FAQ.
i'm a n00b. hey, cool stuff.. This game is going to kick some arse.. but i'm going to have to upgrade my machine to play it.. hmmm
I think that the background to Endor should be done up a bit more since all we know now is that it is an out of the way planet that everyone seems to end up going to. Well... I ask why.
The issue of Endor has been a cause for a big debate out on the development forums. Shug_Ninx has been replying to a lot of the questions that have been raised. I think there are at least three posts from him that addresses the very topic.