It's Hip to be T Square(d)

 In case you don't know, Teesquared (or T2 as most people text him).  I even got to hang out with him recently at a recent Nomad Market event.  See?

He was exceptionally kind, and didn't even mind my Corellian attempts at humor.  Maybe my reputation preceded me - but that would be egotistical to say.

Anyway...

The point is Teesquared was featured in a great interview for Massively entitled Squaring off with SWG's producer, Teesquared.  The two page feature originally posted on October 5th not only talks about stuff like the new GCW setup, Trading Card Game teases, and the revamped rare loot system but also explains how committed SWG is for 2011 (and a certain article tells me SWG will be around longer than many assume) - including subjects such as the Galactic Moon Festival, Wookiee Life Day, and also alluding to a Nightsister [themepark] revamp: The Witches of Dathomir.  Oh yeah - one other thing...  Player-designed instances?  :)

You can read the article in its entirety if you hit the jump, but you can find the actual link here:
http://www.massively.com/2010/10/05/squaring-off-with-swgs-producer-teesquared

Squaring off with SWG's producer, Teesquared

by Larry Everett Oct 5th 2010 at 3:30PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Interviews, Previews, Star Wars Galaxies, Trading card games, Massively Interviews

The fans of Star Wars Galaxies are stalwart. Despite all the trouble the game has gone through, it features one of the most active communities in the Sony Online Entertainment library of MMOs. The developers have noticed this and have continued to work diligently on new content for the loyal players.

Recently, we took the opportunity to ask SWG's current Producer Tony "Teesquared" Tyson some questions about the present and future of the title. He answered all our inquiries about holiday events, future updates, the Galactic Civil War, and the Trading Card Game. Some exciting things are coming!

Follow us after the break to find out what future holds in a galaxy far, far away...

Massively: T², thank you for taking the time to talk to us. There are many fans of Star Wars Galaxies at Massively. Our West Coast Editor Bree Royce and I still have active characters on Starsider. We have both been playing off and on since the beginning of the game and are avid Star Wars fans.

Tony "Teesquared" Tyson, Producer: Yay! Thanks for your interest in Star Wars Galaxies! It's great to hear we have some SWG players working at Massively. We are definitely excited to share some info on upcoming new features and updates that are going into the game. SWG is the only classic Star Wars MMO, and we are very proud of that fact. Our fans, like you, are very passionate about Stars Wars, and that is a big part of what attracts people to our game.

I am extremely glad you have continued to create such a great game, and given the amount of time you have been a part of the team that creates SWG, I am sure you have an extraordinary vision for the game round off the year. Would you tell us a little bit about your overall plans for the rest of 2010 and maybe a little into 2011?

I've been working on SWG for over six years now. I feel like we have grown up together. I experience new challenges and learn new things every day. It's the most fun and rewarding job I have ever had!

Our vision for SWG is driven by our players. Players unload tons of great ideas on us at the fan events, through our Facebook page and our website forum discussions. These ideas have dictated many of the enhancements and additions we have made to the game.

The next feature we will be releasing is the Rare Loot System (RLS). Over the last seven years there have been thousands of unique items added to SWG, and for various reasons, many of these items are no longer attainable or may never have been attainable by some players. That's changing now. Players will now be able to log into the game and obtain these rare loot items by adventuring, participating in heroics, GCW invasions and through other avenues in the future. Wow! We are really excited about this. The sense of discovering something rare and collectible unexpectedly is really fun and our players are very excited about this new system's implementation.

Also, next week will be the finale of our seventh anniversary celebration. We marked this momentous event by giving players seven gifts each representing one theme from each of the seven years since launch. Using player suggestions, we created and gave out amazing rewards that were themed around what was going on in the game for that year. To celebrate year three and our expansion, Star Wars Galaxies: Rage of the Wookiees™, we gave out a schematic for a Kashyyyk tree house. This house is modeled after the home base for the Wookiees of Kashyyyk. For year four and Trials of Obi-wan, the players received a schematic for a vehicle lava resistance kit, since most that expansion took place on the lava covered planet of Mustafar. And the year seven gift and finale for the entire event are the most amazing loot items to date. We do not want to give away too much, but they are definitely the highlight of the entire set of anniversary gifts -- we saved the best for last!

We haven't forgotten about story content either. This year we will be releasing the Witches of Dathomir quest series. On the eerie and mysterious planet of the Dathomir, there is a disturbance among the Nightsisters. The players will get a chance to discover what is going on and, yet again, save the Galaxy from doom and destruction.

For the rest of this year, we have Wookiee Life Day and the ongoing character profession and game play enhancements. Players bring issues to our attention on a regular basis. We like to dedicate development time for each of our updates to address these issues. We recognize that our community is a big part of what makes SWG special and that is where we put a lot of our focus. There is no doubt that the SWG community has grown over the years and continues to thrive. It is what is really unique about this type of game and what makes being the producer of SWG so cool.
So far, 2010 has definitely been the year of the Galactic Civil War. You have ramped up player expectations with a totally new invasion system that allows all types of players -- not just combat-types -- to make a major contribution to the events. You have changed the players' expectations for the game. Are we going to see more of this all-inclusiveness with the holiday events, the Witches of Dathomir update, and other future updates?

The GCW is stronger than ever in SWG. Earlier this year we introduced city invasions where players work together with game controlled AI to attack or defend key cities in the galaxy. The last update also brought with it individual, city and guild GCW leaderboards. Compete with your friends to attain the highest ranks and enjoy perks and rewards for your efforts. We also value letting our players create some of their own stories inside the game. In 2011, you can expect to see Galactic Civil War (GCW) 2 which will bring the challenges and battles of the war to space and player cities. For user generated content, we have some new features in-store for the SWG Chronicles system that will really set those player created quests on fire.

We are really glad you like the Galactic Civil War invasion system. We knew we had a very unique and challenging system that, with time, we could continue to update and balance. Including all players, regardless of play style, and giving them a role in the war was the key focus of the invasions and its great hearing you feel we accomplished that.

Our plan is to continue to involve everyone in the updates. The SWG seventh anniversary celebration was an example of how we focused the gifts on various professions in the game. The schematics, decorations, and functional items included something for everyone. So you can expect that the holiday events, the quest series like Witches of Dathomir, and the other planned updates that I mentioned to include aspects that are non-combat related.

Massively: I have a lot of friends who absolutely love Dathomir and the whole Dathomiri culture, so I have to ask: What is this update all about? What's the story? What are the quests? And most importantly, what is the loot?!

Tony "Teesquared" Tyson: One of the things that we have been doing lately is keeping some surprises for the players. For example, by not including specific details in our public notes, we have been encouraging our players to log in to find out the next gift of the SWG seventh anniversary celebration. Our players have been enjoying it and so have we.

With this in mind, I don't want to give out too much detail on the Witches of Dathomir storyline or content, but I can say that Dathomir is a dark and eerie place and the Nightsisters are powerful Star Wars characters. Initially this background and lore drew us to this location and theme. Since launch we haven't done anything that directly and deeply involves player interaction with the Nightsisters, so we're very excited that we get a chance to do that now. Who doesn't like the mystical and magical nature of the Nightsisters -- and the idea of witches in Star Wars!?

The quests will involve all different play styles. For example, combat players will have a chance to go up against the Spider Clan. There are also going to be challenges that don't involve combat at all.

As far as the storyline, well that's the part we want to be a surprise. From my SOE Fan Faire presentation in August, we mentioned a few pieces of information as teasers. Is the Blackwing virus spreading? (Last year we released Death Troopers content also on Dathomir.) Are afflicted, creature infects with the Blackwing virus, reaching outside the Quarantine zone? Stay tuned...

As far as rewards, there will be cool Nightsister wearable loot to enjoy plus more surprises!

Speaking of witches: What is Halloween -- the Galactic Moon Festival, rather -- going to be about this year? Is Z'ozpheratu going to make a comeback? What's going to be different this year from last year?

Our yearly Halloween event, the Galactic Moon Festival, will also round out this month's festivities. What better way to celebrate a scary event than inside SWG receiving scary gifts from your favorite characters?

Z'ozpheratu is back and scarier than ever. The Galactic Moon Festival will be a similar event to the one held last year but with some exciting new changes and new rewards. Again, we don't want to give out too many details, but there will be some fun new rewards, and we're planning on doing something in the game that has never been done in SWG for events.

On the subject of holidays, how fun is Wookiee Life Day going to be this year?

Ar-rar-rar-rar-rar! (Wookiee Laughter...) All of the SWG holiday events include new badges, collections, repeatable content quests, and new rewards. We also have a system in development that will work with Storyteller to allow players to place event specific props that will stay around until the event goes away. Our goal is to have that system ready for Wookiee Life Day this year. This will allow players to celebrate the event around their homes and cities. So players can spread the joy or the horror, in the case of GMF, of the holiday events around the entire game.

Switching gears here. When the Trading Card Game first launched there was a lot of heat generated on the forums and among players in the game. I believe players have since noticed how important the TCG is for the future of Star Wars Galaxies, so the initial heat has died down. How is the development team taking advantage of this opportunity to perhaps get more players involved in the TCG?

I'm sure everyone would agree that the TCG has created some amazing classic Star Wars and Star Wars Galaxies artwork. The pieces are incredible. We have introduced the artwork into the game as loading screens and we will continue to add more. We also have players submitting suggestions for game tips which we will be adding to the game to compliment some of this artwork. Additionally, the TCG team continues to run tournaments and special events on a regular basis.

It has been a while since Threat of the Conqueror was released; when can we expect a new expansion set and what will this one be about?

The next TCG set is in development now. We are introducing new gameplay elements and the theme is the coolest to date (consider what happened 30 years ago!). Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement.

Are we looking to have iconic Empire Strikes Back loot cards? Maybe a carbon freezing chamber for our houses?

Why? Is there someone you want to freeze?

As a producer, you have shown that you listen to your playerbase. For instance, I believe everyone loved the no-trade lift. I know there have been many suggestions about user-generated content like more storyteller props, greater environmental control, and even player-designed instances. What are your plans for future development of user-generated content?

The no-trade/biolink removal was a great change for the players. We got a lot of positive feedback. We continue to see requests for items to get changed, and we plan to continue to make these changes when we can. Like I mentioned before, we have plans to add more Storyteller items and enhance that system to support our holiday events. We also are planning on adding more features to Chronicles to make the user-generated content more fun and engaging.

Player-designed instances? I had to ask.

The original Chronicles design included a concept for having a player decorate an interior as part of the quest. It didn't make the first release and proved to be very difficult to implement. However, we understand the value of such a system and it's still on our wish list for Chronicles.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions, T². Is there anything else you would like to add?

You are welcome. Thanks for providing such great questions. SWG is thriving both in development and in our community and SOE continues to be committed to the game and our players. The whole team is looking forward to the future of SWG. We've got some exciting events and updates planned that we cannot wait to get in the hands of our players. The dev team is listening to player feedback and acting on it. The future holds many exciting changes, but most importantly, it holds more classic Star Wars stories to experience and enjoy with your friends.

Thank you, T². We really appreciate the insight into the future of the game.

Massively readers, let us know what you think of this interview here in the comments! We also sat down with the Star Wars Galaxies' Community Manager and spoke with her about how the developers are getting more directly involved in player events. So tune in here later this week to read what what she had to say. Until then may the Force be with you, always.

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