This week we wanted to share some of the exciting information we released at Fan Faire about the new Chronicle Master system. After the release of Hoth: The Battle of Echo Base, SOE and LucasArts started discussing what the next "big thing" should be. We wanted something that could:

1. Draw on iconic characters and adventures
2. Be solo-able.
3. Be repeatable.
4. Be added to or iterated on in the future.
5. Be tons of fun for all our players!

The decision we arrived at was to revive a design that was planned years earlier but never brought to fruition: Star Wars Chronicles. Right from the start, we knew that we wanted the system to be easy to use, robust in the functionality, and offer a lot of opportunity for players to add a variety of new quests into Star Wars Galaxies. I have spent some time testing Chronicles and creating content, finding it very easy to pick up and play. As mentioned previously, I have included the information shared at this year's FanFaire along with screen shots of a basic walkthrough using the new Chronicles System—which you will soon get to test yourself!

Overview: Star Wars Chronicles is a player generated quest system. Players will be able to take on the new role of Chronicle Master. Chronicle Masters will create quests that can be burned to Chronicle Holocrons and then traded or sold to other players.

Creating a Quest: Player generated quests are built though the new Chronicle Builder.

To begin building quests, the Chronicle Master will need to obtain Chronicle Relics. Chronicle Relics are in-game items that have quest events or specific actions associated with them. Chronicle Relics can be looted, traded, or purchased. There are several different types of Chronicle Relics.

Once the necessary Chronicle Relics have been obtained, the Chronicle Master may begin building his/her quest. The Chronicle Master arranges the Relics in their quest, and customizes the text of the quest, to create compelling content for other players. Once the Chronicle Master is happy with the quest, it can be saved as a Chronicle Draft so that it may be used again or improved over time.

A crafted quest will automatically produce rewards and XP based on... How difficult the quest is. The variety of tasks within the quest. he length of the quest.
The Chronicle Master may also choose to attach a specific reward his/her own possessions, to sweeten the deal.

When complete, the Chronicle Master will burn the quest to a Chronicle Holocron that can be used by another player.

Playing a Quest: Our goal is to make playing a Chronicle Quest virtually indistinguishable from a developer created quest. Chronicle Quests are not like missions. Chronicle Quests will be visible in the Player Journal and Quest Helper. At the end of every Chronicle Quest the player may rate their experience. High ratings will result in bonuses to the Chronicle Master's XP gain. Other benefits may be included at a later date.

Iconic Characters As an added bonus, Star Wars Chronicles will give players the ability to create quests that feature iconic Star Wars characters such as: Darth Vader Han Solo Boba Fett Jabba the Hutt ...And more!

These iconic characters will be featured via Comm. Message Relics. Distribution of these Relics has yet to be determined.

Players will be able to customize dialogue for these iconic characters for use in their quests.

Over time, we hope to add other exciting ways for players to include iconic characters in their quests. Stay tuned for more information about the Star Wars Chronicles system as it becomes available. Make sure to look for Star Wars Chronicles release on Test Center if you would like to test the system and provide feedback to our team as we get closer to the release of this powerful system in Game Update 13.

See you in-game!

Click here to join the discussion on Chronicle Master

At the Galactic Gathering at the 2009 SOE Fan Faire, we announced the three finalists for each category and our winners were:

Rebel-Themed:

Preparing for the Storm Artist: Hazaz Server: Bloodfin

Imperial Themed:

Imperial Oasis Incident Artist: Lexx Yovel Server: Starsider

The Voting period ran from Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009, to Wednesday, August 5th, 2009.

Rebel-Themed Poll

Imperial-Themed Poll

This week's Friday Feature is a teaser on some of the new quest content made available through Game Update 12 released this week. We won't give you the walk through or the guide on how to complete it here but we will give you a sampling of the content and encourage you to go experience the quests first hand. In Game Update 12 we introduce a new quest series for players around level 50.

The Corellian Droid Factory

Agent Taarna will now point you towards the Corellian Droid Bunker when you finish the last of the quests on Talus.

If you've completed the last of the legacy quests, talk to Agent Taarna in Nashal to start the new quests. The quest works if you bypass that NPC and go direct to the droid bunker (-6369 341 Corellia) and talk to the NPC's inside you can pick up their quests. Now it's time to investigate the underground Droid factory and help CorSec end the droid threat.

Background
A recent mishap has resulted in a previously hidden and deactivated droid manufacturing facility in reactivating, producing a number of battle and super battle droids. CorSec have received reports of clone war era droids patrolling the area and offers to pay the player to investigate, and if necessary take steps to end the problem.

The player is told to contact the CorSec agent at the entrance to the dungeon. The follow images are placed as teasers to as well as to give small tips as to what to look for when you arrive at the location.

After climbing the steep hill of the cave you make your way in and meet Jornel Savas. Jornel Savas will provide you with your first set of instructions.

You head down deeper into the cave and into a hall way of twists and turns until you enter a dimly lit room filled with scrupulous looking characters.

You find that some of these indviduals really don't care for your presence. Once you deal with this situation you will meet and talk with the following people:

Leutenant Varias

Druno Kener

Seageant Mener

At the end of the last quest it will be revealed who was behind the reactivation of the factory. After completing The Corellian Droid Factory quest you can set out to meet Wernell Covington and find out the root of his anger.

Vengeance

Opening Scene: A wealthy, old man, Wernell Covington, living in the Rori city of Narmle.

Many years before (around 25 to 30), Wernell Covington's daughter, Felicia, was kidnapped and held for ransom. Despite attempts to pay the ransom and the best efforts of law enforcement officers, the entire ordeal went badly. Felicia was killed and was jettisoned into space from the starship on which she was being held.

From that moment on, Wernell Covington has dedicated his life to finding and destroying the people who did this. He has spared no expense in tracking down the kidnappers one by one. And he has personally stuck the killing blow each time one was found. All of the original kidnappers are now dead, except for two. In recent times, age and a dwindling fortune have compelled Wernell Covington to seek assistance in his quest for vengeance; you.

We hope that you enjoy the new quest series and our sneak peak into the new quests added in Game Update 12.

Join the discussion on the new quests found in Game Update 12 here already in progress.

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Challenge: To celebrate summer, we are holding SOE Staycation “Geeks of Summer” Forum Challenge. Every SOE game player can submit their best summer-themed screenshot to get a chance at receiving rewards.

Your submission must include at least three of the following items as well as character(s) from your game. It doesn't have to be your character but can be either NPCs or PCs.

Duration: Submissions for this forum challenge will be accepted up from Tuesday, August 11, 2009 until Monday, August 24, 2009 at 10:00 am PDT. (PDT is -7 hours GMT: 11:00 am MDT, 12:00 pm CDT, 1:00 pm EDT, 5:00 pm GMT)

Rules: Please follow the rules below:

1. When submitting your images, the following information is required:
• Image Link or Embed:
• Title: (what you call it)
• Character Name:
• Server:
2. Images can be uploaded to the SOE "Geeks of Summer" 2009 Flickr Group and linked in this thread. If you are unable to upload to Flickr you can upload else where and link it here.
3. Submissions must be in JPG or PNG format and must be No bigger than 800 pixels in width x 600 pixels in height, no exceptions. (800x600)
4. Please review the Terms of Service Agreement before participating in this challenge in regards to appropriate entries.  Also, within the Terms of Service Agreement, it states that by submitting (e.g., uploading or transmitting) Content to an SOE Communication Feature, you automatically grant SOE the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. In addition, you warrant that any and all so-called "moral rights" in the Content have been waived.
5. Images submitted must be in the form live photography (real life pictures), game screenshot or modified game screenshot without copyrighted materials included, and/or original artwork. Do not submit any images that are copyrighted or those that belong to someone else.
6. Community members are permitted to submit one screenshot for each game per account. You cannot submit two entries for one game. (Example: you cannot submit two screenshots for EQ)
7. Community members are permitted to submit an updated screenshot throughout the submission period as you wish. The last version submitted will be used.
8. Character names and NPC names should be turned off for the image. Do not include any text in the image.
9. Editing of the image is permitted but the image must be your image.

Rewards: After reviewing all the submissions, three winners will be selected from each game. The winners will then receive the following rewards:

• Recognition: Each winner will be highlighted on the soe web network.
• In-game Reward: Each winner will receive an in-game reward based on their game:
• EQ – In-game Title


• EQII – In-game Title


• SWG – In-game Badge


• Vanguard – In-game Title


• PlanetSide – In-game Merit


• EQOA – In-game Item


• TCGs – Forum Title


• Note: The in-game rewards have been pre-determined.

Feedback: Feel free to offer your feedback on the submissions of others. We enjoy reading the comments on entries for these challenges just as much as the entries! Just remember to be constructive.

Enjoy your SOE Summer Staycation!

Greetings Fringies,

Can anybody guess what my favorite part of my job is?

It's working with a really solid team of people (probably the best team of any game I've ever led) to introduce brand new things into Star Wars Galaxies.  It's really fulfilling to start with an idea and work with everyone to refine and improve that idea until you see it fully realized in-game.  This process is enjoyable on any game, but it's even better when it's a Star Wars game that you're bringing to life.  Combing reference materials to find items, droids, critters, characters, and other things that will tie into what we want to accomplish is a joy to do.

And that's why it's all the more difficult to leave my role as the Producer on Star Wars Galaxies.  Starting Monday I will be leading a new team on another project for SOE.  Nothing is changing regarding what has been revealed (we're still proceeding with Chronicles, Death Troopers, Life Day, and a GCW update as planned) it's just that someone else will be leading the charge in getting these highly anticipated updates to release.

Luckily though, I'm leaving you in very capable (and experienced) hands.  Effective immediately, Tony "Teesquared" Tyson will not only be the Technical Director, but the Producer on Star Wars Galaxies as well.  Teesquared has a long history with Galaxies.  He cares about the game and its playerbase a great deal.  I look forward to seeing what he introduces into the game in the coming year!

In my time here as the Producer I've seen a lot of really neat things go into Galaxies.  Vehicular combat, interactive events, and an appearance system are just a fraction of the things I've seen go from ideas on paper to in-game reality for players to enjoy.  What I'm most excited about though, is what's coming later this year.

To begin with, I'm really proud of what the team has accomplished with Star Wars Chronicles.  When Loche first suggested resurrecting the concept (originally proposed in 2005) I thought it would be a brilliant addition.  It was great to see the other team members rally behind it as things came together.  I think it will add a fantastic dimension to the game for both new and veteran players as it will introduce an unending stream of new content into the game all with original stories and creative interactions with iconic characters.

I'm also ecstatic about the way Death Troopers is coming together.  It is particularly satisfying because, in this case, it's something I personally initiated back in January.  I'm excited to see this little idea blossom into a full blown update with a great art piece (the poster created for Fan Faire) and terrific ideas from both the team at SOE and LucasArts.  Neif, jneri, and the other members of the LucasArts team have been extremely supportive of the idea from the start and I really appreciate all they've done for us over the past several months.  It's great to be able to tie into a new novel release and the design, at this early stage, looks very engaging.

My time on Galaxies has been beyond awesome and I'm so happy with all of the things the team has been able to accomplish together.  It's also been great to be able to get out and meet many of you face-to-face at Fan Faire.  I really appreciate all the support you have given me in my time here and I hope to see all of you at a Fan Faire, or some other event, in the future.  Big Wookiee hugs to cigaran, jod, leyah, mastercosmo, moya, pwh, wafle, yivvits and everybody else who I've been privileged enough to interact with personally or via the forums.

I can't leave though without showing off at least a few more cool goodies so here's a peek at the concept art for the undead Wookiee, concept art for the Death Trooper armor, and two Ithorians who've definitely seen better days.
Thank you,

-Dotanuki
Click on the images below to see the full-sized versions:

Catch this week's Friday Feature, where Teesquared will give you a status update on all the brilliant updates coming to your galaxy!