Jedi in SWG

[Rywill]

Some new info in the latest SWG FAQ:

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/features/faq.jsp



6.17 How do Jedi work?
Your main character does not become a Jedi. Rather, the actions of your main character can unlock an additional character slot which is Force-sensitive. Characters created in this additional slot can then advance through the Jedi skills as well as any of the other skills in the game. Each player account allows for only one potential Jedi slot and the mysterious method to unlock it won't be the same for every player.

6.18 How are you going to keep Jedi rare?
Jedi characters suffer permadeath unless they reach Jedi Master status. You do not lose the Jedi character slot, but the character in that slot is deleted. Upon reaching Jedi Master status, Jedi become "blue glowies" rather than permadying when they die. In order to compensate for deaths that are completely out of control of the player (such as ones caused by network latency) each Jedi will be able to die a couple times before death is permanent. The life of a Jedi is extraordinarily difficult, and successfully making it all the way to Jedi Master should be considered the most difficult challenge in the game.



Very interesting, and not at all what I expected. It never occurred to me that your Jedi would be a second character (obviously necessary since they're putting in perma-death. Or maybe not--Jedi would be REALLY rare if you knew that choosing the path meant your character would be wiped if he died!)

What do people think of this? I'm not particularly impressed. I mean, if my "main" character has a lot of time invested in him, I'm not sure I'm going to want to re-start as a Jedi, especially since it probably means abandoning my friends (for a long time, since it's not like I can even work my way back up that fast, with all the perma-deaths). If I got this, I would definitely try the Jedi to see what it was like, but I doubt I would end up abandoning my main character to play it (and I don't think I'd have time to play two characters).

All in all, the system seems kind of weird and not that good. It seems like the only reason they didn't make your main character the one who becomes a Jedi is because they wanted Jedi perma-death. Why is that so important? Couldn't they make being a Jedi difficult in some other way, so that you don't have to abandon your old character?

Also, what would be the point of playing as a "blue glowie"? (I assume this means as a ghost, like in the films.) What if I play the new character but never take Jedi skills? Am I still subject to permadeath? How much will these unlocked accounts go for on Ebay?

[Jazar]

I'd prefer having the charachter you've worked so hard for be the one to get rewarded with Jedi status, but I'd probably never reach that level anyways.

[Rob O'Boston]

I think it sounds pretty interesting. Its nice to see they're coming up with some truly different ideas. Now, if they could only come up with combat that wasn't boring...

[Jason Becker]

For the uber hardcore only.

[Jakub]

"Rather, the actions of your main character can unlock an additional character slot which is Force-sensitive."

Actions of your main character necessary to get a Force-sensitive:

1. You spend 8-10 hours online.
2. You join or found a guild that numbers at least 100.
3. Your guild monopolizes all the l33t mobs.
4. You promise not to make fun of Lucas and his stupid movies and especially the idiotic idea of midochlorians.

[Brian Rucker]

I've never been terribly convinced having Jedi as a character class in a Rebellion Era game is a swift move but rumor has it that it wasn't the first choice of the designers but Sony or Lucas Arts that insisted on including them. Given them apples, this seems to be an interesting way to keep the population low and winnow out folks not clever or subtle enough to succeed in the role. Not only is avoiding permadeath the challenge but the Jedi will, supposedly, be constantly hunted so staying alive will be a matter of skill rather than simple evasion.

That said, I do have two reservations: Is it really going to be as hard as the devs think to figure out the secret system for unlocking the Jedi slot and, having done that, are there really sufficient disincentives for PAs and player groups to pile on in order to help members power-level into Master status? If these issues aren't addressed then we will see a huge upsurge in the population of Jedi to the point of characture. Worse, as these Masters inevitably get killed over time are the 'blue glowies' going to become a significant population capable of just hanging around and interacting with anybody? Will there be 'blue glowie' bars? 'Blue glowie' swoop gangs? 'Blue glowie' volleyball and BMX teams with lifelike anatomy?

Where does the madness end?

[Tyjenks]

I have never wanted to utter these words, but the continued hype and stratospheric expectations for this one may cause me utter "Fuck Star Wars" in the not so distant future and in a galaxy very, very near.

[Qenan]

I'm not at all into Star Wars per se (haven't bothered to watch any of the recent movies), but I thought this was an interesting approach.

I may have burned out on MMOGs, but I'm still toying with the idea of trying Star Wars.

[Jason Lutes]

I think it's a pretty cool idea. I've had zero interest in MMORPGs since UO in the very beginning, but this kind of design decision appeals to me. It could very easily backfire for the reasons mentioned already, but I'll be very curious to see how it plays out.

I say fuck the Star Wars movies, but not the Star Wars backdrop. It is, due to the enormous number of talented people who've contributed to it over the decades, one of the more interesting and rich fictional settings around. I haven't seen either of the last two SW movies, but I sure enjoyed the Jedi Knight games. I'm pretty eager to try out Knights of the Old Republic, and interested enough in the design decisions to pay attention to what happens with Galaxies once it's up an running. I'd never subscribe, though.

From what I've heard, it will be really, really hard to reach "blue glowie" status. One of the producers, I think, said that it will be well nigh impossible.

[Jessica]

I think this is a very clever way of handling a critical problem of an MMO in the Star Wars universe: everyone wants to be an uber-Jedi. They are like Elves in the Tolkien universe; very few of them, and they have special abilities. Ack!

This method has the virtue of keeping friends from easily power-leveling buddies up to Jedi status easily, then having a bunch of PK Jedis running around ganking newbies in the third day of live operations.

The only question is, how variable is the Jedi unblock system, truly? If it is substantially different for each player, this feature will be copied for the next few decades in other designs, as a way of introducing special powers qand characters into games.

[Anonymous]

A great distraction for the meta gamers - they'll be off in their corner for months

[DaveC]

Maybe I'm a bit cynical here, but this sounds like a brilliant ploy to get people to put in the time on an MMORPG. I mean now beyond levels you have the ability if you play long enough to become a Jedi. I know they need some type of limiter system, but this just seems to be a way to keep the monthly fee coming in.

[Jakub]

The only question is, how variable is the Jedi unblock system, truly? If it is substantially different for each player, this feature will be copied for the next few decades in other designs, as a way of introducing special powers qand characters into games.

I think a more important issue raised by variability is that people will feel ripped off if they don't get to be a Jedi, based on their variable circumstances.

"I pay $10/mo and play my 6 hours per day, where's my Jedi?"

The way to balance that is to, of course, allow all people to become Jedi. Then the value of being a Jedi drops and the value of all other classes will plummet.

[Jason Becker]

"but this just seems to be a way to keep the monthly fee coming in."

So isn't most of the gameplay mechanics meant to keep peoplr playing for months at a time? Thats the whole purpose of these games.

I also think it is a legit attempt by Verent to try and make it so there simply arn't allot of Jedi. Outside of making some sort of hard number like only 200 Jedi per sever they have to make it difficult to keep the numbers down. Jedi are supposed to be rare. Unless they make it the process random and changeable then reguardless of how much time and the specific steps needed it would quickly be put on the net and then it would be a matter of playing time for gamers. There trying a diffrent route to keep the numbers down.

[Erik]

So isn't most of the gameplay mechanics meant to keep peoplr playing for months at a time? Thats the whole purpose of these games.

Wouldn't that ideally be the purpose of any game?

[DaveC]

So isn't most of the gameplay mechanics meant to keep peoplr playing for months at a time? Thats the whole purpose of these games.

Wouldn't that ideally be the purpose of any game?

Silly me, I thought the purpose of games was to have fun. :twisted:

[Qenan]

So isn't most of the gameplay mechanics meant to keep peoplr playing for months at a time? Thats the whole purpose of these games.

Wouldn't that ideally be the purpose of any game?

Silly me, I thought the purpose of games was to have fun. :twisted:

That's your purpose, not the game company's purpose.

I like the idea. I really really like Jedi permadeath; it provides a significant downside to balance their eliteness (as does the fact that everyone will be gunning for them). Will it work? Well, if it doesn't, it will change... that's the way these games function.

[dwinn]

"Gotta catch 'em all!"

[Supertanker]

Now we know the griefers will concentrate on being Jedi hunters. The best part is that the griefer will get infinite chances to kill the Jedi player, learning from each failed attempt, and only has to be successful once.

[Met_K]

But what if the Jedi decide to suddenly kill all the griefers?

No one makes the Jedi their bitch, no one. Could you imagine how fun it would be to get five or six Jedi together and go slaughter an entire clan of griefers-again and again-simply because they fucked with one of your pals?

[Jessica]

Exactly. I'd LOVE to have the griefers occupied with trying to rid the server of Jedis; it would keep them away from my new players and generally keep them out of my hair for a while. Griefers are a small percentage of the player base, but account for substantial player relations and customer service time.

Anything that keeps them away from my game or occupied with 'elder' players who can defend themselves better is OK in my book.

[Brian Rucker]

Early on I'd described my understanding of Bounty Hunters and Jedi as a symbiotic one - it's cops and robbers in space. PvPers that like a more personal feel for their PKing will go for bounty hunting and folks that want to be Jedi had better be smart enough to know how to be subtle and evasive striking only deliberately and devestatingly. This is another set of examples where the careers in SWG tend to self-select appropropriate players. Roleplaying by typecasting.

That said, I'm still not comfortable with the 'blue glowie' but I'll just wait and see how it actually works out. As far as real griefers go their whole point is making someone else miserable and the best way to do that is to attack weaker characters whose players didn't want to fight in the first place. Odds are they won't get as big a kick out of pursuing their particular kink in accordance with anybody's design goals. They'll find ways to creatively break the system. Even if unwilling PvP isn't possible on SWG they'll find ways to ruin buildings, trick newbies, lure mobs, and whatnot.

[Rorschach]

Back in the UO days my brother and a few friends became player-killer-killers. He'd do the same things as the PKs, camping the evil shrine, bum rushing PK houses, etc. etc.

One of the bigger guilds on his shard gained a PK faction. I think the guild was called Illuminatus. Couple of humdered members in the guild, with maybe a third were PKers. Anyway once my brother and his band of PKKs found out, it was open season on the whole guild... guilt by association and all that. School got in the way so he stopped playing for a while, but when he logged back on a few months later he heard the the Illuminatus guild had disbanded since the non-PKers were getting slaughtered by the PKKs, and even the PKs were having difficutly opertaing.

Anyway, just a little story from about 4 years ago that I though would be interesting for this conversation.

[Rywill]

That's a good story, and I wish stuff worked like that more often. When I played on the PK-enabled EQ servers, though, I always found that the PK guilds were much more powerful than any of the PKK people. I joined a PKK guild, and it was just pretty useless. PK's don't level as fast when they spend part of their time PK'ing, but the same is true of PKK's, so unless you're willing to put in lots of extra levelling time (like the PK guildmembers do) you just get smacked around a lot.

[Brandon Clements]

7.07 In PvP, will I be able to "consider" another player's character to find out how tough he or she is?

We're thinking that you won't get to "consider" other players in pvp. It leads to intentionally targeting weaker targets, rather than having the spice of not knowing how the fight will end.



It would be funny to see some l337 W00kie Bounty Hunter d00dz try to gang up on a seemingly lower level, not armored player only to get their heads handed to them by a Jedi Master.

[Anonymous]

It would be funny to see some l337 W00kie Bounty Hunter d00dz try to gang up on a seemingly lower level, not armored player only to get their heads handed to them by a Jedi Master.

I wish you were writing the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Sounds like it would be a lot more fun to watch than Lucas's version.

[Sharpe]

What happened to player choices and player options?

I was perusing the linked FAQ above and the whole game design seems to be a web of player limitations, player restrictions, complicated and difficult layers of game design. In many ways, I see the game design reflecting the "negative" or "coercive" attitude towards players that characterized EQ, IMO. For example in crafting, here's the official FAQ:



5.19 Can a single crafter create a complex item from start to finish?

No. As characters improve in a particular profession, they gain the ability to create more complex items. However, with that improvement, they lose the ability to fashion the simpler parts on which they practiced their early skill.

So as you gain skill in crafting, you LOSE the ability to make basic items and become dependant on another player to make components. I understand the goal here: a networked and interdependant economy. However, I feel this will fly in the face of the way people have fun in these games and it STILL won't stop the meta-gamers and uber-guilds who want to use mule accounts for maximally efficient crafting.

The Jedi thing is another disaster waiting to happen IMO. First off there is a vicious restriction of only 1 character per server, but apparently if you happen upon the right combo of actions to unlock a Jedi slot, you get a second slot on the same server. What stops the Jedi from using his previous character as a mule? If stopping mules is so vital, why do Jedi get to use them? The whole Jedi design just smells like it will create a tier of lucky (or totally obsesses) "elite" players who have uber-abilities while the vast herd of normal players get frozen out of the Jedi arena.

Perhaps this is an inevitable flaw in the choice of the rebellion era as the game setting. Many thousands of gamers are going to buy an account, associating playing Star Wars with being a Jedi (think of the hundreds of thousands of people who played Jedi Knigts in the SW FPS games), and then find out the era they are in has only 2 Jedi so that players are not really supposed to be Jedi except in very rare and limited circumstances. The designers have painted themselves into a corner here, and are doing some VERY complicated game-mechanic gymnastics to get out of it.

I do not doubt that SWG will sell huge volume and that hundreds of thousands of accounts will be created, and maintained. But I do predict that SWG is going to have huge levels of player churn, vast outcry of frustrated players (even beyond the ludicrious levels of whining seen in a typical MMORPG), and quite possibly a nasty public relations backlash in the mainstream media. I can just see the News at 11 teasers now "These people HATE Sony! So why are they spending hundreds of hours per months playing a Sony Star Wars game?" SWG may well succeed but if so its gonna be in the messy, ugly, weirdly chaotic fashion that UO did, not in the (relatively) smooth way that EQ or DAOC did. I don't think SWG will go the way of AO, simply b/c of marketing might, but it sure has the potential to smell worse.

Bottom line: I feel the design team is ignoring the player expectations and player behavior of a very large chunk of their prospective market, with results that will be both painful and amusing to watch.

Dan

[Desslock]

Could you imagine how fun it would be to get five or six Jedi together and go slaughter an entire clan of griefers-again and again-simply because they fucked with one of your pals?

Except the reality is that the griefers will be the Jedi, and they'll slaughter more casual players.

[Jakub]

Dan,

I have to respectfully disagree about your Jedi stance - which includes disagreeing with my earlier point. SWG will churn out the average gamers sure, but it will hook the EQ addicts like nothing else. They LOVE the frustration, they need to be cheated and challenged in unfair ways to keep playing. What's more unfair than a random-approval Jedi system AND permanent death for the Jedi? They'll totally deny it, but this is an EQ addict's wet dream.

Hmm... interesting.

EQ addicts have abused women's brains. They seek out what they hate.

[Sharpe]

Could you imagine how fun it would be to get five or six Jedi together and go slaughter an entire clan of griefers-again and again-simply because they fucked with one of your pals?

Except the reality is that the griefers will be the Jedi, and they'll slaughter more casual players.

Desslock is right on here. Back in the launch days of UO, Raph and his team had this notion that PvP would be run according to the Virtues and that anti-PKs would cleanse the world of PKs. He was then shocked to see how the griefers used EVERY FEATURE OF GAME DESIGN to mess with other players and end up coming out on top, with the end result years later then when players were given a choice 80% opted to avoid PvP altogether.

When I look at the bizarre and cumbersome system they've put in for PvP in SWG I just see a wide open landscape of loopholes, exploits, twisted min/max procedures etc. No matter what your strong Role-Playing desires may be, rest assured the meta-gaming uber-guild griefers are gonna run riot :0.

Again, amusing yet painful to watch. I am really looking forward to this launch, although I have no plans whatsoever to buy or play the game.

Dan

[Met_K]

Could you imagine how fun it would be to get five or six Jedi together and go slaughter an entire clan of griefers-again and again-simply because they fucked with one of your pals?

Except the reality is that the griefers will be the Jedi, and they'll slaughter more casual players.

Desslock is right on here. Back in the launch days of UO, Raph and his team had this notion that PvP would be run according to the Virtues and that anti-PKs would cleanse the world of PKs. He was then shocked to see how the griefers used EVERY FEATURE OF GAME DESIGN to mess with other players and end up coming out on top, with the end result years later then when players were given a choice 80% opted to avoid PvP altogether.

When I look at the bizarre and cumbersome system they've put in for PvP in SWG I just see a wide open landscape of loopholes, exploits, twisted min/max procedures etc. No matter what your strong Role-Playing desires may be, rest assured the meta-gaming uber-guild griefers are gonna run riot :0.

Again, amusing yet painful to watch. I am really looking forward to this launch, although I have no plans whatsoever to buy or play the game.

Right, the PK's are going to spend all this time leveling up a regular character, then spend all their time leveling up a Jedi character to pk with, only to have it lost once they don't win in a pk.

Having a 'Sith' character would be a great way to balance the Jedi, but would probably be way too complex for them to even think of implementing.

[Supertanker]

Right, the PK's are going to spend all this time leveling up a regular character, then spend all their time leveling up a Jedi character to pk with, only to have it lost once they don't win in a pk.

This is why I think the griefers will be Jedi hunters and not Jedi. What better grief PK than to knock off some person's permadeath Jedi? Think of all the time spent getting a Jedi (maybe even paying real money for a force-sensitive character on eBay) and leveling it up. If you fail, respawn, and try again. Even if Jedi are hard to spot, once one is revealed it is easy to post the character's name on a BBS and metagame your way around that.

I was trying to think of ways that the penalty for failing to kill a Jedi could be increased, but then that just tilts the PK balance toward Jedi. For example, if Jedi could cause permadeath as well, the griefers would run rampant with Jedi.

[Brian Rucker]

5.19 Can a single crafter create a complex item from start to finish?

No. As characters improve in a particular profession, they gain the ability to create more complex items. However, with that improvement, they lose the ability to fashion the simpler parts on which they practiced their early skill.

So as you gain skill in crafting, you LOSE the ability to make basic items and become dependant on another player to make components. I understand the goal here: a networked and interdependant economy. However, I feel this will fly in the face of the way people have fun in these games and it STILL won't stop the meta-gamers and uber-guilds who want to use mule accounts for maximally efficient crafting.

I've been following along for a while and I'll admit casually perusing the material can be a difficult way to get acquainted with it. No system exists in isolation here. Uberguilds are going to be tough to handle with the new loyalty systems (a weekly tally of which member of a player association has the most support and that person becomes the new leader). Folks will be wise to keep a close eye on who's in their guild and what they're doing rather than just recruiting en masse. Even folks that buy mule accounts will only be getting /one/ mule per account rather than a squad of them. Most crafting systems will require the character to be actively engaging in his or her craft to be successful so a player won't really be able to split attentions and, beyond that, some folks have looked at the number of different skill levels and types of components needed to product items and seen that it will take many characters interacting to create a product from start to finish. It's much more efficient for a given PA to specialize in one activity or stage of production rather than trying to do everything and even then there will be many competing PAs out there.

We've seen how laisse fair systems work in previous MMORPGs and I think a little clever coerciveness goes a long way if it really can make a better gaming environment. From what I've seen my hopes are up but, yes, I have been wrong before.

[Brandon Clements]

Let's not forget this (from the Skill description of a Jedi):

Jedi
Jedi is a special case profession that requires considerable prerequisites (such as being Force sensitive). A player in this profession has access to considerable Force wielding skills, but they would be wise to keep that information to themselves as the Galactic Empire aggressively hunts the Jedi.



My vision is as soon as a player pulls out his/her/it's lightsaber in public, a whole freakin' barricks worth of Stormtroopers start toward their position. My prediction: people who think that being an uber-Jedi means you can do anything will get killed the first time that lightsaber get whipped out. And they will whine to high heaven (in message boards, on websites, etc) when it happens.

[Sharpe]

Dan,

I have to respectfully disagree about your Jedi stance - which includes disagreeing with my earlier point. SWG will churn out the average gamers sure, but it will hook the EQ addicts like nothing else. They LOVE the frustration, they need to be cheated and challenged in unfair ways to keep playing. What's more unfair than a random-approval Jedi system AND permanent death for the Jedi? They'll totally deny it, but this is an EQ addict's wet dream.

Hmm... interesting.

EQ addicts have abused women's brains. They seek out what they hate.

I do agree that a weird frustration-addiction syndrome does seem very common amongst hardcore MMORPGers, and that the player base of games like UO and EQ have surprised me over the years with the truly vast amount of abuse they are willing to (wait for it) PAY FOR.

However, I think SWG has some problems on its hands b/c it will apeal to large numbers of two *additional* groups of players:

1)Star Wars FPS and Space-Sim fans who are not hardcore MMORPGs. The various FPS and sim series have sold millions of total games and have fairly devoted followings. Some fraction of these players are people who normally eschew MMORPGs but will try SWG due to the SW content. This group of players is used to being the hero in a Star Wars game and may well not have the hardcore RPG purist/puritan/grognard mindset that is currently dominating the SWG design discussion. I suspect many of these FPS/sim fans consider themselves "true" Star Wars fans and yet they will vehemently disagree with the RPG Puritans on issues like scarcity of Jedi, the restricted crafting system, 1 character per server, etc. I expect to see severe churn / frustration / anger / acres of complaints about these issues, in the weeks after launch.

2)Mass market fans, especially families. The popularity of the license is going to attract large numbers of players who have never played an MMORPG and possibly many who've not played much in the way of PC games (although this latter group may be filtered out by things like system requirements, internet connection and credit card requirements). This group is going to dramatically less tolerant of technical problems, griefing, lack of Customer Service, un-responsive dev teams, griefing, bugs, weird rules like faction, etc, than the hardcore RPGers. Also, by tapping into this market SWG is going to attract mainstream media attention which is likely to be much less tolerant of the inherent faults of MMORPGs. For example, most gaming media which cover MMORGP have simply become inured to the levelling treadmill, the vast volume of user complaints on message boards, and the remarkable creativity that players display in griefing. The mainstream media won't be so forgiving :). I can imagine the tabloid TV show teasers: "Star Wars Galaxies: Online Fantasyland or Virtual HELL?".

So, yeah, SWG is gonna grab a lot of the market currently occupied by DAOC/SWG and maybe some of the untapped market too. But in trying to appeal to the vast untapped market of non-MMORPGers and mass market gamers, its going to face a real gap between the hardcore RP design philosophy and player expectations / player behavior.

Dan

[Brian Rucker]

However, I think SWG has some problems on its hands b/c it will apeal to large numbers of two *additional* groups of players:

1)Star Wars FPS and Space-Sim fans who are not hardcore MMORPGs. The various FPS and sim series have sold millions of total games and have fairly devoted followings. Some fraction of these players are people who normally eschew MMORPGs but will try SWG due to the SW content. This group of players is used to being the hero in a Star Wars game and may well not have the hardcore RPG purist/puritan/grognard mindset that is currently dominating the SWG design discussion. I suspect many of these FPS/sim fans consider themselves "true" Star Wars fans and yet they will vehemently disagree with the RPG Puritans on issues like scarcity of Jedi, the restricted crafting system, 1 character per server, etc. I expect to see severe churn / frustration / anger / acres of complaints about these issues, in the weeks after launch.

I don't know if they'll consider themselves "true" Star Wars fans but I'm not sure whether that matters. The fact is that this demographic will exist and it will be vocally unhappy about certain design decisions. Fortunately this group will probably be pretty small compared to not only MMORPGers but former MMORPGers that have quit in frustration because of design flaws SWG is attempting to address. The latter category of MMORPGer dwarfs the former but how many will be informed or convinced enough of SWG's improvements to join remains to be seen.


2)Mass market fans, especially families. The popularity of the license is going to attract large numbers of players who have never played an MMORPG and possibly many who've not played much in the way of PC games (although this latter group may be filtered out by things like system requirements, internet connection and credit card requirements). This group is going to dramatically less tolerant of technical problems, griefing, lack of Customer Service, un-responsive dev teams, griefing, bugs, weird rules like faction, etc, than the hardcore RPGers. Also, by tapping into this market SWG is going to attract mainstream media attention which is likely to be much less tolerant of the inherent faults of MMORPGs. For example, most gaming media which cover MMORGP have simply become inured to the levelling treadmill, the vast volume of user complaints on message boards, and the remarkable creativity that players display in griefing. The mainstream media won't be so forgiving :). I can imagine the tabloid TV show teasers: "Star Wars Galaxies: Online Fantasyland or Virtual HELL?".

So, yeah, SWG is gonna grab a lot of the market currently occupied by DAOC/SWG and maybe some of the untapped market too. But in trying to appeal to the vast untapped market of non-MMORPGers and mass market gamers, its going to face a real gap between the hardcore RP design philosophy and player expectations / player behavior.

Dan

Everything I've seen has lead me to the conclusion that the devs are well aware there are going to be many first time players and they're attempting to create a game, as one designer put it, his grandmother could play. The basic interface is simple and introductory, surface, level of play is simply taking missions from NPCs. There is no involuntary PvP, under the vast majority of circumstances, so playing a neutral character is a good security blanket. Just touring around and visiting Star Wars themed sites while undertaking Fed Ex quests would probably give anyone their money's worth for the box. The nature of the interdependant economic system builds in a need for new players as more experienced characters need newer ones to provide them with parts and services they can no longer generate. There /is/ no levelling treadmill as this is a skill based system. The toughest character in the world and the weakest, all else being equal, can both get brought down fairly quickly in a fight because the power differentials in SWG's skill based system aren't so vast as we see in power inflationary levelling games. This too was a deliberate design decision to encourage grouping between experienced and less experienced characters.

As I've noted before, I don't know if this will all work and probably nobody does. But I think it's far more likely the mainstream press will flip out about the visuals, the expansive nature of the game, and the depth of the possibilities moreso than anything else. I've already seen an editorial in The Post talking about SWG being looked at as a model for networked defense systems and the descriptive sections looking at the game in particular seemed rather awed by the depth of the economic (trade, manufacturing, resource gathering, R&D, etc.) political (player run associations and cities) and military (Galactic Civil War) rather than worrying about anything else.

The naivete of the press works as much, or more, in SWG's favor than anything else.