Producer Note: January 2009

[Q'in]

Happy New Year everybody!

The devs on Star Wars Galaxies are happy to kick off the year with our release of Update 6. Update 6 launched this morning and features the oft-requested Appearance Tab. Appearance Tab is really an awesome addition to the game and my hat is off to AdeptStain for making it both powerful and easy-to-use. Many thanks to all players who tried it out over the holidays and sent feedback our way. We hope to see a lot of players out there diversifying the looks of their characters with cool looking outfits not seen in a while.

Update 6 also ushers in our Free CTS program. Again, I’m sure you’ve seen all the details at this point. For a full walkthrough check out our latest Friday Feature posted last week. I hope that players who have felt that their server doesn’t have the population they would like will take advantage of this program and start making new friends on one of the 13 destination galaxies.

Looming right around the corner is Update 7. Hanse and Shadowbrak have been in touch with the Spy community and have taken away a great deal of feedback. I am confident that Update 7 will address many of the Spies top issues and will introduce some fun new things for them as well. I can tell you now that one of the improvements made is that decoys will now appear with titles, flags, and Player Association names over their heads to increase their usefulness in PvP. We’ve also given the Spy expertise tree a complete overhaul.

Coming with Update 7 will be the start of the 2009 Ewok Festival of Love. This year’s event will feature a handful of activities to get players “spreading the love”. My personal favorite is the Disillusioned Ewok Cupid activity. He’s… well, unique looking. Keep your eyes peeled for him in any of the three cities hosting the event this year; Tyrena, Kaadara, and the Ewok Lake Village.

I know that this note doesn’t have much new information (Chapters and such), but we are still in the process of finalizing our 2009 plans over the next few weeks. I do want to leave you with something cool though, so below you’ll find a picture of the Deluxe Sarlacc Trash Can that I announced in my last Producer Note. This is the first of our loyalty rewards for players who are subscribed before our next re-entitlement program is announced and are still subscribed after that re-entitlement period closes. As a reminder, this deluxe version can be fed once per week for four weeks to generate a random collection item for the owner.

Catch you all in February,

-Dotanuki