Star Wars Galaxies

In todays producers note, also later in the thread it was confirmed that resources and factory crates would also transfer.

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Greetings Fringies,
Let's get the big question out of the way right away, yes; I have low-pop server news for you.

To help address the server population concerns that have been brought up by the community we will be implementing a Free Character Transfer program early next year. I do not have specific dates to announce now, but I do know that it will only run for a limited time. Any transfers made before the program kicks off will not be refunded. Additional details on this Free CTS program will be revealed closer to its start date. Also, to help clear some land on the servers, we will be running another House Pack-Up right around that same time. Both programs will have some cool rewards associated with them (marketing made me say that ).

As a huge lover of Halloween, monsters, horror films, and everything frightening one of the most exciting projects for me to work on since I've joined the team has been the Galactic Moon Festival. Our first ever Halloween event, the Galactic Moon Festival is poised to launch to the community at large on October 14th and will run through November 7th. Moenia and Mos Eisley have both been transformed into haunted attractions for all Galaxies players to visit. The cities and rewards look brilliant. I am particularly fond of the Galactic Moon Festival painting which depicts the Galactic Moon Festival organizer, Z'ozpheratu, in a dramatic pose. Swede, AdeptStain, and the art team all did a bang up job on bringing the Festival to life. This new annual event is sure to become a favorite for fans of all things macabre. The details of the event are as follows...

Jabba the Hutt has decided to throw the scariest festival of the year in both Moenia (on Naboo) and Mos Eisley (on Tatooine). He has ordered the cities to be fully decorated with fog, spiders, gravestones, scarecrows, and numerous other creepy items. He is encouraging all citizens of the Galaxy to visit the Galactic Moon Festival organizer, Z'ozpheratu, to obtain a costume and go trick or treating for Galactic Moon Coins. Z'ozpheratu will also be providing trick or treat devices to costumed citizens so that they can attempt to scare any folks who are stingy with their coins. Galactic Moon Coins can be redeemed with Z'ozpheratu for exciting rewards. Jabba has even provided a reward that is exclusive to Entertainers that will bring notes of joy to everyone's ears.

There are a lot of neat goodies associated with this event. I am going to be in there myself trying to get as many of them as I can. I look forward to seeing what all the interior decorators around the Galaxy will come up with!

Of course we have Hoth on the horizon as well. I hope everybody has been keeping up with the Friday Feature "sneak peeks" that we've been putting out as they offer a nice glimpse into what the team has been sweating away on for the past few months. The team members are still all stapled to their desks polishing it up and fixing bugs. We are at a stage now where we are play testing the instance several times per week and implementing the feedback that comes out of those play tests to ensure the experience is as fun as we can make it. The scope of this Heroic is unlike anything we've released before. It will be larger than any previous content push outside of our full expansions. The Hoth chapter will also include a cool Snow Machine as a publish gift (marketing made me say that, too).

Until next time, I hope everybody has an excellent Halloween!

-Dotanuki

WOW! That sounds real Star Warsy and iconic.

Edit: I remember when Anikin and Padme went trick or treating in theed the night before Anikin went postal on the Jedi academy. I can't wait to see the Star Wars Halloween special. When is it coming on cartoon network? I'll let my 7 year old know so she can watch it.

Wait, let me get this right (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).... they had one dev (name escapes me right now) pulled off development completely, purely to work on the low population issue for months and now they announce free transfers, I doubt it took him months just to tie up resource and item transfers. Seems to me like whatever they had him working on, it was shitcanned and the free transfer given instead. Very odd.

But...but...I thought the game was going great and had the best dev team ever and the servers were overflowing with people?!?!?

Who ever said that all servers were overflowing with people? Or is that just a cookie-cutter response?

Originally posted by Gutboy

Who ever said that all servers were overflowing with people? Or is that just a cookie-cutter response?

Ding ding ding.

Most likely the thing Dev H was working on was some way to automate server transfers for the free transfer period.  As it stands currently someone in CS has to actually perform the transfer. 

Originally posted by Gutboy

Who ever said that all servers were overflowing with people? Or is that just a cookie-cutter response?

The only cookie-cutter thing about SWG are the "heroic" instances they keep adding to the game and calling content.

I do find it interesting that the best news you can find to post about the game is that SOE has announced free character transfers that will only make the low population servers even more low population. :)

 I do not have specific dates to announce now, but I do know that it will only run for a limited time.

Watch for it...the window for the free transfers will be a 15-minute period of time during the middle of the night.