Star Wars Galaxies Patch Notes

Recently we’ve seen a number of folks offering real physical money for advantages on our Test Center.

This won’t be tolerated.

Joke or not, if you persist in advertising sales of SWGEmu currencies, products, or services, you will be permanently banned, no questions or debates.

Please respect the work being done here.

SWGEmu

This is a long informational read, prepare yourself

As you know, our Test Center will "crash" operation from time to time, lately more more often than not. Why, you ask?

If you’ve been keeping up on current affairs, you know that the focus of development shifted some time ago from content "branches" to the fundamental codebase.

Throughout the past few years this project has seen many Developers come and go, each with their own unique contributions to the code. However, the sheer number of contributions placed a severe burden on a few Core Devs that assumed the responsibility of Integrating all this new code into the "Tree" successfully. This is not without challenges. Things such as deadlocks, crashes, memory-leaks, etc are a constant threat.

When these issues arise, a condition known as a "Deadlock" can occur. In our case, a Deadlock means that several aspects of the code are awaiting one another to compete, causing the server to grind to a halt. Please take some time to understand what a Deadlock is.

At a certain point, the decision was made (and wisely) to take stock of what had been accomplished, reviewing current code and ensuring that the "Tree" was sufficiently workable. It was determined that modifications were necessary, not only to clean up the current code, but to ensure that future contributions would be EASILY adapted to the complete Tree, without reconfiguration and coding of the entire codebase each addition.

As a result, the OR was born. SWGEmu has been many months into this, and significant progress has been made. However this post isn’t to note progress, it’s intention is to inform about the OR and what a "Deadlock" actually is. The community needs a place to be able to point new members to, so they can become informed. Hopefully this post is a start. I encourage all who read this to FURTHER review the Announcements, Community News posts, and the Bi-Weekly Updates. All available information is represented there.

At this point the emphasis on the current revision was marginalized in light of the need to lean out what was going to be workable moving forward. However, you guys are playing, and a few of our guys have made valiant attempts (read: TA, Kyle etc etc, Kellina, Learning, all QA) to make what’s up, work. As a result you’ve seen a lot of jedi work. Of course, because that was the patch, for you, as a gift.

HOWEVER! Please do not assume that Jedi is the Emu’s focus, it is not. This was done for you folks, as a gift, while the slow process of the OR is worked through.

Please be patient while our 100% volunteer staff continues to chip away at the OR. As you can see, we’re still here. This is simply not a time for momentous leaps and bounds. However that time will come, and we’ll need to you help us test the new code and prepare for the final push.

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support of Pre-Cu and SWGEmu!

* Please remember, you can check server status in the Java client at SWGEmu IRC or your favorite IRC client. Please see #test and #status for that latest status updates.

SWGEmu

Hello all,

We are looking for a few community volunteers to help with IRC moderation, especially if you live in the following time zones: Europe, Australia/Pacific, Asia, Africa, or Late US. Please answer the questions below in an email to: jobs@swgemu.com with "IRC Moderator Application" in the subject. Thanks!

Personal questions:
1. What is your forum account name?
2. What is your age in real life?
3. What is your profession in real life? If you are a student, what are you studying?
4. What time zone do you live in? What time(s) of day/week are you most active in IRC?
5. Do you know any current or former staff members? (Either personally, through SWG, or other chat services.)

Experience and general questions:
6. How long have you been following this project?
7. Why do you want to become an IRC moderator?
8. What do you view the role of IRC moderators to be?
9. What moderating skills do you have?
10. How proficient do you consider yourself with IRC?
11. Which languages do you speak?
12. Do you have access to IRC, and if so, how often do you use it?
13. What do you think trolling/trolls is, and how does it affect IRC?
14. What do you think is the best attitude to take with troublesome members? Give an example if possible.
15. How would you grade the effectiveness of the Infraction system?
16. Do you think moderating is fun?

Situational analysis:
Please include any actions you would take (if any).
17. A player jumps into #swgemu and reports being harassed via PM, IRC, and/or in game and there are no staff members in the channel, what do you do?
18. A member makes several inflammatory messages towards yourself. He begins harassing you via PM, IRC, and/or on the test center. What sort of action do you take?
19. A member writes several messages in quick succession. Each line has the exact same message on it. What do you do?
20. A discussion in which the original subject follows all the rules begins to disintegrate into petty bickering. Four members in particular are derailing the discussion and causing others to bicker. What do you do?

What is this you say? Click and find out!

Community Update – 2/5/10

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Introduction

Greetings followers of Emu! As you may have noticed, this update comes later than our intended twice a month submission. Why? We didn’t forget about you! Times have changed, and our updates must change as well. Because development is not linear, there will be weeks when we have nothing new to offer you all. Thankfully, this is not one of those weeks! As the focus has moved beyond TC:Nova Bi-Weekly content updates, and to a 100% focus on the Object Restructure, we will be halting the Bi-Weekly Update model.

As you know we’re well into the process of perfecting the 225,000 lines of code we have to ensure a stable play experience, and the potential for easily adapted future content. What this has meant for you lately is less info, and we know that’s frustrating. Fear not! Things are moving steadily forward and quickly. Good things are on the way

We will now move to Announcements focused on the OR. Please understand that the OR isn’t progress that’s qualitatively valuable to the non-developer. We may not be able to provide strict updates on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule. However, as our developers get back in gear after the holidays, we will attempt to form a structure that ensures you stay informed. Hang in there with us. We’re here. Motivated and dedicated.. see the information below….

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Features

• Recent Announcements
• OR News!
• Project Perspective
• Closing Words

Recent Announcements

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OR News

Breaking down the OR:

The OR can be divided into 3 main sections for completion.

Part 1 – The engine that runs the game

Part 2 – The core mechanics of the game

Part 3 – The content of the game

The engine (part 1) has been completed leaving only possible bug fixes. The core mechanics of the game (part 2) are getting closer to completion. This will allow for the content of the game (part 3) to be implemented.

Development Update:

The OR now has Zone, Cell movement, Groups, Banks, Water tables, Chat, Item transfer and the ability to spawn buildings into the world. The members of the development team are currently working on a tasks as follows:

Bobius – Currently working on the new player tutorial
Kyle – Currently working on creature AI
Ramsey – Currently refining the login server / process
cRush – Currently working on the combat system
Thoop – Working on commands and resource maps
TheAnswer – Working on the command system and everything else
Oru – Currently working on the IDL and fixing the engine bugs

There has been alot of code cleaning and restructuring that has involved time consuming client reverse engineering. We are now going to be able to use our distributed object system to spread the server between different physical machines. Once the game core has been finished the tasks will be implementing the game content to bring the OR up to the same level as Test Center.

*Information Provided by TheAnswer

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Project Perspective

Below is information regarding the lines of code that make up the game. It also includes how much time and money it would have cost to develop this project commercially. Hopefully this will help give you all an idea of just how massive a project the Emu is and give a little prospective on how much there is to accomplish.

The Current Test Center

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 204,318
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 53.32 (639.78)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 2.43 (29.12)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 21.97
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 7,202,174
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40)

SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

The Game Engine

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 19,144
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 4.44 (53.25)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.94 (11.32)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 4.70
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 599,482
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40)

SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

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Closing Words

This is a very exciting time for us all. Every day we get one step closer to our goal of a stable and fully playable Pre-CU environment. From the entire SWGEmu Team, thank you all for your continued support! We would like to leave you all with this video from Ultyma. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24W_AjBTyWM Although this was made years ago, and is one of the first video’s ever made about SWGEmu, it remains a fantastic reminder to why we are all here. Enjoy.

PS: Thanks to Tovo and Odwill for pushing this forward. Thanks to the Developers for enduring.

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Earlier this evening the Login Server (hosted in Chicago) crashed after a 20 minute lag spike on Nova: TC. All those who remained in game are able to stay logged in, however if you were disconnected, or are disconnected during the time period that the login server is down, you will be unable to connect.

The login server being down will produce A BAD PASSWORD ERROR; this does not mean your account is compromised, it’s just a bug.

Please be patient until we can get the login server restarted, until that time, no one will be able to log into the TC.

Thank you.

This is going to be a pilot for a weekly event, so expect it to be very loose with rules as i want it to be able to run by anyone, even if I am unable to attend due to working late/agro. I think that the recent changes to the PvP system and reduced tension between each side merits this event be very successful.

What: This is going to play out alot like Arathi Basin in WoW.(yes a wow Reference) There are going to be a separate buff location for each faction, that will then be off limits to overt members of the opposite factions. Players will then battle over control of the Starports(In this case: Tyrena, Kor Vella, and Doaba Gurfel)

Imperials are going to group, buff, go Overt(Recruiter-front of Cantina) and STORE CLONE DATA in Bela Vista, Correllia. Rebels will do the Same in Coronet, Corellia(Recruiter- Back room of cantina). If available, a staff member will be blocking off the additional recruiters on this planet. Storing Clone data is going to be important because it is going to be the only location to go overt again and rejoin the battle.

Buff will not be provided by staff or myself. Any doctor that wishes to make some scratch is welcome to set up shop in either city. If there is not a doctor in one of the 2 cities, i will set my own doc up and buff for FMV just so each side has a buffer.

Rules:
Claiming a Starport: to claim a starport you must control the ticket Vendor room for 10 minutes uncontested.
To Change Claim: All members of the opposing faction must be killed, then the room must be held uncontested for 10 minutes.
Shuttling: You may Shuttle to anywhere, from anywhere. Defending players must defends from outside the Starport, and from inside of it as well. Shuttling to Shuttleports rather then starports may be strategically beneficial.
Jedi- Until i can get confirmation that the mass jedi lag issue was corrected, I am going to ask people that have the means to come on a different character to do so. If you have 1 combat char, and it happens to be a jedi, so be it.
Dot/Uber Weapons- Im not going to say not to use them, but as a hint, if i bring my combat toon down, im not using my 200+ strength fires or weapons over 1000max. Keep the event fair for everyone, its about more then just yourself.
Dots in General- Bring your doc hybrid buddy with cures and blankets. It might get dicey without one.
Dying- If you die, rebuffed/or dont, go overt again and head back into the action. REMEMBER TO STORE YOUR CLONE to prevent having to shuttle back to your factions base city.

Timing-
(RECOMMENDED)6:30 EST – Arrive at Factional Gathering Place to get buffed. Lines May be long so plan accordingly.
7:00 EST – Event begins and combat toons head out to the 3 cities under siege.
7-10:00 EST Combat ensues, If possible, System messages will go out in this Format: "Tyrena: Imperial Controlled Doaba Gurfel: In Combat Kor Vella: Rebel Controlled" so players know where the action is for their faction. Unclaimed is another Status if a members of a claiming faction leave the area.
10:00 EST A Victor Declared.

If i have time, I’m going to toss together about 20 Swoops for the Winning Faction to be given out randomly.

As always, Final say on anything to do with this event resides with me. In my absence or inability to judge a situation, the word of any SWGEmu Staff member trumps that of anyone else.

This is an attempted to stress the planet rather then one specific area. Bugs have been fixed due to the last few events. In the event of a crash, the event will continue/restart after the crash as time allows.

Please post any comments/concerns.

EDIT AREA:
Jedi Suggestion Removed.

EDIT AREA:

The following changes have been made to Test Center: Nova as of January 21st, 2010.

Bounty Hunter

* [Removed] Master Bounty Hunter TEF (Uncover Jedi) To get things ready for OR, as well as to help out REAL PVP.

Jedi

* [Fixed] Equaled out Jedi DMG’s across the board.
* [Testing] Force costs/Regen
* [Fixed] Other misc Jedi force costs,dmg,etc.

Creature AI

* [Fixed] Some more Creature Dot problems

Creature Spawns

* [Updated] A few NPC’s to get ready for a on going TC Event.