It seems that those Red Names at SOE have finally decided to make a stand against all things shady in the Galaxies. On Tuesday, hundreds of credit spammers using Trial Accounts launched into the game only to find they were trapped in the Tansarii station. Sure, Han Solo would give you a ride down to Mos Eisely but you have to cough up some cash first. Not credits but real life American dollars.

A credit farmer takes the news with mild amusement

The news was taken very well by the angry mobs that frequent the official forums. As I’ve said in a previous column, there are a great many people who believe that credit farming and the associated practice of spamming is the axis of evil.  Have they solved this problem? Not really folks. Credit farmer’s use fully paid up legitimate accounts. Only the credit spammers use trial accounts and to be honest, where better to spam your wares than the Tansarii station packed up with cash starved noob’s itching to get down to the planets and buy the most uber gear.

Although I personally do not care one single bit about credit farmers I do have a rather maverick solution to this whole issue – make credits ‘No Trade’. Leave it to the players to decide how to buy and sell their stuff. Whole new monetary systems will emerge that will be different on each Galaxy. On Bria for instance, items could be exchanged for clothing. One Exotic Leotard will buy you an Incubator and 16 Hotpants will get you a Black Sun helmet. On other servers a different type of economy might emerge where a Swoop bike will cost you 10 minutes of cybersex.

I remember overhearing my first ever SWG cybersex session way back in 2004. When I say overhearing I actually mean pressing my Rodian ears up against the wall of the guild hall where it took place. I can’t say I was too shocked at the time. However, while I was waiting for a buff in Mos E cantina recently, the entertainer dancing for me casually asked if I wanted to cyber for a few extra credits. Wow! It seems that there are actually ten professions in the game. In the interests of this column and for the sake of pure journalism I was tempted to say yes and stump up the credits. Something inside of me couldn’t do it though. The reality of the situation would be me, playing a virtual character, paying a female virtual character, who I assume is a man in real life, virtual credits for virtual sex. Even to me, this seemed like a big steaming pile of WRONG.

I pressed her for more information and it seems that this thing is not uncommon in the world of SWG. She reeled off a list of other people on her main server who practiced the dark arts. It’s difficult to estimate how plausible this story is but it does seem to have a grain of truth. It seems that the very same thing has recently occurred in another online game called Second Life.  I’m not sure how I feel about this, there are obvious issues with younger players but in some weird way I enjoy seeing the game evolve in ways never expected. If SOE ever finds out about this they will want to stamp it out, I guess we’ll be seeing ladies of the night lurking around with the credit spammers in Tansarii station pretty soon.

I guess next up for a trip to room 101 of the Tansarii station will be the highly controversial practice of base busting. For those pure of heart, a base bust is where a player of one faction sets up a base and lets 2000 other people from the opposite faction know its vulnerability time. The base is destroyed and all those in attendance get lots and lots of easy GCW points. It’s a know exploit, it’s frowned upon and judging by all the ones I have attended - it’s very, very popular.

While a lot of people comment on how boring these ‘events’ are, I happen to love them. I play on the Euro-Tumbleweed server and to be honest, the only time I’ve ever seen that many people in one place at one time was during the Combat Upgrade riots. At base busts friendships are made, items are sold and groups are formed. It’s a huge social gathering. General Veers got his GCW this way and Crix Madine met his wife Veronica at a base bust on Yavin IV. Please guys, if you’re planning on ditching this exploit, give us another reason to get together.

General Madine organises another base bust

Late last week, Virrago posted a poll on what people are looking forward to the most in the next chapter of our favourite online Star Wars game. The four options were:-
1. Heroic Encounters
2. Imperial Themepark revamp
3. Collections/Accomplishment system
4. Particle effect scaling and control
Unfortunately, the poll has only received just over 3000 votes. Not surprising really since nobody has bothered to actually tell us what on earth these four options actually entail. Thankfully, I managed to get in touch with Virrago and in a surprisingly candid interview he was able to expand on all four points in a lot more detail.

Heroic Encounters
We are all very excited about Heroic Encounters here. Basically, a heroic encounter will be an encounter between you and something else that will very likely make you feel very heroic. We cannot guarantee how heroic you’ll feel until a later time but the way this is going, you’re going to be feeling pretty good about yourselves. Due to issues with Lucas Arts we cannot use heroes from the Star Wars universe but we recently signed a deal with the BBC that will let us use the intellectual property of the Teletubbies. Expect to find yourselves in an epic battle between Dipsy and TinkyWinky very, very soon.

Imperial Themepark
The Imperial Themepark was getting very stale. We have completely turned this around by changing the quest missions slightly and offering new armour as the quest reward. The armour will be something you already own, only a COMPLETE different colour. Yes folks, you heard it here first – a COMPLETE different colour. I’m thinking a nice sunny Lemon but DeadMeat wants to go for cornflower blue.

Collections/Accomplishments System
What? You’ve never heard about the Collections/Accomplishments system? I thought everyone knew about that? Gosh, we’ve been talking about it in Austin for weeks now. You guys really are slow to catch on. In a nutshell, the Collections/Accomplishments system is a system where you can collect accomplishments. It’s that easy.

Particle effect scaling and control
This is a low level graphical user setting that players will have full power to control in Chapter 7. You’ll be given a slider control that you can slide up and slide down to adjust particle effects. Basically, we’ll be looking to see who actually votes for this and we will make an effort to find them girlfriends.
Remember folks, your vote counts. It really does. Yeah right and Darth Vader wears hotpants.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a new weekly feature – my favourite quote from the official forums.
Quote of the Week
I lost my MMO virginity to SWG and after wards he changed so much I don't even know who he is anymore.
XeroKai

Take care of yourselves readers, I guess that’s what you’re best at.
SuperFurry – 15th June 2007
Email me: SuperFurryGalaxies@hotmail.com

June 1 edition