Firstly, I’d like to apologize to the three of you who read my column. I intended to get this done on Saturday night but after seeing my beloved Wales lose 62-5 to England, I went into a state of shock. Thankfully my sobs have subsided and for all of you guys who support English rugby, I have one thing to say - ‘WE PUT OUT OUR B-SIDE!’

The SOE Fan Faire has come to an end but reports on what has been discussed seem to be coming in very slowly, it seems that the ‘what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ pact has been applied.  Since news is pretty thin on the ground at the moment, I’m going to take the little information I do have and make all sorts of assumptions and hypothesis. I am the SWG tabloid journalist.

The party got into full swing on Friday night when John Smedley and the team jumped on stage dressed up as the Spice Girls. Smedley was Ginger Spice of course; Blixtev was Scary Lead Developer Spice; GreyPawn was Enthusiastic, New Guy Spice; Deadmeat was Once Vocal but Now Really, Really Quiet On The Forums Spice and Virrago was Not Prepared To Add Spice Back Into The Game Spice.

The SWG Team - I wanna really really really wanna get rid of lag

After giving a stunning rendition of Wannabe, the team lowered a giant piñata from the ceiling. Instead of the normal papier-mâché donkey it was ex SWG producer, Julio Torres. SWG fans were invited up to the stage to beat him with giant sticks painted to look like Lightsabers. When Julio’s ribs finally started to crack and give way, thousands of Pre-CU code snippets rained down on everyone. It was a truly magical experience I’m told.

Saturday was aimed at specific areas of SWG, actual players were asked to give presentations on specific aspects of SWG. Paris Hilton turned up on stage and guests were treated to watching the millionaire freeloader pwn noobs on her home server, Bloodfin. Jessica Simpson gave a lengthy seminar on PVP dos and don’ts wearing nothing but a jewel incrusted bikini.  Lindsay Lohan arrived, smashed her car into the hotel lobby and called everyone carebears. She declined to give a presentation.

Tiggs calls her lawyer

Later that day Blixtev recited a moving, if somewhat uncomfortable poem written for Tiggs. And extract of the sixty page sonnet is shown below:-

When at Sony, players said you were idle
But since the firing they have made you an idol
Tiggs, representative of the community
You got kicked out after the NGE
I’ve loved you since Pre-CU
Back when the game was new
I often gazed at your big 80’s hair
Did you ever notice my loving stare?
I don’t get love, I program in Hex
I guess that’s why you flirted with Pex
But if I can’t have you no one will
Death, black, pain, blood, kill, kill, kill

Blixtev broke down and it was some considerable time before he was able to add any input to the proceedings. Thankfully, Deadmeat was able to fill in and give the presentation on the new Heroic Mobs that Blix has added to the game.  A massive screen lowered into view and the attendees where shown a demo of adventuring around the new village of Tiggarilla. DM and a group of seven other Dev’s spoke with an NPC called Tiggy and were sent into the hills to fight a dragon and rescue the magical silver lance of Blix. Deadmeat blushed, Blixtev sobbed and Smedley walked out in disgust.

On Sunday, the SWG team held a fightclub and pitted themselves against each other in bare chested unarmed combat. It seems that the entire event wasn’t really thought through and Virrago had kicked the crap out of the rest of the team within ten minutes. I had money on Blixtev (he’s a big boy) but I guess the whole Tiggs thing on Saturday had drained his energy.
After fixing themselves up the guys sat down and gave a full and frank session on the upcoming changes that we should expect to see before the end of 2007:-

 Rubberbanding is going to be ‘fixed’
Rather than fixing this problem, from now on every time you rubberband you will get a token that can be used to purchase cool rewards that will be flagged as No Trade and added to your bank.

The Credit Farming problem will be solved
Since the team have failed to code a means to stop those pesky credit farmers, Virrago will be sent on a top secret mission to China to eliminate every last man and woman working this seedy profession.

Virrago prepares to deal with those evil credit spammers

 

New Houses and Speeders
Players will soon be able to live together in a large commune. Just like the Monkees.

Pre-CU is set to return
Hidden at the back of a wardrobe in an NPC city somewhere in the Galaxy will be a Narnia like world that you can step into and holo-grind professions and dizzy knockdown everything that moves.

Entertainers and Traders have been merged into one
For some reason, Ents and Traders are now cast into the same play type. From now on, players will have to dance their hearts out in order to make a new set of armour. The process is simple - the groovier the dance, the better the armour. Domestic traders will now have to sing for their supper if they want to produce good food.

Characters will now have there real sex displayed above there head
That’s right, now more Crying Game style slip ups. However, if you are a female in real life, expect to be bombarded with 100 /tells a minute.

Jessica Simpson	Dave

The last point (that I made up) got me thinking. If you knew that a really hot girl played a male toon in game, would you date the toon in order to get close to the really hot girl? For example, imagine Jesica Simpson wearing a jewel encrusted bikini, playing a Sullustian male called Dave. Would you date Dave to get to Jessica? Please email me to let me know. I’m married so I cannot possibly comment. Interesting conundrum though, don’t you think?

Finally, I think I’d better finish with a discussion about actual issues surrounding the game. It didn’t take long for the Senate to be created and for the players to be decided. As you’d expect, it took even less time for the forum PVP’ers to start sticking the knives into those poor unsuspecting n00b senators.

Just like GreyPawn himself, these guys are eager to please and eager to show the community why they were made Senators in the first place. Naturally, the hard nosed forum snipers are lapping it up. All you need to do is to create a thread in the GPD stating that the Senate has failed and the Orange Names jump all over it. Noticeably absent from these types of threads are the likes of Badgersmaker and Red Dwarf who have seen all this before.

Of course, it’s still early days and anyone with an ounce of sanity is going to give it some time before we pass judgement on this process. At this early stage I’ve seen some good proposals and I’ve seen some ideas put forward that speak more of the Senators own agenda rather than the wishes of the community.

Next week I’ll be giving my opinion on what the Senate should and should not be doing. I’ll also be grading individual senators on how well I think they are performing. I’m not sure how helpful this is going to be but it’s the sort of sensationalism that’s in keeping with this week’s column. I’ll try to be fair though.


Take care of yourselves readers, I guess that’s what you’re best at.
SuperFurry – 6th August 2007
Email me: SuperFurryGalaxies@hotmail.com