Tag Archives: Friday Feature

Friday Feature 1/20/2018 – Factions

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Rumors of a Galactic Civil War erupting are increasing. Stories are spreading of Imperial Moffs attempting to consolidate their power in the wake of the Emperor’s death. Mon Mothma is rallying the Rebels to form a New Republic in the wake of their success against the Empire. Planets all over the galaxy are preparing for war on their soil. Calls are being put forth for retired military to come back and lead the scattered troops. The NR looks to each planet’s citizens to join them and stabilize a New Republic. The Imperials expect citizens to demonstrate their loyalty and help maintain the Empire.

OOC:

Many in the EiF community have participated in two live tests of the GCW invasion system which greatly helped the devs and the players learn more about what is needed to improve when the entire GCW finally goes live! New and returning players continue to swell the population. Crafters are working hard to meet the demands of the growing community, as it prepares for the GCW.

Part of players’ preparation is gaining enough faction to be able to participate in the exciting, original content exclusive to  Empire in Flames. This Feature is one in a series to help players prepare. This week we are concentrating on gaining factional alignment.

The GCW’s factions are Imperial and New Republic. You will need to earn 200 faction points to show a faction recruiter you are serious about joining their cause. These are earned by:

  • Killing enough opposite faction NPCs or overt players
    • Random factionally align NPCs
    • Faction missions obtained from mission terminals
      • Found in Cities
        • NPC
        • Player Cities whose Mayor has provided them.
  • Having another player of the same faction delegate some of their faction points to you.

Once you have your points, locate a recruiter. They will let you join the faction and you will gain the rank of private. There are links to locations below, but there will also be recruiters at the GCW Basecamps and in the defending faction’s city.

New Republic recruiters (formerly the Rebel Recruiters)

http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Rebel_recruiter

Imperial Recruiters

http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_recruiter

To participate in a GCW invasion you will need to already be aligned with a faction. When you enter an active GCW invasion, you will automatically be made Special Forces.You will be vulnerable to enemy players, NPCs, and their equipment, such as turrets.

Special thanks to Kelta for editing and Halyn for reviewing for accuracy!

Sandarie, Community Manager

Clearly Not Combat Princess!

Friday Feature 1/12/2018 : A Chat with Sandarie

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The staff has been really busy getting ready for the second GCW Invasion Live test. Instead of something new, fun, and exciting, you get to know more about your Community Manager.

Clearly Not Combat Princess!

EiF: Which versions of SWG did you play?

Sandarie: I can’t really say that I played the CU. I started SWG three weeks before the NGE hit. I never got a chance to do much except learn the tinest bit about creature handling.

EiF: If you played in the pre-CU live, approximately how long did you play in the pre-CU?

Sandarie: As noted above, I did not play the pre-CU. EiF is a crazy experience for me. All the nostalgia for the game I have loved more than any other MMO, but with a newness to it since it wasn’t the same familiar gameplay.

EiF: Which server did you play on?

Sandarie: I started on Narutis. Joined a guild, but a friend from Everquest found out I was playing SWG and talked me into creating a character on Starsider. That’s when Sandarie was born and I never looked back!

EiF: Which classes and which was your favorite?

Sandarie: I loved the roleplayer class the best! *eyes twinkle mischievously* I liked the love the Entertainers eventually got in the NGE and I was always a little sad to hear all the stories about how Entertainers were actually a benefit to other players back before the NGE. I played an Entertainer, a Doc, and I had a Domestic mostly to make clothing for my roleplaying!

EiF: How many accounts did you own/manage?

Sandarie: I had three at one time. I stopped playing the game for awhile and one of the accounts was taken over by a friend. So when I came back, I only have two accounts at the end of SWG.

EiF: What type of gameplay style do you most enjoy?

Sandarie: Roleplaying! I also enjoy PvE sometimes. I HATE PvP, unless it’s with a group of people. I will never again be talked into playing on a server of any kind where it’s set in an open world PvP environment. Way too stressful for me.

EiF: What’s a typical gaming session for you, what activities?

Sandarie: Wow, hard to have anything typical. It’s a lot reactive unless there is an event that I need to help run. I get a lot of /tells in game, in Discord, and on the social websites we are on.  I always hope to get in some roleplaying, though. I always check on my vendors, especially lately. Being a chef was a pretty slow business, even being the only one on the server most of our 8.5 months. However things are picking up

EiF: What do you most enjoy about SWG?

Sandarie: First, foremost, and always the people. The community. The sandbox provided by SWG, the a universe people are passionate about is incredible to me.

EiF: What do you enjoy most about Empire in Flames?

Sandarie: THE PEOPLE! *grins* are you sensing a pattern here? I feel very honored I’ve gotten to be a part of something so amazing twice in a lifetime. Not only with some of my dearest friends who have been in my life for over a decade, but now new friends are being added. Some are folks who were only “legends” to me back on live. The SWG/Starsider celebrities outside of the piloting community are now people I get to interact with and have as part of my EiF experience. How much of a blessing is that!

EiF: When you are not ingame, what do you enjoy doing?

Sandarie: I love to read. Sometimes I binge watch a television show. Since SWG Live died, I’ve gotten 4 grands added to my family. I really enjoy my job too.

EiF: What do you do outside of EiF / do for a living?

Sandarie: I am a corporate trainer for a very large business. I travel most weeks throughout the United States and spend a week on-site with clients. I love my job. I get asked a lot if I have favorite places I’ve visited. My VERY favorite visits have been when the travel allows me to meet friends and family. I’ve gotten to meet Halyn and Kelta, as well as Anishor. From a location perspective, it’s hard to say where my favorite place has been. I go to Washington, DC every chance I get. I was awestruck by Alaska and I can’t wait to take my family camping up in Maine near Bar Harbor. But if you ever get the chance, you must visit Niagara Falls and Mount Rushmore.

EiF: What is your role with EiF? What does that entail?

Sandarie: Some weeks, a lot of weeks actually, EiF has been getting more hours of my time than my regular job. And I’m not talking about playing the game. I’m the liaison between the community and the rest of the staff. I manage the Website and Forums along with BluePyros. I write or research most of the Friday Features and other posts. I make a lot of requests to the Devs on behalf of the community. I listen to community issues. I help coordinate server events and sometimes get to play an NPC in the EiF RP Campaign. I run the EiF RP Hub, Port Jato. I coordinate most of our social media outreach on about half a dozen sites…. *takes a deep breath* There is more, but this gives you a taste of the things the EiF CM does.

EiF: If you could have ANYTHING instantly in EiF, what would it be?

Sandarie: Female Nautolan!

EiF: If you could find out one thing about our EiF Community, what would it be?

Sandarie: What makes them happiest while playing EiF.

EiF: What gives you Developer’s Crack?

Sandarie: I’m not a developer. They won’t let me near the coding *broad grins* But when I hear how much someone love EiF and gushes about how amazing our community is… that touches my heart and gives me my CM crack.

Friday Feature 1/5/2018: Commands in SWG

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Happy New Year! 2018 is going to be an exciting time for EiF. Our population are numbers are rising. The roleplaying community is burgeoning. The GCW is around the corner and players are getting ready and helping with live testing of the invasion portion of the system!

SWG is rich with action players can use either from the command line or placed into macros. This week we’ll focus on some useful commands. Some of our earlier Friday Features utilized a few, such as with macros.

Basic Commands

//
Complete list of commands in game. Note many commands may need a target.

/afk
Sets your character to “Away From Keyboard” so others know you are not currently available.

/anon
Sets your character to anonymous for the purpose of searches.

/consider (/con)
Displays the difficulty rating of a targeted creature or NPC compared to your skill with your currently equipped weapon.

/earth
Displays the earth (real) time.

/find
Brings up list of commonly searched for locations. Selecting a location will create a waypoint to the nearest one of that type and will produce a lighted path leading you to it. To remove the waypoint you created, type /find clear.

I personally use this ALL THE TIME! /find starport when I’m out in the middle of no where searching for the best resource spawn, allows me to get a waypoint to the nearest starport.

/findfriend
Locates your friend by name and creates an active waypoint for them. You must have the person in your friends list and you must also be on their friendslist for this to work.

/follow
Auto-follows your target; use /stopfollow to cease following.

/gallop
Urge your mount go faster for a short time. Don’t expect to use this command continuously! This is useful if you are mounted on a pet and get into combat and the pet slows down to fight.

/logout
Logs your character off the server; you should be in a city, house or campsite for a safe logout, otherwise your character will be at the mercy of the world for 3 additional minutes.

/notepad
Allows modifications to a text file that gets saved as “notes.txt” in your base profile directory. I use this to enter notes about what foods I can make and the max stats I can hit.

/quit
Exit the game immediately. Your character will remain vulnerable to attack for three more minutes.

/tip
Automatically transfers a specified number of credits to your target; you can also use /tip bank to send money directly to their bank, but there is a 5% transfer fee to do this.

/unstick
If you are stuck in a building or other feature of the landscape, this should unstick you. You cannot be moving in order for the command to work. If this command does not free your character, then please contact an admin.

/waypoint
By typing /waypoint and the coordinates, you will create a waypoint in your datapad at location of the current planet’s coordinatate or at your present location if nothing is entered. Note: targeting something and typing /waypoint does not function.

Chat

/groupchat (/g)
Sends message to group channel.

/guild (/gu)
Sends the message typed after the command to your guild channel.

/retell (/rt)
Sends tell to the last person you sent a tell to.

/reply (/r)
Sends a tell to the last person to send a tell to you.

/say
Puts your message in a chat bubble and in the main chat window.

/tell (/t)
Sends an instant message to the character indicated; you can send the message to multiple people by separating their names with a comma.

/tellpet
Sends a command privately to your pet.

Combat Players

/listen
You actively listen to the targeted musician. Heals mind wounds and battle fatigue

/loot
Loots targeted corpse. 

/watch
You actively listen to the targeted dancer. Heals mind wounds and battle fatigue

/unstick
If you are stuck in a building or other feature of the landscape, this should unstick you. You cannot be moving in order for the command to work. If this command does not free your character, then please contact an admin.

Digging in the Dirt!

/forage
Rangers: Searches the area for anything useful.

/me
Medics: Use to forage items useful for Medics and Doctors

Entertainer/Dancer/Musician

/flourish <#>
Plays indicated musical or dance flourish.

/bandflourish
Synchronizes flourishes of everyone in the group (however, this does not grant the XP of normal flourishes). Using this command allows you to show some style alongside fellow entertainers! Only band leaders can use this command.

/bandleader
Transfers Band Leader status to indicated character.

/sing
Chat bubble that is unique to Entertainers.

/startdance
Begins the dance style that you specify.

/startmusic
Skill and instrument required – begins playing song that you specify.

/tip
Automatically transfers a specified number of credits to your target; you can also use /tip bank to send money directly to their bank, but there is a 5% transfer fee to do this.

Grouping Commands

/invite
Invite the named or targeted player to a group (only group leaders can invite additional people into an existing group).

You cannot /invite while you are in combat or the invitee is in combat. You cannot /join while you are in combat or the inviter/group leader is in combat\

/uninvite
Cancel the group invitation to the named or targeted player.

/join
Joins group or band if you have been invited.

/makeLeader
Group leader only – transfers leadership to named or targeted group member.

/groupchat
Sends message to group channel.

/dismissGroupMember
Dismiss the named or targeted player from the group.

/disband
Group leader only – disbands current target, or entire group if no target is named.

Guild

/guild
Sends the message typed after the command to your guild channel.

/guildremove
Removes target or self from your current guild.

Management: Structures (Houses, Harvesters, Factories

/addpower
Adds power to selected structure.

/setpermission
Sets which players are allowed to move and pick-up items within a structure, as well as the ability to destroy that structure. You must be in or near your building or installation to do this.

/setprivacy
Sets your structure to private or public. You must be in a building to use this.

Merchant/Crafters/Resource Gatherers

/mailsave
Saves your game mail on your computer

/sample
Used by Surveyors to take a resource sample after surveying.

Roleplay

/emote
Displays whatever text you follow it with as an action of your character. For example, if I want to say: Megan is serving free chocolate mousse cake on Port Jato, then the following would accomplish that:  “/emote Megan is serving free chocolate mousse cake on Port Jato. 

/kneel
Changes stance to kneeling. Great for RP!

/moods
Displays list of moods.

/mood none
Returns your default mood to neutral.

/prone
Changes stance to prone.

/roleplay
Sets your character to “Role Player.”

/say
Puts your message in a chat bubble and in the main chat window.

/sing
Chat bubble that is unique to Entertainers.

/stand
Changes stance to standing.

Emote Commands: On the Abilities and Commands menu (Ctrl + A) there is a Social tab with all the emotes you can use with your characters. Most emotes each have three states:

For example, in the list you’ll see an emote for “About Dang Time!” By hovering over it, you’ll see the command for it. /adn. By clicking on it, you’ll see the three states:

  • Without a modifie:
    • /adn : You openly show that your patience has expired
  • With the self modifier to apply it to yourself:
    • /adn self: A bit frustrated with yourself?
  • Targeting a player, or adding player name as a modifier:
    • /adn Megan: You encourage Megan to hurry. Any day now!

Next week we look at more commands to improve communications.

Sandarie Coron, Community Manager

Clearly Not Combat Princess!

Welcome to Empire In Flames

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An Empire in Flames is a post-Endor server offering a new, unique Star Wars Galaxies experience!

What’s the 10,000 foot view?

Empire in Flames began conceptually before the shutdown of the live servers with a design friendly to Roleplayers, PvE players, PvPers, and pilots. It started as, “What’s your ideal server?” It started with a new profession system, expanded to housing and races, and dreamed of a Galactic Civil War in practice instead of imagination. In short, it’s the concept of a Star Wars game as dreamed by a small group of long-time Starsider players – players who were RPers, PvErs, PvPers, crafters, and pilots, none of whom fell into the trap that any of the major combat systems – pre-CU, CU, or NGE – was by any means perfect.

A new profession system

Empire in Flames offers a new approach to the system – one that combines the best of the ideas of the NGE and pre-CU.

Trees are categorized as “professions” and “skills.”

Professions cost no skill points (though they require XP to level). However, a player can only have ONE profession at a time. Professions include:

Bounty Hunter
Commando
Doctor
Entertainer
Merchant
Ranger
Smuggler
Squad Leader

Abilities acquired from professions can be used with any weapon, or even unarmed. Professions offer enhancement, access to specialized skills like slicing, vendors, creature harvesting, and so forth.

Skills, on the other hand, require skillpoints and can be freely mix-and-matched. They, too, require XP to level; however, all skills can be learned from their novice box up. Prerequisites are not required.

Architect
Armorsmith
Artisan
Bio-Engineer
Carbineer
Chef
Creature Handler
Dancer
Droid Engineer
Fencer
Image Designer
Medic
Musician
Pikeman
Pistoleer
Rifleman
Shipwright
Swordsman
Tailor
Teras Kasi Artist
Weaponsmith

Skillpoints have been adjusted to allow a player to pickup approximately 2 1/2 trees, with some exceptions. (Image Designer, Dancer, and Musician together reach 250 points, for example.)

A new approach to housing

Like most branch servers, Empire in Flames offers additional housing options not available on Basilisk – and a few not available on any other branch server. However, player cities take a central role; player houses are required to be built inside city limits.

No more crust of housing on the edge of the no-build zone around NPC starports. No more endless sea of houses on Tatooine. Instead, players have more reason than ever to cooperate – “home” is now a community.

New Races

While “new races” are proliferating across the branch servers, they started with Empire in Flames. After unauthorized use of our code on other servers, we decided to release them for other servers to use…and used they have been. Still, we’re not resting on our laurels – we’re working to add even more options, even when it means we’re pestering Timbab for a new tool to make it happen.

A New Setting

The decision to move post-Endor is partly driven by roleplay, but also by a desire to implement a proper Galactic Civil War. While the immediate ramifications of the time shift are largely cosmetic, it does mean new themeparks will be coming – after all, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, the Emperor, and Xizor are all dead.

How will you position yourself to rise to power?

We respect existing lore that has happened before Endor, but past that we will be creating our own lore, pulling bits and pieces from varying sources. We simply don’t think the way things go in the new canon with Jakku and all makes for very compelling gameplay or storytelling, but we also can’t trod down the path of Legends as its over saturated and restricting.

Crafting Revamp

One of the most controversial changes we have adopted is a crafting revamp for weaponsmith and armorsmith.

Instead of the old crafting system, we moved to a “core”-based system. The base of every weapon is a core, whether it’s a pistol, carbine, rifle, or melee weapon. The core determines critical stats like HAM cost, damage, and speed. Additions like stocks, scopes, and customized barrels are done at the weapon-level to modify those core stats. In essence, any weapon or armor can be made good. Empire in Flames is more than powerhammers and T-21s and composite armor.

A Roadmap Forward

Post-launch, the next three major patches are planned: Galactic Civil War, Schisms of the Force, and Underworld. The first is to bring a proper Galactic Civil War to the galaxy; the second to implement the Jedi profession; the third to reveal black markets, smuggled goods, player bounty hunting, and Crime Lords.

Along the way, other content is planned – new themeparks for the New Republic and the Empire, a three-faction questline over the fate of Jabba’s criminal empire, and a series of post-Endor based heroic encounters.

Also check out our Q&A from the summer!
And the whole Friday Feature Archives

Friday Feature 12/15/2017 – The Staff of an Empire in Flames

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Over the past weeks we’ve chatted with some of the Empire in Flames staff. We’ve added some special people to the team in recent weeks also and we’ll be doing chats with them in the near future. The Community of EiF feels like it’s exploding and expanding so rapidly recently. The excitement being generated by the new and returning players for the Staff is sometimes intoxicating. We often call that feeling Dev Crack. I felt it would be beneficial to create a chart or list of the current staff for the community, so everyone can see the roles of the varying team members here at an Empire in Flames. My hope is this will help the community to direct their questions to the appropriate folks and get the best responses in return!

Lead Developer/Project Owner
Halyn

Halyn is responsible for the content and direction of EiF. He directs the efforts of his staff, who strive to implement his vision. He gives the team autonomy to create, but his vision and guidance are always the final word. He somewhat jokingly refers to his style of leadership in EiF as a benevolent dictatorship. His roadmap for EiF never has had a timeline associated with it, due to his real life obligations. What he has shared with the community is that he’s actively working on the EiF original content for the Galactic Civil War. The GCW will be followed by our implementation of Jedi, and then the long anticipated Underworld publish. Halyn’s recently been teasing a lot of GCW content in our Discord and on Facebook.

Boss Lady
Kelta

Kelta wears many hats in EiF. She helps with Community Management and is the primary sounding board and sanity keeper for the Lead Developer/Project Owner. She is usually the voice of wisdom to the entire staff and we love her advice and calm presence. She is also a great roleplayer.

Combat Developer
Anishor

Anishor has been spending a lot of time working on his passion for the combat system in EiF. He’s been doing a revamp of the combat professions, looking at the NPCs, and resists. He is also responsible for the implementation of the Entertainer Fame tree, which works to give entertainers meaningful payouts for missions. Anishor has also implemented our Launcher (thanks to Progor from Relics of Corbantis for the base code!), and is the designer of the Skill Builder which is one of his current projects.

In-Game Asset Developer
Gail/Abi

Gail is working to bring items from SWG which are not part of the SWGEmu into EiF. He’s adding them to looted schematics, junk drops, end-game and world boss drops, existing crafter lines, and other things. Some of the items will have been obtainable in other versions of SWG. A few will be things that were in game, but never player accessible have been placed into the game too. If you take a trip to Port Jato, the EiF Space Station, and visit the arena on the lower level, you’ll see the fences Gail pulled from the games NPC assets. Below is the link to the forum thread where you can place requests for in-game assets. Doesn’t mean you’ll get them… but you might! Be sure to follow the instructions for posting requests.:

http://empireinflames.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=4ae8adb0c35e8732f28e52a7dc38c282

Designer/New Art Assets Developer
Violet

One of the most creative SWG artists is working with EIF to add art never before seen on any server. Violet has her own test server and develops art for Sunrunner II’s Takhomasak’s planets. Violet is also the Head Artist of Mod the Galaxy. In MtG, she’s working with Sytner on making scripts for animations/organics possible (*a little blue Twi’lek squee is heard*) She is working on a Pazaak deck and an A180 Blaster Pistol currently for EiF. Violet likes to livestream her work and can be found on EiF’s Discord in the #livestream channel. She, too, has a thread on the forums for requesting original artwork. Please read the guidelines before posting requests.

http://empireinflames.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Other Art Assets
Wefi

Wefi is a very talented graphic artist. He’s taken existing and new assets and manipulated them for use in EiF. Such as ships for our starports and weapons. Wefi is an avid RPer and you are very likely to find one of his characters in-game helping with the immersion of EiF. Wefi also handles some of our client file modifications.

Creator of Worlds
Takhomasak

Takh is the creator of the planet Taanab on EiF. Takh is the Administrator and Lead Developer of the SWGEmu server Sunrunner II. His server is in testing right now, but the stuff he’s doing is extraordinary. EiF and SII are sister servers with different goals. We share assets and camaraderie and laughs together. Two of his new planets, Kuat and Mon Cal will figure prominently in the upcoming GCW on EiF.

swgsunrunner2.com

Instance Developer
Lasko

Lasko is also part of the Sunrunner II team who is partnering with EiF. Lasko brings an extensive background in SWG, as a staff member at Mod the Galaxy and creator of the MTG asset compilation. He’s helping Halyn with some of the GCW projects and soon(™) EiF will enjoy some of the instances Lasko has brought back from SWG Live.

modthegalaxy.com

Co-Wbsite/Forum Admin
BluePyros/Andarta

Blue has been part of the EiF team since way before launch. He is the reason all of our housing deeds are holos! He has a talent to dig into code and manipulate it. Part of his role in EiF is to help get people settled on the Website/Forums. If you are having trouble getting in, contact Blue or Sandi on Discord.

Community Manager
Sandi/Sandarie

Sandi has been with EiF since before it’s launch. Her role is to be a liason between the community and the developers when needed. She normally maintains a presence in Discord and in-game. She’s known to read EVERY post in Discord and Galaxychat. She’s also the Co-Website/Forum admin and writes most of the Friday Features. If you have ideas for the Website, forums, or ingame events, Sandi is the one to contact.

Clearly Not Combat Princess!