Introduction

The first new changes to Star Wars Galaxies in 2004 will be coming to the official web site and community forums. The SWG team is working to involve the quality of community involvement and the best way to do that is to improve the quality of the communication. The first step is to create clear channels of communication from the development team to the community. To do this, we will announce upcoming changes to the game on the web site, describing in detail the nature of changes in game design and implementation as well as the scheduled date projections. As discussion topics change and evolve, we will list all of the changes on the web site in one convenient location.



The next step is to create clear channels of communication from the community to the development team. To accomplish this goal, we will be changing the forums to channel information through three stages of game development and community involvement. For each of these stages, we will announce a start and finish date for accepting comments and also label the discussion topics in a way so everyone understands how and when their contributions will be considered by the development team.



The community's development will follow this path:



In Concept: "In Concept" is the first stage of game development and it can be considered "blue sky" thinking and brainstorming. The idea is to just consider all the possibilities and angles of the announced topic. During the dates listed in the post, the development team and the correspondents will keep track of all the great ideas and suggestions, catalogue them and send them to the game designers in a neat package so that they might be properly considered for the game.



In Development: The next stage is "In Development". When a game development topic reaches this stage, it means the design document is being produced and will be posted for community comment. At this point, the community can see what was included, what has been designed and it will be open for discussion. The difference at this stage is that this is the "polish" stage of design. The "blue sky" is gone and now the focus is to tweak, fill in gaps, uncover problems. No sweeping changes will be made unless something critical has come up and jeopardizes the integrity of the design. Any "big" changes made to design ideas will have to have very strong community support to be considered.



In Test: When the game topic reaches this final stage, the game developers will announce the status of game feature, including any changes that had to be made during its creation to accommodate technical details. Additionally, we will post a basic "test plan" in the laceName>TestlaceName> laceType>CenterlaceType> forums so everyone can help test what they have been involved in and to help find the issues that were unforeseen.


Proposed Changes:


In accordance with the new community development path, the following changes are planned:



1. The Announcements forum will remain and function as it exists in its current form.



2. Add an "In Concept" forum where only In-Concept discussions will occur. Here, SWG developers will post new threads announcing planned changes and the dates in which conceptual suggestions will be included in the process. Community members will not be able to create new discussion threads, but may post their suggestions, comments and contributions in the appropriate thread. Forum moderators will assist in maintaining the integrity of In-Concept topics.


3. The Development forum will continue to work as it currently functions and simply be renamed to understand its role in this new process. Developers can create new threads and community members can post their suggestions, comments and contributions.



4. The SWG Discussion Forum will be removed to help focus game development discussions and make sure that community suggestions, comments and contributions are catalogued in forums that will be read and tracked by the development team. Please use your Galaxy forums for general SWG discussions.


We want to keep the best parts of the SWG discussion forum, so we encourage comments about what other types of forums would be a benefit to the community with the knowledge that they will not get developer attention.


5. The Game Guides, Galactic Civil War, Events, Professions, Galaxy Trade, Server Galaxies, Tech Support, and "Other" forums will remain in tact and function as they exist in their current form.


6. The Test Center Forum will remain intact and function, as it exists in its current form. Additionally, as official game development topics progress through the community development path, the "In-Test" threads will be posted in Test Center.


Request for Comments:

The community is invited to make comments and suggestions about the proposed changes from Monday, January 5th through Friday, January 9th.


Focus:

Please feel free to comment on any of the topics listed in this post.

The SWG Discussion forum is being closed. If your comment is regarding the closing of the SWG forum, please focus your comments on forum changes we might make so that you can communicate critical information to the developers and not arguments as to why it should not be closed.


The SWG Discussion forum will be archived so players can find and read their old posts, but as a development tool, the forum isn't working. With so many people and so many topics, much of useful information is swallowed up in the high volume of threads.




Many thanks to the regulars who saved both the initial post and my following comments from last night - - you rock