BlackwingsWhile waiting for my early access download to complete for AoC, I was playing around with Star Wars Empires at War single player. I was having a blast attacking planets one at a time, first conquering the area of space surrounding the planet with my fleet of Star Destroyers, then launching a ground campaign with a mixed bag of Storm Troopers, AT-ST’s, artillery units and my personal favorite the AT-AT.
While in the midst of a ground battle I kept getting wave after wave of troops attacking back trying to push me off the planet when I realized this is what would be needed in a sequel to Star Wars Galaxies. NPC’s would have to be at the core of the Galactic Civil War in order to be immersive. There was plenty of PVP to be had in the original SWG, but not on any grand scale with a few exceptions. No, the sequel to SWG would need NPC’s more in the mix. Players and guilds would be able to move up the ranks in their selected faction to gain command over more soldiers and equipment.
For this to work properly, NPC’s would be the bulk of a planets initial defense. What person wants to sit around a planet for any length of time waiting for some big attack to come? None, that’s the right answer. Planets would need to be defended by NPC ships and stations in space, NPC fighters in the air and soldiers and vehicles on the ground. Players should be able to step in and enhance the NPC’s by taking command of squads or individual units to make them better. But that’s not enough, let’s take it a step further shall we?
Whether it be set events based on conditions in the universe, random happenings or game dev controlled occurences, NPC fleets should be able to launch attacks on their own without player support. After all, no player is going to replace the Emperor or Vader. So the Galactic Civil War should go on with or without player intervention. I don’t know about entire planetary scale attacks accept maybe with dev control, but definitely fleets of ships should be showing up on occassion to attack player controlled planets and starports. This could give the players something out of the ordinary to participate in and possibly give special missions to the players that aren’t otherwise available.
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