SWG Leak Reveals Playable Jawa, Gungan Characters?

Anonymous SWG Fan writes "Through a 'Friday Feature' giving players a look inside the player-species statistics for their PC MMO, 'Star Wars: Galaxies' accidentally released the names of the secret two player species coming with the highly anticipated 'Jump To Lightspeed' expansion. This information was not supposed to be released until later this summer, but when putting up the statistics on current species, 'Jawa - 0%' and 'Gungan - 0%' appeared. They were removed almost immediately, but not before dozens of people had already posted about the mistake on the official Star Wars Galaxies forum." Update: 06/12 21:38 GMT by S : According to Community Manager Kevin 'Q-3PO' O'Hara in the same thread: "OK, OK, it was a joke. I will not confirm or deny any rumors about the two new species" - make of this what you will.

The devs are playing it off as a joke...

[imyourfoot]

... in the linked thread. I can that going either way; it could be true, or it could just be CMA. I have a hard time thinking they'd put gungans in there, though. With the widespread hatred (or at least distaste) for episode 1 and Jar Jar in particular, it seems like a player who picked them would be asking for trouble. Then again, I don't actually play SWG, so take that as the expert thought that it is (not).

Neimodian and Sullustan?

[kherr]

Jawas and Gungans already exist as NPCs, which means the rendering is done. While I don't see Jawas as likely (kind of boring from a customization standpoint), Gungans are possible. They are richly populated throughout Naboo and don't have the kind of bad rep in-game as Jar Jar Binks does from the movies.

We know there will be two new races with the JTL space expansion. I wouldn't be surprised to see Neimoidian [starwars.com] (Trade Federation) as one of the races. And maybe the Sullustan [starwars.com], since they were prominent as rebels. These seem more likely to me since they are space-faring races and the expansion is space-centric.

Re:The devs are playing it off as a joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible that this was deliberate - they "leaked" the information to gauge people's reaction. When it turned out to be unpopular, they could just claim that it was a joke all along, but if it had been a hit the races would have been introduced.

Re:The devs are playing it off as a joke...

[Arngautr]

On that note it is also possible that they did it on purpose to grab few more headlines and attract new players to a game where the player base is much less than was initialy expected. Timing is also interesting, early summer...

Re:The devs are playing it off as a joke...

[glowimperial]

This is totally a joke. Never in any of the concept or the JTL Threads regarding this have the players shown any real interest in playing Jawas or Gungans. For the Space Expansion, the added races will most likely be spacefaring races, so we are probably looking at the Duros or the Sullustans(some modeling problems here), as playable races. Player and Dev hatred of the Gungans and the potential for actual Jawapr0n to exist make them unlikely candidates.

Joke?

[waytoomuchcoffee]

Second page of that thread says it's a joke.

Another post says that the devs wouldn't make Jawas a player species because "they are supposed to be non-travelers and you cannot really customize a character that doesn't have a face", which seems to bolster the joke theory.

Re:Joke?

[MSantiago]

Sullustans are widely favored as the new race (think Lando's co-pilot in ROTJ). The SW EU notes them as great pilots and navigators, which really fits in well with the SWG space expansion's theme. Plus the SWG developers have openly commented that they originally wanted to include them as a player race but simply couldn't because of time constraints.

Jawa were ruled out specifically, but as far as Gungans go... hoo boy. I agree with a lot of other people that SOE was throwing their name around to gauge th

Playable Jawas and Gungans!

[NanoGator]

A small handful of people REJOICE!!

Re:Playable Jawas and Gungans!

[droleary]

A small handful of people REJOICE!!

If it means a virtual Jar Jar Binks can be killed, there will be a good deal more rejoicing. I think a number of people would see to it that "Gungans - 0%" is a fixture of the game . . .

Re:Playable Jawas and Gungans!

[NanoGator]

"If it means a virtual Jar Jar Binks can be killed..."

Oh... I'm interested now..

Re:Playable Jawas and Gungans!

[Mycroft_VIII]

Sure that wasn't meant as "a handfull of small people rejoice"?

Mycroft

To keep the characters balanced

[UltimaL337Star]

A player's single jawa character will actually consist of a pack of jawa's that attacks in swarms and tactically swing clubs as each of the knees and joints.

Re:To keep the characters balanced

[Ayaress]

That would actually be pretty sweet if they could make it work and not unbalance the game.

Ironic

[C0rinthian]

I would actually consider getting a subscription if I could play as a Jawa. Hmm...

/me runs off shouting "Utini!"

Re:Ironic

[randomdef]

how is that ironic? should we call you alanis?

New playable races

[RogueyWon]

I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I think that adding new playable races is something that MMORPG creators are generally reluctant to do, compared with adding, say new classes, new items or new quests.

The reason is simple... it doesn't give as much of an incentive for the established hardcore players to pick up the expansion, as it's something they wouldn't be able to take advantage of without creating a whole new character and starting again. New items and quests can be picked up with existing characters. A lot of MMORPGs will let you change your class pretty much at will now (FFXI being the best example), but once you pick a race, you're pretty much tied to it.

So yes, I strongly suspect this is a joke. In fact, I wonder if it's a bit of a wry admission from certain parts of Lucasarts that... yes... Jar-Jar really was THAT unpopular :)

racing stripes

[August_zero]

Some of the everquest expansions added races, and this being essentialy the same people makes me think that such an addition is possible. You are correct in your assertions, so as with any expansion pack I would guess that the focus will be on new content that everybody can use, like quests, new areas and items to gather and auction on ebay.

Jawas and Gungans? I have to believe that this was someone's idea of a joke (what about Ewoks? or Minocs?) though if SWG is trying to emulate the films by adding things

Re:racing stripes

[EddieBurkett]

From the expansion ("Jump to Lightspeed") faq:
"Will there be new species added to the game via Jump to Lightspeed?
Yes, we will be adding two new playable species (details to come soon). We will also be adding a number of new alien species as NPCs."

So its not an issue of whether there will be two new races. Its an issue of whether or not those races will be Jawas and Gungans or not. I happen to agree that Jawas are better left as NPC's, and while I could see Gungans as a playable race, I think imyou

Re:racing stripes

[Anonymous Coward]

(what about Ewoks? or Minocs?)

Isn't it spelt "mynock"?

Personally I'm holding out for playable Rancors... ;)

Re:New playable races

[Bagels]

Erm, they *are* adding two new species... just not necessarily the two new species that were leaked today. They've said so; it's one of the selling points of the "Jump to Lightspeed" expansion.

How about playing Jaba the Hut

[baywulf]

[Jaba] sit
Sitting
[Jaba] wait
Waiting
[Jaba] wait
Waiting
[Jaba] wait
Waiting
[Jaba] wait
Waiting
You are getting hungry
[Jaba] eat small critter
Yumm
[Jaba] yank chain on scantly clad women ...

Yub-yub...!

[angryflute]

Holding out hope for the chance to be an Ewok...

Gungan!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> SWG Leak Reveals Playable...Gungan Characters

Oh man! And people thought I was irritating playing a balding, red-headed obese CPA with a bad comb-over dancing in a black speedo, whining about how his wife left him that morning and he just "didn't care anymore".

"Meesa tummy so full. Where da p00p shoot room? Around here somieswheres? Does-a deese look infected to yousa?"

SW Revisionism

[bluethundr]

...They were removed almost immediately, but not before dozens of people had already posted about the mistake on the official Star Wars Galaxies forum."

C'mon man! The Star Wars universe has ALWAYS been about Soviet style revisionism with Lucas playing the part of Ulianov! [tripod.com] Hey, it's HIS toy universe so if you don't like his choices well, he's already got his billions. so nyah!

Need I go into specifics? Greedo...blah...George going all schizo on "Yes there is/No There won't be" a third trilogy (he claims both at various points in his career)...blah....Natalie Portman to be "photoshopped" into DVD release of SW SE ...blah....

Long and the short, let's cut to the chase, shall we? When it comes to something that either will/will not happen with the Star Wars universe, whatever my degree of fanboy nerdniness on the matter at any given point in my life I just "go all zen" about the topic. Either it happens, or it don't. I just don't get my panties in a wad over ANY SW crap anymore. Or maybe, hopefully, I'm just getting too old to care! :)

I do like SWG, but unfortunately life prevents me from getting too much into it. Plus, I was turned off by the lousy physics. Can you still walk through walls on this game, or have they fixed that?

Re:SW Revisionism

[mandalayx]

only certain walls :)

Won't matter...

[Zhirem]

Folks need to realize that this is all much ado about nothing. IMHO - it won't save the game. Played it myself since the launch (well day two since one could not get in day one). Was an interesting game with one major problem: it's not fun. Same AI on EVERY mob (from rat to rancor), completely whacked player economy, bumbling idiot dev team ('We don't like the Holocron mess anymore than you do...'), seriously erroding player-base, complete lack of class balance, bugs from early beta STILL not fixed, etc. etc. etc.

But I am quite certain that this crack team of talented devs will provide for the saving grace in this game that is to be the Space Expansion. After all, they did such a good job with the original game... Broken missions, missing content, worthless game systems, etc.

Try to envision the worst train wreck that SOE could release with the SWG: Space Expansion. Then don't worry. It won't be that bad.

It will be worse...

This game had more promise than any other I have ever played before. And the fact that said promise has been so thoroughly squandered and sabotaged... makes me ill.

It took them roughly 10 months (post-release) to try to affect decent changes to the most basic of Star Wars elements: droids. It is bad enough that we don't have ships yet. Did not have speeders or other ground transportation until roughly 5 to 6 months post-release. There is very little Star Wars about the game.

Save your money. Or don't, blow time and cash on this 'game' and then discover in several months that 'Hey, I am really not having very much fun.', dump the game and wonder why you bothered.

Go play CoH for fun if you actually want to enjoy your gaming experience.

Your mileage may vary, but I gave the game a half-year beyond the time when I should have bailed on it. Take my advice. Bail on it before you get into it. Go play KotOR. You'll thank me later.

Gungans

[larry2k]

I'll be happy to kill every single Jar Jar in SWG