Actually this filter has been “on hold” for a while because it was crashing the host app on some tester’s machines due to a map script contained in it that was responsible for an optional control which would display the rendered galaxy in a tilted perspective (similar like on the image above). This view mode however was just for convenience to see the graphic in a more practical use case in an instant. And so, because the script seemed to make the filter unstable, I threw it out. So you will only get a semi-cool looking render of a galaxy, but of course that’s no problem because Photoshop can fix the rest easily. If this filter doesn’t cut it for you, you might want to check out my Photoshop Galaxy tutorial, which is a lot more involved though.

Get the Spiral Galaxy filter here.

In case you’re into Filter Forge and coincidentally need to render planets you can download this filter here. But be warned that this filter is a tad more difficult to use is still a bit rough around the edges because many of the slider controls have no properly defined limits so you might want to approach it with sensitive finger tips. Hitting ‘next variation’ wildly will probably lead to anything but something good looking. Also, while I added optional clouds, please don’t use them! They look awful! If I learned something from making this filter then it’s the wisdom that trying to create realistic looking satellite imagery cloud layers are a pain in the butt to make! Still, there are some decent results you can get from this filter.

Terrestrial Planet Filter Forge Filter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Q7M_X3S9w

If you’re interested in classic role-playing games I recommend to check out CRPGAddict’s blog! I don’t know how he manages to find the time but he already finished playing 26 games since he started last year. And not only that! He analyzed them, drew maps about them, and reviewed them in a very detailed way. On top of that he made a long list of CRPGs that he yet wants to play and review and it seems he’s serious about it. Determination is everything!

There’s also the whole write-down about Starflight, no less than nine blog posts!! Check it out! You will certainly have enough to read for a while!

I’ve mentioned before that it’s possible to run Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic in DOSBox with Tandy sound enabled but I couldn’t figure out how to get it working. Today I’m back with good news in that I can tell you how to get this fixed so the trillions of SWFM fans out there can enjoy this fantastic game with the excellent Tandy sound!

First you need of course DOSBox (v0.74 as of now), a copy of SWFM (you can find a pre-installed one here), and – the magic fix – my replacement files which you can get here …

Next, in the pre-installed version is a folder named FM, simply copy the files from my zip into that folder, overwriting the old ones (you might want to backup these first, but then, once you go Tandy you never go back! ).

Finally you need to tell DOSBox to use Tandy graphics and sound. I recommend using a frontend like D-Fend to configure those settings (and in all honesty I don’t know how to apply them to DOSBox without the frontend). So in D-Fend edit the profile of SWFM (wich you undoubtedly already created) and under ‘Graphics’ set ‘videocard’ to ‘tandy’ and under ‘Sound’ set ‘Tandy sound’ to ‘On’.

And, voila … you got SWFM with Tandy sound running. Note that any savegame that was saved with the non-Tandy version might get you scrambled graphics so you have to start a new game.

Listen Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic with Tandy sound

There has been a lot of hype around the release of Mass Effect 2 some weeks back and some people already start claiming that this game is going to be the Future of RPGs. Rampant Coyote took a stance and so did The Brainy Gamer. Being an old hand RPGer and having played Mass Effect 1 to the end and started playing part 2 I feel I need to have my say to the hype around that game.

The Illusive Man (aka Cigarette Smoking Man) is and stays my favorite character in the game.

First of all Bioware made the mistake to market this game as an RPG while it actually isn’t really one. It’s a mix of an Action Adventure/Third-Person Shooter with RPG elements in it. But the RPG part of the game is really the smallest of it’s sum. Maybe we can agree to call it an Action RPG even though I  think this title still doesn’t really fit. Mass Effect 1 & 2 are much more of a 3rd person shooter and action adventure than a RPG because Bioware removed or reduced almost any feature that defines a Role-playing Game.

Bitch passed out on me!

The game looks extremely high class but what is left after you strip the shiny graphics and the professional voice acting from the game? After that we still have the main plot and a couple of side quests which are more or less so-so. Personally the main story couldn’t really convince yet. The idea with the Reapers etc. feels too far fetched. I feel like I’m remembered to Weapon from Final Fantasy VII. Then there’s a couple of side quests, some are alright but others are utterly boring.

What else is left? Of course, the combat! Here you got something that is actually fun for a while if you’re into shooters but again this has nothing to do with a RPG. And you will notice that combat turns out to be always in the same scheme: run through a rather linear-built level (something that seems to be the staple of Bioware games), take cover behind obstacles, command your two team mates to engage and just keep firing at the enemies.

Environments look superior ... even on my three year old graphics card!

There’s no inventory and the few loot that can be picked up transferred at places or received from locked wall safes feels extremely bland because it doesn’t feel as if there is anything tangible. It’s just a number that adds up to your resources or credits. The tacked-on Research that is used to upgrade your equipment feels very similar: You walk into the lab on your ship, open the research terminal and click in the menu on what you like to research next *Yawn*.

And here we are at the next weak point of the game … the User Interface which is the exact opposite of the character and environment visuals. It has the charm of an interactive information panel in your local city hall! Yes, the menus! Every time I have to read a mail on the personal terminal I just dismiss it without reading it because the presentation done around it on the GUI is so extremely dull.

These are some pretty nice ars... err ... arguments.

There’s not much of any RPG-like stats either. This is clearly not a game targeted at the hardcore RPG crowd! There’s a handful of what you could call skills and your characters level up but again these features feel very poor in comparison to any RPG as we know it. And personally I love stats! Give me more of them anytime. I’m not asking for a micro-management torture here but instead of improving on features that make an RPG interesting because of their complexity, Mass Effect just cuts them out.

You can now suck planets dry of their resources. But don't bother too much .. it gets old very quickly.

The music of the game is another disappointment. I might be among the minority here but for me the sound is actually more important in a game than nice graphics. Sound can do a lot! Many developers underestimate this and skimp on the audio side. This is how Mass Effect feels when listening to it’s music. There are a couple of tracks that are an exception (while on the Collector ship for instance) but most of the synth music sounds extremely bland and doesn’t support the atmosphere for me.

Jack and Miranda go really well together!

What else is there to mention? The Biotics - you could call it the Magic equivalent in the Mass Effect universe – is another such thing that doesn’t really cut it for me. It just feels weak if you can float some enemies into the air with it. I guess it could be called The Force Lite. I never really bothered about Biotics much because the whole concept about them feels cheap to me. I know they can be powerful but they are not presented very well.

The game has tons of dialog but luckily isn’t awash with redundant blather like for example Dragon Age so listening to dialogs is actually enjoyable most of the time. However this is just a matter of good voice acting and facial animation to make the characters more believable. The game has very few profanity, a fact that I welcome but they used the word Bitch a little too often. While rather harmless, It just gets annoying if such words are repeated too often. Kind of makes you think a fifteen year old wrote some of the lines.

[ad#gog_arcanum_box]Another problem is that the game feels actually too realistic for me. How could this be? Am I getting to old or what? All the years we are striving to reach pure realism in our games and then suddenly I come along and tell you that this is bad. I think it’s because Mass Effect with it’s perfectly looking and animated boobs characters  rips too much of my own imagination away. It feels very much like a movie with added interactivity. This is why I often prefer an oldschool game with abstract graphics over any triple-A game. It’s all about enjoying a game while still realizing that you’re sitting in your cozy living room and sipping coffee without being dragged too much into the world behind the screen.

With all that said, I will probably finish part 2 of the Mass Effect series even though my interest in it has already declined a lot. I hope the ending of ME2 will turn out to be better than the one of the first part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O48HgFio6wI

]]> http://blog.hexagonstar.com/swfm-with-tandy-sound/feed/ 2 http://blog.hexagonstar.com/moments-in-gaming-3/ http://blog.hexagonstar.com/moments-in-gaming-3/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:04:05 +0000 sascha http://blog.hexagonstar.com/?p=1085 Back in the days when computer games still required you to use your imagination to play them there was a role-playing game pearl named Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic, one of the many scifi-themed RPGs back then which today are only sparsely seeded in retailer shelves.

Future Magic was first released for DOS and a port for the C64 was published later which looked almost equally good as the DOS version with excellent graphics done by Michael Kosaka. At times the game is quite bizarre. For example there is a planet with ranchers and farms just like in an old western. Another planet has two very high towers that reach into the orbit and these are the only colonies on the otherwise untouched surface. On another, icy planet you scout an abandoned research base which is overrun by saber-toothed creatures … but this is how the games were made in the golden age of RPG. Despite the number in the title a follower was never developed for Future Magic but instead the acclaimed Hard Nova served as a spiritual sequel.

The game let’s you control a group of five space mercs who are send out on a mission to stop mysteriously appearing raiders which are attacking ships in the local system. Right after your ships drops out of hyperspeed you are being attacked by them. However while the other ships of the space convoy with that you came are trying to fight them you are able to take some distance and locate a yacht floating in nearby space. It’s the space yacht of a tycoon named Grager which turns out to be a luxurious vessel full with the newest technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_gGPgNAk0c

In this tutorial I will explain how to create a relatively realistic looking galaxy with Photoshop. I was searching the web up- and downwards to find any tutorials that could tell me how to get a similar fantastic result. There are like 100.000 planet tutorials out there and the few tutorials which were about creating a galaxy where either very basic or the result looked like everything but a realistic galaxy. The galaxy I wanted should have looked massive and intricate … just like the real ones but with a slightly more artistic touch. I’ve needed a galaxy that I could use as a star map for a space-themed roleplaying game design and the image you see above is a part of the result. Let’s go try to do such one …

There’s a lot to do to create such a Behemoth so let’s get started! I’ve used Photoshop CS3 for this but it should be possible to create this with CS2 and CS1 as well since none of the really new Photoshop features are required. If I do use any of the newer features then there is a way to get the same result in an earlier version, just not with the comfort the latest version offers.

Preparations

1. Create a new image in Photoshop. The size is up to you but the larger the better, I’ve used a fairly large size of 2800 x 2800 pixels. If you use a smaller resolution be sure to adapt the values I’m using to your image size. Make sure that Color Mode is RGB and the Background Contents is set to transparent. Name the empty layer “background” and fill it with black.

2. Create a new layer and also fill it with black, press ‘D’ to reset the foreground and background color to black and white. Choose Filter/Render/Fibers with a Variance of 20 and a Strength of 4. Then press Ctrl+T to activate the Transform Tool and in the tool’s parameter panel press the Chain symbol to link the width and height values that you now set to 200%. Then enter a rotation value of 45° and commit the transformation. The result can be seen here …

3. Duplicate the fibers layer and transform the new layer again, this time you only need to change the rotation value to 90° and leave the size values like they are. Commit and after that change the new layer’s blend mode to Soft Light.

4. Select the two fiber layers and merge them with Ctrl+E, then go to Image/Adjustments/Levels (or just press Ctrl+L) and enter a value of 70 in the first box, leave the others at 1.00 and 255. Also make sure that Channel is set to RGB. Press Ok. With this we thinned out the white fibers slightly.

5. Currently the image is larger than what we see because we scaled the fiber layer up earlier so let’s get rid of the stuff outside the image area … press Ctrl+A to select all on the fibers layer and cut-paste it back which creates a new layer. After that delete the old fibers layer and rename the new one to “base”.

6. Here comes our secret weapon … go to Filters/Brush Strokes/Spatter and enter a Radius of 25 and a Smoothness of 15. This filter is mostly responsible for the nice wiggly look of the spiral arms later. Now choose Filters/Distort/Twirl with an angle between 500 and 800. This parameter determines how twisted your galaxy will be. I want something with a lot of ‘tracks’ between the spiral arms so I choose 800.

7. The result gives us a whirl with nicely diverse dark and bright lines. Now create a circular selection around it. While dragging hold the Alt key and Shift key to expand the selection around it’s center and keep the aspect ratio. You can also hold then Space key to drag the selection around while doing this. When you got that press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection and then hit Delete to remove the areas around the whirl.

8. With the selection still active choose Select/Modify/Expand with a value of 100 and after that Select/Modify/Feather with a value of 40 pixels. Press Delete two times to smooth out the border of our whirl and then press Ctrl+D to deselect all. Here’s the result. It still looks like everything but a galaxy, don’t worry, we will get to it …

Creating the Structure

9. Let’s start shaping our galaxy out of this what looks like a messed up vinyl record. This part is where it’s getting interesting. First duplicate the “base” layer, name the new layer “outer galaxy” and hide the original layer, we keep it to create more diverse layers later. Use Filter/Brush Strokes/Spatter with the same values like before, Spray Radius 25 and Smoothness 15 and after that give the layer a Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 1 to smooth out the noise that Spatter generated. Then apply Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen to regain some sharpness.

10. Now we are going to remove the black areas from this layer and also thin out the structure slightly … Choose Select/Color Range and pick the black color from the outer area of the image, then crank the fuzziness fully up to 200. Click Ok and then press Alt+Ctrl+D and set Feather to 2 pixel. Again hit Ok and press Delete 4 or 5 times to thin out the black areas between the spiral arms. It can be helpful here to hide the selection edges (View/Show/Selection Edges). Don’t forget to press Ctrl+D to clear the selection after that. Here’s how it looks so far …

11. Next let’s create some glow. Duplicate the “outer galaxy″ layer, rename the duplicate to “glow” and move it under the original layer. Use Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 50 and set the opacity to 60%. Also now set the opacity of the “outer galaxy″ layer to 50%.

12. If you check out some astronomical photos of galaxies you’ll notice that they get more dense toward their center so let’s do that too! Duplicate the “base” layer, rename it to “inner galaxy 1”, move it up to the top and press Ctrl+T and transform-scale this layer down to 70%. You can enter the values in the tool’s parameter palette and the resized layer content will stay centered perfectly. After that use the Spatter Filter again like you did before on the “outer galaxy” layer. Use Gaussian Blur with 1 pixel radius, then sharpen once and then again thin out the black areas like you did before in step 10 with the Color Range selection tool, just this time only press Delete two or three times. Set the layer’s blend mode to Screen and the opacity to around 55%.

13. We need to fatten up our galaxy a little more. Let’s create three more layers as in step 12, always take the “base” layer as the source and every time scale them down a tad more and increase their opacity. I’ve used scale 50% and opacity 80% on the next layer named “inner galaxy 2″, then scale 38% and opacity 90% on “inner galaxy 3″ and scale 32% and opacity 95% on “inner galaxy 4″.

14. Not bad but it looks kind of dull right now so let’s add some contrasting highlights! Duplicate the “outer galaxy” layer and rename the new one to “highlights”, then set it’s blend mode to Screen and it’s opacity to 100%. Press Ctrl+L and enter 160 in the left box. Press Ok and our highlights are finished. Here’s a preview of the current stage and the existing layers …

My God, it’s full of stars!

15. Let’s add a bunch of stars next! Creating diverse and realistic looking star fields is a whole topic unto itself so I’m not going into detail here how to create one. I recommend checking out this tutorial by Greg Martin to create some really fantastic star fields. For the sake of brevity I’ve prepared a star field template which you can download here.
Create a new layer named “stars”, copy the star field image into it and set the blend mode of this layer to Screen. Then Ctrl-Click on the “outer galaxy” layer to create a selection of it. Switch to Quick Mask Mode and draw with a black soft brush in the areas of the image where you want to have stars left. Leave Quick Mask Mode again, press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and then – with the “stars” layer still selected – hit Delete to remove all stars that are not within the selection. Increase the Brightness of the stars by 50 with Image/Adjustments/Brightness-Contrast. Finally let’s remove most of the black area that is still on the stars layer. Choose Select/Color Range, pick up the black color from the outer areas and decrease Fuzziness to something around 70, click OK and hit Delete twice and clear the selection. The following image shows the selection in Quick Mask Mode and the result of this stage …

16. We still have a strange looking hole in the centre where galaxies normally have an immense cluster of gas and stars so we are going to create the galactic core now … Create a new layer, name it “core” and grab the Brush Tool with a large, soft brush and a white color. A 600 pixel brush works well for this image size. Click seven to eight times in the middle of the galaxy then increase the size of the brush to 900 and click four more times. Finished is our core!

Coloring

17. So far our galaxy is only black and white and we could have went from the beginning with colors but to make things easier I went without colors so far. Now there are many ways to go about coloring the image. For example we could grab a stylus and graphics tablet and hand-draw colors into the galaxy by using a brush with various blend modes or we could color layer by layer. That’s what I’m going to do now.
Select any of the galaxy layers and press Ctrl+B to bring up the Balance palette and change the colors to your liking. You might want to go for the shadows and leave the highlight untouched to get a better look. You could also duplicate layers, blur them slighly and color these instead or in addition to their original layer. Or you could merge several of the galaxy layers together and color them at once which can look quite good.

Changing Perspective

18. Currently we are looking top-down onto the galaxy but what if we want to look at it like seen from a window of a spaceship that approaches the galaxy (remember the last scene from Empire Strikes Back?!)? We will change the perspective of the image. The Distort tool under Edit/Transform is what we want for this! Try to distort the image like on the following screenshot. You only actually need to move around the upper and lower left corners. You can flatten your image for this or put all the layers into a layer folder and use the Distort tool on that folder which works as well.

19. This looks a lot better but something seems not right. The whole thing looks more like a flat disc than a voluminous star cluster so we are going to bulge out the core of the galaxy to make it look more realistic. Photoshop’s Liquify tool is actually perfect for this. Time to flatten your layers together now (except the background), then enter Liquify over the Filter menu, select the Forward Warp Tool and a relatively large brush (350) and off you go. Start bulging out the core towards the top-left like in the following image and after that you might want to choose a smaller brush size and reconstruct the area above the upper edge of the core with the Reconstruct Tool.

That’s basically it! Of course these steps are not set in stone. You could experiment with different values or use the Liquify tool early on the base layer to add slight irregularities etc. Your imagination is the limit! Here’s the resulting image and the other galaxy from that you already saw a piece earlier …

The game is basically still the same since I left it! Many of the same old bugs and a gameplay that has only distantly something to do with RPG. Examples: Tried to continue the ‘Secret of the Syrens’ quest but the Black Sun Bunker at the waypoint never spawns,I want to call my mount pet inside the Kashyyk Hunting Grounds but it doesn’t spawn, I want to attack that imperial trooper that permanently shoots at me but I can’t because he’s stuck inside a wall … the list could go on for a while.

The one and only reason why I don’t give up SWG completely is because of it’s theme! If it wasn’t Star Wars, I wouldn’t have lost one more word about it after I unsubscribed the first time. The real problem is that this game is ‘maintained’ by SOE! They fail at every occasion to be honest to their customer base. Their forum nazis continue to lock forum threads or ban users on their official forums if it’s not to their liking (In fact my forum access is still banned though I have resubscribed and have a right to at least read their forum).

Because it is in fashion by other MMOs to bring in more ‘No Trade’ items, SOE just copied this behavior which means that many items cannot be traded. This is very annoying! it is almost unbelievable but there are still many cafters online. When the NGE came live I really first thought they are a dying species but it seems they are thougher than I thought.

Player Bounty is back!

Ok so much for the worse but there are also good things to report! SOE seems to realize that some of their decisions were wrong. Since one of the most recent publishes its possible again for Bounty Hunters to hunt Jedis! In fact it is possible to not only hunt Jedi but all other Players. If a player got killed by another player in GCW PvP (i.e. as Special Forces) he is able to set a bounty for the player who killed him. The BH can then get the mission from the terminal like usual. Most marks go for around 25k but some go up to 100k or even more. It is also possible to hunt somebody together with other BHs which I think is cool!

Target Locking

Another good thing to report is that SOE announced to bring back Target Locking. The player will then be able to choose which targeting he prefers, either manual or with locking like it was before NGE.

New Quests

The Legacy Quest Part II came live a while ago and I have to say that it is quite good content-wise! The story is interesting to follow and there are some new interesting locations. Aimed at players of level 40 this quest is like a sunday ride for level 80-90 players but I enjoyed it nevertheless, especially the parts with the drug syndicate and the slaver compound. You can even get the highly valued Endor Combat Helmet in this quest, although it has a different color.
The battle around Restuss is currently in progress but I don’t have much time to take part in it! You have to collect medals by killing troopers of the opposing faction and do some space or mining/crafting quests and with the medals you can buy a new armor and new weapons. However I’ve saw the new weapons on some screenshots and must say that they like kind of crappy. Not sure how the armor is!

SOE also announced a face lifting about the player skins in near future. That means that player characters will get a new higher resolution texture look! How it will look in practice and if it has any impact on performance we will see when it’s live.

Except from these points the severs look in fact quite empty to me but I play at odd times anyway so I cannot really judge this. I can only hope that SOE decides to bring more pre NGE things back into the game. They will not do a rollback to pre NGE or even pre CU but I believe that they will bring in some things like they were pre NGE.
If they want to get some plus points from me they should hurry to bring the Creature Handler back! It was my most loved profession! Especially in late CU days it was a lot of fun to be a CH! The pet logic is still in the game! You are able to call droids and command them to attack your enemies. It’s basically the same like for CH pets! Also everybody currently screams to bring the pets back because they are missing their beloved mounts!

The game looks a bit unbalanced Planet-wise! Only Mustafar seems to be though currently. But go to Dathomir as a level 80-90 is like a walk in the park! You easily kill five Rancors while also reading a book and putting a Pizza into the oven!

I’m very skeptic about Emulated SWG servers! Setting up an Ultima Online Server is one thing but SWG is of a completely other scale! I don’t think this is easily done with some packet-sniffing! I will only believe it when I first see such an emulated server being online and working! Otherwise it’s just naive to believe that this can easily be done!

So much for the current situation! We will keep you up-to-date if anything important is to report!

Episode V, The swamps on Dagobah:
LUKE: There’s something not right here. I feel cold, death.
YODA: That place…is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.
LUKE: What’s in there?
YODA: not much….the DEVS nerfed the piss out of it, added some quests for CL 1-20, and threw more bugs in there then the secret passage in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
(Luke starts to put on his weapon belt)
YODA: Your weapons…you will not need them…that nice 1134 max dam rifle you had…now has a max Dam of 278.
(Luke tosses the rifle)
LUKE: My scatter?
YODA: useless.
LUKE: my Bola?
YODA: useless
LUKE: My Lightsaber??
YODA: here dip**edit** let me spell it out for you U-S-E-L-E-S-S
(Luke throws his pack on the ground)
LUKE: Well I’m CL 80…you think I can clear the cave solo…the mobs are only CL 60.
(Yoda mumbles something)
LUKE: well?
(Yoda again mumbles)
LUKE: Are you listening to me??
(Yoda does not respond)
(Luke walks over to Yoda)
LUKE: What the **edit** mate!! Are you playin WoW
YODA: sure as hell beats this joke of a game!

Episode VI, The Sarlaac Pit:
(Lando is holding on for dear life to the pike that Han is extending towards him. The Sarlaac is slowly pulling him in.)
Han: Chewie, give me the gun.
Lando: No wait, I thought you were blind!!!
Han: It’s alright, trust me.
Lando: Dude, stuff’s changed since you were frozen. You can’t just click the tentacle and start shooting. You have to really aim.
Han: *through a big light blur* It’s okay, I can see a lot better now, pal.  *aims randomly, arm swinging everywhere*
Lando: A little higher….just a little higher….NO A LOT HIGHER, HAN! HAN!!!
*Han squeezes the trigger and blows off Lando’s head*
Chewie: *whimper* (Noob.)
from Corbantis.

Episode V, Dagobah:
(Yoda has been testing Luke to see how he handles his semi-forgetful impression of how annoying Jar-Jar Binks could be.)
Yoda (talking to the air): I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.
Voice of Obi-Wan:Â He will learn patience.
Yoda: *frowns* Hrm. Much anger in him, like his father.
Obi-Wan:Â Was I any different when you taught me?
Yoda: Yes! Different you were, Obi-Wan! Through seventeen professions you did grind before a Padawan you became. Patiently I sat, while makeovers you gave me in the Jedi Temple. This robe of mine, thirty years it has served me, sewed it you did as a tailor. Dug up many holes in the meditation gardens learning surveying, you did! This one, expect to respec and be a Jedi, this moisture farmer?
Luke: But I’m ready! Ben, tell him I’m….
Yoda: *interrupts* Ready are you? What know you of ready? For EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS have I trained Jedi. My own counsel I will keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind! To not stand around the starport flashing your lightsaber to any random noob who offers a duel! To not cry like a dying chuba at the approach of a bounty hunter because decided to answer your cell phone you did, instead of protect your life!
Yoda: *talking to Obi-Wan again* This one, a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon….never his mind on WHERE HE WAS, hrm? *pokes Luke* What he was doing! Expect me to train an AFK macroer as a Jedi, do you?
Luke: I guess not. But I have this respec kit with 10 charges, so I’m going to be a Jedi one way or another.
Yoda: Forbidden this is! To become a Jedi without training, unheard of this is in the history of our Order! No discipline! No control! The dark side this leads to!
Obi-Wan:Â Luke, don’t give in to the NGE…..
Luke: *uses the device* Well, Yoda won’t train me, so oh well. I’m a Jedi now.
Yoda:Â But Vader you must face!
Luke: Vader, schmader. I’m gonna show my glowstick to the guys at Toschi Station, laterz Yoda!
Yoda:Â *sigh*Â At least there is another….
Obi-Wan: I sense she’ll be respeccing to Entertainer soon, against her will. There’s a metal bikini involved.
Yoda: Ah, legal she is now. Jailbait no longer she is. Observe this we will, before calling on her. *grins*

Episode IV, Death Star Detention Block AA-23:
(Leia awaits her execution when suddenly a vertically challenged Stormtrooper enters the cell.)
Leia:Â Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?
Trooper: *jump*
Trooper: *dance*
Trooper: *gets out a map*
Trooper: *draws pistol*
Trooper: *drops pistol*
Trooper: *goes prone*
Trooper: *plays air guitar*
Trooper: *grabs a datapad*
Trooper: *slams a bofa treat into his face mask*
Trooper: *begins writing an e-mail*
Trooper: *pulls out a pet song rasp, who flies around the cell*
Trooper: *straightens himself up*
Leia: *stares in confusion*
Trooper: *pulls off his helmet* Sorry, this NGE interface sucks and I forgot how to talk. I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to rescue you.
(Later a fierce firefight breaks out between soldiers of the 501st and the princess’s rescuers.)
Leia: This is some rescue! You came in here and didn’t have a plan for getting out?!
Han: *nods towards Luke*Â He’s the brains, sweetheart!
Leia: *rolls eyes* He can’t even talk straight without monkeys flying out of his butt. We’re screwed!

Episode III, Mustafar Landing Platform:
(Padme pleads with Anakin to change his ways and come home with her in a somewhat familiar analogy to the NGE protests.)
Padme: Anakin, you’re breaking my heart! This NGE is going down a path I can’t follow!
Anakin/DarthSOE:Â Because of Obi-Wan?
Padme: Because of what you’ve done! What you’re going to do! Stop! You’re a good person, don’t do this! I love you!
*DarthSOE spots Obi-Wan on the boarding ramp*
DarthSOE: LIAR!!! You brought him here to protest the NGE! /forcechoke Padme
Obi-Wan: Let her go, Anakin! LET….HER….GO!
*DarthSOE lets go of Padme. She crumples into a fetal position and tries her best to look unconscious.*
DarthSOE:Â /mood angry
Darth SOE:Â You turned her against me!
Obi-Wan:Â You have done that yourself!
DarthSOE:Â *pacing and fuming*Â You will not take her from me!
Obi-Wan:Â Your bugginess and lust for the console gamer market has already done that.
DarthSOE: Don’t lecture me Obi-Wan. Everyone knows that the forums are only a small, but vocal, percentage of the actual playerbase. I have brought balance, fun, and excitement to my new NGE!
Obi-Wan:Â Your new game experience?!?!
DarthSOE:Â Don’t make me BAN you.
Obi-Wan:Â Anakin, my allegiance is to the original system, the one that was fun!!!
DarthSOE:Â If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!
Obi-Wan: Only a Dev deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.
DarthSOE: You will try. *flips and dives like a madman*
Obi-Wan:Â /cancelaccount
Padme:Â /cancelaccount
*DarthSOE lands and no one is on the platform*
DarthSOE:Â NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Eposide IV – On the Death Star:
Darth : I’ve been waiting for you Obi-wan, We meet again at last. The NGE is now complete, when I left you pre-CU I was but the learner and got owned by KD/Dizzy but now with NGE, I AM THE MASTER.
Obi : Only a master of spamming LEFT CLICK DARTH!
*Lightsaber fighting*
Darth : Your powers are weak old man.
Obi : Didn’t you get the memo, FRS is off! You can’t win Darth, If you strike me down I’ll switch to blue glowie mode and smack talk you all night long.
Darth : You should not have come back, remember how buggy the CU was when they put it in.
*More Lightsaber fighting*
(from Corbantis)

Eposide V – Cloud City:
Darth : You are beaten, it is uselss to resist the NGE, don’t let yourself be destroyed as all the Vet’s who have cancelled did.
*Lightsaber fighting, Luke looses his hand*
Luke : Arrrrggghhhhhh
Darth : There is no escape, soon the NGE will be live, dont make destory you. Luke you do not yet realise your importance, you have only begun to discover the NERF, join me and I will teach you the NGE, with our combined strength we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.
Luke : I’ll never join you and the NGE!
Darth : If you only knew the power of the console gaming market!

Jabbas Palace: Leia rescues Han:
Leia: You are free from the Carbonite
Han: Where am I?
Leia: Jabbas Palace
Han: Who are you?
Leia: Someone who loves you
Han: Leia!…………… but I thought you were a Squad Leader, not a Bounty Hunter.
Leia: I’m not a BH, I’m a Spy.
Han: A what?
Leia: Oh yeah, I forgot, the “Force” decided to change again and now we’re stuck as these silly profs.
Han: Am I still a smuggler?
Leia: Yes
Han: Doh, I wanted to be a Jedi and be Uber1337
Leia: Don’t worry about it, Jedi are teh suxxors now

Episode III, Utapau Flight Deck:
(Obi-Wan engages in hand-to-hand combat with General Grievous.)
Obi-Wan (to self):Â OMFG, how do I fight without a LS?
Obi-Wan:Â *sees electrostaff and picks it up*Â Oh hell yeah, much better.
Obi-Wan proceeds to take a few swings at Grievous before getting pwned and the staff skitters away, out of reach.
Grievous (to self):Â /chuckle
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm1
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm2
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm3
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm4
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm1
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm2
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm3
Grievous:Â /unarmedhit_arm4Â *hits fighter and dents the armor*
Obi-Wan:Â /dodges like a 14-year-old Counterstrike player
Grievous (to self):Â Grrrr…… *examining the fighter damage briefly*Â Dang, gotta go pwn Necrosis to get another one later.
Obi-Wan (to self): Now what? Oh snap, I have a respec device!
Obi-Wan:Â /respec Teras Kasi Master
System Message: That profession is no longer available. Please select another.
Grievous approaches and b!tchslaps Obi-Wan, who falls to the ground, but not before ripping open a couple of the general’s abdominal plates.
Obi-Wan (to self): Ow. Crap, no TKM, guess I’ll have to wing it.
Obi-Wan tries to kick Grievous in the leg, but quickly realizes that shin kicking a durasteel pole is not the best idea for his own shin. He cries out in unspeakable pain and is silently glad that Anakin isn’t around to flame on him for losing his lightsaber AND trying to kick an armor-plated droid as if he were ‘cartoon-version Mace Windu’ or something.
Grievous kicks Obi-Wan, and flings him over the edge of the landing platform! Obi-Wan grabs the edge just in time, barely able to hang on. The droid general, pleased with himself, moves in for the kill.
Obi-Wan: Okay, think quick Kenobi. Respec to something useful.
Obi-Wan: Oh yeah, Force Cloak! /respec Jedi
System Message: You are already a Jedi. However, you have respecced to the Jedi profession and a charge has been used from your respec device. Oh and, you can’t cloak anymore.
Obi-Wan:Â What the….
Grievous gets closer.
Obi-Wan: Gotta remember one of those NGE profs…..maybe officer! /respec Officer
System Message:Â You are now a member of the Officer profession.
Obi-Wan:Â /orbital_strike
Commander Cody tells Obi-Wan, “Dude you’re in a hole. How the hell are the bombs going to get in there?”
Obi-Wan tells Cody, “doh my bad brb getng gankd”
Grievous gets closer.
Obi-Wan: *notices the gun on the deck* Oh, there’s an idea! /respec Commando
System Message:Â You are now a member of the Commando profession.
Obi-Wan:Â /forcegrab carbine
System Message:Â This command is not available to Commandos.
Obi-Wan: Dagnabbit! /respec Jedi
System Message:Â You are now a member of the Jedi profession.
Obi-Wan:Â /forcegrab carbine
System Message:Â You loot a CDEF Carbine.
Obi-Wan:Â /respec Commando
System Message: You have already respecced to this profession in the last 24 hours. Please wait before returning to this profession.
Obi-Wan: OMG this NGE sucks!!!!! What’s left….come on….think….got it! /respec Smuggler
System Message:Â You are now a member of the Smuggler profession.
Obi-Wan:Â *aims and blows Grievous to bits, then climbs back up on the ledge to check the corpse*
Obi-Wan: No quest drop? LAME! I burned how many respec charges to kill this guy?
System Message:Â Seven.
Obi-Wan:Â Hey wait, not all of those worked!?!?!?!
System Message: Yes, but the charges are used up anyway. You have one charge left.
Obi-Wan:Â This was supposed to have 10 charges on it!
System Message: And the CU was supposed to balance the game. You going to use it to get your Jedi prof back or not?
Obi-Wan:Â *mutters* /respec Jedi
System Message:Â You are now a member of the Jedi profession.
System Message: This item is out of charges, and has been destroyed. Have a nice day.
Obi-Wan:Â I am so going to just log out in a house in the middle of BFE Tatooine for like 20 years after this is all done…..

Amidala: Honorable delegates of the SOEnate, I come to you under the gravest of circumstances. The Corbantis galaxy and many others have been ruthlessly attacked by the nerf armies of the Dev Federation.
DF Ambassador: I object! This is what they wanted! I recommend a commission be sent to ascertain the truth!
Fanboi Ambassador: The Council of Fanbois concurs with the honorable delegates of the Dev Federation. A commission must be appointed.
SOEnate Chancellor: Noted. *to Amidala* Will you defer your motion until the commission can verify your accusations?
Amidala: I will not defer. I did not elect to disclose my credit card information so that you can discuss this invasion in a committee!
*mumbles echo through the SOEnate chambers*
Amidala: If this body is not capable of action, I suggest that we all move somewhere else. I call for a vote of no confidence in this NGE.
*alien voices chanting ‘Vote Now!’*
SOEnate Chancellor: Okay. Everyone look underneath your seats and find the keypad to vote.
Random Senator:Â I can’t find my voting keypad!
SOEnate Chancellor:Â Look under the container marked ‘Register Expansion’.
Random Senator:Â Got it, thanks.
*a large scoreboard rises up in the middle of the SOEnate floor, displaying the instant results:Â No 80% Yes 20%*
(With a quick press of a button, the Chancellor rearranges the order of the scoreboard to:Â 80% Yes 20% No)
SOEnate Chancellor: And there we have it. The NGE goes forward.
Palpatine: Foul! I saw you press the…. *Palpatine suddenly is disintegrated*
SOEnate Chancellor:Â Flawless victory.

Episode IV:Â Death Star Docking Bay Control Room:
(Luke, Han, Chewie, and the droids are in the control room. R2 has located Princess Leia’s detention cell.)
Luke: *standing by the droids* The princess? She’s here?
System Message:Â Talk to Luke Skywalker.
Han:Â *double clicks on Luke*Â Princess?
Luke:Â The droids belong to her, she’s the one in the message, we’ve got to help her!

Quest Window Popup:
You have been offered a quest by Luke Skywalker, ‘Save the Princess I’.
If you complete this quest, you will receive:
Nothing
Zip
Zero
Zilch
Cancel? Accept?

Han:Â *clicks Cancel*Â Marching into the detention block is NOT what I had in mind.
Luke:Â But they’re gonna kill her!!!

Quest Window Popup:
You have been offered a quest by Luke Skywalker, ‘Save the Princess II’.
If you complete this quest, you will receive:
Many blaster shot wounds to the chest
Countless bumps and bruises
A chance to be killed
A slim chance of getting some
Cancel? Accept?

Han:Â *pauses briefly, then clicks Cancel*Â Better her than me!
Luke approaches Han and whispers into his ear, “She’s rich, powerful. If you were to rescue her, the reward would be more wealth than you can imagine!”

Quest Popup Window:
You have been offered a quest by Luke Skywalker, ‘Save the Princess III’.
If you complete this quest, you will receive:

A Fambaa’s buttload worth of credits, more wealth than you can imagine
The ability to pay Jabba off and tell him what to do with himself
An extremely slim chance of getting some from the princess
An Alliance Medal of Honor
Cancel? Accept?

Chewie: Rowr. (Dude just /addignore him if he keeps spamming you with quest popups.)
Han:Â *considers the offer*Â I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit.
Luke:Â You’ll get it.
Han:Â *clicks Accept*Â Okay kid, what’s your plan?
System Message:Â Put Chewbacca in handcuffs.
Chewie: ROWR! (Hey W T F did I do?)
System Message: Put on the Stormtrooper armor and escort Chewbacca with Luke to the elevator. Take the elevator ‘up’ to the Detention Block. Shoot the everloving crap out of every last guard, turret, camera, holorecorder, and wall panel in there. (0/275)
Han:Â I’ve got a bad feeling about this.