Star Wars Galaxies Producer Christopher Field has officially confirmed John Smedley’s accidental revelation of plans for vehicle combat for Sony Online Entertainment’s MMO.

Field made the announcement official on Station’s Star Wars Galaxies forum. He also lets gamers know what will be announced during the Galactic Assembly presentation at SOE’s Fan Faire 2008 next week in Las Vegas. Attendees will get hear which vehicles included in The Battle of Echo Base will be available for the battle on Hoth.

Gamers can read about vehicle combat, returning events such as “Life Day” and details on the Champions Of The Force: Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game in Field’s Star Wars Galaxies forum post.

I realize its been a few weeks since the last installment of The Analog Gamer but E3 and this little thing called a vacation got in the way, so this week instead of continuing our analysis of Super heroes since I figure many readers have even forgotten that was the plan I thought I’d do a quick geek out session and talk about the recently released book of trouble for the Star Wars SAGA system – Threats of the Galaxy.

While every RPG seemingly requires a book of monsters and enemies for game runners to use as opponents in their homespun adventures, Threats of the Galaxy has a slightly different approach than what we’ve seen in the past. I credit this difference to the approach players and storytellers have to take with a game like Star Wars. Despite the setting’s fantastic elements it is not quite the “Monty Haul” game that its cousin Dungeons & Dragons is, or at least I don’t think it should be anyway.

D&D seemingly was built to be a kill the monster, save the princess, get “Phat loot” sort of system. Taking the lead of George Lucas’ films and the expanded universe content surrounding them, Star Wars can cover the same ground but when was the last time anyone thought Luke or Han was in it for the +4 Lightsaber or the Biker Scout’s Stomrtooper armor?

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Sony has announced that starting next month Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest II players will have access to Vivox’s Station Voice. This in-game chat program will be free with paid subscriptions. SOE has plans to integrate Station Voice into it’s other MMOs including The Agency in the future.

The initial launch of Station Voice will allow players to:

• Talk person-to-person in game with any microphone and headset combo
• Chat with their party, guild or any other group in game
• Play and communicate without worry of a significant increase in game lag
• Manage group/user participation with moderator controls
• Individually mute and set volume per user
• Set up easily without the need for separate software, accounts or registration

SOE plans to integrate more features into Station Voice later this year including voice fonts and the ability to connect to games from Station Launcher. Anyone who uses the Station Launcher, whether they subscribe to a SOE MMO or not will be able to use Station Voice.

For MMO players that like to keep in touch with voice chat, this will be great. Running a seperate chat program like Skype can bog down your system in some cases. If Station Voice works as well as advertised that is.

via Press Release

It has been one crazy week, and the craziest thing happening at home base while Jonathan and Shawn were in LA was the amount of assets we received in our inboxes on a daily basis. I have decided to post the lonely screens and trailers that did not get their very own post into one large post full of links. There’s just is not enough time to post them all, so this is the best way I know how.

While this is not a comprehensive list of what was not covered, it is close. There are more screens floating around out there that we have yet to get, but if or when we do, we will do our best to wow you with them.

Below you will find a list of games from A-N and a link to the trailer or screens for it. Be sure to look over the list carefully, because something you are interested in may be included. I have highlighted ones that may be of special interest.

Games O – Z are posted after the jump

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Screens
Active Life Outdoor Challenge Trailer
Afro Samurai Screens
Age of Booty Screens
Age of Booty Trailer
AWAY Shuffle Dragon Screens
Babysitting Mania Screens
Bangai-O Spirits Screens
Bangai-O-Spirits Trailer
Battlestations Pacific Screens
Bionic Commando Screens
Bionic Commando Trailer
BioShock PS3 Screens
Borderlands Presentation Trailer
Borderlands Screens
BUZZ! Master Quiz Trailer
Champions Online B-Roll Trailer
Champions Online Screens
Chrono Trigger DS Screens
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Trailer
Cooking Mama World Kitchen Screens
Dark Void Screens
Dark Void Trailer
Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon Trailer
Digimon Championship Trailer
Digimon World Championship Screens
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen Screens
Dungeon Hero Screens
Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero Screens
Empire: Total War Screens
Eternal Sonata PS3 Screens
Eternal Sonata PS3 Trailer
Final Fantasy IV DS Screens
Flock! Screens
Flock! Trailer
Gran Turismo 5: Prolouge Trailer
Heavy Duty Screens
I Am Alive Trailer (This looks rather interesting)
I Heart Geeks Screens
Infinite Space Screens
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Enc. 2 Screens
Kill Zone 2 Trailer
King’s Bounty: The Legend Trailer
LEGO Batman: The Video Game B-Footage Trailer
LEGO Batman: The Videogame Screens
Little King’s Story Screens
Luminous Arc 2 Teaser Trailer
Marker Man Adventures Screens
Marvel Ultimate Alliance II: Fusion Trailer
Mega Man 9 Screens
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Trailer
Metal Gear Online Screens
Monster Lab Screens
Monster Madness: Grave Danger Screens
MySims Kingdom Screens
N+ Screens
N+ Trailer
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 Screens
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM Screens
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM Trailer
National Geographic Panda Screens
Neopets Puzzle Adventure Screens
NHL SK9 Screens

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This has been rumored for quite a long time, but Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has given us the final word: a Knights of the Old Republic MMO is in development by BioWare.

“We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello in an interview with Portfolio.com. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.”

The interviewer then asked if Riccitiello meant a KotoR MMO, to which he responded, “Yes.” Sweet.

Star Wars fans will be rejoicing across the world at this news, since they’ll finally be able to clinging to Star Wars Galaxies. As excited for this game as I am — I’ll absolutely be on board for the game’s first day online — I certainly hope this doesn’t mean we won’t get another proper KotoR game in the future. The first one remains my second favorite Bioware game (right behind Mass Effect), and I’d really be happy to see a third game released. Between the MMO and the Mass Effect sequels, though, it seems unlikely that KotoR 3 is in the cards.

It’s a little strange that LucasArts has dubbed this new video for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed the “Launch” trailer. For one, the game isn’t set to launch until September. For another, it contains all kinds of jaw-dropping spoilers. Between this and the last spoiler-filled trailer, I think I could piece together all the main plot points of the story already. So yes, the above video is awesome, but watch at your own risk.

Come to think of it, I guess we are kind of due for another installment in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. It looks like some listings for Star Wars: Battlefront III have mysteriously appeared on Amazon.com. For what system, you ask? Just about all of them: PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, and PSP. Of course, there’s been no official confirmation yet, but I’d say a sequel to a successful franchise is a sure bet. Hopefully this will turn out to be one of the many surprises in store for us at this year’s E3.

[Update: Great, I just finish writing this, and now it looks like the listings have all be taken down.]

Via Amazon

Drew Karpyshyn, author and writer for the Knights of the Old Republic video game, talks about working with BioWare and his Science fiction including the Darth Bane Star Wars novels.

Karpyshyn is very confident in his abilities and short comings as well. He revels in his “functionally ugly” website that he programed himself; as well as his part in bringing gamers KOTOR.

Hmmm… how can I say this without sounding arrogant? It actually felt more like I’d fallen into a position that my whole life had been leading up to. I’ve basically been a Star Wars fan for 30 years, and a role-playing game fan for 25, a video game fan for 20, and a writer/story teller my whole life. Obviously I appreciate how lucky I was to find the opportunity, but it almost felt inevitable once I was in the position.

Karpyshyn fields questions on his work with Wizards of the Coast and on being published. In addition to his Darth Bane series, he’s novelized Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Read up on this author on Galaticbinder.com.

Ex-Sony Star Wars Galaxies Designer Dan Rubenfield has gone public with his no holds barred commentary on the New Galactic Era changes made to the MMO. In rather explicit terms he explains why SOE introduced the NGE, what went wrong and why “it was necessary.” He also has some very specific, unrepeatable instructions for those who want to complain about how he ruined SWG.

Here are some highlights from an edited version of the post on his site:

So we were given the directive to make Galaxies better.

Not just make Galaxies better, but make it successful. Not the 200k subs it had, but really successful. The idea was that we had the most valuable IP in the entire world, and we f***ed it up to the point of having 200k subs.

So, when the NGE push came along, we were asked to reimagine the game.

Not just small changes, but rebuild it.

And it was needed. When we were asked, we were bleeding subscribers.

If I remember correctly, somewhere around 10k a month. LOSING 10,000 subs a month.

Note – We didn’t notify anyone about the change until 2 weeks before launch because until 2 weeks before launch we hadn’t made a decision. You basically found out when we found out.

It was still a huge f***up.

Epoch grade f***up.

I think it lost a lot of the Raphy goodness that makes MMOs work, and that was a profound loss.

That was a huge mistake.

But I think the control scheme changes were dead on.

The point, the f***up, the mistake that we made, was answering an unasked question.

“Can you change an MMO drastically after it launches?”

Categorically, NO.

If we were to do it again, and wanted to make those types of changes, you have to make a new game.

Relaunch with a new title.

Or shut down Galaxies and relaunch for real.

You cannot change it at runtime.

Since this is a family friendly site, I can’t link to Rubenfield’s colorful piece. Visit Rock, Paper Scissors to find links to the original tirade.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be released on September 16th so be sure to mark it on your calenders – in case you haven’t already. Between the cool screens and the trailers this looks like it is going to be a fun romp through the galaxy. Plus, if the screens are correct, it looks like it will be loads of fun tossing Storm Troopers around should they “disappoint you”.

Enjoy the new screens.