I would like to apologize for being out of the loop over the weekend but there was a brand new addition to my family on Friday evening. Now that everything is calm and somewhat back to normal again I shoulbe be heading back home later this evening. Anyways... Thunderheart is finishing up the tranistion to his new job and has returned to the forums. He's been spending a lot of time talking to the community and answering questions. Here is the latest Friday Feature followed by some of Thunderheart's comments:

Today we offer a look at The Mysteries of Stat Migration! This week’s Friday Feature is a ground-up look at stat migration and how changing the statistics on your character sheet will effect your character. This is a great guide for those of you who are new to the game and for you experts who don’t find anything knew here, please share your tips and hints.

The real mystery: How is it not painfully obvious to the devs that the human secondaries are out of balance? In every substat humans are capable of going 200-350 points higher than the second best species. Forget about that famous Wookiee strength, humans will be ripping off arms with their 250 extra points. Zabraks have great willpower? Nope, humans are 200 points better... Actually it is a known issue and its something that will be changed in the... ___________________________________________________________ I knew about this before I played the game... because I read the manual. Rofl. So true. Yeah, I was hoping for some JTL info. :/ I bet you were Actually, I was in San Diego doing transition stuff with Q-3PO. I have his vault of goodies now... I'm guessing you folks would like to see some more JtL soon? ___________________________________________________________ Can we get some more combat balance info instead of this fluff? Soon and plenty of it. There will be a bunch of other exciting In Concepts and In Development issues this week. I hope to have at least a couple of them up today. ___________________________________________________________ Once you are with an Image Designer you must group with them and the process takes about 10 minutes. You tell them what you would like your stats to be, it is not always required but it is a nice courtesy to tip the Image Designer using the option in the image design interface. Um, is this even correct?? When I was an ID (dropped after the revamp), IDs couldn't decide, the customer had to choose what their stats were. Has this changed? Nope, this hasn't changed. I updated the text this morning. Thanks Of note to the ID's et, al., I'm still trying to get the timer reduced a few minutes and at the very least, we need an "Are you sure" window that pops up when you close the ID session window. I've noticed that what happens is that during the 10 minute cycle people finish up and chat while they are waiting for the session to complete. While they are chatting, they will hit a keystroke that sometimes inadvertently closes the window. This puts the ID and the ID's customer back at square 1 without wanting to be. We need to add that extra window in to help prevent this from happening. ___________________________________________________________ hey TH when will you guys be updating the JTL website again, I'm excited to hear about the professions... Well, the team has been adding new abilities to the professions and restructuring them. That's why we had to go back and change the feature listing that Shipwright would branch off of the Artisan profession. A new mechanic has been added so it will be a different animal altogether. So I'm thinking next week's feature should be either Fireworks Demystified or How to get the most out of your Chance Cube? ___________________________________________________________ So I'm thinking next week's feature should be either Fireworks Demystified or How to get the most out of your Chance Cube? So we get an answer on a Sun and even a wisecrack included? Does this mean we will be getting the old TH back? And on a side note, the Shipwright being a "different animal all together" kind of scares me. Different can be fine as long as you remember that many people will want to get it the same day as they buy JTL and have been waiting for it as long as many others have been waiting to fly their TIE"s and X-wings. Also keep in mind it is a Crafting profession and should in no way require combat in order to get the profession or move up in the profession. The reverse engineering loot could be cool if done right but you should not be required to find loot, especially certain types of loot in order to play shipwright. While I am rambling I might as well ask that you guys think about all the weaponsmiths who want to be able to make new weapons without having to kill hard end content or pay millions. Ever combat player can go to the new dungeons any time they want. They may not be able to complete it easily but they can go. WS can not build new weapons without either doing well in the dungeons or someone else doing well. WS are kept from new content by making it loot. Where looted schematics and components may be fine for new highend weapons, it should not be the only new types of weapons. Aside from tailor, all other professions have gotten new schematics and they do not require killing really hard creatures. Respectively, The old TH never left. He just gets busy sometimes. The shipwright changes wont delay you getting into the profession right away and won't bog you down in Combat. As for schematics? I'm bartering with the devs now to put some more goodies in soon ___________________________________________________________ While you will be looking for replies to your reply, can you please give us any insight as to why Haden Blackman's post about Vader was deleted as well as that entire thread? I'll paste what WAS there below this. I mean, can you address the whole Haden situation and his comments to the gaming magazines at all? Re: Devs need to play Vador. Shug_Ninx LucasArts We've actually be talking a lot internally about ways to get some of the "named" characters more involved. Boba Fett has already showed up for some Live Events and you can expect others soon. Pex is currently working on plans for these. Vader is a top candidate. Haden Blackman LucasArts Producer 07-30-2004 11:31 AM Sure. On the Vader thing, I can only suspect technical hiccups with the boards. There is no reason any one would have any issues with that. The only key detail there is that anything with top level Star Wars characters like Boba Fett, Chewie, Han, etc., Lucasfilm has to approve it. With EP3 coming up, I'm sure the ranch is keeping tight control over major characters, though I'll ask Shug to comment. As far as Shug's commenting on those interviews specifically, that all happened during a week when everyone's been traveling and otherwise bogged down. I've spoken with Shug on many occasions with regards to those interviews and I know he'll be posting soon (this week I'm hoping?). Previous Friday Features Official Post