TCCOM:TIE Corps Game Support

Game support in the TIE Corps has changed over time. We started with the Star Wars flight sims and that was enough for a long time, but after a while we weren't getting any new games like those and needed something new to keep pilots motivated.

We're keeping an eye out for games with a sci-fi setting with round-based space, air, or ground combat. That's a broad range of games, so other expectations we have are that a game will have a grouping mechanic so that pilots can play the game together, cross-platform keeps the community from being segmented because we have players on all major platforms and not always more than one at a time, that the game won't have a toxic community of its own, and that a game won't be so pay-to-win that anyone not spending money on microtransactions will have a bad time. While microtransactions are common now, there's a big difference between cosmetic items and needing to spend money to make progress in the game.

The round-based requirement is so that the game fits naturally into the recognition systems we already have, namely the Legions and the combat ratings. Something completely open world like EVE Online, for example, would be problematic because there's no obvious way to add that game to our existing systems. It would need something new and different, which isn't generally something we want to do for an individual game.

The ground combat is coming mostly from the Star Wars Battlefront games. We originally only supported the space modes but expanded support to ground missions when EABF2 didn't give us a way to distinguish between modes when we're reviewing submitted screenshots. From there we went back and added support for ground combat in EABF1, then the Battlefront Classic Collection came out and we support that. Destiny 2 was added and that's all ground combat. Support for ground battles in the TC poses a concern for the EH because that might make things difficult if the Hammer's Fist ever returned (again), but we've decided to cross that bridge when we come to it because there's not currently a strong push to bring back any of the inactive subgroups.

Game support remains a topic that comes up often in meetings and continues to be mulled over by TC leadership.