Mar 7, 2012

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Guild Summit: Roundup!

We thought it was time to make a “roundup” post as we usually do after an important event for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Guild Summit certainly qualified!

Not only did we learn what to expect in Game Update 1.2: Legacy, the developers seemed more open than in the past about things that they might be working on but not announced – a very different posture from the pre-release chatter.

So what follows is a roundup of content here on Ask A Jedi, but also things from around the web. If you find something you think should be added, by all means let me know!

Ask A Jedi

TORWars

Darth Hater

Massively

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Mar 6, 2012

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BioWare Launches Friends Of TOR Free Trial Program

Do you have several gamer friends who you’ve been trying to talk into playing Star Wars: The Old REpublic, but they’re hesitant to plunk down the cash without trying it first? Well, they don’t have that excuse anymore!

Today BioWare is releasing the Friends of Star Wars: The Old Republic Trial. This program allows any current active subscriber to invite up to 3 of their friends to try the game – for free – for 7 days:

You’ve helped make The Old Republic™ a success and to show our appreciation we are giving all active subscribers the opportunity to invite up to three of your closest friends for a 7-day free trial.* To get started, just log into your account and choose “Friends Trial” in the right navigation.

 

There is also an extensive FAQ about the program which you should check out.

Curiously, there is no incentive for subscribers to actually do this, other than to hopefully get their friends hooked on the game they love. I’m sure BioWare simply wants to make sure there’s always plenty of players available as that’s critical to delivering a true MMO feel and readily available multi-player content.

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Mar 6, 2012

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Patch Notes: 1.1.5 – Roll Away! Plus, Performance Improvements

Today, BioWare pushed Patch 1.1.5 to the live servers, bringing many welcome fixes to players of Star Wars: The Old Republic. While it may pale compared to the shiny that is Patch 1.2 as detailed during the Guild Summit, it’a great to see constant forward movement on a weekly basis from the gang in Austin!

You can find these as well as all previous patch notes at BioWare’s official Patch Notes page on SWTOR.com

Patch Notes – 1.1.5 – 3/6/2012

General

  • Players can now use the command /roll or /random to generate a random number between 1 and 100. This command will also accept a range (example: /roll 20-40) or a die value (example: 2d6).

Classes and Combat

General
  • Moving while channeling an ability (such as Telekinetic Throw and Force Lightning) will no longer cancel the Global Cooldown, which would allow those abilities to deal more damage than intended.

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Mar 3, 2012

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Guild Summit Schedule & Live Stream Details Announced!

As you may be aware, BioWare is hosting the first-ever Star Wars: The Old Republic Guild Summit in Austin starting this Monday. They’ve invited over 150 guild leaders from around the world to come and discuss the state of the game directly with BioWare, and learn what’s next for TOR! Ask A Jedi will be there to cover the festivities as well, so it should be exciting!

Up until now, we weren’t sure what coverage BioWare would be able to provide for players that couldn’t make it to Austin, but now we know – a full day of streaming of all of the main events! Starting this Monday at 11:00AM EST (10:00AM Austin Time), players around the globe will be treated to the following schedule of events (times are listed CST/Austin Time):

  • 10:00am - Welcome & Introductions
  • 10:30am - State of the Game and Game Update 1.2 Presentation
  • 11:00am - Break (Livestream offline from 11:00am to 2:00pm)
  • 2:00pm - Operations/Flashpoints Discussion
  • 2:45pm - Player vs. Player Discussion
  • 3:30pm - Legacy Presentation
  • 4:00pm - Economy/Crew Skills Discussion
  • 4:30pm - Roleplayer’s Discussion
  • 5:00pm - Guild Features Discussion
  • 5:30pm - User Interface Presentation
  • 6:00pm - ”…And The Rest”
Players will also have the opportunity to ask questions via the Cover It Live service. There’s a link listed for a forum dedicated to the Guild Summit, however it only points to the main community page currently.
It should be an exciting start to the week for players of Star Wars: The Old Republic!


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Mar 3, 2012

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Community Q&A For March 2nd: Legacy Unlocks Include Mailbox & GTN; Crafted Gear Rules All

While there were fewer questions than usual answered in this week’s community Q&A, there were definitely some interesting ones. For example, we learned from Damion Schubert that part of the Legacy system will unlock things like a mailbox and GTN terminal on your ship:

JediCarve – Will our ships ever get upgraded to include mailboxes and the Galactic Trade Network so that we will be able to access those without having to go through the process of load screens and Orbital Stations/Spaceports?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): On one hand, we really like making the ships richer and more useful, and on the other hand, we also want to be sure that the fleets feel like vibrant centers of the game community. So the answer is… Yes! And this feature is coming as soon as Game Update 1.2 … as ship features you can unlock as part of the Legacy system. Watch for more information about Legacy unlocks coming in Game Update 1.2 – we should be dropping that Real Soon Now.

This is an interesting decision, as those are the 2 primary functions you would need to go to the fleet for. Would be interesting to hear more of an explanation on how this reconciles with the idea the fleets are supposed to be commerce and social hubs.

Technical Design Director Emannuel Lusinchi also provided some insight into the idea that, at least in the near term, crafted gear should be superior to endgame gear obtained in other ways:

Gidoru – In last week’s Q&A, you detailed upcoming changes to the Crafting System with crit crafting orange gear and removing base mods from purple gear. I think that this issue needs some clarification, as what was stated essentially suggests that orange crit crafted gear will always be superior to either PvP or PvE gear. This is because players will be able to simply remove the mods in their PvP or PvE gear and place it in a piece of crit crafted orange gear that will additionally provide extra stats as a result of the augment slot. Is it your intention to make crafted gear superior to gear obtained in other ways?

Emannuel Lusinchi (Technical Design Director): Yes, for Game Update 1.2, this is correct. Crafted gear is, in theory, superior to endgame gear obtained in other ways. However, it is worth pointing out that putting together crit crafted gear, including item modifications, requires more effort, not less. Now, the reason I specifically mention Game Update 1.2 is that we will introduce new mechanics in a future update that, without diminishing the usefulness of crit crafted items, will bring some interesting changes and that’s all I will say about that!

It sounds like Game Update 1.2 is shaping up to be a pretty interesting patch, and with the guild summit starting on Monday, we’re no doubt about to learn more! Ask A Jedi will be at the summit and will report back with any news!

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