Posted by Lethality | 16 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1.4 – Global Cooldown UI, Bug Fixes & More

BioWare pushed patch 1.1.4 to the live servers earlier today, and includes some bug fixes as well as some minor improvements. Most notably is the inclusion of yser-selectable preferences for the Global Cooldown interface behavior. The flexibility should be just what players were looking for! But I will also take this opportunity to suggest that if BioWare had allowed an open API for add-ons, the community would have solved this long ago and BioWare could have concentrated on more important things.

These notes, as well as all previous notes are available on BioWare’s official patch notes archive.

1.1.4 Patch Notes — 2/22/2012

General

• The key formerly bound to /bug can now be mapped to any action and no longer opens the /bug window. The command is no longer able to be bound to a quickslot, but player can still type /bug in chat to open a new bug report.

Classes and Combat

General

• Using abilities with indirect targeting (such as area of effect abilities) will no longer cause players to be flagged for PvP if a PvP-flagged player from the opposing faction is within the ability’s range, and the ability will have no effect on the PvP-flagged player.

 

Imperial Agent

Operative

• Medical Therapy: Kolto Probe and Recuperative nanotech will now properly benefit from this skill.

 

Bounty Hunter

Powertech

• Carbonize: PvP armor for Combat Tech will no longer prevent this skill from stunning enemies.

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Posted by Lethality | 10 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1.4 – Public Test Server

BioWare has just pushed patch 1.1.4 to the Public Test Server! One of the most important changes listed in the notes below (so far) is the options for display of the Global Cool Down. For past patches, it hasn’t made much sense to get on the PTS because you needed a higher level character to test the changes. But in this case, you can see the GCD changes from the first time you set foot on to your origin world.

So, I IMPLORE all players to log on to the Public Test Server and try this out… and give BioWare the feedback they need to get this right!

 

Because development is ongoing during testing, it should be noted that all changes and updates listed in the patch notes should be considered incomplete and are subject to change or removal before release to the live servers. The Public Test Server patch notes will be provided in English. The final release notes will be provided in English, French, and German when the content is moved to live servers.

General

• The key formerly bound to /bug can now be mapped to any action and no longer opens the /bug window. The command is no longer able to be bound to a quickslot, but player can still type /bug in chat to open a new bug report.

Classes and Combat

General

• Using abilities with indirect targeting (such as area of effect abilities) will no longer cause players to be flagged for PvP if a PvP-flagged player from the opposing faction is within the ability’s range, and the ability will have no effect on the PvP-flagged player.

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Posted by Lethality | 30 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Playing Another MMO Besides TOR?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

MMORPGs are interesting beasts. They consume enormous amounts of resources over the course of many years to design, develop and produce. Likewise, they also consume huge amounts time from players, who gladly give it up to enjoy exploring their favorite stories and worlds. I’ve always said that MMOs are consumed more as a hobby than a video game, since the nature of the participation is more of a long-term commitment and investment in improving over time. Not a run-and-gun quickie like a simple 40-hour video game gives you.

Because of this, there’s a widely-held belief that you can only play one MMO at a time… and I tend to agree. There just isn’t a way to fully engage in more than one MMO when you consider what that investment means, coupled with real-life responsibilities. This is why there always seems to be a “war” that someone has to win when a new MMO comes out… because one must stop playing one to start playing the other.

None the less, there are those that maintain that you can play more than one MMO at a time. So that’s the question for today… do you guys play another MMO besides Star Wars: The Old Republic? And I’m not talking about dabbling in a free-to-play title here and there, or the demo of some other game. I am talking about full on commitment to character development and everything the game has to offer. Let’s hear it, hardcores!

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Posted by Lethality | 12 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1.3 – Surge Rating, Bug Fixes & More

 

Today, BioWare pushed patch 1.1.3 to the live servers and seems to catch a lot of little bug fixes. The biggest change seems to be in the re-balancing of surge rating, which seems to make more sense the way it’s now described. Being Valentine’s Day, I would have expected some sort of boost to companion affection, but that’s another issue ;)

You can view the full patch notes for 1.1.3 below, or you can check out BioWare’s official patch notes page for these as well as all previous patch notes!

1.1.3 Patch Notes — 2/14/2012

 

Classes and Combat

General

• Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.

 

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary

Arsenal

• Stabilizers: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Unload.

 

Trooper

Commando

Gunnery

• Steadied Aim: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Full Auto.

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Posted by Lethality | 51 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Rolling An Alt?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Today marks exactly 2 months since Early Game Access for Star Wars: The Old Republic opened up. If you began playing on that very day, playing just a couple hours several days a week, it’s been enough time that you could have a character at level 50 by now. So for those of you who are level 50, and I’m guessing many in the AAJ Army have at least one, did you decide to level an alt?

There are some complaints on the forums that people are “bored,” but a quick study shows that these players generally raced to level 50 for the most part, and expected unlimited gameplay options once they got there. It’s just not going to happen in a brand new MMO. Especially when BioWare made it clear they were betting big on the level-up game. With individual stories for each class, and the Legacy system in place to support exactly that, it shouldn’t be a big surprise they want players to play many characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Damion Schubert: We really want to put in systems to encourage replay. The Legacy System, which we hope to get in, will hopefully be in that venue. I am not ready to talk about what exactly it is and how we do that, but we are really betting heavily on the level up game. We are really betting heavily on the story aspects of the game, and we really want people to enjoy that journey, and to feel like that journey is interesting and exciting. We actually want to incentivize people to try the different classes so that they experience those other stories, and they play the game again. So that really put a lot of pressure on us to make sure that leveling up your second character and your third character is not grinding, and that it still feels like a fresh and interesting experience. We’re less interested in doing a Dark Age of Camelot “hey bypass all the content” in order to get to max level to do the endgame content because of what we think is important about our game and is our unique selling point: we want you to try that content. Maybe there is a way in the future, but that isn’t even a sparkle in our eye at this point. 

Now, I’m a fan of sticking to one character whenever possible… and due to my play time, that’s all I can usually do anyway. But I have dabbled in some other characters especially during Game Testing. Oddly, I find leveling an alt in TOR to be somehow more repetitive than leveling an alt in previous games. I can’t put by finger on it… the class quests are all different, but they make up only a small part of the content. If you pick the class that shares your main’s starter world, then nearly everything else you do is a duplicate of what you’ve already done, right from the start.

So I’m just curious how many of you guys are out there rolling alts, and what prompted you to do it. Are you simply bored at level 50 waiting for everyone else to get there, or are you genuinely interested in seeing the story for multiple classes? What is your experience of rolling an alt so far… different enough?

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