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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Mar 1, 2012

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Georg Zoeller Waxes Poetic On Economic Changes In Patch 1.1.5

In a very entertaining blog update, Principle Lead Combat Designer and legendary pit fighter Georg Zoeller provided players with a glance at some changes to the economy on the horizon. In a nice twist, everything was provided in-context and with lore attached. I do believe this might just be the first story-based dev blog. Kudos, BioWare – well played!

Anyway, if you’re a TOR fan and especially if you’ve got your eye on some of the current prizes with the intent to purchase, you’ll want to see what Mr. Zoeller has to say. And remember patch 1.1.5 is available on the Public Test Server right now to check out!

Head on over to the blog entry for the full read, but we’ll leave you with a fun excerpt about the color crystal changes right here :)

It’s been reported that Operatives of the Republic Strategic Intelligence Service have recovered several new variations of color crystal prototypes during a daring raid on a cutting edge Imperial Science Bureau outpost on Ilum. Among the items recovered are a number of rare, purple-hued color crystals, usually exclusive to Imperial-held worlds.

Republic scientists are confident that they will be able to reverse-engineer and potentially replicate the captured Imperial technology, including the color crystals, in a matter of weeks. While most of the prototypes are still being analyzed, it has been confirmed that the Imperial Science Bureau’s “Project Expertise” at the Ilum outpost scored a major breakthrough in the crystal cutting process. While information on the new technology has been kept tightly guarded, we know that the process can create several variants of existing crystal colors which improve the crystal’s natural properties.

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Mar 1, 2012

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Gabe Amatangelo Interview: Add-ons, Combat Log, Cross-Server, Ranked PvP & More!

The fine folks over at long-time Australian fan site TOROZ have just posted a brand new video interview with Lead End-game Designer Gabe Amatangelo. Apparenlty, Gabe was down under for the launch festivities taking place over the past few days, and took some time to meet with fans and fan sites.

There are definitely some interesting tidbits to come out of this, which are compiled below. I don’t know about you, but these changes look pretty exciting! We’ll keep an eye out for more coverage from the Asia-Pacific launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic. In the mean time, enjoy!

Thanks to TorBoard for the notes compilation!

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes

  • Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
  • There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
  • Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
  • New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
  • There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP

  • Phase one will be server specific.
  • Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

General/UI Changes

  • Combat log coming soon.
  • DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
  • Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing

  • Coming in phase two of pvp changes (later than 1.2)
  • Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
  • As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server

 

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Feb 29, 2012

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Calling All Guilds – Do You Want To Test Game Update 1.2?

If you’re the member of an experienced Star Wars: The Old Republic raiding guild, BioWare wants to hear from you! They’ve just posted notice that they’re nearly ready to begin testing Game Update 1.2 on the Pubic Test Server, and are looking for guilds to test the high level content:

As you know, Game Update 1.2 is packed with new content, including a new Flashpoint, Operation, and Warzone. To that end, we’re looking for some end-game guilds to test this new content and to provide feedback before the update goes out to our live servers.

While we don’t have the technology for mass character transfers yet, we do have a manual process to copy characters from our Live servers to our Public Test Server that we will be offering for Guilds that are accepted for testing.

Needless to say, if you’re a guild interested in this, you should get in touch with BioWare asap. The full instructions are here, but the email address to use is guilds@swtor.com.

On a separate but related note, BioWare is also looking for experienced TOR players local to the Austin area to test the content as well.

The Star Wars: The Old Republic team is looking for skilled SWTOR players in the Austin area to test out brand new content in the BioWare Austin office. We are looking for players that are experienced with endgame Operations, Warzones, and Flashpoints. 

The only requirement seems to be that you’re local to BioWare’s Austin studio, and you must complete this survey. This is a temporary paid position that will take up about 1 weekend per month. I’ve never wanted to live in Texas as much as I do now!


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Feb 29, 2012

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Oceanic Servers Officially Live; No Server Transfers Until Late April

It’s a bit of a bittersweet moment for TOR players in the Asia-Pacific region of the world.

This morning, BioWare launched brand new servers in their region hat should greatly improve gameplay performance for the majority of players currently playing but on North American servers. This is great news… but what if you’ve already got an accomplished character on a different server you’d like to bring over to the new Oceanic servers? BioWare has you covered, but unfortunately not until late April.

In an update to the official FAQ this morning, it was clarified that server transfers for those that qualify will occur in “late April”:

Qualified players in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, or Singapore, will be offered one-time free character transfers to Asia Pacific servers for a limited time period in late April. No specific date has been confirmed at this time. We will be sending an email to all qualified players by early March with more details.

What makes you a qualified player? We have the details for that as well:

To qualify for free character transfers, players must meet the following requirements by Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 5:01PM EDT, 7:01PM NZDT, 2:01PM HKT, 2:01PM SGT:

  • You specified that your country is Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, or Singapore during your account registration process.
  • Redeemed an Official Game Production Registration Code on www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com Code Redemption Center.
  • Have had or currently have entered a valid recurring payment method or redeemed a Pre-Paid Game Time Code.
  • Only characters created on The Old Republic servers by February 28, 2012, 5:01PM EDT, 7:01PM NZDT, 2:01PM HKT, 2:01PM SGT qualify for transfers.

Characters created by qualified players on a non-Asia Pacific server after the February 28th deadline will not qualify for transfers to Asia Pacific servers. We will be sending an email to all qualified players by early March with more details.

On a separate but related note, some players are actually reporting much worse latency on these servers than they were seeing on the North American servers. We’ll follow this development as we learn more!

For now, head on over to the FAQ for all of the details of the Asia-Pacific launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic!

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