Posted by Cormeister | 11 Comments

Yellow Posts: High Rez Update, LFG System, Crew Skills, And The GTN

Hopefully this week will be much more informative than the last, especially since the devs have been crazy active on the forums this week. By now, you’ve probably heard about the “high resolution texture problem” in SWTOR. Basically, high resolution textures are only available for in-conversation cutscenes and when you are playing out in the game normally the texture quality is lowered. One of the responses that Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Coordinator, posted in the official thread actually states in which update we will see more graphics options: 1.2.

…The first major changes will be in our next major Game Update, which will have the version number of 1.2. Those changes will bring greater visual fidelity to your character and those around you, but will still allow for good performance in situations where a lot of characters are on-screen at once. In other words, for those screenshots of your character in their best gear, you should see a marked improvement…

The game has been officially out for less than a month and we are getting our first major content patch. Hopefully, it will only take about another month to see these changes implemented!

Responding to a post by Obi-Wun, Damion Schubert, Principal Lead Systems Designer, talks a little bit about BioWare’s plans for a “looking for group” tool. What it boils down to is that, at this moment in time, most players are still confined to a few areas in the game, the fleet, mid-to-low-level planets, etc…and an official tool to automatically find groups for flashpoints and heroic quests is not needed currently. However, Mr. Schubert and the whole BioWare staff are quite aware that as players continue to reach the end game and more content becomes available a true LFG tool will become necessary. Given that, they are going to be implementing a true LFG tool soon™:

Improving our LFG system is high on the list of features that Systems Design wants to add to the game. We want this to be good not just for helping people find Flashpoints and Operations to run, but also other multiplayer content like heroic missions. A key emphasis will be on advertising for specific role needs (healer, tank, DPS). This feature is currently in the design stage, and once this feature has moved beyond this to a development stage and has a firm ETA, I’ll be coming back to you guys to give more details.

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Posted by Lethality | 21 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Think Of Alternate Currency?

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!

In this weekend’s reveal of Open World PvP at PAX, Lead End-game designer Gabe Amatangelo discussed that both Warzone Commendations (from Warzones) and Mercenary Commendations (from Open World PvP) are both required to acquire the best PvP gear in the game. He also revealed that the two types of badges could be exchanged for each other, however at less than a 1-to-1 exchange rate.

This brings to light an even bigger discussion, however – the concept of alternate currency in general.

Badges, commendations or tokens – different terminology for the same thing – are sometimes given as rewards for completion of certain tasks. They could be given exclusively, or along side other rewards such as items or regular currency (gold, credits, and so on.) Requiring badges instead of gold/credits to purchase an item guarantees that the player is actually doing the content (since the badges are not tradable to/from other players).

A good idea in concept, but the badge system can get out of control. Already, just in PvP, we see two kinds of badges – Warzone and Mercenary Commendations. We also know that there are Valor Points you earn from PvP that will act as another type of currency. And that doesn’t even count anything on the PvE side of the fence! Blizzard went through a period with many, many types of special currency and in the end both the players and Blizzard themselves decided it had gotten out of control.

I for one would like to see standard currency (credits in TOR) make a comeback. In order to curtail buying/selling however, perhaps credits could be made non-tradeable between players, unless it goes through the auction house. It won’t stop everything but will put a huge dent in it. I just feel that it makes sense to use the in-game currency, since otherwise, it really makes little sense to even be in the game if developers constantly have to dance around using it.

If that isn’t the answer, then perhaps just one “type” of badge should be rewarded for ANY type of content you do, with no need for exchanging them. Simply do whatever content you like. Requiring different badges for different rewards would seem to foster somewhat of a grind mentality, which works against BioWare’s mantra of “no grinding.”

What do you think about alternate currency? What are the pros and cons from your point of view?

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Posted by ReDDoT | 12 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You View Advanced Classes As Full Classes?

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!

One of the longest-running discussions within the TOR community has been the difference between classes, advanced classes and specializations. Most “outsiders” are unaware that TOR’s advanced classes aren’t mere talent specs or minor cosmetic differences. Even during the show floor presentations yesterday at PAX, Lead End-game Designer Gabe Amatangelo described them very clearly: “advanced classes ARE the classes” he said. After introducing this concept to players new to the community,  typically they agree that the advanced classes essentially are separate classes sharing primarily a story, and beyond that just a few basic mechanics.

Still, there are holdouts that can’t seem to accept this idea. In all fairness, it’s not their fault either. BioWare dug a bit of its own whole here by labeling your character choice as a “class” during character creation, not to mention their wavering on the topic of wether or not you’d be able to “switch” your advanced class after you pick it at around level 10 in the game. Last we knew, you will be able to.

Personally, I view the advanced classes as truly separate classes. For example, let’s take the Jedi Consular class and examine the two potential options – Shadow and Sage. In terms of gameplay, Sage could be played as dedicated healer whereas Shadow could be played like a traditional rogue in other MMOs. The same versatility goes for other classes on both the Empire and the Republic sides. As you might expect from BioWare, they’ve defined their classes by their story. And it’s the advanced class system where the combat class really comes into focus.

So we want to know what do you think. Does TOR have 16 or 8 classes in total? What are you factoring into your decision? Let us know below!

 

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