Posted by Lethality | 7 Comments

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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Posted by Lethality | 21 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Do Credits Matter?

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!

We’re back! At least temporarily… still trying to get a solid, consistent writer to handle the BM&C duties, so if you have any ideas for discussion topics, let us know!

The recent Public Test Server patch notes for patch 1.1.5 that indicated that speeders will have their priced reduced until patch 1.2. Now, there are no more details than that right now, and I can’t imagine the thinking behind that. Will they go back up in price in 1.2?

At any rate, I posed this very question on the PTS forum and once of the responses was from a player that said he had so many credits, he could afford anything they put up. This got me to thinking… do credits even matter anymore? It seems that most players who simply play the game have more than enough credits to do whatever they need to that the game lays out for them. In a way, your “credit counter” is just another progress bar. Not very interesting.

And honestly, I’m not just picking on TOR here. Most MMOs, including World of Warcraft, have devalued in-game currency so much that it has lost nearly all meaning. Some of this is due to the constant fight between gold farmers and RMT. There are all kinds of special currencies, badges, tokens and whatnot that replace the “money” in the game to assure the player is the one doing the content and earning the reward.

I miss the old days. When money was money and it was a way to buy whatever you wanted! And even then, I don’t think games should automatically fill your “money progress bar” so that you can have everything… you should have to work a bit and save – just like in real life – to achieve certain things.

What’s the solutoin? I don’t know… is it soulbound currency that you could only spend with NPCs and the Auction House/GTN? Maybe. But it just feels like we’ve lost our way (and the battle) when we’re looking for ways to replace currency with… other types of currency. What are your thoughts?

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Posted by Lethality | 9 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1.5 – Public Test Server – I’m Rollin’!

Today, BioWare rolled out a brand new build of Star Wars: The Old Republic to the Public Test Server. Patch 1.1.5 is now available for players to test and the notes are available below, or here.

Items of note are the addition of a /roll command as well as a fix to the Master Looter function. Also interesting is the reduction in price of several speeder models “until patch 1.2”. Hmm.

No word on character copy yet, which is truly required for the PTS to be of any real value (at least to players.)

Anyway, you can get more details from the official Test Center including instructions on how to participate. And don’t forget to head over to the official Public Test Server forums to give BioWare your feedback when you do!

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ — 1.1.5 Patch Notes

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

• 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

Sith Warrior

• The French version of the “Darth” title is now correct.

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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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