SWTOR Info

[chaos5061]

New Website

We are excited to unveil the brand new Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ website! We’ve completely rebuilt the website from the ground-up, with the intention of providing you with the latest game updates in an easy to navigate way. In addition to all of the latest news and information that is released, we’re also going to give you much more information about in-game content. Right now, you can check out our updated Flashpoints page on the Holonet, which includes information for each of the seventeen Flashpoints currently in the game.

In addition to information on every Flashpoint, we’ll also be adding much more to the new and improved Holonet. In the coming weeks this will include brand new biography pages for each and every one of your Companion Characters, as well as new pages dedicated to highlighting the many different Operations and PvP Warzones that you can experience in the game.

But this is only the beginning. We’ll be continuing to update the website with an array of new features and functionality, such as Guild support, Skill Trees, Character Profiles, and so much more!

Continue to check out www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for the latest news and information about the game, and don’t forget to check out our new and improved Community Blog for the additional news, patch notes, and insight from the development team.

[chaos5061]

Event Over 4-24-12

Attention citizens:

We are happy to announce that we are starting to make progress in the neutralization of the Rakghoul Plague Outbreak. It is our hope that the outbreak will be completely contained by April 24th at 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST). Citizens have until this time to completely avoid Tatooine and to not engage in investigations of suspicious wreckage on its surface.

Thank you.

[chaos5061]

We will be deploying a patch and performing an unscheduled maintenance this Thursday, April 19th, 2012. Patch notes will be made available shortly after the servers come back up.

The servers will be down for four hours on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.

After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Maintenance

Date: Thursday, April 19th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST).

All game servers will be offline during this period. This game maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours.

[chaos5061]

From someone on twitter:
Of note #SWTOR folks - I critted on a purple lvl 340 Diplo mission & it returned a piece of Legacy gear.

[chaos5061]

Patch Notes 1.2.0c

1.2.0c Patch Notes
4/19/2012
General
Corrected an audio issue that could cause a loud, perpetual "jet engine" sound that is most noticeable on the Republic and Imperial Fleets.
Corrected a rare issue that could cause players to be unable to access their guild.
Classes and Combat
Bounty Hunter
Mercenary
Heatseeker Missile: This ability will now only gain extra damage from your additional stacks of Heat Signatures and will not incorrectly detect debuffs from other players.
Trooper
Commando
Demolition Round: This ability will now only gain extra damage from your additional stacks of Gravity Vortex and will not incorrectly detect debuffs from other players.
World Event
Jeelvic the Jawa will no longer take more DNA samples than intended for purchases.
Players who were not properly granted final event codex entry and title for defeating Infected Trapjaw, Zama Brak, and Urtagh will be granted both the title and codex entry.
PvP
Increased rewards for players on the losing side of Warzone matches.
Players will now receive rewards for Warzones if they have earned at least one medal.

[chaos5061]

Weekly Q&A 8

Two weeks ago, we asked for your questions and unfortunately, we had to delay posting the answers to the Q&A until today. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity.

We have now opened an official thread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CDT on April 24th, 2012 (12pm PDT/3pm EDT/8pm BST/9pm CEST/5am AEST). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below.

If you want to discuss any of the answers given, please use this Forum thread!



BlackMink: Could you please explain SWTOR's threat mechanics? What exactly do the de-taunt abilities do, and how exactly is threat generated? Is threat directly related point for point to the damage you do, or does each individual ability generate a pre-set amount of threat?

Cameron Winston (Combat Designer): Threat is calculated based on damage done, plus or minus certain modifiers, with one damage translating directly into one point of threat. These modifiers are always called out in the abilities which adjust them. For example, Soresu Form increases your threat generation globally, while Crushing Blow or Hilt Strike specifically generates extra bonus threat when activated.

De-taunt abilities reduce your threat level by a flat percentage of its current value. Healing generates less threat than damage and is split evenly among all enemies you are currently fighting.



Keldain: Love the stuff for 1.2! I think you guys are doing a great job on addressing the issues of the community. Just one thing I would really like an update on: is there any movement on getting an option to toggle hoods on and off?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): This is totally in the plan, but we are unsure at this time when it will get to you.



Pierre-olivier: Will it be possible to create a guild uniform or get a distinctive sign. I mean other than the name displayed above the character?

Damion: At some point, this will be possible. No ETA yet, but we have a design fleshed out.



Irouven: What is the idea behind the selection at the equipment vendor for planetary commendations? Sometimes you get boots, sometimes chest-armor, never a potential "full" outfit.

Damion: We don't want you to get all of the pieces of an armor set from any one source of gear. We want you to do multiple activities in the game to build out a full set of gear. This is a conscious decision on our part to encourage and reward playing multiple facets of the game. So you should do other things -- heroics, check the GTN, etc -- the full set of gear is out there.



TheCritter: If I delete a character with Legacy unlocks do I lose those unlocks? For example, if I have a human female Sniper at level 50 with Act 3 completed will I lose the race unlock, Heroic Ability, and class emote for my other characters if I delete her?

Damion: You will keep all unlocks that you have managed to unlock so far.



Zawny: Any chance there will be an effort to develop account storage somewhat similar in nature to guild banks so that characters on an account can access items rather than mailing them under what the current plan appears to be?

Damion: We have a plan for this. However, since there is currently a workaround for this (mailing items to your alt), this is a lower priority than some of the other improvements we have earmarked for the legacy system.



DarthBloodloss: Why doesn't ranked War Hero armor (or the new tier of PvE armor) have augment slots?

Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): It is possible to obtain ranked War Hero appearance with augment slots from crafters on the GTN. The schematics for the those items can be found on the PvP vendor and a critical success while crafting them will result, as with other armor, in an additional augment slot.

It is also worth noting that we will be adding a way to add an augment slots to existing modifiable armor in a future game update.



Aikiyc: Can we get a clarification on how interceptions in Huttball work? Currently, it seems to be mostly random, with a somewhat increased chance of intercepting if all the allied receivers are stunned. Does the number of allies VS enemies factor in? Closest to the center of or edge of the passing zone?

Gabe Amatangelo (PvP & Endgame Designer): The player closest to the center of the landing spot circle who is not stunned or mezzed will receive the ball, regardless of what team they are on.



Grandmthethird: It seems to me like some companions have a hard time when it comes to gear. I’m sure there is more but I’m thinking specifically of Torian and Skadge. It seems impossible to get aim melee weapons. Is this an oversight? Or am I simply missing something?

David White (Systems Designer): Aim melee weapons are used by a very small subset of companions. For this reason we tend to distribute those items through either vendors or class specific quest rewards. Our goal is to make these items reasonably available without constantly putting essentially “worthless” items in front of players who do not care about them. We also make the items customizable (orange) when possible to make it easier to keep them up-to-date by swapping out the Mods and Enhancements. Ultimately it’s a delicate balance to make sure they can be reasonably found and maintained by the players who care about them without them becoming a nuisance to players who might not even understand why they exist.



Thanks for all of your questions, and thanks to the team for answering them. If you’d like to put forward a question for next week’s Q&A, please visit this Forum thread!

[chaos5061]

Patch 1.2.1

1.2.1 Patch Notes
4/24/2012
Classes and Combat
Jedi Knight
Sentinel
Zen (with Ataru Form) now correctly reduces the global cooldown of Cyclone Slash.
Smuggler
General
Charged Burst's damage has been increased by approximately 5%.
Gunslinger
Damage for Aimed Shot, Speed Shot, and Quickdraw has been increased by approximately 5%.
Sharpshooter
Trickshot's damage has been increased by approximately 5%.
Imperial Agent
General
Snipe's damage has been increased by approximately 5%.
Sniper
Damage for Ambush, Series of Shots, and Takedown has been increased by approximately 5%.
Marksmanship
Followthrough's damage has been increased by approximately 5%.
Trooper
Commando
Gunnery
Havoc Rounds now applies the correct healing increase to Kolto Bomb. It previously applied a smaller increase than intended.
Companion Characters
General
Companion quickslots now update correctly when a new companion is summoned, correcting an issue that could cause the previous companion's abilities to continue displaying on the new companion's hotbar.
Flashpoints and Operations
Flashpoints
Lost Island
Resolved an issue that could cause Doctor Lorrick's lab door to become stuck while closed when the fight was not active.
Players now appear on Project Sav'Rak's platform after the encounter. This addresses an issue that could prevent players from completing the Flashpoint if all group members exited the area before using the bridge controls.
Operations
Explosive Conflict
The range of Stormcaller's Electric Discharge and Firebrand's Missile Barrage has been increased to 35 meters.
A total of 4 mines must now be successfully defused in order to complete the minefield encounter.
Chests in Hard Mode no longer drop Black Hole gear.
Items
General
The cost for PvP consumables has been reduced to 10 commendations.
Corrected an issue that prevented item rolling prompts from appearing for Custom (orange) items.
The cost for Rated War Hero PvP gear has been reduced. This does not impact the time required to obtain base War Hero gear.
Legacy
The Rocket Boost ability can now be used inside and isn't restricted by areas that do not permit vehicles. It cannot be used in combat or in Warzones.
PvP
Warzones
Alderaan Civil War
Players can no longer be knocked off of speeders while traveling to the battlefield.
Voidstar
Players no longer earn defender credit for defending a previously destroyed objective.
Space Combat
Corrected an issue that could cause Space Combat audio to fade out or pan inappropriately from the left to right speaker.
Drexel Sweep: Corrected an issue that caused the first several enemies ships to disappear upon loading into this mission.
Makem Te Assault: An issue that could cause the Smuggler player ship to clip through enemies at the beginning of this mission has been corrected.
UI
General
Helmets now work correctly when unifying colors on the character sheet.
An issue that caused stackable items to display incorrect stack numbers when replaced on the hotbar with another stackable item has been corrected.
The dialog for setting keybindings is now canceled properly if the player presses the "X" button to close it.
Corrected an issue that prevented the mail window from opening after refreshing the UI with the mail window open.
The World Map will now properly update as missions complete and/or progress.
Corrected an issue that sometimes prevented "new mail" notifications from functioning.
Character Creation
During character creation, Legacy Cyborg appearance options are now labeled.
The display of selected options in character creation has been improved.
Groups and Targeting
Group frames now appear correctly when the option "Use Operation Frames as Group Frames" is toggled off.
Guilds
Corrected an issue that could cause insufficient Guild Bank funds for repairs or respecs to appear even if sufficient credits were available.
Players will no longer become "stuck" and unable to receive a guild invite if they were sent an invite just before entering a cinematic or while the loading screen is present.
Social
Corrected an issue that prevented players from adding offline players to their friends list.
Players now correctly see a red phase gate (and are appropriately blocked from entering) if they are not permitted to join a group member's class phase.
Chat tabs now preserve the selected font size if they are detached from the main chat window.
The list in /who now automatically updates when the window is opened with the /who command.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
An issue that prevented players from logging out of the game if the ESC button was used to close the logout window has been addressed.
Corrected a sound issue that caused a loud, unintended sound on the Republic and Imperial Fleets (and potentially other areas with many characters present).
Corrected some issues with French and German in-game text/dialogue.
Corrected an issue that could cause characters in cinematics to appear grey in color.
Objects that can be interacted with will no longer stop glowing if players get too far away from them and then return..

[chaos5061]

Maybe I'm missing something but everyone is saying the GTN will be going completely Neutral. No faction AH anymore. I have not seen one Dev Post about this anywhere.

[chaos5061]

We will be deploying a patch and performing an unscheduled maintenance this Friday, April 27th, 2012. Patch notes will be made available shortly after the servers come back up.

The servers will be down for four hours on Friday, April 27th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.

After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Maintenance

Date: Friday, April 27th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST).

All game servers will be offline during this period. This game maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

[chaos5061]

Unless 1.3 wows me the 1.3 notes when they go live may be the last I post about SWTOR. Not really caring about the game and will probably unsub.

[chaos5061]

Game Update 1.3 is coming to our Public Test Server Tomorrow and we want you to be prepared! You may now download and update to the latest version of the Public Test Server.

Check out this blog for more information on how to set up for testing on PTS and this blog for how to sign up for character copying.

We’ll see you on PTS tomorrow!

[chaos5061]

SWTOR going F2P: http://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/feature...ame=367&ismb=1

Will post article in thread when I get home from work.

[chaos5061]

It’s happening, and sooner than you might thing. BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is going F2P with a hybrid business model this fall. Players have been wondering about it, journalists have been begging for it, and it seems that all this time BioWare’s been listening and reacting. After being informed of the then embargoed announcement this morning, I had the rare opportunity to sit in on a call with BioWare’s Jeff Hickman and Matthew Bromberg (who recently took over as GM of the Austin studio. We talked about the timing, the reasons, and the way in which they believe SWTOR going F2P is just finally giving the players what they’ve wanted, and breaking down the barrier into the Old Republic once and for all. The call was brief, but this is what I’ve learned.

CARTEL COINS – A NEW SORT OF CURRENCY
All F2P games wind up with some sort of RMT currency, and SWTOR’s will be “Cartel Coins”. Basically, all subscribers (still at $15 a month after the conversion) will receive a not-yet-set cache of coins to spend on goods each month, while free players will have to open up their wallets to get some bank in this new type of intergalactic money. I asked the guys what sorts of stuff CC will buy, knowing just how terrified we all are of Pay-to-Win models, and they assured me they have been paying close attention to what’s okay business practice with RMT and what’s not. Essentially, Cartel Coins will buy a few things: actual in-game content (beyond the 1-50 experience that comes with the game now), vanity items, and convenience items (bank slots, bag slots, character slots, etc). There will be nothing you can buy with CC that will give you an advantage over other players in a competitive arena.

CONTENT UPDATES ON AN AGGRESSIVE SCHEDULE
One of the chief things Jeff and Matt expect folks to spend money on if they’re not subscribed (subscribers will always receive every bit of new content, regardless of CC) are content updates. They plan on releasing these every six weeks, and they’ll include different sorts of content each time: warzones, operations, public events, and so on (even a mix of all three might be possible). And while there’s no set price point for each update, they plan to break it down into different options enough so that PVP folks can focus on buying the content they want, and dungeon folks can focus on what they want, while others can buy everything in one package if they want as well. Again the goal with this model, they stress, is to give options to everyone and to open the game up to get the most people playing.
MAKEB AND OTHER CONTENT = FREE?
I asked Matt and Jeff then if the planned content we learned about at E3 would be some of the first “Content Updates” to be purchased, and they couldn’t go into much more detail than “yes and no”. For instance, HK51 is something they really want to get in the game sooner rather than later, while Makeb is further down the line. They also have a brand new event for all subscribers coming in August which is a public world event like the Rhakgoul Invasion. I asked if HK51 would then be free for everyone, if he came before the F2P launch, and Jeff said they really haven’t decided because they’re not even sure when he’s going to launch just yet. The goal is to work on the content and get it out as soon as they can, and if some comes after the F2P transition, then they’ll evaluate what is free and what is paid.

STAFFING AND CONTENT OUTPUT AS F2P?
I didn’t ask the guys directly about layoffs, as it’s a bit of a tough subject, but indirectly I asked how the transition to a F2P hybrid model is going to affect their staffing and their content output. Are they equipped to meet a seemingly more aggressive content push? Their answer was simple: any shift in staff they’ve made over the past few months has been to sort of rebuild the studio for this new F2P venture. They have more focused content teams in place now than they did before, and they’re more confident now that they can meet their goals with this altered approach.
DOES BIOWARE THINK F2P IS THE FUTURE?
I then asked Jeff and Matt if they knew now, what they had known then about the MMO market in the West, would SWTOR have been built as a F2P game to begin with? Their answer, in so many words was yes. They freely admitted that hindsight is 20/20, and that they were wrong in predicting the sub model would be perfect for SWTOR, because such things are difficult to gauge over the long multi-year pre-launch lifespan of a project as massive as an MMORPG. Both gentlemen agreed that they see the F2P and hybrid models as the way the market is going, and they feel that this change for SWTOR is reactive and timely to change now rather than later. Matt said, “We’re reacting because the players want it this way. There are folks who have been telling us they want it F2P since trying it, since buying it, and they see the subscription as a needless barrier… and we agree. In general, consumers today want flexibility and we’re going to give it to them.”
DID BIOWARE LOOK TO OTHERS FOR GUIDANCE?
When I asked the gents whether they looked at companies like SOE, Turbine, and so forth for guidance on how to make this transition, the answer was simply: “Of course.” But they also said they’re being very careful in making sure that they take the good things others have learned before them, while still realizing that SWTOR has things which make it unique and can’t be translated as blankly. They feel the content updates are a perfect way to entice folks to either a.) subscribe if they want it all or b.)buy some Cartel Coins if they just want a little bit here or there. They also want to make sure the entire base game is playable from 1-50, so all classes and story content are free to everyone. The idea is that they hope folks want to spend money on the cosmetic additions, the new content, and convenience stuff to supplement their experience.

BEST THING OF F2P AND WORST THING OF F2P?
Lastly, I tossed the guys an easy one in what’s likely to be a very up and down week-long news cycle. I asked them to tell me the best part they see when it comes to transitioning to F2P and also the hardest or worst part. The best was a clear choice: they’re finally going to be able to tell everyone that the game’s wide open and waiting to be explored. When the F2P version launches, there will be no more barrier of entry to get in and explore the continuation of the Old Republic mythos. The worst part? The not so easy part? It’s a whole lot of work changing the entire game’s business model around. Both on the back end, out front where the players see and interact with it, and in the development cycles they are now going to be working with. But Jeff and Matt both sound superbly optimistic that when the dust settles on the announcement and all is said and done… Star Wars: The Old Republic will be better off and so will the players.

[chaos5061]

SWTOR Free to Play November 15
We finally have a date for SWTOR's new free to play option! The developers also released more details about the perks for subscribers and how Cartel Coins will work.Darthhater has all of the details.

The developers also mentioned two rules they put in to place when developing the free to play option:

• Players can reach level 50 without paying a cent, if so desired.
• Subscribers should not experience any degradation of their gameplay experience. In no way will subscribers feel the need to make purchases from the Cartel Market in order to be competitive in the game. (Subscribers will get a small amount of free Cartel Coins as a bonus!)

[chaos5061]

You can reach level 50 but you can't have a 3rd Action Bar without paying for it. LOL.