SWTOR Info

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Today we are releasing our first major Game Update, Rise of the Rakghouls. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has had a very successful launch, but we know our work has only begun. We want you, our fans, to know that we’ll continue expanding and exploring the galaxy, ensuring it’s a place where new adventures are constantly unfolding.

Both high and low level players will discover new content and game systems waiting for them in this Game Update. Our goal is to provide something exciting for every type of player in the game: PVP players, Flashpoint fans, Guild members, space combat aces and role-players.

This first Game Update will show everyone how serious we are about expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic, and there’s much more to come. We have another major update planned for March and future content arriving throughout 2012 and 2013. We plan to release new Operations, Flashpoints, Warzones, Space Missions, single player content, vehicles, and companion characters. We’ll always be improving our existing game with additions like guild banks, PVP ranked matches and interface customization. Our Legacy system expands in March, bringing more options and a new level of depth to the existing character classes.

Our Game Updates will also include bug fixes, balance changes, performance improvements and exploit-proofing based on your feedback. We review reports from the community every day and compare them to gameplay metrics, QA bugs and our own experiences in the live game—where we’re playing right alongside you. Although we already address critical issues during our weekly updates, the major Game Updates will implement some of the most sweeping changes and fixes.

Expect a few surprises between these Game Updates, too. You never know when the Republic might strike Dromund Kaas, if a mysterious alien fleet could appear in the Core Worlds… or when the Rakghoul plague of Taris might infect the rest of the Galaxy. Changes are coming, and they’ll affect everyone.

We fully intend to support Star Wars: The Old Republic—and our players—for many years to come.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Hi folks,

Just in case you missed it, we added the following to the Known Issues thread earlier today:

Anti-aliasing is currently disabled for ATI 6900 series graphics cards.
Holograms will disappear during conversations if players modify their preferences to turn off bloom while anti-aliasing is on.


To give you all some more insight, the ATI issue is due to a severe graphical glitch and we are in discussions with ATI to resolve this. Thank you for your patience.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Hello everyone; I wanted to update you on the issues we’ve been seeing today on the live servers, specifically within the Open World PvP area on Ilum. We’re aware that on some servers, either Republic or Empire groups have been capturing the Ilum control points, entering the enemy’s base and ‘camping’ the medcenters, preventing the opposite faction from leaving their base to recapture control points. This is not a fair or balanced gameplay experience and can also severely affect client performance, so we’re taking steps to address this.

Our intended design for Ilum Open World PvP is that players are instantly killed when entering the enemy’s base safe area, just like in Warzones, and that the defending faction can take taxis to other points within the zone. As of Game Update 1.1, this is not working as intended. We have found the issue preventing this from happening under server load and will be publishing an Emergency Patch to address the issue. We’re aiming to have this patch published early tomorrow morning (January 19th, 5 AM US CST).

In addition to these changes, we’ll be reducing the population cap on Ilum. This should help increase performance by requiring your client to render fewer characters on-screen at once.

Regarding Valor gains, with the 1.1 update, players now receive a base reward of 20 Valor per unique enemy player defeated in a short time, and this base reward is modified by the number of objectives that the player’s faction owns. The gains are rate limited per player killed, encouraging players to attack unique players, not to pursue vendettas. The Valor gains players can see over time will vary greatly depending on the activity level in the zone. This is expected.

To dispel a couple of rumors that have been seen today – there is no Valor gain from destroying turrets within enemy bases, and none from killing NPCs.

We encourage players to avoid Ilum until our patch is deployed. As a temporary measure we will be disabling taxi services which would normally take players into the Open World PvP area. However, players will still be able to taxi out of the area.

We will continue to monitor Ilum across all servers and will make further changes to gameplay if required. We welcome your feedback here on the Forums, but please ensure your feedback is constructive and specific. Feedback based on rumor does not help us isolate potential issues.

Update: Please see Associate Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez's update below:

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to be clear and let you all know that we’re definitely aware of individuals who took extreme advantage of this situation and we will be carefully evaluating and taking action as necessary.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Please be advised that the servers will be unavailable beginning at 5AM CST (3AM PST/ 6AM EST/ 11AM GMT/ 12PM CET) as we deploy a new patch. This deployment will fix a few high priority issues in the game. We expect the service to be available again by 10AM CST (8AM PST/ 11AM EST/ 4PM GMT/ 5PM CET). Please watch this thread for updates and information as they become available.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
We would like to thank each and every one of you for helping to make Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ one of the most successful MMO launches of all time. To show our appreciation, from now through March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST, we are rewarding early members of The Old Republic community with a unique Founder’s medal* and title.

So how do you earn the “Founder” title? This reward is only available to players who have completed either one of the following transactions (by March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST; Pacific: March 18th, 9:01PM PST; European: 4:01AM GMT, 5:01AM CET):

Billed at least once for an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription

OR

Redeemed a Star Wars: The Old Republic Pre-Paid Game Time Code

Once you become eligible for the title and have surpassed your 30 days of game time included with your official Game Product Registration Code, you will be notified by email. The Founder’s medal will be delivered to all your characters through in-game mail. From the in-game mail, simply right-clicking on the medal to unlock the “Founder” title to your character. This title is permanently bound to your account and will carry over to any character you make in the future. (NOTE: It may take up to 7 days for the “Founder” title to be applied).

TIP: You can choose to show the Founder’s title or any other title you’ve earned in-game by opening your character sheet and selecting a title from the character name drop down. Once applied, the title will show next to your character name on your nameplate.

If you haven’t picked up the game yet or need to purchase a Pre-Paid Game Time Code, be sure to purchase one now! To redeem your Game Time Code, visit the Code Redemption Center. Finally, to sign up for a recurring subscription, log in to www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com and visit “My Accounts > Subscription.” Star Wars: The Old Republic has three recurring subscription plans:

1 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 30 days): $14.99 per month (£8.99/€12.99)
3 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 90 days): $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
6 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 180 days): $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

For more information about how to unlock the exclusive Founder’s Medal and title, visit the Rewards page.

*OFFER EXPIRES MARCH 19, 2012 AT 12:01AM EST; MARCH 18, 2012 AT 9:01PM PST; MARCH 19, 2012 AT 4:01AM GMT; MARCH 19, 2012 AT 5:01AM CET. GOOD ONLY FOR PURCHASES OF STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ WITH REDEMPTION OF A PURCHASED GAME TIME CODE OR BILLING OF AN ACTIVE GAME RECURRING SUBSCRIPTION WITH AN APPROVED PAYMENT METHOD. VALID WHEREVER GAME IS SOLD. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED, TAXED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. CUSTOMERS WILL ACCESS THE ITEM IN-GAME. VIRTUAL ITEM ONLY. ITEM WILL BE APPLIED TO ALL CHARACTERS UNDER USER’S ACCOUNT. PLEASE ALLOW 7 DAYS FOR NOTIFICATION OF DELIVERABLES.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
See what you have to look forward to in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™! This new video highlights just some of the new content and game systems coming out over the coming months, including a look at the expanded Legacy system, UI customization, and information on new Warzones and Flashpoints!

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Intermittent Flickering Since Patch
Hi everyone, thanks for raising awareness about this issue. We have escalated this internally and we are looking actively for a resolution. We should have something soon. Thanks for your patience.

[chaos5061]

Ability Delay Update

From Bioware:
Hi everyone; I wanted to give you all an update on the ability delay situation.

Thanks to constructive feedback from the community, including some great videos, we were able to identify an issue that could cause abilities on global cooldown to appear available to the player, resulting in unresponsive/ignored player input. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Additionally, we have located an issue that would cause player input for certain instant abilities to fail in frantic combat situations, resulting in unpredictable and frustrating gameplay issues for the affected player. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Finally, our engineers have identified an issue introducing a significant delay between player input and ability execution in certain game situations, most notably (but not limited to) fast paced PvP. The magnitude of the delay varies with a number of factors, including processor hardware, but can, especially on dual core CPUs, result in a very perceivable reduction in game responsiveness. We are in the later stages of testing a fix for the problem and hope to be able to roll it out to the servers very soon.

We're still investigating a number of additional issues, along with some usability and quality of life improvements for responsiveness regarding player input, but the above mentioned developments should provide a very measurable improvement in combat responsiveness.

Thanks again for your patience and support and we hope to see you on the public test server to help us validate these improvements before pushing them to the live servers.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
After Game Update 1.1 went live, we discovered that the Open World PvP area on Ilum was not working as our PvP design team intended. As many of you know, large groups of players began capturing the Ilum control points, then 'camping' at the enemy's base. This led to a very frustrating experience for a number of players who were unable to leave their base and fight back against their attackers. It was not a fair gameplay experience. In addition, some players on the attacking side gained more Valor points than designed for the time they spent in PvP.

The amount of Valor granted from these activities was significantly more than intended and we are now carefully investigating players who were on Ilum during this period, and present at some of these 'camping' events. I can reassure you that those who were involved and who gained an unfair advantage over other players inappropriately will be carefully reviewed and action will be taken to restore game balance. This could include Valor adjustments or account actions in accordance with the severity of the issue.

We have made the decision not to enact a mass 'rollback' of Valor points for all players in the game, or even on Ilum. This would unfairly penalize some players who may not have been present during this event. Rest assured though, anyone and everyone who is found to have exploited the situation to an unreasonable degree will be investigated and actions taken as needed. Our in-game metrics are able to give us precise details on where players were, what they were doing and what rewards they gained.

We take any sort of situation where one group of players gains an unexpected or unintended advantage over other players very seriously and will act to ensure that all players can have a fair and fun game experience.

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue. Our team worked diligently to get a patch ready to address this and other issues, and we're already seeing the results in improved battles on Ilum. As always we welcome your feedback and will continue to improve moving forward!

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for six hours on January 24th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 8AM CST (6AM PST/9AM EST/2PM GMT/3PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than six hours, but could be extended.

For our new players, this weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will a patch to download. Please be sure to update your launcher after any maintenance period.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 8AM CST (6AM PST/9AM EST/2PM GMT/3PM CET)

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

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

[chaos5061]

Public Test Notes 1.1.1

From Bioware:
Star Wars: The Old Republic - 1.1.1 Patch Notes


Note: 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.


Classes and Combat


General

Fixed a bug that could cause the Global Cooldown to appear as if it has been cancelled when it is actually still in effect, resulting in a feeling of unresponsiveness to input.
Corrected an issue that could cause an ability icon to appear usable but be unresponsive to clicks or keypresses for several seconds.
Players revived by other players, including by in-combat revival abilities, now revive with 25% of maximum health.



Jedi Knight


Guardian

Freezing Force: Now correctly lasts 9 seconds (up from 6 seconds).


Jedi Consular


Sage

Mental Alacrity: Now correctly costs no Force to activate.
Salvation: No longer heals targets twice on application. It now correctly heals all affected targets once when applied.


Smuggler


Scoundrel

Flechette Round: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
K.O.: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
Shoot First: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.


Imperial Agent


Operative

Acid Blade: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
Jarring Strike: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
Hidden Strike: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.


Bounty Hunter


Mercenary

Sweeping Blasters can now be made free with Thermal Sensor Override.


Powertech

Oil Slick now correctly costs no heat to activate.



Flashpoints and Operations



Flashpoints


Directive 7

Bulwark’s Area of Effect cone abilities now properly fire in the direction Bulwark is facing.
Some of Bulwark’s abilities were incorrectly susceptible to interruption. Bulwark is now immune to interrupts.


The False Emperor

Fixed a conversation that could cause the cinematic with Arkis Wode to function incorrectly.


The Foundry

Fixed an issue that could prevent the final fight in this Flashpoint from beginning after the cinematic.
The final boss can no longer become stuck in an invulnerable state; there was still a small window where this could occur.


The Red Reaper

Lord Kherus now grants less experience.
Some of Lord Kherus’s abilities have had their damage values adjusted to be more in line with the level of the Flashpoint.
Players now enter into melee range with Lord Kherus in order to stop him from throwing crates.


Operations


Eternity Vault

Players no longer randomly die in this Operation after being in Gharj’s lava.


Karagga’s Palace

Foreman Crusher’s enrage now includes a movement speed increase, allowing him to catch players who attempt to run.
Fixed an issue that prevented the Materials Disposal Unit’s main control station from becoming useable again after the Operation Group is defeated by the G4
B3 Heavy Fabricator on 16
man Hard Mode.
Fixed an issue that prevented the G4
B3 Heavy Fabricator from deploying the correct number of Proximity Pulse Mines and Security Stun Drones during combat.
Karagga no longer snaps up above portions of the walls during combat.


Bug Fixes


General

Fixed an issue that prevented some players in Operations Groups from receiving credit for the missions “[WEEKLY] Deadly Operations,” “[WEEKLY] Galactic Operations,” and “Journey to the Belsavis Depths.” The entire Operations Group now receives credit when the objective is completed.



Items


Bug Fixes

Comparative tooltips for researched items no longer have their stats reversed.



Missions and NPCs


Missions


Imperial

Number One with a Bullet: Corrected an issue that prevented Bounty Hunters from leaving The Founder.
The Eagle’s Nest: The Assassin’s Fortress mission is now correctly a prerequisite for this mission.
The Mandalorian Killer: Thendys Noori no longer continues to heal Kellian Jarro after she has surrendered.


Republic

Death Spiral: Fixed an issue that prevented Jedi Knights who completed the Commander Rayfel encounter from using the shuttle back to Belsavis Orbital Station.



PvP


Warzones

Fixed an issue that could prevent players from receiving mission rewards for completing Warzones.



Space Combat


General

Added two daily mission commendations to the high
level space dailies Operation Ascendant Pride (Imperial) and Operation New Eclipse (Republic).



UI


General

Attempting to loot an item in a group when the Master Looter is off
planet now generates an error message.


Bug Fixes

The leader of an Operations Group will no longer receive an incorrect message informing them that their companion has been dismissed.



Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Special items related to different editions of the game have been re
sent if they were deleted by the mail system prior to being claimed.

[chaos5061]

1.1.0b Patch Notes

From Bioware:
1.1.0b Patch Notes - 1/24/2012

General

Implemented optimizations to improve performance on Republic and Imperial Fleets.


Classes and Combat

Significantly improved the delay when activating player abilities, particularly when in lower framerate situations. This allows for improved ability responsiveness in hectic combat situations.


Operations


General
Operations will no longer allow more than 16 Operations Group members to enter concurrently.

Karagga's Palace
Operations Groups will no longer be forced to reset the Operation if the group wipes when attempting to defeat G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator.
Fixed an exploit that would allow players to repeatedly loot the chest after defeating Jarg and Sorno.


Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that could cause graphical inconsistencies, which most often manifested as random screen "flickering."

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:

Originally Posted by Kyromoo
So, if the workbenches are completely unneeded....WHY did we have one added to the supplies area of the fleet in a patch?

To confuse you?

Okay, maybe not just that. Maybe we have plans for those benches...

[chaos5061]

Public Test Notes 1.1.1 1-25-12

From Bioware:
The following notes were added with the patch on January 25th:


Flashpoints and Operations


Operations


Karagga’s Palace

The damage from G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator's sticky pulse grenade will scale appropriately for the selected Operation difficulty level.
Karagga no longer fires his Unstable Energy twice in a row.
Taking the shuttle after defeating Karagga no longer transports players to the incorrect hangar.
Walls that were missing in Karagga’s Palace are now in place.


Missions and NPCs


Missions


Imperial

Declaration of War: The mission will now progress as intended when players interact with their ship’s holoterminal.
Reallocation: The final mission conversation will now begin as intended when players interact with their ship’s holoterminal.

NPCs


Bug Fixes

Kintan Behemoths no longer occasionally walk on top of trees when in combat.