SWTOR Info

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
1.1.2a Patch Notes — 2/9/2012
PvP
Ilum
Killing players on Ilum will now consistently grant Valor and mission credit as intended.

[chaos5061]

1.1.3 PTS Notes

From Bioware:
Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ - 1.1.3 Patch Notes


Note: 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.

Classes and Combat


General

Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.


Bounty Hunter


Mercenary


Arsenal

Stabilizers: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Unload.

Trooper


Commando


Gunnery

Steadied Aim: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Full Auto.


Companion Characters


General

Some taxis that failed to re-summon companions upon reaching their destination now properly re-summon them.
Companions no longer indicate they wish to speak with you when you are not yet eligible for their next conversation.
If a player is invited to a nearly full group and declines, that player is no longer prevented from summoning a companion.


Crew Skills


Crafting Skills

Non-stackable crafting materials are now refunded if the crafting assignment is canceled.
The number of non-stackable crafting materials a player has is now correctly reflected in the crafting UI.


Biochem

Crafting Exotech consumables now results in three items with a chance of one additional item on a crafting critical.


Flashpoints and Operations


General

Conversation rewards like Social and Alignment Points and Companion Affection are gained more consistently during Hard Mode Flashpoints.


Flashpoints


Boarding Party

In Hard Mode, players are no longer blocked from re-entering the Flashpoint in some circumstances when the group is defeated during the encounter with Jorland.


Kaon Under Siege

Expulsor Droid now drops the correct loot.

Operations


Karagga’s Palace

The chest in 8-man Nightmare Mode now spawns properly after defeating Karagga.


Items


General

Unique items can no longer be traded to a player that has the maximum number of that item in their inventory.
A confirmation dialog is now displayed when purchasing items with commendations or tokens and when purchasing expensive items.


Legacy

A confirmation dialog is now displayed when choosing a Legacy name. The UI has been updated to better communicate Legacy name decisions.



Missions and NPCs


General

Small amounts of Social Points are no longer lost in some circumstances (rarely at the beginning of a Flashpoint or in some mission conversations).
Bonus Series missions on Tatooine (Republic and Imperial) can now be abandoned.


Missions


Imperial

Eve of Destruction: This mission progresses properly even if the player does not immediately travel to Corellia.


Republic

Need to Impress: Resolved a dialogue issue with Ambassador Jannik that blocked progress in this mission.
Rapid Response: This mission can now be failed if the player leaves the mission phase while attempting to destroy the Bomb-Carrying Droids.
Taris Bonus Series: The cinematic for the objective "Return to Storm" now completes properly even if the player has not finished Reconstruction Efforts.


PvP


General

Fixed an issue causing players to not receive Warzone Win mission credit upon winning a Warzone match when the first player to enter the zone leaves the zone before the match concludes.



World PvP


Ilum

Players are now notified when they kill a player but do not receive credit due to rate limits.


Miscellaneous Bug Fixes (You know I think these two would be the most important. -chaos5061)

Players are no longer occasionally disconnected from the game when interacting with a mailbox.
Players no longer lose mouse click functionality in some circumstances after pressing multiple mouse buttons.

[chaos5061]

Weekly Q&A 2-10-12

Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers! We had planned on answering 10 questions but in the end, got 15 answered by various members of the team. 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 CST on February 14th (8pm GMT/9pm CET). 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!(For those of you wondering where the Dev Tracker Summary blog is, we decided to move it out to Mondays going forward. Look for it then!)

Alkapwn: Could you elaborate about what specific benefits the Legacy will offer? I know that I am not alone in the fact of putting off making an alt (and hence losing out on gameplay) because I wish to know what kind of character creation options will be available. All we have to go on now is "The legacy system will unlock new character creation options, including new species." Does this mean species that have been unavailable for that specific class, or that have been unavailable to play in the game as a whole?

Daniel Erickson: Game Update 1.2 will bring you the first big step in the Legacy System but it’s important to understand that the Legacy System will continue to grow, bringing new options to new characters (alts) and some fun options for elder game players as well. Legacy is definitely not just for new characters! The species that will be unlocked in Game Update 1.2 are species currently in the game that will become available to classes and factions where you haven’t seen them before. New species are in consideration for the future but we don’t have any details to share right now. Look for more specific details in the near future as we head toward Game Update 1.2.

Jeunedorsk: What will happen in the future for PvP (Ilum, new Warzones ?)

Daniel Erickson: We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how popular PvP is in The Old Republic and we’ve been doubling down on our efforts to bring exciting new content and systems to the PvP community. Right now there’s a new Warzone planned for Game Update 1.2 which we’re already testing internally and really enjoying. We can say it’s enabled for same faction vs. same faction play, so if you’ve been playing a lot of Huttball, expect some variety soon! Also coming in 1.2 is the pre-season of our Warzone ranking system, bringing better matchmaking which means better PvP. In the future expect a ton more PvP news as we expand and polish what has proven to be one of the most popular aspects of The Old Republic. We’ve got big plans.

AeonKwiz: Are you planning on adding Social Gear for Medium and Heavy Armor characters?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect to see the first new gear coming in Game Update 1.2 and some dramatic changes to the social gear system just around the corner afterward.

MrGerbz: What kind of measures will you take to improve the community, population, and faction balance of each server?

Daniel Erickson: Faction balance is always a concern and something we watch carefully across all servers. It’s also something you can never fully account for programmatically as it is different on each server. We have many servers where the differences are small enough to be negligible and then others where either the Empire or the Republic has a huge numbers advantage. The Legacy System will take some first steps towards incentivizing players to look at what the other side has to offer and we will continue watching the most extreme servers to see if additional steps are needed.

Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility?

Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates.

DarthNhiilus: Are you going to implement housing and guild features (like guild banks, guild ships)?

Daniel Erickson: Guild banks are coming in Game Update 1.2 and like PvP, guild features are a priority for the development team with a strike team focused on nothing but top guild concerns and requests. Guild capital ships are a huge undertaking, though, so expect to see more quality of life style guild features roll out before you and your allies start building your destroyer....

Seltron: What is the preferred method for providing feedback to the development team, and why (e.g. In-game tickets, forums, support@swtor.com)?

Stephen Reid: Every method of feedback you mention will ultimately make its way to the development team; we get feedback from everywhere (including off-site sources such as Twitter, Facebook, fansites, podcasts and the like). In-game metrics are also always being gathered and analyzed, so that essentially ‘passive feedback’ is given by players every time they log in. With that said, the Forums are always a good starting place for feedback; everything is read (even if we don’t always immediately respond to threads) and the Community team regularly reports out player concerns and thoughts. As always, the more constructive your feedback is, the better for the development team.

Venomlash: I was excited as anyone about the Magenta Adegan crystals, but I'm not a huge fan of magenta. Will there be more rare items of this nature?

Daniel Erickson: Absolutely. In the near future expect to see not just rare items but limited availability items, more treasure hunts and some big surprises for the community to discover and work together to figure out.

Buddytonto: When you made the blog post about the balancing act of what to fix, what to balance, and when; got me thinking about how the items are prioritized, as it didn't really explain that?

Daniel Erickson: How we prioritize bugs is a complicated question and one that can be maddening from a player point of view. The answer is as complicated as the question but I can give a high level view. First comes anything that blocks the critical path of a class story for any reason. If you can’t progress, your game comes to a screeching halt so that always takes precedence. Next is the question: how many people are being affected and what is the damage being done? Half the population being slightly irritated loses in priority to ten percent of the population having their game crippled, for example. The last consideration, and the most opaque to players, is how hard the bug is to fix. There are fixes that look complicated and are nothing more than a database entry that went rogue. There are fixes that look easy and take months of untangling code. What we can promise is that we never ignore bugs or decide something is good enough as-is.

Aurozia: Will there be a dual specialization system in the future? Will there be a possibility of changing advance classes as well?

Daniel Erickson: We have no plans for switching advanced classes - which we see as fundamentally different class designs- but dual spec is in the works and coming soon.

NommNomm: Are you still planning on giving us an option to make our chest item colors match the rest of our armor?

Daniel Erickson: The new and vastly improved ‘Hue to Chest’ system launches with Game Update 1.2 and there are more customization and quality of life improvements along those lines hot on its heels.

USLeatherneck: Will Bioware implement Target of Target (including a visible cast bar above the portraits) in the new UI?

Gabe Amatangelo: Yes. Target of Target on primary target and party frames will be part of Game Update 1.2. Primary target already has a visible casting bar on live right now. In Game Update 1.2 target of target frames will have visible casting bars as well. Additionally, there will be various customization features in all of those frames (e.g. repositioning).

Annexes: In the EU our keyboards are a little different than in the US, and I´m wondering if you guys are going to make the "bug report" shortcut key unbindable?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! This will be addressed in a weekly patch in the very near future.

Simoon: Will you be adding the option to choose what Warzone you enter a queue for?

Gabe Amatangelo: Not until we introduce cross server queuing. If we were to allow players to choose their Warzone before they could queue across servers, then it would negatively affect how often every player would see a Warzone – and for every player that loves a certain Warzone there is another player that hates it. The population would end up divided by their Warzone choice, negatively affecting the time it would take for a specific Warzone to become available for anyone. With cross server queuing we will still have a preference to match players of the same server, but those players who choose specific preferences such as these will likely end up in a match with players in the larger Wargroup.

Many people asked: How are you planning on expanding the endgame experience?

Gabe Amatangelo: We are going to continue to introduce new Flashpoints, Warzones, and Operations on a regular basis. The story line will continue with all of the above as well as in solo-able missions. We will continue to evolve Crew Skills and crafting. We’ll be introducing the Legacy System soon, as Daniel mentioned. Additionally, we have exciting PvP features planned, the first of which includes pre-season Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.2.

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

[chaos5061]

Some UI changes incoming.

From Bioware:
This week several user interface changes were made as part of patch 1.1.2, including some that changed the look of the 'global cooldown' animations. 'Global cooldown' is the delay after an ability is used before other abilities can be used. As the global cooldown can affect many abilities at once, the animation is seen frequently and for some, the changes made were distracting.

Our UI team took this feedback to heart and worked up a solution which gives every player a lot more choices in how cooldown animations are displayed. If you're happy with the way the game currently looks, you can ignore these changes - but we think some of these preferences will be welcomed by many players.

Currently, these new preferences are scheduled to be added to the game in patch 1.1.4, which should be available for preview on the Public Test Server next week and deploying to the live servers soon afterwards.

Here's a screenshot of the new portion of the User Interface section of the Preferences menu which deals with cooldown settings, and some details on the options available to you.



Show Ready Flash: This option, when selected, will show the bright flash when an ability finishes cooldown.

Show Global Cooldown Ready Flash: This option, when selected, will show the bright flash when an ability finishes its global cooldown.

Show Cooldown Text: This option, when selected, will show the time remaining on a cooldown as an overlay on the ability icon.

Cooldown/Global Cooldown Style: This option allows you to select from four different art styles for the cooldown and global cooldown graphics. The tooltip for this option explains what the different styles look like (see screen below).



Cooldown Text Size: This option adjusts the font size of the cooldown text that's used as an overlay on the ability icon.

Show Tenths of a Second: This option adjusts the threshold for when the game starts to show tenths of a second on the cooldown overlay text.

To show a few of these options in action, we created a short video. Here you'll see the cooldown animations in a combat sequence featuring a Level 30 Smuggler; we've filmed two versions of the cooldowns so you can see the differences.

Hopefully you can agree with these new preferences you'll have a whole lot more flexibility in choosing your cooldown options and can find a style that you prefer. Again, we expect to deploy these changes to the live game in patch 1.1.4, and you'll be able to preview that patch on the Public Test Server soon. Expect to see many more UI customization options in Game Update 1.2 as well!

[chaos5061]

Video was added to the last post.

[chaos5061]

Patch 1.1.4 later today on PTS.

[chaos5061]

1.1.4 PTS Notes

From Bioware:
Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ - 1.1.4 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

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.


Flashpoints and Operations


Operations


Eternity Vault

Casting Mind Trap will no longer cause Soa to lose threat against his primary target.


Karagga’s Palace

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator now has fewer hit points in Normal Mode.


Items


Vendors

“Show Usable” now properly filters to only show equipable items.


Missions and NPCs


Missions


Republic

Unlikely Allies: Resetting no longer requires players to abandon and re-acquire the mission in order to complete it.


PvP


Warzones


General

Fixed a queue interface exploit that allowed players to bring additional players into a warzone. While imbalances can still happen under specific circumstances, the issue can no longer be intentionally triggered by players in this way. *UPDATED*


Alderaan Civil War

The Eastern Turret no longer fires twice under some circumstances when it is captured by the Imperials.


UI


General

Added a /version command.
Added several new preferences for cooldown appearance:
Show Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes cooldown.
Show Global Cooldown Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes global cooldown.
Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the cooldown graphic.
Global Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the global cooldown graphic.
Show Cooldown Timer: Toggles cooldown time text on top of the ability icon in the quickbar.


Bug Fixes

Sorting will now function properly in the Guild Window.
Items placed in a quickbar are no longer removed when training abilities.
Using Shift + Right Click to split a stack of usable items will no longer cause the item to be used.


Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Players will no longer experience occasional disconnection when purchasing Crafting Materials from the GTN.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for seven hours on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than seven 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 be a patch to download. 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.


Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET)


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

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

[chaos5061]

Weekly Q&A 2

From Bioware:
It’s that time again! Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers. Once again, we had planned on answering 10 questions but in the end, got 12 answered by various members of the team. 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 CST on February 21st (8pm GMT/9pm CET). 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!



DarthBelkar: Can we look forward to server-wide special seasonal / short-term events?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect them to fit into the world and setting, involve a fair bit of discovery, and offer special rewards that will be there one day and then gone forever. And expect them soon.



Darthinfimus: Do you plan to implement a /roll or /random command for use in master looter situations?

Damion Schubert: Diceslingers of the world rejoice! /roll has already been implemented on our internal development servers and should be coming to you guys Real Soon Now (in an upcoming weekly patch).



Relayinabox: Are there any plans for a show/hide companion headgear option?

Damion Schubert: Yep, we have plans. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but is currently in the works.



NiklasWB: When will you make it possible for Force-using characters to pull up/down their hoods on their robes?

Damion Schubert: This is in the works now. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but should get done in the next major update after that. And yes, we will extend this functionality to your Force-slinging companions as well.



ehlnofey: Will there be any changes/improvements made to the Galactic Trade Network system, and when will it be implemented?”

Damion Schubert: We know that the GTN needs a lot of love, and work is currently underway to improve this. Watch this space for more news!



GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline.

Damion Schubert: Let's just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills - it's almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn't it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor.



Bobonar: Will we be able to take the modifications out of our endgame pvp-sets and put them into a set that we like better (design-wise) and keep the bonuses?

Emmanuel Lusinchi: Yes, the set bonus will be carried by Armoring mods that work just like regular mods except that they only fit into specific types of items, such as chest items or boots items. So, for example, the set bonus from a chest piece can be moved to another chest piece, and the set bonus from a helmet can be moved to another helmet.



HollowPoint: There has been a large push in the community for chat bubbles, especially with a toggle option for those who don't want them. Is a chat bubble system in the works? If so, when can we expect it to be implemented?

Damion Schubert: They're definitely on the list. We’ve got many active roleplayers in the dev team and chat bubbles have always been important to us. We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. They’ll be coming soon, but in priority, the GUI team is focused first on GUI customization. I'll have a better idea of timing once we get past that. And yes, for people who hate them, whenever we do them, they'll be toggleable.



RuQu: Can you provide some details on Healer class design philosophy? Commando/Scoundrel AoE does not scale with group size due to player caps. Are they not intended to fill the raid-healer role? Scoundrels can be highly efficient, but have no tools for doing a short burst of healing.

In short, what is the design intention for each of the healers, and is it intended for them to be balanced so that any possible combination is competitive in Operations, or is a certain mix expected?

Georg Zoeller: Our stance is that all full healer specs should be viable for all type of content, which is the case, even for 16 man Operations. Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. It is expected for certain Operations bosses to create challenges for different healer archetypes (e.g. due to mobility requirements), but overall, every healer archetype is capable of successfully healing through any Operations and Flashpoint content in the game (currently and in the future).

With regards to your question about Commando/Scoundrel Area of Effect healing not scaling to group size, please understand that no heal, on any class, scales with group size. The most powerful Area of Effect heals in the game (Salvation/Revivification) affects up to 8 players, but does not scale with group size. These abilities are very costly, have an activation time requirement and require the targets to stand in a localized area for ten seconds to receive the full benefit. We plan on improving the overall Area of Effect healing performance of the Mercenary/Commando in the next major Game Update (1.2) by increasing the number of targets affected by Kolto Missile/Kolto Bomb.

As for Scoundrels having no tools for short burst healing, we don’t agree with that assessment. A scoundrel, for example, is capable of producing rather significant burst healing output by using Upper Hand gained from Underworld Medicine or Kolto Injection to trigger an instant Emergency Medpack or Surgical probe when needed. That said, we certainly think there’s room for improvements (and our upcoming Game Update 1.2 has a sizeable chunk of such improvements). For example, we are shifting the healing created by the Kolto Cloud ability to be front loaded in 1.2 to allow it to act as an emergency Area of Effect healing tool.

Finally, the perception of a specific class being not desirable can also be affected by the desirability of other classes. For example, Sage/Inquisitor healers are currently able to exceed our intended healing performance at times by affecting multiple heals with the same Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Game Update 1.2 will remove the ability to do so.



Fu-bear: Can you please confirm the exact mechanics behind Taunts? The tooltips purely state that it forces a mob to attack for X seconds, yet I've read reports that the skill appears to equalise threat like a traditional taunt. Can you clarify this?

Georg Zoeller: Taunts work in two ways. First, they instantly put you on top of the target’s threat list. Then, they place a short duration effect on the taunted target forcing them to attack you. Assuming that you then lose threat (say, you just stand there) the NPC will be forced to attack you for the duration of the Taunt. Afterwards, the AI will resume attacking targets based on threat order. If another Taunt is applied after yours, the most recently applied Taunt takes precedence.

Please note this is assuming regular threat rules – there are certain situations in the game, especially unique boss fights, which may cause NPCs to specifically ignore targets. In these cases, an ignored target will not be able to gain threat even with a taunt. In general, these situations are messaged to the player through effects on their buff bar – something we’re looking to make more visible in the future.



Gladoss, titdiscus, Leoran: What do you plan to against Warzones’ AFK, more particularly about players who leave Warzones ? Will there be sanctions for this type of behavior?

Gabe Amatangelo: It is not sanctioned behavior. In Game Update 1.2 we will be making changes to the Warzone rewards system, which will de-incentivize this type of behavior. This will include the removal of the interim bag/quest system, the introduction of the direct purchase of gear from Warzone and Ranked Warzone commendations, 14 new objective-based medals and participation scaling the rewards. Additionally, players will have the option to vote kick idlers. Kicked players will not be able to re-queue for several minutes.



Lexiekaboom: 16 man Operations are much harder than 8 man Operations (to the point where most guilds can easily clear hard mode 8 man before being able to clear 16 man easy mode) but there is no loot difference at all to doing them. It's better to send your 16 man raid force to clear two 8 man instances .Is this oversight or design? What will be done to offset this in the future?

Gabe Amatangelo: This is not per design. The teams have been addressing this in the weekly patches to some degree and more so in Game Update 1.2. It is intended that 16 player mode is slightly easier than 8 player mode due to the fact that getting and coordinating 16 players is a larger hurdle in and of itself.



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 Forums thread!

[chaos5061]

PTS 1.1.5

From Bioware:
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.


Flashpoints and Operations


Operations


General

Bosses in Operations now drop the correct amount of loot when the group is using the Master Looter loot distribution setting.


Eternity Vault

The "Duel of the Fates" and "Penalty of Destiny" effects are now properly removed when the Infernal Council encounter resets.


Items


General

New high-level black-yellow color crystals can now be purchased from the Pre-Order Vendors on the Imperial and Republic Fleets.
Several high end speeder models have been temporarily reduced in price until Game Update 1.2.
A vendor that sells a variety of previously unavailable endgame crystals has been added temporarily to the Imperial and Republic Fleets until Game Update 1.2.
The Portable Holo Dancer once again displays the correct visual effect.
Dark/Light requirements present on some color crystals have been removed.


Missions and NPCs


Missions


Republic

Chaos and Harmony: Corrected an issue that caused Children of the Emperor to disappear and reappear during the final boss fight, making the encounter more difficult that intended.


PvP


World PvP


Ilum

To improve Ilum performance, the two large defense turrets outside each base on the Western Shelf no longer fire lasers into the air.


UI


General

The Shader Complexity preference now supports a "Very Low" option.

[chaos5061]

Weekly Q&A 3

From Bioware:
It’s that time again! Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers. 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 CST on February 28th (8pm GMT/9pm CET). 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!



Chyp: Can we expect to see any animation/damage timing consistency changes between factions?

Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): Yes. The animation team has been working on a new set of animations for abilities like the Trooper's Mortar Volley to provide closer matching of animation timings and improved combat responsiveness. We expect to roll these changes out with Game Update 1.2.



Zennis: Has there been any discussion to streamlining the Space Port process? Perhaps allowing speeders in the Space Ports besides the Fleet?

Brian Audette (Senior Designer): We've absolutely heard what the fans are saying and have been exploring options to address these issues. While we are still investigating allowing speeder use in Space Ports, we've also been looking for other ways to get people from point A to point B with greater haste. One such feature will specifically affect planets that have Orbital Stations instead of Space Ports such as: Tython, Korriban, Hoth, and Belsavis. We'll be adding an option for players to go directly to their ships from the surface shuttles as opposed to having them run through the Orbital Station to their airlocks. This feature and some additional tweaks will start showing up in Game Update 1.2.



deusBAAL: Will you be providing a LFG tool? What will be its features? How will it be intended to work and when can we expect it to go live?

Daniel Erickson (Lead Writer): We are hard at work on a much more robust LFG functionality that will quickly help put groups together while still offering the flexibility to decide how you group and what sort of people you want to be grouped with. We’ll release more details as we get closer to release.



LthalSavy: Will there be any way to implement a quick travel to your ship?

Georg Zoeller: Not in the short term, but it's something we've been discussing on and off. Currently, given how easily available fleet travel passes are on the Security Vendor, we don't think adding this is necessary.



IsACoolGuy: Will any new emotes be added to the game? The Jedi/Sith meditation thing that NPCs do looks pretty cool, will emotes of that nature become available to players?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We do have some new emotes planned. Even cooler, we now have tech that allows us to grant emotes as rewards for various game systems. In Game Update 1.2, we have several emotes planned as unlocked rewards of the Legacy System. My favorite is the special dance that is so inspiring that your companion feels the urge to boogie down with you.



TrueDND: Currently, the incentive to choose other Crew Crafting Skills outside of Biochem is minimal due to the fact that, once you reach max level, all gear that is acquired through PvE and PvP is better than all crafted equipment and mods (mostly through the Commendation and token vendors). Is this being looked in to?

Georg Zoeller: Absolutely. With the upcoming Game Update 1.2, we are adding endgame crafting for all professions. This includes augment crafting, the ability to crit-craft custom (orange) gear with augment slots, new endgame schematics, new color crystals, expanded and improved research and reverse engineering and much more (we're up to 4 pages of crew skill related patch notes in 1.2. alone)

Combined with new features such as the ability to extract base-mods from purple items (including the set bonus) and the improved color matching feature, crafters of all professions will find themselves in a lot of demand once the update hits.



Toxin_Polaris: Do you plan to have mini-games like swoop races or pazaak? And if so what is the priority for this? Can we expect them this year?

Damion Schubert: We love mini-games, especially the ones that speak to the heritage of KOTOR. When would something like pazaak make its way to you? Hard to say - it's not on our immediate horizon, and we'd most likely do it at a point where we want to make a large splash.



Twaggy: I find it troublesome to compare mods/enhancements/armoring/hilts/crystals that are installed in my armor or lightsaber. Will you be implementing something that lets you see the stats of what you have (like the comparability you can do of the boots - boots or jacket - jacket)?

Georg Zoeller: This is a convenience feature on our list of things to look at once the higher priority UI features and community requests have been addressed. We definitely think it’s a good idea, but where it falls in terms of prioritization makes it impossible to give you an ETA at this point.



TheJestersHat: What is BioWare planning to do about performance issues that people get with Warzone, open world PVP, and general FPS issues?

Damion Schubert: We have an internal strike team that is fully devoted to ensuring that the game runs better and faster, especially on low end machines, and we consider this team's work to be a crucial internal initiative. You should see evidence of this work as soon as Patch 1.1.5, when we will be introducing a new 'very low' setting to shader quality, which should drastically increase the number of mid-to-low machines the game can run well on, especially in Warzones and Operations.



Frung: Have you considered adding a "companion" loot roll option?

Damion Schubert: We've discussed it and have a design for it - when we do this, we will make it so you can only roll 'need' on items that your advanced class is meant to use in one of its specs. I do not currently have an ETA on this feature.



Belthazaar: I like my ships but, I was wondering if or when we will be able to purchase, make, or steal a new and different ship beyond the one that we currently get from our class quest?

Damion Schubert: Unfortunately, the nature of our ships as central story areas for all of our class content, and all of the associated triggers and cinematics that must therefore be done on the ships, means that giving players new ship models, particularly interiors, is very, very hard for us. We will probably look at addressing this instead by providing a greater sense of ship customization at some point well in the future. But it’s someplace we definitely want to go!



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]

From Bioware:
Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four 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 be a patch to download. This week there will be no new patch, but we will be performing regular maintenance on our servers and on SWTOR.com.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This 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]

Oceanic Server Names and Launch Timing

From Bioware:
Good morning, or to those of you on the other side of the world, good morning... for tomorrow.

This week we officially launch Star Wars: The Old Republic in several new territories, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Lots of more information on all aspects of the launch will be released tomorrow in an update to our official FAQ, but as we've heard requests for server names and timing, we thought we'd give you those details a little earlier.

Here's our official launch timing. All servers will be online simultaneously at approx 5:01AM CST (Austin time), but with timezones straddling a date:

New Zealand: 12:01am NZDT (March 1st)
Australia: 10:01pm EDT (February 29th)
Singapore: 7:01pm SGT (February 29th)
Hong Kong: 7:01pm HKT (February 29th)

We'll be launching with three initial servers dedicated to these territories. As previously mentioned, these servers are physically located in Australia:

Dalborra (PvE)
Master Dar'Nala (PvP)
Gav Daragon (RP PvE)

If demand requires we open additional servers, we have the hardware ready to go. Our Live Production team will be carefully monitoring server population and potential queues to ensure the best possible experience for players.

As mentioned many more details about the Oceanic launch will be forthcoming in tomorrow's FAQ update, so look out for it!

[chaos5061]

PTS 1.1.5 updated

From Bioware:

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


UPDATED 2/28


Flashpoints and Operations


Operations


Eternity Vault

An issue that could cause buttons to stop responding during the Ancient Pylons encounter has been fixed.


Karagga's Palace

Completing Karagga's Palace in Nightmare Mode within two hours now correctly grants the title "The Unyielding."

PvP


General

Players can now build credit towards the Battle for Ilum daily and weekly missions by playing Warzones.


Warzones


General

Healers in Warzones now receive kill credit when a healed player kills an enemy.
Players affected by a Damage Over Time ability are no longer interrupted when interacting with objectives.
Battlemaster and Champion Commendations are now available on the PvP Vendor for Warzone and Mercenary Commendations. Champion Gear Bags are still available.
Valor gained from Warzones has been increased.
Medals are now worth 500 Valor and 10 Commendations. Players only earn Valor and Commendations for the first 4 medals earned each match.
Increased the Warzone AFK timeout from 60 seconds to 90 seconds.


Alderaan Civil War

The speeder bikes that transport players back to the battle now have a three-second activation time to increase the likelihood that an organized attacking team can successfully take the side turrets.

UI


General

Codex entry popups now display correctly for level 50 players when they are unlocked.


Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

An issue that could cause players in guilds to be occasionally kicked from Groups and Operations Groups shortly after joining them has been corrected.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
This week marks the official launch of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ in the Asia Pacific territories (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong) and we’d like to extend a warm welcome to all of our new players.

To support this launch, we are opening up three new regional servers that are physically based in Australia. Existing Asia Pacific players that have been playing on other servers will have the opportunity to transfer their characters onto these new servers at a later date. Additional details on character transfer and the launch can be found in our FAQ.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome new players to our official Forums! If you haven’t registered yet, please do so by hitting the ‘Sign Up’ button at the top of this page. Also, if you’re new here, we have compiled a guide to the SWTOR Community, which you can find here. In it, you’ll find a brief virtual tour detailing our community blog (where you will find lots of important updates), the Dev Tracker (so that you can keep up with the latest developer Forum responses), our Customer Service section, and much more.

Constructive feedback is incredibly important to us, and we encourage you to post yours here in the Forums.

From everyone here at BioWare Austin, welcome to the game and community. We hope you enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic!