SWTOR Info

[chaos5061]

Live Stream Legacy Presentation

Live Stream Legacy Presentation

Daniel Erickson taking the podium.
Legacy system designed to touch almost every system in the game, was too risky for launch.
Current state of legacy system: very pretty experience bar.
Game Update 1.2 will introduce Family Tree, automatically updated with all of your characters in a Legacy.
Reach level 50 with a species will unlock other species for other classes.
Level 50 with a species and you unlock all variations of that species across both factions.
Complete Chapter 2 and unlock class emote and apply that to your buffs.
Complete Chapter 3 and unlock Heroic abilities.
Example: complete Chapter 3 with Sith Warrior and unlock Force Choke on your other characters.
Complete all misions for companion type (ranged tank), unlock shorter cooldown and longer duration on Heroic for first companion of each type, in addition to stat boosts and Presence buffs.
Alignment abilities including Dark, Light, and Grey.
Social rank unlocks including dancing with companions and emotes.
Most rewards can be purchased with in-game credits or unlocked.
All unlocks and rewards are retroactive.
Cooldown reductions for emergency fleet pass and quick travel pass.
Jetpack unlockable as a short duration sprint for Bounty Hunter, other classes receive rocket boots.
Sprint moved to level 1.
Training dummies on Ships, including Operation and Warzone versions.
Repair Astromech will repair items, buy items, sell upgrade items for Ship droids.
Mailboxes and Galactic Trade Network on ships.
Legacy weapons and armor as tokens, usuable for alt. characters. Legacy items do not scale.
New item type: Bound-to-Legacy.
Customizing your alt. character experience: boosting PvP experience, lowering level required for Speeder license.
Q: Will transfering characters work with legacy system?
A: When character transfers come, the higher of the two legacies will take priorities.
Q: Will players be able to share Legacy names?
A: No plan currently, something they really want to do.
Q: Will players be able to use Force Choke as Republic? Will new unlocked species be transferable to current alts?
A: Yes, new unocked species will only be available to newly created characters.
Q: Will players be able to use weapons that aren't designed for them, like a Sith Warrior using a double-bladed lightsaber?
A: Not permenant weapons, but iconic class abilities.
Q: Will players will be able to change their looks, like hair color, facial features?
A: In the "short term," there is a plan to allow players to customize their characters post-creation.
Q: Will legacy buffs apply to party or just solo?
A: Yes legacy buffs will apply to party, potential to create unique party dynamics.
Q: Will there be legacy banks for characters?
A: It is in the pipeline behind guild banks, along with mail restrictions being lifted to help alleviate issues.
Q: Additional character slots per character?
A: No current plans, but noted desire.
Q: Will class buffs become cross-faction?
A: Yes, but they will not stack, and become faction appropriate.
Q: How likely will endgame flashpoints gear be transferrable to alt. characters?
A: No current concept for that, but there are Legacy items available for alt. characters.
Q: Will dual spec'ing come to Legacy rewards?
A: Multi-spec is coming, not just dual-spec. Not coming in 1.2.
Q: Any plans to be available to change your Legacy names?
A: Currently in the works, but currently only available through in-game tickets and customer service. Will become an automatic service in the future, either through time or payment.
Q: Is there a current cap to Legacy levels?
A: Legacy level cap is 50 currently.
Starting questions from the livestream.
Q: Any plan to give some form of crafting advantage through Legacy?
A: Crafting beginning to be more BoE, less BoP. Ship droids sell crafting mods for your droids, including voice restraining-bolt.
Q: What about companions, can they be put in family tree?
A: Not right now.
Q: Are we likely going to see cosmetic ship upgrades from Legacy in the future?
A: There will be cosmetic ship upgrades, but not neccesarily from Legacy.
Q: How can an Agent use the Force?
A: Point of the Legacy is that Force using abilities runs strongly through families.
Q: How will Heroic abilities affect open-world PvP?
A: It will make it interesting, open-world PvP is more like the wild, wild west.
Panel concluded.

[chaos5061]

Economy and Crew Skills Discussion

Economy and Crew Skills Discussion

Georg Zoeller takes the podium.
Game economy doing well, despite the GTN. Analyzed GDP has surpassed Germany.
Biochem is not the most used skill. Archaelology and Scavenging are high, most popular crafting skill is Artifice, followed by Biochem, Underworld Trading is most used mission skill. Bio-analysis is the lowest used skill.
80% of level 50 players have less than 400,000 credits. Less than 1% have 10 million credits.
Majority of credits spent are on ability training. Container purchases rising. Quest rewards are very lucrative.
Inflation rate currently at 12%. Spent vs. Sinks are relatively close.
Official population count 57% vs. 42% faction balance, Empire led. Empire players like PvP.
Character genders are 70% male, 30% female.
Sith Inquisitor is the most played class. Early in beta, Jedi Knight was the most played. Smuggler and Imperial Agent are lowest played classes.
Leveling curve is a near-perfect curve.
84% of level 50 players have less than 1 million credits, repair costs are considered too high.
Not seeing a huge amount of chest looting in terms of credit exploiting and farming. Team of 30 people devoted to taking care of credit farmers. Takeaway is if you see a spammer, report them.
Crew Skills are well received, currently only BioChem is useful at endgame.
Game Update 1.2 will include crafting mods for ship droids, getting endgame mods from reverse engineering.
Every crew skill will get an endgame benefit. Players will be able to craft Augments through Crew Skills.
Speeder costs going up, training costs going down, overall cost will be less. Cybertech speeders will become BoE.
Shorter cooldownon Cybertech grenades. Artifice will receive new color crystals previously not available.
The average crafter is richer, looks better, and plays better.
Q: Will it be cheaper to remove mods if you are that crew skill?
A: No, cost to remove mods are fair among other costs.
Q: Is there a design to give all crew skills a social purpose, such as armor customizations for Synthweaving or Armormech?
A: Customizable gear will only come from crafters, so if you are looking for a specific look, crafters are your go-to person.
Q: Why are Biochem items require Biochem skill, whereas other crew skills items don't?
A: We are removing that function to favor trading more.
Q: Will there be a Kolto Grenade for Cybertechs?
A: That's a good idea.
Q: Why does the same armor look different on different chraracters?
A: It's an intentional design to keep some factional semblence between characters.
Q: How viable is it to have every crew skill to have some consumable to endgame, such as weapon power-up, grenade?
A: Some have it, some don't, it's something we're looking forward to. At this point, it's not a huge concern due to the Augment surge coming soon.
Switching to livestream questions.
Q: Any plans to making longer crew skills missions for epic items, such as 16-hour missions?
A: We like that idea, we like incentivizing players to log in at least once a day.
Q: Are there any plans to add any crafting daily missions?
A: There are new resource nodes on new areas in addition to current areas.
Q: Will it be possible to send two companions on a crew skill mission to reduce the duration?
A: Good idea but not currently. Single-use missions are no longer failable.

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Roleplayer's Discussion

Roleplayer's Discussion

Daniel Erickson takes the podium.
Current state of roleplaying, world needs more features.
Legacy features include social unlocks, alignment unlocks, and family tree.
Possible future customization include chat bubbles, character re-customization, more orange gear with viable in endgame. Wear what you want, whenever you want.
Improving spawning tech, will address the static feel of the world, more ambient creatures.
Future chairs will always be sit-able.
Q: Will mounts be animals instead of vehicles in the future?
A: Definitely on the list.
Q: Clothing that is not restricted by armor type, would like to see gear that adapts to player requirements.
A: Being addressed with orange gear in the future.
Q: Would like to see a male slave outfit.
A: It's coming.
Q: Will we be able to re-use phased class quest areas?
A: No, phase class quests are incredibly restricted, but will introduce new areas for roleplay.
Q: Anything you can do for a stricter naming policy, so people won't see Dude of the Bro Legacy?
A: There will be more ways to adjust what you see, such as remove seeing other player's guild names. Fair naming rules are very hard to do.
Q: Ambient animations for NPCs would help with static feel of worlds, but roleplayers want to be able to create communities within guilds, such as squads, could help for operation guilds.
Q: Will there be a way to copy and paste chat logs? Will there be ways to include characters in a Legacy as not blood related?
A: Yes, you can add allies, step-son, adopted children, etc.
Q: Will there be a way to attach other players to your legacy?
A: Yes, but it's far off in the distance.
Q: Will emotes be able to include one-liners from cinematics?
A: More roleplayer emotes will include lined dialogue.
Q: I'd like to see companion characters ride with you on taxis, as well as the ability to name your companions.
A: Was originally intended to include companions in taxis, but M1-4X broke the idea.
Switching to livestream questions.
Q: Ignore function should turn off the player's nameplate.
Q: Is there any option to remove companions from the story?
A: Killing companions was fun, but the benefits they provided that became lacking were too much. Won't see the removal of companions.
Q: I'd like to see a character biography page in the character sheet.
A: Something we'd love to do, but technically not feasible now.
Q: Will we see a two-person mount in the future?
A: Something we'd like to see, but way down the road.

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Guild Features Discussion

Guild Features Discussion

Damion Schubert takes the podium.
Guilds are important and in-line with a road plan to the future.
Guild UI functions, but could use more features. There is a team dedicated to expanding guild functionality, including Guild Banks that are coming in 1.2. Shared bank for guild members to use, up to seven tabs with escalating costs. Guild leaders have detailed control for guild banks, and backlogging for CSR follow-up.
Can set how much each rank can take out of bank. You can repair directly from your guild bank. Guild Banks have a ledger feature that shows how much each member is taking out.
Most guild features are coming after 1.2, including Guild calendar, using guild emblems on armor, and guild advertising to help recruit/join guilds.
Guild progression in the works, including guild capital ships. No timeline for these features.
Q: Any plans to implement a guild mail system, like a newsletter type, such as mass-email?
A: Working towards something like that, maybe something with guild calendar or message of the day. Big toll on the backend for any custom text items.
Q: What guild UI improvements are coming?
A: Guild window scrolling and other bug fixes coming in 1.2. More coming after.
People would like to see guild members' crew skills in the guild UI.
Q: Is there any plan for a taxation system?
A: That is something we're designing for with the Guild bank coming. No ETA.
Q: Will we see a return to offline inviting similar to the system at pre-launch?
A: Maybe, it's something we're looking at, but not on immediate list of plans.
Q: Are guild repairs taken away from allowances on the guild bank?
A: Yes, you can also respec directly from the guild bank.
Q: Any plan to include a guild log showing invites, kicks, or inactivity?
A: Yes, there is a plan, but no timeline.
Q: Can we get some kind of feature showing if players are already in a group or not?
A: That's a great idea, I'll write it down.

[chaos5061]

User Interface Presentation

User Interface Presentation

Stephen Reid says more info on the UI changes will be available on the official website in the coming weeks.
Damion Schubert says only about half the changes being shown will make it into 1.2 update, but the UI team was very passionate about the changes and wanted them shown.
"Edit Mode" shows all UI components available that can be moved. Color coding indicates pieces that are always visible and pieces that are only visible sometimes.
Still only four quickslot bars available.
The UI components are scaleable.
Target of target confirmed to be in the 1.2 update.
Map axis can be flipped around.
Secondary windows can be moved around to anywhere on the screen. More than one window can be open at a time.
Can save UI configurations as XML files that can be shared between players.
Some Operation frame customization available to, but have to be in a Operation to see it.
Q: Is click to cast in? Gabe: Click to cast not in for 1.2 update. We want it, maybe 1.3 or 1.4 update. Target of target is in and should show health percentages.
Q: Will we see macros anytime soon? Even simple ones? Georg: Probably but no ETA at this time. We don't want macros that effect combat directly because we don't want it to be less approachable. Mouse over healing wouldn't be considered a macro.
Q: Seeing buffs or debuffs on group members is too small right now. Are those resizable? Gabe: Those buff/debuff icons are not resizable in this build. We do want to make that toggable and resizable in the future. Daniel: They scale with the frames themselves. So if you make the health bars really big, the buff/debuff icons should get really big too.
Q: Is it possible to see more visible indications of procs for reactive abilities? Gabe: We do want to do that in the future. Like the Tactical Advantage has the audible laugh indicator, we want more of that but less annoying. Georg: We want more of that, but we also don't want you staring at the screen watching for these indicators instead of watching the action.
Q: Are there plans for better indicators of who is doing what? Gabe: Yeah, we're working on some polish for that.
Q: Could there be more ways to distinguish things and people in the group you care about? Gabe: Yes, we want you to be able to highlight and make things you care about more obvious.
Q: Is there a way to more streamline abilities to narrow them down? For example, abilities that are not available in PvP, those take up a hotkey slot. Gabe: Yes, we're aware of that. We do want to get another ability bar in, but need to figure out with Georg how to better handle that. Damion: With multi-spec, we'll have more functionality with action bars and how they act. Companion bars will now be considered their own bar and you can move it around with the new UI customization. It won't overlap your existing bar if you don't want it to.
Q: Are their any UI changes to the auction house? Emmanuel: Yes, we're not happy with the current AH UI. Damion: It will be better in 1.2 update. It will be 80% less stupid with fewer mandatory fields. Not ready to reveal the exact specifics just yet.
Q: Can I share UI settings between characters? Damion: Not on 1.2 update, but on the roadmap for after that.
Q: Where are we on the UI API? Emmanuel: That would be the next step. It's a lot more complicated. A lot of design involved to keep it fair and balanced. No ETA on it. Damion: Enormous technical challenge. We want to get to it some day. But right now we have to get through more important live stuff.
Q: Is there a stealth bar for stealth using classes? Georg: We had a stealth bar similar to the cover bar, but there weren't many abilities specific to stealth. And we're seeing people turning off the cover bar. It's not on the short term radar.
Q: Can I remove my picture and class name from the new UI? Damion: Probably not, but I don't know from memory.
Q: Any plan on skinning different colors for visually impaired players? Damion: We're passing around a design doc for color blind mode. We probably won't have a full re-skinning of the UI colors anytime soon.
Stephen Reid explains they're moving on to "and the rest" which is anything not covered so far.

[chaos5061]

"And the rest"

"And the rest"

Daniel Erickson takes the podium.
Need more story.
New daily quests on Corellia in 1.2 update.
Color matching is back in and improved for 1.2 update. Will be toggable for any piece of armor. New pieces of gear is set to "off" when first equipped. So when new loot is acquired, you see it's "true" appearance first and then can choose to make it match.
Color matching won't just turn everything the same color, but will make the overall theme look good together. It won't turn you into a Power Ranger by making all your armor the same color.
Better graphical textures will be available with the 1.2 update. Can be made available now that they have a better idea of what kind of machines people are running. So people who can handle higher graphics will be able to turn them on see them.
Dual spec coming in the future. Two parts: First, is two skill sets. Not in 1.2 release. Second part will include full gear load-outs. So for part one you'll have to manually swap gear.
New story is coming "this year" and will be the usual expected quality BioWare type story.
Q: Could we get any other rewards like cash from daily quests at level 50 besides just Legacy xp? Damion: We've talked about that, but need to be careful about introducing new cash flow into the game.
Q: I read an interview where some huge galactic battle could be coming in the future, what's that involve? Gabe: It's something the PvP team wants to do with world repercussions and results.
Q: What can we expect from the mechanics of Nightmare mode? Gabe: We're going to tweak them so they really live up to their name, and that's why it has to wait until after 1.2 update, we want to get it right. Daniel: That also involves why we have "Story" mode going forward. Story mode is not where you go for gearing up and high end rewards. It's where you go to experience the content.
Q: Could we have inter-server communication since we're going to get cross server Warzones? Daniel: We don't quite have the cross server architecture in place yet. Damion: We've talked about cross server communication. We might be able to take advantage of cross server connections for ally/adversary functionality. We still want to try and limit the trash talking between sides.
Q: Will Bounty Hunters and Troopers ever get a battle rez? Georg: Never say never in an MMO. But in the short term, no.
Q: How about pod racing or swoop racing? Daniel: I am a huge fan of mini-games like racing or Pazaak. Right now we're focusing on core tools and functionality like the Guild stuff. We want to get that in first. But we have designs for all kinds of fun things. No ETA right now.
Q: Any plans for dealing with faction balance? Damion: We think the Legacy system will help a bit and that was one of its goals. Most of our designs are resilient enough to deal with some imbalance on some servers. We can try and entice people to play certain sides or factions, but at the end of the day its each player's fantasy and up to them. Georg: We allow players to play both factions on a single server, so we are hoping Legacy will help a bit with that. That's all we have planned short term. Further down the line, optional character transfers is a possibility. Gabe: Cooler outfits in the end game progression could help influence people to switch sides.
Q: Encouraging people to switch factions could be seen as a bad thing if you're enticing them to leave their Guild. Damion: We could be looking at something with Adversary or "sister" Guild relationships. We don't want Legacy to negatively impact the community, so we'll keep an eye on it. Legacy or account wide friends could be another way to maintain relationships with other players across factions.
Q: For the Legacy abilities, which ones will be chosen? Will they be mirrored between mirrored classes? Daniel: We went for iconic abilities that are what people want to do. Smuggler can kick bosses in the nuts. But an Agent doesn't do that, they do Orbital Strike.
Q: Can you change the Guild Master title? Damion: I have to check if there's a way.
Q: It's frustrating to be in a Warzone with uneven sides, what's being done to address that? Gabe: The new match making system has some improvements for filling and backfilling Warzone groups. Also the incentives to not leave during the match should help mitigate this problem.
Q: Any update on same gender romance? Daniel: It is coming and it is coming with story updates. It is something that depends on the writers and we want to do write, and writers have a long lead time. We did not want to just change all the dialogue for the other gender. That is not writing, that is not story telling. This was cut originally because of budget and time issues. We have designs, we know what romance options we want to put in for this. It is coming when full story comes, and full story is coming this year. We are still on track.
Q: Will there be daily hubs or other incentives to return to early planets? Daniel: Yes, we're adding more daily hubs. The planets we choose for dailies depends on a lot of things, including traffic we want going through there. The mysterious live event team has plans for underpopulated planets to get things going.
Q: Options for optimizations to make the game run better? Daniel: We are very focused on settings for low end machines. An important aspect for MMOs is that people want it to work on their second and third machines because they are bringing in siblings and spouses. Georg: Update 1.1.5 has an option for shader settings to turn it down so it is playable on lower end machines. A lot of these optimizations benefit the game across the board, not just low end machines, like the ability delay improvements. Daniel: We have a team dedicated to that and are continuing to try and make things better.
Q: Will we see epic weapon and armor quests where you have to go to multiple Flashpoints and Operations to obtain them? Gabe: Not in 1.2, but we do have some stuff coming in the future like that. Daniel: Something that could effect your entire Legacy. Something that you might need characters on both sides to be able to do.
Stephen Reid wraps up the live stream and thanks to the development team for attending.

[chaos5061]

Ok that's it until the official posts are up.

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:

[chaos5061]

From Bioware:
Today we are excited to announce the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Weekend Pass Free* Trial. Now for a limited time, you will be able to live out your very own Star Wars™ saga with thousands of other players for free! With the Star Wars: The Old Republic Weekend Pass Free Trial, individuals who don’t already have a previously-active Star Wars: The Old Republic account will be allowed to see a portion of what the game has to offer, free of charge, with no payment method required, for up to four days!

Individuals who take part in the Weekend Pass will be able to experience the opening adventures of each of the eight character classes in the game, exploring both their Origin World and their faction’s Capital World. Additionally, Weekend Pass players will have the chance to face off against other players in PvP Warzones, or join up with friends and play through a couple of early faction-specific Flashpoints in the game, The Esseles and The Black Talon.

The Weekend Pass Free Trial opens Thursday, March 15th, 12:01AM CT / 5:01AM GMT and ends on Monday, March 19th at 2:00AM CT / 7:00AM GMT. To learn more, visit www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com/weekendpass and come back on March 15th to create your account, download the game, and begin your free trial! Have questions? Visit the Weekend Pass FAQ.

Be sure to check back to www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com, as well as our Facebook and Twitter for all the latest updates!

*TRIAL VALID ONLY FROM MARCH 15, 2012 12:01AM CDT/ 5:01AM GMT / 4:01PM EDT (AUSTRALIA) THROUGH MARCH 19, 2012 AT 2:00AM CDT/ 7:00AM GMT / 6:00 PM EDT (AUSTRALIA). ONLY VALID FOR NEW STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ (“PRODUCT”) ACCOUNTS NOT ENROLLED IN A PROMOTIONAL TRIAL FOR PRODUCT. UNUSED TRIAL TIME IS FORFEITED UPON REDEMPTION OF PRODUCT REGISTRATION CODE, PURCHASE OF PRODUCT SUBSCRIPTION, OR REDEMPTION OF A GAME TIME CARD CODE. VALID ONLY IN TERRITORIES WHERE STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ IS DISTRIBUTED. OFFER MAY NOT BE SUBSTITUTED, EXCHANGED, SOLD OR REDEEMED FOR CASH OR OTHER GOODS OR SERVICES. CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER, GIFT CARD, REBATE OR OTHER DISCOUNT. LIMIT ONE OFFER PER ACCOUNT HOLDER.

ACCEPTANCE OF END USER ACCESS AND LICENSE AGREEMENT (“EUALA”), PERSISTENT INTERNET CONNECTION, AND ACCOUNT REGISTRATION REQUIRED TO PLAY. MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER. AGREEMENT TO SHARE ACCOUNT INFORMATION WITH LUCASFILM ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY LTD. IS REQUIRED TO ACCESS GAMEPLAY. SEE EUALA FOR DETAILS. PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF SERVICE AVAILABLE AT WWW.SWTOR.COM. ALLTERMS AND CONDITIONS TO PLAY THE GAME APPLY AT ALL TIMES.

[chaos5061]

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for five hours on Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/7AM GMT/8AM CET/7PM AEDT) until 7AM CDT (5AM PDT/8AM EDT/12PM GMT/1PM CET/12AM AEDT). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than five 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: Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/7AM GMT/8AM CET/7PM AEDT) until 7AM CDT (5AM PDT/8AM EDT/12PM GMT/1PM CET/12AM AEDT)

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

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

[chaos5061]

I forsee a lot of Posting coming my way

Please be advised that the Public Test Server will be unavailable at 6:30PM CST (4:30PM PST/ 8:30PM CST/ 11:30PM GMT/ 12:30AM CET/11:30AM AEST) while we deploy Game Update 1.2. Once the server is up and running, we will post PTS Patch Notes.

We'll work to make the server available again as soon as possible, so please watch this thread for updates as they become available. Thank you for your patience!

[chaos5061]

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 CDT on March 20th (7pm GMT/8pm 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!



Ziko: Already having 8 characters on my server...will I be forced to delete characters in order to take advantage of the Legacy system or will I be able to change race & new Legacy customization features on pre-existing characters and will there be more character slots added?

Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): We have heard at the Guild Summit that there's interest in being able to acquire additional character slots on the servers. We are in the process of determining the requirements for such a step and will update the community when such a feature has moved past the planning state.



aivedoir: Any chance we'll get a pop up blocker for crews returning from missions?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): This should be fixed in Game Update 1.2. We also are adding an option to disable Crew Skill reward pop ups entirely in Warzones (since the definition of when you are in combat is fuzzier there).



SpaniardInfinity: At the Guild Summit, the question was asked whether or not Commando/Mercenary would receive an in-combat revive (at least in the near-future); to which the answer was no. I am curious, however: what is the rationale behind this design choice? As it stands, Commandos/Mercenaries can overcome their weaknesses (AoE and mobility) with practice, effort, and smart skill/ammo use; none of that will help us work around being the only healer unable to raise an ally, however.

Georg: The answer at the Guild Summit pertained to Game Update v1.2 for the most part. While different classes have different utility in the game (by design), we feel, based on feedback from our top end guild testers, that with the increased usefulness of in-combat revives coming in Game Update 1.2 (we increased the amount of health players come back with), it is necessary to re-evaluate this topic. We’re not categorically opposed to adding an in-combat revive to the class in the long term, most likely around the same time we add another Quickslot Bar to the game.



DinesenDK: Will it be possible to exchange lower level planet commendations for higher level commendations in the future?

Georg: It’s something we had in testing but took out as it lead to a majority of players not spending any commendations and just uptrading them, which defeats the purpose of the commendation system. I can see us re-opening this topic a while down the road, maybe in context of discussing something like the much requested Legacy Bank.



Loreki: Will the new crafting items coming in Game Update 1.2 have their own grade of materials and if so; how will you fit the nodes into the existing end-game areas?

Georg: The majority of Game Update 1.2 crafting content will seamlessly integrate with the existing system, meaning they will make use of existing endgame materials. The newly craftable augments will use new materials supplied by Slicing missions, while the newly created PvP crystals will use new materials bought by PvP commendations. We did add additional nodes for high-end materials to the daily areas and changed some of the operations materials to be Bind on Equip….



Khoreal: Will you add extra Quickbars? 4 is a bit short when you want to use your character to its full extent.

Damion: We plan to do this, but no ETA. This will not be in Game Update 1.2, I'm afraid.



Urtog: Say I get a Chiss to level 50, now that species is unlocked for all other classes. So if I make a Chiss on the republic side then delete the level 50 Chiss what would happen to my republic version? Or if I delete it before making another character of that species, does it become permanently unlocked even if the level 50 species is deleted?

Damion: You keep your Chiss, and you also keep the ability to create new Chiss. This ability is now permanently unlocked on that server.



ClayManiac: Will there be an overhaul to the achievement system? Currently there is no way to track progress towards them and most of them seem to just happen. Maybe even add more objectives? Survey a planet's map, etc. Reasons to do stuff other than sit in the fleet all day.

Damion: We are just starting an initial design document for this system now. I don't want to talk about it yet, but I can say that we have some twists planned that should make it no ordinary achievement system...



captainfrankie: Do you have any plans to upgrade the Razer Green/Black Color crystal (SE Black Green Color Crystal) as you did the pre-order Yellow/Black?

Georg: Yes. It will involve uptrading your existing crystal for a new one (along with paying a modest credit fee to the vendor), so don’t throw out the old one just yet



YuvalZiv - Are there any plans to add a barber shop anytime soon, or a feature that will allow existing characters to enjoy additional customization options, unlocked through the Legacy system?

Damion: "Are there plans?" - the answer is yes. "Anytime soon" -- the answer is no. It's not that we don't want to do it, it's just a little further down in the priority queue, and so I don't want everyone to have any expectations that are unrealistic in terms of when it will get into your hands.

Because this sort of answer happens what I am sure is too often in these weekly Q&As, I thought I'd pause and give an idea of how we sort and prioritize issues like this. Right now, my primary role on the project is to design and help guide prioritization for most of the new features that are in consideration for the next year. Designing them is easy and fun - my dream job, really. Prioritizing them is a lot trickier, and a lot of factors go into those decisions. Quick features (such as the ability to toggle off receiving mission rewards in Warzones, mentioned earlier) are cheap wins - easy to program, easy to QA, and useful or important to a large segment of the audience. The barber shop is harder -- not hard, mind you, but it requires multiple development groups, really needs new art to do very well, and has implications for existing characters in the world. For the cost of a well-done barber shop, we can do six or eight things the size of the Warzone toggle, or last week's Smart Camera Toggle (and sometimes more)!

This doesn't mean that we won't do larger features -- indeed, in the next patch we have multiple very large features, including Guild Banks and Legacy, that were big money features, and that we think are going to have huge impacts overall on the quality of the game. But we tend to pair a relatively smaller number of those big features with a lot of these smaller feature additions, because that sort of approach seems to offer us the largest bang for the buck. And to be honest, having looked at our most recent version of patch notes for Game Update 1.2 today --- well, let's just say that this patch is astonishing in the amount of new stuff, big and small, that is coming your way.



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 is ready for download on the PTS. Go get it if you want it. Still no Notes yet though.

[chaos5061]

Still no notes and the patch turned out to be about 950 MB to a GB.

[chaos5061]

Notes incoming maybe 5 or more posts.