The first booth I visited at Gamescom this year was Star Wars: The Old Republic booth. I was curious as to what will I find there. What I found were people playing the new warzone Ancient Hypergates and, to my surprise, Principal Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo himsel chilling and waiting for the press to come. I spent more than half my time in SWTOR playing PvP on the maps this man designed so I opened with: “You ruined my life by wasting sooooo much of my time”. He did not take offense. Instead we chatted for quite a while and did the interview you can see below. I took the opportunity to ask him some of the community questions related too PvP and we discussed why Guild Capital ships, same sex relationships and ship customization is something we still do not have in SWTOR.
P.S. There is a portion of the community that seems to have some beef with Mr. Amatangelo. Doing this interview was the most pleasurable interview I ever had in SWTOR. Mr. Amatangelo was very relaxed and upfront about everything we discussed. There was no sense of having to hide anything like we always had with so many other SWTOR people. It was just a friendly discussion about the game he helped make. Besides, more than 50% of players take active part in PvP he designed. I would not call that a failure. So, cheers Gabe. You’re the man!
We’re in Cologne, Germany and we visited the SWTOR booth, where we found level 20 characters fighting it out in a new warzone. The objective of the warzone is to activate the two pylons which then start a countdown before they explode. To save yourself from the explosion all players must go to the middle room where they fight it out until the explosion is over. All the while each kill brings you closer to activating a special end event that will defeat the losing team for good. This last special effect is still not present in the game but we can now show you footage of how the warzone is played in this exclusive video in all its glorious HD quality (and people passing by)
Greetings everyone! The patch notes for this week’s server maintenance are now live, and it is quite a long list this time around. You can read all of the notes from this week after the jump. Continue Reading »
Greetings all, it’s time for another edition of the Community Q&A. This week the developers talk about the story decisions behind one of the Sith Warrior companions (you have to be logged in to see due to spoilers), discuss character mergers in respect to the Legacy System, and touch on a few crafting questions. You can find all the questions and answers from this week after the jump. Due to the spoilers associated with the Sith Warrior question it will be omitted, but you can find the question and answer over at this week’s Community Q&A post. Continue Reading »
Ah Firday, day of my most favorite thing ever on the SWTOR forums: the Community Q&A. Questions answered this week have actually been gathered from two weeks ago, but they are no less relevant on the current game state. I always love it when I see a game company opening up direct communication with their fans, so kudos to BioWare for taking the time out even during busy weeks like this one must be in order to reach out to the community.
The hour has finally arrived! 1.2 is now available for download on the live servers, be prepared for a download because this baby is huge. To give you an idea of just how big, check out these patch notes for the update. Here are the highlights:
Players can now unlock a wide variety of rewards by leveling characters and reaching new Legacy levels, including buffs for your characters, unlocking additional Species choices for every class, and upgrades for your personal Starship. Build your own Legacy with the new Family Tree!
Lost Island, a new Flashpoint, is available for play! Having uncovered the sources of the Rakghoul plague outbreak in the Tion Hegemony, players must travel to Ord Mantell and confront Dr. Lorrick, the mad scientist who engineered this horrific biological weapon.
Explosive Conflict, a new Operation, is available for play! The Trandoshan mercenary warlord Kephess has seized the planet Denova, a world rich in resources valuable to the war effort. Players must assault his war camp, situated atop a mountain in densely-wooded terrain, fighting Imperial defectors and heavy war machines along the way. 8- and 16-player Story and Hard Modes are currently available for this Operation.
Novare Coast, a new objective-oriented Warzone on the planet Denova, has been added to the game. This Warzone, like Huttball, supports same-faction matches if there are not enough members of the opposing faction to be found.
New repeatable high-level daily missions are available in a new area on Corellia, the Black Hole!
Guilds now have access to a shared Guild Bank, accessible on the Fleets, with expandable storage.
A new tier of gear has been added for both PvP and PvE.
Players can now customize their User Interface by moving and resizing UI elements!
A new level 50 World Boss with a challenge for a well-coordinated 16-player Operation Group has been sighted in the Gormak Lands region on Voss.
Are you as excited to check out all these new features as we are? Let us know what you think of the changes in the comments below!
BioWare announced today that the Ranked Warzones feature will not be included in tomorrow’s 1.2 update.
Despite some wonderful testing from volunteers on the Public Test Server it was decided that Ranked warzones is a feature that just needs a little more polish before it is released to the live servers. This was not a decision made lightly, but in order to make sure this feature is everything the developers, and players, hope it will be it will be postponed for the time being. Daniel Erickson, lead game designer for SWTOR, had this to say:
Hey everybody,
It is with great reluctance that I have to announce Ranked Warzones are not going live with Game Update 1.2: Legacy. We had a fantastic run of testing on the Public Test Server and I can’t begin to thank the community enough for their tireless advocacy for this feature and the time people took to file bugs and voice their concerns.
After careful consideration, it is clear that to make Ranked Warzones the feature we all want it to be is going to take a bit more time. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause and ask for your patience as we work to make sure the Ranked Warzone Preseason launch is polished and fun. With Legacy, the new Warzone, Operation, and Flashpoint, as well as many other amazing features of Game Update 1.2 ready to go, we’re very excited for tomorrow’s additions.
In the future we’ll be rolling the Ranked Warzone Preseason out in phases, listening carefully to player feedback and making adjustments as we go. The first phase will be full team, eight-player queuing only and from there we’ll look at next steps as Preseason progresses. In the meantime we have provided an alternate purchase route for War Hero gear so you can start building your set while figuring out your teams.
Daniel Erickson
Lead Game Designer
This is, without a doubt, a big disappointment to a lot of players out there. Hopefully the team at BioWare will be able to get any issues they have with the feature fixed as soon as possible so it can be rolled out to the live servers.
Release of the “1.2 – Legacy” patch is imminent. We have less than 12 hours remaining before it hits the live servers (you can read the full announcement here). This patch is one of the biggest patches in the history of MMOs and it will bring a whole lot of changes and improvements to Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is very hard to cover all the changes included in the patch, but we have tried to compile a small list of the most interesting changes you will see once you install the new patch. This has all been put into a form of a guide on our sister site SWTOR Spy and by browsing through various tabs you can see all the changes we discovered while playing the test version of the patch. Our resident Lore junkie, Mr Joshrooms, also posted an article about how the Legacy patch and Star Wars Lore are intertwined. Among our patch 1.2 coverage we have also managed to find out which gifts will your Ship Droids like once the patch is active. Yes, ship droids will now receive gifts and you can increase your affection with them! Check out all the aforementioned features on the links bellow:
The 1.2 discussion in the Community Q&A from last week was so huge a single week could’t fit it all in. This week’s post built on the premise from last week, having the BioWare developers take some time to answer all of our burning 1.2 questions. This week the developers talk about some changes in PvP armor and what players can do with their commendations once 1.2 goes live, answer some crafting questions about reverse engineering and augments, and the chance of new items being added to the VIP fleet vendors. There is also talk of a few bugs people are seeing on the PTS getting fixed, ability and class tweeks, and the titles those who spent the time helping to test update 1.2 can expect to receive.
BioWare also reminded players that to get the most out of these Community Q&A threads they should focus on asking questions about current game mechanics, not those that may be in development. Asking questions about future content is allowed of course, but more often than not they will not be able to release many details about these features other than “you will see them in the future.”
You can check out all of this week’s questions and answers after the jump, and if you have a question for the developers you can post it here on the official forums. Maybe you will see you question in next week’s post! As always please feel free o let us know what you think of this week’s Q&A session in the comments section below. Continue Reading »
BioWare posted a new video today showing off it’s brand new Warzone, Novare Coast.
For those that do not already know, Novare Coast will be a three-point domination style map, with a tug of war mechanic that comes in play when trying to capture objectives. It will also allow for same faction vs faction combat, giving people a much needed break from Huttball. BioWare will be showing off this warzone as the attend PAX East this weekend, a perfect opportunity for any who are lucky enough to be in attendance to give it a try.
There was also a little addition to Bioware’s post when they first uploaded, it announced that 1.2 would be released on April 10th. The was quickly edited out of the post, and BioWare has since denied that April 10th will for sure be the release date for 1.2. Still, this little slip up should give player hope that the new content will be released soon.
What do you think about the new Warzone? What do you think about the idea of getting our hands on a live version of 1.2 soon? Let us know in the comments below!
