Curse was lucky enough to get some insight into the results of Star Wars: The Old Republic patch 1.2, and what'son the horizon with 1.3 looming in the further reaches of space:
Update 1.2 introduced the Legacy system, which rewarded players for gaining Legacy Levels via a shared family name. Now that the feature has gone live, how do you plan to keep it attractive?
Legacy will continue to evolve and grow. 1.3 brings Legacy Perks which enable players to personalize each of their characters’ playstyles and progression. Want to just do your class quests and PvP but still progress at a rapid pace? There are perks for that.
Accompanying the Legacy feature has been a great deal of speculation regarding what some of the new species availabilities will be. Can you share any insight on what direction SW:TOR is headed in terms of the species it would like to add to its roster?
We’ve got a list but we’re not quite ready to share yet.
Let’s talk about PvP – what were your biggest priorities with the PvP system? Did these changes yield the results you had hoped for?
We aim toward ensuring all classes have a role in PvP and PvE, and that classes remain accessible while maintaining a depth in the mastery of the class. We made good stride on the roles and depth fronts, albeit there is more work we’ll be doing. However, we lost some on the accessibility front in PvP with potential time to kills going down. The direction on this front has not changed since launch, and the issues will be addressed. This includes closing the gap between PvE gear into PvP, amortizing Relics, Stims, Adrenals, etc. as well as potentially adjusting how stats affect some ability scaling.
The Rakghoul Live Event gives players the opportunity to participate in an event that is unique to the game and may very well be concluded the next time they log on. Can players expect to see more of these live events in the future, perhaps more frequently?
One of the most important things about having a live game is that it feels alive. Expect more surprises but nothing like a predictable schedule or style to them—otherwise they wouldn’t be surprises.
Will patch 1.3 bring with it some new class abilities?
1.3 is focused on being a fast patch to bring some important quality of life to the community as fast as possible. Primarily that means a robust group finder, the next expansion of Legacy and some other goodies to make playing the game easier and directly address community concerns. New class abilities will not appear.
How do you plan on keeping PvP fresh and competitive come patch 1.3 and beyond?
We have some exciting things in store for classes in the beyond category, but of course I can’t give details on it at this point. I’ll let you guys know as soon as I can. In the near future we will continue to tune and address issues that deviate from the direction as mentioned above. We will also be addressing some things we’ve wanted to do with the resolve system for some time (better feedback, stopping mez ‘overcaps’, cc break abilities causing immunity trigger, etc.) and tune the distribution of crowd control among classes a bit in general. As far as content goes, we have some exciting stuff in store like Ranked Warzones, larger matchmaking pools for greater competition, tournaments, and new Warzones with new game modes.
Check out the video below for more, and be sure to check out DarthHater for all of your Star Wars: The Old Republic info and updates!
Comments
Maybe the game is worth going back to? I wonder if all of this makes it less of a ghost town.
Well, I've been enjoying myself. A few friends talked me in to trying the game out and I ended up buying it. Not sure how it was at release but I'm having a blast now. 1.3 will make it that much better.
Let's wait till patch 2.0 and then see If its worth coming back....
The game is worth comming back to . I came back at the launch of 1.2 afther leaving before 1.1, and is worth it as long as you are on a populated server, if you are one of the always Light servers, you should wait for an other month for the server transfer feature , so you can move to a better server.
Lords of the Dead - Bioware Didn't Have to Lose 400,000 Subs
I put that there because it links to my retail launch review and my most recent article where the game, including Patch 1.3, is still missing major content expected of a modern MMO. SWTOR tried to give us an MMO that played like a Solo RPG, but with an end game that required grouping and/or guilds. In their May 25th Dev &A or one of these Patch 1.3 interviews they even recommend players go find a guild to enjoy the game game, but they have provided 0 guild tools, perks, that you'd expect from a AAA title. Warhammer Online has 1,000% more guild tools than SWTOR does, and SWTOR was lauding the fact they gave us a guild bank in Patch 1.2 (seriously...a guild bank as a post retail major pacth in a 2012 mmo?)
The management of Bioware and their senior developers totally discounted the value of MMO communities, mmo guilds, and the tools required to give new level 50 players a way to group up. It seems that EA, Bioware-Mythic learned nothing from Warhammer Online's disasterous fate, they brought in several developers of many failed titles (Damion Schubert / Shadowbane and Gabe Amatangelo / Warhammer PVP Dev), and they made all the same mistakes they made in their previous games.
The bottom line is there is too much standing around at level 50, no group tools, no guild tools, no ranked PVP, the legacy system is just lipstick on a pig, and it boils down to how many subscribers do they want to lose before they listen to the playerbase. Warhammer Online waited until they lost 80% of their subscribers, and by then it was way too late. The EA marketing guys are sending former players this lame email message about returning to the game, and the main bullet points they list are only relevant to brand new players...............not people in end game gear. So they can't even get their messaging right.
They said they have to keep 500,000 subscribers to break even, and at the rate they are going that is sure to be a challenge.
Hades, GM of LotD