LIA

Star Wars: The Old Republic Official Podcast Episode I

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:38:00 +0000

The Dev Tracker Summary blog was delayed this week, but we’re here now!

Each week, we’re going to be collecting the most important developer responses that show up in our Dev Tracker and collating them into this digest.

Be sure to also check out the News and Community Blog sections of our website for all of the latest updates!

Sr. Online Community Manager Stephen Reid posted a new feedback request about potential future planets on behalf of Game Director James Ohlen.

Live Community Coordinator Amber Green posted a thread requesting UI feedback from players.

Lead Game Designer Daniel Erickson confirmed an issue involving the Foundry Flashpoint.

Sr. Designer Austin Peckenpaugh jumped into the Bounty Hunter forum to talk about hardcore Tracer Missile numbers.

Sr. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman assured players that their opinions about armor were being heard, talked about how patch notes were written, clarified BioWare’s stance on combat parcers, discussed how constructive feedback is handled, reminded players that the community team is always reading the forums, confirmed a bug related to Nightmare Pilgrim (which has been fixed), clarified content patches vs expansions, and debunked a rumor regarding guild alliances in Game Update 1.3.

Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez updated the forums on the latest information on a bug related to cover [which should have been resolved with Patch 1.2.3], mentioned that improvements were being made to the GTN [Patch 1.2.3 made some improvements], and had some fun with the new Rakghoul emoticons.

And last but not least, Assistant Community Production Coordinator Courtney Woods posted a thread for the May the 4th Fan Friday blog in General Discussion.

NEW FLASHPOINT/OPS WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Find out what the new raiding schedule is based of guild input by clicking here . Feel free to add comments below the post.

Novare Coast Trailer

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:30:00 +0000

TOR UI Customization in 1.2

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:02:04 +0000

VOTE FOR RAID DAYS

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:23:00 +0000

There have been word that some people cannot make it on certain days of the current schedule. To help streamline our raiding, please vote on what days would be convenient for you based on around 8pm EST for about a 3 hour duration (choose multiple). Also, don't forget to signup when you can make it! That makes it way easier for the Ops leader to organize it. Click here to place your vote.

Dev Dispatch - Legacy System 1.2

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:41:11 +0000

New Warzone - Novare Coast Footage

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:05:19 +0000

The Old Republic Encyclopedia Coming This Fall

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:22:36 +0000

SWTOR fans have something new to add to their collection. TheForce.net brings us the story of the upcoming The Old Republic Encyclopedia. Here’s what they had to say: DK supplied some more information regarding their upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia in their Fall 2012 catalog: Since its release in 2011, the massively multiplayer online role playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic has captivated thousands of gamers and Star Wars fans alike. Now comes the ultimate in-depth guide to the turbulent and fascinating world featured in the game—The Old Republic. Created in full collaboration with LucasArts, this in-depth...

Guild Summit: Patch 1.2 Hands-On Highlights

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:50:00 +0000

DarthHater.com has posted highlights from the Guild Summit concerning the preliminary Legacy perks:

COMPANION BUFFS (Example)

Imperial Agent

Kaliyo – Bonus to endurance

Vector – Bonus to surge

Doctor Lokin – Bonus to healing

Ensign Temple – Bonus to critical chance

Scorpio – Bonus to defense

The rest of the classes have their own but due to time constraints, we will add them here later. However, all of the classes follow similar bonus lines.

SPECIES

Note: All of the values will likely be retooled or changed before the 1.2 patch roll out. Everything here should be treated as such until the final values are updated. Values with * may be incorrect. All species unlocks can be unlocked by getting to 50 with a character of that species.

Chiss – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits, legacy level 8

Cyborg – Unlockable for 500,000* credits, legacy level 8

Human – Unlockable for 500,000* credits, legacy level 8

Miraluka – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits, legacy level 8

Mirialan – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits , legacy level 8

Rattataki – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits , legacy level 8

Sith Pureblood – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits , legacy level 8

Twilek – Unlockable for 1.5 million credits , legacy level 8

Zabrak – Unlockable for 500,000* credits , legacy level 8

ALIGNMENT

Legacy of Sacrifice – Grants the use of the sacrifice ability to all characters. Injures your companion to instantly heal yourself. Requires level 50, Dark V, 250,000 credits, legacy level 10

Legacy of Unity – Grants the use of the unity ability to all characters. Unity reduces damage to you and your companion for a short duration. Requires level 50, Light V, 250,000 credits, legacy level 10

Legacy of Equilibrium – Grants the use of the equilibrium ability to all characters. Equilibrium increases damage and healing by you and your companion for a short duration. Requires level 50, neutral, 250,000 credits, legacy level 10

SHIP UNLOCKS

Mailbox – Unlockable for 250,000 credits, legacy level 10

Repair Droid – Unlockable for 1 million credits, legacy level 8

Operation Training Dummy – Unlockable for 250,000 credits, legacy level 10

Warzone Training Dummy – Unlockable for 250,000 credits, legacy level 10, valor rank required

Black Market Trade Terminal – Unlockable for 5 million credits, legacy level 35

COMBAT

Legacy of Combat: Punch – Unlocks the unarmed combat function. Unlockable for 10,000 credits, legacy level 5, Valor rank level 5

Legacy of Combat: Jab – Unlockable for 15,000 credits, legacy level 8, valor rank 10

Legacy of Combat: Uppercut – Unlockable for 20,000 credits, legacy level 10,valor rank 15

Legacy of Combat: Bash – Unlockable for 25,000 credits, legacy level 15,valor rank 25

SOCIAL

Companion dance – Unlockable for 50,000 credits, legacy level 5, social 2 or above

Tech Emotes – /datapad /holocoms /map. Unlockable for 50,000 credits, legacy level 8, social 4 or above

Tech Tool Emotes – /scanned /scangreen /binoculars /weld. Unlockable for 50,000 credits, legacy level 12, social 6 or above

Double Lasers Emote – Unlockable for 150,000 credits, legacy level 15, social 10 or above

CONVENIENCE

Legacy Fleet Pass – Cuts down the time of the use of Fleet Pass by increments of one hour for each of the levels. There are three levels to it and are unlockable for increments of 50,000 credits, 5 legacy levels (5, 10, 15)

Legacy Quick Travel – Same as the above except that it is cut down by one minute each level instead.

Rocket Boost – Short duration speed increase. Unlockable for 5 million credits, legacy level 20

ACHIEVEMENT MISSION TERMINALS

Several Achievement Mission Terminals are located in fleets of the two factions that now unlock achievement rewards for doing certain flashpoints, operations, etc. These feats require boss kills and more to unlock special speeder skins/colors.

Game Update 1.2 Legacy Trailer

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:14:00 +0000

Community Q&A: March 2nd 2012

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:18:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to this week’s Community Q&A blog! This past week we asked for your questions and today, our developers have answers for you. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity.

This week is a bit short on answers, but we’ll definitely make up for it with the upcoming Guild Summit, which is going to be packed full of information! So much, in fact, that we’re going to postpone our next Community Q&A blog until March 16th in order to allow for all of the new information to sink in. We’ll open up the official forum thread for the March 16th Q&A on Tuesday afternoon (CST).

So, don’t forget to check out the Livestream for the Guild Summit on Monday (more information will be coming very soon) and we’ll see you all here again on March 16th!

JediCarve - Will our ships ever get upgraded to include mailboxes and the Galactic Trade Network so that we will be able to access those without having to go through the process of load screens and Orbital Stations/Spaceports?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): On one hand, we really like making the ships richer and more useful, and on the other hand, we also want to be sure that the fleets feel like vibrant centers of the game community. So the answer is... Yes! And this feature is coming as soon as Game Update 1.2 ... as ship features you can unlock as part of the Legacy system. Watch for more information about Legacy unlocks coming in Game Update 1.2 - we should be dropping that Real Soon Now.

spcdog - When will we be able to add people to our Friends List who are not online? The main point of the Friends List is to let you know when friends are online. Right now, I have to already know when friends are online to add them, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Damion Schubert: This is a bug - thanks for calling my attention to it (this issue is somewhat sporadic, so it fell through the cracks). We are getting this into the pipe to get fixed, most likely for Game Update 1.2.

ThtreLady - Can we get character achievement announcements in the guild chat channels? I.E. Krysari is now level 39, etc? I'd love to be able to congratulate my fellow guildies, but I have no way of seeing when they level up or kill something spectacular.

Damion Schubert: This is a good idea - cheap but effective features like this are, as a designer, among my favorites. I'll bring this to the Guild Team, but no telling when they will prioritize it compared to the other guild love they are working on.

Arodin - Characters with a neutral or "grey" alignment are at a disadvantage because there are almost no Relics that they can equip until endgame. This forces players to stick with either light side or dark side dialogue options exclusively, limiting freedom and roleplaying. Will Relics be added that can be equipped by neutral-aligned characters, and are there any other plans for neutral gear?

Damion Schubert: Grey alignment is in the pipe - we have a design, and that design includes a plan to make the itemization fair for light, dark, and grey. I do not have an ETA for this feature at this time, but can't wait to announce one.

Evilvision - Any chance of getting the ability to lock our camera angle? I probably spend 20% of my time during PvP adjusting this when I should be well.... PvP-ing.

Damion Schubert: The ability to turn off smart camera is in Game Update 1.2 (this is what makes the camera swing behind you when you start to move).

Rtwozero - Any plans to implement region by region maintenance times?

Blaine Christine (Sr. Producer, Live Services): At this time there are no plans to implement separate maintenance times by region. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a global service with no restrictions on a player’s server choice.

Unfortunately the trade-off is that we have to maintain a single service environment, which leads to global maintenance periods. We are very sensitive to the fact that we are limiting play time once per week with a global scheduled maintenance.

We have carefully examined global peak times and the number of players affected by our planned downtime. Those of you that have been with us since launch may have noticed that the first few patches were scheduled at 4 AM CST; we very quickly adjusted to 2 AM CST. The reason for this adjustment was an analysis of the peak time play patterns by region that resulted in the current start time.

We understand that this is especially concerning to players in the European and newly opened Asia/Pacific server regions. We will always do our best to minimize the downtime, but it is the only way that we can perform critical service updates on the game client and on the game’s network infrastructure, underlying platform systems and so on.

Thank you for bringing your concerns to us – we will always listen and do our best to make adjustments when possible, but at this time, we have to move forward with a single global maintenance period.

CaptainJammo - Can you clarify the role of the Accuracy stat? Right now, it seems lackluster and/or unnecessary for many classes, yet it appears on all of their end game gear.

Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): Accuracy counters your target's ability to defend (dodge, deflect, etc.) against your attacks. You are correct about the accuracy budget on the current end game gear being too generous for most scenarios - unless you are a dedicated tank killer in PvP, you probably do not need as much as you get from Rakata gear at the moment and you should consider swapping out some mods to support your preferred playstyle.

For the upcoming tier of new gear, we have an improved distribution of stats for both PvP and PvE gear.

Gidoru - In last week’s Q&A, you detailed upcoming changes to the Crafting System with crit crafting orange gear and removing base mods from purple gear. I think that this issue needs some clarification, as what was stated essentially suggests that orange crit crafted gear will always be superior to either PvP or PvE gear. This is because players will be able to simply remove the mods in their PvP or PvE gear and place it in a piece of crit crafted orange gear that will additionally provide extra stats as a result of the augment slot. Is it your intention to make crafted gear superior to gear obtained in other ways?

Emannuel Lusinchi (Technical Design Director): Yes, for Game Update 1.2, this is correct. Crafted gear is, in theory, superior to endgame gear obtained in other ways. However, it is worth pointing out that putting together crit crafted gear, including item modifications, requires more effort, not less. Now, the reason I specifically mention Game Update 1.2 is that we will introduce new mechanics in a future update that, without diminishing the usefulness of crit crafted items, will bring some interesting changes and that’s all I will say about that!

Upcoming Changes to Patch 1.1.5

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:28:49 +0000

If you missed his blog post on the official forums, Principle Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller had a very interesting post that talks about the changes in Patch 1.1.5. Basically, he gives the players a look into changes to the economy coming soon and how this will affect us. He provides it in-context and also with some lore. (He’s always been great at the story-telling.) Here is a piece of what he said in the blog post about color crystal changes: It’s been reported that Operatives of the Republic Strategic Intelligence Service have recovered several new variations of color crystal prototypes during a daring raid on a cutting edge...

US PVP Server Population Stats & Data

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 15:30:50 +0000

Just as promised recently, Dulfy has some statistical data on US PvP and RP-PvP server population for us. If you want to know which PvP server to join, how many people are on your PvP server or what the server balance is between factions on your server then this data will help you out. From Dulfy: There are only 44 PVP/RP-PVP servers so the data collection took a bit shorter, but it got delayed by a day cuz I didn't know typing "fleet" and "the fleet" in the who list window give different results - I was typing in "the fleet" after typing in all the warzones - "the pit, the civil war, the voidstar etc" - this gave much lower numbers...

Jedi Consular Shadow PVP Build

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 07:01:00 +0000

Hey guys, Another build coming at you courtesy of http://www.swtorsavior.com. This one is for PVP and the class we are going to be running through is the Jedi Consular Shadow. Now for those of you that have played World of Warcraft you will find it easier if you think of the Shadow as a Rogue. Your job is to get in and out without being seen and cause as much damage as you can! Essentially you want to get to the back lines of the enemy and take down all the healers and squishy DPS players. If you have just started PVP with a Jedi Shadow it can be tough though so here is a solid build to use: Jedi Consular Shadow PVP Build: The main skills...

Community Q&A: Feb 24th 2012

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:29:00 +0000

More exciting news from another BioWare SWTOR Q/A session:

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!

Community Q&A: Feb 17th 2012

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:39:00 +0000

I dare you not to find at least one thing that will make you excited about patch 1.2... this Q/A session is just showing BioWare is still hard at it:

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!

Silencing C2-N2 - It Can Be Done!!

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:22:00 +0000

Who else is tired of hearing C2-N2? If this droid is driving you nuts like so many others players, then there might be a solution short of decommissioning him. Remember this video we brought you the other day, "SWTOR Horror”? Well, you don’t have to end like the player in the video. There is another option and it’s a pretty simple fix. This Reddit user explains: All you have to do is replace this file with an empty file by the same name.· swtor_en-us_cnv_comp_chars_rep_1.tor· (swtor_en-us_cnv_comp_chars_imp_1.tor if you're an imp)It appears the above file contains...

LFG by Level or Class

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:40:12 +0000

Just need to type "LFG" in the Search Terms. Instead of showing people in the zone. It shows the whole server. Its usefull if you are looking for a healer. You just need to type : LFG Sorc or LFG Merc and then check the comments. Try mouse over on the left hand side over the pink icon if the right side doesn't work You can also type a level range like LFG 30-35 and it shows all players in that level range. I also learned that when you do /who is doesn't search for whatever you type after. So "/who vegetto" wouldn't search for my name, you need to type in the top search box :( One of the few small annoyances I have with the game, I've just...

Upcoming Changes to "Global Cooldown" UI

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:22:34 +0000

There has been a lot of talk recently about SWTOR global cooldown UI, the interface changes that were made as part of patch 1.1.2 as well as what players would like to see in the UI. Many players also had opinions and complaints about the look of the 'global cooldown' animations. So BioWare staff listened to these concerns and took them seriously. Now they have announced on the official SWTOR blog that there will be some incoming changes to the global cooldown UI. This announcement explains: 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...

Intergalactic Intel: Ilum

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:44:36 +0000

I stared at a lagging computer screen. I was averaging maybe 3 frames per second. I had been in operation groups before, but never this big or laggy. "So what are you doing?” My brother said as I stared at the screen hoping to make a difference in the ongoing battle."Me personally?” I stared into the abyss of red names and lightning. "Every so often I run up, force pull someone into our group and then force speed away.”"But aren’t you a tank?” "Tanks still die when 30 people jump them.”Welcome back to another installment of Intergalactic Intel! This week we’re talking about that nasty old Ilum! For those of you who don’t know, Ilum...