Server Forums!

Hey everyone! You’ll notice that the new Server Group Forums and the Suggestion Box are now available! We configured [...]]]> It seems like the guys over at Bioware Austin have been working over time to get as many responses out to game issues as possible. Here are some of the big ones!

Server Forums!

Hey everyone! You’ll notice that the new Server Group Forums and the Suggestion Box are now available! We configured the Server Group Forums to require you to select a forum name tag for each thread, so there is no longer a requirement to enter your server name manually – you’ll just select it from the drop-down menu when creating a new thread. Thank you all for your patience. We’re looking forward to your feedback!

- Allison Berryman

Ability Delay!

Hi everyone; I wanted to give you all an update on the ability delay situation.

Thanks to constructive feedback from the community, including some great videos, we were able to identify an issue that could cause abilities on global cooldown to appear available to the player, resulting in unresponsive/ignored player input. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Additionally, we have located an issue that would cause player input for certain instant abilities to fail in frantic combat situations, resulting in unpredictable and frustrating gameplay issues for the affected player. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Finally, our engineers have identified an issue introducing a significant delay between player input and ability execution in certain game situations, most notably (but not limited to) fast paced PvP. The magnitude of the delay varies with a number of factors, including processor hardware, but can, especially on dual core CPUs, result in a very perceivable reduction in game responsiveness. We are in the later stages of testing a fix for the problem and hope to be able to roll it out to the servers very soon.

We’re still investigating a number of additional issues, along with some usability and quality of life improvements for responsiveness regarding player input, but the above mentioned developments should provide a very measurable improvement in combat responsiveness.

Thanks again for your patience and support and we hope to see you on the public test server to help us validate these improvements before pushing them to the live servers.

Georg Zoeller
Principal Lead Combat Designer

- Georg Zoeller

Valor Rollbacks

After Game Update 1.1 went live, we discovered that the Open World PvP area on Ilum was not working as our PvP design team intended. As many of you know, large groups of players began capturing the Ilum control points, then ‘camping’ at the enemy’s base. This led to a very frustrating experience for a number of players who were unable to leave their base and fight back against their attackers. It was not a fair gameplay experience. In addition, some players on the attacking side gained more Valor points than designed for the time they spent in PvP.

The amount of Valor granted from these activities was significantly more than intended and we are now carefully investigating players who were on Ilum during this period, and present at some of these ‘camping’ events. I can reassure you that those who were involved and who gained an unfair advantage over other players inappropriately will be carefully reviewed and action will be taken to restore game balance. This could include Valor adjustments or account actions in accordance with the severity of the issue.

We have made the decision not to enact a mass ‘rollback’ of Valor points for all players in the game, or even on Ilum. This would unfairly penalize some players who may not have been present during this event. Rest assured though, anyone and everyone who is found to have exploited the situation to an unreasonable degree will be investigated and actions taken as needed. Our in-game metrics are able to give us precise details on where players were, what they were doing and what rewards they gained.

We take any sort of situation where one group of players gains an unexpected or unintended advantage over other players very seriously and will act to ensure that all players can have a fair and fun game experience.

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue. Our team worked diligently to get a patch ready to address this and other issues, and we’re already seeing the results in improved battles on Ilum. As always we welcome your feedback and will continue to improve moving forward!

Jeff Hickman, 
Executive Producer – Live Services

- Jeff Hickman

Scheduled Maintenance

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for six hours on January 24th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 8AM CST (6AM PST/9AM EST/2PM GMT/3PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than six 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 a patch to download. Please be sure to update your launcher after any maintenance period.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

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

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

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

Founder Title/Medal

We would like to thank each and every one of you for helping to makeStar Wars™: The Old Republic™ one of the most successful MMO launches of all time. To show our appreciation, from now through March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST, we are rewarding early members of The Old Republic community with a unique Founder’s medal* and title.

So how do you earn the “Founder” title? This reward is only available to players who have completed either one of the following transactions (by March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST; Pacific: March 18th, 9:01PM PST; European: 4:01AM GMT, 5:01AM CET):

• Billed at least once for an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription

OR

• Redeemed a Star Wars: The Old Republic Pre-Paid Game Time Code

Once you become eligible for the title and have surpassed your 30 days of game time included with your official Game Product Registration Code, you will be notified by email. The Founder’s medal will be delivered to all your characters through in-game mail. From the in-game mail, simply right-clicking on the medal to unlock the “Founder” title to your character. This title is permanently bound to your account and will carry over to any character you make in the future. (NOTE: It may take up to 7 days for the “Founder” title to be applied).

TIP: You can choose to show the Founder’s title or any other title you’ve earned in-game by opening your character sheet and selecting a title from the character name drop down. Once applied, the title will show next to your character name on your nameplate.

If you haven’t picked up the game yet or need to purchase a Pre-Paid Game Time Code, be sure to purchase one now! To redeem your Game Time Code, visit the Code Redemption Center. Finally, to sign up for a recurring subscription, log in to www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com and visit “My Accounts > Subscription.” Star Wars: The Old Republic has three recurring subscription plans:

• 1 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 30 days): $14.99 per month (£8.99/€12.99)
• 3 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 90 days): $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
• 6 Month Subscription (automatically billed every 180 days): $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

For more information about how to unlock the exclusive Founder’s Medal and title, visit theRewards page.

*OFFER EXPIRES MARCH 19, 2012 AT 12:01AM EST; MARCH 18, 2012 AT 9:01PM PST; MARCH 19, 2012 AT 4:01AM GMT; MARCH 19, 2012 AT 5:01AM CET. GOOD ONLY FOR PURCHASES OFSTAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ WITH REDEMPTION OF A PURCHASED GAME TIME CODE OR BILLING OF AN ACTIVE GAME RECURRING SUBSCRIPTION WITH AN APPROVED PAYMENT METHOD. VALID WHEREVER GAME IS SOLD. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED, TAXED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. CUSTOMERS WILL ACCESS THE ITEM IN-GAME. VIRTUAL ITEM ONLY. ITEM WILL BE APPLIED TO ALL CHARACTERS UNDER USER’S ACCOUNT. PLEASE ALLOW 7 DAYS FOR NOTIFICATION OF DELIVERABLES.

The current situation with end game gear and item modifications isn’t final and, in fact, many community members like yourself have correctly guessed at what our plans to correct the current design are.

Since this is a fairly important issue to many players, let me [...]]]> Emmanuel Lusinchi updates us all on Endgame PVP/PVE Armor/Weapons!

The current situation with end game gear and item modifications isn’t final and, in fact, many community members like yourself have correctly guessed at what our plans to correct the current design are.

Since this is a fairly important issue to many players, let me disclose more details about what is currently in the work regarding purple items and mods:

- All partially moddable purple items will be made fully moddable again, allowing the removal of the armoring, hilt and barrel. 
- The set bonus of end gear purples (PVP and PVE) will be transferable to custom items. 
- Some item modifications will be restricted to a certain item type. For example, some item modifications will only fit on helmets, while other will only fit on chests, etc.

As usual, the caveats about unfinished work apply, but this should give you and the community a very good idea of our intentions. We are serious about making custom gear an entirely valid alternative to end game gear and we support the players’ ability to customize their appearance all the way to (and including) end game.

 

Visit the original thread here: SWTOR Thread

Gather round boys and girls and throw your name in to the mix for the KWSNi 4v4 Saturday match-up! We are organizing a 4v4 match on Company of Heroes for the 14th of January 2012 (That’s a Saturday of course), and your all invited to join… well until we have 8 players anyway! The [...]]]>

Gather round boys and girls and throw your name in to the mix for the KWSNi 4v4 Saturday match-up! We are organizing a 4v4 match on Company of Heroes for the 14th of January 2012 (That’s a Saturday of course), and your all invited to join… well until we have 8 players anyway! The idea is, we will be setting a ‘rules light’ approach to the match and all 8 player’s will be drawn on their sides and may play as any Faction on the side they are drawn to. We will be using the Annihilate Gamemode with one change, there is no Population Cap limit. So have as many units as you like, well that you can afford at least. The match will be recorded and posted on the website for all to see as will the results. Game requirements, rules and a sign up thread are HERE.

Below is an image of the map we shall be playing on. Look at those wonderful open areas, those dangerous choke-points and the river can be crossed too. Have fun!

Fellow PvPers, thank you for taking on the challenge of player vs player combat in The Old Republic!

In the first week after launch there were over a million Warzone matches played, with nearly half of all [...]]]> Game put this post up a while back, on what we can expect from PvP in SWTOR!

Fellow PvPers, thank you for taking on the challenge of player vs player combat in The Old Republic!

In the first week after launch there were over a million Warzone matches played, with nearly half of all players participating in Warzones. Bad news for Republic players, though – the Empire currently leads overall, having won 53% of all Alderaan Civil War and Voidstar matches (across all servers). Huttball has been played the most, accounting for 39% of all matches – and yes, we’ll be adding a new same faction vs. same faction enabled Warzone in the future.

We are all really excited at the tremendous volume of participation we’ve seen in PvP thus far. Your interest and demand dictates what we’ll be delivering in the near future. I wanted to give you some insight into where we are with PvP development and where we are going.

First and foremost here is what we are addressing as a top priority:

Level 50 Bracket Warzones: Level 50 players will have a bracket of their own, playing in separate Warzone matches to lower level players. This is something we have wanted to do for some time and now that there is an increasing number of level 50 players we will be implementing the feature in January.

Open World PvP on Ilum: The planet of Ilum currently allows for open world PvP even on a PvE server, but the mechanics and incentives of the planet are not in as intended yet. We’re working on longer term goals for the planet and for other PvP areas, but expect to see some interim adjustments in January – such as more respawn points to focus conflicts, restricting Companion Characters from the area, and revisions to rewards. Ilum will also become a major source of Valor. Valor buffs will increase and decrease based on the objectives your faction owns. These buffs increase the amount of Valor you receive per player kill. However they do not give anything in and of themselves, so players will still need to defeat other players for significant Valor rewards. Additionally, daily and weekly missions will require player kills to complete. Player kills for quests and Valor credit will have diminishing returns per player killed. So, the more players that are fighting other players, the better it is for everyone.

Combat Gameplay: You’ll see several optimizations come online in January, and we are going to continue to tune this as time goes on.

We also have other exciting features coming in the near future including Ranked Warzone Matches, PvP Stat Tracking, Open World PvP Loot Drops, more Warzone medals for different objectives, Guard Optimizations and Target Optimizations.

Additionally we’re looking at ways to enable team vs. team, more level brackets and the ability to choose which Warzone you want to play in.

This is not a complete list of everything we’re working on that’s PvP related, but we have to keep some surprises for later! Thanks again for all your feedback and please keep it coming. We read as much as we can then cross reference with metrics to take action on features and tuning the game to ensure an enjoyable and competitive PvP community.

Gabe Amatangelo Principal Lead PvP, Operations & Flashpoints Designer

I’ve just sent this e-mail out to everybody in the SWTOR group. Keep checking back here for an updated status on which server we will be joining!

Hello;

That is right. We have been assigned to “THE RAVAGER”.

I’m currently contacting our Allies & Adversaries too see where they were placed. Hopefully it’ll be the same server!

Take a look at the current guilds [...]]]> Moments ago, BioWare posted up our server assignment!

That is right. We have been assigned to “THE RAVAGER”.

I’m currently contacting our Allies & Adversaries too see where they were placed. Hopefully it’ll be the same server!

Take a look at the current guilds on the server: http://www.swtor.com/guilds/search?shardName%5B%5D=he6000

- Jono

Last year Killing Floor did a special event that involved releasing a new map, new weapons, new achievements and switching out our favorite Zed’s with more zed’s that keep in spirit of the time of year such as this nice collection of zeds below;

Anyway, since it’s coming up to Xmas, our [...]]]>

Last year Killing Floor did a special event that involved releasing a new map, new weapons, new achievements and switching out our favorite Zed’s with more zed’s that keep in spirit of the time of year such as this nice collection of zeds below;

Anyway, since it’s coming up to Xmas, our lovely friends at Tripwire have decided to bring back those wonderful seasonal and very deadly Zed’s along with another new map, Ice Cave, 7 new weapons and a whole bag of new achievements to grab. Here’s the new trailer showing off the zeds, weapons and map.

Also to top it off, Steam are throwing it on sale at 75% off! That’s $4.99/€4.49/£3.74 for the game! Or grab the Killing Floor Bundle which contains every DLC pack released and the game for $7.98/€6.80/£5.35!

We have our very own Killing Floor server! Check out our Killing Floor page for more details (Under Games->Killing Floor at the top menu). You also find more information on what Killing Floor is.

Update 5 has gone live today for the Lord of the Rings Online. This update bring’s

5 new instances
Instance finder
Mark consolidation
Continuation of the Epic Story from Rise of Isengard.

So whilst we wait for your client to update, why not take a look at the following [...]]]>

Update 5 has gone live today for the Lord of the Rings Online. This update bring’s

5 new instances
Instance finder
Mark consolidation
Continuation of the Epic Story from Rise of Isengard.

So whilst we wait for your client to update, why not take a look at the following Update 5 Developer Diary’s?

Update 5: Reputation Item Revision Developer Diary
Update 5: Currency Consolidation Developer Diary
Update 5: Instance Finder Developer Diary Feedback
Update 5: Volume III, Book 5 Quest Notes Dev Diary Feedback
Update 5: Developer Roundtable

Don’t forget that the 5 new instance’s are only free if you did one of the following two things;

You Pre-ordered the Rise of Isengard Expansion
You purchased the Rise of Isengard Expansion from the Turbine Web Store using real money (as in not with Turbine Points)

Otherwise you must buy the instances via the in-game TP Store for 1495 TP. With the release of the instances, all of the Rise of Isengard content is now available on the in-game TP Store at following prices.

Isengard Expansion Quests: 3250 Turbine Points
Currently available in the LOTRO Store Includes: the quests and deeds for the regions of Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard.

Raid: Draigoch’s Lair: 1250 Turbine Points
Currently Available in the LOTRO Store: 24-man raid dungeon against the dragon Draigoch.

Expansion Instances: 1495 Turbine Points
Includes: One 12-player instance, One 6-player instance and Three 3-player instances.

Derudh’s Stone: 995 Turbine Points
Was an item included with pre-order sales, this can be purchased per character to give a 25% experience boost until level 65. This is currently in the LOTRO Store. This is optional and does not grant additional content.

Total Turbine Point Cost for the quest pack, dungeons and raid = 5,995 Turbine Points whilst you can still buy Rise of Isengard for real cash at Turbine’s Web Store with a choice of 3 editions offering various bonuses (Such as Mounts, Armour’s and 1’000TP). If you’d rather wait for a sale that’s also an option as Turbine had placed the Web Store version’s on sale last month at a massive 50% off meaning you could buy the Legendary version for only $25/€19/£16!

So, it turns out some of the patch notes regarding our modding system were probably poorly written (by me, I must add) and generated quite a lot of concern. I’ll try to explain the changes better and, while I’m at it, explain [...]]]> Earlier today, SWTOR Developer Emmanuel Lusinchi posted some Clarifications on the official forums:

So, it turns out some of the patch notes regarding our modding system were probably poorly written (by me, I must add) and generated quite a lot of concern. I’ll try to explain the changes better and, while I’m at it, explain the logic for those changes.

To start with, we’ve introduced a new color and item type: the Custom items. Those are shown with an orange border and are fully moddable. This change is purely cosmetic. What we have done is take all fully moddable Prototype items (blue) and simply changed their icon color. This helps us create a better and more unique identity for fully moddable gear. 

Since other games have used orange to signify truly rare and epic gear, let me clarify that orange in Star Wars: The Old Republic has nothing to do with ‘epic’ gear. (And for those curious, our version of ‘epic’ is a very deep purple, bordering on a rich blue). The orange we use is actually the old bronze color we developed a long time ago when our color coding was based on metals (bronze, silver, gold, platinum, etc).

Custom gear is actually pretty common: it can be obtained through class quests around level 8, as social gear, as space quest rewards and as light side / dark side gear. It is also the typical gear found in Flashpoints and as rewards for Heroic missions. Several pieces can be acquired using planetary commendations.

The second change introduced in the latest build is the locking down of the base mods (Armoring, Barrel, Hilt) and color crystal mod on the Artifact items (purple). To explain this change, I need to also explain the history of the the modding system…

So, the first version of the modding system had many issues. It is amazing that a system that is only a few months old is already quite misremembered, but that’s because while the system implementation was less than stellar, players really liked the concept that tried to shine through and now remember it much more fondly that it truly deserves. The main issues of the old system were as follow:

- There were too many different modifications. Sure, the mods had a lot of flavor and made sense: triggers and scopes for guns, underlays and overlays for armors, power cells and crystals for Lightsabers, etc. But in the end, keeping the mods in all gear up to date every few levels was a major pain on the players’ side. Remember, at that time, mods could not be extracted – so a replacement for each and every one of those mods had to be individually located every few levels. And let me tell you, creating and maintaining all those tens of thousands of mods on our end was also not exactly sustainable. 

- Some items only had a few mod slots. I know everyone by now remembers a ‘perfect’ world where everything was moddable, but that simply wasn’t the way it worked. Most premium (green) items did not have a full set of slots and which slots weren’t present was a bit random. So, you could find a purple trigger and get all excited about fitting it on your moddable gun – until you realized the gun mysteriously had a scope slot, but not a trigger slot. Of course, your next gun could have a trigger but no scope. This left many players scratching their heads.

- Once slotted, a mod could not be removed. This had a very perverse effect: players would find a really good mod – say a purple overlay – but would really hesitate in slotting it into an armor. What if they find a cooler looking armor next level? Many players would end up saving their good mods for later and ended up over leveling them. 

- Mods that were crafted or purchased were most of the time inferior to the mod already slotted onto a prototype (blue) item. This made the entire mod system somewhat useless. One of the main reason was that crafters could not create good mods. Reverse engineering – the main method to obtain prototype and artifact (blue and purple) crafted items – did not work on mod.

- Modding was only done at a workbench. This made it rather cumbersome as the players had to hunt down a workbench before they could fit a new mod into one of their items.

So, to summarize: in the old system, you could not take any piece of gear, fit it with the best mods and keep it all the way to the end levels: a lot of the green gear did not have all the slots, the mods that could be obtained were for the most part… not good, and you could not extract better one from existing gear. 

So… things had to change. Because despite all those warts, some of the players who tested the system really liked the concept: that a player could find an appearance they really like and work to keep it relevant all the way to end game. So, we knew we were on to something and we also knew the old system was just not delivering. 

Those changes took time to implement. Some of them concerned large amounts of data and some required new code. Unfortunately, not everything could be implemented on time for each testing build and, in some of the builds, testers were exposed to a very raw and partially completed new system. However, today, we are close to where we want to be – but not quite there yet (more on that later).

So, the changes we made are:

- Item modding can now be done anywhere at anytime. No workbench required.

- Crafters can now reverse engineer mods and create blue and purple mods.

- A new Custom quality (orange) was introduced to legitimize moddable items as their own quality and type. This isn’t a big deal but does clarify things a little.

- Mods can now be extracted from a Custom item. This is the single most important change and has many, many consequences. However, we feel that being able to slot a mod and then extract it back truly opens up the system and makes it a lot more fun, easy and safe to experiment with. I’m not 100% happy about how the system interface and GUI works today (it is still a bit clunky) but at least it is functional.

- Rather than have a whole bunch of unique mod types, some mods are now common to all items. This greatly helps players who are ‘going the mod route’ to stay relevant and competitive as they now have a much higher chance to find exactly the mods they need, level after level, be it from a crafter, at a planetary commendation vendor or by extracting it from another item.

- Partially moddable premium (green) items were removed as they essentially lied to the players: an item missing a mod slot would never be able to match a high end non-moddable item. Instead, to compensate for the loss of diversity, orange versions of all green armors was created and given to the crafters. So, yes, if you see a green armor you really like, you still can have that appearance until end level. It does take a bit of work – you either need to become a crafter yourself, befriend one or trawl the GTN. 

(Note: recipes for those orange appearances are discovered through Underworld Trading missions.This allows us to have a truly large number of those recipes without overwhelming the crafting trainer inventory. As a side effect, this opens up class quest green armor appearances from other classes as well as long as you fulfill the armor requirements.)

- End game artifact quality (purple) gear is now partially moddable. Why moddable? Because that allows the players to customize stats such as critical, etc. to their exact desire. Why only partially? Because mods are now extractable… Think of it this way: it is easier to defeat the first boss from an Operation than the last boss. So we want to reward the players with the best possible loot for defeating the last boss and that loot is typically the Chest piece of a set. The first boss drops less interesting stuff, say boots. This may sound old school, and it is. But by doing so, we ensure that both players that get rewarded by looks and those rewarded by stats are properly rewarded for taking on the most difficult challenges.

Now, if purple gear was fully moddable, players would simply farm the first boss, acquire 5 pair of boots, extract the armoring, mod and enhancements from the boots and slots them in their favorite Custom items. That actually sounds cool, but it really isn’t. Letting players extract the armoring mod from the purple items would trivialize end game gear progression and stop rewarding successful and dedicated players for their efforts.

So, instead of letting that happen, we prevented the Armoring, Hilt and Barrel from being extracted, but we also made sure of dropping purple Armoring mods of equivalent power as Operation loot. This means that players going the mod route can still take their favorite orange armor and make it as good as a operation purple armor (with some temporary caveats).

- Some crafting recipes that allowed the creation of moddable armors and weapons have been replaced with non-moddable versions. Why the nerf? Because those recipes were no longer properly balanced once we allowed mod extraction. It became far cheaper and faster to create an item for the sole purpose of extracting every mods out of it than creating mods in the first place. This also allowed nearly every crafter to create every type of mods, which wasn’t very balanced either. Instead, the crafter can now make a non-moddable item for those players that enjoy that and, thanks to newly introduced recipes, a moddable (but empty slotted) version of the item.

Now, with those changes, we are closer to an actual implementation of our modding philosophy than ever before. Is it perfect? No, not yet. There are still some imbalances here and there (and I trust this community to let us know loud and clear if we miss any) but it is close and the remaining issues are on their way to be fixed. Of course, it would help to clarify what that philosophy is:

To put it simply, we want moddable items to offer an alternate and optional loot system that allows players to customize their look and their stats with more freedom and without penalty for doing so. 

However there are many times where it will be easier for a player to just put on whatever stuff they just looted and not care about the way it looks. Keeping a specific outfit or weapon “up to date” or obtaining a specific look may require additional time and dedication, such as finding a crafter that can create that specific smuggler shirt or that rare color crystal.

I hope this clarifies things a little. As always, we are very much interested to hear what you all have to say on the system, but at least you now have a bit more information to go on – and of course, in a very short time, you will all be able to test this on the live servers.

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have been helping with the test of the game and offered your very passionate opinions – on this subject and others. Testing a beta isn’t easy. Things changes all the time, some stuff isn’t finished and nothing seems to make sense without the benefit of knowing what’s going on behind the scene. So thanks again and I hope to have the chance of meeting each and every one of you in game.

Find the original post here: SWTOR Forum