MASSIVELY.COM said:Hyperspace Beacon: The crew skills story
by Larry Everetton Mar 27th 2012 12:00PM
Sci-fi, Lore, Patches, Previews, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hyperspace Beacon, Crafting
Forgive my fanboy-ism a bit, please. Update 1.2: Legacy excites me. My friends on the Star Wars: The Old Republic live server wonder where I've got off to since the patch hit the test server. Not to worry, guys. I'm still in game; I'm just playing with the new UI and character builds.
We know that the major part of this update is the Legacy system. In a system that is rarely seen across MMOs, BioWare has created a tangible connection between alts. Now, Aaron Shaddoe can be the brother of Maacus Shaddoe and the son of Ryctur Shaddoe, and the game will reward me for doing that. Aaron could be a Smuggler, Maacus a Jedi Consular, and Ryctur a Bounty Hunter, all with interconnecting abilities between them. It's an interesting concept, but I'm curious how many people are going to seriously use it for its intended purpose.
Update 1.2 holds a couple of other changes that interest me more -- namely, crew skills and story content. Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller and Writer Charles Boyd spoke about the changes to crew skills and the story update in two developer blogs last week. And despite the legacy system's being the biggest part of this update, it's these two areas that will impact the greater game.
[Warning: Some minor spoilers are contained within. It's been three months, so I hope they are not spoilers any more, but I should warn you just in case.]
Charles Boyd, as I mentioned, tells us the story behind the new content in 1.2. As we all should know by now, the treaty of Coruscant is all but defunct, with the Empire and Republic outright fighting each other in public arenas. The border skirmishes ended about the time that the core world and major interplanetary trade junction of Corellia was attacked by the Empire in chapter three of your character story. Boyd explains that even though the Empire loses on Corellia, the campaign there is far from over.
Taking advantage of the civil unrest, a Corellian councilor seizes control of the Black Hole district. According to Boyd's summary, the councilor makes a desperate push for power by closing off the district and attempting to control a major portion of Corellia's industrial wealth.
Meanwhile, other megalomaniacs try to capture control of their corners of the galaxy. The scientist, whose ship crashed on Kaon in the Rise of the Rakghouls flashpoint, has been tracked to Ord Mantell. Then, on the resource-rich planet of Denova, a group of mercenaries and former Imperial military soldiers attempts to monopolize the galaxy's baradium resource -- a highly effective explosive material.
Personally, I'm a bit surprised at the approach to story in the update so far. Granted, I have yet to experience the Corellian storyline, but the Lost Island flashpoint seems to rely mostly on game mechanics and not so much on the motivation of the central character or the personal choices of the squad going after him. Hopefully, I will see this change when I reach 50 and try out the new operation and Corellian dailies.
The general idea behind crew skills has always been very innovative in the world of MMOs. Few MMOs allow you to set up a queue of items to be made so that you don't have to stand over a workbench as you're crafting gear. And I can't think of any MMO where your crew actually makes the gear while you're out adventuring.
However, crew skills have never been particularly viable, especially in relation to endgame items. Biochems could make stims that raiders and PvPers used on a regular basis, and Cybertechs made grenades that some players enjoyed using. But the other four crafting crew skills were useless in endgame, which in turn made the corresponding gathering skills useless, too. Over two-thirds of the crew skills system was gimped from the get-go. Custom gear, although moddable, would never match up to the augmented endgame gear.
I wish the design team could have seen and fixed these issues before launch, but the devs appear to have fixed some of the glaring problems in update 1.2. If things go as intended, this should create balance in the crafting world. Not only will crafters be able to match the stats of endgame gear, but they will be able to help other players obtain the looks they want for their characters. As Zoeller pointed out in his blog, the three other crafting professions can now craft gear with an augment slot, thus opening up a new world of possibilities.
For a comparison, I have included a couple of quick screenshots from the test center to illustrate the differences between standard gear and augmented gear. Normal custom (orange) armor has three modification slots: Armoring, Mod, and Enhancement (as pictured above). Perhaps in a later Hyperspace Beacon I will talk about theorycrafting, but for now I will tell you that all modifications have these primary stats: strength, aim, cunning, endurance, and willpower. Mods, enhancements, augments might also have the secondary stats of accuracy, absorption rating, alacrity, crit rating, defense rating, power, shield rating, or surge. Expertise is a PvP-specific stat that will appear in PvP-only gear.
With addition of the augmented custom gear, a unique issue arises. As a roleplayer, I love to be able to look exactly the way I like without compromising my general performance as a player. For example, Marauder raid gear is extremely bulky and not fitting to my athletic ataru acrobat. If it weren't for my dual lightsabers, it would be difficult to tell which class I played. Such is the case with Juggernauts and Sorcerers, so it's often difficult to tell which type of enemy is approaching you in PvP based solely on his gear. For just such a case, BioWare has added an icon above every character that indicates which class and advanced class he or she represents. And those of you who don't like to have all that junk floating above other players' heads can turn it off.
Next week, I will investigate another major change coming in 1.2, one that I really hope will help stimulate this game's economy. If you're a crafter, you know the circulation of credits is severely lacking, so you can probably guess what the subject matter will be. The week after, I will hopefully have a level 50 on the PTS so that I might talk to you about the changes to endgame. Keep an eye out!
But here's what I really want to know: Do you like how BioWare has handled story in the new content? Would you like to see more flashpoints that are primarily about the different boss mechanics, or do you like to have a compelling series of dialogue scenes to help move the instance forward?
Next, let's talk about you thoughts on crew skills. I think you all would agree that in the current game, crew skills have taken a back seat to much of the game. Do you think the current changes in 1.2 will stimulate the economy, or will we continue down the same path with different colored pavement?
The Hyperspace Beacon by Larry Everett is your weekly guide to the vast galaxy of Star Wars: The Old Republic, currently in production by BioWare. If you have comments or suggestions for the column, send a transmission to larry@massively.com. Now strap yourself in, kid -- we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!
Tags: augment, augment-slot, bioware, charles-boyd, crafting, crew-skills, custom-crafting, ea, electronic-arts, featured, flashpoint, georg-zoeller, hyperspace-beacon, legacy, lost-island, lucasarts, opinion, Rise-of-the-Rakghouls, sci-fi, star-wars, star-wars-the-old-republic, story, swtor, the-fourth-pillar, the-old-republic, tor, update-1.2
massively.com said:Ranked PvP to be cut from SWTOR's Legacy patch
by Larry Everett
Despite extensive testing on the private test server, BioWare has decided to not include ranked PvP warzones in the latest patch for Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Although Update 1.2: Legacy will still go live tomorrow with a brand-new warzone, Novare Coast, the new reward and leveling system for level 50 players will sadly be missing. In an announcement on the official site, Lead Game Designer Daniel Erickson stated, "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."
Erickson did not reveal when we will see see ranked warzones on the live servers, but he did say that the team will roll out the feature in phases, starting with full-team (eight-player) queuing. He also noted that players can still earn the highly anticipated War Hero armor in Update 1.2 through other means.
[Thanks to Marc for the tip!]
- Source: SWTOR Blog
- More coverage: SWTOR Official Site
Tags: BioWare, Daniel-Erickson, EA, Electrionic-Arts, instanced-pvp, legacy, LucasArts, PvP, ranked-pvp, ranked-warzones, Star-Wars, Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic, SWTOR, The-Old-Republic, TOR, update-1.2, war-hero-armor, warzones
massively.com said:E3 2012: SWTOR's limited F2P trial, content plans, and new trailer
by Brianna Royce
During Electronic Arts' E3 press conference earlier this afternoon, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka took to the stage to toot the horn of Star Wars: The Old Republic. He outlined the game's accomplishments over the last half year, bragged about its status as the biggest MMO launch in history, and promised to provide a "living service that's always on" and "set a new standard for a premium MMO service."
But the team has big plans for the future too, starting with a limited F2P trial set to arrive in July that will allow anyone to pick up and play the game up to level 15. Muzyka also revealed a new trailer heralding upcoming new companions (including an HK assassin droid), level cap increases, enhanced story, a new PvP warzone (Ancient Hypergates), new playable species (the Cathar), a new version of the nightmare difficulty mode, a new endgame operation (Terror From Beyond), a new space combat mission, and a new planet called Makeb, complete with requisite storylines.
The video is now behind the break. Stay tuned as we bring you more TOR news from E3!
- Source: EA Press Conference
- More coverage: SWTOR official site
darth hater said:
darth hater said:
Game Update 1.3: Allies hit the PTS today and with it came a long awaited addition to the game – Ranked Warzones. This will provide a very large incentive to both group and solo queuing for warzones and should bring in a wealth of new players as well as breathe some new life into an activity favored by many. Hit the jump for more in-depth information on this new feature.
The queuing interface itself remains largely untouched from live, with the addition of a few noticeable things:
It is important to note that, during the pre-season period, only groups of eight are allowed to queue for Ranked Warzones. BioWare recently mentioned that solo queue functionality would not make it to the game anytime soon. With that, it's unknown when it will. Also up in the air is the cross server feature, which may or may not come sometime in the future.
- Upon completing 10 non-ranked matches, you will be assigned a rating, and then may queue for group Ranked Warzones, which will apply to your overall ranking. To quote the interface window: "Ranked Warzones offer more competitive matches and greater rewards. Only groups of exactly eight level 50 characters can queue up as a team for Ranked Warzones. After a Ranked Warzone has ended, each players’ Team Rating will be adjusted individually based on the outcome of the match and the ratings of all other players participating.
- The queue lists this as Pre-Season 1, which may indicate a warm-up session for many players to get their feet wet in the new system.
That wraps up this brief update on the Ranked Warzone system. As always, when or if more information becomes available on this feature, we’ll provide an update as soon as possible.
