Star Wars: The Old Republic’s early access to the upcoming expansion: Galactic Strongholds has been delayed for a few weeks. The news was just dropped in a letter from senior producer Bruce Maclean on the official website. According to Maclean, subscriber early access has been moved from June 24 to August 19 so the development team at Bioware can add more features such as a Tatooine Homestead stronghold, and more. The deadline for early access rewards has also been expanded to July 15.
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds
04.23.2014
Hi everyone!
For the past year, we’ve made it our goal to share updates and information on what’s happening in the studio and our upcoming plans for the game. We got the message that you appreciate transparency and want to know what we are working on. With that in mind, we wanted to share a change in plans to our most recently announced digital expansion, Galactic Strongholds.
We have been listening to what you, our players, were hoping to see from the Galactic Strongholds expansion. When playing early builds of Galactic Strongholds it became that clear that our June Early Access date was simply not enough. For this to truly feel like an expansion, it needs to include the full set of features, including those originally coming later in the year. So what does this mean? We are moving the start date for Subscriber Early Access from June 24th to August 19th in order to deliver to you the most features at the highest level of quality. The result will be a far more compelling experience, including additional features such as the ability to place your vehicles and pets in your Stronghold and for Guilds to conquer planets . To conquer a planet, Guilds must complete weekly Conquest events earning points to place at the top of the Guild Leaderboards. Conquering a planet gives the Guild special perks and rewards. This means that Subscribers will be the first to play the full slate of expansion features (everything!) at the start of Subscriber Early Access, a month before everyone else.
This additional time allows us to add:
- Conquest Events: use the power of your Stronghold to dominate these events and earn rewards
- Guild Flagships will now offer expanded functionality for Guilds:
- Provide powerful buffs to Guild members from orbit
- Transport entire groups to your personal coordinates instantaneously
- Compete in Conquest Events to conquer entire planets
- New Stronghold: Tatooine Homestead
- Vehicles, Mounts, Pets, and Companion Characters can be placed as decorations in Strongholds
Combine that with the original feature list…
- 3 unique Player Strongholds, one on each Capital World plus the Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace
- 2 faction-specific Guild Flagships (Valor-class Cruiser for the Republic and Harrower-class Dreadnaught for the Empire)
- Legacy Stronghold Storage
- Ability to gain Prestige tracked on Prestige Leaderboards
- Hundreds of Decorations to discover and collect
…and the result is an expansion that’s worth waiting for!
The additional features and time shift means some adjustments in other parts of our plan:
May 4th remains the Subscriber deadline for Bonus Cartel Coins Grant to the sweet tune of 1000 Cartel Coins!
May 11th is no longer the deadline for Strongholds Early Access rewards but as a thank you to all of our Subscribers as of this date, we are giving you the following rewards:
- Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
- Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
- A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
- Stronghold Name “Galactic Stronghold”
July 15th is our new deadline for Subscriber Rewards for Early Access, and you must be a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:
- The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
- Stronghold Name “Galactic Stronghold”
- Character Title “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
August 19th is Game Update 2.9: Galactic Strongholds Digital Expansion Subscriber Early Access!
Preferred Early Access and the Official Launch will follow in September and October. Be sure to visitwww.swtor.com/galactic-strongholds for more specific dates and details.
Our goal is to keep you informed, so stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for an update on the summer roadmap, including Game Update 2.8. For all of us working on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we appreciate your support. We’re extremely excited about Galactic Strongholds and can’t wait to share it with you. Keep the feedback coming! See you in-game!
Bruce Maclean
Senior Producer
Post #1
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:22 AM Quote:
Originally Posted by Uber_the_Goober
So, a pushback, but for good reason?
The feature list looks fun.
My question – when guilds “conquer” planets, is this a strictly PvE thing? Or are you actually taking over enemy bases, with the inevitable PvP that comes with that?
Conquering a planet is done through completion of Conquest Events, which are PvE Missions.
Also, I know this is big news so I am going to be sticking around in the thread answering questions as I can. We probably aren’t going to talk too much about the details of each feature yet but I will answer what I can
-eric
Post #2
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:26 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reno_Tarshil
Eric, what are the differences between a Luxury Sky Palace vs. a Sprawling Sky Palace, can you elaborate any?
Adjectives
It is just a difference of wording. It is simply the Sky Palace, we just threw some fancy words in front of it.
-eric
Post #3
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjonxb
Thanks for the update and transparency.
Very excited about some of the new features and if they need to bake a little more to have a more integrated experience I won’t complain.
One question though. 2.8 was called the “biggest update to date” is this still the case with this no longer being part of that patch? I would expect that it no longer is but just curious.
Great question! 2.8 will no longer be the “biggest update to date” as we will be shifting Galactic Strongholds out of it. 2.8 will still be great though, we will have more details about it, and the rest of our plan in Bruce’s updated Roadmap. We will have that to you guys in the next few weeks!
-eric
Post #4
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:31 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reno_Tarshil
So does this mean if we are subscribers by both dates we get two palaces one with 5 rooms and one with 3 rooms or one palace with 8 rooms?
What this means is that if you are a subscriber on both dates, you will have one Palace with 5 rooms unlocked. It isn’t a “stacking” type of thing. June is a basically a smaller version of the May promotion.
-eric
Post #5
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:32 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apophis_
I’m good with that, new features are amazing! I’m especially excited with Tatooine Homestead
But I hope those Strongholds are for the whole Legacy, not specific characters. I play too many alts to take care of too many houses…
Well then I have good news! Strongholds are Legacy wide, not character specific
-eric
Post #6
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:45 AM
Some questions I am seeing in the thread…
- Companions in Strongholds – I am not sure this is locked down yet but I will see if I can find an answer on specifics.
- Guild Conquests – We are not ready yet to go into super specifics. We will definitely have a blog on this in the future to explain how it all works!
- How do I place decorations? – This is also something we will go into a bit more detail on in the future.
-eric
Post #7
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 10:49 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by GamerSoul
First, just wanna say that I think it is great you all are pushing this back in order to make sure that we will be able to access all of the content plus the new additions.
Now my questions:
- Am I correct in assuming that we will be able to have more than one stronghold? If we want to are we able to purchase strongholds on each of the planets?
- In addition to the above question, I am guessing that the strongholds on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant will be not only faction specific within the legacy, is this a correct assumption?
- Will players below level 55 (or max level if it changes) be able to participate in the quests to conquer planets?
- Will conquering planets be limited to just the planets that we are currently able to visit, or will there be new planets introduced that we are able to conquer? (Don’t expect an in-depth answer to this one haha)
- Lastly, when a guild conquers a planet does it have any effects on the actual planet, or is it more of just an additional quest-line?
That’s all I have for now, looking forward to the answers!
~ GamerSoul
You will be able to have more than one Stronghold, yup! The rest of your questions unfortunately will need to be answered at a later date
-eric
Post #8
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:00 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PUMA Aren’t homesteads different for factions though? Even though it’s legacy I’m concerned about placing items like mounts and it being in different locations because of the difference in faction layout.
Basically, are there specific placement options for the faction specific locations?
Certainly the idea that there is a Stronghold on Dromund Kaas and one on Coruscant adds in some extra complication. We are still working through the details but we will talk a bit more about how the separate faction stuff will work across Legacy further down the line.
-eric
Post #9
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:05 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TUXs
Grrr! Just tell us…you’ll either please us all tremendously, or we’ll all be able to moderate our expectations. Why can’t you tell us NOW? It’s a very simple answer…it’s a very basic question Eric. Pegs? Item slots? Freedom? If so, how much? X, Y and Z axis?
Hey TUX,
I do entirely understand the sentiment behind the question. Unfortunately the answer is surprisingly not simple. Placing of decorations may work a bit differently than some might expect and as such we would like to show you. To your own point, we have to manage expectations and I would hate to have me explain it since that won’t really do it justice. You need to see it
More information on that coming soon™!
-eric
Post #10
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:07 AM
I know it has been asked so I just want to confirm, Nightmare Dread Palace will still be coming in Game Update 2.8. Again, we will talk about what else is coming in Bruce’s Roadmap. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew about that!
-eric
Post #11
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:36 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kesphin
So what you mean is that I have to buy one more month of subscription if I want to have early access. I thought that it was what I bought with this month of subscription. Don’t you think you’re removing something that i already bought?
Hey Kesphin,
If you had bought subscription time to make insure that you were a sub for the May 11th Early Access promotion, that remains unchanged. In fact, you actually are getting more now than you would have before! (2 additional rooms, mini-pet, and title).
Your subscription actually bought more, not less
-eric
Post #12
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:40 AM
A few other things I have seen in the thread…
- Companions in Strongholds – I was able to talk to the Design team about this. Exactly how it will work is still being worked out. I will post about it in the future once things are a bit more locked down!
- Quick Travel – You can travel to your Stronghold anytime you can use Quick Travel currently. Also, as a subscriber you have a few options on where you can travel to from your Stronghold, including back to the coordinates you just came from.
-eric
Post #13
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:42 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by theSCARAYone
Can you elaborate anymore on how legacy storage will work Eric? Like can “bound to character” items be put in there? If you can that just makes being able to choose your look for characters that share gear so much more convenient.
This is something that is still being worked on and discussed internally. Once I have a concrete answer on how it works I will share!
-eric
Post #14
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 11:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthTHC
I asked the question earlier but it seems to have no answer yet. If you’re not saving already, you probably should start. My guild started saving up the week of the original announcement.
All that I can do is to reiterate what Jack Wood (Producer on Stronghold’s Team) said at our Boston event “We want Flagships to be something that Guilds strive to acquire”
-eric
Post #15
EricMusco
Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds | 04.23.2014, 12:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ebado
Eric, does this mean the RotHC style expansion is pushed back, or is this something that won’t be covered until the next roadmap?
I will make sure we get it noted in the roadmap!
-eric
