Amber Green made a post in the Bug Reports forum that clarifies that BioWare staff is in fact reading all posts made to the bug reports forum. Even if they don’t reply individually to every post, they are reading them and taking them into account. This is important information to know for all players. Nothing is more frustrating in playing a game than reporting bugs and feeling like the developer and staff doesn’t care or doesn’t even read the bug reports. But BioWare wants you to know that they care about the game and about us. Amber Green says: Often we will post in threads in this forum to gather additional information about something that is reported or to update the status of a particular issue. However, please note that while we will be reading every thread and report in this forum, we will not respond to every thread, and…
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APAC Consolidations: August 13th
Eric Musco posted some news regarding the APAC Consolidation that is happening on August 13th. If you are one of those players that will be affected by this consolidation, you can find the original thread here; if you have any concerns, please speak up there or feel free to contact the CS team via ticket or PM. Hey folks, Just to clear up any confusion from the email yesterday, the consolidations are going to happen on August 13th as listed, which is quite a bit more than one week away. That actually gives you approximately three weeks before the consolidations happen. Just to reiterate, the consolidation will happen in approximately three weeks on August 13th. Sorry for the confusion, thanks everyone! -eric
Official Forums Class Rep Voting Begins
Eric Musco posted a quick update on the official forums. He have now posted the polls for all Advanced Classes with their respective nominations! Head on over to your Advanced Class forum and be sure to vote! Voting Links Imperial Assassin Juggernaut Marauder Mercenary Operative Powertech – only 1 candidate showed interest and has been elected Sorcerer Sniper – only 1 candidate showed interest and has been elected Repbulic Commando Guardian Gunsliner Sage Scoundrel Sentinel Shadow Vanguard – only 1 candidate showed interest and has been elected
Clarification on Patch Notes for 2.2.2
In the patch notes for 2.2.2 it is stated that Bioware has made ”Multiple environmental art changes have been made across the galaxy”’. Some users expressed concern and questions over this and it was brought up on the official forums by user tumpai in order to find out more about this change and how significant it would be. Amber Green, Live Services Specialist responded with a very detailed post explaining this part of the patch notes as follows: Hi there tumpai, This is actually a great question, and I’m a bit surprised it’s not come up before. The direct answer is that the note is a conglomeration of several small art fixes, and we often add a note like this to give people in the studio their props for fixing the whole darn galaxy almost every patch. These small things are not always visual, and sometimes they include things like…
Consolidated Bugs Update
Amber Green posted 5 updated on the forums regarding know bugs. I’m not sure if this is new bugs found after the patch today, or theese are older bugs that the team just want’s to let us know that they are aware of. It’s good that they communicating this stuff out the the players though. Check out all 5 posts below: Post 1 AmberGreen Achievement Tracking Permanmently Stuck | 07.16.2013, 08:57 AM Hello folks! Thanks again for your patience while this issue has been researched on our side. We’ve discovered a solution for those Achievements that are stuck in the tracker, and we’d like to be sure that we don’t miss any! Currently, we’ve got Javaal Fleet Action Mastery and Saleucami Fleet Action Mastery as being stuck. Please post here if you have any additional Achievements that are stuck in your tracker so that we can be sure they get…
Official Forums Class Representatives Announced
Eric Musco posted an interesting update to the official SWTOR forums yesterday. We will now be getting class representatives for the forums. Each representative will only serve for a term and then new representatives will take their places so it ensures there is some balance and rotation. Class Representatives are player elected and will not be granted any special access to the BioWare team. They will be used to help Bioware staff provide more information and community involvement on the topic of classes within SWTOR. What tasks will these forum class representatives do? What Will They Do? Upon the Class representatives being selected, we will release a schedule. On each scheduled date listed, the chosen representative for each Class will make a forum post in their Class forum with the top 3 things they want to have answered or commented on. Our current plan is to do 4 ACs each…
Encrypted Datacube: Story content in the cartel market? — Not going to happen
People have been discussion whether or not the Encrypted Datacube was a good thing to have on the CM or not. After lot’s of feedback the devs have been changing their stance and no Datacubes will be available in the Cartel Market in the future. Hey everyone, Our plan with the Encrypted Datacubes was simply to see if packs would be another avenue of getting story content in the game. It will always be the Cartel Market teams goal to look for new and interesting things to add into the Cartel Market which are not gameplay impacting (avoiding pay-to-win, etc.). With that being said, we have heard your feedback loud and clear on this and we have no plans to place the Datacubes in the Cartel Market in the future. Thanks! -eric I’m curious if that means the next four are gone too. While I’m glad they are ditching it I’d still like the ones…
Issues regarding the Revan Armor
Eric Musco took on the official SWTOR forums today explaining players that nothing is wrong with the Revan armor. While this pretty dull news, I’m amazed at the comments on the official forums; the aggressivity and disrespect are mind-boggling. What is wrong with these people? Check it out here: Hey guys, I wanted to add a bit of clarity to the post in this thread, and my update from this morning. This is all of the information I have about Revan’s armor, what was or wasn’t changed, and why. When we originally saw the double hood issue we also noted that it appeared there was a color difference in the armor between the player and NPC. Our plan was to mirror the NPC exactly for the player for consistency. When we fixed the double hood and we looked at the color palette, the armor sets were already identical in color so…
Scheduled Maintenance tomorrow
Just a friendly heads up letting you know that BioWare will be taking down the servers tomorrow June 25. This also means the deployment of Game Update 2.2.1 and hopefully the possibility of server transfers. Check back as we will post the patch notes as soon as they become available. Check out the official word below: On June 25th, all game servers, SWTOR.com, and the launcher will be unavailable as we perform scheduled maintenance. Game Update 2.2.1 will be implemented during this downtime. Details are as follows: Date: Tuesday, June 25th Duration: 6 hours Time: 2:30AM PDT (9:30AM UTC) – 8:30AM PDT (3:30PM UTC) Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™
Further Clarification on the Use of Macros in SWTOR
Do you use macros for SWTOR? Do you want to use them? Do you have questions about whether or not you can use macros and still follow the TOS for the game? Well you are not alone as others have been asking the same questions and we now have some clarification. Phillip_BW (Phillip Holmes, SWTOR Head of Security) came on to the forums to clear up some questions about macros, specifically certain types of macros. So here is what he had to say: So a number of people have asked about text macros. A couple of others (even on reddit!) have mentioned ‘colour detection to determine which action to take’ systems. I even saw a questions about sequence clicking… I even saw claims that we can’t detect anything and won’t do a thing about this issue. I’ll address all four… Text Macros Strictly speaking, text macro’s are against the ToS….
Paid Character Transfers are still slated for 2.2.1
Community Manager for Star Wars: The old republic, Eric Musco posted a short forum update confirming that paid character transfers are still slated for 2.2.1 That meens we should be able to transfere our characters to other servers next Tuesday, June 25th. Hey folks, Yes, Paid Character Transfers are still slated for 2.2.1. The reason we didn’t post anything about it is that simply put, nothing changed. I will typically only post about something changing from what I had already stated previously. Paid Character Transfers are still slated for 2.2.1 which is targeted for next Tuesday, June 25th. I will let you know if anything changes, the second it changes. -eric
Official update about Summer plans.
Senior Producer of Star Wars: The old republic, Bruce Maclean, took on the forums today, posting a lengthy post regarding the summer of SWTOR. The post contains more details and a confirmations on what is going to happen. Here are the most important news: 3 x Double XP Weekends New Flashpoints New Daily Area Game-wide color vibrancy improvement New Recurring Event: Bounty Contract Week Bounty Contract Week is a monthly event, so if you miss it the first time, don’t worry – it will return next month! Warzone Arenas. Game Update 2.4 in October Check out the full post below: Hello everyone! Here is a fresh update on where we are at in terms of hitting our schedules for the Summer of SWTOR, and a recap of all the exciting things we have in the works for the months ahead. All of the below dates are the dates the teams…
Patch 2.2.1 Slated for 6/25 (Expected Paid Transfers)
A few days ago we wrote about the price for paid server transfers. Most people hoped that this transfers would come with game update 2.2 but unfortunately it was removed in the last minute. Yesterday Eric Musco had some update about it as he shed some light on the targeted date for patch 2.2.1. There are no guarantees that server transfers will be live with the next game update, but the devs are working on it. Hey folks, I just posted here, the current target date for 2.2.1 is 6/25. One thing I wanted to stress is that it is not a guarantee that transfers will be in 2.2.1. It is our goal to get them to all of you as fast as we can as a part of 2.2.1, but we will not release it until it is working correctly. -eric
No news for SWTOR at E3 and no Cross-server PvP in game update 2.4
BioWare have been wearing the nay hat this week, as they came with a few disappointments. First off Bruce Maclean posted an update on the official forums, stating that Cross-server PvP is not comming with Game update 2.4. Major bummer for the ranked community: While the exact details of which features will make Game Update 2.4 are still being hardened I can definitely say that Cross-Server Queueing is not in the plan for it. We’ve taken a hard look at Cross Server Queuing in the past and accomplishing it is a *significant* challenge that would take a lot of time away from other things we are working on. Emphasis on significant. It’s not forever off the table but it’s not in the plan right now. Even though it is too early to share specifics I can say that Game Update 2.4 as it is being worked on right now has features and changes…
Dev Response: Why PvP Updates have been slow
So much drama in the SWTOR Forums LBC, It’s kinda hard bein’a BruceMaclean D-O-double-G. Ahem.. What I’m Trying To Say is, that yesterday Senior Producer Bruce Maclean, took on the forum posting an explanation to why new PVP updates are several months out. Hi Warforever! We are listening and do care. For what it’s worth I’m a PvPer too. PvP is one of our priorities and we are not going to do away with it. I’m not a big believer in making excuses, and can understand why it might feel like we are not focused on PvP, but here’s a bit of an explanation why the next big PvP update is several months out: PvP and Class Balance are the same team of guys. It makes sense that the designers working on one also work on the other. This means that raising the level cap to 55 for Rise of the Hutt Cartel last month…
Summer of SWTOR (Future Plans)
Senior Producer Bruce Maclean took on the forums today, updating us on what’s come this summer in SWTOR. He starts discussing game update 2.2 but continues on with plans for game update 2.3. Personally I’m happy with what is coming up in near future, but as we could expect, the foums are already going crazy with unsubscribe whine and the usual death threats about the lack of PVP updates. You can check out the complete post below, or over at the official forums. Hello everyone, My name is Bruce Maclean and I am a Senior Producer here at BioWare Austin. I know there have been a lot of questions around the forums about what kind of content you can expect from us this year and so I’m here today to give you all a bit of information about what we’re working on bringing to you this summer! First up, Game Update 2.2,…
Cory Butler respond to patch 2.1 criticism
Many people, especially subscribers, have been upset about patch 2.1. People are mad about this patch being a cartel market update only. But players are also forgetting that BioWare already announced how the coming two games updates is planed out. Still Cory Butler found it necessary to post on the official forums explaining what the developers have in mind. Check it out below: Howdy, folks. Cory Butler here to follow-up on some of your concerns that have been surfacing in the forums and on social media sites around Game Update 2.1: Customization. First, it’s important to know that 2.1 will not affect the cadence of our game update schedule. 2.1 was the second half of our Cartel Market implementation plan. So, do not expect to see this type of Market-driven update on a regular basis. This release was comprised almost entirely of cosmetic options that have no impact on combat balance or gameplay….
Community FeedBack Process
Eric Musco has an interesting forum post today, on how BioWare handles feedback. Basically he is saying that SWTOR developers are indeed listening to what the community have to day, but it’s not easy to implement what the players want, or do not want. There is a technically part to the game, and let’s also be honest, most people on the official forums are insane! Reading through the forum thread started by Eric, I can’t stop laughing. Many people are now writing stuff like “Well, since you said you do listen…ANSWER ME THIS!” and ask a random concern that they believe is the biggest problem of SWTOR right now. I would shoot myself if I was a moderator over at swtor.com. I guess it’s true that you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. Reminds me of the good old Jeff Woods rant Check out the full lenght forum post…
Future Plans (2.1 & 2.2 Planned Release Dates)
Eric Musco Took on the official forums, updating us with road map for the next two upcoming SWTOR game updates. Game update 2.1 will happen next week on May 14th, and Game update 2.2 will happen the same time as E3 starts on june 11th. Not sure if we should put anything in that. Check out the forum post on the official website or below: 2.1 page update. Is this all? Nothing there for subscribers? | 05.07.2013, 07:44 AM Hey everyone, I wanted to specifically address the concern of “what is a subscriber getting in an all Cartel Market update?” Game Update 2.1 brings a whole lot of customization and convenience features to the game which have been requested for quite some time, such as character name changes etc. As we have stated in the past, we always design systems like this knowing that subscribers will be receiving Cartel Coins each month, and certainly…
PSA – PTS Closing 3/26
BioWare are closing down the public test servers on March 26. This is off course due to the announcement of Star Wars: The old republic Rise of the Hutt Cartel. For some reason we are not getting this information when we actually log into the PTS, but AmberGreen updates us on the forums: PTS Closing – 3/26/2013 | 03.25.2013, 09:43 AM Tomorrow morning, we will be closing the PTS and this forum as we conclude public testing of Game Update 2.0. Please remember that the current build on PTS is not the final version, and there will be updates to what’s here before Game Update 2.0 is deployed to the live servers. Your participation and feedback have been exceptionally valuable, and we appreciate everyone who took time to test Game Update 2.0! PTS Closing Details: Date: March 26th, 2013 Time: 8AM PDT (5PM GMT) Duration: The PTS will remain closed until we…
Ready Check Slated for 1.7.3
One of the features that have been asked most about for a while, it the feature “Ready Check”. If your not used to mmorpg’s, ready check is a common feature used in most game of this sort. A ready check is an automatic survey that can initiated by a party or raid leader. Anyone promoted to raid assistant by the leader is also able to use the command. The command is initiated by typing /readycheck, or by clicking the “Ready Check” button in the raid ui panel. All members of the Operaton will receive a popup window that asks if the player is ready. If all players click “yes”, the person who initiated the check will receive a message indicating so. If a player clicks “no” or does not respond within the prescribed time limit a message will be sent to the leader indicating that they are either not ready or…
BioWare Says Repair Costs Being Recalculated Due To Community Concerns
Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a post on the official swtor forums about the raise in repair cost we saw with Game Update 1.7. Many players were frustrated about this issue, as it was increasing repair costs by at least 33%. Before game update 1.7, repair costs were based on the shell of the item, and didn’t account for the level of the mods inside. Now they fixed it to properly account for all components. This made running operations very expensive for people with high end gear, and some people including some of my guild mates had to stop doing this content due to this. Clearly there is room for improvement, and it needed re-evaluated. Good on them for that. Hi everyone, Thank you all for your feedback on the changes to repair costs introduced with Game Update 1.7. Upon review, we agree with you that repair costs did become too high with this…
SWToR Gree Event analysis…or taking a closer look at gamer personalities.
The SWToR community never seizes to amaze me… Even though some limited negative examples tend to grab our attention every now and then (these exist in every community after all), there are certainly moments that you’re proud to be a SWToR gamer. A recent example of this is Ardonorrin who posted an interesting analysis over the official SWToR forums dealing with the recently launched Gree event as well as the types of gamers the event appeals to. What type of gamer are you? An explorer, an achiever, a socializer, or a killer? His analysis is based off the Bartle test, a character theory based on the observations of Richard Bartle, the father of online multiplayer gaming and takes a closer look at the different types of gamers and essentially what makes an in-game event successful. It’s definitely a very interesting read and offers a different perspective on gaming as a whole….
SWTOR to Get Animal Mounts
Fun and interesting news coming to us from the SWTOR community forums- we’re getting animal mounts. It’s been talked about since SWTOR launched (and actually some before it launched) and now we finally have some official word on the topic. SWTOR Systems Designer NathanEmmott posts: Howdy everyone!I wanted to pop in here and let everyone know that we are very much reading y’all’s suggestions (and the ensuing debates ). I figured the Animal Mounts discussion would be a good one to jump in and let you know that creature mounts are something we have wanted for quite some time now. Now, obviously I can’t tell you anything concrete yet – mostly because there isn’t anything concrete yet – but I can tell you that Hoth doesn’t feel right without being able to ride a tauntaun. Awesome! So there’s nothing “concrete” as he said but we know they are on the way….