MMORPG.com had the chance to interview Producer Jack Wood, at the BioWare cantina tour in Boston earlier this month. The full interview can be read here, but Reddit user bstr413 made A summary of the Q&A not relating to strongholds:
- Why is there a sabacc table on The Esseles when there isn’t any sabacc? “Good question.” (No mention of adding sabacc to the game.)
- Why was Op/Scoundrel knockdown now a root?: That and the assassin skills would keep the player stunned for 1 second if they used a stun breaker due to the animation.
- More Same Gender Romance: Yes in future content. No in past content due to it breaking a lot of things. In retrospect, they should have made it possible to add it to all romanceable characters. EA/BioWare will not remove any Same Gender Romance in the game and romance opportunities in the future will be Bisexual.
- Moraband vs Korriban: SWTOR will use the traditional “Korriban” term.
- Chevin Event Return?: Eric took a poll if people wanted this. Unanimous yes.
- No plans for increasing Legacy cap
- Cost of guild ships is “not cheap” but obtainable by guilds
- Ranked PvP changes blog: http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20140415
- More flexibility in font colors and sizes for quest text and other text: Eric will tell the team about this request.
- GSF PvE?: “Anything’s possible” / Wall of Crazy
- Ranked PvP rewards: Set by a percentage of players at a certain rating: 1500 had only 5% at the time.
- Guardian/Jugg DPS AOE Taunt loss: Eric did not know why that was the route chosen
- Powertechs/Vanguard changes coming? Might in Game update 2.8 (stress on the “might”)
- Throwing Ranked PvP games punishments: Hard to tell if player is doing it on purpose or if stuck or if badly skilled
- No lifetime membership
- Can we revisit the Revanites on Dromund Kaas? Eric took a poll if people wanted to. The majority said yes
- Cross faction transfer: This is a heavily story based game. The “world would explode” if this was possible.
- Ship decorations / abilities: Strongholds will cover most of it and they do not want to “deplete the fleet” by having everyone on ships.
- More guild support: Discussed internally; no plans currently
- CM GSF ships’ appearance not customizable: Done so that people have the look of the ship they bought.
Strongholds Interview and Q&A:
- Strongholds is primarily a social addition to the game.
- Friends can stop by and see your decorations and trophies.
- Chat will have options to display what type of chats they want to see (planetary chat, a new chat, etc.)
- Delay in release date is based on GSF not having all features at launch (and getting a few poor reviews because of it.) Wanted to be more deliberate in how Strongholds is revealed to the public for the first time.
- 250k cost is over 200k F2P cost: Escrows will be needed for the Nar Shaddaa one. Other strongholds will be cheaper: Nar Shaddaa costs the most, its a “Palace.”
- It will be better than Lord of the Rings Online’s version.
- Another House besides Capitol Worlds and Nar Shaddaa (Now known as Tatooine.)
- Sittable furniture: No details yet
- PvP aspect to Strongholds: It is just a name; no PvP aspect planned currently
- Estates like Lord Grathan: No plans
- Legacy storage: No details