Eric Musco was really engaged in the community yesterday. Besides the Faction change post we wrote about earlier, he also updated the community about the PvP vs PvE Mounts Philosophy: Hey everyone, I know there has been a bit of frustration from our PvP community regarding a Rancor mount going into the Cartel Market. Although I had mentioned at the time that there would be Rancor mounts coming to both the CM and Operations, I thought it would be good to explain our philosophy on mounts. Especially around their exclusivity. For PvP mounts, such as Season rewards, what you are going to tend to find is that they are exclusive variations of a mount and not necessarily a completely exclusive model (not to say we would never do an exclusive model, that is always possible). For example, you will not find a Rancor that looks anything like Giradda’s Rancor, but…
Eric Musco
Confirmed: Faction Change “very, very unlikely” to be Added
There have been a discussion regarding faction change on the official forums, and yesterday Eric Musco had an answer on this matter. Faction changes is “very, very unlikely” to be Added. Personally I I never thought the ability to change factions was something that was in the realm of realistic possibility. I can understand people wanting to change faction but as Eric pretty much states it’s likely never going to happen as the story options tied to each toon makes it impossible. Hey folks, This is a good question! We have been asked this a few times at some of our Cantina Tours as well but I wanted to make sure we had the answer here in the forums for folks to be able to find it. I am remiss to ever say the word never, but I can say that it is very, very unlikely that we would ever…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Insider Video — May 2014
Watch the latest SWTOR Insider Video, now live, as Producer Jack Wood and Community Manager Eric Musco offer an inside look at the latest exciting news for Galactic Strongholds Digital Expansion, Season 2 of Ranked PvP, Cartel Market and more! Darth_Wicked from Reddit discover something interesting. At around 00m36sYou can listen Jack Wood talking about the new Homestead on Tatooine and you get to see a couple of new Sandcrawlers that are not currently in the game. Starting to wonder if the above is related to the planetary Guild conquest thing or if our homestead on Tatooine will be an actual Sandcrawler What do you guys think that’s all about?
Powertech Top 3 Answers
Eric Musco posted an update on the forums that Bounty hunters will like. Here is the summary of the post Changes coming: Game Update 2.8: Rapid Venting changed from alacrity to critical chance increase. Shield Tech/Specialist skills will be able to proc from misses and resists instead of just shielding attacks, except for Heat/Power Screens. DPS Boost for DOTs for Pyrotech/Assault Specialist to increase DPS. (Unknown timeframe) Ways to make pure tanks more viable in PvP: Developers are asking for input on how to do this Other info: Powertech/Vanguard tanks have the best Ranked Arenas PvP win ratio, even though they have the least amount of stuns. And here is the post in full: 3 Questions for PT. Lets DO IT! | 03.25.2014, 01:07 PM Hey folks! Here are your top 3 questions, answered: Question 1 – PvE DPS This question is plain and simple. Both specs for Powertech DPS are…
Frequently Asked PvP Questions
Eric Musco and PvP Designer Alex Modny will be on Twitch later today, playing Warzones on Prophecy of the Five at 1:30PM PDT. As with most of the BioWare streams, they get quite a few questions which are commonly asked by PvPers. Therefor Eric talked with the combat team about many of our questions and got answers to many of the commonly asked questions. Below you will find those questions/answers. Will we ever be able to choose a specific Warzone to queue for? From the design side, we do like the idea of allowing our players to be able to impact which Warzone they want to queue for, but it is not as simple as letting everyone select which Warzone they want and call it a day. Because of a few reasons (queue population, preventing ‘de facto’ best Warzone, making sure all Warzones are being played, etc.) it would require…
Galactic Strongholds forums updates
With the announcement of the new upcoming Star Wars: The old Republic expansion, it was only expected that the official forums would go nuts. So many questions needs answering, and Eric Musco is trying to keep up. Here is a rundown of all the yellow posts on the official forum: Post #1 EricMusco Watch New Galactic Strongholds Announcement Trailer | 03.19.2014, 10:01 AM Quote: Originally Posted by ninjonxb Woo! So if Subscribers are getting early access on June 24th can we assume that this will not be the focus of 2.8? 2.8 was originally said to come on June 10th and “is going to be the biggest update up to this point”http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20140203 Good catch Ninjonxb, Subscriber Early Access to Galactic Strongholds is coming as a part of 2.8. As you can see the decision has been made to move the 2.8 date out two weeks from its original target. We wanted…
Eric Musco Addresses Double XP Weekend Bugs
If you tried to play SWTOR this weekend for the double XP event, you may have encountered some bugs and not gotten your double experience like you should have. Don’t worry- you are not alone and Bioware is aware of the issue. Eric Musco addresses it in the forums: I know that there was definitely some unhappiness that came out of this past double XP weekend and I wanted to address a little bit about what happened, and we are doing about it. There are two main issues which plagued the weekend: In certain group compositions, no experience is granted during a Flashpoint. The Kuat Drive Yards Flashpoint was awarding only normal experience for NPC kills, it was not being doubled. Understandably, many players look to Flashpoints to level during our double XP weekends and so there is quite a bit of frustration that these bugs were present. Let’s take…
Ranked PvP Rating Requires Minimum 10 Matches to Count for Rewards
Following the last few days debate regarding end Season 1 Rewards, Eric Musco updated the community about am issue with the game. Currently, it is possible that your name can show up on the leaderboards with a rating, even if you have technically not yet earned one. Below is the announcement: Announcing End Season 1 Rewards | 02.20.2014, 11:44 AM Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know of an issue I just learned of. Currently, it is possible that your name can show up on the leaderboards with a rating, even if you have technically not yet earned one. The rules that determine you having a rating are fairly simple but I want to make sure I spell them out so that we don’t have a situation where someone is expecting a reward and does not receive one. In order to earn a rating, you must: Have played 10 games…
Name Renewal details from the dev tracker
community manager Eric Musco posted some clarification regarding the Name Renewal program that starts november 12, 2013. Bascially if you have a 30+ character you don’t really need to do anything, but if you have toons below that level, it will be a good idea to read the details below. Character names poll for prefered and f2p | 11.06.2013, 12:39 PM Hey Liron! I wanted to clear up how the Name Renewal will work to alleviate any concerns that you have. You are obviously a subscriber right now, this means that even if you unsubscribe today, you will be completely unaffected. The reason is that you would then become a preferred status player. Preferred players are completely unaffected as long as they logged in to those specific characters within the last 90 days. Being how the name renewal is next week, that is far less than 90 days 🙂 Here…
Class Representatives Update!
Eric Musco Has taken on the forums, to update the community regarding the future of the Class Representatives. Since BioWare have not yet made any actual class changes since the initiative began, the dev team have chosen to put the class Rep initiative on hiatus after the Assassin/Merc answers. This will go on until their next set of class changes that apparently comes with game update 2.5. Does this mean that Game update 2.5 will be a mini update? Who knows. The Forums are going mad about how this is the end of the game and all – You know how it always goes. Personally don’t care one bit about this. Always thought the Class Reps system wasn’t much more than a way to placate the uber-whiners on the forums with a “yes, we’re listening to you!” bone tossed to them. Eric and the rest of the CM team always will…
Appearance Designer Sale! – 50% off your plastic surgery
Eric posted the news that there will be a big sale on Appearance Design for the next 10 days. This means you get 50% off your plastic surgery! Now we all want to know what happens when you change your species before finishing Chapter 3? Do you unlock the former species you had when you originally created your character or the one you are currently appear as? Hey folks, Over the next ten days, starting tomorrow, we are going to be offering a 50% off sale within the Appearance Designer! Here are the details: Start: 11 AM CDT Friday, September 13th End: 11 AM CDT Monday, September 23rd The Sale: All Appearance Designer changes and Appearance options will be 50% off. Note that subscribers will get this discount in addition to their normal subscriber discount! -eric
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
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…
Bug Fixes and updates Set for Patch 2.2.1
The official SWTOR Forums have been active with yellow posts today. Both Eric Musco and Amber Green have been posting update regarding bug fixes we can expect with next weeks patch. Here is a short run down off what have been said so far: Broken or Missing Titles and Achievements I wanted to give an update on the broken titles and achievements issue. These should be fixed with Game Update 2.2.1 next week. Also, after that point if you transfer a character you should not experience these issues. If you run into any problems with your titles or achievements after 2.2.1, please contact CS. -eric Bolster Changes for 2.2.1 Hey folks, Quick update, here are two changes coming to Bolster in Game Update 2.2.1 which is slated for next Tuesday, 6/25: Expertise again caps appropriately at 2018 instead of 2013. This correction to a rounding error will result in a…
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
Paid Transfers Delayed til 2.2.1
Apparently payed transfers are delayed again. This is abit of a bummer since they said transfers would be “right on the heels” of 2.1. Even thought disappointing you have to appreciate that they are trying not to bungle this when they launch it. If you pay $15 to transfer a character you will want all of the benefits of that character to also be transferred with them. The official forums are convinced that this delay will ruin the game and kill swtor. =) EricMusco Scheduled Maintenance: June 11th, 2013 [POSTPONED] | 06.10.2013, 03:19 PM Hey folks, I wanted to give you an update on Paid Character Transfers since I know you have been curious about it with the delay of 2.2. Unfortunately, we have come across some bugs that are present with Character Transfers, specifically around Achievements. We definitely want to insure that we are providing the best service possible when…
Game Update 2.2 Delayed
Eric Musco just informed the us via the official swtor forums, that Game Update 2.2 is delayed until further notice. Apparently there are some last minute bug fixes that is giving them trouble. To clarify two points in the thread. Although I don’t have exact timing yet, Game Update 2.2 will not be tomorrow (6/11) at all. The maintenance is delayed past tomorrow. As for the specific bug. What we needed to fix were some critical bugs inside of the the new Nightmare Mode Operation, which would need to be fixed before the Update went live. Upon implementing those fixes the Game Update itself became unstable. That is what we are working through now. Hope that gives a bit of insight. -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…
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…
Cross Promotional Pets: Clarification
Many people have been confused about the Cross Promotional Pets we mentioned a few days ago. Yesterday Eric Musco made a post on the official forums clarifying how, exactly, these pets might be obtained: I have the answer to these two questions which I think is what most people are looking for (especially B) A. In order to get the pet you will have to have received the email mentioning the pet promotion. Then you would need to create a new SWTOR account with that email address. That account will then, at a later date, receive the pet. B. At this moment subscribers cannot get the items, no. This was intended as a cross-promotion to other EA free-2-play games. However, I can tell you that subscribers will have access to these items in the future. We are still working out both the when and the how. I will share any details as…
Additional Patch 1.7.2 details revealed!
Bioware’s newly appointed community manager Eric Musco, stopped by the official SWToR forums to provide additional details about tomorrow’s patch. As we mentioned in a previous post, Patch 1.7.2 will see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful among the SWToR community. It will also remove the Golden Scalene armor from the cartel market. Musco was kind enough to provide details on the new items that will be incorporated in tomorrow’s update as well as pointing out that the Gree vendors will have new items for purchase. In specific, the new items added are: Dire Taskmaster’s Robe Dire Overlord’s Vestments Dire Warmaster’s Body Armor Dire Eliminator’s Chestguard Guard Captain’s Chestplate CZ-27k Stealth Ops Suit CZ-18x Avalanche Chestplate Honored Master’s Vestments Honored Champion’s Robe Honored Sabarist’s Harness Honored Adept’s Shroud MA-52 Med-tech Chestplate Emergency Responder’s Overcoat MA-53 Overwatch Chestplate Jawagram “I Love You” Jawagram “It’s A…
Gree event returning with Patch 1.7.2!
Bioware’s new community manager Eric Musco revealed yesterday that Patch .1.7.2 will also see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful on its first iteration. In addition, the golden scarlene armor that’s currently available at the cartel market store will be soon removed from it. The armor will be returning at a later (unspecified) date.
In specific he stated: