‘And Another Thing’ is a regular column where one of the Oceanic Gamer team get an issue off their chest. If you’ve got a pet peeve or controversial issue you’d like to write about, drop us a line.

Finally the cone of silence lifts and we can finally spill some beans on Rise of the Hutt Cartel. Big question first, ‘Is it worth it?’ Easy answer: Yes, yes, yes.

So what’s it like? It is polished, visually impressive and a great boost to the game. While we’ll be talking about the game more as the release draws closer, I’ll limit myself to sharing a little of SWTOR’s outstanding feature – storytelling, or swtorytelling. Sorry.

As most of us already know, while this is Chapter 4 of SWTOR, it’s not Chapter 4 of your class story. This expansion is faction based, or a world arc if you prefer, so you just get to see events from your own side’s standpoint. There is a lot less voiceover in this chapter, with only significant missions threatening the health of your space bar. Incidental missions are, for the most part handled through terminals and, in my opinion, it’s an improvement. Quality voice acting is a good thing, but you can have too much of it. Especially when it blurs the significance of the mission. It’s a little like typing an entire email in bold capitals – it’s hard for anything to stand out. RoTHC doesn’t suffer from that and it definitely helps smooth out the story telling now there’s less background noise.

As to the quality of the story, it would be hard to complain. To the extent of the opportunityI had to play (thanks Eric), it felt at least as good as anything previously in the game. There is nothing that hints of reduced resources or a cash grab as some of the more cynical have suggested.

To coincide with the announcement of Rise of the Hutt Cartel’s launch date, we fired some questions through on the expansion and got some replies from ROTHC’s content design lead, Brian Audette:

Can you give a little insight onto the journey that’s been undertaken to get to RotHC being a near-live expansion for SWTOR?

Brian Audette: A lot of what would ultimately come to make up Rise of the Hutt Cartel already existed in some early form around the time that we launched SWTOR. As with any live experience however you don’t really learn what players want and what you need to do next until the product is actually out there, so we spent most of our time after launch addressing player feedback and shoring up the existing game. It wasn’t until late last summer that we really started developing RotHC full bore. The great thing is by that time we had already solidified much of the art, writing and quest design, thus giving us the freedom to really jump into it and the time to make it shine. This was also when we decided to add our new Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid content as part of Rise of the Hutt Cartel as well and a lot of work went into not only finding the most epic way to introduce those features, but to make them exciting and worth doing over and over again. We’re all really excited for people to finally get their hands on all of this new game play.

How did the development process evolve compared to the original game development i.e. did you have more/less time to flesh out story elements?

Brian: We learned a lot of lessons through developing and launching SWTOR that allowed us to get out in front of potential issues before they became problems with Rise of the Hutt Cartel. One of the most important things we did was getting writers, artists, engineers and designers together very early in the process of creating Rise of the Hutt Cartel both to get input from every discipline, but also to make sure everyone was on the same page. I think it was this attempt at synergy that allowed us to create an experience that feels incredibly tight, where story, visuals, and game play all work together to create one amazing adventure.

It’s fair to say there’s a significant cohort of ex-SWTOR players out there – what would you say that ROTHC offers that should make them want to come back?

Brian: Well first off, we’ve added a lot of great features and content to the game since launch including hard mode Flashpoints, new Operations, new Warzones, Group Finder, and the Legacy system. Rise of the Hutt Cartel builds on that content by adding Makeb – a whole new world of story content – allowing players to continue their character’s epic journey. We’ve got the all new Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid content that will allow players to explore the galaxy in search of unique items, artifacts, and gear. We’re raising the level cap to 55 with new abilities and talents to train, as well as new gear and tons of class balances based on player feedback.

Finally, along with the launch of Rise of the Hutt Cartel we’ve got our 2.0 game update which introduces more tweaks and bug fixes along with four level 55 hard mode Flashpoints, and an all new level 55 Operation. If you combine all this with continued commitment to publish regular game updates featuring more new content and features and the fact that you can jump in and play much of the game’s content for free, it’s never been a better time to play SWTOR.

It’s coming up to 18 months since SWTOR launched and by that time ROTHC will have been live for 8 weeks or so – looking back what are three achievements you’re most proud of and what are three things you wish you’d done differently over that time?

Brian: I think that all the things I wish we had done differently can be summed up under one singular heading, that being getting more frequent and regular updates out to our players. An MMO is a service and we serve the customer best when we’re able to interface with them and react to their feedback in a timely, regular manner. Even though not everything is a simple fix and there’s always going to be issues and features that take months to get addressed, I think we’ve drastically improved our response time since going free-to-play back in November and we’re committed to maintaining a regular cadence of updates and releases going forward.

Some of the things I’m most proud of are features like Group Finder, the Legacy system, and the Cartel Market that have been huge improvements to the game and that not only make it better to play, but make it a better service as well. It took us a while to get our balance, but with Rise of the Hutt Cartel we’re off and running through year two of SWTOR and committed to providing quality service and top-notch game play well into the future.

What personally for you is the most exciting part of your involvement with ROTHC?

Brian: The most exciting part for me is getting to work with some of the most talented developers in the business. SWTOR and Rise of the Hutt Cartel have been group efforts from day one and as developers I think we’re always striving to outshine each other’s expectations the whole way. Every time I play through this content I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished and while I can’t wait for players to get their hands on it, I’m also really excited to start working on all the awesome things that are coming next.

============

So there you have it – is there anything in what Brian has said that particularly caught your attention or surprised you?

SWTOR’s first large expansion now has an official live date, and it’s a date that’s earlier than some people thought. Sunday April 14th (or Monday local time)i s when we get to jump in, or for those who pre-ordered before the 7th January it’s 5 days earlier on the 9th April.

We’ll bring you the exact local launch times as more details are confirmed. A second in-depth trailer has been released to coincide with the announcement, check it out:

So make sure you have some free time organised during April for some serious levelling time!

With Rise of the Hutt Cartel coming to SWTOR in the near future, I’ve had a few people ask me: Why Should I Buy Rise Of The Hutt Cartel? My answer is always that it depends on the individual’s gaming style, but to help Eric Musco at BioWare has posted a nice summary of the differences if you do or don’t add the expansion pack:

Here is a bit more clarification on the differences between Rise of the Hutt Cartel and 2.0 put as simply as I can!

What subscribers will get without purchasing Rise of the Hutt Cartel:

• Class changes and balancing levels 1-50
• Any itemization/world changes which affect levels 1-50
• Legacy Achievements

What subscribers will get if they do purchase Rise of the Hutt Cartel:

• New Operation: Scum and Villainy
• Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond
• Upgraded level 55 Hard Mode Flashpoints
• Level cap increase to 55
• All new Makeb storyline

The new Operation and Hard Mode Flashpoints in Game Update 2.0 are Level 55 Elder Game Content. The level cap increase to 55 is included with the purchase of the Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel. Free-to-Play restrictions apply. Visit theFree-to-Play Features Chart for more information.

So there you have it – even if you don’t upgrade you’ll see some impact of the expansion but you’ll need to buy it for the new content. Not surprising but it’s a good overview of where things are at.