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Interview: BioWare’s Gabe Amatangelo on PvP, Server Transfers

March 1, 2012 by

As part of the local launch festivities, I had the opportunity for a one-on-one with Gabe Amatangelo, SWTOR’s Lead PvP designer. We had a bunch of great questions from the Oceanic community, and we managed to ask pretty much all of them. We also threw in a question about the delay with free server transfers.

Gabe was a friendly guy and it shows in his answers, so without further ado, here’s the interview:

If you had difficulty hearing all of the questions, the legends over at Torboard have done a nice summary:

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes

  • Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
  • There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
  • Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
  • New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
  • There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP

  • Phase one will be server specific.
  • Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

General/UI Changes

  • Combat log coming soon.
  • DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
  • Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing

  • Coming in phase two of pvp changes (later than 1.2)
  • Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
  • As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server queue.
Also – if you’re an RP’er or want a wider perspective on stuff from Gabe – definitely check out this brilliant piece from Ganden over at SWTOR-RP, which was completed yesterday as well. Some excellent info in there to say the least!
And for the record, here are the questions that were asked:

Are there any plans to allow lesser PVP tokens (Centurion etc) to be traded in for higher tokens (Champion etc) at a ratio? (Like Warzone tokens into Mercenary Commendations).
What is the outlook for Bioware’s rated pvp, are you aiming for an e-sport paradigm or something more casual.

When, when, when are dps meters coming out?!?!?!?

What are your impressions on the current PvP Warzones and what have you learned going forward for their future?

Are there any plans to allow trading up of Planetary Commendations like Daily’s or higher level planet commendations, I don’t think im ever going to use my 56 Tattooine Commendations anytime soon.

I heard we maybe going cross-server for warzones. How is that going to be handled? Are we going to be using battlegroups, or preferably RvR (realm vs realm)? With RvR, it’d at least keep that sense of community with your server.

Any chance we will see a larger scale instanced objective based Warzone? (Something along the lines of the epicness of Vanilla WoW Alterac Valley)

As I see it, the single biggest problem with Ilum PvP is the large scale kill trading. Why aren’t the organisers of KT (if not all participants of KT ops) banned for boosting / exploiting?

With the announcement of server transfers now not occurring until late April, there’s been some griping giving the assumption was made it’d be earlier. Is the delay due to the free transfers being part of the wider roll-out of transfers throughout the game?

Over to you: what did you think of Gabe’s answers?

Also a big thanks to Jodie at EA for videoing the interview.

Filed Under: Community, News, PvP Tagged With: ,

Launch Day Eve: servers and live blogs

February 29, 2012 by

As you may have heard by now, the local servers for SWTOR come on board this evening, so expect lots of people rolling alts or their first character on the three servers available initially. For those meeting the free transfer criteria, you’ll receive an email in the next few days telling you how to do that.

Which leads to the launch event tomorrow for media in Sydney. We’ll be live blogging it from around 2pm AEDT so just keep an eye on the front page and watch the information flow in. Unfortunately the live blog will be a normal post updated minute to minute, so you will need to refresh the page to see the updates – sorry. If you’re really keen you can also hang out in our Flash Point chat room – if the wireless reception at the event is up to scratch we’ll join you there as well.

Otherwise, enjoy your last evening as an official red zoner – that’s history as of late tonight.

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:

Fleet Pass: SWTOR weekly roundup

February 26, 2012 by

Time to introduce our third new member of the TOROZ team this week: Tim Gow – welcome!

Fleet Pass is a weekly review of the SWTOR community, a small and non-comprehensive collection of the funny, the insightful, the controversial and any other interesting picks found anywhere but generally in the SWTOR Forums.  Have a suggestion?  Send it in to us with a source link if available, and the name you’d like to be credited with.

Warning:  Article may or may not contain spoilers relating to SWTOR, or any of its variants.

Threads

Ashes_Arizona – SWTOR Roleplay Sub-Forum:

Formal Apology to the Galactic Republic

It has come to our attention that in the years following the sacking of Coruscant that you have had struggles and economic disturbances which have put great strain on the once great Galactic Republic and as such a massive issue with population migration and overall strains on your operational capability are evident.
…
It is with our sincerest apologies that we must say the heroes and combatants of your glorious Republic just, simply, are not cool, in any way. They are, unfortunately, so not cool, that to be any less cool they would become cool for being so uncool. This is not something we have any direct control over, and if we did, Imperial Intelligence would already be hard at work behind the scenes on many Republic worlds, doing our best to make your heroes cooler, simply because fighting badly dressed, ill trained, cliche spouting stereo-types is a horrible waste of the time of our Empire’s best and brightest, who are, without a doubt, far cooler than any cream of the crop the Republic appears to be able to offer.

AGSThomas – SWTOR General Discussion Sub-Forum:

My server’s population went from heavy to light within one month

Over the last few weeks I have noticed that there are less and less people online during peak hours. Rwookrorro is an eastern server and we peak around 8 and 9 pm. Over the weekend I hadn’t noticed more then 45 people on the fleet. People from my guild have not signed as much too. People that were playing 3 or 4 times a week now play once or twice.
…
This was sorely disappointing, not in a QQ kinda way, but all I wanted to do was play the game and I couldn’t because my server is dying/dead. I sat there contemplating what to do next when I realized my pvp queue still hadnt popped! I disbanded the “group”, logged off and watched TV for the rest of the night.

Elexier – SWTOR Story & Lore Subforum:

Same gender relationships clarifications?

There will not be a quote on this one.  It’s just an incredibly interesting discussion that has become a mainstay of the S&L Subforum.

 

Quotes

Back & Forth – SWTOR Story & Lore Subforum:

Once you marry your companion that’s it?

Haiken

Tittle says it all, after you marry your companion, in my case Nadia Grell, thats it?, she doesn’t talk to me ever again?

Lasmith

Yeah, sounds like marriage to me!

Anagnostics – SWTOR Roleplay Subforum:

To Sith

[Dirty Kick]

From your everyday smuggler

 

Explosive_Lasers – SWTOR Story & Lore Subforum:

The Empire is a totalitarian government that endorses slavery, noble houses, and reveres the Force-users among them. They are generally very harsh, unforgiving, and ruthless. They are also fairly racist, and hold much more respect for Purebloods and Humans. While they aren’t all Dark or Evil, many may be considered as such, because the Sith tend to interpret their Code as endorsing anger and hatred, which lead to the Darkside. The citizens and soldiers that aren’t Force-sensitive are subservient to the Sith, so generally follow their lead.

The Republic is a democratic-republic, with elected representatives for each planet under its rule. Equality is endorsed, and slavery is mostly illegal. The Force-users among the Republic are trained to be disciplined and act more as guardians or servants, instead of rulers. Most of the races are treated equally, but humans are still slightly better off, in many cases. While they may seem Light or Good, corruption, greed, and other darker aspects live in the Republic. The Jedi are generally trained to be leaders, while serving the greater good of the galaxy, the Order, or the Republic.

So, neither side is Darkside or Lightside, just like Light and Dark are not always black and white in the sense of morality. The Empire and Republic have vastly different governments and regulations, just like the Jedi and Sith are far different than Light/Dark.

 

Other Stuff

Brisk – Brisk Youtube Channel

 

Unknown – Gamers Lobby UK Youtube Channel

Filed Under: Community, From the internets!, News Tagged With:

Weekly Q&A: companion loot rolls and new emotes

February 25, 2012 by

BioWare have posted their latest community Q&A and there’s quite a bit of meat in there. All the detail is shown below but the standouts for me are acknowledgement of future improvements such as companion loot rolls, new emotes and my favourite: quicker travel options back to your ship.

Here’s the full list if questions and answers:

 

Chyp: Can we expect to see any animation/damage timing consistency changes between factions?

Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): Yes. The animation team has been working on a new set of animations for abilities like the Trooper’s Mortar Volley to provide closer matching of animation timings and improved combat responsiveness. We expect to roll these changes out with Game Update 1.2.

Zennis: Has there been any discussion to streamlining the Space Port process? Perhaps allowing speeders in the Space Ports besides the Fleet?

Brian Audette (Senior Designer): We’ve absolutely heard what the fans are saying and have been exploring options to address these issues. While we are still investigating allowing speeder use in Space Ports, we’ve also been looking for other ways to get people from point A to point B with greater haste. One such feature will specifically affect planets that have Orbital Stations instead of Space Ports such as: Tython, Korriban, Hoth, and Belsavis. We’ll be adding an option for players to go directly to their ships from the surface shuttles as opposed to having them run through the Orbital Station to their airlocks. This feature and some additional tweaks will start showing up in Game Update 1.2.

deusBAAL: Will you be providing a LFG tool? What will be its features? How will it be intended to work and when can we expect it to go live?

Daniel Erickson (Lead Writer): We are hard at work on a much more robust LFG functionality that will quickly help put groups together while still offering the flexibility to decide how you group and what sort of people you want to be grouped with. We’ll release more details as we get closer to release.

LthalSavy: Will there be any way to implement a quick travel to your ship?

Georg Zoeller: Not in the short term, but it’s something we’ve been discussing on and off. Currently, given how easily available fleet travel passes are on the Security Vendor, we don’t think adding this is necessary.

IsACoolGuy: Will any new emotes be added to the game? The Jedi/Sith meditation thing that NPCs do looks pretty cool, will emotes of that nature become available to players?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We do have some new emotes planned. Even cooler, we now have tech that allows us to grant emotes as rewards for various game systems. In Game Update 1.2, we have several emotes planned as unlocked rewards of the Legacy System. My favorite is the special dance that is so inspiring that your companion feels the urge to boogie down with you.

TrueDND: Currently, the incentive to choose other Crew Crafting Skills outside of Biochem is minimal due to the fact that, once you reach max level, all gear that is acquired through PvE and PvP is better than all crafted equipment and mods (mostly through the Commendation and token vendors). Is this being looked in to?

Georg Zoeller: Absolutely. With the upcoming Game Update 1.2, we are adding endgame crafting for all professions. This includes augment crafting, the ability to crit-craft custom (orange) gear with augment slots, new endgame schematics, new color crystals, expanded and improved research and reverse engineering and much more (we’re up to 4 pages of crew skill related patch notes in 1.2. alone)

Combined with new features such as the ability to extract base-mods from purple items (including the set bonus) and the improved color matching feature, crafters of all professions will find themselves in a lot of demand once the update hits.

Toxin_Polaris: Do you plan to have mini-games like swoop races or pazaak? And if so what is the priority for this? Can we expect them this year?

Damion Schubert: We love mini-games, especially the ones that speak to the heritage of KOTOR. When would something like pazaak make its way to you? Hard to say – it’s not on our immediate horizon, and we’d most likely do it at a point where we want to make a large splash.

Twaggy: I find it troublesome to compare mods/enhancements/armoring/hilts/crystals that are installed in my armor or lightsaber. Will you be implementing something that lets you see the stats of what you have (like the comparability you can do of the boots – boots or jacket – jacket)?

Georg Zoeller: This is a convenience feature on our list of things to look at once the higher priority UI features and community requests have been addressed. We definitely think it’s a good idea, but where it falls in terms of prioritization makes it impossible to give you an ETA at this point.

TheJestersHat: What is BioWare planning to do about performance issues that people get with Warzone, open world PVP, and general FPS issues?

Damion Schubert: We have an internal strike team that is fully devoted to ensuring that the game runs better and faster, especially on low end machines, and we consider this team’s work to be a crucial internal initiative. You should see evidence of this work as soon as Patch 1.1.5, when we will be introducing a new ‘very low’ setting to shader quality, which should drastically increase the number of mid-to-low machines the game can run well on, especially in Warzones and Operations.

Frung: Have you considered adding a “companion” loot roll option?

Damion Schubert: We’ve discussed it and have a design for it – when we do this, we will make it so you can only roll ‘need’ on items that your advanced class is meant to use in one of its specs. I do not currently have an ETA on this feature.

Belthazaar: I like my ships but, I was wondering if or when we will be able to purchase, make, or steal a new and different ship beyond the one that we currently get from our class quest?

Damion Schubert: Unfortunately, the nature of our ships as central story areas for all of our class content, and all of the associated triggers and cinematics that must therefore be done on the ships, means that giving players new ship models, particularly interiors, is very, very hard for us. We will probably look at addressing this instead by providing a greater sense of ship customization at some point well in the future. But it’s someplace we definitely want to go!

 

Is there anything in there that’s piqued your interest?

Filed Under: Community, Companions, News Tagged With:

Things to do while servers are down: 22nd Feb edition

February 21, 2012 by

While those interminable hours are passing as the next patch is installed for our enjoyment, you need to find something fun to do.

Some would suggest doing something non-SWTOR related, but we beg to differ. Here’s some SWTOR things you can do to pass the time:

1. Find out lots more about your companion with Simon’s massive companion database

2. Suggest a topic for us to cover in this weekend’s Flash Point podcast, Australia and New Zealand’s number 1 podcast. Ok, that may be a lie.

3. Vote in our poll on oceanic servers

4. Express your interest in writing for TOROZ!

5. Have a laugh at some quality Star Wars humour

6. If you’re a Facebooker, join the SWTOR Gamers of Oceania group or even like our Facebook page

Filed Under: Community, News

TOROZ is looking to expand its writing team

February 18, 2012 by

It’s that time of the year again where we search around for anyone wanting to write their own column on the game they love. As the game’s grown, so has the range of topics we have to cover.

So we’re looking for people interested in getting their writing thang on. Here’s who we’re looking for:

1. Someone who plays SWTOR – you don’t need to be hard-core by any means, but a good familiarity with the game is a must.

2. Someone who writes well – don’t be TOO hard on yourself here. Your work will be edited for the odd typo or grammatical error, which is fine. All we ask is that you can string sentences together in an engaging way and not require extensive re-writing / correction by your friendly editor.

3. Someone who writes regularly – we’d be looking for people that can contribute a minimum of a 400-600 word article each week. Fortnightly gigs will be seriously considered as well.

4. Someone who has a volunteer sense of spirit: unfortunately TOROZ is financially  a loss-making outfit, albeit a successful one with lots of traffic. If revenue increases, you WILL be sharing in that equally with the other writers on the team. In the meantime, expect the odd bit of swag or attendance at a SWTOR-related event representing TOROZ, if the opportunity arises. And yes, you do have a byline to tout to much richer publications than our humble selves. Finally, you’re welcome to have a link back to your own blog or related web undertaking in each of your articles.

As far as topics go, we’re looking for people interested in writing on:

1. A regular Consular / Inquisitor column. You don’t have to be playing both, will adjust the scope of the column around what you play. (UPDATE: this position now filled)

2. A regular Agent / Smuggler column (UPDATE: this position now filled)

3. A regular healing column covering all the healing classes

4. A New Zealand focused column

5. A SWTOR-related webcomic (if you’re an artist looking for a writer, drop us a line)

6. A machinima column with some good embeds to YouTube / Vimeo etc

7. A guild / raid progression column (UPDATE: this position now filled)

8. Any innovative idea you want to put forward!

So if you’d like to express interest, here’s what you do:

1. Use our contact form and provide the following info:

– ideally submit a sample of your writing or at least a pitch on what you’d like to write and why

– tell us a little bit about yourself – similar in vein to the bios on our About page.

– what day and time of the week is best for you to submit a column

2. Wait patiently for us to get back to you – it should only take a day or two.

3. See points 1 and 2.

Please, have a think about getting involved – don’t be too harsh on your writing ability. Leave that to us!

 

Filed Under: Community, News

Suggestion Box: Oceanic launch event

February 17, 2012 by

In what’s been a week of locally-focussed SWTOR love, I thought it’d be worth indulging in some hypothetical fun.

Let’s say BioWare decided to have a public launch event in Australia and New Zealand. What would be a truly local SWTOR launch that’d make the rest of the world sit up and take notice? I personally think a SWTOR B&S ball would have kicked arse, but I’m sure you can be more creative than that.

Jump in and maybe EA might take notice!

Filed Under: Community, Suggestion Box Tagged With:

SWTOR Guild Summit: live streams to be available

February 14, 2012 by

Some good news for guilds and other interested parties who won’t be attending the Guild Summit in the flesh. BioWare have announced that there’ll be live streams available to allow people to watch proceedings and in some cases also participate:

Thank you to all of the guild leaders who submitted applications to attend the first Guild Summit in Austin. We are currently reviewing guild applications and will be responding back to everyone who applied in the next few days.

For those who are unable to attend the Guild Summit for one reason or another, we’re very happy to announce that we will be providing a livestream of select events during the Guild Summit, including developer presentations and feedback discussions. These livestreams will allow players from around the world to observe and participate in some of the event discussions as well. As a reminder, the Guild Summit will be conducted in English, but anyone can join in on the livestream regardless of their location. If you can’t watch the livestream during the Summit, we’ll also be publishing videos of the panels after the event has ended. As we get closer to the event, we’ll provide more details for how you can get involved. Stay tuned!

For oceanic guilds: please let us know if you’ve applied to go in person and get accepted to attend – we’d love some reports and pics from on the ground and are happy to remunerate you for your time.

Just drop David a line.

Filed Under: Community, Guilds, News Tagged With:

Stephen Reid Q&A: Summary Transcript

February 11, 2012 by

It wasn't really the Spanish Inquisition

Earlier today we had a great time throwing some questions from the oceanic SWTOR community at BioWare’s Stephen Reid. He answered them all with aplomb and quite a bit of detail overall.

You can listen to the whole shebang here, but if you want a rough summary of the answers to each question then read on. Note: the answers are NOT word for word answers from Stephen, they’re summaries I’ve jotted down on the run. You’re much better off listening to the podcast to get the fully accurate picture. A big thanks to all those who posted questions as well!

So here we go:

Jono from Sydney NSW – Was BioWare surprised at the level of organisation of Oceanic players in populating three specific servers?

SR: Not surprised – knew it was coming. Made sure they got out announcements about oceanic servers / regional launch as close to launch as possible. Humbling to see interest from oceanic players prior to US/EU launch. Ideally would have loved to have launched in all territories.

Glenn from Southland NZ – Were you surprised at the level of sales from the oceanic area even though excluded as a launch territory?

SR: Again, not surprised overall given interest in SWTOR but Amazon certainly seemed the go-to place for Oceanic people to order the game.

Multiple sources – Where will the oceanic servers be physically located?

SR: “The good news is, the servers are going to be physically located in Australia”. Likely to be Sydney or Melbourne but unsure at this stage. Understands big distances in oceanic area but Sydney or Melbourne the more realistic locations. Also super close to being able to announce Oceanic launch date. Expect announcement within the next few days to a week. No plans for a launch trip to Australia at this stage.

Milza from the Sunshine Coast QLD – Can you reveal any more about the legacy system? Will previously locked species become playable?

SR: Some species previously not available will be come unlocked. But no you won’t be able to play a Wookiee. Legacy aimed at benefitting both alts and mains. Abilities WILL benefit gameplay but not unbalance the game ie. single toon players won’t be disadavantaged significantly but SWTOR is a game always designed for mulptiple toons.

Josh from Victoria – Will there be a Collectors Edition for Australia and will it and the game have bonus content like the current collectors edition?

SR: TBA in next week’s oceanic launch announcement

Dave from Perth WA – Just wanted to ask what is Bioware’s take on the complaints from community groups about the upcoming change to allow toons to have same sex relations?

SR: No real further comment but not going to change stance in supporting the option.

Tim from Canberra ACT – Hoping to learn about specific upcoming PvP changes — will there be changes to game announcements so player names are credited for achieving objectives, medals for accomplishing objectives, etc?

SR: Haven’t heard about those two specific ideas, but a lot of PvP changes coming – new Warzone in update 1.2 which is popular at BioWare. Certainly not leaving the PvP systems alone.

Ken from Sunshine Coast QLD – What are your future plans for light side / dark side… will some pvp rounds be light vs dark (so you have jedi and sith fighting other jedi and sith)… will there be planets where the questing will be divided by light / dark

SR: Interesting idea! But not anything that SR has heard discussed. Encourage you to leave that feedback on the forums.

Aaron from Melbourne VIC – Will you be offering any services in the near future for things like character server transfers/faction changes/renaming and will some form of this be available for oceanic players to be able to move characters from from US servers they currently play on to the oceanic hosted servers when they are released?

SR: Part of Oceanic planning is allowing any current players wanting to shift to new servers to do so. More details on that next week. Character transfer will definitely be happening at some point. Unsure of how faction change would work i.e. you couldn’t become a Jedi on the Empire side etc without radically changing class story. Renaming a possibility but not high on priority list.

Rob from Auckland NZ – Will character transfers be paid or free?

SR: Too early to comment but Oceanic transfers likely to be free around launch of the local servers as courtesy to those wanting to move.

Rob from Auckland NZ – Any chance of a Cut Scene stress relief event where we eject C2-N2/2V-R8 out the ship’s airlock so we can watch them float away into space and burn up entering a nearby planet’s atmosphere?

SR: Much laughter. Discussions occurring on adding more dialogue for companions – much more commentary during gameplay. But opinions divided and Dev team still looking at the issue.

Tyler from East Gippsland Victoria – Please can “”Are you sure?”” buttons be placed on important choices, such as advance class choice? ( Having rolled a Bounty hunter I got to advance class choice only to miss click a button and become a powertech instead of mercenary)”

SR: Could happen but you do get a fair warning of the choice being made. Other dialog boxes coming so it may be an option for the future and should be elevated for discussion. Advanced class switching not coming any time soon.

Glenn from Southland, NZ – Are there any plans to introduce a localised call center or at least a center that routes calls from oceanic areas to your main call center after launch to avoid serious toll charges?

SR: There will be a local Australian number but don’t know if there will be a NZ number – to be confirmed.

Ken from Sunshine Coast QLD – Will physical security keys become available to oceanic players either through stores or through origin?

SR: Pretty sure they will but wait for launch announcement FAQ

Gail from Wollongong NSW – Is there any particular reason that SWTOR maintenance is at the same time as WoW maintenance? I could see a lot more WoW players coming to the light side on a Tuesday if SWTOR maintenance were a different day…

SR: Tuesday nights one of lowest levels of overall traffic – so purely a cooincidence.

Ben from Brisbane QLD – Are there any plans to add additional features to the mobile app? Eg armoury and guild chat. Or maybe a something for the tablet market to do such as space missions on an iPad (or equivalent) or to send companions on crafting missions via an app.

SR: Mobile apps have been talked about, no announcements yet. Might happen in the future though space missions might be a bit much. Pthers ‘possible’ and have been discussed but no timeline.

Jonathan from Wellington NZ – Given the massive upset caused by mishandling of the launch (flipflop on grace period, exclusion of red zone, length of time to get answers on issues like IP blocking) has BW/EA learned anything and can we expect, most importantly, more transparency and more sticking to what has been promised in the future?

SR: Not a lack of transparency, but more too much with the grace period example. Never going to lie intentionally to anyone. Because we know we’ll get caught in the lie. Learning lessons all the time. BioWare take reactions to announcements seriously, but doesn’t mean things will always change as may be impractical or can’t be done immediately.

Mark (TOROZ) – What brought Stephen from England to Texas, was it the Job ?

SR: Not this job specifically, having a US-born wife assisted in migrating.

David (TOROZ) – Are there any plans for a big SWTOR convention at some stage in the future?

SR: Doing the guild summit is a great practice for doing something like that. If fans want such an event, then make it known. Also very keen to see local fan-organised events to support.

David (TOROZ) – BioWare founders Ray and Greg have alluded to the fact they understand the desire for a Mac port of the game. Are there any significant technical obstacles to be overcome to achieve this that would prevent it occurring in the medium term?

SR: Nothing to add – don’t believe it’s a priority but more likely to occur than a console port. Would give an excuse to have a Mac at work.

David (TOROZ) – One thing I’ve noticed since launch is a distinct lack of creative SWTOR machinima being disseminated and I’ve had some comments that they assume it’ll be pulled. What is BioWare / LucasArts’ approach to fan-created machinima?

SR: Can’t speak for LucasArts but we like to see SWTOR machinima so get creative! To be fair too, machinima options are limited in that access to Hero engine not available to players.

David (TOROZ) – Most humourous and stressful moments you’ve had at work since launch?

SR: Humour and stress go hand in hand at work. Lots of fun memes that have popped up around the game. Always stressful when things are going wrong with the service but that’s what we’re supposed to deal with in our jobs.

David (TOROZ) – Is the level of patching more than what you would have liked?

SR: Yes, more than we would have liked. Weekly maintenance a necessity as a base. Done extra patches to help players but not taken lightly. Overall want to reduce level of patching. Upside is where possible weekly patches may have early access to larger patch content.

Ed – Any plans for guild capital ships?

SR: We have no current timeline for a feature like that but it never goes far away from anyone’s mind. Don’t want to do a feature like that by halves. Being discussed but no details yet.

Simon – Any plans for an LFG tool?

SR: Definitely being looked at including cross-server Flashpoint tool. Definitely wanting to do.

Simon – Any work being done on being able to transfer characters from Public Test Server or higher-level premades?

SR: Yes – most likely to be character transfers, not premades. No timeline but not on distant horizon – absolutely know it’s an important thing to get in place.

END

So it’s fair to say there’s a lot to digest there. The imminent oceanic launch announcement is a biggie, the oceanic server location is even bigger, but there’s lots of meat in there in regards to the game more widely. Which part interested you the most?

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:

A red zoner pulls the plug: thoughtfully

February 9, 2012 by

An interesting perspective from a disappointed Australian SWTOR player made it’s way on the official forums today. Unlike some people who’ve decided to cancel their subscription, Canisrah has actually gone beyond griping, to detail in a thoughtful way why he’s not found SWTOR to be the game he thought it would be:

Well, I just cancelled my sub.

Thought I’d offer a few comments as I’ve been following this game for years and felt it deserved some sort of farewell. I was one of the Red Zoners who raged when BW left us out of initial pre-orders, and I was one of those who breathed a sigh of relief when the decision was made not to IP block us so we could play at launch.

My experience playing the game – technically, has been great. No noticeable lag, very few bugs, highly polished game. No real complaints.

In fact, I’m really disappointed that I don’t like the game more than I do. Maybe it’s my problem – maybe my tastes are changing or maybe the sort of game that used to appeal to me simply doesn’t anymore.

I was the rabid SWTOR fan in my group – I was the guy who made all the other guys pre-order and play. My Malgus statue is glaring at me on the shelf and my collectors edition box is proudly displayed.

So why am I cancelling?

Well… I played and enjoyed my BH up to level 41. When I hit Belsavis I suddenly realized I was bored stiff. The story had lost its luster, and I was doing seemingly pointless grinding and losing the will to live. Skyrim started calling to me, and the promise of upcoming titles like Diablo III, Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, and Mass Effect 3 compelled me to acknowledge that when they arrived, there’s no way I would spend my limited game time grinding away in this mmo.

In a desperate attempt to maintain my SWTOR enthusiasm, I started a slew of new characters, leveling them in bits and pieces in an effort to re-engage with a new story. But in each case staring at a long road of grinding interspersed with only fleeting moments of true story engagement was enough to scuttle that expedition before it even left port.

I even considered just letting my sub run for a few months – but then the reality of bleeding money for no apparent purpose (a misguided sense of loyalty or a last ditch attempt to justify all the hours of anticipation waiting for this game notwithstanding).

The age of the mmo is over, at least for me. The old game-play model this game adheres too is no longer interesting and I regretfully say that if SWTOR couldn’t do it for me, no mmo that holds to the old design paradigm will. I may give GW2 a fleeting peek, but only because it’s a no sub thing so I won’t have to invest so much.

I suspect SWTOR will be the last of the big budget mmos. And as much as it pains me to say it… I think it will struggle to maintain a large play-base.

But that’s just my view – and if you are playing and loving it and are in it for the long haul more power to you. Wish I could have been the same.

Peace out.

Obviously there’s no right or wrong in regards to a decision to quit. Personally I’ve really enjoyed the game and haven’t become bored at all. I also tend to judge an MMO once it’s been bedded down for at least 6 months. More unique to SWTOR, I’m also waiting for the damn game to launch worldwide to see what impact the larger community will have on the game, good or bad.

All that said, some people will also come to a quicker decision a game’s not for them, and fair enough too. Some will try to claim this is the start of a wave. It’s not: it’s a normal part of the evolution of an MMO post-launch. One respondent to the post on the forums (lunabaguna) put it perfectly in my opinion:

Perhaps this is a case of book vs movie for you. When you read a book, you get to make up a character in your head, if the character doesnt look how you want, you can ignore the description and make up something in your head. You get to create a backstory in your head, make the person who you want. With the voiceovers, its like a movie, the character has a certain personality that you cant control. Perhaps you just cant get into it because you cant form the character the way you see them.

So again: no matter how good an MMO is, its mechanics will be somewhat derivative and it will disappoint some people. You’ll only see me stating a real concern for SWTOR if hundred or thousands of posts as well written as Canisrah’s start appearing on the forums. My money is on that not happening.

Filed Under: Community, News, Opinion Tagged With:

Upcoming: Stephen Reid Q&A on TOROZ

February 2, 2012 by

We’re very pleased to announce that we’ll be recording an interview with BioWare’s Senior Community Manager, Stephen Reid, on Episode 26 of our Flash Point podcast. We’ll be recording on the 11th February, but in the lead up we’d love YOUR questions for Stephen Reid on anything SWTOR-related.

How to have your question asked

BioWare haven’t placed any rules on what can be asked, but I do know they won’t be able to talk about the Oceanic launch as details aren’t finalised as yet. Aside from that, the sky’s the limit. So here’s what to do to be on with a chance to get your question asked:

1. Ask something that a lot of your fellow players may be interested in.

2. Ask something that hasn’t been answered 33 times before.

3. Ask it constructively – if you’ve got a gripe that you think a lot of people have, then put it forward but do it nicely. We of course reserve the right to not ask anything that’s obvious trolling, contains inappropriate language or defamatory comments.

4. Post your question in comments on this post only, INCLUDING the name you’d like attributed to you when we ask the question of Stephen. A rough location (state, territory or Island in Oz / NZ would be fine if you don’t want to get more specific). And yes we will ask questions from outside the Oceanic area if they’re good ones.

5. We ideally need your questions by midnight Monday 6th February AEDT / 9PM AWST / 2am Tuesday the 7th NZDT, as we’ll be shooting of some of the more in-depth questions to BioWare so they can ask the devs to clarify anything needed prior to the podcast.

6. That’s it!

Obviously we can’t ask every question but we’ll put forward as many as possible. We’ll aggregate common questions to save time as well. The podcast will be up for listening by midday on the 11th February AEDT, around 90 minutes after the podcast is recorded. Later that day there’ll also be a transcript available for dissection.

So get posting in comments!

[photo courtesy of Tor Wars]

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:

Getting grief in open-world PvP? The Angwe Story

January 30, 2012 by

angwe storyWhat is there to say about the Angwe story. I just had to share this little piece of fun from WoW. Like SWTOR, WoW has PvP servers and based on this web page, some people don’t like being ganked on a regular basis. One such ganker, Angwe, has gone to the trouble to create a page documenting the aggro he causes.

There’s some funny stuff in there as well as some semi-disturbing threats made against a legitimate if not honourable means of playing the game. And yes, we know this is an older site but what the hell.

Have a look at it for yourself.

Filed Under: Community, Humour, News, PvP Tagged With: , ,
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