A/V The Old Republic MMO: The New Official Thread

So there’s some videos on YouTube, I got to say They’ve make Malgus look even cooler.

 

This makes me sad


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Ok, why is this so many peoples reaction to any new content for SWTOR?

We have a new set up and a full new expansion coming.

Why is it that peoples first reaction is "this is the end"?

Also played it twice, once Imp Loyal, once Rep tratior.

I kind of just want to skip the two knights of expansions for the rest of my classes and get to this

 

Spoiler

Watched some of the Youtube videos for the Rep and Sith sides. I do dislike that it turns out the Jedi were purged... again... and there's only a few dozen or so surviving. I'd have preferred for them to have simply taken a hit by Zakuul, but still be around. Same as the Sith themselves.

 

Spoiler

I think there's also a small token group on Tython and I think it's suggested some are on Courscant as well. Likely some Jedi are spread throughout the galaxy. So I don't think it's quite a purge. More so a huge blow

 

Spoiler

it's not a purge so much as they got devastated by the war. Since they fought on the front lines. There are several groups hidden and waiting I think the jedi will come back now that the war is on.

 

These are the two I’ve watched. I’m hoping the new Jedi character will show up again.

 

So any idea when the next update will happen?

also

Spoiler

Did anyone else feel like Tau brought about an unnecessary fight with Malora?

it reminded me of death of Archimedes.

 

Spoiler

I’ve been playing around on Ossus for the past couple days and noticed something that I thought you all might appreciate.

The new update includes several new hidden datacrons to collect for lore codex entries and stat boosts, but one is unavailable until you complete the main story. It’s rather difficult to obtain—lots of jumping puzzles and different Jedi mechanisms to find—but at one point you have access to a hidden Jedi sanctuary. Within is a giant, odd-looking tree and a mechanism to place a datacron.

After retrieving the datacron from the Great Library, I placed it in the mechanism... and the tree started to glow! After a burst of light, I was left with none other than a codex entry for Ood Bnar and a lightsaber timing inspired by him.

I knew we’d get a codex entry for him from datamining, but seeing the hibernating Ood Bnar in-game left me with a big smile on my face. What a great nod.

 

Where did you find it?

Notes from the Bad Feeling Buvette with Community Manager Eric Musco and Creative Director Charles Boyd

• 5.10 Story is the first step of the next Arc
  
• Potential gearing updates in future
  
• Few more patches before 6.0
  
• No more server merges

Story

• 5.10: backstory and multiple perspectives on storyline, two separate storylines was the intention based on player feedback and made sense after 4.0 and 5.0.
  
• Choices made before and in 5.10 will matter in future, considering the option to swap faction at a later point but depends on storyline development.
  
• There could be a small additional patch with story before 6.0

Companions

• Players have many companions making it difficult to introduce story for each one, Charles wants to tie returning companions to story in a realistic way and include existing companions. The recent State of the Galaxy, for example, has parts about Zakuul which could potentially have Koth dialogue and other related characters.
  
• Kira is coming back, Keith really wants her back, difficult to make the story fit due to high expectations.
  
• Vaylin unlikely to return as a companion, despite the requests from players to be able to romance her, weird from a story perspective.
  
• Future story has the potential to include droid romance.
  
• Unlikely to introduce kill companions option, such as Lana, without any justification based on clear choices in the story.

PvE

• Gearing is complicated and could be adjusted in upcoming patches, the new gear was mainly meant for Nightmare Gods from the Machine bosses as the raid is balanced around those stats.
  
• Some bugs will be fixed in upcoming patches (Eric references to his forum post) but due to holidays most things will have to wait until after new years to avoid repeating the Ravagers exploit situation.

PvP

• Difficult player base to make happy, in 5.10 PvEers have an advantage and that is partly intended as so much of the new content revolves around Ossus.
  
• PvPers should be able to gain new gear through reptuation tokens from ranked/unranked weeklies and the masterwork data crystals using components.
  
• No intention to put bolster at 258, would remove the gear progression and it would complicate potential future PvP updates like if they want to reintroduce experiance or change gearing.
  
• Ranked Weeklies require 50 warzones played (wins counts as x5), many players did ranked and just died/contributed nothing to gain the rewards, this update is a first step and devs will monitor and adjust in future updates if required.

Conquest

• Small vs Big guilds isn’t as easy to balance, large guilds are more or less just doing what small guilds are doing but with more people. That comes with challenges like harder to organize events and direct many players, part of the guild perk system is meant to help this as all guilds have the same possibilities and potential to reach the higher perks, just at a different pace.
  
• Opening more planets per week to allow more winners every week is something that the developers are considering and discussing but no comment at the moment.

Future things

• 5.10 isn’t the last update before 6.0, there will be more updates before and the next one will be 5.10.1 which will include the Ossus instanced boss Geonosis Queen, that boss drops 258 weapons as well as a related vanity item.
  
• Guild Heraldry is coming, might not be ready for the next patch (5.10.1) but is being developed.
  
• No comments about 6.0, but what you would expect to be there is most likely going to be there, such as a new tier of gear and new level cap.

Other things

• Introducing big beard customization is difficult due to how it would clip with outfits.
  
• New Playable Species is talked about, not part of any future update at the moment. Developers are looking at customisation options (skin colour, face masks & face features) and human structure for animation purposes, as well as talking with Disney/LucasArt etc.
  
• Desync, being worked on and the developers would like to hear more (detailed) reports about when it occurs, what the setting was and as much information as possible.
  
• A new game engine is basically impossible at this point and it becomes a prioritization question between creating new content or a new engine, make a guess what players would be likely to prefer.
  
• More Twi'lek customization options are coming, in general, more eyes, skin colour and similar options for alien classes.
  
• Enable dynamic mount colours, uses the colour of the colour crystal in your mainhand weapon and applies it to the Koensayr Dart mount, only for this mount at the moment but this will be expanded upon.
  
• Heroic dialogue, make some noise about which ones that you would want to return, explain why and Charles will take a look.
  
• No EU Server Merges, the policy of EA/Bioware to have one German and one French server so neither will be removed or merged into the English one for the moment. No server mergers in general planned as all servers have health population.

SOURCE

 

Spoiler

It was a fairly complicated datacron to find. I followed this video guide from Dulfy to get it:



After completing the main storyline, a secret phasedoor at the eastern end of the Ancient Ruins area is unlocked. It’s hidden in a cave that is very easy to miss. You’ll then ascend a long, Ahch-To/Tython-inspired set of rocky steps to the top of a hill, where a tiny, open-air temple sits. Inside is Ood Bnar.

The datacron is a tad more complicated. You have to activate five switches that are hidden across the entire map (atop hard to reach mountains, temples, and in hidden caves). You’ll then have to go into the Great Library and enter a secret passageway that is unlocked after activating the switches. Inside is a jump puzzle that took me at least half an hour to get through because you’re in complete darkness. Then you go up to the second level for more jumping and retrieve the datacron, which you bring back to Ood Bnar.

It was awesome—the journey really brought me back to the vanilla days of datacron hunting.

Also, thanks for sharing the notes from the podcast! Glad to hear they’re mulling over the heroic mission dialogue, it saddened me that they removed cutscenes from the game (I was also sad they removed some of the bonus quest givers on the fleet). Faction switching would be neat, too.

 

Good to hear more is coming. I wonder how many it will be, SoR had 3 flash points, as did the post KotEE.

Keen to see where this story goes.

I was surprised people weren't more mad at my jedi for siding with the Sith on Iocath.

 

Thanks for info @RavagerFish

Played Ossus twice as JK and SW, it seems that we are slowly resolving the resource crisis in the galaxy.

I find it interesting that both characters received mails from companions where some of them implied that they will leave the Alliance soon and rejoin their old faction.

IIRC the colony was cut off from the galactic affairs for 5 years, so there is no surprise that they are not mad at you. Only General Daeruun mentions it later in the mail. He says that there are a lot of people who believe that JK had abandoned the Republic but he [Daeruun] was not one of them.

 

What is next place to go after Ossus?

I think the big expansion will be released before the Star Wars Celebration Chicago in April.
It reminds me with the War of Iokath on April 2017.

 

I would like to see the war go to Kashyyyk.

Say the Empire is invading with aid and support from the Trandos (since the Empire has the upper hand regardless of choices)

 

If it will be Kashyyyk then we might meet Jakarro and C2-D4.
It can also be Dantooine with the Jedi Enclave. Have we met any character who is from Dantooine?

Kashyyyk feels right to go next.

 

Besides Kashyyyk and Dantooine, which worlds seen or mentioned in the movies have not yet made it into SWTOR?
-Kashyyyk
-Dantooine
-Naboo
-Dagobah
-Endor
-Bespin
-Kamino
-Mustafar
-Polis Massa
-Utapau
(it has Geonosians but did it add Geonosis?)

It does have
-Coruscant
-Tatooine
-Yavin 4
-Hoth
-Alderaan

What am I missing?

 

Overall, I think SWTOR is doing a back to basics thing, where they turn the game back to its original style. They've got two years left of it now, so I think they'll do what they haven't in concern to the Jedi vs Sith part of the storyline, and prepare for cancellation. I strongly doubt Disney'll extend their contract, not when they can do their own MMO.

 

Dantooine is an Empire occupied planet and the Jedi academy was featured in the 'Threat of Peace' comic (the first bit of media for advertising the game)

There is no Genosis, but it was mentioned in the Timeline videos, as was Bothawui, so I would like to see both of them added into the game.

Yeah this seems likely unfortunately. I do hope they give us a propper ending (though I would love for the thing to be put on consoles so I could play it any time like KOTOR, but that ain't happening)

I mean it's not Disney so much as EA. I guess it depends on where they can make the most money, whether they want to put a lot of money and resources into making a new F2P mmo type game, extend the current one or just close it all. (if they kill Biowear then they are more likely to just can it).

So things will become more clear after this year I feel.

 

So... how's everyone's adventures going in the Old Republic?

I have finished Ossus with my 6 characters but still my Smuggler and Jedi Consular need to finish respectively KotFE and KotET.

I hope for Kashyyyk, Sleheyron, Onderon/Dxun or Bothawui.

Both Sleheyron and Bothawui were to happen at some point but have been scrapped, so I would no be surprised to see one of them in the future (it has already happened with Rakata Prime, Ossus, Yavin IV and Ziost). Bothawui is likely candidate because the planet was very important to SWTOR lore.

Kashyyyk would be nice for KotOR fans. I think it would be also good for BioWare thanks to lower production costs (Wookie do not speak basic).

I would love to see Sleheyron to be brought back into the universe after it was scrapped more than 16 years ago.

Onderon/Dxun duo also has nice ties to KotOR and TotJ series and it would be nice to see how these worlds have changed after 300 years since TSL.

*Cough Cough* Zaalbar...

 

A Look Behind the Scenes with Ossus

In December, Game Update 5.10 ‘Jedi Under Siege’ went live, where players can decide the fate of the Jedi hidden away on Ossus. We sat down with Charles Boyd, the Creative Director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, who is responsible for overseeing the game’s design and narrative, to talk about this update.



In Game Update 5.10 ‘Jedi Under Siege’ we saw the return of several characters. How did you decide which of these familiar faces players would see?

Probably the biggest example here is Darth Malgus; I always felt he was a bit shortchanged in the core game’s storyline, given that he’s easily our most iconic and recognizable Sith character. That said, I didn’t want to bring him back until his return would feel like a natural part of the story. Now that we’ve returned to the core conflict of Republic versus Sith Empire that Malgus himself originally kicked off, it seemed like the right time to bring him back into the fold.

Master Gnost-Dural is an interesting case, in that he never actually appeared in the game before this update, but was a major character in our pre-release timeline videos as well as Drew Karpyshyn’s SWTOR novel, Annihilation. It was actually Drew who suggested using Gnost-Dural when I was first outlining the Jedi Under Siege storyline! Given the setting of Ossus and the goal of preserving the Jedi and their teachings for the future, he was just a perfect fit of character and story.

Malora was probably the one character in this update that no one expected to see again, given that her previous role was fairly minor. I needed a Sith who was focused on biology, and ideally someone whose “career” had started around the same time as a Sith player’s so that they would feel more like a contemporary rather than a superior. And I loved that Malora would automatically have a bit of history with players who had completed her mission on Korriban, so she was a perfect fit.

On a similar note, what about the new characters?

With Tau Idair, my goal was to introduce someone who could grow to become an iconic hero in the same vein as Satele Shan, since Satele has moved beyond her role as the Republic counterpart to Malgus at this point. Tau personifies a lot of the inherent conflicts and challenges of being a Jedi, so I think she’ll be a fun and interesting character for players to interact with as the storyline continues to unfold.

Along with Tau, we also introduced General Daeruun on the Republic side. I feel like we’ve historically overdone it a bit on the number of Republic authority figures who are morally questionable, ends-justify-the-means types (probably because they’re so fun to write!) So Daeruun is meant to go the other direction, embodying all that’s good and noble about the Republic and its goals.

The last of the new characters is Major Anri on the Imperial side. Anri is meant to show how the Empire has evolved over time, to the point that an alien and former slave can now become a decorated military officer. I also really wanted to include the perspective of an everyday citizen (rather than a Sith) as a part of this update, so that players could feel like they were getting a more complete picture of the Empire’s current status.

What were you most excited to have players experience in this update?

It’s hard to pick just one thing – I’m really proud of the whole update! Seeing players connect with the new storyline and start theorizing about where things will go from here is always really exciting for me. I’m also particularly proud of the little hidden elements we were able to include, like the various references to the Tales of the Jedi and Dark Empire comics that are scattered around.

What were some things you wanted to do differently with Ossus compared to previous planets?

It had been a while since we featured a big, wide-open planet where you can just wander around and explore freely, so I wanted to be sure we hit that note. I also wanted to be sure we had a strong difference in feel between the Republic and Imperial storylines, with very different motivations involved for each side. We were also able to get some dynamic weather effects on Ossus, something that’s totally new for SWTOR – I’m looking forward to expanding on that more on future planets.

Last question Charles, what are you most excited for with SWTOR in 2019?

Mostly stuff I can’t talk about yet ;-) Ask me again at our Community Cantina at Celebration in Chicago in April!

 

Ok Zaalbar from Kotor on Taris and later Kashyyk.

Why not have her again?

It must be about the next expansion for the Cantina in Chicago.

 

Wait, who is the her your referring to? Big Z is a guy.

 

The female person who is a Twilek named Mission Vao together with Zaalbar as a male wookie.

May we see her again?

 

Maybe in hologram. Cause she is well dead, it has been 300 years after all, Big Z would be getting on at this point.