[SWTOR] Star Wars: The Old Republic - LiveStream Q&A

George talks about himself @Bioware and operation Terror from Beyond.

I am a designer on the operations team here at Bioware Austin. We are really excited about the new operation TFB which is going live in 1.4. TFB continues the story which started with Karagga’s Palace operation about the Dread Masters. This one focus on the Gree species, which if you are a Republic player you probably played the quest on Coruscant with the four droids – Black Bisector and all that. This time you will actually get to meet a Gree and interact with them.
Black Bisectors – there are something unique about them in the operation that involves the puzzle right?
Yes, as you know in every one of our operations we have a puzzle fight (it has became our hallmark). For this operation, since we have access to the Gree and the unique way they speak we really wanted to focus on that, especially with the colors and such. The puzzle fight for this operation is you actually enter into a Gree computer and play a Simon says type game with your different color signatures and black parallels green scalars.
We did tease in one of our community blogs that someone is going to be returning in this operation. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Some of our more acute players who have being paying attention to cinematics and such realized that the end of Explosive Conflict the Dread Masters actually resurrect Kephess. Kephess is back, he is big, angry and upset that you killed him.

Blaine, can you talk to us more about the FTP option coming this fall.

I am the producer of the internal team that is helping us craft this additional option for players to enter the world of the old republic. We are introducing the FTP option and also a store call the Cartel Market. This came about because we got lots and lots of fans out there (Star Wars fans, Bioware fans) that would like to experience this game and one of the things we learned since launch in interviewing potential players or players who have come and gone that subscription can certainly be a barrier to entry in getting to SWTOR. With lots of FTP games out in the market these days, people see it as a more viable option in terms of the times they spent. This fall in November, we will be introducing a new option to allow players to enter the game and play the game.
There is also a rewards program right?
Thank you for bringing that up, one of the cool things we announced when we announced the FTP option coming this fall is the rewards program where players who have being with us for a long time perhaps brought a Collectors Edition and being a subscriber with us since launch. We got a system which allows you to gain some free Cartel Coins to spend in the Cartel Market when we launch as long you are an active subscriber when we launch this program. You can go to our website to find out the details of this program. Essentially if you are an active subscriber when we launch this FTP option, you can stand to amass a large pile of Cartel Coins to spend in game.

Q: One of the concerns with the FTP model is the risk for pay to win, you say you are against it, but pay to win is a sliding scale, it is not black or white. In fact, some of the boosts you said you are putting in the shop are considered pay to win by some players. Could you explain your decision making process about what you will or will not put into the cash shop.

This is obviously something we are very sensitive to. We got a lot of people out there who have dedicated a huge amount of time into the game. Of course one of the big fears people have is that when we go free to play we are going to allow new players to come in and purchase their way into the same level of expertise (i.e. cool gear, weapons).
Our philosophy is this, free to play players will have a lot of restrictions placed upon them when they enter the game. Subscribers are essentially (as far gameplay is concerned), not going to see a large change. Our goal here is that for people that are playing alt characters or coming into the game as FTP players and having restrictions like not having rested experience where they have means to sort of accelerate their progression through the game without becoming a subscriber. If they see something as a potential pediment, they have a way to purchase their way out of it. We really see it as a net benefit. We are not going to sell things in the game that are allowing players to be competitive at endgame PvP or PvE. However, at mid levels, if somebody is try going through the game with an alt or as a FTP player can purchase a gearset that is going to help them at level 15 for example. So what you are going to see are experience point boosts (beneficial to subscribers as well) but we are not going to do anything that is going to harm the endgame folks. We are very cautious about that.

Q: What sort of content do you have planned for players who don’t enjoy PvPing or endgame PvE content like operations

We are very aware that operations are not for everyone. As part of our more frequent updates that we are producing now, we are definitely focused on giving the sections of players who don’t enjoy operations more endgame content that they can do beyond questing.
We already have a few those that we have announced – new daily questing area that is coming out, Ancient Hypergates warzone, and lots of stuff we are cooking that we can’t talk about yet.

Q: It was mentioned that along with the free transfers we would be offered paid transfers for characters who like to move from one server to another. Is this still in the works?

Certainly we want to offer people the option to do character transfer as a paid service. We got a little bit of additional work that is going to need to go in before we can actually offer it as a paid service but that is coming in the near future.

Q: When can we look forward to the expanded storyline? Please just give me a month to look forward to.

We teased the planet of Mekab which is going to be the location of the expanded storyline. In a future update when we release Mekab there will be continuation of where the story left off.

Q: Will Cartel Coin shop be in before the FTP crossover so that any bugs can be resolved

Our current plan is the same thing we do to any new content we introduce to the game – you will see that a couple weeks before we launch the FTP option players can go into the PTS and our intent is for anybody that logs into PTS to get some Cartel Coins that they can play with only on PTS – those don’t xfer to the live game! We will have items for sale on PTS that people can go in, make purchase and give us feedback.

Q: With the coming new 1.4 Update, what is the reason behind relics that cost 400 Daily Commendations but only marginally better or new Black Hole gear that costs 350 Black Hole Commendations

The side effect of PTS is that occasionally items that are not intended for live made it up there and unfortunately that specific item was the case of that. So that item in particular is going to be removed, reviewed, and hopefully a better version will come out in a future update.

Q: When will we be seeing the Cathar and HK-51?

Cathar and HK-51 are both in the works. HK-51 I am confident that you will see before the end of the year. Cathar have no definite timeframe at this point but we intend to introduce them as the first species in SWTOR.

Q: What kind of things can we expect to see in the Cartel Coin shop.

Really cool mounts, cool pets, some gearsets (not impactful to endgame) that help players as they level up. The gear you will find will be interesting to everyone because it is not going to be restricted by class or by faction and all moddable. The gear you purchase in the CC shop is hopefully something you will be able to use for a class you got.
We also have a really cool thing called Cartel packs. Cartel packs you buy give you a random assortment of really cool items and a chance to get some of the cooler items that maybe in the game (not powerful, but very cool – they going to make you look AMAZING!)

Q: Are FTP, 1.4, and CC all hitting the same time?

1.4 is already on the PTS and will be coming very very soon. CC coins and the market are not PTS so they are dissociated – November timeframe.

Q: When are we going to see Nightmare mode for Denova and TFB

Nightmare mode EC will be first, and will be coming very soon. Some point after that we will see Nightmare TFB. We realize that this is something for the very hardcore operation players so we want to make sure we do it right. Nightmare mode now is not going to be like Nightmare mode in Karagga’s Palace or EV. It is not a fully fledged mode – differences from hardmode and it is going to be very difficult.

Q: XP Boosts and rocket boots have being mentioned for the Cartel Shop (they are also available as legacy perks). How much overlap will there be between ingame legacy perks and cartel coins.

I don’t know if we are prepared to go into details about that yet. We will have to reserve that one for future interview.

Q: What is the current design intent for PVE gear progression for high end PVE groups. Having BiS except set armorings available BOE through the crafting system in 1.4 and beyond.

We want there be multiple vectors and options for players to their character’s power. We don’t want to always be a drop from an operation boss. Having a mix of craftable items and operation drops will be more fulfilling for players.
Obviously operations will be always the be focus but having some variety is good.

Q: Has there being any discussion on allowing cartel coins to be used for purchase race unlocks instead of credits options we use now.

The intent would be players would be able to use Cartel Coins to purchase Cathar as the first race to be unlocked when they becomes available. We are certainly more than open to exploring other species option depending on how popular Cathar become.

Q: US is down to 8 servers, how will this affect lag and server load when FTP hits. Will subscribers have priority in queue times.

With our recent server consolidations and on our new high pop servers , we are more than adequately equipped to deal with increased player load we expect when we go FTP. We done projections based on what we seen with other games, experiences within the studio and we think that we are definitely able to handle the load. For those using the PvP finder or group finder, there are even more population to jump there within you.
One of the perks of being a subscriber is yes you will get priority access in the queue if we get to the point where we have queues.

Q: Is there any reason why the hood toggle option mentioned in the works months ago has not being added yet.

Sometimes things that sound so simple are actually not so simple. As a side effect of researching that, we were able to release the companion unified colors and toggle helmet options in 1.4. The hood toggle option is something we really wanted to do and it is coming.

Q: How do you think the gear progression is affected that TFB is now dropping Rakata gear and not Campaign gear.

TFB storymode drops Rakata. When EV and KP normal modes were released, they were meant as a progression into hardmode. We now changed that into storymode – for players who want to experience the story so now there is not so much gear progresion in storymodes.
TFB hardmode will drop the new Dread Guard gear, which we just changed the colors recently. The colors we originally put on the PTS were less than desirable – ketchup mustard, banana sage were some of the words describing them.

Q: Will we ever seen (operation) content downscaled for groups who solo playing.

Operation bosses are some of the most complicated content that we have created – they require a lot of testing and scripting. Taking an operation boss and make it into four players content is not as easy as it sounds and require us to remake it from the ground up.
While that won’t be an option, we are definitely considering other ways to create more content that is not part of operation for smaller groups of players.

Q: Are you happy with the current HM TFB difficulty, do you expect guilds to clear it within a couple days of release or find more of a challenge.

We are very happy seeing the challenges players have run to on the PTS. I think it is inevitable that some guilds will clear it in the first couple days but I don’t think that will be the majority of players.Majority of players who go in to attempt the hardmode will take a while – you might be able to kill the first couple bosses.

Q: How do you address concerns from players who associate FTP with some sort of negativity?

As a subscriber, you can expect virtually no changes beyond the new stuff from the patches. You are getting addition of loyalty program where you get a monthly grant of cartel coins. Some new content we generate in the future maybe restricted to FTP players where subscribers are certainly able to easily get in there.
FTP can experience the entire storyline to L50 but there are going to be restrictions like warzones – FTP players are restricted to number of Wz and FPs they can do without purchasing access for more where subscribers are going to have the same experience as you have now.

Blaine anything else you want to talk about?

One thing we havn’t mentioned is the ongoing loyalty program for players who subscribes beyond the FTP launch. As part of your subscription, you will be receiving a monthly grant of cartel coins that you can go and purchase cool items from the store (this is in addition to the large amount of CC you will get when we launch the FTP option for active subscribers).
One of our goals when designing the FTP experience is making sure that players really get a chance to experience the entire game. Despite the fact that there are restrictions in place, players will be able to experience the story in its entirety as a free to play experience.

George anything you like to add?

I like to thank anybody who were on the PTS to help us test 1.4 TFB operation. Operations are very hard to test, we could see here 24 hr/day play it and not find all the bugs.

1- Transition to FTP is going very well – we seem more players using every metric we have. Our expectations were blown away.

2- Six character slots for preferred players (up from 2). This will come in the same patch that allow players to buy more character slots. Returning players may find the restrictions a bit restrictive but we need to find a balance between making sure subscribers get their money’s worth and making the F2P option attractive. Brand new players may not find the restrictions restrictive as they don’t know what it is like without the restrictions.

3- There is a thing we are planning for Ilum in Feb-March. It is going to be a revisit to Ilum but it is not going to be just a reboot of the same old scenarios we had there fore. It is going to be more than just PvP and has some of the most amazing world buildings there.

4- With the Mekab patch, we will have slight philosophical restructuring of how our itemization is done that is going to make the itemization more sustainable in the long run. It is somewhere between an itemization spiral going out of control and complete flattening (i.e. horizontal progression).

5- No plans for making separate warzones for elite PvP players but there are adjustments coming soon to make it so that the queuing system pair up elite players with elite players and non elites with non elites. No time frame on that adjustment. We want to make PvP more about player skills than the gear gap.

6- No timeframe on Mekab yet but we just did a playthrough of the Imperial storyline internally. So it is far enough along that we are playing it and adjusting it to Bioware standards. Expect it “pretty darn soon”.

7- Ease our minds of the current team with the restructuring. More bugs seem to rise up? We have a lot of very dedicated people who are very passionate about this game. There is no negative news along those fronts here. As far as bugs – if you look at version 1.1., 1.2, etc. every one of them had downtimes and multiple hotfixes after the patch. In 1.4 and 1.5 you just have seen some bugs that were really in your face that made the game feel a lot more buggy. We are getting better at finding the bugs and fixing the bugs. We take bugs seriously. We have leaderboards and monthly competitions to see who plays SWTOR more in the office.

8- Super Space Project: It is great, it is something that is a departure from our normal space game. It is something that we have a team right now dedicated to building and working on. It is also something that is pretty far out in the future. We are talking far out.. It is definitely not what we shipping in the original product. It is possible that this is a multiplayer game due to the emphasize on the word together (read the transcript or watch the video).

9- Our intent right now is to update the Cartel Market weekly and see a new Cartel pack with new rare items every month. Before the holidays, we got a really big cool update coming. With Life day coming up, we will have a new Life Day Cartel pack and cool new items such as Czerka LV-1 Celebrator (you are going to die when you see it), Life Day robes, orbs, holo-tree etc. Going forward, you can expect to see more archetypical gear (i..e more of a core Jedi Knight look etc).

10- Earlier this year we did the guild summit, guild capitals, guild calenders, chat bubbles, ready check, were mentioned. When is all this coming? The studio has gone a lot of change since the guild summit, we are busy working on a lot of things. We changed some of the things we are working on. Some we are still working on, but some are on the backburner. I love the idea of guild capital ships but these things are abit further out. All of these features on the wall of crazy but it is a ordered by priority. Small things on that wall have a more chance to happen – i.e. inventory sorting that is coming soon.

11- New system to copy live characters to PTS whenever you want. You should see it before we launch Mekab so you can test out that content.

12- Legacy system will undergo a minor revamp to make it more important. No ETA on when it will happen.

13- Mekab will have some some new gameplay activities, new way for you to go and explore the world. Minigames like sitting down and playing cards are on the list of things to do but not at the top.

14- CE vendors – any plans to make the items on the vendors available on the Cartel Market. We backburnered it until January – no plans as of right now.

15- Cathar is coming in the months timeframe. How well Cathar do in the Cartel Market will decide if we will get more races beyond Cathar.

16- We are hitting our 6-8 content release schedule pretty good. There will be a 9 week window between the game update (1.6) landing before the holidays and the update after the holidays (1.7) since we want to give our guys the holiday off since they were all here last year. We will aim for 6 weeks but will go for 8 weeks for quality issues etc.

• Q: At end of S&V, when you defeat the dread master, can we expect these remaining 5?
  A: We are definitely not done with the Dread Masters. That is all that we can say before I get shot by people behind camera with crossbows.

• Q: When is cross server PvP coming?
  A: Cross server queueing is very challenging so it is something we can currently working on. The root problem is queue times and we are using an aggressive move to resolve them in patch 2.4. Patch 2.4 will be the most significant PvP update since launch. If you are a ranked warzone players you will love it.

• Q: Did Cathar sell well? New Species?
  A: Cathar was pretty popular amongst the players. I think the answer is yes we will see a new species but I can’t give you a time on it. We have a list of 3 species that we are looking at. It is not going to be soon as it takes a looooong time to make a new speciies.

  Q: What are you plans to make subscribers feel like valued customers?
  A: We have heard this a lot, especially with patch 2.1. Subscribers are super important to us – a lot of you didn’t think so with patch 2.1. We are making efforts to make subscribers feel valued. In July, around weekend of July 4th, you will see subscriber only benefits. Near the end of July, we are going to do a similar thing.

• Q: When we will see Grand Acqusition or Rakghoul event coming back?
  A: New event in patch 2.3, that event is entirely new. Rakghoul plague is eliminated from the galaxy, there is no chance of another Rakghoul plague. The new event will be start the week after patch 2.3.
  Rakghoul DNA, will we see a use for them should the event coming back? You might want to hold on to it, just in case.

  Q: SSSP – Super Secret Space Project?
  A: We never should have talked about it. Now it just sounds we are mean to you guys by not talking about it. Let me think about it before the meet and greet in 3 days. Let me see if I can give you something about it. Yes it exists and it is something we are doing specifically based on your feedback.

• Q: /stuck in warzones?
  A: In Patch 2.2.1, we have a change coming in for /stuck. If you are in combat and during a warzone, it forces a 20 second cooldown on you so you can’t rez right away.
  That is for warzones only, not for all combat.

• Q: When is the next time when Bruce will be featured in a SWTOR video? I enjoyed his appearance
  A: Right now, here it is. We will be filming the next video tomorrow and I will be in it.

• Q: Hood toogle
  A: It is not off the table, it is one of the thing it would be great if we had build the game like that from the beginning. Doing that now is a lot of work. It doesn’t mean it is off the table, it is just in the list behind other issues. I am an old DAOC fan and I love my hood toogle.
  More info on Patch 2.3 if you are going to the Los Angel meet and greet cantina tour. If you are old enough to drink, Jeff will buy you a drink.