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About The Eternal Watch

Welcome to
The Eternal Watch
(SWTOR)

The Star Wars: The Old Republic branch of our guild

Guild News

The Elder Scrolls Online announced!

by Mithoron, 14 days ago

Daggerfall...Morrowind...Oblivion...Skyrim...they've all led up to this!

Quote:

Since opening its doors in August of 2007, we haven’t been able to say much about happenings at ZeniMax Online Studios – until today. Announced just minutes ago, Game Informer’s June 2012 cover story is… The Elder Scrolls Online!

The magazine will be available to subscribers early next week and should arrive at GameStop stores shortly after that. You’ll also want to keep your eyes on GameInformer.com/ElderScrollsOnline. Today they put up the magazine cover, and you can expect more updates throughout the month.

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Your Legacy Begins

by Mithoron, 48 days ago

Quote:

Where would you start if you were constructing the Skywalker family tree? Let’s start with Anakin. If you ask me, Anakin is a level 50 Sith Warrior anchoring the top of the family tree. He’s married to Padme Amidala and they have two kids, Luke and Leia. Luke and Leia were both strong in the Force, like their father before them. Leia ends up marrying Han Solo, undoubtedly a level 50 Smuggler, and they have three children who all turn out to be Jedi. Luke marries Mara Jade, and they in turn have Ben, who is also a powerful Jedi Knight. Looking at their family tree, it’s clear that the Skywalker legacy produces powerful Force users and great heroes.

From the very beginning of development on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we felt that the idea of familial bonds was a cornerstone of the Star Wars™ experience. In this blog, I’m going to explore what that means and what rewards are waiting for the characters in your Legacy, as well as exploring the design philosophy behind the changes we made.

You may have already started your Legacy by picking a Legacy Name. This happens when you finish Chapter 1 with your first character. From this point, all of your characters on that server are now considered part of your Legacy, regardless of faction. This means that any existing characters which have not been played past Chapter 1 will gain a Legacy Name, and any newly created characters will also have their Legacy Name available from character creation.

From Game Update 1.2: Legacy, unlocking your Legacy grants you access to a newly expanded Legacy Panel (accessed, by default, by pressing the ‘Y’ key) where you can modify your family tree, and see what Legacy Rewards you have unlocked.

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Your Legacy’s bloodlines are constructed on the family tree page, where you can see all of the characters that are part of your Legacy, and drag them into place according to their relationship to each other. Want your Smuggler’s father to be your Sith Warrior? Maybe your Agent is a noted rival of your Trooper? Your Consular’s brother is an Inquisitor? It’s all possible, as your characters can be linked together in any combination as siblings, spouses, adopted children, children, rivals and allies. We hope that players use the family tree as a way to better roleplay their characters, visualize their relationships, and craft stories about their lineage.

But what do your characters learn from each other? Fathers pass family knowledge down to their sons. Allies share information with each other. Even rivals must learn everything about their foes in order to know their enemies. Likewise, the characters in your Legacy will be able to earn global unlocks, which are abilities, emotes, and other rewards shared across all characters in your Legacy. If one character unlocks something, all characters, regardless of familial relationship, earn the same unlock. Let’s look at different categories of unlocks.

Class Unlocks

When characters in your Legacy reach important story milestones, they can pass down special emotes and abilities to other characters in your Legacy. On completing Chapter 2 with a character, your characters gain the use of an emote unique to that class. For example, if you finish Chapter 2 with your Inquisitor, you unlock an emote which causes your character to throw lightning between his hands. Again, all characters in your Legacy can use this emote. Likewise, at completion of Chapter 2, your characters unlock the ability to apply that class’ unique buff along with their own. For example, if you complete Chapter 2 with an Agent, and then create a Bounty Hunter, when you use the ability Hunter’s Boon it also applies the effects of the Agent’s Coordination buff.

After one of your characters completes Chapter 3, that character gets to pass on a special ‘Heroic Ability’ to all the characters in his Legacy. Powerful Sith Warrior in your Legacy? His Jedi children can "Force Choke" enemies. Father was a high ranking Imperial Agent? Call in some old favors and request "Orbital Strikes" from Imperial warships. Your sister is a notorious Smuggler? She taught you that… special… kick that only Smugglers know.

Some of you may be concerned about Heroic Abilities making the game unbalanced or just looking wrong if used frequently. We had this in mind during development, so as a result Heroic Abilities can only be used while you are using your class’ Heroic Moment ability. These are abilities you already have that require an active companion to use and that currently boost your regeneration while active, allowing you to take on tougher opponents.

By requiring you to use these abilities with a companion present, we ensure that people who play multiple characters do not gain an advantage during the end game or in Warzones. By also only allowing Heroic Abilities during the brief window of time that a Heroic Moment ability is active, they remain a relatively rare occurrence. You won’t see Jedi running around spamming Force Choke all the time.

Heroic Abilities are very useful for leveling up new characters, for taking on tough bosses and PvE content as well as being handy roleplaying additions. Our intention is not to upset end game balance with them, and hopefully you will agree.

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Companion Unlocks

When you complete all possible conversations and quests with a companion, you receive a companion unlock that is granted to all characters in your Legacy.

The first companion you unlock of each companion combat archetype (ranged tank, ranged DPS, melee tank, melee DPS, and healer) gives you a unique unlock for that companion type that grants a passive stat bonus. These first-time archetype unlocks also modify the duration and cooldown times for your Heroic Moment ability. This ensures that a single character can potentially attain the full range of companion stat boosts and Heroic Moment modifiers, while also ensuring that a player who has severely mistreated one companion can get that unlock by playing an alternate character.

For example, a Sith Warrior who has mistreated Vette may find it extremely hard to get her unlock, but unlocking any other ranged DPS companion on any other character will grant the same archetype unlock. Additional companions unlocked beyond the five combat archetypes grant a passive bonus to your Presence stat, increasing the power of your companion characters.

Species Unlocks

Can Sith Purebloods ever find a path to the light side? Is a Miralukan’s Force sight good enough to fire a sniper rifle with any accuracy? Do Mirialans make for good Sith Inquisitors as well as Jedi Consulars? With Legacy species unlocks, you can tell those stories with your own characters. Playing a character of any species to level 50 unlocks that character’s species as an option at character creation for all classes. All combinations of class and species are now possible given the right unlocks. Opening these new combinations gives much more freedom at character creation. By having to earn these unlocks, instead of just allowing all combinations by default, we ensure that combinations like Jedi Pureblood are still uncommon, and require someone to have invested time in a Sith Pureblood Legacy to attain them.

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Additionally, if you unlock a species like Cyborg that has unique customization options per class, you open up all possible customization options for every class. Your new Cyborg Smuggler can have the Agent’s cybernetic eyepieces, or the sinister looking facial cybernetics of the Sith Warrior.

If you have enough credits and a high enough Legacy Level, you may also unlock additional species combos by purchasing them for a large number of credits. The cost for bypassing the unlock requirements is high, but it allows players who may have played a human to 50 and beyond a chance to start their next character as the species and class of their choice if they have the credits to spare.

Ship Unlocks

By attaining high enough Legacy Levels and spending credits, players will be able to purchase unlockable items for their ship. Wish you could pick up your mail on your ship? There’s a mailbox you can purchase if you are the right Legacy Level and spend a few credits. Neutral Galactic Trade Network Terminal? Better be ready to shell out some credits for that one! Wish that you could love your ship’s protocol droid even more than you already do? A new astromech you can acquire for your ship sells unique sensor modules for your beloved C2-N2 or 2V-R8 that give him crafting specializations, just the same as your other companions. In case that’s not enough, the astromech also repairs items and buys your junk!

As with all unlocks attained through the Legacy System, when you acquire something on one character, you acquire it for all your characters. That means what a new character in your Legacy gets their ship, they will climb on board for the first time to find all of your purchases already in place and waiting.

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Other Unlocks

Unlocks are also awarded for reaching important alignment milestones, hitting different valor and social levels, and others are purchasable just by reaching a given legacy level and spending credits. Players unlocking Valor rewards will get some new, special unarmed combat abilities used for dueling other players. Players unlocking Social rewards will be dancing the night away with their companions using the new Companion Dance ability, and will receive new emotes that will have your characters using tools and tech devices. Players with credits to spare can buy down the cooldown time of Quick Travel and Emergency Fleet Pass for added convenience, or get the "Rocket Boost" ability that gives their characters an additional very fast sprint. (Hint: Rocket Boost is just a poorly scrambled anagram of Rocket Boots. If you’re sporting a jetpack on your back, the jets will fire out of there instead!)

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The Legacy System does not end with Game Update 1.2; we’re already designing new Legacy additions for future updates. The first of these will arrive in Game Update 1.3, when we will be introducing an extension of the system that adds per-character perks that are not shared globally amongst your Legacy. These new perks will allow players to customize the way their characters progress, as well as new rewards, conveniences, and all kinds of other fun surprises.

We won’t stop there, either. The Legacy Team is already looking to future Game Updates. We will continue to expand and build upon the Legacy System for years to come, just as you continue to expand your family tree and build upon your own Star Wars legacy.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on Game Update 1.2 and hopefully we’ll see many of you on the Public Test Server.

William Wallace
Senior Game Designer

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Dev Tracker Summary: March 20-26th, 2012

by Mithoron, 51 days ago

Quote:

Each week, we collect the most important developer responses from our Dev Tracker and put them together in this handy summary for your convenience! Let’s take a look at this week’s important developer posts – and don’t forget to check out our News section and Community Blog!

This past week was a busy one for SWTOR, with news of a second Weekend Pass Trial, a new blog about crafting and Crew Skills in Game Update 1.2, a new Q&A, a request for PVP feedback from James Ohlen, a brand new Developer Dispatch that shows off the Legacy system in Game Update 1.2, and a new set of Patch Notes for Game Update 1.2 on the Public Test Server.

Last week, Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller spent a lot of time responding to threads and clarifying a couple of things. Highlights include:

Clarification on Rakata gear stat changes in Game Update 1.2, the ability to crit on the creation of implants, the plan for color crystals, Warzone reward changes, medpac changes, the combat log parser, and healer changes.
More information about reverse engineering & augment slots in Game Update 1.2
Confirmation that white crystals will not be available in Game Update 1.2.

Systems Designer David Hunt went into the Public Test Server Forum to discuss:

Senior Game Designer William Wallace elaborated on how class buffs will work in Game Update 1.2.

Sr. Community Coordinator David Bass gave further instructions for those guilds that were copied over to the Public Test Server and gave a quick update on the status of Guild Summit videos.

Live Community Coordinator Amber Green informed players with copied characters on the Public Test Server that they had been granted 1 Legacy leveland gave them instructions on how to see it on their characters.

Sr. Online Community Manager Stephen Reid responded to concerns about last Friday’s unscheduled maintenance and explained why it had to occur.

Sr. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman posted about the CS Droids that were available during this past weekend’s trial and left a comment about her own behavior in the thread “What’s the nicest thing you’ve done for another player”.

And that’s it! As usual, you can always find the most updated developer responses by checking out our Dev Tracker.

Note: Always easier to "read" these with your mouse hovering over each sentence to not miss any links as some are only separated by a comma...

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Community Q&A: March 23rd 2012

by Mithoron, 52 days ago

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We’re back with some answers to your questions from the development team. As always, in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one. We have also edited some questions for clarity.

We’ve seen lots of questions throughout the community focused on the release of Game Update 1.2, especially after its release to the Public Test Server. To help answer some of those questions, next week’s Q&A will be devoted to Game Update 1.2, with questions drawn from across the Forums. With plenty of questions to choose from, we won’t be opening a dedicated Q&A thread for the subject. After next week’s Q&A, we’ll open another thread as usual.

Looking forward to future Q&As, we had some feedback from the development team which we wanted to share. While questions about future potential features in the game are always welcome, many times the answers will be non-specific, as development is always fluid. We don’t want to disappoint you with continuously saying ‘soon’ in reply to these questions.

Instead, the development team would appreciate more questions about features or systems currently in the game, or questions about the philosophy behind why development decisions were made. The development team feels they can really give you some in-depth answers to these sorts of questions, and overall we feel they will be more interesting answers than talking in vague terms about future features. This is not an attempt to shy away from questions about any aspect of the game, but rather a request to delve deeper into design philosophies and to get some more information on how things currently work in-game.

To sum up: a special Q&A next week drawn from existing Game Update 1.2 questions and back to the usual Q&A format the week after. As for this week, if you want to discuss any of the answers in this Q&A, please use this Forum thread!

Mksaccount: Are there any plans on adjusting rage timers in hard mode Flashpoints?

Gabe Amatangelo (Lead Endgame & PvP Designer): The team continues to tune Flashpoint bosses based on metrics and feedback. Bosses that are a ‘spike’ in the progression curve (e.g. when a second boss might be more difficult than the last) are being addressed in one way or another, be it increasing their enrage timer, decreasing their health, extending the cooldown of control abilities, etc.

Bendog: Are there any plans to make the lower level planet commendations ‘Bind to Account’? It would be nice to hand them off to another character.

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We've talked about it, sure. It's something we considered as we added in the Legacy System. However, right now we know that other aspects of the Legacy System will act to speed up the leveling experience for alternate characters. We want to see the state of the game in terms of leveling speed and itemization power after the core Legacy System goes live with Game Update 1.2 before we potentially make that change.

BurdoThePious: Is there a reason why the Commando / Mercenary Advanced Classes do not have an interrupt ability (eg. Mind Snap, Distraction, Force Kick)?

Georg Zoeller (Lead Combat Designer): Yes. The lack of an interrupt ability on these Advanced Classes is a purposefully designed weakness in their ability arsenal. At the current time, adding an interrupt to the Commando/Mercenary would increase their combat utility, especially in PvP, beyond what we are comfortable with.

That said, this issue is one we’ve re-evaluated with every major patch and will likely continue to revisit in the future. It is not inconceivable that an interrupt may be added to these Advanced Classes in a future update, especially if more PvE content is introduced that relies on a certain number of interrupts being available in a group.

Niktika: Can you please explain some of the reasoning behind the healing nerfs? It almost seems like every healer is up in arms regardless of their class.

Georg: Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.

All specs for all roles have a target performance. This is what drives the balance of the game: soloing, Heroics, PvP, Flashpoints, Operations... everything. When those targets aren't hit, we can't just ‘bring everyone up’ to the highest performer without negatively impacting the balance of the game and creating unsustainable inflation in our combat system. Frankly, it's also a lot more work to change all end game content in the game to compensate for an over-performing role than to bring the role back in line. The hard but simple truth is that Sorcerers and Sages had better Force management than we intended (e.g. a well-played Sage was almost incapable of running out of Force) and Mercenaries and Commandos were significantly over target in their healing performance.

After considerable testing, we're more confident than ever that all healing roles are both closer to target performance and closer to one another than ever before, leading to a much tighter balance on end game content. The community will be able to confirm this using the new combat logging feature in Game Update 1.2.

I know trying to ‘sell’ a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it. It may appear massive to you, even if the overall impact is limited. You likely won't care that it's 'for the greater good of the game' and, if you decide to disagree with our action, there's little we can do to sway you.

Based on the feedback brought to us so far from testers playing on PTS along with metrics and combat logs gathered from our guild testers, we are going to make additional adjustments before Game Update 1.2 is promoted to the live servers. For example, we reopened the internal debate about having an in-combat resurrect ability for Mercenaries/Commandos based on PTS feedback regarding the new Operations, in light of the higher utility value this ability brings to the table in 1.2. We're listening to your feedback, too, and rebalancing some of the changes made to healing based on data gathered from PTS. Look out for a future update to PTS for more details.

Pzljug: When are you guys going to finish the Timeline on the Holonet?

Stephen Reid (Senior Community Manager): When the Timeline series was begun we weren’t entirely sure how many timelines would be needed to detail relevant backstory for The Old Republic and left ‘blank spaces’ on the Timeline that, we thought, would all be filled in with Timeline entries. Ultimately, we feel we’ve detailed all the relevant backstory required, so no more Timeline entries going back into earlier history are planned. However, we know how much players enjoyed the lore details, style and presentation of Timelines, so we’re planning to continue that with a different series (currently unscheduled!) which will detail other aspects of the lore of The Old Republic.

Suzume_Bachi: If I unlock the Pureblood Sith species for all my future characters via the Legacy System, will I be able to create a Republic Pureblood Sith Smuggler, and will that Smuggler have Punish to I can smack around Corso Riggs?

William Wallace (Senior Designer): Players creating characters with the new species/class combinations allowed by Legacy will get that species’ unique ability. So yes, your new Sith Pureblood Smuggler will have the Punish ability, and can use it on Corso Riggs as much as you like. Poor Corso....

DevTheSith: Can Bounty Hunters get a [Name] The Mandalorian title (or if it’s already in game, where is it)?

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Currently, there is no such title available for Bounty Hunters. It may be added as part of a future content update, but we’ve got no current plans to add it to the existing game.

Alericus: I am wondering how the ‘vote to kick’ system for PvP matches will work. I have a concern it will be abused by pre-made teams who want to control the team. Can you clarify how this system will work?

Gabe: Any player can vote to kick an AFK player through the Ops frame context menu. This will not initiate a vote prompt, but rather must be actively sought out by multiple players. Once a player has received several votes they will receive a prompt indicating that they’ll be kicked from the Warzone in a few seconds if they do not engage in combat or defend an objective. A player who is kicked from the Warzone in this manner will be returned to their original location before they queued, and will not be able to queue up again for several minutes. We’ll continue to fine tune the detection logic, but gradually, with an eye towards protecting the innocent bystander player.

Mataoh: A lot of guilds have a second alt guild for the opposite faction - is there any plan to allow some sort of cross-faction chat so both guilds can communicate with each other in game?

Damion: This was something that came up a lot during the Guild Summit and is an idea we're taking seriously. However, no design is locked down in stone and I don't have any sort of ETA as of yet for when something like this might happen.

joetacticSW: Can we have a ‘Loop music’ feature or some other way to make our experience less quiet?

Damion: Interesting idea. Let me give it some thought!

Thanks for all of your questions, and thanks to the team for answering them. Remember you can discuss this week’s Q&A answers in this Forum thread.

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Dev Tracker Summary: March 14-20th 2012

by Mithoron, 52 days ago

Quote:

Each week, we collect the most important developer responses from our Dev Tracker and put them together in this handy summary for your convenience! Let’s take a look at this week’s important developer posts – and don’t forget to check out our News and Community Blog!

The forums have been abuzz since the Guild Summit with excitement for the future of the game and especially for Game Update 1.2: Legacy. On Friday (March 16th), Game Update 1.2 became available on the Public Test Server. The patch notes for 1.2 have generated lots of discussion, and our developers have stepped in to clarify and provide more information.

Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller posted up a storm! What information did he have to share this week?

No changes have been made to commendation drops! We hope anyone having a run of bad luck will find more soon!
He posted a thank-you to a Sage Seer player from the Public Test Server who took the time to provide helpful feedback (and information about what kind of posts are most helpful to our developers, who read the forums for feedback).
"The white crystal", though it won’t be available in-game during 1.2, could very well become available again (though obtaining it won’t be as simple as handing credits over to a vendor).
We’re looking for feedback on improvements to the 1.2 Combat Log data stream – for those of you creating parsers, let Georg know what you want from the file!

Systems Designer David Hunt let players know that many new Crafting schematics in 1.2 (on PTS) are available only via reverse engineering. He also reassured us that customizations to gear made pre-1.2 will be retained, and let everyone know that in 1.2 and beyond, you’ll be able to move new endgame gear set bonuses by removing the armoring mod. However, this change won’t be applied to older endgame items, just to those new in 1.2 and beyond.

Combat Designer Cameron Winston posted in the PTS forums to clarify where the new 1.2 Voss World Boss can be found, and let us know that the new Operation does not require players to run daily missions or obtain special items for entry.

Sr. Online Community Manager Stephen Reid posted to let everyone know that every class is important, and that we take quite a bit of feedback from the forums and other sources into account when making changes to the game. Class balance is a topic everyone is very passionate about, and we don’t take those changes lightly!

Sr. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman posted an important security reminder – please remember to never use your SWTOR login credentials anywhere but in the game launcher and the official site, SWTOR.com!

Live Community Coordinator Amber Green made sure the patch notes for Game Update 1.2 were posted! If you haven’t checked out the big changes coming, prepare for a lengthy (and informative) read.

Assistant Community Production Coordinator Courtney Woods is busy as always, letting us know when Game Update 1.2 became available on the Public Test Server, and also to point us to the new blog by Charles Boyd about Story in 1.2!

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