Darth Hater

On April 5 - 8, Darth Hater will be in person at Boston's PAX East convention. As such, all Star Wars: The Old Republic announcements, photos, video and interviews will be our focus throughout the event. Make sure to keep your eyes on the site for our coverage of the event through the 8th.

This post will serve as the round up post for all coverage straight from the convention center floor. Make sure to bookmark this page for up to date content directly from the event. Also, if you are attending PAX East, feel free to join us at both the Curse and BioWare Base parties. Hit the jump for a list of the event coverage, schedule and more.

Gallery: PAX East 2012 Photos

Q and A Liveblogs

Note: Keep in mind that when we do live blogs, there is a chance that some parts of the transcript could be incorrect. Everything in here should NOT be considered direct quotes as they are brief summations.

Day 2: Damion Schubert, Emmanuel Lusinchi, Cameron Winston Q&A at 3PM

• 3:00 PM: Q&A Starting, David Bass introducing the speakers. Damion Schubert, Stephen Reid, Emmanuel Lusinchi, Cameron Winston.
• 3:02: SR is getting the questions commonly asked out of the way. James Ohlen may or may not join them during.
• Q: Are there plans to make level 50 content for the origin worlds? A: EL - Yes
• Q: Ilum is all but "dead" at this point with the changes. What is the plan for World PvP going forward? A: Cameron - We're solving the problems, looking into what to do for the future. Ilum will not go away (disincentives).
• Q: End Game Raiding you can't see force push and all of the effects at the same time. A: Cameron - It's a scalability issue, where we can we love to get those powers in it gets out of control very quickly.
• Q: Space Combat - co op or expanded to PvP? A: DS - We have plans, thats all your getting . BIG BIG PLANS.
• Q: Companions - Adding more? Secret? Different from norm? A: DS - We have plans to add them here and there, its a lot of writing and work and how they react to your story. We want to add more, but not make them trivial additions.
• Q: Combat logs - how are you going to utilize the logs in 1.2? A: CW - It's about getting the info to you, an offline thing, take that data and look at it and valuate the performance. We don't have any implementation for in game. DS: And what killed me is in the log, oh I died from this or that. 
• Q: Legacy - any indication for customizing your ship? A: DS - We have big plans, on the wall of crazy. It's on the list somewhere.
• Q: Combat log - plans for future in game mods or implementations? A: CW - Not for 1.2, future I cannot say.
• Damion explaining what went on at the Legacy presentation.
• Q: Legacy name - can we add character last names? A: DS - We've talked about it.
• Q: PvP - Resolve - Do you have any plans to adjust it? Like for huttball,. learn how to control stuns to keep people in the fire, got to a point a full resolve bar you get rooted. A: CW - We have two completely off the resolve system effect, immobilize and rooting, based on diminishing returns.
• Q: End game - in KP/EV are hard fights going to be adjusted in the future? A: CW - We're working on getting the fights corrected and removing the bugs. Getting them to fun, understandably is a high priority.
• Q: Arms tech balancing. A: DS - It's not as bad as the boards believe. We want the people to build and pursue what they want. 1.2 has a ton of crafting changes to bring them in line with each other.
• Q: Do you have plans on people skipping gear tiers in future content? A: DS - Itemization, groups have deep pull. We want to have systems in place. Looking at crafting to help people get "caught" up.
• Q: What happens in legacy if your human? A: You get a presence buff at 50.
• Q: Performance - certian players have issues with running the game. A: We have a strike team for performance. They've already done significant work, we'll continue to look at it.
• Q: Where do hard mode flashpoints fit in with progeression? A: We expect you to be in greens and blues, if your struggling, story mode flash points or crafted gear.
• Q: Mac game client? A: Not at this time.
• Q: Adding more character slots? A: We're talking about it, no ETA on it though.
• Q: Server population distribution, will there be merges? A: Transfers - working on them before we do anything else.
• Last Question: Voss race? A: Not now, its a great place to reward for hard work.
• Q&A over.

Day 1: Cory Butler, James Ohlen, Cameron Winston Q&A at 3PM

• Stephen Reid introduces Cory Butler, James Ohlen, Cameron Winston
• Cameron Winston does combat design for the game.
• Q: Why are smuggler missions not smugglerly? A: James Ohlen - It has been talked about, not coming anytime soon but possibly.
• Q: Space combat is on rails currently. Will you expand the space combat features in the game? A: JO - were working on it. I tested it last week.
• Q: Favorite planet? A: JO - Voss
• Q: Any idea if we'll ever see player bounties in the game? A: JO - We're looking into it.
• Q: Are you going to expand the class stories? A: JO - We're working on it. Some new story players will see come out this year, more next year.
• Q: Our server is currently low on the population rung. We''ve lost people, can we get transferred to another server? A: JO - Number one priority, coming soon. It's not as easy as it seems.
• Q: What is the status of Ilum? A: Working on it, mentioned at Guild Summit.
• Q: Cross faction transfers? A: JO - That was part of the design back in 2007 but was unfortunately too expensive in terms of resources. The team is looking into it for future updates but it will not come in 2012.
• Q: What are you doing about same gender romance arcs? A: We're working on it but not talking about it yet.
• Q: Can you add split stack of 99, to sell 10 or 25 at a time on the GTN? A: JO - Yes but it's a low priority at the moment.
• Q: Any chance in expanding the social element of the game? A: We're working on making social points viable.
• Q: Flying vehicles in the future? A: JO - Not this year.
• Q: Any new playable species coming in future content? A: JO - New species are coming soon, maybe this year.
• Q: New classes? A: JO - Discussed but not developing anything currently.
• Q: I love Huttball but I fear it will get depreciated/old with the new Warzones. Anything BioWare is doing to combat this? A: JO - It would be cool to reskin it, but when we get cross server queuing in place, it will improve.
• Q: Dual spec? A: JO - Coming soon, maybe this year.
• Q: In-game events? A: JO - We have a team dedicated to in-game events and working to bring it to fans soon. Some events will not be announced, they will just happen.
• Q: What is the team doing about exploiters in PVP? A: JO - We are aware of pvp exploits, but the fixes are not easily implemented without breaking other mechanics.
• Q&A Over

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