Darth Hater

I really enjoyed that video, thanks for putting together another great thread for ops.

Guild Capital Ships

• Fleet integration - allow the capital ship to be built into the fleet map set for quick travel (similar to non-taxi quick travel across Ziost Shadow/ Gav Daragon and the main fleet).
• Communication Continuity - give guild ships access to the same chat channels as the fleet for consistent contact with player base outside of guild.
• Quick Transportation - use the guild ship bridge to travel to any previously accessed quick travel location on any planet in any part of the galaxy.
• Quest terminals - provide access to daily and weekly flashpoint terminals for PVP and PVE content.
• Trophy Walls - utilize a visual rewards system to show what the guild has accomplished, such as wall mounted trophies of operations bosses and world bosses that were defeated by the guild or a holo-replica of top tier PVP players.
• Bestiary/Codex Display - provide a bestiary based on completed codex entries with guild achievements based on total bestiary completion percentage also allow players to engage previously defeated NPCs in a training area (think holodeck).
• Sparring Ground - provide an area for players (both members and non-members) to duel or pvp, perhaps even put in a wager bot/banker droid that they can initiate a trade with (think Borderlands 2 trade system).  The sparring ground could consist of various locales with multiple templates to accommodate players in a wide variety of play styles (lots of cover or no cover at all).
• Tactical Orbit - ships location in the galaxy provides a bonus to guild members when the guild ship is within one of the five galaxy sectors, examples might include:
• Seat of the Empire bonus - increases taxi speeds and commendation drop chance on Korriban, Dromund Kaas, Taris by 25%
• Hutt Space Bonus - Underworld trading, Slicing, and Investigation crew skill missions have a 2% extra chance to achieve critical success
• Distant Outer Rim Bonus - valor granted for world PVP kills and allows access to special vendor "Cartel Envoy"
• Coreward Worlds Bonus - extra daily commendations awarded on Corellia, increases taxi speeds and commendation drop chance on Coruscant, Alderaan, Balmorra, and Corellia by 25%
• Unknown Regions Bonus - increased fleet commendations for space missions

Guild interface

• Voting System - allow members to participate in a guild wide vote regardless of where they are in the game, include it as a social alert or add a button function on to the message of the day.  Example might be "what operation do you want to run this Thursday?"  (with 3 button choices - TFB, EC, N/A, etc...).
• Commendation Consolidation and Gifting - allow members to consolidate unused commendations into a pool or distribute them to other guild members.  Perhaps tie this feature to a guild unlock if necessary, for example require the purchase of a Banking Clan Delegate Droid with 100 of each type of commendation.  Maybe bring back the ability from Beta to exchange commendations for others.
• Real Time Armory - allow players to show off their gear, codex entries, and stat builds to anyone anywhere with an inspect link (similar to how you might link a quest).  Players probably need to have complete control over what parts of their persona are accessible, but the concept can potentially help streamline group selection or provide assistance to players looking to achieve results similar to top tier players.
• Quest Bulletin Board - see what quests other guild members have in their quest log.  This would provide members with an opportunity to organize and quickly create groups for heroic quests both while leveling up and at endgame.
• Roster and Bank Mergers - allow guilds to merge rosters and banks (total number of bank tabs equals the combined number of tabs from each guild bank up to a maximum of X, tabs in excess of X are refunded to the merged guild bank with an amount equivalent to the initial guild bank purchase price - 600,000 credits).  Various prompts should appear informing guild leadership the merger is permanent.  I think this is a good feature, because many guilds have lost the majority of their active members and if current members want to join a new guild (in many cases) they have to pass along guild master privileges to an alt just to have access to a large inventory system that is no longer used for its intended purpose.

I think most guild features in this thread should be purchasable with credits or Cartel Coins.  However, if any type of taxation or maintenance fee system is implemented I think it should be limited to credits (specifically credits from quest turn in and NPC looting).  I see lots of great ideas from the SWTOR community in this thread, inspirational stuff :)  -  I'll edit my post as I come with more stuff.

I think about this game a lot when I'm not playing it.  Sometimes I imagine a series of missions that players can queue for to participate in competing objectives.  One player is directed to rendezvous with an NPC located on a planet with expansive PVP areas (Tatooine, Hoth, Belsavis, Ilum, etc...).  After the player meets the NPC they are provided with a quest to escort the NPC across a set location within areas accessible to both factions.  While this is happening, other players in the queue are provided with a mission to locate the NPC and capture or assassinate it.  The captors/assassins could receive tracking droids mission items to help them locate their target.  It's not a player bounty system, but it's the closest thing I could think of mechanically and I think it could be implemented on both PVE and PVP servers.

I would also really like to see new map choices for the various Warzone game types (maybe something like this for a new Huttball map, more rounded edges and tiny circular platforms with delayed explosive properties - you get stunned on one you blow up and die -or- someone follows you onto one and doesn't move off fast enough, they blow up and die). Hutt space has around 100 planets, so we should be able to play Huttball on a few of those locales.  The developers could use existing assets from Quesh (seems like they already used some Quesh assets in Colicoid War Games, so maybe use some stuff from that too).  It would also be great if players could queue for a specific Warzone game type (Alderaan can take a really long time, but Voidstar and Huttball have a set maximum time).

In addition, it would be very convenient if I could use my quick travel ability to visit any quick travel way point I have previously accessed - maybe allow the player to back out of their current zone/world map and into a galaxy map where individual planets and subsequently quick travel points could be selected.

Justin,

You have hosted the podcast with a variety of people over the years, I've always enjoyed listening to the discussions held by the podcast team and guests.

I am interested in learning why past members (Colm, Sleeper, Dover, and possibly Pete?) stopped contributing to the web site and/or playing SWTOR and (in comparison) what keeps you and the current podcast team motivated to provide content each week as well as what excites you about the game.
 
Also, with regards to fan sites and news sites, do you see any simple actions the Bioware Austin Community Team can take or practices that can be implemented which will improve communication Between the Austin Office and the fan sites/news sites - maybe send out a weekly news letter or interview availability times for Bioware Austin staff?

Thank you to all the Darth Hater Staff for your commitment to the SWTOR community and also for continuing to produce quality content on a regular basis.  I think this web site is a great resource and I benefit from the information it provides.

This is the user interface I designed and use to heal hard mode flash points and operations.  Although you can't tell from the picture below, I set the operations frames up so that there are a series of columns from left to right, each column only contains 4 player names - this seems pretty common from most of the user interface screen shots I see online - and as long as you can get the operations leader to put all four of your heal targets into one group it should be pretty easy to see and isolate those players in 8 or 16 man operations.

This UI was designed on the PTS, so it is arleady prepped for 1.5 and will place the cartel market button near the map and will also take advantage of all 6 quickslot bars when free to play launches - I place my heroic moment and legacy abilities on a single bar in the lower right for ease of use when soloing content or running flash points with less than 4 players where I have my companion tank.  This UI is also designed with overlapping portraits in an attempt to conserve screen space and simplify the presentation of information. - you can see two screen shots with the UI in action and with the editor layout here.

Updated the past user interface layout taking advantage of all 6 quickslot options.  This user interface features overlapping portraits in an attempt to conserve screen space and simplify the presentation of information.  When planning this user interface I imagined a scalable user interface that could apply to both free to play members and subscribers.  I intend for an entire quickslot being dedicated to heroic moment and associated abilities as well as another quickslot being dedicated to social/vanity items.

Regarding the format, quickslot 1 and 2 are set in the center bottom portion of the screen below the character and target portraits - these quickslots are stacked with 1 above 2 each bar is positioned in a 1x12 (height x width) format.  Quickslots 3 & 4 are to the left and right of quickslots 1 and 2 and aligned in a 3x4 format.  Quickslots 5 and 6 are positioned on the lower right portion of the screen, also in a 3x4 format, with quickslot 5 placed next to the minimap and quickslot 6 to the left of quickslot 5.  Please note this user interface was created for 1920x1080 resolution - you can see a proper screen shot here.

Updated the past user interface layout taking advantage of all 6 quickslot options.  This user interface features overlapping portraits in an attempt to conserve screen space and simplify the presentation of information.  When planning this user interface I imagined a scalable user interface that could apply to both free to play members and subscribers.  I intend for an entire quickslot being dedicated to heroic moment and associated abilities as well as another quickslot being dedicated to social/vanity items.

Regarding the format, quickslot 1 and 2 are set in the center bottom portion of the screen below the character and target portraits - these quickslots are stacked with 1 above 2 each bar is positioned in a 1x12 (height x width) format.  Quickslots 3 & 4 are to the left and right of quickslots 1 and 2 and aligned in a 3x4 format.  Quickslots 5 and 6 are positioned on the lower right portion of the screen, also in a 3x4 format, with quickslot 5 placed next to the minimap and quickslot 6 to the left of quickslot 5.  Please note this user interface was created for 1920x1080 resolution - you can see a proper screen shot here.

Regarding the armor sets, do the item appearances change depending on the faction of the character?  For example rakata gear looks somewhat like a cowboy on the smuggler and more like a ninja on the agent.

Based on the tool tip, it looks like this item is only kept in your inventory for several days after it is obtained - so this isn't a purchase its a rental?