Darth Hater

Star Wars: The Old Republic News, Interviews, Media & Podcast

  • DevTracker Highlights For The Week of January 12, 2012

    The amount of yellow posts from BioWare are staggering, but this week’s DevTracker Highlights will give you a breakdown of the important parts, straight from the mouths of the developers themselves. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers the illusive magenta crystal, Galactic Trade Network kiosks, moddable end-game gear, and a bug with the Smuggler’s Accomplished Sawbones ability. European Community Manager Chris Collins address concerns that patches are happening too often. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi updates the community about character responsiveness issues. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert discusses mission discovery items, a looking for group system, and the economic concerns of slicing. Senior Community Coordinator David Bass seeks feedback about Star Wars: The Old Republic events through the year 2012. Lead Writer Daniel Erickson confirms that there is no HK companion currently available in the game. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.

  • Emmanuel Lusinchi on the State of End Game Gear and Item Modifications

    As more and more players approach level 50, concerns amongst the community have grown regarding the viability of moddable gear in the face of clearly superior end-game drops.  Perhaps to help curb some of this concern Emmanuel Lusinchi took to the forums to share some information about upcoming changes to end-game gear.

    Emmanuel LusinchiThe current situation with end game gear and item modifications isn’t final and, in fact, many community members like yourself have correctly guessed at what our plans to correct the current design are.

    Since this is a fairly important issue to many players, let me disclose more details about what is currently in the work regarding purple items and mods:

    - All partially moddable purple items will be made fully moddable again, allowing the removal of the armoring, hilt and barrel. 

    - The set bonus of end gear purples (PVP and PVE) will be transferable to custom items. 

    - Some item modifications will be restricted to a certain item type. For example, some item modifications will only fit on helmets, while other will only fit on chests, etc.

    As usual, the caveats about unfinished work apply, but this should give you and the community a very good idea of our intentions. We are serious about making custom gear an entirely valid alternative to end game gear and we support the players’ ability to customize their appearance all the way to (and including) end game.

    While obviously none of these changes are set in stone, they are a good first step towards putting to rest the concerns of many of the players who are invested in the modding system.

  • Item Modding Clarifications

    Near the end of The Old Republic's testing phase some itemization changes went to the test server that caused a great deal of consternation among many testers. A short time ago Emmanuel Lusinchi posted a lengthy write-up of these changes, their intent and what really happened to the Modification System.

    Emmanuel Lusinchi
    So, yes, if you see a green armor you really like, you still can have that appearance until end level. It does take a bit of work - you either need to become a crafter yourself, befriend one or trawl the GTN.

    Read after the break for the full text of Emmanuel's post.

  • DevTracker Highlights For The Week of September 22, 2011



    After you read this week's DevTracker Highlights, be sure to check out our coverage of BioWare at this year's Eurogamer Expo. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller examines scaled spaceports, hybrids, armor protection, and stealth classes. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi covers EU feedback, and first-person perspective in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Hit the jump to see all the highlights.

  • DevTracker Highlights For The Week of September 1, 2011



    After back-to-back conventions, BioWare is returning to a normal schedule in this week's DevTracker Highlights. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi clears up a misquote from Gamescom. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller comments on the visuals of the Jedi Consular's Project ability and the dangers of being a ball hog in Huttball. European Community Manager Chris Collins addresses concerns about upcoming EU game testing. Hit the jump to see all the highlights.

  • GC 2011: Ten Ton Hammer Interview With Emmanuel Lusinchi

    Over at Ten Ton Hammer, Star Wars: The Old Republic's Emmanuel Lusinchi speaks a bit about open world PvP objectives:

    Now, with open world PvP, we have objectives that can just happen naturally you run into players of another faction and you can just attack them, especially on PvP servers. But we also have special places where there are objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you some tokens as well, which are different from the warzone tokens. They can be exchanged for each other, but not a favorable rate so that we encourage you to do both forms of PvP, but we dont force you to do both forms of PvP. The reason why we have objectives in the open world for open world PvP is a) to focus the player as they know that there will players on the other side who is trying to do this objective, which is great. Its a big universe, where do you fight otherwise? Not only does it let us focus them, it allows us to focus them in the right way, because if you put every player on the server onto one spot, it never works very well for many reasons: technical, gameplay, visual effects. It spreads them though the clever design of objectives and the clever design of what you need to do. It gives us control, but its also out of control because its open world.

    Read more from BioWare's Associate Lead Designer, as he also hints at some itemization features and other topics. Thanks to JW for the tip.

  • DevTracker Highlights For The Week of June 12, 2011



    We are back from Los Angeles and E3 2011, but while we had some hands-on time with the game, BioWare was still hard at work posting on the official forums in this weeks DevTracker Highlights. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert discusses leveling outside the game's story, inventory expansion, and the Jedi Knights lightsaber restrictions. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks about players starting combat ready, the Trooper's energy cells, implementation of the medical probe ability, and hints at something coming for companions. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi explains how certain lightsaber crystal colors are usable depending upon faction and character alignment. Hit the jump to see all the highlights.

  • DevTracker Highlights For The Week of April 28, 2011

    This week's DevTracker Highlights covers everything from skill trees to keyboards. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert dips behind the scenes and explains a normal day for him at the BioWare Austin studio. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller discusses dual specs and their place in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi answers questions from the French community about item colorization, dark-side healing, and the fate of the Sith soldier class. All of this and more after the break.
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