SWTOR Developer Livestream Notes (July 21, 2020)

The Developers shared what’s coming up in Star Wars: The Old Republic!

Link to watch, won’t be up forever: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/686399765

2020 Developer Updates

• They are streaming from home as they are working from home
• Chris Schmidt aka BioChris is the Design Director, he took a vacation but has been back for a few months and is very excited to be there and be on the team
• Charles Boyd, Creative Director, welcomes everyone and is looking forward to what they’ll be going over
• Keith Kanneg, Game Director, also went on vacation for a bit. Works behind the scenes with people on screen, EA leadership, work to get funding, behind the scenes KPI looking at the business make sure it is healthy, does a lot of stuff people don’t know about.
• Community Manager, Eric Musco, talks to you on the internet, has a dog sleeping in the background
• Been very interesting for the team switching to work from home, figuring out how to manage the game and talking to everyone, and managing calls all inside of their houses
• No crazy videos or giveaways in today’s stream, only 30 minute stream, will grab questions from chat as they go

Steam Release

• General Daerunn was the picture for the livestream enjoying a cup of steaming tea it was a hint to SWTOR being on Steam!
• Keith says a lot of players mention Steam
• 2 million people playing the game in the last year!
• Wants to have more players come, and many players come and go in the game
• Steam will be a phenomenal addition to make it happen
• Asked the team what it would take to run on steam “omg its not gunna happen” but the team said “we can actually do this” executed plan and today is launch day! They hit the mark Keith is very excited to be in the position where he can ask his team for something and they deliver.
• Excited to see the number of people to come join us and play the game
• Players found it was online on steam within 6 minutes of it going online
• If you currently play the game today, you will need to re-download the game (OR unofficially move your files, but this is not recommended by official team)
• Steam players will be playing on the same servers as normal, no difference
• Article live on swtor.com
• Steam emoticons (jawa from forums)
• Steam badges
• Steam backgrounds 6-8 in total
• Steam Achievements (not in today, later in the summer, retroactive!)
• Steam will install the SWTOR launcher, you log in with the launcher, then it links by the first time you log in with the Steam launcher will link to your SWTOR account. Tomorrow on swtor.com you’ll be able to unlink through swtor.com

Trading cards

Backgrounds

2020 So Far

• Very happy about the Alderaan stronghold
• Lots of conquest changes
• Chris: We been taking a look at conquest because it’s a great system for eldergame for clear goals to clear rewards. Pretty happy so far with the changes. More refinement to come. Everything seen indicates players are a fan.
• New swoop event: excited to get something tied to swoops and death defying stunts and blowing stuff up in the game. Comes back out next week.
• For the new sets, tried to gear the sets towards the new operation to help making your more successful as you go along in Master mode, let them know how that plays out and if they are successful in those fights

2020

6.1.2d (July 28)

• Start of ranked Season 13
• Preview of the new Ranked 13 PvP Rewards
• Winding down Replica reward program over next couple seasons, going back to “made for pvp rewards”
• Will show you rewards as season kicks off so you know what you are working towards
• Really wants to make group ranked much more rewarding than it is and ranked solo more rewarding than it is, drive better play in unranked
• Give al little love to pvp especially in between seasons, dont like radical changes during seasons, keep giving feedback as they are listening and appreciate it, try something new next season

6.1.3 (Late Summer)

• Steam Achievements
• Next round of gameplay and content updates

• Conquest: tuning
• PvP rewards: ongoing, replica sets to grind for throughout season 13, changing to make generic ranked tokens legacy wide
• Crafting: short term fixes to make it a little more palatable, working on details
• World design: Lot of content that is 8+ years old, some of which Chris worked on, but some of it plays different than the newer content, from data and from players talking about it online, going back to older planets and find missions that stand out or where combat doesn’t work or they are too long, refreshing old content
• Amplifiers: Quality of life update, making the system more palatable, reducing RNG, look at common feedback
• These will be spread throughout the year

6.1.4 (Fall)

• New Recurring Event – Feast of Prosperity (like Lifeday, once a year, for fall)
• Themes around Hutteese holiday, non-combat related, elements of “feasting for the hutts” who are known for their long elaborate insane eating habits
• World boss for gathering ingredients
• Dailies and weeklies like most events, special rewards by reputation tracks
• Like the Swoop event story tied behind reputation

6.2 (Holidays) – Echoes of Vengeance

• Originally aiming for fall / late summer, better to push it out for quality
• Voiceover is in progress and wrapping up
• Want to put a little more work and polish in to it to make it the best it can be
• Extra stuff coming in it too
• Two story updates in one
• Kira/Scourge/Satele follow up
• New flashpoint: Face new enemies and old as conflict erupts among the Mandalorians! All about Mandos. Conflict about how Mandos should move forward in the Old republic.
• Might get a hint about that in an earlier update???

This missing ship

What is this?? Not a ship??

New character form the new Flashpoint

Gameplay and content updates throughout the entire year (like updating the cinematics for the planet flyins to updating conquest).

Next livestream?

End of the summer, 6.1.3 near the end of the summer

Talk more in earnest about Feast of Prosperity, maybe show it by then, maybe PTS, talk more about 6.2

Want to try and plan a “Cantina stream” around the October stream to make up for the lack of  Star Wars Celebration – no announcements, but try and do something fun and hang out

10th anniversary – december of 2021

Official Notes

These are from the Developers:

Hey everyone!

For those of you unable to watch the livestream today, here is a bulleted list of everything the team discussed. If you would like to watch the VOD, you can do so here.

• SWTOR is now on Steam! A full breakdown of everything related to that can be found in the article we published today.
• Brief re-cap of 2020 so far (Alderaan Stronghold, Conquest, Swoop Rally etc.)
• Things to come in 2020:
  • 6.1.2d will kick off the start of PvP Season 13.
  • 6.1.3 – Phase 2 of Steam.
  • 6.1.4 – New seasonal event called Feast of Prosperity
  • 6.2 – Holidays this year. We had initially wanted to get 6.2 out at the end of the summer, but the team decided that in order to deliver the true vision we want players to experience, releasing it around the holidays would be best.

Game Update 6.1.2d

• We are going to start showing the rewards at the beginning of the Season.
• Team’s goal is to make Group/Solo Ranked more rewarding than it currently is and drive better play in Unranked.

Game Update 6.1.3

• Steam Achievements
• Next round of Gameplay and Content Updates

6.1.4 – Feast of Prosperity

• New recurring seasonal event for Fall
• Multi-week duration
• Feast-themes minigame Missions (non-combat) for the Hutts
• Group to defeat World Bosses for rare ingredients
• Repeatable Daily and Weekly Missions
• Earn Reputation to unlock special Feast of Prosperity rewards
• Complete Achievements for Titles and prestige
• New Reputation-gated Story Missions

6.2 – Echoes of Vengeance

• Two story updates in one!
• Continuation of Kira/Scourge/Satele storyline
  • Locate the missing ship and uncover the truth of its disappearance
• New Flashpoint
  • Face new enemies and old as conflict erupts among the Mandalorians.
• Showed off a few screenshots/concept for the new story content.

Gameplay and Content Updates

• Conquests
  • Fine tuning to make the system work better.
• PvP Rewards
  • Releasing Replica rewards at an increased rate. First pieces will come mid-Season 13. Legacy tokens
  • Committed to fixing Desync.
• Crafting
  • Changes coming later this year.
• World Design
  • Going back to refresh older planets/pieces of content to make the gameplay feel better.

Amplifiers

• In an upcoming update there will be a quality of life update, reducing RNG and addressing feedback we’ve received.

What’s Next?

• Next stream planned in late Summer.
• “Cantina” stream in October (tentative)
• Look for regular updates on the Forums on upcoming Gameplay and Content updates.