SWTOR Server Merges November 2017

SWTOR’s update 5.5 in November 8, 2017 will finally be merging the SWTOR servers! This video goes over everything you should know about before the “United Forces” update, and what you can expect after the servers merge. This video also lightly covers the new content coming in 5.6 including a new flashpoint, pvp map, gsf map, and ops boss!

Watch Video

SWTOR Update 5.5
“United Forces”
November 8, 2017

• 🔗 Full Official Information About Servers Merges
• 🔗 SWTOR Official Fall 2017 Roadmap
• 🔗 Developer Livestream Coverage
• 🔗 Q&A With Lead Producer
• 🔗 Trailer: ‘A Traitor Among the Chiss’

What to Expect Before the Server Merges Update

• Servers are merging, update 5.5, called “United Forces”, November 8, 2017
• There will be: one east coast server, a second east coast server made of mostly west coast players/servers, one European English, one Euro German, one Euro French
• What you need to know:
• All of your items, strongholds, guilds, legacies and characters will come with you in the merge. You don’t need to worry about anything in your banks, in your mailbox, on the GTN or your outfit slots – they should all automatically travel with you to your new server.
• If you have too many items in your legacy bank, they will go into a legacy bank overflow. This overflow will hold your extra items until you make space to withdraw them – you just can’t place items into the overflow tab. Shortly after the server merge, you’ll be able to place credits into your legacy bank to be shared across all your characters.
• If you have multiple legacies, they’ll be merged into one, and you’ll get all the unlocks and achievements from your various legacies
• If you have strongholds on more than one server, you’ll keep all of them. So if you have a Manaan stronghold on one server and a second manaan stronghold on another, you’ll suddenly have two fully decorated manaan strongholds available on your new server – but you will only be able to have a total of 10 strongholds active and visible at a time
• One big thing you need to be aware of is how character names will work during the server merge. If someone has the name “Satele” on one server, and someone else also has a character named “Satele” but on another server, if those two servers merge only one person can keep their name. Who gets to keep their name will be decided by the game – the first thing you need to know is that players who are subscribed will get automatic priority over those who aren’t – so even if you have played your character for years, someone who is subscribed will have priority over you if you are free-to-play or preferred.
• The second thing that will decide who wins a character name collision is that highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time. Long story short, if you are worried about losing your character names, make sure to be subscribed on November 8th, 2017. If you’re watching this video after November 2017, and have to rename your characters, you lost your name to someone else who was either subscribed when you weren’t or who had a character they played more than you did if you were subscribed. There will also be a name purge of any characters that have not logged in for 90-days or more and are level 10 or under. Between the purge and so many servers merging together, it’s very likely you will lose at least one name per account, especially if you weren’t actively playing at the time of the server merges.
• If you play the game a lot, are subscribed, and have a ton of characters, all your characters will still be available. The servers currently have a limit of 52 characters per server, but even if you have more than that it’s fine – you just won’t be able to make any new ones on the server until you get below the cap
• Important note for free-to-play though – if you have 2 active characters on one server, and 2 active characters on another, when those servers are merged you will still be locked to 2 characters per server. You’ll wind up with all four characters on one server, but you’ll have two choose which of the two you want to make active and playable – the other two will sit inactive and unplayable until you subscribe. UPDATE: Free-to-play players are being bumped up to 4 character slots!

What to Expect After the Server Merges

Now that we’ve got the technical details, what can we expect after the server merge update happens?

• We can expect to see a LOT more people playing the game! Even those on the most active servers will see a bump in activity, and those on the “quiet” servers will see a ton more people and will have an easier time finding groups for flashpoints, operations, pvp and starfighter. About 2 weeks after the server merges update there will also be a revamp to the group finder, a new GSF map over Iokath, and a new PvP map on Yavin 4, a new Flashpoint on the chiss world of Copero, and a new operations boss called Nahut for Gods of the Machine. This huge dump of group-friendly content as well as the server merge should also encourage old players to return to the game to try all the new updates out. This second update is called A Traitor Among the Chiss and is set for November 28, 2017. If you’re watching this video after November 2017, I hope you are enjoying all the new content!
• If you were on one of these following servers, you will DEFINITELY want to log in and check out your new server after November 8th, 2017… Jung Ma, Prophecy of the Five, The Bastion, Tomb of Freedon Nadd, Jar’kai Sword or Darth Nihilus… these are the servers that are considered “very quiet” and players on these servers will see a huge difference in the population of their servers after November 8, 2017.
• This server merge should also help keep new players stay in the game. Often new players pick these quiet servers without knowing their history, and log in to a game that feels like o one is playing it. Now all players should log in for the first time to a fairly active server, no matter which of the five they choose. Choosing a server will also be a lot less complicated for new players.
• Guilds, especially guilds on the more populated servers, should prepare for an influx of new players joining their server! This includes a post on the new official server forums when they go live, and deciding how they want to tackle conquest as it will be a lot tougher to get on the board with more guilds to compete with.
• The GTN market will change significantly. Both the supply of items and the demand of items will go up as more players join your server.
• Roleplayers will be entering an interesting phase – there will no longer be even unofficial RP servers. Players who roleplay in private instances should be able to find more like-minded players to roleplay with as the servers go up in population. Roleplayers who enjoy roleplaying in public locations may find themselves in a more player-populated environment, especially since previous roleplay servers will be merged with pve and pvp servers after the update.
• If you are interested in transferring servers, they developers have said the cost will remain 90 CC at least for a while.

Update: West Coast severs moved to the East Coast

“During our evaluation of the new servers, we determined we could also combine our North American datacenters. That also occurred today and we have officially moved out of our West Coast location. Our testing showed no impact on the gameplay experience, but we expect some of you playing on formerly West Coast servers may see higher ping times.”

Update: More character Slots for F2p/Preferred/Subscribed

“One of the questions that has come up regarding United Forces is character slots and what will be happening for everyone. After the update, it is possible that a player could have more characters than they have slots currently. For subscribers they will still be able to play all of their characters (even if they go over their slots) but they can’t make any new characters. We wanted to do our best to alleviate some of the issues for not only subscribers, but F2P and preferred status players as well. Here is what you can expect to see changed on November 8 alongside United Forces:

• F2P players will have a default of 4 characters per server (up from 2)
• Preferred players will have a default of 12 characters per server(up from 6)
• Subscribers will have a default of 24 characters per server (up from 12)
• The maximum character slots per server has been increased to 100 (up from 52)

These new slot numbers are separate from any character slots which you have purchased. For subs, we are basically adding 12 character slots per server to your account (by making the new default 24 instead of 12). Ex:

• Today, you are a subscriber who has never bought any character slots, you have 12 character slots per server. After the update on 11/8 you will have 24 slots per server.
• Today, you are a subscriber who has purchased 30 additional character slots, meaning you have 42 per server (12 default + 30 purchased). After the update you will have 54 (24 new default + 30 purchased slots)

This should give a bit of breathing room for players, especially if they played on more than one server which will be brought into a new server on 11/8.”

• SWTOR Free-to-play vs Preferred vs Subscriber Guide - There are three different ways to play Star Wars: The Old Republic when it comes to subscribing to the game: free to play, preferred, and subscribed.

• SWTOR Galactic Command Guide - Galactic Command is Star Wars: The Old Republic’s new way of progressing and gaining gear once you hit level 70.

• How to Get Cool Armor in SWTOR - The outfit designer is a way of adding a costume on top of your armor – your armor is the pieces of gear that make sure you don’t die in...