Post in this thread when you have information coming from comic-con. There was a lot going on today with pre-orders, so you may have missed some of this:
SWTOR Panel:-
New pre-order trailer with all classes
-New vehicles – including a land speeder!
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You can change appearance of companions, not just through gear but also skin color
-19 major worlds and many more small worlds – sounds like 2 more are yet to be announced
-Companions may
get AI control similar to Dragon Age-Solo players have an entire endgame planet to themselves
-Quick travel system between planets – NOT map travel though
-Some type of bonus for re-rolling (Legacy system?)
-Free pre-order codes to the crowd!
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Beta weekends in September will be huge – lots of people-Pre-order now! (This was their big announcement, if it hadn’t leaked)
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Release – “Holiday 2011″Bioware Base Q&A #1:-
Collector’s Edition store is actually an exclusive location that only CE owners have access to!Items from this store however will not give people an advantage in power, though weapons and armor will be available. Buy using credits, not real cash.
-Color Stone is
gold in addition to adding effects
-Sharding may be used on launch day, only if absolutely necessary (the practice of creating multiple copies of the same area)
-Advanced Class change is in the game. 1st swap is cheap. After that it gets expensive
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Companion AI – off-limits for talking about! James Ohlen is in trouble.
-Companion customization is flexible, but you can’t swap their genders. You get customization kits to do this, and get more unlocked later
-Speeder bikes and land speeders in direct response to player and fan feedback
-No plans for a Mac version currently, Boot Camp suggested
-An unannounced feature may get you access to different species/class combos
-Ship interior customization – it’s in the design plan, but not in for launch
-Lots and lots of titles in the game
Bioware Q&A #2Q&A starts at 4:00p PT/7:00p ET
4:15p: Giving a wrap-up of yesterday's panel, showing off vehicles from panel.
4:16p: Talking about exploration and how to get around. Showed off low level, mid level, and high level speeders as examples.
4:17p: James Ohlen talking about companion customization in terms of visual and AI. Small improvements and large improvements have been made to companions but can't talk about the large improvements made, like AI and.... SR: No, you can't talk about that. JO: ok, I won't talk about it. But some of the small improvements to companions characters are like the ability to customize the appearance of your companion character, not just what he/she wears but what they look like. To give you an example, one of the companion characters is Vette, the companion for the Sith Warrior, she is a Twi'lek and Twi'leks have different skin colors such as blue, red, yellow, and if you want her to have a different skin color - you will be able to do that. But that's just one example, there are a lot of other things you can do with that. The reason we've put this feature in is because it is one of the features that fans who have been testing the game are asking for. SR: And of course you'll be able to customize your companion with different armor sets and weaponry. We'll have much more to talk about on that in the weeks and months ahead.
4:18p: Now onto pre-orders, talking about the three editions and perks.
4:19p: Detailing what comes in the Collectors Edition, showed off the box and what is in it on stage.
4:19p: Soundtrack has 17 tracks from the game on the CD.
4:21p: Talking about beta testing weekends starting in September, release date for the game is Holiday 2011. SR: The sooner you redeem your code, the sooner you get to play the game. Everyone who pre-orders the game and redeems the code is going to get early game access. It's not going to be cut off at some point before we launch.
4:22p: Questions from the audience starting. Stephen Reid introduces the guests - Rich Vogel, Dallas Dickinson, James Ohlen, Drew Karpyshyn, and Holly Fields (voice actor for Nadia, companion of the Consular).
4:23p: Question about multi-person speeders. JO: Not for ship but it is definitely something we have discussed so currently you are going to be a little bit lonely in the land-speeder. RV: But it's reserved for future expansion. SR: And the back seat as well, is that reserved for future expansion? RV: Always. JO: That's where were storing the Star Wars Chess mini-game...just kidding.
4:24p: Question: Will there be expansions? DD: So We aren't announcing anything yet about the business plan for the game. There certainly will be content that comes out after the game, some of it that will be free to play, some of it that you will have to pay a little extra for. RV: Just remember that it takes a lot of money and time to make these expansions, they're not free. Expansion will be a major release for us.
4:25p: Question: When you get your star ship, will you be able to upgrade it by improving its shields, weapons, speed, hyperdrive, engine, missle bays, all of that stuff? JO: The answer is yes, you will be able to customize your ship, you are able to customize all of that stuff. In fact, you don't have to wait until you are higher level, as soon as you get your ship you can start looking for ways to customize it and make it easier to blow up those enemy fighters. SR: We should be clear that we are talking about additions to your weaponry, shields, and stuff for the space combat mini-game when we are talking about customization. JO: Yes, that is correct.
4:26p: Question: How many worlds at launch? JO: Oh, so this is the question that I have to answer again to make up for my screw up from yesterday. There are 17 full major worlds in the game, there are other minor worlds in the game as well.
4:27p: Question: How much customization did you put into the companion characters in terms of what you can do to customize the whole experience of playing with those characters? JO: You can customize all of their wearables: armor, boots, gloves, helmet. You are able to customize what weapon they have and upgrade their weapon. You can do everything to their weapon and armor that you can do to your own armor. So you can upgrade their armor slots. In addition, you are able to modify your companion character's appearance, like we were showing up there - character appearance, skin color, facial features, stuff like that. Stephen Reid: You can't do major changes, like changing their sex or their species. RV: Well we're not ready to talk about that (in reference to AI question from audience) yet.
4:28p: Question: Will there be space pvp? JO: Not for launch, It's on the big wall of crazy. SR: You get to do PVP combat on a space ship, does that count? Audience: It's a start.
4:29p: Question: What are advanced classes? - BioWare lists them.
4:29p: Question: Can you change your Advanced Class? JO: Yes, easy first time, after that, it if you screw up twice for instance, too bad for you.
4:30p: Question: Is HK-47 in the game? DK: Yes, BioWare understands the fan expectation with HK-47. You will learn some things potentially about certain characters, not necessarily HK-47 in the Revan Novel as well. So...buy the novel.
4:31p: Question: Are there worlds devoted to pvp? JO: We have confirmed that we have open world PVP in the game. So one of the worlds, yes, has a huge area of it that is devoted to open world PVP but we're not going into details yet on how it plays until the near future. SR: We'll be talking a lot more about PVP over the summer though.
4:32p: Question: Will dark/light alignment affect character appearance? JO: We would love it to but we can't reveal anything about that right now.
4:33p: Question: Will romance arcs be crazy, will they just go off to never be seen/heard of again, be psycho ex girlfriend type, and the stalker ex boyfriend type? SR: (Speaking for Daniel Erickson) He points out that there are lots of different romance arcs in the game. The crazy romances are in there as well as the nice storybook romances.
4:33p: Question: Will there be companion character death? JO: Well the answer is, we wanted to do that and had that in prior games like the Knights of the Old Republic series where you had to choose between companion characters. In SWTOR though because it's an ongoing game that you're going to have a companion character for possibly years, we have kind of avoided that as a storytelling mechanism. We don't want to take away your companion character forever because unfortunately what we found through testing was that players would make that choice just to see what happens and they would get really mad that their companion character is gone forever, you can't reload the game. DD: And if you're used to having a healer as your companion because of their aspects of aiding combat and you lose your healer, that hurts a lot. We got a lot of feedback when people would lose their healer that it was not cool. JO: Our original strategy was if people are dumb enough to kill their companion, they're just going to have to deal with it but there were just way too many people who were saying, well, "are they really going to kill my companion character?" SR: They were just like "oh wait, they're dead" and if you choose the Jedi Consular class you'll be playing with Nadia who is voiced by Holly here and I don't think anyone wants to kill her right? That would be mean.
4:35: End of Q&A
4:36: Drew Karpyshyn now doing signings for Revan.
Bioware Q&A #3Q&A live blog starts at 7:30p PT.
7:01p: Correction, doesn't start till 7:30. We'll post an update on Twitter when it begins and start the live blog then.
7:33p: Q&A starting, introducing Alexander Freed, Drew Karpyshyn, James Ohlen, Dallas Dickinson, Jennifer Hale, Rich Vogel.
7:36p: Question: Will we see talent trees to prepare our character before launch? - Likely.
7:37p: Q: Healers are tough to play, adding in help in the UI? DD: We will be adding in things to help healers.
7:38p: Q: Funniest moment at BWA? DD: Rich Vogel, anything that comes out of his mouth is exciting, comedy gold
7:39p: Q: Will you be able to choose between empire and campaign (switch sides)? JO: You are empire and republic for all time but you choose at the beginning of the game.
7:39p: Talking about favorite movie in the series.
7:40p: Q: Can you be a good jedi or bad jedi? JO: Yes you are, if you're a sith warrior you can be the good version of darth vader. On the jedi you can be the bad version of a jedi. DD: Moral code while supporting the empire = cool.
7:41p: Q: Empire and republic characters on the same server? DD: Yes, there will be multiple shards. SR: There may be reasons to put two factions on the same server that we haven't talked about yet.
7:42p: DD: Single target tanking and multi are available in the game.
7:42p: Q: Heroic versions of flashpoints? JO: Flashpoints 4 player adventures. We're right now considering doing a hard mode, there will be one to do at a much higher level.
7:43p: DD: You can have each character on the shard be in a different guild on different factions.
7:44p: Q: Plans for applications for crew skills? JO: That's on the wall of crazy.
7:45p: DK: We have to respect the ip, but make it feel distinct. Juggling balls with both ideas. You have to use original material as a template
7:46p: JH: I like the get it done types, different attitudes no favorite.
7:47p: Q: Cross faction communication between friends? JO: Nope, you're screwed. You're enemies. You can walk up to them and do chat bubbles with them.
7:48p: JO: In SWTOR we have a problem because we have a big class story, have to solve the problem of gankers around class story, we have a system that players can't hang around and stop your class story, but you might be ganked venturing out.
7:49p: Q: If your guild is pvp and you don't want to play pvp what options are there? DD: There aren't many options, if you are a pvp server you are at the least signing up for part of the some pvp on a pvp server.
7:50p: Q: Are gundarks in the game? SR: Yes DD: You can fight them on Dromund Kaas.
7:51p: Q: Republic leader? SR: Satele Shan
7:52p: Q: Addons? RV: We're working on that now, post launch feature, but it will at some point come.
7:52p: Q: Plans for guilds more than friends list? We want fuill feature guilds, will have some for ship and after.
Guilds are high priority7:53p: Q: Guild ranks? DD: We allow you to change titles in the guild, details later.
7:53p: Q: Guild pop cap limit our progression? DD: As of right now, I don't think so. SR: We'll talk about that at some other point.
7:54p: JO: Will only currently be able to view friends on the same server. RV: On the wall of crazy.
7:55p: Shards term comes out of UO and became slang.
7:56p: Q: Endgame? JO: Eternity Vault, more ops coming. More warzones coming. Single planet devoted to single player endgame.
7:56p: Q: Change appearance in game after creation? JO: Maybe.
7:57p: Q: Systems in place for weapon customization? JO: Yes.
7:57p: Q: Racials? JO: Yes, we have that planned, and almost sure at launch. RV: We're working on it. DD: Working on it, if it doesn't work out it might not be there.
7:58p: Q: What are you doing to prevent endgame from becoming a gear war? JO: We have a system, that stephen would kill me if I talked about but we will talk about that in the next couple months. RV: We'll talk about that later because we're working on them currently.
8:00p: Q&A Over.
Bioware Base Q&A #4:00: Stephen Reid: We had to send some of our developers back to Austin to work on the game. Apparently it still needs to be finished. So we've been left with James Ohlen, but that's the most important developer of all. James knows everything and anything about the game, at least, in theory. So we have James Ohlen, who as we say, is Game Director for BioWare Austin. My name is Stephen Reid, and I'm Online Community Manager for the title. So we're taking questions from Twitter as I understand it. I think you have to tweet @biowarepulse if you want to send in a question. And I think we still have a few people hanging around the BioWare Base who are waiting to get in to play some PvP, so we might get some questions from those guys too. David Bass here is going to give us some questions from Twitter to start us off.
0:01: David Bass: Alright, let's start with a question from @Asros. Will romancing a character as a Jedi or Sith adversely effect your story, as both orders look down on romance in the lore?
JO: It won't adversely effect your story, it will obviously have an impact on your story and, specifically, your Light Side/Dark Side rating. The Jedi, as if you've seen the movies, don't look very fondly upon romance. So if you start taking the romance options that will lead to Dark Side points. However, you don't have that same problem on the Sith side. So actually romances are a little bit easier if you're a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor.
SR: Easier to fall in love as a Sith then. Alright.
0:01: DB: @Forceheal asks: Will you have support for macros in the game at launch?
JO: That's something that we cannot really answer at this point. It's something that we're looking at, but don't have a definitive answer on that right now.
0:01: DB: @Ladyhails asks: Where there be more depth to closed captions than just dialogue subtitles? Will NPC only conversations be subtitled?
JO: All conversations will appear in the top left dialogue window. So for example, if you come across some ambient conversations in the world, you'll be able to see it there in text.
0:02: DB: Alright I got one from @Dozer915: Do you have plans to have an authenticator for IOS and Android devices?
SR: So security, and we obviously have a security authentication keyfob in the collector's edition of the game. Security is something that we take very very seriously. We're looking at our options for authenticators for launch. We'll have more information as we get closer to launch
0:02: DB: @OneSoul1982 asks: What is the most challenging thing about making an MMO since this BioWare's first major MMO?
JO: What's the most challenging thing about making an MMO? Well there's so many challenges that it's hard to narrow down to one single challenge. I would say just the technology of having to run these massive virtual worlds with thousands of players able to co-exist in them at the same time, that's the same challenge that anybody making an MMO has and it's been a challenge for us as well. That's why we're taking our time to make sure that we have a really smooth and great launch.
0:03: SR: Do we have any questions from anyone here in the Base?
DB: Anyone in the crowd have a question? Before I keep going?
SR: David can run to you with a microphone?
DB: Anyone in line for The Old Republic want to ask a question? Alright, I got one from Twitter. I apologize if I mess up these names. @EzzeJenkins says: Are there dynamic and permanent changes to the story based on Light Side and Dark Side choices you make?
JO: Yeah, that's one of the big selling points of Star Wars: The Old Republic. When you make a choice it has a real impact on your story. If you make a Dark Side choice, if you kill somebody, he might have actually appeared later on in your story, but you killed him, so he will no longer show up. Now that's just one example.
SR: We actually showed a video at our panel here at San Diego Comic Con where a Jedi Knight who pursues this Sith Lord to Tatooine has the choice of basically sparing his life or taking his life. And if he chooses to spare his life than he actually turns up a lot later in the story pretty much a changed man. Obviously, if you take his
life, well, you don't see him again.
0:04: DB: Alright I finally have a question from someone in the line over here.
Fan: Hey there. I just had a question. This is for the people who didn't go to the panel. Exactly how far in terms of customization can you customize your companions?
JO: Question, how far you can customize your companions? Well, in terms of appearance you can customize your companion by changing out his armor types. What he wears for boots, what he wears for gloves, helmet. You can change out his weapons. You can also actually modify his very appearance. His skin color and facial features. You can't do things like change his gender or species.
0:05: DB: @TorReport, one of our esteemed fansites, asks: Yesterday, Dallas Dickinson mentioned having 5 characters in 5 different guilds. Was he suggesting that 5 is the cap per account per server?
JO: No, he was not. Dallas was just giving that as an example. We have not announced the cap yet on the number of characters that a player can have.
0:05: DB: @BeauSjobeck asks: How well has The Old Republic been running on lower end machines? Does it require lowering lots of graphical options?
JO: If you are running on the absolute min specs, yes you are going to have to lower all the graphical options. That's just what you have to do when you have the minimum spec. However if you are running on the recommended spec, you won't be having to do that.
0:06: DB: @DeserttFoxx asks: You guys stated that you played the way you like. Are you guys sticking to that? If I tank in PvE, can I do it well in PvP?
JO: So the question is, if you play a certain way in PvE can you play that way in PvP? Well, PvP is quite a different beast than PvE. So even if you have a favorite way of tanking you're probably going to have to modify it if you're going to be successful. You can still have the same abilities and the same spec, but the way you play is going to have to be quite a bit different in PvP than it is in PvE. That's just typical with any online game, or any game in general.
0:06: DB: Anyone have a question in line while we're waiting? Pulling up some new questions here. @BenIcantevenpronouncethat that asks: Will the identity of the Emperor be revealed at all?
SR: Ooo, he wants a spoiler. That's a big spoiler.
JO: Yeah, we don't want to give away spoilers, so you're going to have to play the game all the way to the end to get the answer to that one.
SR: Let's just say that Jar Jar Binks is, in fact, alive and well in The Old Republic. I'm just kidding.
JO: Or is he? You have to play the game to see. No, he is just kidding.
0:07: DB: @TorWars, another one of our fan sites, asks: Are names going go be unique?
JO: Names are going to be unique per server, shard, whatever you want to call it.
0:07: DB: Anyone in line? Sorry my phone's a little slow at refreshing here. @ZeroGravTrooper asks: Stephen, can I expect there will be some sort of train easter egg in the game?
SR: Sadly I don't think my metaphors extend to putting easter eggs in the game. As much as I would love to see that happen. We do have trains. There's trains on Corellia, right?
JO: Yes there is. They're really cool trains.
SR: Maybe put my face on the side of one. No, I'm just kidding. That would be terrible.
JO: You've given me a great idea. No.
0:08: DB: Alright here's one from @MitchellCares: How will Sith Assassin tanks be balanced to compete with standard tanks like the Sith Juggernaut?
JO: I don't think we're balancing them to compare, they're going to play differently. They're both going to be tanks. They are going to tank differently because they're different classes, they have access to different abilities, they have different strengths and weaknesses.
0:08: DB: I have the same question from a number of people: Do you have any details to share about what the HoloCam does that is included in the game box for certain editions?
SR: So we're still working out kind of final details on the virtual items. The one thing I will say on the HoloCam is that it would be a still taking device as opposed to one that does video, which is something that somebody asked me before.
0:08: DB: @Ant_rocks_09 says: Will NPCs care more about your individual choices or your Dark Side/Light Side points?
SR: Maybe your affection rating might play into that, I'm not sure.
JO: Did you say NPCs?
DB: NPCs, not companions. Just general NPCs.
JO: So general NPCs will care about your actual choices. And that just makes sense because you can't really tell if someone is good or evil when you first meet them. You probably have to hang around with them for a little while before you can determine that. Or maybe never.
SR: I don't know. I'd say Darth Malgus looks evil from the minute I saw him.
JO: Well yeah, there's some characters that are pretty obvious, but he's kind of an exception.
0:09: DB: @Cailieg asks: Regarding the change to the ability to kill off your companions, do you feel like this decision freed you up to do more of your influencing of them in the game?
SR: I think we should be clear, it wasn't like an ability which was labeled kill companion character.
DB: I don't think she meant ability, I think she meant option.
SR: Sure. It was a story choice.
JO: Yeah, they were story choices, and it didn't really free us up. It was just something that came out of testing. It was a hard choice, because it is something that has been part of BioWare games before. But a massively multiplayer game is different from an RPG with a beginning and an end. So that's what kind of finally forced the decision.
SR: Georg spoke a little bit about this on the forums recently. So people might want to check the Dev Tracker which will lead you to Georg's response.
10:00: DB: Okay another question from @Asros who says: How healing intensive is the game? Will healers be able to DPS or will they have to focus 100% on healing like in other MMOs?
JO: Actually, no. The healers are going to be quite good at dealing out damage in PvE. Obviously if you're in a Flashpoint or an Operation where you're working with a party or groups of parties, you're going to have to fulfill your role. And that most likely will mean you're going to focus on healing.
11:00: DB: Anyone have any questions they want to ask?
Fan: Release date!
SR: Holiday 2011 is what we're currently targetting for our release date.
11:00: Fan: If we bought the collector's edition do we get that statue?
SR: You do not get that statue if you buy the collector's edition. You get a much smaller version of that statue. If we shipped one of those statues in every collector's edition it would cost you quite a lot of money.
JO: We might actually be giving out that statue, remember we had that little shrink ray machine, we'd shrink it and, no. Just kidding. Bad joke. Terrible.
SR: There he goes again. The Darth Malgus statue in the collector's edition is about 9 inches tall, actually a slightly different sculpt than the one that we have there, but he's still pretty cool.
11:00: Fan: How early is pre-order going to start playing?
DB: How early can the pre-order people start playing?
SR: We haven't talked about the exact length of time for early access. It's a head start program, so it's not going to be like months and months. It will be days, maybe weeks. But we're determining that and we'll talk about that closer to launch.
12:00: DB: Question on Twitter from @RedElton80: Regarding social points, do we only get them from winning the speech rolls while in a group, cause I always lose those rolls?
JO: So social points are points that you get when you're in multi-player conversations. And as you get higher social points it unlocks the ability to buy certain items for your character. For those who aren't aware about what social points are, they're meant to encourage people to group up and do multi-player conversation. We're currently looking at giving social points for other group based activities. And we are also looking at ways to make so that people who win the rolls all the time, that that doesn't happen quite as often as it currently does in the game. That's an imbalance, and we have some ideas of how to fix that.
12:00: Fan: If you got the collector's edition does that increase the likelihood of being able to beta test?
SR: I'm afraid it doesn't right now. Currently right now if you have the collector's edition it gives you the early access like everyone else and the other items planned for the collector's edition. But it doesn't increase your chances I'm afraid.
13:00: Fan: It sold out fast.
SR: It is absolutely not sold out. The collector's edition did sell out on Origin.com but Origin had a very very small allocation of the physical collector's edition. It has sold out temporarily on Amazon.com, but it's still absolutely available at retailers across the world.
13:00: Fan: I got mine at BestBuy after going to Origin and Amazon.
SR: Yeah, you hit up the two places that sold out first before going to BestBuy.
Fan: Walmart and Target didn't have it online yet. The only place I could find it was BestBuy.
SR: Yeah, you might have to search, but right now we definitely know that we haven't sold them out.
13:00: Fan: How long does the digital deluxe mount last?
SR: How long could you use it? Well, you don't get it at level 1, right?
JO: So the mount, and by mount it's a speeder, that you get when you order the collector's edition, yeah you get to keep it forever. The way we're doing speeders is as they improve, we're not really increasing the speed. We wanted you to get a fast speeder as soon as you get it. So it's going to be useful all the way through. We're thinking of ways to make it, actually there's stuff that we're doing that I can't talk about right now. But we'll be talking about it in a couple of weeks. The thing about the speeder in the collector's edition, we want to make sure the players really feel that it was worth getting. So we're making sure that it's a very cool item and that you're going be happy about the fact that you got that speeder out of the collector's edition. We don't want to upset our fans by they buy the collector's edition and the speeder is not that cool.
SR: And it's also in the digital deluxe edition just to be clear. And what was the second half?
15:00: Fan: The vendor that comes with the collector's edition, what's on it?
SR: So there's been some discussion about the collector's edition, and specifically the collector's store. We mentioned the other day, we cast it in terms of being a VIP lounge. It is an area in the game which is exclusive to people who own the collector's edition. However it is not a fabulous wonderland full of delights and items that no one else could possibly get hold of. There are plenty of very cool social places to go in the game. So don't feel if you don't have a collector's edition that you will be standing outside looking in crying about the fact that you're not inside. It's really not that big a deal. And anyone who may be, for example, lording it over others on the forums about this should really knock it off.
JO: I don't know, it's pretty cool.
SR: Thanks for undoing everything I just said, James.
JO: No no, it is what he said. It's just a cool kind of cantina area that's exclusive for you to go. It's like if you're a VIP going to a VIP club, that's the extent of it. But, you know, that's still kind of cool. You also get the store which is exclusive. It has items in it that aren't going to make you more powerful than people your same level, but you will be able to get items that other players won't be able to get. So it's more of an aesthetic thing. You're going to look different.
SR: I think it's fair to say that collector's items store items will absolutely not unbalance the game. That's not the aim.
DB: Alright let's head back to Twitter.
JO: Except for the Death Star laser cannon you get to attach to your starship.
SR: Stop it right now.
JO: Alright.
16:00: DB: @OneSoul1982 has another question: How often do you guys get to play the game and what would you say your best memory is of it so far?
SR: All day, every day.
JO: As my job is the game director, I have to play the game all the time. My favorite moment. I have a bunch of favorite moments. Usually it's when a feature surprises me because it works better the first time around than features usually do. That's what usually makes me happy. Usually when a new feature comes in it's a broken pile of crap. And we have to take a lot of effort to get it up to the level of quality our fans are expecting. So when a feature comes in and works right off the bat, that makes me feel really warm inside.
SR: And to be clear, James is looking at builds that are many many weeks, and in some cases more than that, away from being seen by our testers. So your initial view of a feature is going to be very different from someone who is in testing.
JO: That's true.
SR: I don't get to play the game all day. I do get to play in my spare time, which is of course copious. And my favorite moment actually I think was quite early on when I was playing the Jedi Knight on Tython. And there's a quest pretty early on where you come across two padawans who are obviously involved in a romantic relationship and you basically get the choice of essentially turning them in to the Jedi Council or leaving them be to go about their romantic business. And Jedi Code would suggest that you should go and inform the Council cause this is not something that's allowed. And I think the minute that I found that quest and had my first moment of what do I want to do, because it was a genuine moral choice. And also for me, it was a point of which it said, you know what, you can roleplay your character here. So in my case, as I recall, I chose to let them go and told them I wasn't going to tell the Council, and then I went and told the Council anyway. So that was the kind of Jedi I was playing.
JO: Actually, you could even feel dirtier. Because as the Jedi Knight on the first world you have the opportunity of getting in a romance yourself. So then you can get in a romance yourself and then turn them in. Double standards.
SR: Double Dark Side points.
DB: I did that. I got in a lot of trouble for it.
19:00: Fan: So how is end game tiered loot working? Is it a piece by piece system where you slowly build the set, or a token system?
JO: Say that first part again?
Fan: End game tiered loot, like an armor set from the end game raid content and stuff like that.
DB: Basically in our armor sets are individual pieces going to drop or are you going to get tokens that you can then end up trading in as you get enough?
JO: Currently individual pieces are going to drop. But we're always looking at game balance for the elder game and changing things up. So I don't want to say that we might not go to a token based system at some point. That's in pretty extensive testing right now.
20:00: DB: I have a question from Twitter here, and I have to make sure I phrase it properly so it's not taken out of context. @Mlagerloef asks: Will low end MacBook pros be able to run The Old Republic in Bootcamp?
SR: So in testing you can definitely run the game under Bootcamp. I couldn't comment on low end MacBook Pros.
DB: Well I actually own one and it runs just fine.
SR: Is it low end?
DB: Yes it is.
SR: Okay.
JO: But how to you define low end?
DB: They only make like a low, mid, and high.
SR: Well, when did you buy yours? That's really the question.
DB: Two years ago.
SR: Okay. There we go. So yeah, it is possible to run the game under Bootcamp but officially we do not support that.
DB: Correct. Although we did release the minimum specs this week along with the pre-order stuff so you can take a look and see if your Mac fits into those specs, besides the fact that it's a Mac.
20:00: Fan: I have two questions. One, are starships going to be customizable?
SR: Only in terms of the exterior weaponry. And by that I mean, in the space combat game you can upgrade the lasers and the shields and the engines and I've forgotten something probably. So you can sort of have more power and maneuverability. Sorry, the missiles. When you're playing the space combat game. It doesn't effect exterior appearance of the ship right now. And, I know the other question, which is the interior of the ship. That's something that's been talked about. It's on the Wall of Crazy. Is it fair to say that it's unlikely to make it for ship right now?
JO: Yeah, I'd say so.
SR: Okay. Sounds borderline to me.
21:00: Fan: And the second one is, I know how whatever you do in the game will basically reflect off either being Dark or good. If you're Jedi Knight and you go to really Dark, like you do a lot of bad stuff, would it automatically switch you to Sith after being so Dark? Or are you just going to be like some Dark Jedi?
JO: No, you remain a Dark Jedi. Well, you're making evil decisions. You're still a member of the Republic. You don't really give a crap about the Sith cause your entire quest is going to involve fighting the Sith. So you're not making friends with them. Often you're killing very important Sith during your time as a Jedi Knight. So you're just going to be a very Dark Jedi who is so far escaping undetected by the Jedi Council.
SR: Daniel Erickson when he was asked about this made the analogy of World War II and that you had some soldiers who could be on the Allied side who were pretty nasty soldiers but were still fighting against the other side. So we allow for that, so the shades of morality from being very very good and law abiding and everything else and being pretty evil but still on the Galactic Republic or Sith Empire side. And, as Daniel has said again, hello Daniel, it's very interesting to play a Light Side Sith Empire character, because you get to sort of skirt around some interesting moral choices and try and pretend you're evil when you're really trying to be good.
23:00: DB: Let's jump back to Twitter for a second. @BrianK555 asks: Will fellow group members have the ability to keep me from seeing a cutscene or dialogue window by skipping them.
JO: No. Though there is the social pressure if everyone else in your group is skipping lines for you to skip as well.
SR: If they're yelling at you on Vent then, I don't know, you might lose friends.
JO: But if you don't skip then it does not skip.
23:00: Fan: How are you handling death penalties and is resurrection like more of a clone thing?
SR: I know all about this.
JO: Yeah, so our death system is one of the more forgiving death systems in MMOs. And the reason we've done that is because we actually want to make the combat more challenging. And the thing is if you have super challenging combat and a really unforgiving death system then your players want to kill you. So you kind of have to err on the side of making one easier if you're going to make the other harder. So our death system actually allows you to almost you can respawn in place essentially if you die. And then there's a big cooldown. So it's essentially, and this is our current death system which we're experimenting with right now, but you get killed and you decide to respawn in place, and then you have a chance to move away from the enemy before you can gather aggro again. You can't do anything. If you do anything at that point, such as attack someone or use an ability, you immediately can gain aggro. So it just allows you move to a place where you can then continue to combat. However it's balanced so that if you, for example, die twice, there's a big cooldown. And if you die 3 times, you're probably going to have to return to a med center. And the med center is, you know the fiction there is you reappear with the bacta tank.
SR: Basically it's called a medical droid. So when you hit the medical droid option it says a medical droid has been dispatched. And it literally brings you up. And you're in stealth but you've also got a lowered health, so you have enough time to get away from where you might be aggroing the monsters and then you can heal up. A couple other things to mention is everybody has a self heal. So as soon as you're out of combat you can hit that self heal and just get yourself back up to maximum health. And then in addition everybody has the ability to revive a fallen group mate. So as long as you're out of combat, again, you can bring them back without that medical droid/medical center sort of thing. So yeah, I mean there is an enormous thread discussing this on the forums in which Georg Zoeller, who's our Lead Combat Designer, has talked about it a lot. But what James said is true. Essentially we don't want an extremely harsh punishing death system. We still do have armor decay. Armor gets sort of gradually beaten down. And if you're in that scenario of going again and again, whether it's a medical droid or a medical center, you would ultimately break your armor and you'd have to go get that repaired. So there are various things to ensure that you can't just, the example being, you can't just take a boss down by 1/3 health, get killed, go to immediately rez in place, and go back and attack him again. We sort of guard against that.
JO: I know there's a thread on the boards right now that they're talking about they're worried that we're going to make the game too easy. That's actually the opposite of what we're trying to do right now, especially with the death system. We want to make, one of the things about game design is you want to make a game challenging, but not too challenging. If it's too challenging, players get frustrated. If it's not challenging enough, players get too bored. And most massively multiplayer games are balanced, right now, in the modern day, to the too easy so you can easily get bored. In the past, massively multiplayer games have been balanced to the that they're too hard and you get frustrated when you die and have to run for 5 hours to get back to your corpse. So we're trying to make it so that it's similar to it's almost like a reload so we can have those more difficult fights where you have to think about it and rethink your strategy, where you're like, well I just went in there and that didn't work, I'm going to try it again. And then maybe you have to wait a minute and then you might have to try it a third time.
27:00: DB: I'm getting a ton of questions about this on Twitter, even though I know the answer to this, I've got to ask it. @Arcaine123 is the one I pulled up says: Can you please refine BioWare's Holiday 2011 window? When does it start and when does it end?
SR: Nope.
DB: Holiday is all you get for now.
SR: As we get closer to it we'll definitely be refining it.
27:00: DB: Alright question over here.
Fan: So are PvP arenas on your Wall of Crazy? And what incentives are you going to give for open world PvP?
SR: Come back and talk to us in a month.
27:00: DB: Someone over here had a question, right?
Fan: My question is for looking for groups, how is that going to work in your game? And are you going to alleviate people that are going to be looking for groups for 30 to 40 plus minutes?
JO: So we're going to have the basic looking for group functionality that one would expect in a modern day MMO. We also have some new ideas that we're not talking about right now that are in the early testing phase. Actually early implementation phase. So they haven't even been tested, so I can't really talk about them right now. But it is we want a very social game so we want make looking for group, like finding a group, really easy. In fact we've done, we've gone through two stages. We've been making a whole lot of adjustments to the game to make grouping, to change the game so that players want to group. So there's lots of incentives to group right now in Star Wars: The Old Republic. And now that we've got people to want to group we're trying to add in functionality that will make it easy to group.
28:00: DB: Back on Twitter: Are the items from pre-order account bound or are they a one time use only thing? In other words, do you get them on all your characters or just one?
JO: We'll be answering that later.
29:00: DB: Sounds good. You had a question, right?
Fan: Yeah, I had a question. So the ships that we get, are we confined to the one for your class or are there going to be different ones that you can unlock or something later on? Just in case you're not too crazy about the one your class currently has.
JO: Currently the ship you get is based off your class, and if you don't like it you're going to be very sad for a long time. But they're all really cool. Every single ship is pretty awesome. We actually, we regularly give our prizes to people within the studio if they play the game to a certain point. It's to encourage people to finish the game. And one of the prizes was actually this really cool poster of basically a schematic of your ship. And so we had one for every single ship. And they're really awesome. Hopefully at some point, nevermind. I'm not going to say anything.
30:00: DB: I'm getting a bunch of questions on Twitter from various people. We've said that we've got Light Side rewards and Dark Side rewards depending on your alignment. What about for people who want to stay right in the middle as a gray area?
SR: As in neutral?
DB: Yes.
JO: Yes, if you decide to thread the needle and you decide to be a neutral character, there are items specifically for you.
30:00: Fan: Actually I had a question about the starship system. When it comes to PvP are we going to be able to use our ships in Player versus Player? And like field battles, later on in a patch maybe? Do you guys have any plans for that?
JO: So the question is are you going to be able to use your starship in PvP scenarios? Not for ship. That's a big feature so we're not really talking about that right now.
30:00: DB: @DeeceeCreator on Twitter would like Stephen to know he's got a white thread on his shirt and they can see it on the internet. It's right here. Thank you DeeceeCreator. I had a question right here. This is @MrFisky: How does lag or internet issues effect being in the middle of a cutscene or dialogue?
JO: How does lag effect a cutscene and conversation? Well hopefully, and this is one of the reasons we're taking our time, it doesn't at all. Currently it does have an effect. But we're actually making adjustments so that that entire system is much less server bound.
31:00: Fan: So you talked about there'd be decay in armor. Will there decay in weapons as well?
JO: Yes. The question was will there be decay in weapons. That was my answer, yes.
SR: You have to repair things that get broken.
31:00: Fan: What about our coloring of gear? Can we change how our gear lookswise? Say in Warhammer right now, you find another item that you like, you can take the skin of that onto your current armor.
JO: Currently your armor looks the way it is. It's got one appearance. So if you find a chest piece, it's always going to look like a chest piece. But we do have unified colors which allows you to actually unify the color of the uniforms. Have we talked about that much?
SR: We've talked about locking the color to the chest piece. Yeah, we talked about that. I guess if we hadn't, you just did.
32:00: DB: I have a bunch of people asking, will I be able to invite my friends to hang out on my spaceship?
JO: Well that's a very interesting question. Can you have your friends come into your starship? Can't answer that right now.
32:00: Fan: I was curious about guild wars. I play World of Warcraft a lot and I don't like guilds and I want to like destroy them. Will I be able to destroy them?
JO: The question is if you have another guild on the other side can you destroy them? Well, I guess you can hunt them down, look for their names, the guild name.
SR: I don't think we can wipe them from the face of the server. That would be extreme.
33:00: DB: I have a lot of people asking about all the pre-order items. Is it safe to say that we'll have more details about them in the future?
JO: Yes.
SR: If we're talking about the virtual items, then yeah we will be.
33:00: DB: @TEricson says: Can a Bounty Hunter fly around in his jetpack without actually using an ability?
JO: Yeah, we have full 3D flight that only the Bounty Hunter has access to. It's pretty cool. I'm just kidding. No, no he can't.
33:00: DB: Anyone else while I refresh my twits?
SR: Last couple I guess.
DB: Yeah. You got one? Awesome.
Fan: Will Dark Side or Light Side effect end game raiding or PvP?
JO: Will Dark Side or Light Side effect end game PvP and raiding, or, as we like to call it, Ops? No. However, the items that drop, well, no.
SR: We've talked about Light Side/Dark Side items in the past. But yes, it's not going to effect your Operations experience.
34:00: DB: Let's see on Twitter @Bigo2mags wants to know: Can we please have an Ewok companion?
JO: This is a tough one. Actually it's surprising how many people have asked for us to put Ewoks into the game.
SR: You get a Jawa if you play a Bounty Hunter.
JO: Yeah, Jawas are pretty cool. And I do prefer Ewoks to Gungans. So I guess you will see an Ewok companion before you see a Gungan companion.
SR: That is not saying you will see one in the game at ship.
JO: Oh yeah, neither of those in ship.
DB: @RutgersKev asks: If your groupmate wins the roll to kill someone but you chose to let him live, will he be dead in your story line?
JO: Yes, he will be dead in your story line.
SR: But, to be clear, that could only happen in a world quest as opposed to your personal class story. In your personal class story you're the one who makes the decisions, not the group.
35:00: Fan: Are you able to queue for PvP with more than 4 people?
JO: No.
SR: You mean as a group.
Fan: Yeah, as a group.
JO: You can queue as a group of 4, but you can't queue as an Operation group of 8, or 16, or 20, or something like that.
35:00: DB: A few people are asking, I'm going to call out @TOROcast cause they're asking, can people create both factions on a single server?
JO: Yep, we answered that question yesterday. You can indeed do that.
SR: And, as I said yesterday, that doesn't necessarily mean, that's something that's in testing. And also, as I said yesterday, there may be reasons beyond just throwing both factions on one server together for us to allow that to happen. Oooo.
36:00: DB: @SorcererBiggz wants to point out that Mr. Daniel Erickson has said that Ewoks weren't discovered yet in the time of our game.
SR: Maybe it travels back in time?
DB: Hopefully with a DeLorean.
SR: Maybe it's an Ewok ancestor that's 20 feet tall.
JO: I don't think Daniel's a very big fan of Ewoks, but neither am I.
36:00: DB: Someone asks if we can make the Wall of Crazy into a t-shirt that we then sell?
SR: Maybe post launch.
JO: That would be a pretty big, I don't know if they would all fit on one t-shirt. There's a lot of features that you could put into Star Wars. You should see the size of that wall.
36:00: DB: @Ashalaina wants to know: If you wipe in a Flashpoint on a boss repeatedly, are you eventually going to run into respawned trash on the way to that boss?
SR: Well this kind of connects back to the death system stuff that we talked about earlier on. Can you still use the medical droid in a Flashpoint?
JO: No. This is something that we'll have more details on exactly how that would work.
37:00: DB: I'm just checking one last time to see if we're all caught up. Anyone else in the crowd before we wrap this up? Mr. Mako, Darth Hater.
Fan: How about dance animations, are there just going to be one dance per race or class, or multiple?
JO: Currently we only have one per class. Different per gender.
37:00: DB: I see one guy over here. Alright let's make this the last question. Make it a good one.
Fan: So in your guild will you be able to have a capital ship that you can go into battle with?
SR: See the Wall of Crazy. James, we've answered this many times. I can quote James almost verbatim, which was many of the senior designers in the studio like the idea of capital ships and that's why they're on the Wall of Crazy. But we're not going to guarantee that they're going to be there for ship.
38:00: DB: I actually have one last question cause I think we can actually maybe answer this one. @AskAJedi wants to know: Why wasn't Deceived chosen to be the intro trailer since it was last in the series players who play the game might not be aware of those events?
SR: I see the point. For the intro cinematic, yes, chronologically Deceived is the last in the series. And the way that the game works is that intro cinematic, which is Return, plays when you start the game, but then, depending on which faction you select, you're going to see either Hope or Deceived. And we may have a different voice over possibly.
JO: Yeah, we have all 3 appear in the game. As what Mr. Reid said. When we first made Deceived, we didn't actually know we were going to have 3 full movies. We thought we were only going to have 2. So that kind of adjusted things. That's the honest answer.
SR: I didn't lie.
JO: I know, but I'm just saying. Sometimes you, we got lucky, and we were able to have that third Blur movie. Which was quite cool.
39:00: DB: Alright alright, one more question.
Fan: Why don't you guys make a movie or a show out of the cinematics?
SR: Unfortunately that's not our decision to make. If you like the idea, feel free to take it up with Lucasfilm.
39:00: DB: Alright I think that's it.
SR: Thanks very much for coming up guys. Hope everyone enjoyed PvP here at the BioWare Base and our answers on BioWare Pulse. And we'll see you out on the forums.
DB: And the next show we'll be at this year, where is that going to be Stephen?
SR: Next show we'll be at will be Pax Prime in Seattle, in North America that is. But we will of course be coming to Germany as part of Gamescom.
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