Earlier this evening Best Buy had a dev chat with James Ohlen, Gabe Amatangelo and Daniel Erickson. Half way through the chat, the client creashed on everyone and most of the transcript was lost. However we did get the remaining bit of the chat that commenced over the next two hours. The chat consisted of random questions about many subjects of SWTOR including companions, flashpoints and PVP.
Keep reading for the full transcript.
Guest-62: I saw that during beta people where 2 maning flashpoints are all flashpoints 2-manable with companions?
Gaming-BBY: The first two flash points are two-manable and the remaining flash points are for four players. If you are slightly over leveled, you can complete the last two flash points with 2 players and 2 companions
Guest-326: I was fortunate enough to take part in the weekend betas and was blown away by the content of this game. The level of detail in every quest and dungeon interaction makes the grind of MMO’s fun. Mr. Amatangelo, I love the PVP game mode Hutball and I was wondering will we see more of this creative side of PVP?
Mariel-BBY: “we are continuing to make more warzones and we will be revisiting some existing game modes including hutball and other game modes”
Mariel-BBY: ^Gabe
Gaming-BBY: Correction on the flash point question, it was not just the last two flash points but all flash points that are two-manable with companions if you are over-leveled
Guest-127: Is there going to be a competetive aspect for PvP Such as an Arena?
Gaming-BBY: As we’ve announced in other interviews, we do plan on implementing rated war zones with individual player ratings, team ratings, etc and we will be tying in incentives to high rating -Gabe
Gaming-BBY: Question from Guest 70 A: Mr. Amatangelo can you comment on why a full party cannot enter into warfronts? Please don’t tell me you never thought of creating a seperate que for full parties so that the regular PVP ques are not affected. Also, is there any hope of Huttball ever turning into more than what it is? There is so much potential in that one game mode alone it’s almost a shame youguys did not further the concept for launch… think sports league within an MMO with player created teams. Are there any plans to
>>Gabe: As mentioned in other interviews we do plan on enabling full party queues to be matched against other full parties.
Guest-75: how do you plan on letting newer player know what “new” servers they should start on?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: There are population indicators next to each server so players can see which servers will have queue times and which do not.
Guest-104: will there be a raise in difficulty compared to the beta tests?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: Our Flashpoints have two difficulty modes (Normal & Hard) and our Operations have three difficulty modes (Normal, Hard, and Nightmare). We aim to offer a wide variety of difficulty levels to accommodate the casual and hardcore players.
Guest-295: Do you have plans to add pod racing?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We feel vehicles are an important part of Star Wars and we’re looking at ways to improve the vehicle experience post-launch.
Guest-87: Any word if there will be dual specing within the same advance class?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We’re definitely looking at allowing dual specing within the same advanced class soon after ship.
Guest-14: Any idea when the Sith Juggernaut/Jedi Gaurdian will be revamped (Georg promised they were up next for “additional attention”)?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We’re looking at them right now and the changes will be coming in soon after launch.
Guest-197: What is your deployment schedule for future content?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We’re going to have a regularly cadence with our content updates, but we’re not going into specifics. Updates will include Flashpoints, Operations, Warzones, Solo Content, Additions to existing systems and brand new systems.
speedracer1half: What day and time during the week does the servers reset the content?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: We’ll be resetting Operations on Tuesday mornings.
Guest-280: How ill the cover system work in 8m flashpoints or w.e the raids are namd
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: We’ll be resetting Operations on Tuesday mornings.
Guest-184: What are the key points of The Old Republic that you feel set it above all other MMOs?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We feel that the elements of Story, Choice, Cinematic Presentation, Companion Characters, Dynamic Fast-paced Star Wars Combat, and Multiplayer Dialogue all make The Old Republic stand out amongst other MMOs.
Guest-1131: I have a question regarding world PvP and moving forward. I was wondering if there are any/plans for any world bosses, designed for large groups of max level players, Maybe on a random timer that drop raid(or operation) tier quality loot? In the past (in other games) I’ve had a lot of fun when fighting over these bosses with other players/guilds more so than control objectives.
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: We currently have World Bosses with artifact loot that (players can fight over these on PvP servers) in the open worlds. We are considering adding more to various other locations including potential Illum and Outlaw’s Den.
Guest-144: Are we getting a target of target ui portrait any time soon?….Being a tank the target of target function is really quite useful..
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: We’re going to add target-of-target at a later point in time.
Guest-990: To both BW & EA – Congrats on a job well done, gentlemen! It promises to be a most excellent game and the ega seems to be going smoothly. Keep up the good work!
Gaming-BBY: >>James: Thanks very much. The whole team is very proud of all of the hard work we’ve put in.
Guest-1651: Will space combat be improved upon in a future expansion back so that it is 3D and not just a rail shooter, and eventually PvP in space?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We will continue to add new space missions with our regular content updates. In addition, we have a “secret project” on expanding the space experience.
Guest-1174: Do you guys plan on releasing new species/classes in the future?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: Yes, we will be looking at adding new species in the foreseeable future.
Guest-2057: Regarding dialogue options, oftentimes, female characters are refered to as “Sir” or “Lord”. Is this an unintentional oversight in the voice acting, or actually part of official Star Wars lore?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: Yes, this is intentional as it’s part of Star Wars lore.
Guest-276: Do you have plans to implement a macro system, smart camera toggling, and target-of-target ui elements?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We have a huge list of smaller features that we are working on for the future. All of these are on that list at some priority level.
Guest-2244: Why are there no ewok companions? =[ I know they’re not supposed to be discovered for years…but seriously. Ewoks are totally worth a bit of lore-bending. Also, any chance that the original cantina song from episode 4 will make an appearance in one of the cantinas?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: We have a lot of fans that think the Ewok’s are cute and would make a cuddly companion. We agree that they’re cuddly and cute, perhaps you’ll see them in the future.
Guest-260: First thank you Bioware for making what looks like a great game. This question is to Daniel Erickson, What made you and the writing team write so much great content for this game? And where did you look to get the story line inspirations?
Gaming-BBY: >>Daniel: BioWare has always taken storytelling seriously and we brought that experience to Star Wars: The Old Republic. The biggest inspiration was the Star Wars movies themselves.
Guest-924: Regarding the mod system and weapons, the dev blog mentions armors mostly, Were the weapon models considered’aesthetic choices’ and considered in the same light as the armors when all the ‘green’ armors were given orange versions, so that we have as much choices in weapons as we are told we have in armor, and would those recipes be gained through Underworld Trading like the armors, or through the mission skill recommended for the crafting skill?
Gaming-BBY: >>James: Yes, there will be modable “orange” quality weapons.
Neph: Will hard mode and nightmare mode operations be available on launch day or will they be gated in later to allow guilds that were not in early access a chance to gear up and catch up before they become available?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: Yes, all three levels of difficulty are available right now.
Guest-477: What drove me away from all other MMOs was the constantly doing the same raid over and over with no options to switch things up. In SWtoR are there going to be multiple raids per tier or can we expect to be face-rolling them one at a time with months in between each new one releasing?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: We currently have two different Operations in the same tier (Eternity Vault & Karagga’s Palace) and we will be expanding on this tier as well as releasing other tiers.
Guest-346: In regards to PvP, are you guys planning on bracketing off level 50′s in warzones once there is a high population of them?
Gaming-BBY: >>Gabe: Yes, stay tuned for a Developer’s Blog with more on this and other PvP features coming soon.
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