A Cantina Meet and Greet Q&A

[Deleted]

Never know how much stock to put in these but the guy was nice enough to write up what he experienced.

Form an orderly queue for your pinch of salt (my stock is limited )


Attended the Dallas Cantina event Friday night with some guildies. I was able to meet Eric Musco, Amber Green (Yowza!) and a few of the devs. There were a couple of people recording the event on phone cams, so hopefully some of those make the rounds so you can hear the exact questions and answers that were ask but I can paraphrase some of the things that stuck with me.

As with pretty much EVERYTHING in the SWTOR universe, nothing had confirmed dates and you can pretty much stick SOON™ by everything. As a renowned journalist I forgot to take notes and all of this is from memory. So I'm sure I forgot 75% of it.

-SSSP: Super secret space project is definitely still in the works. And I quote: "IT IS AWESOME!" But no details given.

-Guild Ships: This is one of the devs pet projects. He has been working on it for a very long time and swears it will be amazing. But they don't want to release something without the bells and whistles.

-Guild Stuff: Other guild stuff mentioned was an increase in the number of guild bank tabs/slots as well as a way to auto collect a tax of some kind that goes into the bank. Lots of stuff on the "wall of crazy".

-Housing: In the works, on the wall of crazy.

-Legacy Messaging: If you remember, the last patch prior to 2.1 introduced a bug that caused any messages being sent to a player that just logged off and back onto an alt to automatically go to the alt. This immediately went on the wall of crazy to be implemented properly at a later date so that if you are talking to someone and log to an alt you will get to continue your conversation.

-Knights/Warriors: The thought process behind alacrity was that if GDC decreased then the player could not only attack faster to increase dps, but it would also decrease the cool down on rebuilding focus/rage as well since alacrity doesn't recharge "energy" for that class like other classes. They realize it's not working as intended and are working to fix that.

-Subscribers: Let's just say a few posts after 2.1 got their attention. They fumbled the ball on the wording of the Jeff Hickman blog post and are currently in meetings to determine how they can show subscribers more love. They promise that you will never be able to "buy power" from the CM and I was personally guaranteed the ship parts fiasco would never happen again. The CM will be strictly for vanity items and buying access to content for F2Pers.

-F2P: Contrary to popular belief, F2Pers are NOT the ones buying the most stuff from the CM. It was never clarified whether this means the bulk of purchases is strictly coming from subs or from a combination of subs and preferred status players. (Though this does beg the question of whether F2P is even beneficial if its still subs and sub CM purchases supporting the game.) They are tentatively (TENTATIVELY!) considering removing the limit on the amount of WZ's a F2Per can play in a given week, BUT only if they determine a way in which it doesn't negatively affect subs.

-Crafting: So 2.0 introduced some quirks in crafting. (Duh.) They know this and are working on it. The comments on the GUI for crafting being designed around a potential mobile platform was reaffirmed to me. Unfortunately, the web team (not like the web PR team, but the guys who do like web integration for billing/cartel market, etc) are in charge of that and no one from their team was present. I was told that likely, the mobile platform would first introduce an armory and then would add features like access to crafting missions and GTN, etc. But that is all hypothetical right now, so I wouldn't expect this for some time.

-2.2: The next patch is going to be a huge content update. No details given.

-PvP: Some time post-2.2, and I'm paraphrasing, PvPers are going to be really really happy. It was not explained whether this would be a new WZ or Open World PvP or both or something entirely new. But it sure sounded like a patch focused on PvP'ers. (About time!)

-Classes: If you were curious, class balance questions were off limits. So nothing to see here.

I may remember more later and will add it if I do. One thing that was really reinforced in my mind after talking to all these folks was that while I'm sure there are some jerk head accountants around somewhere making life hard, the folks at this event are die hard about this game. They play the game, they love the game, they work on the game, and they support themselves and their families on the game (Amber Phase Walked for us so they even live the game!) . So they want to see it succeed.

Good stuff all around. Thanks to BW for being willing to put on these events for their fans and giving us free food, drinks, game stuff and pets.

p.s. When's BioConn?

p.s.p.s. Jeff Hickman, I love joo!

[Edge-]

-Subscribers: Let's just say a few posts after 2.1 got their attention. They fumbled the ball on the wording of the Jeff Hickman blog post and are currently in meetings to determine how they can show subscribers more love. They promise that you will never be able to "buy power" from the CM and I was personally guaranteed the ship parts fiasco would never happen again. The CM will be strictly for vanity items and buying access to content for F2Pers.

-F2P: Contrary to popular belief, F2Pers are NOT the ones buying the most stuff from the CM. It was never clarified whether this means the bulk of purchases is strictly coming from subs or from a combination of subs and preferred status players. (Though this does beg the question of whether F2P is even beneficial if its still subs and sub CM purchases supporting the game.) They are tentatively (TENTATIVELY!) considering removing the limit on the amount of WZ's a F2Per can play in a given week, BUT only if they determine a way in which it doesn't negatively affect subs.

Sauce for this? Is it just some random who went there or somebody who actually works for a gaming news site. A whole lot of super vague promises that we've heard before, so I'm not going to put much stock in their words. I'll wait till they actually officially announce these things before believe that they're actually working on them.

For the two bits quoted:

Subs: Nice to hear they haven't forgotten about them and how they've been eroding the value of a subscription. Hopefully they do something awesome for them.

Who pays: HAHAHAHAHA! Fucking called it. Delicious. It's pretty obvious when you look at the design of the cash shop that it's almost exclusively funded by subscribers at this point. I don't really think they're going to do much for F2P players since their model has fucked them from the start. We're just going to see a game and Cartel Market that will continue to be designed for the subscribers who spend money in the cartel market all the time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and they've found their niche market which is good. But again, fucking called it.

[Deleted]

Sauce for this? Is it just some random who went there or somebody who actually works for a gaming news site. [/B][/I]

Yes, sorry, forgot to include the link. It was a forum poster who attended. It's on the official forums. I doubt he made it up as he quotes Musco, Amber and co...and they are quick to take down misleading info...when it's made by players

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=640617

[Edge-]

Character transfers coming "shortly after" 2.2 according to that thread...I feel like I've heard that before lol.

[katta]

Character transfers coming "shortly after" 2.2 according to that thread...I feel like I've heard that before lol.

I think everything they said was said before. Its either awesome but can give any details, comming soon but dont know when or on the "wall of crazy".

[Deleted]

Character transfers coming "shortly after" 2.2 according to that thread...I feel like I've heard that before lol.

One of the few points I truly believe, lol. I know SWG made a mint from paid character transfers (I myself must have transfered over 10 times @ $50 a pop) so BW would be foolish to not hurry that mechanic out the door as judging from the swtor forums, the demand is surely there.

[RoninaThorstone]

-SSSP: Super secret space project is definitely still in the works. And I quote: "IT IS AWESOME!" But no details given.

Righhhht...

Until I see a game play video I refuse to care.

[notorious98]

Righhhht...

Until I see a game play video I refuse to care.

I don't know if anybody else watched The Wire, but listening to BW talk about things like the SSSP or Guild Ships or Housing kind of reminds me of a quote from the second season. The police have brought some of the port union guys down to put them in front of a grand jury. A guy comes out and Bunk says "How'd we do, Charlie?" To which Charlie responds, "I almost got one to swear that the docks are actually near the water."

[Deleted]

-F2P: Contrary to popular belief, F2Pers are NOT the ones buying the most stuff from the CM. It was never clarified whether this means the bulk of purchases is strictly coming from subs or from a combination of subs and preferred status players. (Though this does beg the question of whether F2P is even beneficial if its still subs and sub CM purchases supporting the game.)

It would make no sense whatsoever to expect f2p to contribute meaningfully to CM sales as they become preferred after one or two purchases anyway. If they meant f2p and preferred combined, color me surprised as most subscribers I know just spend their monthly allotment and no extra money on the CM.

After being thoroughly underwhelmed with Makeb and the expansion, I'm taking a break having finished both sides' storylines to 55, this was overall a good read and sounds interesting. Cheers.

[notorious98]

It would make no sense whatsoever to expect f2p to contribute meaningfully to CM sales as they become preferred after one or two purchases anyway. If they meant f2p and preferred combined, color me surprised as most subscribers I know just spend their monthly allotment and no extra money on the CM.

After being thoroughly underwhelmed with Makeb and the expansion, I'm taking a break having finished both sides' storylines to 55, this was overall a good read and sounds interesting. Cheers.

I'm not sure why you're surprised. I think it's pretty clear that the bulk of the money they're pulling in from the CM is from Cartel Packs. That's why they keep pumping them out. How many F2P/preferred players do you think are going to sink THAT much money into those packs and refuse to subscribe?

[Deleted]

Righhhht...

Until I see a game play video I refuse to care.

They really need to show something from it, like... FAST. Doesn't matter if it won't come out for another year or two. The problem is that without showing absolutely anything of this project, it's fast approaching a running joke status and starts to hurt the PR of the game rather than help build any long-term excitement.

[Edge-]

It would make no sense whatsoever to expect f2p to contribute meaningfully to CM sales as they become preferred after one or two purchases anyway. If they meant f2p and preferred combined, color me surprised as most subscribers I know just spend their monthly allotment and no extra money on the CM.

They do mean the latter. F2P players = all none subscribers.

[Psychlon]

Never know how much stock to put in these but the guy was nice enough to write up what he experienced.

Form an orderly queue for your pinch of salt (my stock is limited )


Attended the Dallas Cantina event Friday night with some guildies. I was able to meet Eric Musco, Amber Green (Yowza!) and a few of the devs. There were a couple of people recording the event on phone cams, so hopefully some of those make the rounds so you can hear the exact questions and answers that were ask but I can paraphrase some of the things that stuck with me.

As with pretty much EVERYTHING in the SWTOR universe, nothing had confirmed dates and you can pretty much stick SOON™ by everything. As a renowned journalist I forgot to take notes and all of this is from memory. So I'm sure I forgot 75% of it.

-SSSP: Super secret space project is definitely still in the works. And I quote: "IT IS AWESOME!" But no details given.

I don't see SWG's space game as a "successfull" space game however it was more interesting than what we have now in SWTOR (frankly given that it plays a much smaller role in SWTOR than it did in SWG). Said that.... the only reason for me to spend time in space at this point would be pvp or exploring.

-Guild Ships: This is one of the devs pet projects. He has been working on it for a very long time and swears it will be amazing. But they don't want to release something without the bells and whistles.

Having seen guild halls in EQ2, I'm not entirely sure that is the best thing to implement. Your fleets are going to be totally empty (except those random few which aren't in a guild) and I'm not sure that serves the idea of playing an MMO... (interacting with other players). Not too excited about.

-Guild Stuff: Other guild stuff mentioned was an increase in the number of guild bank tabs/slots as well as a way to auto collect a tax of some kind that goes into the bank. Lots of stuff on the "wall of crazy".

I rarely use the guild bank...

-Housing: In the works, on the wall of crazy.

Your ship or "housing" aparments in any city (maybe except Makeb or Illum) or both. If I could "earn" through playing ship upgrades etc. that would be probably the most engaging way to get me into it.

-Legacy Messaging: If you remember, the last patch prior to 2.1 introduced a bug that caused any messages being sent to a player that just logged off and back onto an alt to automatically go to the alt. This immediately went on the wall of crazy to be implemented properly at a later date so that if you are talking to someone and log to an alt you will get to continue your conversation.

Never knew but it's imho a good thing. I hope they include account wide ignore as well.

-Knights/Warriors: The thought process behind alacrity was that if GDC decreased then the player could not only attack faster to increase dps, but it would also decrease the cool down on rebuilding focus/rage as well since alacrity doesn't recharge "energy" for that class like other classes. They realize it's not working as intended and are working to fix that.

Nobody really cares for Alacrity at this moment... you take it if there is nothing better.

-Subscribers: Let's just say a few posts after 2.1 got their attention. They fumbled the ball on the wording of the Jeff Hickman blog post and are currently in meetings to determine how they can show subscribers more love. They promise that you will never be able to "buy power" from the CM and I was personally guaranteed the ship parts fiasco would never happen again. The CM will be strictly for vanity items and buying access to content for F2Pers.

Apart from ship parts are still the fully modded armor sets they are selling.

-F2P: Contrary to popular belief, F2Pers are NOT the ones buying the most stuff from the CM. It was never clarified whether this means the bulk of purchases is strictly coming from subs or from a combination of subs and preferred status players. (Though this does beg the question of whether F2P is even beneficial if its still subs and sub CM purchases supporting the game.) They are tentatively (TENTATIVELY!) considering removing the limit on the amount of WZ's a F2Per can play in a given week, BUT only if they determine a way in which it doesn't negatively affect subs.

I'm not surprised by that, given that I spent a rather large amount just for my own "happiness". However with 2.1 they had a very good way to get more people to subscribe and they blew it.

-Crafting: So 2.0 introduced some quirks in crafting. (Duh.) They know this and are working on it. The comments on the GUI for crafting being designed around a potential mobile platform was reaffirmed to me. Unfortunately, the web team (not like the web PR team, but the guys who do like web integration for billing/cartel market, etc) are in charge of that and no one from their team was present. I was told that likely, the mobile platform would first introduce an armory and then would add features like access to crafting missions and GTN, etc. But that is all hypothetical right now, so I wouldn't expect this for some time.

Let me finally access from whatever character i'm playing with any other character crafting professions/ collectiong etc. . Let me finally have a legacy bank which unlocks tabs according to your legacy level (lvl 10 = 2nd tab, lvl 20 = 3rd tab etc.)

-2.2: The next patch is going to be a huge content update. No details given.

at this point they better deliver because they had a shitstorm with 2.1, they better don't come short on this.

-PvP: Some time post-2.2, and I'm paraphrasing, PvPers are going to be really really happy. It was not explained whether this would be a new WZ or Open World PvP or both or something entirely new. But it sure sounded like a patch focused on PvP'ers. (About time!)

New warzones wouldn't make any pvp "really really happy". They need to revise their ranked warzone "thing" because having an 8-man premade clearly isn't doing it any good.

-Classes:

If you were curious, class balance questions were off limits. So nothing to see here.

I currently don't see too many balancing issues, however I feel pity with whomever is targeted by my dd shadow.

I may remember more later and will add it if I do. One thing that was really reinforced in my mind after talking to all these folks was that while I'm sure there are some jerk head accountants around somewhere making life hard, the folks at this event are die hard about this game. They play the game, they love the game, they work on the game, and they support themselves and their families on the game (Amber Phase Walked for us so they even live the game!) . So they want to see it succeed.

Good stuff all around. Thanks to BW for being willing to put on these events for their fans and giving us free food, drinks, game stuff and pets.

p.s. When's BioConn?

p.s.p.s. Jeff Hickman, I love joo!

They might life and breath SWTOR but the guys making decisions obviously aren't.


Thanks Jamos for posting it though

[Deleted]

Having seen guild halls in EQ2, I'm not entirely sure that is the best thing to implement. Your fleets are going to be totally empty (except those random few which aren't in a guild) and I'm not sure that serves the idea of playing an MMO... (interacting with other players).

I've always thought this when I've seen people banging on about guild ships, IMHO can't be good for the overall community.

New warzones wouldn't make any pvp "really really happy". They need to revise their ranked warzone "thing" because having an 8-man premade clearly isn't doing it any good.

I've always thought most the reasons for ranked PvP not taking off lay more with the community than the system. If the people forming ranked teams choose to be as elitist as they have been then there is little that the developers can reasonably do. Obviously any obstacles the community throws up can be overcome but it has to be within a reasonable amount of work. I think they made an improvement in reducing the impact gear has but team leaders will still insist on fully aug'd BiS PvP gear which a lot of the community don't have time to grind out using normal WZ comms.
As with open world PvP, obviously other than the stability of the server, the community needs to look at itself again. BW/EA can dream up some exciting rewards for this but if the community don't engage you can't make them.
A new WZ will buy a little time in keeping the PvP community happy but they will always want more sooner or later.
Personally I'd like to see an arena style setup, I know I'm probably in the minority but I enjoy them. I know it kept me playing WoW for an extra 6 months than I would have otherwise.

Let me finally access from whatever character i'm playing with any other character crafting professions/ collectiong etc. . Let me finally have a legacy bank which unlocks tabs according to your legacy level (lvl 10 = 2nd tab, lvl 20 = 3rd tab etc.)

Nice idea, it is a pain repeatedly logging off and back on different characters to shuffle crafting stuff around between 11 characters.

[Psychlon]

I've always thought this when I've seen people banging on about guild ships, IMHO can't be good for the overall community.

I think more people see "Guildship vs Guildship" PvP than "another" fleet kind of area where people stand around, waiting a flashpoint/ pvp window to pop up.

I've always thought most the reasons for ranked PvP not taking off lay more with the community than the system. If the people forming ranked teams choose to be as elitist as they have been then there is little that the developers can reasonably do. Obviously any obstacles the community throws up can be overcome but it has to be within a reasonable amount of work. I think they made an improvement in reducing the impact gear has but team leaders will still insist on fully aug'd BiS PvP gear which a lot of the community don't have time to grind out using normal WZ comms.
As with open world PvP, obviously other than the stability of the server, the community needs to look at itself again. BW/EA can dream up some exciting rewards for this but if the community don't engage you can't make them.
A new WZ will buy a little time in keeping the PvP community happy but they will always want more sooner or later.
Personally I'd like to see an arena style setup, I know I'm probably in the minority but I enjoy them. I know it kept me playing WoW for an extra 6 months than I would have otherwise.

I totally agree with that, World PvP kill/ objective trading as it happened when Illum was still alive as well as the inbalance between faction strength is something Bioware can't do very much about it. There were talks about "buffing" a faction to allow for same strength pvp even though there would be 11 vs. 5 player pvp but I don't see this happening because there would be a lot of problems along with it.

As for premades... the bigger the group, the more work is connected to it. In our guild, we have some pvp players but whenever we tried to build a 8-man premade it usually falls short on people not showing up or the window not poping due to not enough premades. If they would allow for 4-man people for example, so you would join together with another 4-man group and during the waiting time you could exchange teamspeak address to coordinate etc. you may see more frequent ranked warzones popping up. However that doesn't solve getting beat the shit out of you buy a group of players which play together for several months.

I'd also like to see some arena kind of PvP with a Deathmatch system where you don't really need to go for objectives but pure player vs. player. There could be something similar in PvE so you would fight different difficultie of mobs with your 4-man/ 8-man or 16-man group combined with some ranking system and "faction" standing with whoever is holding these arena fights.

Nice idea, it is a pain repeatedly logging off and back on different characters to shuffle crafting stuff around between 11 characters.

I've got 14 characters... so yeah... it is a pain to log in and log off again and again and having a legacy system, I could see them utilize this to allow you access to all characters.

[Odegon]

-PvP: Some time post-2.2, and I'm paraphrasing, PvPers are going to be really really happy. It was not explained whether this would be a new WZ or Open World PvP or both or something entirely new. But it sure sounded like a patch focused on PvP'ers. (About time!)
[B]

There is only one thing that will make pvpers really really happy. Cross Realm Ranked Warzones(CRRW).

[notorious98]

There is only one thing that will make pvpers really really happy. Cross Realm Ranked Warzones(CRRW).

Something that was necessary when Ranked launched.

---------- Post added 2013-05-19 at 11:19 AM ----------

I've always thought this when I've seen people banging on about guild ships, IMHO can't be good for the overall community.

It wouldn't make a difference if there was global chat, like in Rift.

I've always thought most the reasons for ranked PvP not taking off lay more with the community than the system. If the people forming ranked teams choose to be as elitist as they have been then there is little that the developers can reasonably do. Obviously any obstacles the community throws up can be overcome but it has to be within a reasonable amount of work. I think they made an improvement in reducing the impact gear has but team leaders will still insist on fully aug'd BiS PvP gear which a lot of the community don't have time to grind out using normal WZ comms.

It's not elitist. You could start a group and not force people to be BiS PvP gear. The problem isn't the community, it's the lack of competition. It's the reason Ranked WZs died before they started.

As with open world PvP, obviously other than the stability of the server, the community needs to look at itself again. BW/EA can dream up some exciting rewards for this but if the community don't engage you can't make them.

The community can only be blamed for so much. The biggest problem with Open World PvP was always the engine's limitations. That may have changed, but throw in server instancing, factional planets, etc. and you wind up with a game that isn't exactly inviting the spontaneous open world PvP.

Personally I'd like to see an arena style setup, I know I'm probably in the minority but I enjoy them. I know it kept me playing WoW for an extra 6 months than I would have otherwise.

Arenas are a balancing nightmare and, likely, a mistake. Even Blizzard considers it to be a mistake.

[Edge-]

There is only one thing that will make pvpers really really happy. Cross Realm Ranked Warzones(CRRW).

Have they even started the ranked warzone season yet?

[notorious98]

Have they even started the ranked warzone season yet?

I think they did. I'm sure it's been a pointless endeavor.

[RoninaThorstone]

Have they even started the ranked warzone season yet?

RWZs died for me when I had to help organize the opposing teams.
The queue should have been cross realm because even on some of the larger servers (I was on fatman) it was impossible to find people to fight with/against