Rise of the Hutt Cartel Expansion

[Fairbairn]

Available for pre-order now.
Info: http://www.swtor.com/rothc?intcmp=so...kt-t-us-hp-013
FAQ: http://www.swtor.com/support/helpcenter/7137

New Planet: Makeb
Level Cap: 55
New Plotline

Preorder Status - Done.

[Neves Eanur]

Hmmm... not bad but if our class stories won't progress I will be extremely disappointed.

[Viozaer]

Neves - Class stories are much harder to progress than normal quest plotlines. I should think we'll see the classes progress in a patch sometime after the expansion launches would be my guess.

[Kontraz]

Honestly, I don't see individual class stories expanding again, since the F2P conversion

[Ricky]

I disagree Kontraz, they can make the expansions only available to subscribers or bought with cartel coins, much like the rest of the game content. I'm actually expecting the F2P level cap to stay at 50 with this expansion, but I have no facts to support that. My point is, they can still make money off of Class Storylines as long as they force users to pay for the content by buying the expansion, much like we all bought the original client, until they've made their money and can release it to F2P 6-12 months down the line.

I agree though, that it is a tougher venture than simply making a new planet, with the 8 different sets of new stories, cinematic, and voice over work to. Hopefully they do it eventually.

[Ben'airu]

I know it's a different developing/gaming company, but LOTRO has expanded their story lines through every expansion since they went f2p

[Kontraz]

Oh, I'm certain that we will get faction stories / system stories to go with this, but the complexity that comes with adding 8 unique class stories I just don't see happening. I could be wrong (and I hope that I am) but at this time I assume it will only be new faction-based content.

[Neves Eanur]

That's what I was afraid of and was expecting... I just think having individual class stories in one of those things that makes this game unique, and one of the reasons I play this game rather than any other mmo.

[Fairbairn]

Really looking forward to the expansion, meaning that I think they are financially viable enough to extend the game. There is likely to be difficulty levels across the aspects of the game for LVL 55 characters only. I believe it will be part of a series of expansions leading up to the levels we see on our advanced equipment i.e. LVL61 eventually. Question from me would be whether a LVL 55 character would be downgraded to 50 in the same way as Sub 50 warzones are subject to "balance" or whether we will see some significant advantage to LVL 55 characters in warzones. (Stands to reason the advantage will certainly be there in open-world).

[Aerees]

Really looking forward to the expansion, meaning that I think they are financially viable enough to extend the game. There is likely to be difficulty levels across the aspects of the game for LVL 55 characters only. I believe it will be part of a series of expansions leading up to the levels we see on our advanced equipment i.e. LVL61 eventually. Question from me would be whether a LVL 55 character would be downgraded to 50 in the same way as Sub 50 warzones are subject to "balance" or whether we will see some significant advantage to LVL 55 characters in warzones. (Stands to reason the advantage will certainly be there in open-world).

Seems like they'll have a problem no matter which way they go with it. If they downgrade the lvl 55s down to lvl 50, the lvl 50s will have a fairly large advantage over lvl 55s if they're both wearing war hero gear. If they make 55 the exclusive bracket, then 50-54 will demolish sub-50. Really curious to see how they do it.

[Æris]

I would like to think they would continue each class story arch, but my gut feeling is we will see a more generic, overall storyline perhaps with some class-driven 'choices' in the mix.

I'm honestly more concerned about how they are going to handle the 5 additional points that the 5 new levels will bring- if they will be 'locked' into certain levels of the class trees or if they will be able to be spent freely as there are some hybrid builds that 5 more points would just... break.

[Fairbairn]

Who has characters ready at 50 on the test server?
The thought of storm AND Hold the Line and Combat tactics has all sorts of possibilities...

Some new reveals on the blog today.
http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20130102

[Kontraz]

they are still working on being able to copy characters over to test server

[Rux]

Topic #2: World PvP – What happened to making Ilum better? What is going on with Open World PvP? Answer: We have not forgotten Ilum! I think you will see (fairly soon) the answer to this question in the game itself - something big is coming to the Western Ice Shelf, but it’s quite a departure from what was there before. As for pure Open World PvP…well, that’s a more difficult proposition. We are dedicated to providing excellent PvP experiences to our players, but we intend to focus our energy on PvP Seasons and new Warzones. We will be experimenting with a different approach to Open World PvP, something that encourages organic PvP in contested areas in a new and interesting way, but do not look for massive new Open World PvP this year (outside of what I mentioned above). It is still on our design wall, but is taking a back seat to other forms of PvP.

Meh, I don't think I'll be resubing until they figure out how easy it is to just copy Warhammers model for World PVP...
I don't understand how difficult it's been for these retards to just make a planet with PVP, add some sort of PVP reward for kills and missions in a PVP area, then turn it in for the same armor that you need to farm warzones for. Why is it so hard to do? Why?

Because people will farm the shit out of it right away and get gear... faster? I mean, it takes 2 days to get WH now. Even if you can just get WH gear through world PVP and be forced to WZ for the epic shit, that's a step in the right direction.

I really don't understand the fear of WorldPVP in these games... make a planet with a level minimum of 45-50 so that ganking can't happen and people know what to expect when stepping on planet.

Make a faction cap of 40-50-100 for the planet so that no more can be occupying the planet. I don't know, WorldPVP seems simple to implement to me, I'd just do balls to the walls free for alls, but even adding things like this can't be that big of a deal.

Other than that, seems like "HEY WE'RE GOING TO GIVE YOU MORE OF THE SAME SHIT YOU'VE BEEN DOING!" and that's about it. Ops are cool, 3-4 times, maybe even once a month, but once a week, the same shit, same drops, same bosses. Gah. Give us some RP content and some world events.

[Fairbairn]

Anyone need a job playing starwars in Austin?
https://performancemanager4.successf...ny=EA&username