No news from the Cantina yet?

[znihilist]

Courtesy of jon_eod on /r/swtor, for the interview.

 

Watching it now, will report in 10 minutes. Not exact quotes, rough transcription.

Q: "How does the multiplayer aspect come in?"

A: "Your buddies can come along with you and experience the story with you as the main hero and them as a companion." (I wouldn't read into this as a gameplay companion, just seems like a synonym for friend/teammate)

Q: "How do the chapters fit into the overall aspects of the story? Will there be a new season?"

A: "We have 9 chapters out at launch, and how many chapters we'll have I don't want to talk about. We do have plans for a season 2 but that's talk for next year."

Q: "What about the base game leveling (1-60)?"

A: "We've taken the length it takes to finish a class story (150-200 hours) and taken it down to roughly the size of kotor" (Some other stuff as well)

Q: "What about flashpoints/operations?"

A: "After completing the 9 chapters you will be able to enter scaled up level 65 versions of the old stuff. New stuff can't be talked about yet."

Q: "Something something companions being changed?"

A: "Saying more about it later on, we can say that we wanted to change the system so you could use whatever companion you wanted to instead of whichever one you felt you had to due to their stats/role.

Q: "Crafting?"

A: "Later"

Q: "How do I get Nico Okarr? Will he be on Cartel Market?"

A: "Right now only the sub right now thing, no other plans beyond that."

Q: "With kotfe we get a new level boost to instant 60, any plans for that on the cartel market?" (He isn't understanding this question lol, asked him to repeat twice)

A: "We want to give all players the ability to just walk into KOTFE at launch even if they don't have a level 60. You get one instant level 60, all subscribers will get it."

Missed a question at the beginning I don't think it was super important.

Edited August 6, 2015 by znihilist

[Icestar]

Interesting information, thankyou

[RaiderMid]

So basically nothing new that wasn't already known from the first day of the cantina.

[PavSalco]

So basically nothing new that wasn't already known from the first day of the cantina.

Yep. The only thing that is rather new is that companions's roles will be revamped. Probably all of them will have three roles to choose from?

[Reno_Tarshil]

Hmm, I wonder why he said he wouldn't say how many chapters season 1 will have after it was said to be 16 before.

[KyaniteD]

The 1-50 resp. 1-60 leveling will remain streamlined with focus on class missions and mission rewards taking the new streamlined leveling process into account (stats and gear were mentioned, so not just improved comms as it is mow).

 

1-50 planets will remain as they are and will remain accessible after starting KotFE.

 

Starting KotFE will abort all active story missions and you won't be able to complete them after starting KotFE. There will be double warning/confirmation with details on the consequences before you start, so no one should be stumbling into it by accident.

 

Changes to crafting are coming and supposedly not to the disadvantage of those who have already heavily invested in crafting.

 

With the game at its foundation being close to where they want it to be, they hope to be able to bring in more little extras like puzzle quests.

 

Valkorion is actually Gungan.

[btmart]

So basically nothing new that wasn't already known from the first day of the cantina.

I'm thinking more juicy stuff will come from Friday's Cantina event.

[TUXs]

Valkorion is actually Gungan.

Wait....wut?!

[DOHboy]

Wait....wut?!

 

valkorion is a babbling idiot who manages to destroy things mostly on luck and ignorance than skill and prowess.

[znihilist]

I'm thinking more juicy stuff will come from Friday's Cantina event.

 

Man this reminds me of the Millerites.

[DarthMaulUK]

With an expansion just a couple of months away, Bioware really need to take a leaf out of Blizzards book on how to launch an expansion.

 

PACKED with information! Not this drivel. Which leads me to believe that KOTFE will be extremely hollow in terms of actual content just endless cut scenes. And talking about anything else just may put people off.

 

I haven't played WOW in almost 7 years but their expansion launch, with the developers TALKING about new abilities, New class and what looks like a superb new PvP system is proof SWTOR certainly is not, a triple A MMO.

[KyaniteD]

Wait....wut?!

 

People asked Darin about any adlibs he may have done while recording his lines. He said there was no room/time for that but he did try a Hutt emperor. Then people asked him to do other species and he did an awesome Gungan Emperor.

 

If we ever get Gungans in the game I ask they be darkside and voiced by Darin.

Edited August 6, 2015 by KyaniteD

[znihilist]

With an expansion just a couple of months away, Bioware really need to take a leaf out of Blizzards book on how to launch an expansion.

 

PACKED with information! Not this drivel. Which leads me to believe that KOTFE will be extremely hollow in terms of actual content just endless cut scenes. And talking about anything else just may put people off.

 

I haven't played WOW in almost 7 years but their expansion launch, with the developers TALKING about new abilities, New class and what looks like a superb new PvP system is proof SWTOR certainly is not, a triple A MMO.

 

Blizzard's presentation reeked of desperation though, I am not sure that's how you want to do things.

[DarthMaulUK]

Blizzard's presentation reeked of desperation though, I am not sure that's how you want to do things.

 

LOL it did? And I guess SWTOR extending the deadline for Nico isn't? I'd rather have developers talk about their game instead ones who always remain silent and have a massive track record of under delivering.

[DOHboy]

LOL it did? And I guess SWTOR extending the deadline for Nico isn't? I'd rather have developers talk about their game instead ones who always remain silent and have a massive track record of under delivering.

 

how can they under deliver when they don't promise anything? it is us who over hype and make things to be massive and then when released realized our expectations were sky high compared to reality.

[Degan]

Q: "Something something companions being changed?"

A: "Saying more about it later on, we can say that we wanted to change the system so you could use whatever companion you wanted to instead of whichever one you felt you had to due to their stats/role.

 

Hmmm... sounds like they may be bringing back the companion "skill slots" from beta where you chose a kit like an appearance slot and it set what role the companion would be, and could be changed out.

[znihilist]

LOL it did? And I guess SWTOR extending the deadline for Nico isn't? I'd rather have developers talk about their game instead ones who always remain silent and have a massive track record of under delivering.

 

I am not doing a SWTOR > WoW comparison. I merely said that doing the same would be a bad idea since that presentation reeked of desperation. Seriously, WoW numbers are all time-end of expansion low, their numbers are so low they are roughly Dec 2005 numbers.

Edited August 6, 2015 by znihilist

[Jerba]

Just got back from the cantina tour, don't have time to go through the whole thread so sorry if it has been mentioned before.

Basically, it was just Q&A, there was no "development team presentation" like on previous cantina events.

My question was why D7 and CWG were missing from the blog post on FPs and Ops and they said that it is not a comprehensive list; they just wanted to mention all flashpoints there are in SWTOR and any missing flashpoints mean they forgot to include them. However, they weren't sure and want to get an answer from the correct developer; Musco will share it on the forums.

I also asked Backus directly about the scaling up and he said they are not just increasing HP/damage, they also discovered numerous bugs in the process and are making sure that those are also fixed.

The voice actor of Valkorion is a big Star Wars fan by the way, he has played KotOR when it first came out, and he still has his action figures from the 70s. Tons of trivia, like his first action figure was Chewbacca, his favorite character is C-3PO, he lives in Los Angeles, he was at the Anaheim cantina tour incognito because no one knew yet he was part of the movies, etc. He still knows the full text he spoke in the trailer and could recite it, he even memorized the German translation of it. And Musco wanted the German and French voice actors to appear at the cantina tour as well but they are on holiday this week.

They also offered some tidbits about the Sacrifice trailer. Darin de Paul had two 4-hour sessions to record. Originally, they had a crashed Star Destroyer in the background on Korriban but Lucasfilm told them to remove it without giving a reason, only later did the devs realize the reason for that is because of the identical scene in the Ep 7 trailer. Valkorion has favored Arcann since the beginning; you can see in the crib scene how he is watching Arcann but only giving a side glance to Thexan, according to Musco. But Musco also confirmed that Thexan was stronger than Arcann.

Finally, I had a long talk with the marketing directory about the exclusive vanity pets but I don't think anyone ITT cares about it, so I'll post it in the pet collector's thread once I get back from Gamescom. It is great knowing that the devs are committed to fixing any issues with bugged pets.

So if you were expecting breaking new information, this cantina tour is not for you, but it was once again great meeting the developers and hearing how committed they are to the game.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Jerba

[Bakakiba]

I am not doing a SWTOR > WoW comparison. I merely said that doing the same would be a bad idea since that presentation reeked of desperation. Seriously, WoW numbers are all time-end of expansion low, their numbers are so low they are roughly Dec 2005 numbers.

 

Not to mention how badly the last expansion was received.

[Darth_Wicked]

I am not doing a SWTOR > WoW comparison. I merely said that doing the same would be a bad idea since that presentation reeked of desperation. Seriously, WoW numbers are all time-end of expansion low, their numbers are so low they are roughly Dec 2005 numbers.

 

And yet they still have millions of players, which is more than what I can say for this game, except for a time post-launch. You know it to be so.

[tolaez]

Just got back from the cantina tour, don't have time to go through the whole thread so sorry if it has been mentioned before.

Basically, it was just Q&A, there was no "development team presentation" like on previous cantina events.

My question was why D7 and CWG were missing from the blog post on FPs and Ops and they said that it is not a comprehensive list; they just wanted to mention all flashpoints there are in SWTOR and any missing flashpoints mean they forgot to include them. However, they weren't sure and want to get an answer from the correct developer; Musco will share it on the forums.

I also asked Backus directly about the scaling up and he said they are not just increasing HP/damage, they also discovered numerous bugs in the process and are making sure that those are also fixed.

The voice actor of Valkorion is a big Star Wars fan by the way, he has played KotOR when it first came out, and he still has his action figures from the 70s. Tons of trivia, like his first action figure was Chewbacca, his favorite character is C-3PO, he lives in Los Angeles, he was at the Anaheim cantina tour incognito because no one knew yet he was part of the movies, etc. He still knows the full text he spoke in the trailer and could recite it, he even memorized the German translation of it. And Musco wanted the German and French voice actors to appear at the cantina tour as well but they are on holiday this week.

They also offered some tidbits about the Sacrifice trailer. Darin de Paul had two 4-hour sessions to record. Originally, they had a crashed Star Destroyer in the background on Korriban but Lucasfilm told them to remove it without giving a reason, only later did the devs realize the reason for that is because of the identical scene in the Ep 7 trailer. Valkorion has favored Arcann since the beginning; you can see in the crib scene how he is watching Arcann but only giving a side glance to Thexan, according to Musco. But Musco also confirmed that Thexan was stronger than Arcann.

Finally, I had a long talk with the marketing directory about the exclusive vanity pets but I don't think anyone ITT cares about it, so I'll post it in the pet collector's thread once I get back from Gamescom. It is great knowing that the devs are committed to fixing any issues with bugged pets.

So if you were expecting breaking new information, this cantina tour is not for you, but it was once again great meeting the developers and hearing how committed they are to the game.

 

Thanks!

[Icestar]

I also asked Backus directly about the scaling up and he said they are not just increasing HP/damage, they also discovered numerous bugs in the process and are making sure that those are also fixed.

 

Ok, it is good to know how they scale the previous content. It was one thing I was wondering about, thankyou for asking

Edited August 6, 2015 by Icestar

[znihilist]

And yet they still have millions of players, which is more than what I can say for this game, except for a time post-launch. You know it to be so.

 

I don't think the absolute numbers are what counts right now, but how much of your business you are losing.

SWTOR has not lost over 50% of its active subscribers in less than a year. The context of Blizzard's presentation is their rapidly shrinking margins and their responsibilities to their shareholders (if it has an IPO).

Edited August 6, 2015 by znihilist

[Darth_Wicked]

I don't think the absolute numbers are what count right now, but how much of your business you are losing.

SWTOR has not lost in the last year over 50% of its active subscribers in less than a year. The context of Blizzard's presentation is their rapidly shrinking margins and their responsibilities to their shareholders (if it has an IPO).

 

They'll get them back eventually. They always do.

 

Didn't the game reach ten million subs yet again, with the release of WoD or something? Sure they lost quite a few once more but again, millions. MILLIONS!

[znihilist]

They'll get them back eventually. They always do.

 

Didn't the game reach ten million subs yet again, with the release of WoD or something? Sure they lost quite a few once more but again, millions. MILLIONS!

 

Check this: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5063-WoW-Down-to-5-6-Million-Subscribers

 

The graph is very telling to what I am trying to say.