Swtorcrafter’s Top Ten Info Drops From SDCC 2011
After the flood of info from San Diego Comic Con came in I decided to have some fun with it and ponder just what was my top ten info releases for me personally. I start with number ten and work my way to the one I felt to be personally the coolest. I wonder if your interests are similar to mine, or if you have even seen all this stuff yet?
# TEN: In game camera droid perk from the collectors edition. This thing is very cool and it surprises me as well. It is something I had no clue about and shows Bioware’s creativity to me once again. I am excited to see what is possible with this device. Hopefully I will find ways to cleverly integrate it into something I might do in the future with this site.
# NINE: Special VIP store location to purchase items, only available to purchasers of the Collector’s Edition. This was also something I felt was very cool, and as a CE buyer I am looking forward to this. I feel very rewarded by this because I spent the extra money to support this company by buying their most expensive offering, so I in turn don’t mind being rewarded for that.
I just hope it remains this way in that only CE buyers will be able to access this vendor and that they don’t give access to others in the future who did not spend the extra cash to have the ability. One of the best ways to give an item value is to create exclusivity through scarcity as we are reminded by Damion Schubert Lead Systems Designer, let’s hope they stick to this strategy and don’t ruin its exclusivity later down the road.
# EIGHT: More definite launch time frame given as “Holiday 2011”. This is something that makes me happy because it perfectly falls in line with my own personal belief that I have had and stuck to for over a year and a half now. I have personally believed and speculated that we would have a Nov-Dec 2011 release and now that seems like a certainty based on this info.
*Rampant Speculation Here Folks*
If I had to hazard a guess based on this new info, I would say that the game will most likely release on black Friday the 25th or on the Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday the 29th, because we all know big games get released on Tuesday right? 🙂
There, I said it, now I am on record with a guess. Barring any major difficulties turning up in the beta testing, I could see this being a reality. Keep in mind though this is just a guess and is not based on any information other than speculation and careful watching of the games development, and hands on time at Bioware Studios and at cons and so on, so I could be totally wrong.
#SEVEN: Companion customization options and AI abilities. Based on the new info we got from Dallas Dickenson we now know that we will be able to customize our companions in lots of ways. From the standard skin color and physical features, we will also get full control over the gear they wear. That will allow us to create the look they have with their equipped gear.
This will go a long way in allowing us to make our companions have a different look than everyone else, a big plus in my book. This is one of the smartest moves they have made with the companions to date and because of great tester feedback they decided to add it to the game.
(It also gives me a couple of ideas as to how this can be used to our advantage that I do not think they have thought of, but that’s food for another article coming in the Swtorcrafter, crafter article series.) 😉
Then they also said that they have re-visited the companion AI giving the player more control and options in the way that they handle their companions due to feedback from testing, way to go testers! I am just hoping now that it is at least similar to the AI control abilities we had in Dragon Age, that would be awesome.
#SIX: The new mounts, and customization options that exist for them. This one really made me happy and very hopeful. For one thing the speeder bikes looked awesome I cannot wait to get one of those. The land speeder it was said was a mount that only a fully maxed out character would possess. The STAP aka the “segway” was OK in my opinion. I will use it but I will be going to a speeder bike as soon as possible, and then on to a land speeder unless there is something cooler still under wraps.
Some of the big news to me about these items is that we will have the ability to upgrade the armor on the mounts and the weapons and shields of the space mini game ships that you will use. It was said that the armor upgrades on the mounts would allow you to stay on the mount longer while using it, as you are receiving damage from mobs or possibly other players trying to PVP you off it I would assume.
The weapon and shield upgrades on the space mini game ship you use would allow you to do better in the instanced space mini games, allowing you to deal more damage and take more as you upgrade.
One thing about all this that was not mentioned was where or how you will acquire these “upgrades”. Will they be looted or possibly, will they allow us to craft these items through one of the crew skills? As a true crafter I have to be excited about this because I hold the hope that they will allow the crafters to have exclusivity to these items, only allowing them to be acquired through something like the “Underworld Trading” crew skill maybe? There is a situation from the lore I can remember where parts for pod racers had to be acquired this way. Please give crew skills the power to create these items Bioware!
# FIVE: The announcement that the planet Illum will be for endgame lvl 50 solo content. Honestly I do not know what to make of this. The endgame content I understand but the “solo” part throws me??? This is very interesting and I will have to get more information on this soon.
# FOUR: Advanced class re-specs are in the game! This one is a big one for me. We have speculated for quite some time that they would eventually have to allow this. For a long time they have been sticking to their guns and saying that they didn’t want to allow it. To be realistic though they need to because so many people that are going to be playing this game have become accustomed to this feature in so many other mmo’s and will not want to live without the option.
Me personally I am glad. I am one of those types of gamers that has grown familiar with this mechanic and I love the ability. It allows me to be flexible and be able to try other play styles out without having to delete characters or re-roll every time the mood strikes me. They will not be free however, and they will come with a credit cost per use of the ability that will increase with each time you use it. That’s fine with me however I think it is a great way to keep it from being over used, making it a more important choice when it is done.
# THREE: The announcement that the legacy system is still in the game. I am a sucker for this kind of thing. Although they really didn’t go into too much detail with this one they did say that possibly it involves re-rolling a maxed out character and taking them through the leveling process again to have the ability to access new races or ? Not really sure what this system involves at the present time but honestly when have we? This has been one of their closest guarded secrets, even going so far as to imply that it was not in the game to throw us off the trail. What ever the case I am very glad to know this is in the game.
# TWO: Announcement of the beta weekends in September. I was very happy to hear this because it means that things are progressing and that we will finally be able to get into beta soon. Hopefully someone at Bioware will hear our plea and get us in there. I am about to die to test this game and the crew skills system. Cant hold on much longer……..
*akkkkkkkkk falls on floor feigning death hoping someone at Bioware will see and have mercy*
# ONE: Pre order announcement with early access perk. For me the single most important reveal of the show. This is the sound of the choo choo off in the distance. This is the flag that when raised lets you know the end is close at hand. This is what we have waited for, for over three years now. There is no turning back at this point I already have my collectors edition ordered and code registered. The CE set itself is a masterpiece, it is chocked full of awesome items that I cant wait to have displayed in my collection, and if that wasn’t enough the early access perk as well is a great thing indeed.
I know there are a lot of people that do not like this sort of thing with certain people getting access to the game early but I sure do like it. I think it is not only a blast for me but it is also good business sense allowing them to spread the population out initially and not have us all hit at once on launch day causing server crashes and log in queue’s. This is a smart practice that more companies should take under consideration.
Those are my top ten info drops from Comic Con in San Diego this year, what are yours?
Thanks for reading! 🙂
17 Responses to “Swtorcrafter’s Top Ten Info Drops From SDCC 2011”
credit lock on AC respec is an even worse decision than the allowing of said respec, gold farming sites will be drooling from here to launch over that bit of news, personally i hope they end up putting a limited number on that respec npc 4 or 5 times sound good to me, since they insist on allowing it.
I have been looking forward to your thoughts on the event. #9 is interesting, as the ability to customize your toon is a money maker in all genre’s. As a gamer it interests me to have access to it, as a crafter it actually dissapoints me. I’d rather see the playing community relying on the crafting community for these sought after customizations to spur the give and take of the economy.
Hey Zlatto glad to have you bud 🙂
Yeah I understand what you are meaning. Don’t get me wrong I would love to see all items in game be exclusive to crafters, muwahahahaha. I realize though that will never happen. I am hoping they will give us plenty that we can be exclusive for making.
In the words of my wise friend Mr Warlock “crafters need items that they can only make” I agree with him and am hoping we have plenty of items across the crew skills that the player population will rely on us for. That will be one way I can feel needed and important as a crafter for sure.
@grenith I don’t really believe the credit cost will be so steep that it forces people to resort to gold farmers to be able to pay it, but I do understand your desire to see the ability limited, that’s also a good solution.
#8 – I will have to say that the chances of a November 25th (Friday) Launch are *highly* improbable! Not only is it the biggest shopping day of the year in the USA, but it is also right before a weekend – thus ensuring a *hammering* of the Servers. Not a good plan, in my opinion.
Tuesdays are almost always MMO Launch days. In addition, I think that EA will want to have the game out and already in play for Black Friday. Thus, my personal speculation would be that Launch will be either November 8th, 15th, or possibly the 22nd, but no later (not counting Early Access).
hehehe …. I am one selfish crafter to be sure 🙂
you know when #9 came out for a split second I thought it would be a store in your pocket. Like in a few other games, a traveling sales point. The selfish crafter in me thought “Damn stright, now I can never worry about bag space, and anything white, grey, etc I can sell and never worry about it” but sadly it seems I was just projecting.
On AC respecs: They mentioned that the first time you change your AC there it will be fairly easy, but afterwards it will be difficult to do. That doesn’t sound like they’re just using escalating credit cost. I really hope it’s something significant to the story, like a solo-only quest or something rare that you have to find, kill, or accomplish, rather than just visiting an NPC and giving them some money (and NOT using a huge gathered materials cost either, because that’s just a slightly larger money-sink really). Expensive =/= Difficult, at least not when those gold/credit farmers inevitably get involved.
However, escalating credit costs have been confirmed as the method for respeccing your talents within your current AC. Need to be sure those are two different kinds of respecs.
Legacy System: I think it’s for new characters you roll up after you get your first 50, or reach some other threshold beyond 50…? For awhile I thought they might release additional playable species through a cash store, but I like this option better if that’s what the Legacy System does.
As for everything else: I ordered my CE within moments of reading about the goodies it contains! =D
CE edition was sold out by the time I got around to pre-ordering(I pre-order the day it was announced), so I was a little bummed out but went with the digital deluxe. I think it would be fare to give the digital deluxe buyers the CE Store and the Mouse Droid as we are paying more than the standard Ed. buyers and we are not receiving any physical items at all. O well at least I get all the other in-game goodies and hope they don’t just give them out to everyone else in a few months time after release.
I like the suggestion for AC respecs where you would say have to do a quest chain before you can respec to the other AC. Here’s hoping BW hears that suggestion.
I too like the idea of having to fulfill some other requirement to do an AC respec rather than just a straight credit cost. I am kinda surprised that Bioware hasn’t thought of something to that nature as keen as they are on story and all that. They might have though I haven’t seen it in action so I am not sure.
I hadn’t really given it much thought about those being two separate kinds of respecs, but your right I think. I wonder if they might just do something different for each maybe let you pay credits for a skill tree respec and something better like questing for a AC change.
I know there would be a lot of people that wouldn’t like that idea though because of what they perceive to be trouble of having to go through it each time, but I would like it I think.
Thanks for reading guys!
@Daelda, hmm yeah I hadnt thought about that, EA may just want to have it to the retailers and on the shelves already, ahead of that shopping period. (if any of the copies distributed can stay on a shelf anywhere)
Your prediction may actually be more plausible than mine I think now that I think on your words.
The Con was a blast and all good reveals, and more than I could of hoped for.
The legacy system will be very interesting if the ship with race abilitys. It may make the re-roll very important to end game.
Totally stocked about the solo world. Very few mmos offer good solo content outside crafting. Being as I spend more time than most playing this gives me something extra to do when I wait for a good team to raid with.
I am *extremely* excited about the announced Solo World! I am disabled, and thus I am able to play 40+ hours a week. This is great in many ways, but after a while, I just get TIRED of being in groups and want to Solo for a while. A world where I can go to do just that – Paradise!
Thanks for all of the good information. I can’t wait to start playing!
The only weird thing about the holocam is that what is going to make it different than using print-screen? Is it going to take still images and give them a holo-feed effect? I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.
I somehow missed that mounts are going to have shields in all of my data mining. Sounds interesting. I like that better than making it so that mounts are all different speeds. Would be nice if we could customize their appearance.
I also didn’t realize that Illum was going to be the solo planet although I heard that there was a world dedicated to endgame solo content. That’s pretty cool because I really like this planet lore-wise. It only makes sense since the best lightsaber crystals are found on that planet.
Unfortunately, SWTOR has to deal with being the new SW IP. So it has to deal with the most whiny and childish MMO fanbase in the form of Star Wars Galaxies.
I am pretty sure they are going to complain over and over onthe CE vendor, the two extra items in game. If Bioware can ignore their continued rants than they may have something special. SWG fanbase won’t be happy until they have a full clone of their boriing game.
[…] Foundation for Micro-transactions? July 29, 2011 By Tim Leave a Comment Digg DiggI ran across this link at SWTOR-Life that talks about an exclusive in game store available on to those who purchased the […]
@acourpet yeah I also have been wondering about the crystals and how those being primarily found on illum the named end game and solo content planet is going to work. I would love to know more about this one.
While the Collector’s Edition VIP store is a so-so thing, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. The producers stated at Comic-Con that it basically sold the same geared stats you could get elsewhere but with a different skin. So while it’s cool and all, it’s not mindblowing.
I’d rather have something like Rift did with their collectors edition, where the items are practical and useful to every character you make:
– Trinket that gives 20% experience increase up to level 20.
– Mount that can you use way before others can get a mount, it also scales speed with others you get.
– Larger backpack.
Most of the ToR stuff is cosmetic or vanity related, which gets old once you see everyone else with one.