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With the revelation that Game Update 1.5 will be the free-to-play release, our discussion topic this week is all about the Cartel Market and the restrictions being placed on players who don’t subscribe.

1. Introduction

2. Trivia question

What SWTOR earnable character title is from something said by Princess Leia, and was not used as a compliment?

If you are interested in being entered in the random drawing for a Tauntaun Fawn code, please send your answer to ootinicast@gmail.com.

3. The Holofeed

• While there was scheduled downtime this week, no patch was deployed.
• BioWare have released Free-to-play Preview #1 (also on YouTube), a video introducing free-to-play, and teasing some of the goods that will be available for purchase.
• At least for now, reverse engineering mods that were crafted by others is a legitimate (if unintended) way of learning their schematics.
• Sith Marauders and Jedi Sentinels (using Rage and Focus specs respectively) are now performing extremely well in PvP, to such an extent that they are over-represented. BioWare is monitoring the situation to see whether this is due to them being the “flavour of the month”, or if they’re overpowered enough that nerfing may be required.
• In the minefield (Colonel Vorgath) encounter in story mode Explosive Conflict, the Probe Droid’s Cleave ability no longer cleaves (single-target only); also, while the enrage timer for Vorgath himself has been raised, the timer on the minefield remains as tight as ever.
• Enter now to win a SWTOR-themed Razor laptop! Entries close 4 November.

4. Force Feedback

Our sincere thanks to Mags for his donation!

We discuss tweets from @NULLZERO1, @DarthPops (Marshall Carr Jr.), @John_K64 (Ry), @Rrubb (Rub), @rbleamon (Ray Leamon), @voyak, @ForceChuckle, @Dimbo56, @StoleTarts (Megan), @AspisVodox, @Rabbi_Shekky and @TranscendenceG (The Trancendence Guild on the Prophecy of the Five east coast PvP server).

@JediAio linked us to the old (but great!) Saturday Night Live skit, “Star Wars Auditions”.

@voyak recommends this YouTube video of a flashmob in Germany. In terms of personal flexibility (and possibly fitness), he also suggests we try Star Wars Yoga.

Marshall Carr (@DarthPops) showed us how to make pumpkin-carving fun, at least for Star Wars fans!

Kuze shows us that some bugs in SWTOR can have a funny site.

5. Sarlacc Digest

The Cartel Market has been added to the PTS, thus revealing that Game Update 1.5 will be the launch of free-to-play. The PTS patch notes were updated with the new features. In addition to the Cartel Market, more welcome changes have been added to 1.5:

• re-specialisations are now free for subscribers
• subscribers will have access to 2 additional quickbars (giving us 6 in total)
• our inventory’s currency window now includes a progress bar for each currency, indicating the applicable cap

• the preview window has been greatly enhanced, showing a fully-animated model of the character, now allowing the equipped (or previewed) weapon to be drawn

Teo spent some time on the PTS playing with the Cartel Market interface, investigating what was for sale:

• Cartel Packs (the “gambling” boxes) could be bought for 180 CC or 360 CC
• Cosmetic items included:
  • a minipet for 240 CC
  • an adaptive speeder (matches your current speeder piloting level) for 720 CC, which included Speeder Piloting I
  • Carbonite Chamber for 1440 CC
  • Rancor Holo-replica for 180 CC
• Unlocks were available, primarily of use to non-subscribers:
  • Authorization: Event Equipment Requisition (175 CC/char or 400 CC/account), one-off unlock
  • Authorization: Artifact Equipment (1200 CC/char or 2700 CC/account),  one-off unlock
  • Unlock: Guild bank access (600 CC/char or 1350 CC/account)
  • Authorization: Crew Member Appearance (325 CC/char or 725 CC/account)
  • Unlock: 10 GTN sale slots (125 CC/char or 280 CC/account), apply 5 times for 50 total
  • Unlock: additional quickbar (250 CC/char or 540 CC/account), once per quickbar [start with two]
  • Unlock: inventory module (175 CC/char or 380 CC/account) per row of 10 [start with three]
  • Unlock: crew skill slot (420 CC/char or 945 CC/account) per slot
  • Unlock: cargo hold access (475 CC/char or 1050 CC/account) per bay
  • each racial unlock costs 350 CC
  • Customization control: display titles, display legacy name (100 CC/char or 200 CC/account)
  • Customization control: hide head slot, unify colors (350 CC/char or 775 CC/account)
• Equipment could be purchased, all adaptive:
  • chestpieces, suitable for level 15 (150 CC) and level 43 (325 CC)
  • armor sets (containing head, chest, gloves, pants, boot) for 1200 CC
  • weapons (e.g., Gamorrean Axe for 350 CC)
  • +41 color crystals for 900 CC
• Various consumables useful for both free-to-play players and subscribers:
  • 25% increased XP boosts, in two versions:
    • major, lasting 3 hours, for 120 CC; also 5-pack for 480 CC
    • minor, lasting 1 hours, for 80 CC
  • 25% increased valor (major for 50 CC, minor for 30 CC)
  • single-use (no shared cooldown) fleet pass for 90 CC
  • single-use quick travel (90 CC)
  • 5-pack of medical probes for 500 CC (free-to-play players have a finite number of medical probes, and need to buy these to restock!)
  • weekly passes for 240 CC to give unlimited access to warzones, space missions and operations
  • weekly pass for 240 CC making Flashpoint boss loot accessible

Items purchased from the Cartel Market are intended to be gifted to other players or sold on the GTN, though some will be temporarily bound so that they can’t be parted with straight away.

The restrictions on free-to-play players were discussed, though given they’re currently in flux, we’ll go over them again the next episode. We were happy to hear that free-to-play players will start with two quickbar slots, rather than just one!

Finally, we speculated as to how much Cartel Coins would be worth. Our best guess is that they’ll be priced like BioWare points (used to purchase DLC for other BioWare games, like Mass Effect), which would be $1 for 80 Cartel Coins. BioWare confirmed that Cartel Coins will not initially be earnable via in-game activities.

6. Outro

Thanks to Hyp (@Hypknotoad) for joining us this week.

You can email questions and comments about the show to ootinicast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter via @OotiniCast. Check out our website, ootinicast.com, which has links to our presence on Google+ and Facebook. We are a proud member of the TOR Syndicate! Subscribe to us on iTunes and Zune, and watch for us in your Bind on Equip feed.