(Editor’s note: Our guildmate and extraordinary Gunship specialist Dunedai attended the Community Cantina held in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday 31 January 2014, and has summarised the half-hour Q&A for us. Thanks Dunedai!)
Q: Is the Desert of the Real in the western portion of the Dune Sea on Tatooine a reference to the Matrix?
A: They would never put a reference to another movie into Star Wars…
Q: Are there any plans to increase the Legacy cap beyond 50, or provide any incentives to attain that level, such as Legacy banks so that you don’t have to mail credits to your alts etc?
A: They’d love to do that at some point, but technically very challenging and unlikely to happen in the near future.
Q: Are there any concepts in the works to introduce a new character class across both factions?
A: There are no plans for this at this time, mostly due to the amount of content that each class and companion stories provide. It would take a lot of time and resources to ensure that the result is no less of an experience than the existing storylines.
Q: Has BioWare thought of a implementing a lifetime subscription?
A: They talked about it pre-launch, but decided against it. It’s unlikely.
Q: What happens to Revan?
A: … Keep playing to find out.
Q: What are the plans to improve guild functionality in game: guild email, capital ships etc?
A: Currently nothing is specifically planned. A lot of the features requested would be technically challenging.
Q: Is dual-spec/multi-spec coming soon?
A: It’s something they’d love to do, but it’s not going to happen in the short term.
Q: (inaudible)
A: The development team put together a list of things they think is most beneficial to players in the game. It’s not about making more money, but managing the resources they have. They prioritize the features that they think is best for the game overall.
Q: When do we get a pink and black dye?
A: Eventually. If there is a color combination that they can make to give the players as a dye, we’ll get it.
Q: Is there anything Bioware are excited about that they want to tell us?
A: Bruce is working on a blog post that covers the coming year in SWTOR, in the same vein as the Summer of SWTOR posts made previously. Because it’s for the year, it won’t be as detailed, but lays out the plan for the year ahead. The blog is scheduled to be posted on Monday 3 February.
Q: Are there any plans to make dark side/light side progression relevant at end game?
A: No, as this is intentional. Ever since launch, the goal was never to let light side/dark side options affect anything at endgame. Otherwise people may have been restricted from playing endgame because they weren’t the “correct” side of the Force.
Q: Can Bioware give players something to spend capped reputation tokens on?
A: Sell them to vendors for credits.
Q: With the new GSF gameplay modes coming out, is there anything involving an assault on an enemy capital ship, to take out specific objectives, e.g., turrets, shields?
A: No, not for 2.6, there will be more things coming for GSF in the future. No details at this time!
Q: Are there any plans to add joystick control for GSF?
A: It was underestimated how much interest there would be in joystick control, and the game isn’t built to be played with a joystick. Some of the controls would need to be changed functionally, to allow that to happen. It’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
Q: Has there been any discussion about interactive apps to send companions out on crew skills etc?
A: They’ve been talking about it a lot, and would love to do this. However there are technical challenges surrounding this that would impact server performance, thus alternate solutions would need to be found. It’s a question of time and resources again.
Q: Has there been any thought of having light and dark side alignments with companions?
A: It’s been thought about and was sort of implemented, but they don’t want to give any spoilers. (I assume this is a class/companion storyline.)
Q: Will we ever see walkers in the game that players can control? (Presumably like the AT-ATs used on Hoth from Empire)
A: No. You’re more likely to see walkers in the game than you are to actually drive them.
Q: Is the guild membership cap of 500 going to be raised?
A: At this time, no, due to technical difficulties that would decrease server performance.
Q: The technical difficulties that keep being referred to: are these in relation to the game engine?
A: Each time they give that response, it’s due to a different technical difficulty such as architecture or something else.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Lots of BioWare employees play the game on live servers with everyone, but play incognito. So you could have BioWare employees in your guild without even knowing it!
Q: What is the most popular content?
A: BioWare cannot disclose any information about metrics.
Q: When is the datacron relic going to be upgraded?
A: BioWare are unsure at this time.
Q: What is their favorite content?
A: (Courtney) The Imperial Agent storyline. (Ben) The Juggernaut storyline. (Musco) The Soa fight.
Q: Are there plans to add anything for those who want to remain neutrally aligned?
A: It’s been discussed, but it’s never made it onto their schedule.
Q: At the end of the Makeb and Oricon storylines, we see the Empire heading in a different direction. Are we going to see more of that and are we going to see the companion stories continued?
A: If you continue to play the game, and see the story as it unfolds, you’ll have a good time. As for companion stories… they most likely won’t be developed due to the time and resources it would take, where the average player would only get to see one or two of them. Starting in Game Update 2.7 is the beginning of a story arc that will go throughout the rest of this year. The conclusion of that story arc is going to be EPIC, and lead into a big announcement.
