Blizzard says if you want to be the best you have to trade

This post from Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok hits the nail on the head with what we've been saying about loot. If you want the good stuff you have to trade or buy and sell.

Diablo has always been a random number generator. You walk into a dungeon and it's randomly generated into a configuration. You pick up a piece of loot and it's randomly generated with a set of stats. This is how it was in Diablo 1 and 2 and in 3 it's a much greater beast. We have far more variety in stats than we did in the original Diablo and so the chances of you getting what you need from a random loot drop is so rare that if you set up your character with only random loot drops, and you were then able to complete higher level dungeons, if I were you I'd go and buy a lotto ticket!

Trade forums in Battlenet were nuts in Diablo 2 but I got a lot of my gear back then by monitoring for things in the chat and jumping into games with people to trade. The Auction House just provides an easy way to do that now.

This is what Bashiok had to say on the matter ...

SWTOR Datacron guide: Korriban

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on Korriban. These datacrons, available to Sith Empire only players, are easy to spot compared to many other in the game. There are three datacrons to be found on Korriban.

Galactic History 15: Mandalore

Stat/Reward: Willpower +2
Waypoint: X: 530, Y: -163
Tips: You can see this datacron glowing almost instantly when you leave the taxi station, the first time you go to lower wilds.

Read more.

Datacron guide: Korriban

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on Korriban. These datacrons, available to Sith Empire only players, are easy to spot compared to many other in the game. There are three datacrons to be found on Korriban.

Galactic History 15: Mandalore

Stat/Reward: Willpower +2
Waypoint: X: 530, Y: -163
Tips: You can see this datacron glowing almost instantly when you leave the taxi station, the first time you go to lower wilds.






Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

The gray-skinned Taung species, which clashed with humans long before the formation of the Republic, had lost none of its fearsome reputation over the years. The Taung revered conflict in all forms, relishing the chance to test themselves against powerful enemies.

While the young Republic continued to expand, the Taung also sought out and colonized many worlds. Eventually they discovered an Outer Rim planet populated by enormous, vicious beasts called mythosaurs. The Taung took the world for their own, calling it Mandalore after their leader, Mandalore the First. The mythosaurs presented little challenge to the powerful Taung; in time, mythosaur bones were used to build Mandalore's first cities.

Galactic History 16: The Alaskan Conflicts

Stat/Reward: Endurance +2
Waypoint: X: 158, Y: 81
Tips: The datacron is next to the shuttle that will take you off the starting planet.





Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

During the boom period of early Republic expansion, dissent arose from the unlikeliest of quarters: the planet Alsakan. Colonized by the first explorers from Coruscant long before the development of the hyperdrive, Alsakan had been a member of the Core Worlds for centuries.

But as the planet grew more powerful and influential, its Senators believed that Alsakan, not Coruscant, should be the capital of the Republic. A series of skirmishes called the "Alsakan Conflicts" broke out, slowing Republic growth as it tried to quell Alsakan's forces.

Despite the best efforts of Republic diplomats and generals, Alsakan remained belligerent, and seventeen such uprisings would occur over the next several thousand years. Later, the battle cruisers built during the Alsakan Conflicts would inspire the Republic's Invincible-class dreadnought.

Galactic History 17: The Duinuogwuin Contention

Stat/Reward: Red Matrix Shard
Waypoint: X: -54, Y: 378
Tips: This datacron is in the open area right before you go into the tombs where the heroic quests are.





Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

In their travels, the early Republic explorers encountered many bizarre and fascinating species. Most of these first contacts were peaceful, but while charting worlds in the Outer Rim, scouts encountered enormous, flame-breathing reptiles known as Duinuogwuin. The terrified scouts opened fire and fled the planet, eventually returning to Coruscant--only to discover they'd been followed. The Duinuogwuin began waging war against the capital in what would be called the "Duinuogwuin Contention."

Supreme Chancellor Fillorean, often criticized in the Senate for being hesitant and indecisive, ignored demands to mobilize the Republic Navy and attempted to communicate with the Duinuogwuin. To everyone's surprise, the Duinuogwuin were revealed to be intelligent and inherently peaceful. Supreme Chancellor Fillorean and the Duinuogwuin philosopher Borz'Mat'oh negotiated a treaty, and later even cooperated to found Coruscant's first university.

Datacron guide: Ord Mantell

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on Ord Mantell. These datacrons, available to Republic only faction players, can be found on a hill, near a lake and buried in the sand. All in all there are three datacrons to be found on Ord Mantell.

Galactic History 12: The Birth of the Republic

Stat/Reward: Aim +2
Waypoint: X: -660, Y: -561
Tips: To get here head to the group area, it is on a hill there. Use the hill to the west of it to get to it.

Read more.

Datacron Guide: Ord Mantell

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on Ord Mantell. These datacrons, available to Republic only faction players, can be found on a hill, near a lake and buried in the sand. All in all there are three datacrons to be found on Ord Mantell.

Galactic History 12: The Birth of the Republic

Stat/Reward: Aim +2
Waypoint: X: -660, Y: -561
Tips: To get here head to the group area, it is on a hill there. Use the hill to the west of it to get to it.





Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race.

You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

For centuries, safe and reliable travel through hyperspace had been the biggest obstacle to galactic exploration. Finally, Corellian scientists managed to perfect hyperdrive technology on par with that of the ancient Rakata, allowing travel between the Core Worlds in mere days. Joined by trade and renewed communication channels, the Core Worlds signed an accord and united as the first Galactic Republic.

The newborn Republic began exploration of hyperspace routes in earnest, supported by daring Duros scouts and eventually established the Perlemian Trade Route. This route connected Coruscant to many worlds, including Ossus, where the Jedi Order's enclave had been established centuries before. The Jedi welcomed Republic scouts with curiosity and interest.

The head of the enclave, Master Haune Tiar, returned with the scouts to the allied Core Worlds. Impressed by what he saw, Master Tiar also foresaw the young Republic would need protectors. After conferring for several weeks, the Jedi pledged themselves as the Republic's guardians of peace and justice. The foundations for the modern Republic were laid.

Galactic History 13: The First Great Schism

Stat/Reward: Presence +2
Waypoint: X: -971, Y: 201
Tips: Simply head along the beach from the Volcano Camp. The Datacron is resting behind some rocks, near a small lake.




Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

After the Force Wars, when the Jedi Order learned of the destructive power of the dark side, the Jedi devoted themselves to the path of the light. In the early days of the Republic, a young Kashi Mer Jedi named Xendor defied the order's code and began experimenting with dark side techniques. Incensed, the Jedi Order confronted Xendor and banished him from Ossus.

Xendor, now immensely powerful and full of rage, raised an army on the planet Lettow and led it against the Jedi. Not since the Force Wars had the Jedi fought their own. Xendor and the Legions of Lettow eventually fell in battle; his lover, Arden Lyn, was defeated by the Jedi Master Awdrysta Pina and placed into a strange stasis, sustained by the dark side. Although this first schism within the Jedi was over, it would not be the last.

Galactic History 14: The Fall of Tion

Stat/Reward: Red Matrix Shard
Waypoint: X: 778, Y: 133
Tips: Follow the beach up north. There is a level 8 elite guarding it, and the Datacron is down a little hole in the sand just next to him.

Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

The Tionese Cluster, once a great civilization ruled by the despot Xim, entered its fading years as the Republic began its ascension. The third great power in the galaxy, the Hutt Empire, was also thriving. The Hutts used their criminal influence to control entire worlds, extorting and enslaving their subjects. Fear of the Hutts drove many worlds to seek membership in the Republic; truthfully, far more than the Republic could safely allow.

Eventually, war broke out between the Tion Cluster and the Republic. Despite--or because of--the Tionese's lack of resources, the Republic found them a dangerous foe. In response, Republic spies quietly stirred up trouble between the Tion Cluster and their old enemies, the Hutt Empire.

Facing a war on two fronts, the Tionese submitted to the Republic. The worlds of the Tion Cluster gradually came under the Republic's banner, finally ending their long enmity.

SWTOR datacron guide: Tython

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on planet Tython. These datacrons, available to Republic only faction players can be found on top of remote mountain passes, near ancient statues, and guarded by a mysterious shaman. All in all there are three datacrons to be found on Tython.

Galactic History 09: The Force Wars

Stat/Reward: Endurance +2
Waypoint: X: -33, Y: -102
Tips: You have to go through the mountain pass (entrance -29,13). The above location is up on a ledge that appears to be inaccessible. You have to go around behind the datacron and the entrance to the cave that leads to it is at -34, -29.




Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

Read on

Datacron guide: Tython

What follows are facts about the datacrons to be found on planet Tython. These datacrons, available to Republic only faction players can be found on top of remote mountain passes, near ancient statues, and guarded by a mysterious shaman. All in all there are three datacrons to be found on Tython.

Galactic History 09: The Force Wars

Stat/Reward: Endurance +2
Waypoint: X: -33, Y: -102
Tips: You have to go through the mountain pass (entrance -29,13). The above location is up on a ledge that appears to be inaccessible. You have to go around behind the datacron and the entrance to the cave that leads to it is at -34, -29.




Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:



On the planet Tython, an order of philosophers and researchers arose, studying the mysterious energy that permeates all things--an energy known as the Force. However, disagreements developed within the order about how this energy should be used, leading to the Force Wars that eventually engulfed the planet. A faction comprised of those who followed a more peaceful path left Tython and established itself on the planet Ossus; later, this faction called itself the Jedi Order.

At their new enclave, the Jedi refined a code that would guide them. They became a monastic warrior people, devoting themselves to the pursuit of peace and knowledge, rather than personal power.

In the wake of the Force Wars, the Jedi also had a new understanding of the Force. They saw that the Force, while naturally light, could be used for corrupt ends. Those who did not respect its power risked falling to the dark side.

Galactic History 10: The Tion Cluster

Stat/Reward: Willpower + 2
Waypoint: X: -648, Y: -72
Tips: Use a huge tilted pillar that forms a bridge to a hilltop. The Datacron is just to the left of the hilltop at the base of a statue.




Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

As the Core Worlds began to expand, another power in the Core was rising. The Tion Cluster, inhabited by the descendants of ancient sleeper ship crews, had developed a new hyperspace beacon technology based on fragments left by the Infinite Empire--far superior than the hyperspace cannons previously in use.

The Tion Cluster was gradually conquered by an arrogant and powerful pirate prince, known to history as the despot Xim. Using the new hyperspace technology, he despoiled world after world, taking slaves and ruthlessly expanding his territory. His rule of the Tion Cluster lasted for thirty years and saw the conquest of hundreds of thousands of planets.

Xim might have continued his rule unchallenged even longer, but he chose to expand his empire into a new area of space, one already inhabited by the powerful Hutt Empire.

Galactic History 11: The Tionese Face the Hutt Empire

Stat/Reward: Blue Matrix Shard
Waypoint: X: -93, Y: 925
Tips: you have to follow the path starting at X: -113 Y:88 Z:819 past a few fleshraiders, through a two story ruin and into a small settlement.
The matrix shard is to the right with a kneeling shaman in front of it.




Codec description: This datacron holds unheard of power and knowledge collected by an ancient race. You access its power and discover writings which are clearly only one small piece of a massive galactic history:

Seeking to expand his territory, the ancient Tionese despot Xim began exploring the Si'Klaata Cluster--and for the first time, encountered a force that could challenge him. This region belonged to the Hutt Empire. Although young, the Hutt Empire had already grown immensely powerful through its criminal enterprises, helped by the long lifespan of the Hutts.

The Hutts correctly assessed the threat Xim presented and poured resources into fighting him near the planet Vontor. Despite their strength, the Hutts were not certain of victory until they discovered the Si'Klaata Cluster was home to several other powerful species, including the Nikto, Klatoonians and Vodrans. In a typical gambit, the Hutts managed to persuade these three species to sign the Treaty of Vontor, which bound them to the Hutts in perpetual slavery.

With these additional forces, the Hutts overwhelmed Xim at the third Battle of Vontor. Xim died a Hutt prisoner, leaving his vast holdings and territory free for the taking.

Legacy Perks. Get ready to get ripped off in patch 1.3

Bioware have just released a promo video for patch 1.3. The video tells us nothing really new but does provide some extra details about the new features. The video has received many dislikes and as I go over the details, you mind understand why. The changes are:

Legacy perks
Group Finder
Character transfer
Scaling social gear

First, have a quick watch of the video (bottom of this post). As you will see the Legacy perks are specific to each individual character, and they don't come cheap.

Looking at the warzone perks, the first one costs 20k and gives you a 2% XP perk to leveling in warzones. Another 30k will add an extra 2%, to the total of 4%. Each level seems to go up by 10k and add an extra 2%. So you'll be able to achieve a maximum of 10% bonus XP after spending approximately 200k. If you want to level another alt in PvP you'll have to spend another 200k. Please keep in mind that this is a guestimate as they only show us the costing of the first two.


Now is it just me or does that seem a little steep for such a pathetic return? 10% is not going to make much difference. I have three characters past act 2 and several others well on their way and I, like a lot of other players, am finding it really hard to have to re-do the standard missions found on most worlds. As it is at this stage, just to complete your class quests you have to level PvP for hours or re-do missions you've done 3 or 4 times already. I've been alternating characters to get the most out of rested XP, but it's still at the painful stage of going through this stuff for the 4th and 5th time for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the class missions and I am thoroughly enjoying every second of the story lines but I'm finding the leveling to be way more time consuming than it was originally in Beta.

Group Finder seriously should have been in the game from the start so although I'm pleased to see it being added, it's an "about time" feature, not a "wow" feature.

Character transfers are definitely going to help the lower populated servers and I hope that Bioware do the right thing and give everybody who has been gimped for months on dead servers the opportunity to move for free.

As for scaling social gear, since my main character is a Jedi Consular I can tell you now, this is broken before it's released. Currently all social gear is light armor but yet my Jedi Conuslar is still stuck in his fuggly rakata gear. As none of the promised armor bonuses transfer to other gear Bioware made a big deal about the customization abilities in patch 1.2. Apart from war hero and black hole gear, no other items in the game mods transfer. So if you're thinking of decking out yourself as a Sandperson, be prepared to loose your bonuses if you're not in the absolute state of the art gear.

I may seem a little bit annoyed about this last point, but it's one of the many options that Beta testers disputed. The change to lock-down epics was made about a month prior to the game being released. I had to do multiple videos to demonstrate the changes on mods as they were released in Beta. The community tried to advise Bioware but they did not listen and five months later we're still paying the price by having Jedis look like punces with wings on our sleeves in order to have our earned set bonuses. Unless the change is made to retro-fit older mods, this will plague the ability for players to customize themselves properly for some time.

Diablo III Tips

Finding help and tips on Diablo III is nothing short of painful. The amount of gold spam sites trying to convince you to click on buttons in order to sell you crap is pathetic. So what we've done is gathered all the useful tips and information we could find in the forums and also in the fabulous Reddit Diablo III community. There is more out there but this is a very good start.

If you've got a tip, or any useful information that might help other players please leave a comment on this post or on the Tips page and I will add it.

SWTOR 1.2.4 Patch Notes

1.2.4 Patch Notes (5/15/2012)

Classes and Combat
General
• The Guard ability can now be reapplied if the player dies with it activated. Previously, players sometimes received an error indicating that their target was already guarded.
Sith Inquisitor
General
• Lightsaber Charge's audio effects no longer loop indefinitely.

Companion Characters

Workaround: Unsupported graphics card error in Diablo III

So, you've downloaded and/or installed Diablo III. You've got your Red Bull, your comfy slippers and track pants on and you're all set for a marathon first sitting of the game ... but what's this? The night is shattered when you load up the game and get an error:

"Unsupported graphics card error"

Why?

This rather generic error signals that your video card isn't powerful enough to play Diablo III very well. It might run it, but the performance won't be great. This isn't Blizzard's fault, it's your finances - time to upgrade if you can dude. But there is hope.

1.2.4 Patch Notes

1.2.4 Patch Notes (5/15/2012)

Classes and Combat
General
• The Guard ability can now be reapplied if the player dies with it activated. Previously, players sometimes received an error indicating that their target was already guarded.
Sith Inquisitor
General
• Lightsaber Charge's audio effects no longer loop indefinitely.

Companion Characters

Xalek
• Xalek now receives the correct amount of Shield Absorption from equipped gear.
Crew Skills
Crafting Skills
• French and German tooltips now indicate the percentage chance for reverse engineering.

Flashpoints and Operations

General
• Players who advance from level 49 to 50 while near an Operation phase gate now see the gate color change to indicate their eligibility to enter.
Flashpoints
Directive 7
• Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.
Lost Island
• LR-5 Sentinel Droid now reliably activates his Plasma Coils during the encounter.
The Battle of Ilum
• Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.
The Black Talon
• An audio effect from the fusion cutter in this Flashpoint no longer loops indefinitely.
The False Emperor
• Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.

Operations

Explosive Conflict
• General Vorgath's speech now features the correct voice modulation.
Items
General
• Rebreather head slot items now appear on Sith Pureblood characters.
• Equipping a hooded robe in combination with certain head slot items no longer causes baldness.
• Players can no longer add color crystals to some items that did not appear to have color crystal slots, causing the crystals to become irretrievable.
Missions and NPCs
Missions

World Missions

Belsavis
• Breakthrough: All members of the group now receive credit for completed of this mission.
Ilum
• World Story missions on Ilum can no longer be abandoned.
Taris
• No Escape: Republic Astromech Droids are no longer attacked by nearby friendly forces.
Voss
• Players can no longer complete The Dark Hollow without first completing Primary Target. Completing these missions out of order could prevent players from completing Primary Target.

Class Missions

Jedi Knight
• Fate of the Jedi: The cinematic with the Jedi Council no longer takes much longer than intended to begin playing.
Jedi Consular
• Automated Defense: Euphony Guard Droids now count towards this mission objective.
• Vivicar Awaits: This mission can no longer become blocked if a player logs out during the “Defeat the Ambush” step.
Sith Inquisitor
• Into the Pit: The final conversation with Major Bessiker can no longer be repeated.
Imperial Agent
• Shadow of the Dark Lord: Darth Zhorrid now follows through with her threat to torture a character in one of the dialogue paths in this mission.
• The Star Chamber: Players who destroy the codex and fight the Sith Lords aboard the station are now able to enter the Tenebrous to complete the mission. Players who were previously blocked from completing it must reset the mission.
Trooper
• The Battle of Corellia: The Striker One Uplink can now be used from the mission tracker.

PvP

General
• Mini-pets can no longer be summoned inside Warzones.
• A fix for some causes of players becoming stuck dead in Warzones has been implemented, though the issue may still rarely occur.
Warzones
Voidstar
• Characters that exit the protected spawn area before the match begins are now killed.

UI

Guild Bank
• Crafted items stored in the Guild Bank now display their tooltips correctly.
Social
• Closing the Add Friend dialogue no longer makes the Add Friend button on the friends list unusable.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
• Actions in the UI layout editor, chat window, and crafting window now prevent a player from being labeled as AFK.

Imperial Agent: Your Classified Companion Information is Ready

Many bothans have died to bring us this crucial data. Attached is all the information you will need on your companions. Use this information to bribe, persuade and intimidate them as you see fit. This information has been updated to our latest database and provides images and everything right down to their favorite gifts and estimated time of arrival.

For Imperial Agents eyes only. This message will self destruct after reading.

GOOD-MORNING Balmorra! Live! ... WHAT?

"Good morning and welcome to another episode of SWTORFace. This morning we're going to be talking to one of our dependable comandos out in the Balmorra section, fighting to gain some awesome military technology for the Republic. We've John Sunrider on the line right now. Good morning John, how are you?"

"I'M GOOD SWTORFACE HOW ARE YOU?"

"We're all fine here thanks John. Things sound kind of loud there."

"YEAH, THAT'S CAUSE I'M BLOWING UP SOME IMPS!"

"You told us that you wanted to talk to us about something today John. What can we help you with?"

"WELL SINCE PATCH 1.2 I'VE BEEN HAVING A LOT OF TROUBLE HEARING MY COMPANIONS. I KNOW ARIC IS SAYING SOMETHING CONSTANTLY BEHIND MY BACK BUT IT'S ALL MUFFLED AND I'VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT HE'S ACTUALLY SAYING. I THINK USING ALL THESE EXPLOSIVES HAS WRECKED MY HEARING!"

"Well John, you might remember that the powers that be implemented a fix that prevented your ship droid from being so annoying. So rather than hearing your droid tell you that he's adjusted the food dispensers because he thinks you're all getting fat, it will now be muffled out whenever you turn your back to him."

"IS THIS THE REASON WHY I CAN'T HEAR MY OTHER COMPANIONS AS WELL, NOT TO MENTION MY SPEEDER FROM TIME TO TIME? EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE MY COMMANDER IS EVEN TRYING TO GIVE ME ORDERS AND I CAN SEE HER LIPS MOVING BUT I CAN'T HEAR HER."

"Yes John. The "fix" for the droid sounds might be the cause of your problems. Unfortunately we've been unable to find any official comments about this issue. It's got so bad that even some of our raiders are having problems during specific boss fights as the bosses aren't talking to us, we're having to read their mind to work out what they're doing. We've found that sometimes restarting your PC can fix this issue, but it seems to be completely random."

"WELL THAT SUCKS! LET'S HOPE THEY FIX IT SOON! I'M GLAD IT'S NOT THESE EXPLOSIONS THAT ARE MAKING ME HARD OF HEARING THOUGH!"

Have you been experiencing audio issues? Have you found a fix that might help others? please let us know in the comments below.

New Warzone Daily Mission you don't need to win!

Now live in patch 1.2.3:

With this change, daily Warzone missions now require "6 played matches," however any win in a Warzone counts as 2 "played matches". This still provides a solid incentive for you to win, but also allows players who lose matches to progress their daily mission by participating.

Link

I have to do some testing to see what this dose to AFK players do you get credit for no medals? We will see how it works out! I for one will go back to doing daily's on my republic avatars!

The Old Republic Official Podcast

I'm listening to this right now some nice tidbits in this MP3 but no real big news yet enjoy!

Hello everyone! My name is Eric Musco and I, along with Brooks Guthrie are happy to bring you episode one of the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ podcast, “Rocket Boots”. You can listen by using the embedded player, by downloading and listening on your preferred MP3 player, or check it out on our YouTube channel.


In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Erickson and Damion Schubert to talk about what we saw in Game Update 1.2 and what we can expect as we look forward to Game Update 1.3. Also, David Bass stops by to tell us about how things went at PAX East and share some of our convention plans for the rest of the year. If you have any questions or comments about the show, feel free to let us know in this forum thread.


Listen to the MP3 Now!


Thanks for listening!




Transcript:

Brooks: Hello everyone. Welcome to the official Star Wars™: the Old Republic™ Podcast. I'm Brooks Guthrie

Eric: And I am Eric Musco and on today's episode we sit down with Damion Schubert and Daniel Erickson to talk about Game Update 1.2 and some of the exciting things coming Game Update 1.3 and we also talked to David Bass about PAX East and all the exciting conventions we are going to be going to later this year.

All right and we are joined today by two awesome gentlemen right here at BioWare, Austin. I am just going to let you guys introduce yourself and what your title is and if you could tell us a little bit about what you do here at the studio

.

Damion: I'm Damion Schubert a Dark Warlord Systems Design.

Daniel: This is Daniel Erickson coming at you at Lead Designer and I'm dedicated to doing radio voice for the whole interview

Brooks: Excellent.

Eric: I am going to be really impressed if you pull that off

Daniel: I will be too

Eric: Because I have no radio voice. We often talk about this. I just speak normally and Brooks goes into his radio voice and it is really impressive and I am just like I can talk into a microphone.

Daniel: I was actually told numerous times when I was doing theatre in the university that I had a great voice for cartoons or radio and I believe the implication was a face for radio as well.

Brooks: And that remains today.

Eric: Yeah, so as you know 1.2 came out a little bit ago. Why don't you guys talk about some of the big changes that came in 1.2? What is some of your philosophies were going into making some of those big changes?

Damion: Well the cool thing about how we did this particular patch 1.2 is that we really experimented more with letting the teams own the features a lot more and not being as top down and like for example the GUI customization team take that ball and run with it and I think there you see an excellent example how that philosophy came to life and they did way more than we expected. They thought of lots of things that weren't in the original design document. I think the quality of that feature really speaks for itself and you know that is a philosophy we really want to sort of spread out through all of the teams in the future so all of the features are just taken to the hilt and are as good as they possibly can be.

Daniel: One of the things about 1.2 sorry no, I probably can't hold that up for 15 minutes. The Legacy was obviously the big piece for 1.2 that we are excited about and Legacy had been in the works forever. I went back and looked at original design docs, you know, when we had 8 pages with the entire really high level design pitch and it has got my really, really bad little family tree. One of the things that was already hard for us was that it involved so many of our systems coming together and working together and playing nicely that it took a lot more work we thought in the very last minute to pull it all together but it was beautiful to see it actually come out.

Eric: So one of the things you actually said Damion I think is really interesting is that you know in 1.2 you ended up with some maybe additions to features but maybe new features but additions to features that weren't originally planned. Can you give me an example of what that might have looked like?

Damion: A good example is the guild banks where we started with a fairly cut and dry implementation of guild banks going to the system and when we looked at it, for example, we looked at it and realized, "Hey, you know what logging all of the cash events at separate log entries just really sucks for a lot of reasons." It pushes out all of the events of somebody looting your guild bank because we can restore so many messages.

Eric: Right.

Damion: It is also impossible for you to tell how much people are actually contributing because you can't get every possible log message and so the team took it upon themselves to add the guild ledger, which is a simple idea but also you know one of the small ideas that just makes the whole system so much easier and so much better to use and it is so much easier for guild masters to observe what is going on inside of the guild and to figure out who the dead beats are and so, you know, it is little things like that that you see-

Daniel: Some good things to know, yeah.

Damion: It is little things like that that you see throughout the systems that were implementing in 1.2, where they got a lot of love.

Daniel: Yeah I think the one that I got the whole time was so we had a Legacy strike team and we are working really hard on that stuff and they just added a bunch of stuff that basically if you heard giggling from over there, especially if you heard some very distinctly William Wallace giggling then you know you would go over there and you go, "Hey what have you got going on?” “Look, look, rocket boots!"

Damion: Ah, the rocket boots.

Daniel: I am like, "What are you doing with rocket boots?" "We’re going to put in rocket boots!" and I am like, "I don't remember anything in the design-” and they’re like, "Rocket boots!" And I’m like, “Alright, alright.”

Brooks: Oh my god.

Eric: That was a William Wallace special?

Daniel: Yeah the rocket boots.

Eric: We would like to personally thank William Wallace then for the rocket boots because they are awesome.

Daniel: Well I am not sure, hold on - that is the great thing about strike teams. I m not sure where that originated on that team, but that definitely came out of Will's team as did the unarmed brawling game, which was another one that I showed up one day and they said, "Look what we can do?" and I am like, "Okay, are we doing it?" And they’re like, "Yeah!" Alright, we are going to brawl.

And once I actually sat down and played with it I was like, "Okay, this is pretty fun." And then the role playing stuff literally I'd asked, "Just go through the whole game and just try to find everything that you could find for emotes that we don't have access to." And yeah, just watching stuff develop there, where it's really people's passion going out and saying, "Hey, this is what I'd like to add to this feature."

Damion: Design is most fun when people are building stuff that they like and people are building features that they could love and put a bit of themselves into and so we started to design documents that are very level and have a charter but again you know really what we want to do is most of our team plays the game, most of our team loves the game, and they have ideas of how to make the game better and some extent being me and Daniel our job is to keep them in between the lines. Make sure they don't go off reservation.

Eric: Rocket boots, rocket boots.

Daniel: Damion and I having different lines.

Damion: Well, you know, I personally liked the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine Speeder Bike but-

Daniel: I didn't like it. I know, I know.

There will be no Scooby Doo Mystery Machine Speeder Bike.

Brooks: So obviously 1.2 is out and, you know, people are enjoying at this point, but we still have a lot of stuff coming up next. One of the things that we pulled from 1.2 was ranked warzones and expect those to be coming in soon again. Can you guys talk a little bit about that decision and, you know, what the process is going to be for getting that back in to players?

Damion: That is pretty easy I mean we have very high standards for how good the feature needs to be and it was clear that this feature in that implementation wasn't good enough to be in a BioWare game. Right? And it is important to people because it’s how people interact with each other. We want to be sure that people weren't doing cheesy things that made other people feel like the system wasn't capturing it properly. It needs a little bit more time to cook and so we put the feature and we would do it again. We have a pretty high commitment to making sure you guys get the best as soon as possible.

Daniel: Yeah and one of the things about PTS, the public test server that is incredibly important to understand is we put stuff up there because we want fan feedback. We want the players to get in there and play with it and they did get to play the ranked warzones and they looked at the way stuff worked especially some of the stuff, the queuing system and they are very subtly and in a very polite way said, "You're dumb. This is dumb." And at that point, deciding that it is more important to have a date, deciding that you are going to put stuff up, tell the communities to test it and then ignore their feedback and push it out anyway. It is just not doing good service. All it lets you to do is check a box and say, "Hey, we have this feature." But it is not something that we can be proud off.

Ranked Warzones are coming back and they are coming back soon and they are coming back in a design that has been vetted and tested and that we feel really good about it.

Damion: One of the things about systems like ranked warzones, there is a certain category of systems that is really hard for us to test internally and we could test the mechanics of how they work, but, you know, we really need to get them in front of a lot of people playing naturally to be able to see whether or not they are actually good, fair, balanced and all that stuff. All of the operations testing we can sort of test how good an operation is internally, but it is not until people get in to their real characters and what not they get genuine feedback in terms of-

Daniel: Well a lot of that testing, a lot of that playing naturally is playing in ways that there is no way to predict because you have got some crazy idea of what are you going to try to accomplish, right? It is very had to put a tester in front of something and say, "Try to really cheat." "Well what, cheat how?" "I don't know be creative and just try to break all of this."

Damion: Especially when a system like ranked warzones requires dozens or hundreds of people to test and an operation takes 8 or 16 people in order to do one iteration of fight. I mean really the PTS is there and it is where we get most of our valuable qualitative feedback about systems like that and it is really valuable for us to get people on to that server so we can get that feedback.

Daniel: Right our primary job when you are talking about really big systems like that is to make sure that it gets to PTS without bugs.

Damion: Yeah.

Daniel: Right so it gets in there without big obvious things that are breaking in there. That it is working as designed, but now we actually have to vet the design. One of those things that I know sometimes designers don't like to admit is-

Damion: We’re full of it about half the time?

Daniel: I was going to say it’s a very iterative process. There’s a lot of times-

Eric: You can see where those lines are drawn right now.

Brooks: That would be a very nice way of saying it.

Daniel: There is a lot of times that you have got a great theory especially if you are trying to do anything new, if you trying to do anything that is not exactly pulled from somewhere else then you are just doing guess work until humans take a look at what you have built and say, "Hah, you have developed something well" or "Hmmm."

Damion: I think, if you look at the long view this project over the entire time we’ve developed it, I think that there are certainly some things in the background or the history of this project that people would be astonished that we tried to get in and we looked at - said, "Yeah, that is not going to fly." There are a lot of ideas that are good in your head or good on paper then you put it in and it is like, "Oh wait this is too simple, this is too complicated, this is not a right fit for the systems in the game.” It actually happens an awful lot and one of the things that we have tried to focus on doing is try to get the systems to a point where we can iterate on them as fast as possible.

Eric: Speaking of systems that we are going to be able to iterate on, why don’t we talk a little about 1.3? 1.3 is our next content patch that is coming out, why don’t you guys talk a little bit about what players can expect to see in 1.3?

Damion: 1.3 is, well, it is the group finder patch. That’s not the official name, but really that is our top priority. We have some other features that we are going to go and put inside of it but really this is us really getting a group finder to you guys as fast as humanly possible.

Brooks: I am super excited about group finder because that is one of the biggest things that I have run into in lower game is finding groups and actually being able to run those flashpoints that I get. For players who have maybe never used a group finder before, and I know we have plenty of those, what is that actually going to look like in the game?

Damion: It is fairly simple and basically what we want to do is to give you a really simple front end that you can use as well as those give you the ability to fine tune your choices a little more so the really simple approach is you open a group finder you choose what role - tank, heal or DPS - that you are willing to fulfill and you can choose multiple if your class can fill multiple and then you choose what kind of content that you want to do and that content is going to be flashpoints, heroic flashpoints, operations although story mode operations only for now and then world content, the planetary content where you basically say I want a quest on Belsavis.

Then if you hit select from there, then it will try to find people who want to do that stuff. Now if there is a particular dungeon or particular planet that you want to do by default what it does it gets you to the level of appropriate flashpoints for you. If you really want to the quest in the Mandalorian Raiders flashpoint for example you can go and unselect everything else and just say, "Hey, I just want to sign up for that." And the group finder will try to find other people who are looking for that content as well so that is a great way for you to target certain quests that you want to accomplish. We felt that was important in our game because of where the game is right now where people are trying to clear out their quest logs and accomplish certain goals in certain places.

However, if you play the random game, especially for flashpoints and heroic flashpoints, and you just set yourself purely random then like yeah we are going to throw a cookie at you. We are going to give you, I forgot what the itemization guys ended up offering, but you are going to want to try to do a random dungeon day I believe. The patch is also mostly going to be a features patch. It’s going to have a slightly shorter development time than the last patch and it is going to be content light, but it is going to have a heavy focus on a couple of key features that we felt were really important to be giving to you guys.

Daniel: You are also getting the next part of Legacy, which we had a little in-game advert going for that beforehand, which are your character perks, which is that is all about the uniqueness of your character how you want to play each individual character. Hey, you know what I want to actually get my speeder early. I want to get more XP from PvP. I want to really sort of shape how I am going to play this guy. I have already played another character maybe I want to see different content but I want to be able to just mostly do that content and still get my character up at the same rate which brings a lot of exciting stuff and although Legacy will keep going after that and we will continue to expand it, those are really the two biggest thematic concepts that will be there for the players.

Damion: And then we have two key itemization features that are coming to you guys that I think will be really good for the end game players in particular. The first is augment tables and what this is going to allow you to do is to allow you to add an augment slot which is the slot that crafters get for free whenever they get a critical hit crafting item. It will allow you to use item modification table anywhere in the game to add an augment slot to any piece of wearable gear armor and get that augment slot so that will pretty much allow all of our gear at the end game to be equivalent to each other, which will solve a lot of the itemization problems that we have had in the past.

The other thing that personally I am excited about is adaptive gear. Adaptive gear is the ability for some gear, in particular social gear, to morph its armor rating based on the skill of the wearer the short form is that, yes, you can now tank in a bikini. I know that is important to some people. It also means that things like the - was it the pilot outfit - the sand trooper, the sand person outfit all of those things in particular on the social vendors as well as the armor on the collector's edition vendors and the security vendors all that stuff will be able to be worn at end game, especially when you combine it with the augment table technology.

Brooks: So how does one exactly role play a body type four Sith Warrior Juggernaut tanking in explosive content? Anyone know how that goes?

Eric: I think he just explained it.

Daniel: Did you just refer to the bikini as explosive content?

Brooks: I may have! And I think that I how he explained it.

Eric: I think it is self explanatory.

Brooks: Yeah.

Eric: So basically it seems like you are making the changes towards basically allowing a player to look however they want to accomplish any goal they want to, I mean, if someone wants to tank in a bikini. You know, some people want to tank and look like they are Darth Vader fantasy have just being in tons of armor and being able to take a lot of hits. Whereas other people, for some reason, want to tank in bikini.

Daniel: Well a lot of it is about giving people goals and a lot of those goals tend to be being able to make yourself an individual. Being able to do something that is a little above and beyond so it is never going to be as easy as it is to just go get your end game gear cause you are still going to need your mods, you are going to have to do that stuff, right, but if you want to take the extra step to say, "Hey, I am not just going to be the guy who got this stuff. I am going to be the guy who is going to go in and show off in the raid" or "I am going to be the guy who is going to go in and punk you in the warzone wearing this ridiculous outfit." There is definitely a player base that is a great goal to set up for.

Damion: And it has always been the goal of the itemization team that the mod system eventually become the ability for you to preserve and keep whatever appearance you wanted really and these two pieces of technology are really the two largest remaining steps that we needed to get to that place or I think there are still a couple of more things they want to do but I think with this piece of technology they are are pretty much almost there.

Eric: So if you are that guy who has an entire bank bay filled with orange gear… like me. 1.3 is made for you?

Damion: Correct.

Eric: Awesome, awesome, well do you guys have anything else to add before we wrap it up.

Damion: Not yet, not yet. 1.4 is shaping up to be quite an impressive patch as well. I can't wait to talk about it, but that is not this particular podcast so…

Daniel: No, I would say I had a ton and ton of fun playing with all of you as Rakghouls and I can't wait for more of that.

Eric: That was a really, really awesome event, for sure. Damion, Daniel, thanks for joining us on today's podcast.

Daniel: Thank you.

Eric: And then we are going to take a quick break and then we will be back to talk with David Bass about Star Wars: the Old Republic's presence at PAX East.

Eric: And we are back and joined by Senior Tauntaun Manager David Bass. I am kidding. That is the title he wanted, so David introduce yourself.

David: We had a Junior Tauntaun Manager, but unfortunately we ran into some complications on Hoth.

Eric: So why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about what you actually do?

David: I’m one of the senior community coordinators here mostly I focus on what we call external community so fan sites, guilds, any websites that really cover our stuff is mostly where you will find me typically and then I also run a lot of the events that we do around the world each year.

Eric: And that is a perfect transition as to why you are here today. Tell us a little bit about what we brought to PAX East this year?

David: PAX East was actually a lot of fun. This was our first show post-launch. What was our last show? New York Comic Con last year right? So it has been a long time since we did a show. This was our first convention since we launched and there is a big, big difference between a launched event at a convention versus a pre-launch event. I think you both are at PAX East last year before you worked for us right?

Brooks: That is correct.

David: And PAX East last year was absolutely insane.

Brooks: Nuts.

Eric: That was what? 9 hours lines to play the game?

Brooks: Yeah.

David: Yeah, last year within the first 30 seconds of the show…

Brooks: Exactly, yeah it was crazy.

David: We were showing off Taral V so we had like a nice, long 40 minute demo with like tutorial before that and everything. Big, big epic experience lots of people excited. Now that the game is launched it calms down a little bit more. We still get a lot of foot traffic at the booth, we still get a ton of people coming, but now these guys are actually players. They are not people who are like, "Oh man I am so excited I can't wait till this game comes out." It is like, "Oh man the game is out I am having a great time here I got tons of questions. I got like a lot of things to say about the game and I want to come and hang out." So the booth kind of shifted this year for more of like a presentation crazy like, "Oh man we are awesome epic thing" to like, "Hey let's have a community style booth. Let's have everyone come hangout. Let's have everyone just chill out with us."

We basically had a part of the booth that was showing off game update 1.2 because it was about a week before the update came out so people could just walk up and play, but the other half of the booth we call the community lounge, which was basically a bunch of chairs and sofas where anyone could just come and hang out, plop down, drop their stuff, sit and talk. And then we had a lot of developers just hanging out there the whole weekend. So at any one point you can just come on the booth and Damion Schubert will be sitting there and just go talk to him or Cameron, one of our combat designers, people will just approach and be like, "Yo, you nerf my class" and then he would be happy to explain that why exactly, why he nerfed your class or why in fact that nerf was actually a buff.

Eric: Right and so one of the big appeals of course, Senior Tauntaun Manager, this year was our Taun Fawn Pet we were giving out at the booth. Why don't you tell everybody about the Taun Fawn and if they’ll be able to get it anywhere else this year?

David: A Taun Fawn is a event exclusive item. It is a special baby Tauntaun. There is a couple other baby Tauntauns in the game right now that you can get through a variety of different methods, but he is a little black and white speckled Tauntaun.

Eric: Who is adorable.

Brooks: He is adorable.

David: And we gave out a bunch of codes at PAX for anyone who stops by the booth to grab one, but we will also have that Taun Fawn with us at all the other events this year so you can just any show anywhere check our events page.

Brooks: I mean speaking of events. Go to the website, but obviously David I am sure you know exactly where we are going to be this year. What is coming up next in terms of big events for Star Wars™?

David: We announced a couple of the events for the year so far. I don't know if that is all of them for the year but we will be at E3 in June. We will have more details on that when the time comes. After that our next public show is going to be San Diego Comic Con which is in San Diego if you weren't aware. But we will be there like we were like last year and then after that is GamesCom which is in Cologne, Germany and then after that is Star Wars Celebration, which I am so excited about.

Brooks: Star Wars Celebration is going to be awesome, for sure.

David: I have never been. Most of us haven't been I don't think. It is a convention that happens once every 2 years and it is just all things Star Wars. It is an actual Lucas Film convention and just Star Wars fans from around the world come together in Orlando to just hang out and talk about their love of Star Wars for a couple of days so we are really excited and we are planning to do some really cool stuff there.

Brooks: I am actually looking at a board of ideas right now. It is pretty awesome.

David: Oh yeah. I forgot to erase that. Yeah, but we got a lot of cool ideas in mind for things we want to do at Celebration. I know they still have tickets left so if anyone wants to go you should definitely drop by the Celebration website and pick up some tickets because we are going to be really doing some real fun stuff there.

Eric: Sure. And I know a lot of people have had a ton of questions about the Taun Fawn post PAX East about it there is there any other ways to get it. Now you know, just stop by any of our shows we will be all over the country in various places and make sure to stop by the booth and we will happily hand you your very own Taun Fawn.

David: Yeah we got codes and just find a BioWare employee and we will have codes for you.

Brooks: Now I heard a rumor at PAX East that there was some kind of dance contest that occurred.

David: Okay that was true. Well once you kind of run on a very little sleep after a couple of days you start trying to entertain yourselves by making people do silly things for rewards. I think Alyson Bridge… was it the first day or the second day?

Eric: Every day, actually.

David: It was every day?

Eric: Yeah.

David: She just decided we were going to do a baby Tauntaun dance off party so we scheduled it a couple of times a day and we had people get up on stage and show us their best Tauntaun dance and then we give them prizes based on who won each time and it was amazing.

Brooks: I think that should be a tradition this year.

Eric: But by far the best was I think there was a 7 year old… I think his name was Zack if I remember. But it was like a 7-year-old that did it on the last day and he just tore it up the whole crowd just went crazy.

David: And as soon as a 7 year old walks up on stage, you are like well I know who is going to win this one.

Eric: Right.

David: Yeah, but he just went all out crazy with the Tuantaun dance.

Brooks: So moral of the story if you are planning on coming to an event for us this year make sure to practice your Tauntaun dance.

David: Don't be surprised if we make you do things for a code.

Brooks: Yeah.

David: Yes.

Eric: All right David thank you for joining us. Do you have anything else you would like to add?

David: We are just really excited to see all the players in all these events this year so come on out to any of the cities like I said check the events page and we will be happy to meet up with you and chat and buy you a drink.

Eric: And hand you a Tauntuan.

David: And hand you a Tauntaun or three.

Eric: All right thank you David.

David: Thank you.

Brooks: All right so big thanks to Damion, Daniel and David for taking time out for the work day to join us. I am really excited about what is coming up and the game and one thing what Daniel mentioned very quickly that we didn't spend a lot of time on was the Rakghoul event.

Eric: Yeah the Rakghoul event was just an absolute giant pile of fun. What did you love most about the event?

Brooks: My favorite thing is just seeing disease spread and I know like is like really dark and gloomy to say, but it was just so cool to be just like in a warzone be it Alderaan or whatever and everyone is duking it out the middle someone dies and then just like the plague explodes everywhere and coats everyone.

Eric: Yeah it was pretty amusing. I loved when I was doing the scavenger hunt quest to work on getting the little red Rakghoul and it was just me and three of my friends and I am on a PvP server and it was amusing just seeing four level 50's roaming around on Tatooine and all of a sudden you would come across level 20 and I am like, "Uh their name is in red I have to hit them," but it was just I really, really enjoyed the world PvP that kind of just spawned from the other band ,and I spent a lot of time in my Tatooine during the event. It was a lot of fun.

Brooks: Yeah, yeah and I mean who doesn't love a little crimson rakling like that is the most adorable thing.

Eric: It is strangely adorable. I mean you wouldn't think that a little tiny Rakghoul will be a cute pet but man that thing is cute.

Brooks: You would think so and completely unique. So yeah, I think that is going to be it for episode 1 and I really enjoyed this first episode. If you missed our pilot episode you can go back and listen to that we talked to Cameron and Austin from the combat team about combat things naturally. Musco, why don't you tell everyone how they can get the show?

Eric: All right so as you already know you might be listening to the show right now on StarWarstheOldRepublic.com so you can listen to it there. Just like our pilot we will have this available on YouTube as well so make sure you subscribe to our channel. Unfortunately, it is taking a little bit longer than we expected so we don't have the RSS available yet for this episode so you won't be able to get it on iTunes quite yet but we hope to have that very, very soon along with our own Podcast page right here on StarWarstheOldRepublic.com. So make sure as always just stay tuned to the website for updates and as always you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter and you can find us through all of those and we will give you announcements there when our next Podcast is available as well.

Brooks: Yeah, yeah and feel free to give us feedback you know I really enjoyed reading through the thread last time and you know obviously the biggest thing was RSS feed for the show and it is coming but until next time.

Eric: Yup and fun fact for the episode, Brooks.

Brooks: Oh yeah.

Eric: Everyone who is on this show aside from you and I their name starts with "D."

Brooks: Wow! How about that.

Eric: I think like the next we should get Dallas Dickenson on here or something else just to continue that trend.

Brooks: Yes, all the D's, all the D's.

Eric: Or maybe we should move to E next time so we continue along on the alphabet and then I will win.

Brooks: You will win.

Eric: Yeah we skipped to B unfortunately.

Brooks: Yeah we are screwed there.

Eric: All right guys thanks for joining us.

Brooks: May the force be with you.