[SWTOR] Rise of the Hutt Cartel - Disponible el 14 de abril

1. What was the development timeframe for ROTHC expansion like? Was it under development before the game’s launch or shortly after?
Brian Audette: There were elements of what would become Rise of the Hutt Cartel kicking around as far back as launch, but it wasn’t until late last summer that we really started working on it in earnest as the product we see today.

2. Are digital expansions the size and scope of ROTHC something we can expect for future expansions in SWTOR?
Brian: I think there is absolutely the possibility of future digital expansions of this size and scope, but digital expansions are only part of our update strategy for SWTOR. Players can expect to see a ton of exciting content coming their way as part of our regular updates over the next year and beyond.

3. How long is the Makeb storyline? Approximately How many hours would it take an average player to complete it?
Brian: Questions like that are hard to answer since every player will play through the game at a different pace, but there’s a TON more content than just the Makeb storyline in Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid storyline quests make up a significant portion of the content as well and there are plenty of repeatable daily and weekly quests as well as new Reputation Organizations to gain favor with.

4. Makeb is the first planet in SWTOR where players can experience same sex romance options in the storyline. Can we expect to see more of this in future stories or as modifications in existing storylines?
Brian: While adding same sex romance options to existing storylines is a bit difficult, we absolutely plan to add more same sex romance options to future story content. What you’ll see in Rise of the Hutt Cartel is just the beginning.

5. The latest operation, Scum & Villainy, has such a distinctive feel to it. The location is vastly different. The mechanics and boss fights are unlike anything we’ve seen up until this point. What were the inspiration for these new mechanics and boss fights? Can we expect future operations to be equally unique? Can we also expect operations to be even longer or tougher in the future?
Jesse Sky: Our boss designers and artists have raid experience going back to EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot, and a few of us are nostalgic for the atmosphere that MMOs created in their dungeons 10 years ago. For Scum & Villainy, we decided that the theme would be a midnight infiltration of an arms bazaar on a remote desert world. Thematically, I definitely think it’s our strongest Operation to date. The mechanics come primarily from our sentimental ideas about each boss’s personality. We have, for example, Titan-6 – the loneliest war droid there ever was. He’s so massive, he couldn’t fit inside the city. They stuck him outside the gates, and I suspect it hurt his feelings.
Conceptualizing an Operation, the environment, and the bosses is probably the most rewarding part of working on the elder game in SW:TOR. If we ever get lazy, our writers inevitably hand us awesome source material that inspires us to do something more interesting. So yeah, I think you can expect more like this.
I doubt we’ll make future Operations any longer than Scum & Villainy – seven lockouts is pushing what you can clear in a single evening. However, we may explore breaking the areas into halves or wings, if it makes sense thematically. S&V is where we want Hard Modes to be in terms of difficulty. If you want something even more challenging, look forward to Nightmare Mode!

6. Will there be a bonus boss in Scum and Villainy like the Dreadful Entity in Terror from Beyond? Will we see a use for the Dreadful Orb in ROTHC?
Jesse: You really shouldn’t play around with strange objects you find in caves. Bad things could happen.

7. Will there be a world boss comparable in difficulty (or harder) to Nightmare Pilgrim or Dreadtooth on Makeb?
Brian: We’ve got something even better. There is an all new lair boss on Makeb designed to be tackled by level 55 groups and because it has its own instanced area, we’ve been able to do things with it that we never could have done with public bosses like Nightmare Pilgrim. It’s quite literally a blast.

8. The newly introduced Legacy achievement system is great for the completionist among us. Will we see rewards beyond cartel coins and titles in the system? (i.e. unique mounts or armor)?
Brian: There is definitely the possibility to expand on the kinds of rewards we offer for Legacy Achievements. Since the system is tied to Legacy, we have to be careful to ensure it plays nicely with your alts. We’re also hoping to add more achievements that change the way you approach the content and give you a new experience.

9. Balancing class skills/abilities is obviously very complicated. What were the major considerations, challenges, or design philosophy to ensure balance amongst classes as the skill trees expanded from 50-55?
Rob Hinkle: One of the biggest challenges in facing good class balance inside SWTOR is trying to create and validate fun gameplay with good balance for all of the possible combinations of points players can put into the skill trees. As we add more points into the skill tree, that increases the possible combinations, and as such increases the difficulty and time we need to feel confident in our changes. Even beyond that, ToR is over a year old now, and we really needed to do some work on a number of the skills trees, as some just hadn’t quite developed in the way we envisioned. The result in 2.0 and RotHC should be a better minute to minute play experience for all classes, while maintaining good balance between each of the classes/skill trees.

10. Other than the two new sets of gear and the new bolster system, any there anything else PvPers can look forward to in the ROTHC expansion?
Rob: Our biggest goal for 2.0 and PvP was to further tighten up how players of varying degrees of gear can play together inside Warzones. Previously, we had a lot of feedback that the competition in the 10 – 49 bracket was pretty solid, but as soon as players hit level 50 things became rocky. The gap between fresh 50s, and those with top end gear was simply too big, and it left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths turning them off from PvP. With our new bolster system, we feel like we’ve made everyone in the Warzone able to participate (without having to use a crutch like the Recruit gear system that required players to actually do something), while still leaving some advantage for those players who work hard and want to get PvP gear. We have got some exciting things planned for PvP this year, but getting the bedrock of the system into a better spot was the main focus for 2.0.

11. Can you elaborate on the design process for the two new tiers of armor models in ROTHC? What was the inspiration for these armor models?
Jesse: Parts of the new armor models are inspired by motifs in classic Star Wars outfits. There’s a lot of Dengar in the Underworld Bounty Hunter set, for example. The Underworld Sith Warrior set actually makes me envious, as a dark Jedi – it’s got a lot of Vader in it. I’ll probably end up dressing my Jedi in the Trooper kit, because I love the bandana.
Thematically, the new armor models have a loose association – we tried to shoot for things that felt appropriate on a desert world like Darvannis, but we were mostly drawing from a pool of art created before the content was conceptualized. In the future, tier gear will be more closely linked with the content, artistically.

12. The new tiers of endgame gear at L55 are particularly endurance heavy. Is this a way to combat possible stat inflation or as a direct response to certain operation mechanics?
Jesse: No specific reason. It’s just the beginning of a new gear cycle, and we played it a bit conservative with the stats, since a lot of the math changed with the new level cap. You’ll probably have more ways to optimize in future updates.

13. What were some of the obstacles the design team had to overcome in designing a planet as lush and vibrant as Makeb?
Brian: Anytime we do a space with as much vertical geometry as Makeb, building the 2-dimensional maps is a unique challenge. There’s also a lot of animated geometry on Makeb and that forced us to think about visual optimization in different ways.
The great part about developing new content for an already launched product is that in launching that product you’ve learned a lot about what you can and can’t do well. Because of that we went into Makeb with our technical and design limitations in mind and were able to make something that reached further than existing content, but was still firmly within our grasp to create.

14. Players have being asking for some sort of minigame in SWTOR. Are there anything in the new expansion that they can look forward to?
Brian: While a bit more robust than "minigames" our new Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid content definitely fits that category of cool new things to do in SWTOR outside of the standard game play that people are used to.
Macrobinoculars will allow players to see the world in a different way and to identify otherwise hidden or mundane objects in order to complete quests and rack up achievements.
The Seeker Droid will let players play "treasure hunter" and search dig sites throughout the galaxy in hopes of finding unique items, artifacts, and gear.
Both features are introduced by their own exciting series of story quests that will take players across the galaxy to address all-new threats to the Empire and Republic. There is also a set of daily and weekly quests that will offer commendation rewards as well as reputation with a new organization.

15. What is part of the new expansion are you looking forward to the most?
Brian: I’m most looking forward to taking my existing level 50 characters through the all new story content on Makeb and for the Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid. This is easily some of the best leveling content I’ve ever played and even once it’s done, there’s tons of exciting repeatable content to do and gear to be acquired. Most of all I want my characters to be ready for everything else we have planned for upcoming releases.

Where does the development team stand with regards to individual class stories? Are these still a priority for upcoming content?
Great question. The way you choose to overcome your own personal villains is a crucial part of what defines your character, and once you’ve gotten closure on your personal story, you’re ready to be a key player in the larger conflicts that threaten the Empire and the Republic. Moving forward, we’re focusing on those stories – conflicts that decide the fate of the entire Galaxy and demand the attention of other living legends like yourself. You can still put your personal touch on these stories, and you’ll develop relationships just like before, but now the stakes are higher, and the experience can be shared with your friends.

Players are very curious about the decision to make Cathar the next playable race, as opposed to seemingly more popular choices such as Ithorians, Wookies, or even Droids. How did the development team arrive at the decision to choose Cathar, and what other kinds of races can we expect in the future?
What do you mean, a lot of folks love the Cathar! You’ve got a great point though – the popularity of different races varies wildly from player to player. My personal favorite is Mon Calamari! They are decidedly not very Imperial though. We think Cathar is a great start and equitable for both factions. Future races are definitely a possibility and community popularity will be a huge deciding factor if and when we do pick them.

Are there currently any plans, even in the long run, of introducing new classes, or further specializing an advanced class?
There are no current plans along these lines. We are very excited to share the new post-level 50 abilities we have added to classes, and our reworking of the talent trees to respond to community feedback and help improve balance. After Rise of the Hutt Cartel we want our class designers working on continued engagement with the community and addressing balance and support of our 16 advanced classes.

Generally speaking, players are mostly concerned about seeing new game modes, or new maps for existing game modes; the example here would be Huttball. Will we see the addition of more Huttball maps in the future? Also, will more PvP content in general be rolled out in the near future?
Ahh, PvP! This is a topic near and dear to my heart. We have an outstanding PvP community and are committed to making them happy. There is a lot of interest in the community and on our team around a new Huttball map. We definitely have this on the list of things we want to do. But! Before adding a new warzone we have a couple more pressing things to do first though. First, our PvP gear progression and PvE gear progression are stepping all over each other’s toes. This is resolved in Game Update 2.0 and Rise of the Hutt Cartel. Secondly, our Ranked Warzones are still in “Pre-Season” and getting Ranked Warzones to pop is just too difficult right now. Third, there are PvP features in the works to allow the consummate PvP professional to really stretch their muscles. A new Warzone is behind all these initiatives and so likely not going to happen anytime soon.

Are there any plans in the near future to further implement light side and dark side ranks, with respect to rewards, unlocks, and even consequences?
Not in the near future. A higher priority on our list is a ‘grey Jedi’ option for role-players (like me) who want to balance out their Light and Dark side choices.

Will we see the inclusion of future companions, related to class stories or otherwise?
Yes! Adding new companions to class stories is harder than it sounds though, so new companions will more likely have their own storylines like HK-51.

Many players that are interested in Role Playing are curious about the following features: Chat Bubbles, the ability to sit on all forms of furniture, being able to enter their own backstory prior to the start of their class story (in the form of a paragraph that could be read upon inspection), or just updates in general that will support the ability to Role Play.
We’re always looking to add things that enhance and support roleplaying, but we have to weigh the impact some of these new features might have on performance or other quality-of-life improvements. There may be room for us to create specific social spaces with sittable furniture, for example, but converting all furniture in the game would be a monumental task.

What do the developers think of introducing dual-spec, and if it's being considered, how likely or close is it to being implemented?
We developers are also players ourselves, so the answer to that is easy. We love the idea! Given that it would make our players very happy too, it’s pretty high on the list of things we want to tackle sometime soon.

More than half of the requests I received all wanted to know the status of the "Secret Space Project". Any light you can shed on this one?
<puts pinky finger to corner of mouth and grins> Not at this time.

Small mini-games, such as Pazaak, Swoop Racing, etc, would be very popular with the playerbase; many have even suggested a Hutt-run Casino. Thoughts on this?
Yes! One thing you have seen with our events is that they are all very unique. Introducing mini-games is definitely on the table among all the neat ideas we are swirling around for future events.

By and large the most requested question had to be improvements to the recipe book. At present, finding the correct enhancement means wading through more than 100 possible options to get just the right one. Any plans to refine the book by offering filtering or search options?
We’ll make sure that’s on our list of future quality-of-life improvements.

As far as settings and environments go, let's look beyond Makeb. Are the developers already working on the "next big thing"? And, if so, will we see some of the more famous Star Wars locations?
Yes! And Yes! <Starts to tell you, then gets smacked by our publicist and gets back on message>

But enough about that, we are here to talk about Rise of the Hutt Cartel! We are very excited for our players to see what we’ve been working on! Go play Double XP weekends on Live right now, and pre-order Rise of the Hutt Cartel to get the cool pre-order items! I’ll see you on Makeb! (I’ll be the dashing cyborg smuggler)