Star warsthe old republic Content Patch Detailed

By all traditional measures, the launch for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been successful. But as many developers -- especially Funcom and Sony Online Entertainment – can tell you, a successful launch doesn’t mean much unless you follow it up soon with high-quality content patches to keep people interested. That’s what BioWare hopes to do come January 17 with patch 1.1, Rise of the Rakghouls.

We caught up with Gabe Amatangelo, Lead Designer on PvP, Operations and Flashpoints, to talk about what’s on the way with Rise of the Rakghouls as well as what isn’t. The biggest two items on the list are a brand new Flashpoint for level 50 players called Kaon Under Siege, and a new Operation called Karagga’s Palace.

“Kaon Under Siege is the first of a two part storyline,“ says Amatangelo. “The last conflict left a kind of vacuum of power in the galaxy, and so there’s a bunch of contenders for it.“ One of those contenders is the Tion Hegemony, who is harboring a mad scientist intent on creating a new strand of the Rakghoul virus  to make a race of supersoldiers. Players head to Kaon to figure out what’s going on.

“Kaon is a post-apocalyptic city planet,“ Amatangelo tells us. “It’s a new setting, a new atmosphere, a new kind of gameplay experience. Players are going to be going around in these dark environments with flashlights, and there’s going to be monsters jumping out at them from corners and stuff like that.“ The idea, it sounds like, is to replicate the sense of anxiety that is the cornerstone of the survival horror genre -- a tough feat for an MMO, where you’ve got access to hundreds of potential friends at your fingertips. But BioWare is attempting to evoke that feeling through Kaon’s atmosphere. “It’s my personal favorite flashpoint. You’re going through broken-down movie theater settings with this sort of creepy ambiance.“

Kaon Under Siege might have a greater emphasis on story and choices than many of The Old Republic’s other Flashpoints. According to Amatangelo, “It’s a full story Flashpoint – you make choices along the way, they have consequences.“ And for at least one of the encounters, the plan is to shift away from traditional combat. “One of the boss fights is overgrown, mutated Rakghoul, and you’ve got to use the environment to bring him down. There’s explosive materials, and various ledges and stuff you have to use to beat the boss fight.“

The second major chunk of content, Karagga’s Palace, is “the beginning of a story arc that is going to stretch over several of these content updates and patches.“ The same power vacuum that enticed the Tion Hegemony into action has caused the Hutt Cartel to break their traditional neutrality. As a faction with a lot of bank and influence behind them, they are a very real contender for control of the Galaxy. But they’re not working alone.

Karagga’s Palace will be home to four separate encounters. While the traditional boss fights MMO players expect will be present, one encounter will also feature a Towers of Hanoi-style puzzle during the fight. If your guild is full of dummies like my old one was, then there’s a solid chance this’ll be the guild-breaker. The different difficulty levels for Karagga’s Palace will also feature different puzzle difficulty levels.

New encounters naturally come with new gear, and new gear means stat inflation. Not all players mind character stats becoming exorbitantly high, but given World of Warcraft went from about 4,000 HP for max level characters to upwards of 150,000 in about six years, I do. So I asked Gabe Amatangelo about how BioWare plans to keep player stats manageable. “In 1.1 we’re not going to be worrying about that […] but come to the next major update we will. It is a challenge, we’re well aware of it, and we’re taking it seriously.“

As far as PvP goes, Warzones will be gaining a level 50 bracket, as players in max-level PvP gear tent to dominate anyone who isn’t. Ranked Warzones are also on the way, as well as the ability to choose which Warzone you want to participate in. Anyone currently at the level cap of 50 knows that Ilum, The Old Republic’s dedicated open-world PvP zone, is a broken mess. Rather than fight gloriously over valuable objectives, the two factions stand next to each other and take turns activating and deactivating targets so everyone can get credit. For a zone built to encourage slaying, it’s housing the most cooperation I’ve seen in TOR so far. But fixes are on the way. Quest objectives are shifting away from activating and deactivating targets, and the emphasis will be put squarely on killing other players. If no players are around to kill, then collecting crates in the center of the battlefield can push your progress forward as well.

Fixes, additions and enhanced flexibility for the user interface will not be coming in Rise of the Rakghouls. That includes the combat log, an integral part of any serious MMO player’s toolset. UI stuff will be coming later -- possibly the following major patch scheduled for March or April. We also won’t be seeing any direct continuation of the class storylines, nor any solo-specific content in next week’s patch.