Galactic Strongholds - date change and major changes Inc. guild ship info.

BadOrb

To many things to list so I shall just give you Bruce's full article , enjoy , sounds amazing.

Producer Letter – Galactic Strongholds

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Hi everyone!

For the past year, we've made it our goal to share updates and information on what’s happening in the studio and our upcoming plans for the game. We got the message that you appreciate transparency and want to know what we are working on. With that in mind, we wanted to share a change in plans to our most recently announced digital expansion, Galactic Strongholds.

We have been listening to what you, our players, were hoping to see from the Galactic Strongholds expansion. When playing early builds of Galactic Strongholds it became that clear that our June Early Access date was simply not enough. For this to truly feel like an expansion, it needs to include the full set of features, including those originally coming later in the year. So what does this mean? We are moving the start date for Subscriber Early Access from June 24th to August 19th in order to deliver to you the most features at the highest level of quality. The result will be a far more compelling experience, including additional features such as the ability to place your vehicles and pets in your Stronghold and for Guilds to conquer planets . To conquer a planet, Guilds must complete weekly Conquest events earning points to place at the top of the Guild Leaderboards. Conquering a planet gives the Guild special perks and rewards. This means that Subscribers will be the first to play the full slate of expansion features (everything!) at the start of Subscriber Early Access, a month before everyone else.

This additional time allows us to add:

• Conquest Events: use the power of your Stronghold to dominate these events and earn rewards
• Guild Flagships will now offer expanded functionality for Guilds:
  • Provide powerful buffs to Guild members from orbit
  • Transport entire groups to your personal coordinates instantaneously
  • Compete in Conquest Events to conquer entire planets
• New Stronghold: Tatooine Homestead
• Vehicles, Mounts, Pets, and Companion Characters can be placed as decorations in Strongholds

Combine that with the original feature list…

• 3 unique Player Strongholds, one on each Capital World plus the Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace
• 2 faction-specific Guild Flagships (Valor-class Cruiser for the Republic and Harrower-class Dreadnaught for the Empire)
• Legacy Stronghold Storage
• Ability to gain Prestige tracked on Prestige Leaderboards
• Hundreds of Decorations to discover and collect

…and the result is an expansion that’s worth waiting for!

The additional features and time shift means some adjustments in other parts of our plan:

May 4th remains the Subscriber deadline for Bonus Cartel Coins Grant to the sweet tune of 1000 Cartel Coins!

May 11th is no longer the deadline for Strongholds Early Access rewards but as a thank you to all of our Subscribers as of this date, we are giving you the following rewards:

• Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
• Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
• A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"

July 15th is our new deadline for Subscriber Rewards for Early Access, and you must be a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:

• The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"
• Character Title "The Illustrious" (delivered in Game Update 2.9)

August 19th is Game Update 2.9: Galactic Strongholds Digital Expansion Subscriber Early Access!

Preferred Early Access and the Official Launch will follow in September and October. Be sure to visit www.swtor.com/galactic-strongholdsfor more specific dates and details.

Our goal is to keep you informed, so stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for an update on the summer roadmap, including Game Update 2.8. For all of us working on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we appreciate your support. We’re extremely excited about Galactic Strongholds and can’t wait to share it with you. Keep the feedback coming! See you in-game!

Bruce Maclean
Senior Producer

http://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20140423

 

Also a few questions have been answered which are these.

Conquering a planet is done through completion of Conquest Events, which are PvE Missions.

Also, I know this is big news so I am going to be sticking around in the thread answering questions as I can. We probably aren't going to talk too much about the details of each feature yet but I will answer what I can 

-eric

Great question! 2.8 will no longer be the "biggest update to date" as we will be shifting Galactic Strongholds out of it. 2.8 will still be great though, we will have more details about it, and the rest of our plan in Bruce's updated Roadmap. We will have that to you guys in the next few weeks!

-eric

When asked why there was a difference between 3 and 5 rooms.

What this means is that if you are a subscriber on both dates, you will have one Palace with 5 rooms unlocked. It isn't a "stacking" type of thing. June is a basically a smaller version of the May promotion.

-eric

Well then I have good news! Strongholds are Legacy wide, not character specific 

-eric

I will add any additional information as I see it.

So it seems I might have to join a guild , never thought I would ever say that ever.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

BadOrb

More information.

Some questions I am seeing in the thread...

• Companions in Strongholds - I am not sure this is locked down yet but I will see if I can find an answer on specifics.
• Guild Conquests - We are not ready yet to go into super specifics. We will definitely have a blog on this in the future to explain how it all works!
• How do I place decorations? - This is also something we will go into a bit more detail on in the future.

-eric

I know it has been asked so I just want to confirm, Nightmare Dread Palace will still be coming in Game Update 2.8. Again, we will talk about what else is coming in Bruce's Roadmap. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew about that!

-eric

A few other things I have seen in the thread...

• Companions in Strongholds - I was able to talk to the Design team about this. Exactly how it will work is still being worked out. I will post about it in the future once things are a bit more locked down!
• Quick Travel - You can travel to your Stronghold anytime you can use Quick Travel currently. Also, as a subscriber you have a few options on where you can travel to from your Stronghold, including back to the coordinates you just came from.

-eric

Cheers,

BadOrb.

Unknown

guild ships and conquests probably wont effect me but sounds very interesting.  really glad that strongholds will be legacy wide

superniceguy

Nice! Now people have to subscribe another 2 months to get the rewards. This delay was the plan all along!

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." for you to have to subscribe again!

 

Unknown

Originally posted by superniceguy

Nice! Now people have to subscribe another 2 months to get the rewards. This delay was the plan all along!

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." for you to have to subscribe again!

 

they get more if the subscribe by the orginal date of may 11th, but get the same as what was being offered before if they do it by july 15th

ktanner3

Great news! Looking forward to seeing how the conquest events work.

trancejeremy

Originally posted by superniceguy

Nice! Now people have to subscribe another 2 months to get the rewards. This delay was the plan all along!

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." for you to have to subscribe again!

 

 

It's a bit confusing.  The people who subscribe by May 11th get everything they would have before and more (5 rooms unlocked instead of 2, a pet, and an extra title), while subscribers at the new deadline only get 3 unlocked rooms (and 1 title, as opposed to two).

So I don't know why anyone would subscribe later, as opposed to now.  Especially factoring in the 1000 bonus coins for being a subscriber on what, the 4th?

 

BadOrb

Originally posted by trancejeremy

Originally posted by superniceguy

Nice! Now people have to subscribe another 2 months to get the rewards. This delay was the plan all along!

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." for you to have to subscribe again!

 

 

It's a bit confusing.  The people who subscribe by May 11th get everything they would have before and more (5 rooms unlocked instead of 2, a pet, and an extra title), while subscribers at the new deadline only get 3 unlocked rooms (and 1 title, as opposed to two).

So I don't know why anyone would subscribe later, as opposed to now.  Especially factoring in the 1000 bonus coins for being a subscriber on what, the 4th?

 

Plus you could then unsubb and resubb in August , so no you don't have to subb for 2 months.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

Impacthound

Props to them for making a letter/blog post about it. I feel like they fell behind schedule and are making excuses with the letter but it's positioned more positively and worded better than anything they've slipped on before, so they're improving on that front.

I hope Conquest PVE missions aren't just dailies or turn-ins like wow's old AQ war effort grind & that the winning guild's buffs or other rewards are worth whatever the leaderboard revolves around. Currently the PVP leaderboard is a sham with all the win-traders and lack of participation in general.

I'm interested to see what Wing of the Architect look like as furniture without a body attached to it, should be funny.

BadOrb

Originally posted by Impacthound

Props to them for making a letter/blog post about it. I feel like they fell behind schedule and are making excuses with the letter but it's positioned more positively and worded better than anything they've slipped on before, so they're improving on that front.

I hope Conquest PVE missions aren't just dailies or turn-ins like wow's old AQ war effort grind & that the winning guild's buffs or other rewards are worth whatever the leaderboard revolves around. Currently the PVP leaderboard is a sham with all the win-traders and lack of participation in general.

I'm interested to see what Wing of the Architect look like as furniture without a body attached to it, should be funny.

I think it was more along the lines of , that the early access and digital expansion as a whole , wasn't going to contain as much as some of the forum posters where looking for. Also add the fact a lot of posters saw the early access as beta testing and wanted a more complete package. So they have added more stuff and pushed the release date of early access back to when F2P and official launch would have been. Also Guild ships and legacy storage wouldn't have come out until August anyway.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

Drelkag

Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

bobdole1979

Originally posted by Drelkag
Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

I did the same thing... people have the balls to say that SWTOR is anti social and there is too much phasing..  well then they need to look at ESO.

 

In ESO you can only see the other factions players in the PVP zones.  There is even a trick so you can level up doing the other factions quests but you will never see a single one of them.

Sevenstar61

New Stronghold: Tatooine Homestead

That got me excited. I am willing to wait few weeks to get this one.

ktanner3

Originally posted by Drelkag
Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

This game has certainly spoiled me when it comes to character interaction. I recently tried to get back into WOW as I was in the mood for some fantasy and didn't last long. After experiencing TOR other games seem small by comparison. 

Sevenstar61

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Drelkag
Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

This game has certainly spoiled me when it comes to character interaction. I recently tried to get back into WOW as I was in the mood for some fantasy and didn't last long. After experiencing TOR other games seem small by comparison. 

I agree. Party-shared quest are the shining beacon in SWTOR. It always amazed me how NPCs recognized that you are in group and recognized your class and gender when you won the roll.

Ktanner3 - did you ever try TSW? Although the cut scenes are not as good as SWTOR and you are not participating in conversation (no dialogue) quests are quite good and it feels way more like SWTOR than ESO. Animations are much worse, I admit, but no other game got is as right as SWTOR in animation department.

Fdzzaigl

They're good ideas, and finally things that also ask for a bit more player interaction.

ktanner3

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Originally posted by ktanner3
Originally posted by Drelkag
Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

This game has certainly spoiled me when it comes to character interaction. I recently tried to get back into WOW as I was in the mood for some fantasy and didn't last long. After experiencing TOR other games seem small by comparison. 

I agree. Party-shared quest are the shining beacon in SWTOR. It always amazed me how NPCs recognized that you are in group and recognized your class and gender when you won the roll.

Ktanner3 - did you ever try TSW? Although the cut scenes are not as good as SWTOR and you are not participating in conversation (no dialogue) quests are quite good and it feels way more like SWTOR than ESO. Animations are much worse, I admit, but no other game got is as right as SWTOR in animation department.

 

Yes I bought that game when it came out. I thought the atmosphere and AI were superior to TOR but the bugs which hindered my ability to advance along with the horrible combat turned me off.I still pop in every now and then to get my horror fix but I never stay long enough to develop any community relationships.

Sevenstar61

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Drelkag
Can't wait myself. Came back to the game after trying to play with friends in a recently launched MMO and found ourselves fighting against the game more often than actually playing it. I'll never take party-shared conversations for granted again.

This game has certainly spoiled me when it comes to character interaction. I recently tried to get back into WOW as I was in the mood for some fantasy and didn't last long. After experiencing TOR other games seem small by comparison. 

I agree. Party-shared quest are the shining beacon in SWTOR. It always amazed me how NPCs recognized that you are in group and recognized your class and gender when you won the roll.

Ktanner3 - did you ever try TSW? Although the cut scenes are not as good as SWTOR and you are not participating in conversation (no dialogue) quests are quite good and it feels way more like SWTOR than ESO. Animations are much worse, I admit, but no other game got is as right as SWTOR in animation department.

 

Yes I bought that game when it came out. I thought the atmosphere and AI were superior to TOR but the bugs which hindered my ability to advance along with the horrible combat turned me off.I still pop in every now and then to get my horror fix but I never stay long enough to develop any community relationships.

Yeah, same here. I play it when I want a change. Not enough time to actually get too involved.

xpsync

Originally posted by superniceguy

Nice! Now people have to subscribe another 2 months to get the rewards. This delay was the plan all along!

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." for you to have to subscribe again!

 

I have to agree and i'm po'd over this news too, i started playing ESO and my urge to play swtor literally vanished.

I stayed subbed to swtor get the new crib, now wtf i have to wait 2 months, so at this point i'll prolly stayed subbed another two months when they push it back again, lol, no serious i'm not joking.

Overall i'm staying subbed due to the fact i still like swtor and at some point will most likely play again, but this BS tactic, leaves a bad taste.

Azzras

---

May 11th is no longer the deadline for Strongholds Early Access rewards but as a thank you to all of our Subscribers as of this date, we are giving you the following rewards:
• Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
• Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
• A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"

July 15th is our new deadline for Subscriber Rewards for Early Access, and you must be a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:
• The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"
• Character Title "The Illustrious" (delivered in Game Update 2.9)

---

What this is saying is sub by May 11th and you will get:
• Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
• Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
• A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"

Sub by July 15 and you will ALSO get:
a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:
• The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"
• Character Title "The Illustrious" (delivered in Game Update 2.9)

xpsync

Originally posted by Azzras

 

---

May 11th is no longer the deadline for Strongholds Early Access rewards but as a thank you to all of our Subscribers as of this date, we are giving you the following rewards:
• Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
• Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
• A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"

 

July 15th is our new deadline for Subscriber Rewards for Early Access, and you must be a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:
• The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"
• Character Title "The Illustrious" (delivered in Game Update 2.9)

---

What this is saying is sub by May 11th and you will get:
• Exclusive Subteroth minipet (delivered in Update 2.7.2)
• Two Character Titles “The Intrepid” (delivered in Update 2.7.2) and “The Illustrious” (delivered in Game Update 2.9)
• A sprawling Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with five additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"

 

Sub by July 15 and you will ALSO get:
a Subscriber by this date to claim the Subscriber Early Access Rewards:
• The luxurious Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace with three additional rooms unlocked
• Stronghold Name "Galactic Stronghold"
• Character Title "The Illustrious" (delivered in Game Update 2.9)

So if i stay subbed i get 8? /jk

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

syntax42

All I'm seeing is a housing implementation that won't add any real substance to the game.  Instead, it will entice people to spend more money on the game in order to perform meaningless customizations on their space.  Did I miss something, or is that all the expansion is really doing?

Unknown

Originally posted by syntax42
All I'm seeing is a housing implementation that won't add any real substance to the game.  Instead, it will entice people to spend more money on the game in order to perform meaningless customizations on their space.  Did I miss something, or is that all the expansion is really doing?

its also adding a new feature for guilds called conquest events

 

To conquer a planet, Guilds must complete weekly Conquest events earning points to place at the top of the Guild Leaderboards. Conquering a planet gives the Guild special perks and rewards.

 

these conquest events will be pve based

masonicone

just yet another system for ea to take peoples money from them. it wont have anywhere near what made housing in swg so great. guild ships are just going to be guild houses. and really did anyone really want this? we told them we wanted open world housing not this.

Impacthound

Originally posted by masonicone
just yet another system for ea to take peoples money from them. it wont have anywhere near what made housing in swg so great. guild ships are just going to be guild houses. and really did anyone really want this? we told them we wanted open world housing not this.

It was frequently requested on the official forums and in cantina events for a long time. I don't fault them for it not being open world though, they don't have much of an open world to speak of anyways. Everything is a hub for missions or a route to the mission(but 3/4 times not for your class)

coorsguys

Originally posted by masonicone
just yet another system for ea to take peoples money from them. it wont have anywhere near what made housing in swg so great. guild ships are just going to be guild houses. and really did anyone really want this? we told them we wanted open world housing not this.

 

Just another comment from a poster who saw SWTOR on a forum and his mouth started to foam, his body started to twitch and he couldn't help but make a comment on something he clearly has no knowledge on.