Yesterday was livestream day for SWTOR, a day that's quickly becoming a major event to look forward to for me, as we finally find out what's to come in the next big patch while getting to connect with the devs and deriving some entertainment from the process at the same time.
The stream lasted for more than an hour and yet time seemed to be flying by! A lot was said and done, and as usual you can watch a recording on Twitch or find a full written summary of absolutely everything that was revealed on the sites of the usual suspects:
I have no desire to go into that much detail myself, but will instead comment on the main things that excited me, of which there were still a lot! So let's get into it.
First off, it was interesting that they started the stream with Papa Keith saying hi and showing new studio pride by wearing a branded Broadsword jumper. (By contrast, I noticed that Musco was still wearing a SWTOR shirt with the Bioware logo on it; naughty!) What was really interesting about Keith's intro though was that he immediately started things off by telling us that beyond 7.4, they just reviewed their road map up to 7.6 with Broadsword, content that is meant to come out over the next year.
This was reassuring in the sense that it showed that there are no signs of things slowing down after the studio transition, and it was interesting to note that this planned patch cadence basically confirmed that there isn't another expansion coming soon. I personally didn't think there was, but I'd certainly seen some people speculate that the next patch after 7.4 would be 8.0, so I'm kind of glad to have that misconception dispelled. Obviously I'm not saying I never want another expansion again, but Legacy of the Sith definitely feels like it needs more time to cook at this point so I'm okay with adding more patches to its runtime.
The main announcement was the reveal about 7.4's story content, which will take us to... a new town on Ord Mantell? Can't say I expected us to return to another existing planet immediately after the return to Voss in 7.3, and Ord Mantell wasn't on my personal list favoured destinations, but I can't say I'm unhappy with it either. Actually, it's an interesting callback to the ten-year-anniversary news post from two years ago, when it was teased that as part of this expansion, we might "gain an opportunity to return to where your character’s journey first began so long ago…" My only disappointment was that when there was some talk about how it can be safe for Imperial characters to go to Ord Mantell, nobody thought to mention Lost Island. Come on!
A story-related announcement that surprised me was the continuation of the Lane Vizla story from Ruhnuk. Now, again, trying to keep it as spoiler-free as possible... the way that story ends on Ruhnuk does sort of imply that there'll be a follow-up, but I honestly figured it would just be a mail or maybe a short conversation. But no, it looks like it's actually turning into a proper side storyline that has you seeking out new characters and places, and I'm here for it.
Next they announced a technical update that probably had me way more excited than it should have: "cinematic lighting". What does that mean? It means older in-game cut scenes will have better lighting, making better use of "natural" light sources and shadows instead of artificial spotlights. They showed a few clips from starter quests for different origins and I just kept thinking how gorgeous the new versions looked.
What can I say: this is a game with a heavy focus on watching your character look cool in cut scenes and it heavily encourages you to play alts. I'm not sure there's any other game where an announcement about improved lighting would make me feel like it's one more reason to make a new alt, but it really does in this instance.
Also, my favourite side story related to this was that when I checked the forums afterwards, I found this thread by someone going by the forum name Jazulfi, posted about a month ago and complaining about how bad the lighting in some of the old story cut scenes was. Needless to say, they were over the moon about this announcement. Just imagine being in that position, making an incredibly niche complaint about something and a few weeks later the devs announce that they are about to release a major technical upgrade addressing your specific issue. The timing just cracked me up. Good for you, Jazulfi!
Also interesting was the demo of the GTN update that had been teased before. At a glance I thought it looked kind of similar to the way things are set up in the modern World of Warcraft auction house - which is not a bad thing, as it's mostly quite convenient. Even better, the new GTN will have a "claim" button so you can grab your stuff directly from the GTN terminal instead of going to your mailbox, which I really appreciate because in WoW I always buy stuff from the auction house and then run off without remembering to actually take it out of my mailbox, so this is a very real problem for me. The only slight concern I have was that there was a brief mention of the deposit now being classified as a fee, which makes me worried that it might no longer be refunded if your item doesn't sell. That would be a shame as this particular bit of generosity of SWTOR's GTN was a really nice feature and meant that I was never shy about re-listing stuff as I didn't have to worry about actively losing money if nobody purchased right away. We'll see I guess. (Edit: This has now been confirmed in a forum post.)
In terms of gear, we were told that 7.4 will bring another gear rating increase. Implants and mods will become upgradeable to 340, and Rakata gear's max rating will increase to 344. There was also a cryptic mention of Rakata gear for everyone, not just ops players. The main takeaway I got from this is that after about a year of R-4 Anomaly on veteran mode being the only source of max-item-rating gear, they're basically dumping that entire idea and nobody will ever go there again. Can't say I'm sad, though the thought of updating gear across my entire stable of alts again is a little tedious, even if it won't be hard to do.
Now, the Cartel Market section of these streams never really interests me that much, but this time they had something that caught my attention... because it was SHINY! Basically, they're adding a new type of dye that doesn't just colour your gear but also gives it a shiny or matte effect, and the example they showed looked amazing.
To be fair, this is a brand-new gear set that has likely been optimised to work well with this new effect, and it might not look as great on older armours, but still... I could definitely see myself picking a couple of these up to see if I can give an old outfit a new shine. This gets a thumbs-up from me.
Finally, they finished the stream with an interesting twist on the Best View in SWTOR contest - they haven't chosen the winners yet, but Jackie wanted to share the five finalists for each planet... and I can see why, as they were all gorgeous. I kept an eye out for any of my own submissions, but while one of the Nar Shaddaa finalists looked kind of like one of mine, it had someone else's name on it so was presumably submitted earlier. However, apparently no fewer than three people I know found themselves featured among the finalists. Yay them! Either way, I loved seeing all those screenshots and they looked like worthy winners regardless of which ones actually end up being the final choices.
Oh, and if you read this before November 1st - they gave out a free deco code again, so you can redeem "LotsVizla" until then for another in-game poster of your (perhaps not) favourite Mandalorian(s).
Either way, the stream clearly did its job for me as it got me properly excited for 7.4. We don't have a release date yet, but based on how they've been handling these recently, it's probably going to be late November or early December.
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