Bioware announced a new release date for SWTOR Game Update 5.9.2 “Galactic Legends”. The developers want to implement a few more new and fix some more things before release!
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As you are probably well aware, the Public Test Server for Star Wars: The Old Republic was brought back to live recently after many years of unavailability. It turns out that this move from Bioware was very successful and the dev team was able to collect a lot of data. It provided valuable feedback, but also led to a delay in the release of “Galactic Legends”.
Game Update 5.9.2 “Galactic Legends” was delayed for a week. The new release date is now set for 7th of August 2018. A new round of PTS testing is also planned before that.
The 5.9.2 patch will introduce a brand new Galactic Stronghold located on Rishi, which will offer unique PvP areas and features inside. This has not been done before and (in my opinion) will likely never happen again in the future with the next strongholds. The massive structure includes tons of open areas as well as a number of indoor spaces and rooms. Based on an overwhelming feedback, the devs decided to add another area in the Rishi Stronghold. At this point I cannot say if it will be a new unlockable “room” or free addition available with the purchase of the Stronghold.
Here is what creative director Charles Boyd said on the forums:
Many passionate Stronghold lovers have requested a more “home-y” space in the Rishi Hideout. I mentioned in a post last week that we would not be able to make that happen for release, but that the dev team really took that feedback to heart. Turns out, they took it so much to heart that the team went way above and beyond to get a new area added in record time so that we could include it in the extra PTS round! So please, load in, check it out, and maybe throw a bit of love the Stronghold team’s way for making it happen.
Two more major features are scheduled to be included in 5.9.2 and are also part of the reason for this delay: Ability to toggle PvP off and on inside the Rishi Stronghold and a fix for the Line-of-sight issue not working properly with decorations. The first one was an idea directly taken from players feedback, while the second one is more of a fix. Here is what ECharles had to say about these two:
The ability to toggle PvP on and off throughout the entire Rishi Hideout Stronghold: This was added directly due to your feedback – it’s a great idea and really useful for many Players. That said, there are a lot of potential complications and edge-cases involved, so we want to be sure the feature gets as much testing as possible before launch.
Line-of-sight should operate normally with decorations: There were a few issues identified with decorations where they weren’t respecting line-of-sight limitations consistently, and we agree that resolving this is critical to the functionality of Rishi. We believe we have corrected these issues, but again would like to include the community in trying them out to make sure we’re hitting the mark.
One of the big goals with this PTS cycle and the release of 5.9.2 is for the Test Server to actually become a regular occurrence and allow more players to participate in testing of upcoming updates. The developers are very pleased with the outcome for this cycle and are looking forward to receiving more feedback from the community in the upcoming patch.
Before the release of “Galactic Legend” there will be one more update to PTS to include the new Rishi area and the latest new features and fixes. This PTS patch is expected to land this week and knowing Bioware, I would not be surprised if it arrives late on Friday or Saturday morning. Time for testing is a bit on the short side for this final patch, but if you have the ability to jump in and give your feedback, it can only be of help.
Together with the release of 5.9.2, a Double Rewards event was planned. Because of the delay of the patch, the event will also be pushed to 7th of August.
How do you feel about this announcement from Bioware? Is it good that the update was pushed back to receive more testing and new area to the Stronghold or would you have preferred a sooner release with a smaller patch later on to introduce these?
