SWTOR creative director Charles Boyd confirmed the upcoming with Game Update 5.10 Jedi Under Siege new storyline will offer different quests for Empire and Republic players
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Today, on 5th of September, BioWare’s creative director Charles Boyd and community manager Eric Musco hosted a live stream to offer a few additional details to the newly released SWTOR Fall 2018 Roadmap.In this article I will focus your attention on the new storyline and the fact that it will be different for both factions – Empire and Republic.
Game Update 5.10 “Jedi Under Siege” will take us to a new for Star Wars: The Old Republic planet. Charles did not mention its name on purpose, but instead gave us a few clues. It is a destroyed and ravished ancient Jedi world. By destroyed, ihe didn’t mean completely vanished. The planet will appear for the first time in the game, but it is actually well established in the Star Wars Legends with the Tales of the Jedi comic book series.
Here’s a quote from Wookieepedia about the ancient Jedi world of Ossus:
Ossus, originally called Idux whilst under the control of Xim’s empire, was the third planet in the Adega system in the Auril sector. Known to the galaxy since before 25,000 BBY, when the Jedi expanded there from the planet Tython and established a Jedi Academy, Ossus would become a popular world of the Galactic Republic. This world would also become a place of great importance to the Jedi, as the site where they stored the sum of their knowledge, though such attentions came at a price. When the Jedi Knight Exar Kun turned to the dark side and became the Dark Lord of the Sith, catapulting the galaxy into the Great Sith War, he attacked Ossus, desiring Sith secrets hidden by the Jedi. During the events this action incited, the Cron Cluster was detonated, spreading a shockwave around the galaxy. Originally a rich, lush world, Ossus was ravaged into an arid and toxic planet when the wave struck the planet.
I’m not saying this is the new planet coming with Update 5.10, but my bet is on Ossus indeed. It checks pretty much on all hints that the devs gave us.
Back to the 5.10 Story. This is going to be a new beginning so-to-speak. The Eternal Empire drama is now behind us and Game Update 5.9 ended that major storyline. SWTOR is returning back to its roots – the Empire vs Republic conflict and “Jedi Under Siege” is the beginning of it. The new story, that will kick off in 5.10, will turn into a full scale war leading up to the next expansion of the game.
The way story is told will go back to how it was in the past. Most likely to what Makeb was like. Charles did confirm that the two storylines will be more different to each other compared to the ones we got in Update 5.2 “The War for Iokath”. It is likely that the new planet will not be as big as Makeb, because it is a Daily Area. I personally would not expect a Makeb-sized explorable world. More like a mix of Makeb’s different narratives and Iokath’s Daily Area’s size. The Daily Area will open up after you complete the main missions. Both factions will be doing their missions throughout the shared space of the Daily Area. Some will be unique, but others will later turn into Dailies (as we’ve seen that in the past with Oricon and Iokath, for example). There will be World Bosses too. Charles did say that in plural, yes – as in more than one world boss.
In the Fall Roadmap, Keith mentioned the introduction of new characters and return of old fan-favorite ones:
As we roll into the new year, we have a ton of exciting adventures planned for you and your friends. We’re not ready to discuss the details yet, but you can be sure the conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire is going to explode into full-scale war that will draw your character into battle on new planets, where they’ll fight alongside (and against!) many new and returning fan-favorite characters!
On the stream Charles also talked about a lot of returning characters. In some cases, he said, we will meet up with people we have not spoken with in years (origin stories NPCs perhaps?). New characters will also be introduced. It is more likely that he was describing the whole prelude storyline that will continue into 2019.
When asked about the player choices that we were already allowed to make in regards to our characters’ allegiances, Charles was vague and evasive, but did comment a little bit at least: “We can’t talk about it yet, but, yes, we know that there are a lot of players whose characters are interested in fighting for the other side… we set that up in the previous storyline on purpose. You can expect to see something that will get you moving in that direction coming in this update.”
Game Update 5.10 – “Jedi Under Siege” is currently set for release in “Fall 2018”. The studio has not set a date on it, because they want to bring parts of it to PTS (not the story, no spoilers) for testing. To me the most logical release date seems like the first week or two of December. It is the final update to the game for 2018 (not final over all :P).
Unrelated to the main topic of this article, but still relevant to 5.10 (from tonight’s stream):
The classic Jedi Knight companions Kira and Scourge were announced for return back in my interview in April. Both were excluded from the Roadmap. During tonight’s live stream I asked Charles and Musco about their current status” and Charles gave the following reply: “They were notably not mentioned and I apologize for that. There is some really cool ground I want to cover with those characters. They are still in progress, they are absolutely still coming. They just didn’t quite fit in 5.10, because we wanted to put a little more beef on that. I’m very excited for everyone to see them back, but for now – no news, other than that they are coming.”
Khem Val was also teased earlier this Summer, but he was absent from the Roadmap as well.
For the returning companions, you can expect to see new outfits, but no face changes (like with Lana in KOTFE).
Not much information was revealed about the upcoming Tier 5 Gear that will be available with this update. We will likely see more info on that in the near future with a blog post of forum post. There will be no adjustments to fit the new tier of gear into the Galactic Command system. Even though the new gear was announced to be craftable and obtainable in new ways, it will still be available as direct drops from the NiM GOTM bosses (more info on that – also later). There will be no re-balancing of old operations because of the introduction of the new gear.
The Master Mode of Gods from the Machine Operation was a surprise to the studio even, apparently (joking). Originally BioWare announced that the plans for NiM GOTM have been scrapped, but later on they decided that they can produce it. According to Musco, this is a whole new level of challenge that players will experience in the Master Mode.
The tank shiled changes that were originally planned for 5.9.2, were delayed and are currently waiting to be implemented to PTS for testing. Expect to see them in 5.9.3 (release date mid to late September).
Please, note, this article is based on new information revealed during the SWTOR Developer Live Stream from 5th of September 2018, mixed with a few personal thoughts and analysis. The images are NOT from SWTOR, they are only used to enrich your reading experience. Everything is subject to change as development goes and some things might be different in the live version of 5.10!
