How SWTOR 5.10.2 Lays the Groundwork for Future Updates

Update 5.10.2 to Star Wars: The Old Republic is definitely light on content with only the Guild Heraldry and Reworked Preview Window coming up. There has been some behind-the-scenes work that BioWare decided to share with us publicly. Now it seems that 5.10.2 is more of a preparation for the future of SWTOR. Big words, I know. Let’s explore what they mean.

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For now we don’t know an exact release date and with the studio’s reputation of delaying patches often for additional fixes, it seems to be that in the past few months BioWare has been reluctant to announce release dates until shortly before the update is ready. It is the same with 5.10.2 – “Heralds of Victory”. For now we only know it is coming in April.

What’s in it, though? The already teased and previewed Guild Heraldry tool and the Preview Window. The first one is cool, but not very vital to the gameplay. The second one has the potential to arguably become the best feature for stylists, decorators and fashion fans.

Before we get to the Preview Window, let me tell you how is it connected with the technical upgrade/update BioWare is doing for 5.10.2.

When you see an environment in SWTOR – a room, a large hall, an open forest-like terrain and so on – what exactly do you see? Let me tell you what the designers and developers from BioWare see – lots of hand-crafted stuff, tons of potential bugs spawning from it and an insane amount of time to create it. Most of that is because of the so-called “Dynamic Placable Objects” also known as DYN or DYNs.

In a recently published article on swtor.com, the new community coordinator Daniel Steed revealed what exactly those are and how they affect the game:

DYNs are objects that designers place in the world that can change or be changed, based on how they’re set up. Nearly everything you interact with in-game is based on a DYN. Really! A Mission item that a player interacts with, or an elevator switch are both examples of interactive DYNs. Lights on a wall or a neon sign, while they aren’t interactable, are DYNs that help us build the game world. In the past, every single element and property of these objects had to be individually hand-crafted by a designer.

SWTOR 5.10.2 New DYNs Dynamical Placeable Objects — A preview of what DYNs are and how they work for the environment | image source: swtor.com

The way these were designed from before launch way back in 2011, was a huge issue, as it seems, for the developers to continue building and expanding. Since 5.10.2 is very light on the content side, it seems they are taking this “free time” and putting it to good use:

While the team was looking down the road at future content, it was clear that these changes to the DYN system would be very beneficial to help facilitate those plans. By improving on this system now, it helps our designers with the future content we have planned.
So, how are DYNs going to be changed? We’re taking what are all individually separate entities (our previously mentioned NPC and wall for example) and packaging them together into a single item. By doing this, we will refine, polish, and optimize the entire process. In turn, this makes the development process for making new DYNs much shorter! This all leads to us being able to to build and work with objects in the game more efficiently, while lowering the chances of introducing new bugs throughout the process.

Making things less bugs-friendly is a great step in the right direction. This system is capable of accepting a great deal of expansion and the team is proud of what they have done, as it can be seen in between the lines of the quoted text.

SWTOR 5.10.2 new Preview Window — The new Preview Window will finally allow you to see everything. Really! | image source: swtor.com

The Preview Window… ah that thing where you are supposed to be able to inspect things before you buy them or before you… mount them. It has been a weak point since… forever. This became more of an issue with the release of the Cartel Market when the game went F2P. It escalated a lot over the years, because of the more and more flashy and animated items the store was offering.

The way the preview window was originally built didn’t lend itself well to being expanded upon with new functionality or item types. When Strongholds came out, for example, the decorations previewer had to be built from scratch, rather than being integrated within the existing window. Over time, the window became so complex that we had built up a backlog of over a thousand bugs. Unfortunately, we knew we’d never be able to fix all of these, since it would mean less time devoted to developing new features for the game.

Now, in 5.10.2 the Preview Window has been reworked completely from the ground up. It includes animations preview, a side-panel to see what you are currently previewing and, hopefully, no more missing parts of objects while you are previewing items.

The Preview Window is currently available on PTS for testing. It is not finished and there are quite a few bugs in it, but that’s what the Test Server is for.

A few personal words… let’s pretend that text above was “true news content” without my personal opinion slippin’ in… D’OH!

I am always excited to see and hear of improvements to the game on the technical side. While the open world PvP and Ilum days will never return, the game could use any optimizations thrown its way. The down side is that it has been nearly an year since my interview with Charles Boyd and Eric Musco. In it I remember Charles telling us (quoting by memory) “I want to put a bit more beef on the Kira and Scourge returning mission”. This one was advertised as coming in the Fall of 2018. Well, D’OH!

BioWare, you need to step up on the content production cycle. Since Keith Kanneg became the big boss (game director), the game went through several updates filled with re-balancing and optimizations. There was another server consolidation (merge, really). But the true new content is less and less each year and spread thinner than ever.

It has been over three months since we got Ossus. I am so very eager to see how the “Malgus Story Arc” (my own title, don’t quote me) develops. Come on! Make with the story! A new Operation would be nice too.

The Celebration Cantina is coming soon! We are all hoping and expecting big reveals and news coming out of it. I even dare to dream of a new Trailer for the “elusive 6.0” expansion!

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