On the fourteenth day of the first month of the new year (wow, I like how poetic this sounds!) the SWTOR community manager Eric Musco took it to the official forums to share a little bit of the studio’s plans for the game’s future updates. He announced an important change regarding the patches’ numerical labeling and shared excitement for the studio’s SWTOR 2020 plans and beyond!
This article is a mix of news announcement and Vulkk’s personal thoughts on Musco’s forum post from January 13, 2020.
It’s a quiet place on the SWTOR forums around the Holidays. Most of the BioWare employers are out and away during that time. It is around the middle and end of January when we start hearing and seeing some movement.
In the beginning of the month the community coordinator Daniel Steed did not forget to update us on the January in-game events. Apart from that there were some short and neglectable posts from Musco himself on how they are monitoring current issues with servers and in-game features reported broken or not functioning properly during the Holidays.
Late yesterday (early this morning for me, heh) Musco posted what I would call the first real and serious post from the team. He announced a few interesting patch numbers labeling changes, reminded us of an upcoming PTS with Update 6.1 later this week and hinted at a Roadmap-wannabe coming from SWTOR’s Game Producer Keith Kanneg.
UPDATE! The message from Keith arrived on January 28. Now you can read what the Game Producer has to say about SWTOR in 2020 and beyond, and my analysis of his words, of course!
Game Update 6.1’s Story and Future Updates Numbering
The first major (not sure if I should call it as such) update this year is labeled “Game Update 6.1”. BioWare hasn’t announced an official release date yet. The expectations were for it to be ready by the end of January, but more realistically some time around mid-February.
This patch will feature the Alderaan Stronghold (more about it below!) and a tiny bit of a story for your character.
The first update after an expansion has never been rich with story and narratives and BioWare confirmed on their December Developer Live Stream that 6.1 will not be an exception.
We can expect some small story elements. I am thinking a long conversation among your crew discussing future plans or perhaps a mission or two, sending you to a planet you have not visited recently. These are my own speculations, though.
What I find more interesting in this segment from Musco’s post is the announcement of how BioWare will change the Game Updates labeling from 2020 going forward.
“In the past we have been pretty inconsistent in our Game Update numbering and so we wanted to clean that up. This started at 6.0 but going forward any 6.X update will only increment if there is some story contained in the update. If there is no story, then it will increment by 6.X.X.
Ex: After 6.1 if the next update contained story, it would be 6.2. If it doesn’t have story it would be 6.1.1.”
Musco did not announce or confirm, but I would expect that the number of 6.X Updates will be smaller in this cycle. In the past we used to call all updates containing new features or important story elements “major updates”. From now on this privilege will only be bestowed on updates that contain continuation of the game’s storyline.
I personally find that change to be positive. It will help us clearly determine what to expect from the next SWTOR patch as soon as it is announced.
“We talked about this last year as well but just a reminder that we have moved away from the big form roadmaps that we used to post. Instead we try to lean more on updates via PTS, posts, livestreams, and blogs. So you should expect to see more about what is beyond 6.1 as we get closer to / beyond its launch. “
It still annoys me that we wont get any decent Roadmap updates any more, but with EA’s policy of only allowing BioWare to talk about three months ahead, I would not really call these Roadmaps as such anyway.
On the subject of PTS, live streams and posts… My game launcher shows me a thumbnail of an article that was published on swtor.com months ago. This is the third thumbnail. What do I mean by that? We need more frequent written official updates from the studio.
The latest three news thumbnails on the launcher yesterday for me were the announcement of 6.0’s release, the latest Cartel Market additions and the aforementioned post previewing what is coming with the F2P changes. Nothing about Alderaan and its availability on PTS in December, however short it was? Why not?
PTS 6.1 coming back this week with Alderaan Stronghold
The Alderaan Stronghold is the main feature of Game Update 6.1 for Star Wars The Old Republic.
The first version of the upcoming Alderaan Stronghold was released back in December. For a brief period of only a few days we got to see how this giant castle in the mountains is shaping up.
Update 6.1 was originally announced to be targeting late January as an optimistic release date. It is more likely that we will see it out on the live servers closer to mid-February, though. As soon as I have a confirmation, I will let you know, of course.
In December BioWare hosted a live stream to preview some of the features of the Stronghold. It was in a decent shape to be shown to the public, despite some of its features not working properly or at all.
I wrote a detailed preview of the Alderaan Stronghold, enriched with tons of images and a long video walkthrough back in December 2019.
This castle along with its front and back yards and some secret rooms hidden nearby is shaping up to be one of the biggest Strongholds SWTOR has ever seen.
The second appearance for the Stronghold should allow us to see it in a much more finished and polished state with, hopefully, all of the features working.
There is no date yet, but I would not expect that to happen before Wednesday and more likely it would be on Friday.
As promised, work continues on Crafting changes. Some made it into Game Updates 6.0.1 and 6.0.2 late last year, but BioWare is aware of the community’s desire for more and I personally expect so see more improvements in 6.1.
Keith Kanneg is expected to show up in January
The heading is a bit misleading, I know. I wrote it as such on purpose. Keith’s promise of better transparency and more communication when he took over the Producer’s role, was met with excitement and enthusiasm.
Today I am quite unhappy with how he has distanced himself from the community. It’s not his job to be on the forums, but his promise to communicate more and be more transparent still hands out there in the back of my mind.
“I would expect before the end of January to see Keith in the forums to give you a bit of a welcome to 2020 which will likely contain some hints at what we are looking at doing this year.”
Umm… yay? One of my Facebook followers likes to call Keith “the PvP Producer”. I am not sure this is true after what we saw on the PvP front in 2019. Not that we got much on the PvE one either.
Having no funds to develop a bigger expansion and support the game with more regular true major updates is sad, but understandable.Saying things like (quoting by memory!) “I am very excited with what we have for you in 2019” and then ending up with less than what we got in the previous year(s), is not what I would like to see and hear.
SWTOR has a future beyond 2020
Saved the good news for last. Musco’s final paragraph states that (once again) the devs are very excited with what they plan to bring to the game in 2020. Irony? I hope not!
“I can tell you that the team is really excited about what is coming in 2020 and we are already planning around things for next year, our 10-year anniversary (and beyond)!”
For all of us, who want to see SWTOR alive and healthy, this is good news. I personally cannot remember in any of the “first post of the year” messages the studio talking about the future of the game beyond the newly arrived year. Musco does speak of the tenth anniversary here. That’s great!
2019 was filled with mixed experienced for me in SWTOR. I wanted, but did not expect more. I hoped for the expansion to deliver more than what it did. I desperately believed that the new storyline will not remain in the shadow of the “Spoils of War” gearing revamp. I wanted more Flashpoints and Operations, because the game needs fresh content badly.
I got some of what I was hoping and asking for. But at the same time I was disappointed a bit too with the size of Onslaught.
The fact that I was hoping for more from the 6.0 Onslaught expansion doesn’t mean it was a bad one. It was free for me (and any other subscriber). I would be happy to pay for a full-size expansion, but a small one that comes free of charge is also acceptable. If only we had at least two of these each year. I wish for another one at the end of 2020!
I liked reading the end of Musco’s post and the announce of the game’s tenth anniversary. SWTOR reaching ten years, this is huge! It was very optimistic and exactly what all fans need to hear now with Disney’s Star Wars Episode 9 and the mostly negative reviews it received. All kinds of speculations are flying all over with even a hint at a new Star Wars game being developed.
UPDATE: 31.01.2020 ► Creative Director Charles Boyd stepped up to clear the confusion and reveal more details on what new story is coming to SWTOR with update 6.2 and beyond.
I am very much looking forward to more new content in 2020! What about your SWTOR 2020 Expectations?
For what comes next, check out the SWTOR Roadmap for 2020. BioWare discussed their plans for the second half of the year on a dev live stream on July 21. I have it all covered, of course!
