BioWare hosted a live stream on July 21st with the developers to talk about upcoming updates and when to expect them in the next few months. The Roadmap for the second half of 2020 is a bit stretched thin, but it does have a few gems that should keep us waiting eagerly for the studio to deliver them!
Please note that all of the information in this article and the images are sourced directly from the live stream with SWTOR devs from July 21 2020.
The Developer live stream on July 21 2020 was hosted by community manager Eric Musco. Participants were game director Keith Kanneg, creative director Charles Boyd and design director Chris Schmidt.
If you follow SWTOR and VULKK.com you have heard of the first three names on multiple occasions. Chris’s name has started appearing recently more often. This was his first appearance on a dev stream.
In this article I will deliver all of the important announcements and reveals BioWare made during the live stream. As usual, please note that any dates mentioned are tentative and may change as development continues. Of course, the current situation the world is in does not help with long-term planing either.
I have a smile each time Musco opens a live stream with the phrase “it’s been a while since we had one of those”, talking about a “developer live stream”.
SWTOR is now on Steam
SWTOR is now available on Steam. Big deal? Well, even if you rarely use this platform (like me), there is an undeniably positive vibe from this announcement.
Steam is arguably the most popular gaming platform and client. Pretty much every gamer has a steam account and purchases the vast majority of them on Steam.
For SWTOR to have another front to advertise and promote itself is a huge plus no doubt.
During the announcement Keith mentioned that in 2020 about two million people have played Star Wars: The Old Republic.
This info is also probably a little misleading, but that’s the modern marketing. If two million players logged in to SWTOR even for a few seconds of a minute to check up on something, BioWare could and should use them to boost the “number of players” of course.
When you launch your SWTOR through Steam, your Steam account and SWTOR account will be connected. Starting tomorrow, July 22nd, you will be able to disconnect your two accounts by logging in to swtor.com if for some reason you do not want to link them together.
If you are already an active SWTOR player and want to continue playing through Steam, you will need to download it again through the platform (if you do it the normal and regular way).
Your SWTOR account has all of your progress and data stored, so no matter if you play on Steam or use the old stand-alone launcher, your progress is always cross-shared and saved. You will not lose anything.
Steam will embed SWTOR’s launcher and you will still be starting up the game in the same way like you did before. Some benefits of Steam will be accessible, like Steam achievements (more on them later).
Steam will also allow you to get Trading Cards for SWTOR, new emoteicons, badges and backgrounds – that’s normal for any Steam title.
The cards can be exchanged for goodies or sold in the Steam Marketplace.
The emoteicons are five and all java-themed. They are exclusive to players, who have unlocked them.
You can check which of these bonuses you have already unlocked by visiting your inventory page on Steam.
For more details on how to play SWTOR on Steam, should you switch, what benefits and bundles are available, check my complete guide!
SWTOR in 2020 so far
BioWare decided to waste a few minutes (and I say that in the most polite way possible) to recap what was released in the first seven months of 2020.
Here is a short list with links to additional articles I have published covering these aspects of the game’s development earlier in the year:
- Alderaan Stronghold
- Aftermath of the Meridian Complex Story
- Conquest Revamp
- Swoop Event
- Master Mode Nature of Progress
- Galactic Guide
- New Class Sets
Yeah. I can safely say that we all hoped for more. Anyway, let’s now move onto more interesting topics. Things that are coming next!
SWTOR Update 6.1.2d
SWTOR Update 6.1.2d is coming on July 28. It will launch Ranked PvP Season 13. There are a few key changes with this season.
BioWare is moving away from the replica rewards and will attempt to more frequently (mid-season) deliver new rewards to grind for.
Last week BioWare made an early reveal that PvP Performance and Maps Rotations changes are coming with this patch.
The studio listed some short-term goals that will be addressed in the upcoming patch with a few long-term goals for the months ahead.
Chris stepped up to talk more details on this update. He was also the person who initially made the PvP-related reveals I mentioned above.
Most of the PvP changes arrived with SWTOR 6.1.2b, which came out on July 16 (today’s 6.1.2c is more of a backend pacth). The rest will be part of this coming patch. A main goal for this was Ranked Group Solo gameplay to be more rewarding than it was.
SWTOR Update 6.1.3 – Steam achievements
SWTOR is already on Steam as we learned in the beginning of this article. Why are the Steam achievements coming later in the Summer?
This is a bit puzzling to me and the only reason I can use to explain the delay is lack of man-power and/or technical issues that prevent the devs from offering the achievements right now.
The Steam achievements will be exact copies of the ones already available in SWTOR. There will be over a hundred to earn when you play.
All achievements for SWTOR on Steam will be retroactive. If you have unlocked them already, once you decide to play the game on Steam, all achievements will appear as unlocked there as well, granting you all the benefits.
Patch 6.1.3, will be released later this Summer. There is currently no date mentioned.
Apart from the Steam achievements, this patch will deliver more traditional Gameplay and Content Updates (more info on what are those is available below, keep reading).
UPDATE: BioWare released the full List of SWTOR Steam Achievements. You can now check all 191 of them and see what you might be missing.
UPDATE 2: The SWTOR 6.1.3 Patch is now out. Check out my overview to find out what you should know about this update!
SWTOR Update 6.1.4 – a new Seasonal event
A new seasonal event is set to arrive to SWTOR some time in the Fall of 2020. The Feast of Prosperity will appear once a year and will last for several weeks.
There is no exact date, of course. It’s way too early and BioWare is already stepping outside of their comfort zone announcing things to come more than two or three months in the future.
The new seasonal event will combine a little of both types of events. If will only happen once a year like Nar Shaddaa’s Nightlife, but will also contain daily and weekly missions, new reputations, rep-vendors with rewards and gated story missions behind reputation grind – like the the monthly recurring events.
New non-combat feast-themed missions will attempt to entertain your characters while having a casual night and between fights against World Bosses, who drop rare ingredients.
RELATED ► SWTOR Feast of Prosperity Guide (Seasonal Event)
SWTOR Update 6.2 – Echoes of Revenge
Originally planned for this Summer, the next story content update to SWTOR is now pushed way back to the “Holidays” of 2020.
The Echoes of Revenge is actually being developed on track and is nearly done. As Charles Boyd explained on the stream, the team needs this extra time to polish things and make sure the content is up to our expectations.
While he was saying these stock phrases, I remembered that he was saying them when I asked him when Kira and Scourge’s return will happen. This was in an interview I did with him more than two years ago.
The initial delay for 6.2 was because it was literally impossible to record the voice-over as all recording studios were closed down for the better part of the Spring season.
At the time of this publication the voices recording is wrapping up.
The good news is that 6.2 will be “two story updates in one”. The devs did not clarify that further, unfortunately.
The story will continue with the Kira/Scourge/Satele storyline. This is the story that was set up at the end of Onslaught. Your character will now have to locate the missing ship and uncover the truth of its disappearance.
Charles told us to expect references all the way back to the core game, the KOTFE and KOTET expansions and more. Two classic companions and a legendary Jedi NPC are involved. You should be ready to hear and see things you may have played through eight or nine years ago.
New Flashpoint is coming in SWTOR 6.2! It will be separate from the storyline discussed above and will be filled with Mandalorians.
I assume they want to jump on the hype train for The Mandalorian show’s second season. Well played, BioWare! Actually, well planned.
A new conflict will erupt among the Mandalorian clans and your character will be the one to solve the problem, as usual. Charles teased that some old faces will appear in the new Flashpoint alongside new characters like the Mandalorian in the image above.
Gameplay and Content Updates
As part of the smaller patches BioWare plans to introduce the ever-so-needed Gameplay and Content Updates.
Unfortunately “content update” here is not used in the sense we all would love it to be. These updates are going to be more like fixes and tweaks of existing features SWTOR has to offer.
The Conquest system will likely never stop getting revisions. At this point I am wondering if BioWare has a clear vision of where they want to drive this system to.
PvP rewards, as Chris explained during the 6.1.2d talk segment, will continue to arrive mid-season as well as at the end of the seasons.
A small update this year will be made to Crafting in an attempt to clear up some issues. The team did not provide details.
The phrase “world design” sounded like a big deal when it appeared on the live stream. It didn’t mean exactly what I personally was expecting, but it will be nice to have those made.
World Design is what the devs mean by going back and investigating old content. They find things that feel out of place and outdated – things like prolonged missions, long and tedious segments, weird combat situations and so on. Then they bring them to be more in line with what the more recent releases of content feel like.
If you remember, Game Update 5.2‘s new class intro cinematics were king of a big deal. Those perfectly well demonstrated to all of us how outdated the game’s early content really is. I hope to see more of these tweaks done to the early-days additions from eight and nine years ago.
Last, but not least – Amplifiers. This system was considered quite controversial because of the giant RNG and credit sink it is built upon.
The dev team is dedicated to bringing some more balance into this by revisiting certain aspects of the system, changing some of the bonuses, how they appear, what rolls you get and attempt to lower the credits required to reach the build you wish to have for your character(s) easier.
This quality of life treatment will be the first since the system was introduced in SWTOR 6.0’s Spoils of War last Fall.
When to expect the next bit of info on SWTOR
That was all the four developers had to say about SWTOR’s Roadmap for the second half of 2020.
The next live stream will be some time near the end of the Summer, most likely around the launch of Update 6.1.3. It will probably feature a more in-depth presentation of the Steam Achievements that will launch with this update.
Due to the “stay at home” initiative there will be no Cantina event. Instead the devs will do a simulated “Cantina Stream” some time in October. This is too far into the future so nothing is set in stone and no details of the Cantina beyond its planning is known at the moment.
During the stream Charles talked about the possibility of the Dark vs Light event returning. He briefly and casually mentioned things like maybe next year or the one after that.
Hey, if not something else this is a steady sign that the development of the game has absolutely no plans to stop any time soon.
As usual, when anything new is revealed or announced, you know that I and VULKK.com will cover it!
Thanks for your time. I hope you found my overview of the SWTOR Roadmap for 2020 useful and entertaining.
Now it’s your turn! Share your thoughts and tell me how you feel about the Roadmap. Is it too thin on the content side? I think it is. Very. Or do you disagree?
SWTOR Live Stream of July 21: Quick Recap
And just in case you forget something, here is a quick and rather short recap that Daniel Steed posted on the game’s forums for tonight’s event:
- SWTOR is now on Steam!
- Brief re-cap of 2020 so far (Alderaan Stronghold, Conquest, Swoop Rally etc.)
- Things to come in 2020:
- 6.1.2d will kick off the start of PvP Season 13.
- 6.1.3 – Phase 2 of Steam.
- 6.1.4 – New seasonal event called Feast of Prosperity
- 6.2 – Holidays this year. We had initially wanted to get 6.2 out at the end of the summer, but the team decided that in order to deliver the true vision we want players to experience, releasing it around the holidays would be best.
Game Update 6.1.2d
- We are going to start showing the rewards at the beginning of the Season.
- Team’s goal is to make Group/Solo Ranked more rewarding than it currently is and drive better play in Unranked.
Game Update 6.1.3
- Steam Achievements
- Next round of Gameplay and Content Updates
6.1.4 – Feast of Prosperity
- New recurring seasonal event for Fall
- Multi-week duration
- Feast-themes minigame Missions (non-combat) for the Hutts
- Group to defeat World Bosses for rare ingredients
- Repeatable Daily and Weekly Missions
- Earn Reputation to unlock special Feast of Prosperity rewards
- Complete Achievements for Titles and prestige
- New Reputation-gated Story Missions
6.2 – Echoes of Vengeance
- Two story updates in one!
- Continuation of Kira/Scourge/Satele storyline
- Locate the missing ship and uncover the truth of its disappearance
- New Flashpoint
- Face new enemies and old as conflict erupts among the Mandalorians.
- Showed off a few screenshots/concept for the new story content.
Gameplay and Content Updates
- Conquests
- Fine tuning to make the system work better.
- PvP Rewards
- Releasing Replica rewards at an increased rate. First pieces will come mid-Season 13. Legacy tokens
- Committed to fixing Desync.
- Crafting
- Changes coming later this year.
- World Design
- Going back to refresh older planets/pieces of content to make the gameplay feel better.
Amplifiers
- In an upcoming update there will be a quality of life update, reducing RNG and addressing feedback we’ve received.
What’s Next?
- Next stream planned in late Summer.
- “Cantina” stream in October (tentative)
- Look for regular updates on the Forums on upcoming Gameplay and Content updates.
