Game Update 1.7 is fresh off the shelves today, and along with the new galactic reputation feature and the Relics of the Gree event, there were a couple of changes and side effects to changes that did not make the original Patch Notes. These changes were announced on the forums today in the form of dev tracker posts:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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With Game Update 1.7, we introduced the new Legacy Character Perk, Priority Transport: Personal Starship. This allows players to quickly shuttle to their personal starships. This ability normally has a 24 hr cooldown, and players have the option to purchase Legacy Global Unlocks to reduce this cooldown.

Unfortunately, with Game Update 1.7, there is a bug which automatically unlocks the three levels of Legacy Global Unlocks for any players that is level 20 or above.

This is not intended and will be fixed in an upcoming patch. What this means is that, for those of you who have unlocked the Personal Starship as a Character Perk, you will no longer have 1 hr cooldowns for this ability, and you will have to unlock Legacy Global Unlocks to reduce the standard 24 hr cooldown. This will happen after the aforementioned patch.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but we hope that you enjoy this “trial” period for Improved Priority Transport: Personal Starship levels I, II, and III.

Keep reading to see a dev tracker response on changes made to the GTN in Game Update 1.7.

After Game Update 1.6, BioWare made changes to both the Phantom and Spymaster gear sets that can be purchased through the Cartel Market. The in-game graphics in the shop didn’t correctly match with the gear that was obtained through the packs. This error was then corrected, which left players a little confused when their gear sets changed overnight. BioWare then made a post stating the changes that were made in the update and told the community that the team will find a way to make up for the confusion.

Joveth Gonzalez had an update for players affected by the gear changes yesterday, which will take place in Game Update 1.7. Keep reading to see the dev tracker post.

Patch 1.6.2 hit live servers yesterday, and with it came one addition to the Cartel Market that’s been requested since SWTOR’s free-to-play announcement was first made. Players are finally able to purchase additional character slots! They cost 600 Cartel Coins each and work across multiple servers once purchased. BioWare also increased the total character amount allowed across servers, raising that number to 350 characters total. Players of all subscription types can raise their cap in this manner. For example, a Free-to-Play player could have 8 character slots instead of the restricted 2 after purchasing 6 slots.

Later in the day, we also received a dev tracker post explaining one important detail– all players can gain up to 10 additional character slots in this manner, but this doesn’t extend the total amount of 350 characters between every server. Here’s the announcement, which was posted by Joveth Gonzalez:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Just wanted to correct something I said earlier. The information I received earlier was incorrect. Players may have their base character slots and up to ten extra character slots. For example, a subscriber with 12 character slots may increase their character slots up to 22. You can still have 350 characters overall. Apologies for the confusion.

For all of yesterday’s Patch Notes, check here.

Yesterday, Blaine Christine, Sr. Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, answered some questions SWTOR’s forum community raised in a thread specifically made for player questions. Most of the answers were recently provided in the announcement of the Preferred Status player model, but there was some new information available in this Q&A of sorts. One answer in particular that delivered new information was one regarding character slots. Currently on the PTS, there is no restriction on character slots even during the time when our accounts were temporarily flagged as free to play.

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Ripster: There is a welcome screen that lists a benefit of subscribing as 10 additional slots. Will this mean subscribers will have 22 or that F2P will have 2?

Blaine: Great question and we want to make sure we’re clear on this one. Subscribers will still have 12 character slots available on a single server. F2P players will have 2 (as will Preferred). At Launch, we are not enforcing the penalty on subscribers who convert to Free-to-Play, but we will in a subsequent patch. A further wrinkle is that if you have more than two and you delete characters at Launch, you will not get that slot back. Example: I have 10 characters as a subscriber this November, but in December I cancel my subscription. When I login, I can still use all 10 characters (for now), but I cannot create new ones and if I delete one, I will have 9 and not be able to create another until I go down to 1. Make sense?

Very detailed answer, and great information for players who are still on the fence about which subscription model is right for them. I would naturally assume that players dropping to one of the lower models will be able to choose which characters they want to access, and which will remain locked, as that’s how it generally works in other F2P games.

As with any major Game Update, 1.4 has seen its fair share of bugs and issues. Yesterday, Joveth Gonzalez, Community Manager, started a thread to keep track of the top issues and concerns that BioWare is looking to quickly address and fix. Here is the post:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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We wanted to take some time to update the community on the status of the top reported Game Update 1.4 issues. Many of you follow our official responses via the Dev Tracker and our Known Issues thread, but we wanted to make sure that there was one central place to have the latest updates on these issues. Below, you will find the most frequently reported issues since Game Update 1.4 and their current statuses. This is not a comprehensive list, but is meant to encompass the most reported issues since the last Game Update.

We are aware of and are investigating the following issues:

• General performance issues.
• Weekly missions are not consistently available.
• Warzone matches sometimes grant the win to the incorrect team.
• Some Crew Skill Missions are currently returning less materials than intended.
• The Bounty Hunter ship cannot be destroyed during the Jindo Krey encounter in the False Emperor.
• Galactic Trade Network searches are not functioning as intended, and Strength is missing from the Stats filter.
• The Hide Helmet option does not function from the Social Tab.
• Hide Helmet for Companions does not currently function correctly.
• Right-clicking player names in chat does not open the context menu.
• Players are able to consume schematics for items that they can already create.
• Same-faction PvP matches sometimes use incorrect voiceovers.

Again, this isn’t a comprehensive list, but know that we are working to make sure that we enhance the player experience by resolving these and other reported issues. Thank you very much for your patience!

Some players have also put together a quite extensive list of bugs and issues added to the game in Game Update 1.4.

It’s no secret that many guilds across multiple servers have been experiencing lag-related issues during Operations. Groups have also been experiencing random “Access Denied” in-game errors that force them to repeatedly try and enter the instance. Some servers are experiencing this issue more than others, of course, but one server where it seems to be the most noticeable is on Canderous Ordo.

Joveth Gonzalez issued a response yesterday to one player-created thread about this issue in the Customer Service forum:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Hi folks, we’ve been seeing some reports about this specific issue and Sr. Server Programmer Jennifer Harkness wanted to elaborate a bit on what’s been going on:

As many of you have noticed, we have been playing with the population settings for the raid areas, and in particular for Explosive Conflict. The main change is that we’ve lowered the overall population for those zones. We’ve been really happy with the reports of lowered lag that folks have been posting, so it looks like that side of the change has been a great success.

However, we have run into one unexpected effect. Normally when you zone to a new area, we try to put you in the same instance as your guild mates and friends. Unfortunately, it’s doing the same thing when you zone into raid instances, which means that with the lowered population numbers, you can be the last one who fits in the instance, and there won’t be room for the rest of your Operations group. This is why a few people have been getting the dreaded “Server Admin” error and end up unable to zone into Denova.

When this happens to you in a group that has just started, the best thing to do is to have everyone exit the area, then reset the group’s active phases. Then you can have someone who is either unguilded or who knows their guild members aren’t in a raid instance zone in first so that they get a emptier instance.

If this happens to your group when you have made progress and would have to kill your way back in, you can wait a few minutes and hope that the population drops, or you can reset your phase immediately and you should be able to enter a new instance immediately.

We did make a configuration change yesterday afternoon to help with the problem and we’re monitoring the servers very closely to evaluate whether that lowers the error rate enough. We’re also working as quickly as possible to get a regular fix ready to deploy.

In recent patches, we’ve seen some much-needed changes to SWTOR’s Legacy perks, but one thing we haven’t seen is any new rewards or perks for players who have reached the higher Legacy levels. Quite a few players are above Legacy level 25 now, with many sitting at level 50. Yet, there aren’t any special rewards for the levels above 25, which has been a disappointment to many fans.

In one community forum thread, this subject was brought up, and Joveth Gonzalez said the following:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Hello! So I spoke to Principle Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert about this, and he feels that with some of the Legacy rebalancing that has occurred recently, he definitely agrees that there is a need for more rewards for players with Legacy levels 25 and higher. The team hasn’t made any decisions yet, but it is something that they are exploring.

The word “exploring” is admittedly a little less encouraging than the usual Soon™, but at least it’s knowledge that the team is working on some type of reward.

Just in case you were curious about how much time there is left to complete SWTOR’s Grand Acquisitions Race event, yesterday an ending date has been announced. We also received word that the Shady Dealer, the event’s currency vendor, will remain in-game for one week after the event ends.

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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The Chevin Conglomerate has decreed that you will have until next Tuesday (August 21st) at 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8 AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) to finish up the Grand Acquisitions Race. They’ve also decreed that the Shady Dealer will remain for an additional week after the race ends, citing “feedback” as the primary reason.

Good luck!

This is a bit of good news for players who might remember the Rakghoul event, when the vendor was taken out before many players were able to use the rest of their currency.

Yesterday we saw something we’re rather unaccustomed to these days– official SWTOR forum dev tracker activity! Joveth Gonzalez, Community Manager, issued a message to the community and proceeded to stick around and chat with some of the forum community members a bit.

Here’s an excerpt from the message, which can be read in full here:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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As most of you know, over the past few months, our team, our studio, and our game have undergone quite a few changes. Through it all, we’ve remained committed to the community and have worked with the development team to make sure that your voices were heard.

I wanted to take some time to reassure you all that my team, the community team, is still committed to you folks. As part of this commitment, we’re excited to let you know that we have been developing a brand new strategy for our team that focuses on developing new ways to bring you more information about the game and the people involved with SWTOR’s development.

As we progress towards the recently announced Free-to-Play experience, you can expect more frequent updates to the game (which means more information coming to you) and more developer interactions.

Joveth Gonzalez then went on to say that him and his team will be becoming more active on the forums, and refocusing their attention to SWTOR’s community as a whole.

When SWTOR adopts its hybrid free-to-play model this fall, it was announced on Tuesday that owners of the Collector’s Edition will be receiving some extra goodies. Quite a bit of goodies, in fact– 1000 extra Cartel Coins as long as their paid subscription is still active, and a Heroes’ Banner. After this announcement, many players wondered why those who purchased the Digital Deluxe Edition of SWTOR weren’t getting any bonuses. After all, they paid more for the game than owners of the Standard Edition, and the extra money went toward digital items. Why wasn’t there a bonus offered?