Details on the armor dyes and the appearance designer kiosk feature players can expect in patch 2.1, titled Customization.

Appearance Designer Kiosk

• Allow you to change your hairstyle, your haircolor, eyecolor, species, scars, tattoos
• Introduced a few new hairstyles and hair colors for certain species
• Plans to continue introduce options in the appearance designer in the future months at a regular cadence.
• Roleplay players can enjoy the ability to customize their character’s appearance as their character level up (i.e. adding battle scars after a big battle).
• Cartel coins only but there is a permanent discount on all appearance designer kiosk options for subscribers – up to 50% on a lot of options such as species change.
• If you want to change your character to a Cathar example, there is just a one time fee associated with all the Cathar options.
• Charging on a per slider basis – if you just want to change your eye color for example, you can just jump in, change it right away and just get charged for that.
• For species changes, you can preview any species, play around with it, and then decide to unlock that species (if you don’t already have it) directly from the kiosk for credits or cartel coins.
• Kiosks are placed in fleet and in capital worlds for now.
• Accessing the Kiosk will be similar to character creation – it will load up a full portrait view of your character and you can zoom in and out as needed.
• You can change pretty much anything you can change in character creation – scars, tattoos, species, etc.

Dye Modules

• Give you the ability to either dye entire armor sets or mix-match specific pieces of armor.
• Two portions of your gear are dyeable: primary color and secondary color (i.e. for Havoc squad armor, white would be primary color and orange would be the secondary color).
• Dye modules come in primary only, secondary only, and primary & secondary mixed.
• Dye modules are consumables so you can insert them to change colors but gets destroyed once you pull them out.
• You will see them in the cartel market for direct purchase, in future packs (i.e. contraband packs and beyond), a certain amount of colors are available through crafting (no details on the crew skills involved but you can RE them), and some unique colors from the security key and Collector’s Edition vendors. Expect more colors to be added in the coming months.
• Dye modules work off the current item enhancement/modding system. You will just open up the item modification panel for any gear you want to dye, drop a dye module in the new dye module slot, and hit accept to have it dyed.
• Many pieces of equipment will be able to be dyed and you can preview a dye module on that specific piece of equipment before hitting accept.
• Unified to chest also works – you can just dye your chest piece and have the color applied to rest of your outfit.
• Some items are not dyeable – anything below L15, anything green (unless it comes from crafting), are generally not dyeable.
• Lore outfits like armor of  Jolee Bindo are not dyeable.

 I did some research into this and I wanted to pass on the details of exactly what is happening with this bug and its current workaround while we work on a fix.

When fighting General Ortoll, throughout the fight he will throw shackles on a player and all players in that immediate area. Typically, what needs to happen is that a player needs to run across a shackled player in order to break them free.

Here is what the bug is causing to happen. If you are the original target of the shackle, you can still be broken out normally without any issues but what is happening incorrectly is that if any additional players are hit by the shackle, they cannot be broken out by another player. However, any form of CC break ability that player has will still work.

The only current workarounds for the issue is to 1) make sure you are spread out so no additional players are shackled and 2) save your personal CC break should you get hit by it. Again, the bugged shackles should only be affecting any additional targets who were hit by it that were not the original target!

I will work on getting this on the known issues list. Thank you all for your reports I will get an update posted as soon as I know more, we are actively on fixing this issue.

-eric

The Vice Commandant’s Contraband Pack features ten new gear sets worn by iconic figures from The Old Republic™ universe, including those of Bastila Shan, Thana Vesh, Jolee Bindo, House Thul, and The Red Blade. Four newly introduced mounts include the holo-canopied Cartel Decadent Skiff and the holo-stabilized Gurian Lightning. However, the gems of the pack are two new toys, each with abilities not found anywhere else in the game! The first is the Revan Holostatue, which acts as a summonable Commendations vendor. The second is the Music Therapy Probe, which triggers a fantastic group rest ability. Put on your Relaxed Uniform and get your move on with surrounding characters! You’ll also find all the other types of rare goods you’d expect: weapons, minipets, emotes, color crystals, and, for the very lucky, a return of the Rascal’s Toothpick. Sold individually or at a bulk discount in convenient Hypercrate packaging.

Follow the link for images of all the goodies in this new Cartel Pack!

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SERVICE
FIELD REPORT 875902-234MAK1--CLASSIFIED
SUBJECT: Makeb
RESOURCE: Field Agent Theron Shan
STATUS: Review//URGENT

I’ve completed my initial reconnaissance per the Director’s request. Makeb is a tactical nightmare. See attached data readings on the atmospherics, but long story short, it’s all but impossible to land anything bigger than a shuttle, and even that’s risky. Planet’s also undergoing some unusual magnetic storms and record-strength groundquake activity, so the danger doesn’t stop after touchdown.

Small unit deployments are going to be the only option here. Details on specific points of interest below.

Avesta Plantation

Property owned by local business magnate Shalim Avesta. Avesta should be the primary contact point for any Republic forces we deploy. His plantation is fairly secluded and, so far, untouched by the Hutt Cartel’s takeover. The locals have built up defenses as best they can, but they’re not going to hold against a concentrated assault. Suggest any advance forces prioritize a defensive buildup.

Skyhooks

Makeb has a set of orbital stations anchored directly to the planet’s surface, accessible via turbolift. All industrial grade. I’d guess these were meant to bypass the atmospheric issues for import/export, but the lifts are too slow to be useful for any major military operations. The Cartel keeps them protected, but even they haven’t found much use for them.

Talaos City

Makeb’s capital city. The Hutt Cartel has it locked down tight. I wouldn’t suggest any frontal assaults until we can land some pretty significant forces with armor and air support. Enough tight structures and corners that a small team might be able to make it in, if it became a necessity. Lots of local civilians still in play, though, so collateral damage is a concern.

Solida Hesk’s Resort

Private resort owned by the head of a local mining corporation, Solida Hesk. She’s deep in the Hutts’ pockets, and judging by the transaction records I’ve sliced, she’s been on their payroll for years. Judging by the resort, the Hutts pay well. Possible secondary target—could provide some interesting intel.

Stronghold 1

This place used to be Makeb’s main treasury. Probably the most naturally defensible point on the planet, since someone was crazy enough to build it in the middle of a volcano. Can’t even imagine the contractor costs.

Cartel forces are all over this place, with some significant shipping activity. Best guess, the Hutts are storing something here, but I couldn’t get close enough to tell what they’re so eager to keep locked up. Suggest our forces give it a wide berth until we have significant resources groundside.

Toborro’s Palace

This is the operations center for all of the Cartel’s efforts on Makeb. If we’re going to make a serious run for the planet, we’re going to have to hit this place sooner or later. It won’t be an easy one.

My initial findings on Toborro himself are detailed in the attached profile sheet, but the highlights are: power-mad and paranoid. Advise that any ground team personnel don’t underestimate just how far this Hutt is willing to go to keep his credits flowing.

Conclusions

Just to reiterate: any intervention on Makeb is going to be a nightmare. Severely limited deployment options, significant Cartel defensive positioning, and aside from some enthusiastic locals, not much in the way of friendly resources.

Anyone we send in here is going to have to be really, really good.

--END REPORT—
ATTACHED FILE: Makeb Atmospheric Readings//REDACTED
ATTACHED FILE: Solida Hesk financial transaction data//REDACTED
ATTACHED FILE: Toborro Profile Sheet//REVIEW PENDING CROSS-REFERENCE WITH PERSONS OF INTEREST REPORT 875936-501MAK4—AGENT BALKAR

Achievement Completed: Breaking the Writer’s Block. Description: Wrote the first sentence of my developer blog. This achievement doesn’t reward me with a title, but it does increase my Galactic Reputation with the Community Team, so I’ve got that going for me!

Game Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy introduces the Legacy Achievements system, a means of recognizing important accomplishments and milestones for your entire Legacy. Achievements are like badges awarded for completing content, defeating enemies, exploring new regions, and a whole lot more. The Achievements you gather are displayed in a new section of your Legacy panel, where they can be viewed by other players to see how much you have accomplished with your Legacy.

What sets Legacy Achievements in Star Wars™: the Old Republic™ apart from similar achievement systems in many other games is that actions from all characters in your Legacy contribute to your Legacy Achievements. Need to discover and dance with 100 kinds of womp rats on Tatooine? No sweat---dance with 50 of them with your Scoundrel while he is on the planet and then go dance with the other 50 later with your Powertech. Your progress is tracked across both characters and the Achievement and its rewards are available to all characters in your Legacy. So you are always contributing to the same set of Achievements and rewards regardless of which character you are playing.

The Basics

Every Achievement has tasks that are required to unlock it, which are displayed in the Achievement description. For example, the Master Craftsman Achievement requires you to have hit 450 points with each crew skill. As you complete tasks in the list, they will be checked off and will display as completed. When all tasks on the list are complete, the Achievement is considered completed, and a banner will display on screen letting you know that you have finished it. If you belong to a guild, all guild mates will receive notification of your accomplishment in the chat window, with an option to click on the linked Achievement and find out more about what you accomplished.

It is important to note that we never take Achievements or Achievement progress away---if you complete part of an Achievement that asks you to reach Light V alignment with a character, and then make a turn to the dark side with that same character, your Achievement for having hit Light V is not revoked. If, however, the Achievement specifies that you need to dance with 100 womp rats while you are Light V (apparently our example user is a prolific at dancing with womp rats), you will need to maintain that Light V status while you progress the Achievement.

You may view another player’s Achievements at any time by right clicking their portrait in-game and selecting Additional Commands -> Inspect Achievements. You will be able to fully browse their progress in any category, as well as see their overall Achievement score and any recent accomplishments they’ve achieved.

Types of Achievements

• Companion: Companion Achievements recognize Achievements related to your companion characters. Examples include Achievements for maxing out affection ratings or defeating enemies with certain companions active.
• Flashpoint: Flashpoint Achievements recognize defeating tough encounters in both normal and hard mode flashpoints, as well as meta Achievements for completing many different flashpoint Achievements.
• Legacy: The Legacy category encompasses all Achievements related to the progression of your characters, from leveling to wealth to possessions to alignment.
• Location: Location Achievements recognize progress on each planet. This encompasses story moments on these planets, Heroic Missions, Datacrons found, and anything else specific to a given planet.
• Operations: Operation Achievements recognize Achievements for completing encounters and challenges in Operations of all difficulty levels.
• Player Vs. Player: Player Vs. Player Achievements are awarded for hitting certain targets or milestones in Warzones as well as some more generic player on player accomplishments.
• Space: Space Achievements are awarded for completing missions and bonus objectives in space missions, as well as meta Achievements for completing certain sets of space content.

Achievement Rewards

All Achievements reward the player with Prestige, a score showing the combined value of your completed Achievements. Any player inspecting your Achievements can immediately see your total Prestige and get an idea of just how much of the game you have completed and explored.

Some tough Achievements will grant the player Legacy Titles usable by all members of your Legacy. For example, the Master Craftsman Achievement referenced earlier bestows the title of Master Craftsman across your entire Legacy.

A small number of Achievements will grant Cartel Coins to your account. These Achievements only reward Cartel Coins once per account instead of once per Legacy.

What Achievements Will I Have on Day One?

On day one, we will automatically grant Achievements for everything that can be easily verified and tracked on your character. Any quests you have completed, codices you have found, items you have, pets or vehicles you have collected, or levels you have attained will all be counted towards immediately updating your Achievement progress. You will likely find that you have many Achievements already when you log in to Game Update 2.0 for the first time.

Sadly, we cannot track every single womp rat you have ever danced with, nor every Jawa you’ve bested in combat. Achievements related to defeating enemies or players will not update automatically on day one, but will start keeping score as soon as the update is live.

The exception to this rule is anything that was previously tracked by codex entries, such as the Achievements for defeating planetary world bosses and some Flashpoint/Operations encounters. Players who have been around a while may have some codex entries labeled "Achievement” for defeating world bosses or Flashpoint/Operations encounters. New equivalent Achievements exist for the old codex Achievements, and you will be automatically granted the new type of Achievement and any rewards conferred by that Achievement.

Something Doesn’t Add Up!

Players on our Public Test Server (PTS) have noticed that the point totals for each Achievement category don’t necessarily match up with the visible point totals for all Achievements within those categories. You are quite correct! The numbers do not always add up. Maybe there’s something hidden waiting to be discovered…

What’s Next

Additional Legacy Achievements will continue to be added with future content in Star Wars: The Old Republic. New regions, Flashpoints, Operations, and content of all kinds will have new Achievements in the future with new rewards for you to collect. The initial set of Achievements delivered with Game Update 2.0 comprises more than 2000 individual Achievements and nearly 30,000 Prestige points to collect. We are looking forward to expanding the types, complexity and range of Achievements that you can earn, We plan to continuing to push the Achievement System further to encompass every part of the game now and every part of it going forward.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some womp rats to dance with.

William Wallace
Senior Game Designer

Beginning, today, April 2, 2013, logging in to the game or website will require your Display Name. Email addresses are no longer accepted; your Display Name is the only accepted option.

In case you forgot your Display Name, simply:

• Click on the "Log In" button at the top right hand corner of www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com.
• Click "Forgot your Display Name?"
• Enter the email address associated with your account.
• Click "Recover Display Name."
• An automated email will be sent to the email address associated with your account. Your Display Name is within this automated email.

Also, a new process utilizing "One-Time Passwords" will be replacing the Security Questions and Answers previously requested during log in. This change will allow us to enable self-service recovery measures.

There are a few new ways to help you recover important account information faster and more efficiently in case you forgot or lost this information. Below are all the measures you can take:

1. Self-service for "Forgot my Password"
2. Self-service for "Forgot my Display Name"
3. Self-service for "Lost my Security Key"
4. Self-service for "Remove my Security Key"
5. Self-service for "Change my Security Key"

These changes increase the security of our game authentication system, which helps to keep the game protected from many security threats including account takeovers.

For additional information on the Display Name Log In, check out the Forum Post by our Senior Manager of Security. If you have any questions, please visit our Display Name Log In FAQ.

As always, be sure to check www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for latest updates and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

We are excited to announce the first new race for player characters that will be added with the upcoming expansion Rise of the Hutt Cartel.  With the release of this expansion and the Game Update 2.0 players will now have the option to select Ortolan at character creation.  We know that you are all as excited as we are to include Ortolan as a new playable race.  Based on extensive research and community feedback we found an overwhelming outcry for this particular option.   


Concept Art:

If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, it’s not too late to receive exclusive pre-order rewards**, including the Makrin Seedling Mini-Pet, the Dr. Oggurobb Hutt Holostatue, and a unique title, "Scourge of the Hutts”. This pre-order offer expires on April 13, 2013 at 4:00PM PDT / 11:00PM GMT, so don’t wait!

Check out the Making of Rise of the Hutt Cartel Part 2: Conflict on Makeb video to unravel the storyline behind the new planet Makeb.

To pre-order Rise of the Hutt Cartel, visit www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com/RiseoftheHuttCartel.

Stay connected to www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!

Game Update 2.0 introduces Operation: Legions of Scum and Villiany for level 55 players. The storyline picks up the trail of the Dread Masters after Operation: Terror from Beyond. Both the Republic and the Empire have heard rumors of a gathering of mercenaries, arms traders, and war beast handlers on the remote desert planet of Darvannis. Intelligence points to the Hutt Cartel as the organization that is gathering an army for an unknown purpose. Both Republic and Empire forces know that the Hutt Cartel must be stopped. 

Players arrive outside of a city built into a protective canyon, in the midst of a sandstorm at dusk. Before arriving at the gates of the city, players must traverse the sandstorm and defeat the Dash’roode, a creature who has made his home in the sandstorm. Upon arrival, the gates will be barred and protected by a "one Droid army", who’s sales pitch has always been "regional annihilation at reasonable rates!” Once inside, players will confront the bulk of the gathered mercenary army. Speed and covertness are key to surviving the heavily patrolled city center as night falls. Players will need to plan their purchases carefully when dealing with the pushy arms dealer, Olok the Shadow. Finally, players will confront the leaders of the armies, and then discover the true purpose of their gathering.

For the BioWare team, creating a new Operation is always exciting yet challenging. We’re always on the lookout for new ways to challenge players, particularity for the Hard Mode difficulty. At the same time, we want players to feel like they’re a part of the story as they battle through the Operation as well, and this is the focus of the Story Mode difficulty. Darvannis itself provided some inspiration for us. For example, the idea of becoming lost in a howling sandstorm formed the basis for the Dash’roode encounter. Like all of our previous Operations, Legions of Scum and Villainy also features another "puzzle” encounter. This time, players will have to rough up a wealthy buyer who is browsing the wares of Olok the Shadow, who has an array of deadly war Droids for sale. Using credit tokens acquired from the Wealthy Buyer, players can purchase Droids from Olok’s selection, but be careful, as sometimes you can get more than you bargained for.

The dangers of Darvannis do not come without rewards! Two new armor sets are available to those who brave this harsh world and survive, one from Story Mode and one from Hard Mode. Each gives a new, unique appearance for your Class.

I hope everyone enjoys Darvannis as much as we enjoyed making it!

George Smith
Senior Operations & Flashpoints Designer