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Ten Ton Hammer: Outside of directly controlling their advancement path, will there be other way for players to customize them in some way? It’s logical to give those characters a distinct path to follow, but at the same time I know a lot of players will want their companions to feel like they are unique to their story, and not just a carbon copy of the person next to them.

But a way to customize them is you can customize their appearance with kits. So for example, if you have a blue twi’lek maybe you want her to be green skinned, and you would like her to have a different-shaped face. You will actually have kits that will allow you to make her look different essentially.

They’ll still have the same name and personality, and everything else, but you will essentially be able to customize their look entirely. We wouldn’t do that in a single-player game, but the reason we’re doing that in a multiplayer game is that it presents an immersion issue. We don’t want people running around with identical looking companion characters.

Ten Ton Hammer: That brings up a very good point in terms of how things will work if I group with another player who opts to bring along the same companion character. Will there be some form of naming convention employed in those cases so you don’t have one companion named Vette in the group, and another named ‘Twi’lek Pirate #2002’ or even ‘Vette2’?
James: When you view them in the world, their name doesn’t show up. Instead it will be more like ‘James’ Companion’. We decided to do that because it’s less immersion breaking. That’s much better than having you both see Vette and thinking, “That’s kind of lame.” It’s amazing what kind of difference something as simple as a name can make though.

So instead it will be like, that’s Rich’s companion and she’s a red skinned Twi’lek, and mine is a blue skinned Twi’lek. That way I can totally get over the fact that I know he’s also playing a Sith Warrior, and that he’s also on the same story, and that he met the same character. We want to do enough hand-wavery to make it so that it’s not an issue for players.

Ten Ton Hammer: We are also curious about the banking system. Will players be able to share items between their own characters through the bank on the same server, or even across factions so long as it’s on the same account?
James: Currently no, you have to do it the old fashioned way through the mailbox, but only if they’re the same faction. There are multiple reasons why we don’t want the different factions to communicate with each other.

We had the big argument that this isn’t like Horde and Alliance, we all speak Galactic Standard so we should just allow it. So we actually did allow it for a little while. The argument against it was that, what happens is people start saying inappropriate things to the other side. That’s just the way it is when you’re on a different side and you gank each other, people tend to say inappropriate things.

So we thought that maybe it won’t be so bad, but then when we started doing testing with external people, and then we’d look at the chat logs and say, OK, that’s gone. And it wasn’t the swear words that were bad, let’s just say that lots of inappropriate things get said. Usually our testers are more mature, and if this is what was happening with them, imagine what will happen when we go out into the wild.

We just wanted to get rid of that, so that’s another reason why you can’t mail your incredibly dirty messages to members of the opposite faction. The unfortunate thing is that’s just human nature. Suddenly Empire players would start sending horrific messages – and I mean horrific – so that’s what we want to avoid.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will players be able to shift alignment from light side to dark side or vice versa even once you’ve reached the level cap?
James: Yep, you will be able to shift your alignment even at the level cap. That was a design question where we don’t want players to reach level 50 and realize they’re gimped because maybe they didn’t end up with as many dark side points as they thought they would by that point. So yes, you’ll be able to make those adjustments even at the highest level.

Ten Ton Hammer: Kind of paired with that, just to clarify, say I prefer to walk the middle path and remain as neutral as possible rather than shifting to either the light or dark side. Would I still have access to the same kind of rewards that you’d get for shifting fully in one direction or the other?
James: In the light side / dark side system you can either go all the way light or dark, or you can stay in the center. We’re doing some changes to the item system now, including how some of the light side / dark side systems work, but you’ll get different artifacts that will only work if you’re light side or dark side, or the same thing if you’re gray. Then we also have items as well. So you might have a specific lightsaber crafted that’s just for the Sith, that you’ll have to be dark side to be able to use.

The following crafting types are the ones revealed so far:
Gathering Skills include:


Bioanalysis – The practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and plants
Scavenging – The art of recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology
Slicing – A skill in accessing secured computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable data and rare schematics
Archeology - The ability to seek out imbued items like Lightsaber crystals and ancient artifacts

Crafting Skills include:


Armormech – The ability to work with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct all types of personal armor
Armstech - Armstech is the ability to work with hard metals, alloys, and synthetic materials to craft blasters.
Cybertech - The technical expertise to construct gadgets and components for Droids and high-tech armors
Synthweaving - The art of creating lighter outfits and armors that are imbued with supernatural qualities
Biochem – The engineering of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants
Artifice – The delicate work of constructing Jedi and Sith artifacts
Artifice is not limited to just Force users - AskAJedi
Mission Skills include:


Diplomacy – The art of conducting and managing negotiations
Treasure Hunting – The ability to track down and recover valuable items by investigating a series of clues.
Underworld Trading - Expertise in the trading of illegal goods and services
Investigation Mission - The skill of examining evidence and following clues to discover valuable secrets



There are three quality levels for crafted blasters:

Quality - Crafting Requirements Premium Gathered resources and common items sold on vendors
Prototype - Rare gathered resources and other valuable items
Artifact - Rare resources (gathered or otherwise) and other valuable items – possibly acquired from other players.

There is NO threat meter in game.

Quote: We want players to pick an AC due to their gameplay preferences and Star Wars fantasy, not because they feel forced to take it so they can be a viable healer in PvP or PvE only. What that means is that we’re trying to make all healers equally useful in PvP and PvE.

They are working on adding Mods to gear, similar to sockets.

There is no Guild Bank at launch. But it is a priority after launch.

You can NOT queue for Warzones as a group of 8. You can queue as a group of 4 but then you will get 4 random single players. They do not want premade groups steam rolling Warzones.

The Smuggler & Agent covers do the following: Physical cover in fact prevents damage from any direct attack such as blaster fire. Portable cover mitigates damage, it doesn't prevent it.

The Consular's ability which pulls objects from the ground and throws them at the enemy is only a place holder object. The intention is to have various objects and not always the same one.

The Consular's ability which pulls objects from the ground and throws them at the enemy is only a place holder object. The intention is to have various objects and not always the same one.

When asked if the UI can be customised: Answer: Limited customization at launch, working on more later.

One of the main social areas are called Fleets. Fleets are the main launch point for flashpoints, auctions, and best vendors. The collectors edition gives access to the VIP area in the fleet.

When asked: Is there a dungeon finder? Answer: James Ohlen: Works for established games, not in yet.

Other than the Space mini game there are no others at launch.

At Launch there will be 15 Flashpoints

I plan on going pretty craft-heavy in this game. I so rarely do and end up poor for a long time. Thanks to the list posted, I just have to decide what to have my Consular craft.