Star Wars: The Old Republic received it's third major update today, and it is a huge step in the right direction.
After months of talking about it, BioWare has launched the 1.3 update for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It includes a variety of game-changers, so let's go through them one at at time, shall we?
- Group Finder: No more spamming General Chat to find groups like you're living in the 20th century. Now you can queue up for Flashpoints and Operations.
- Legacy Perks: The Legacy system was quite bare when it came out last patch, but these new perks reward you significantly for leveling up alternate characters. Things such as experience bonuses can now be attained by achieving higher Legacy levels. Each perk only ties to an individual character so there's some customization involved in the new system.
- Ranked Warzones: If you're all about serious competition then this patch is right up your alley. It's similar to World of Warcraft's Ranked Battlegrounds and rewards both personal and team rating to effectively match you against similarly-skilled—and geared—opponents.
- Adaptive Gear: Social armor can now feature the same stats as your best set. In other words, you can look how you want while staying competitive.
- Augment Tables: Augment slots can now be added to items without requiring a critical crafting success. It's going to make several crafting professions much more desirable by offering some of the highest itemization in the game. You should expect to pay a pretty penny, though.
Each of these is significant and all players, casual or hardcore, have something new to enjoy. Even if you don't currently susbcribe, Star Wars: The Old Republic is very like to go free-to-play in the future, so at some point you'll look back and wonder how people played the game without features such as the Group Finder or Legacy system.
If you're interested in seeing the pages of patch notes, they can be found on the official site.