Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting another update in near future. The MMORPG has recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary and while updates are being released far and in between, further slowed since the start of the pandemic, the creators keep adding new content. Update 6.3, “The Dark Descent”, is the next of these. It should include both new story and group activity as well as add a new reward system.
Another way to occupy players and keep them coming back was recently introduced in the form of daily and weekly login rewards and the login calendar. Many saw it as a rather cheap way to motivate players, and the rewards were perceived as mediocre at best.
However, the upcoming update will introduce another system on top of this, called “Galactic Seasons”. The idea is to introduce a “season” – the first one should last about 5 months – that will have its own reward track, similar to the login rewards track. It will be accessible to all players, with subscribers getting access to some extra rewards.
How Will It Work?
Players will progress on the track by completing daily or weekly challenges. These should comprise of existing or new conquest objectives. For completing given objectives, players are going to get Galactic Season Points which will be then spent to advance levels in the rewards track. One season will comprise 100 levels. Advancing one level will require the same amount of points, regardless of whether you are advancing from level 1 to level 2 or from level 99 to 100.
The system will not force you to log in and complete every objective every day (or week). Players will be able to buy “skips” on the track for credits or cartel coins in order to easily catch up. These will however get progressively more expensive for every time you used a skip.
An artist rendition of the Galactic Seasons Reward track UI. The actual season name and rewards will be different.
The Rewards and the Kubaz
The Galactic Seasons rewards will be centred around a new companion you will get on level 1. Later on the track, you will get custom armour for the companion but also for yourself, gifts that give you influence with them, and other similar perks such as companion customization. The devs said that if you complete the entire reward track, you would have a companion on maximum influence level.
There will be also other rewards, among others, decorations, seasonal title or cartel coins. Some rewards (such as the cartel coins or companion customization) will be accessible only to subscribers. The companion and season-themed armour however will be available both for subscribers and free players.
The companion for the first season will be a Kubaz named Altuur zok Adon (picture at the top of this article). The season’s name is, appropriately, “The Stranger From Kubindi”. Future seasons will be themed in a similar way.
Various rewards from the Galactic Seasons.
Galactic Seasons Tokens & New Strongholds
Aside from the “physical” rewards, we will also get limited amounts of new currency, the Galactic Seasons Tokens. These could be traded to a new vendor that will be located on the Fleet.
Among the items the vendor will sell are going to be some former old subscriber rewards, such as the Tauntaun Ram minipet, HK-55 jetpack or Kakkran Daggerstar mount. There will be also new items however, including presumably also things like decorations and pets, but also new Republic and Imperial Fleet Apartment Strongholds – something many players will surely be happy about.
The update will otherwise include content continuing the current main story, even though presumably not large. So far we know that it will feature a new flashpoint, “Secret of the Enclave”, placed in the Jedi ruins on Dantooine. The flashpoint will tie-in to the story of Darth Malgus.
Good Times Ahead?
Overall the update is going to be a small one. For players who have caught up to the main storyline and ran out of content, it will provide only a tiny piece of something new. However, it will hopefully provide something that can make even doing other content or just random PvP and PvE feel more rewarding.
Vast majority of players, however, do not have such a problem and there may be still entire planets or expansions unexplored for them. In these cases, the Galactic Seasons will provide even more variety and added value to trying this new stuff.
The creators seem to be continuing the emphasis on “play your way” style, which is good. The reward system seems also more interesting than the daily login one (which is more like a bonus, really). Unlike the login rewards, it may actually make people invested in playing the game and completing the challenge objectives.
