BioWare released their 1.6.2 Patch Notes for Star Wars: The Old Republic on the 8th of January. Now, the Empire, being the sneaky snots that they are, decided to wage biological warfare and give me the flu. For the last week, I’ve been rode hard, stomped on by Subject Alpha, fried to a crisp by Gharj, sat on by Karagga, rolled over by the Death Star, and put away wet. Fortunately, the Jedi Temple sent a few healers my way, and I’m now recovering. I just have to point out that kolto tastes entirely too much like salty fish. They need to spice it up with some Corellian ale. Now that I’m feeling better, the sassy has come back. This may or may not be A Good Thing. Read on and enjoy.

Sassy! (1)

Cartel Market

New Items

• Players can now unlock additional character slots! Cost: 600 Cartel Coins.

The Altaholics Anonymous chapter meetings will be held daily at varying times. All are welcome.

• The Newcomer Bundle is now available! It contains a wide range of items to help new players expedite their travels. Cost: 405 Cartel Coins (discounted by 50% for a limited time!).

Never fear, you’ll still be able to run around your starter planet, unimpeded by any Speeder skills until level 10.

• Two new armor sets, the Interstellar Privateer Armor Set and Clandestine Officer Armor Set, can now be purchased. Each armor set costs 1,440 Cartel Coins.

By ‘Clandestine’, we mean “even Keeper won’t know if you’re working for him or the Dark Council anymore”.

• A new Cartel Pack, the Skip Tracer Cartel Pack, is now on the Market. Cost: 360 Cartel Coins.

The Male Reveler bottoms are still being skip traced. We’ll let you know when the bounty hunters locate them.

When all else fails, ask Ixum for an outfit update. (2)

New Discounts

• The Gamorrean Axe is discounted by 30%. Cost: 245 Cartel Coins.

Rancors not included.

• Fleet Passes (single use) are discounted by 33%. Cost: 60 Cartel Coins.

The weekly bus pass is still full price.

• The Life Day Bundle is discounted by 35%. Cost: 2,400 Cartel Coins.

Hurry! All After-Life Day sales end soon!

Bug Fixes

• Unlock items no longer stack in the inventory.

They will now take up all your inventory instead.

• The Investigator’s Robe now displays the correct color when equipped.

‘Subject Alpha Puke Green’ just wasn’t working for the fashionistas.

• Revan’s Mask no longer clips through hoods on some body types.

It now clips through the backsides of Type 4 bodies instead.

• The textures for the Forward Recon chestpiece now display properly.

Backwards Recon Chestpieces are still causing a bit of a problem, but they’re working on that.

• The appearance of the Phantom, Spymaster’s, and Preceptor’s armor now matches the appearance seen in the Cartel Market.

Inflatable airline life-vest now included.

In case of sudden loss of pressure in the cabin, please place the mask over your face and use the inflatable life vest. (3)

• The Stylish Dancer’s Top no longer binds on pickup.

Anyone in this outfit now binds on payment.

• The Statele Shan Holo-Statue and Darth Malgus Holo-Statue no longer allow the use of Heroic Moment abilities.

Darth Malgus is planning on having a few words with the staff about this lack of faith in his abilities.

• Using Imperial and Republic Firework items now causes the player to kneel down.

The ‘Lying Down Fireworks’ were deemed a bit too bawdy by EA.

• Tinsel Bombs can now be used on both friendly and hostile targets.

Nothing says ‘hostility’ like hitting an enemy with a Tinsel Bomb. Kill it with kindness!!

• Players no longer move when using Fountain Fireworks.

BioWare added carbon-freezing to prevent all movement.

• Tooltips for equipment that requires the Event Equipment Requisition Authorization now update when the player unlocks the requirement.

You will need to file Form AA2113 in triplicate and wait the standard 30 days in order for the tooltip to update.

• The Carbonite Chamber and Life Day Orb now properly regenerate Ammo for Troopers.

Everyone else still has to buy their own ammo. The Hutts are offering a special deal right now, along with bridges.

General

• Character slot restrictions are now being enforced:
  • By default, Free-to-Play players are restricted to 2 characters per server.
  • By default, Preferred Status players are restricted to 6 characters per server.
  • By default, Subscribers are limited to 12 Characters per servers.
  • All players have a Global Active Character Limit of 350 Characters.

I’m not sure how you can keep 350 characters ‘Active’, but I’m sure someone is giving it a good try.

• Additional Character Slots may now be purchased from the Cartel Market. Each Character Slot will increase the number of Characters a player may have across all servers by 1 (players can go beyond their default character slot restrictions). Each purchase will increase the number characters that a player may mark as Active across all servers.
  • Subscribers who have more than the current character limits will be allowed to keep and play all characters.
  • Preferred Status players who have more than the current character limits will be allowed to keep all characters, but will only be able to activate 6 characters per server unless additional character slots are purchased.
  • No new characters may be created on a server if the account exceeds the server character limit until the number of characters on the server falls below the default limit plus any additionally purchased slots.

   

For those keeping score at home, if you max out your characters on every single server as a subscriber, and then buy 5.5 character slots, you’ll be able to achieve the Global Limit. This has been your math lesson for the day.

Math is fun!! (4)

• Public Test Server characters no longer count towards character limits.

That just wouldn’t be fair, after all.

Classes and Combat

Scrapper

• Flechette Round’s damage over time effect no longer interrupts players attempting to capture an objective.

Concealment

• Acid Blade’s damage over time effect no longer interrupts players attempting to capture an objective.

Enemies will continue to plague your very existence, however.

Companion Characters

HK-51

• HK-51′s dagger, “Dicer,” is now available in his combat outfit container.

Also included: the Slicer, the Cleaver, and the Meat Pounder, available in orange, green, or red. A must-have for the best dressed Assassin Droid/Chef! Call now, Operators are standing by!!

• Warning: Rivals Detected: Players are no longer prevented from restarting this mission if they abandoned it. Players that were unable to re-obtain this mission can speak to Bren in Section X to continue.

No warning will be given if friends are detected, however.

Kaon Under Siege

• Optimizations have been implemented to improve performance inside this Flashpoint.

Trash mobs have been reduced from approximately 500,000 to 499,999. That should improve fps.

• The Infected Screamer’s Brutalize attack now respects player immunities to knockback.

Yes! Players deserve respect, darn it!

Maelstrom Prison

• The Fifth Fleet Footmen and Fifth Fleet Gunners now spawn correctly during the Grand Moff Kilran encounter.

Grand Moff Kilran has been busy in his spare time making spawn.

• X-37 Oppressor’s Power Punch now respects player immunities to knockback.

X-37 still won’t respect you in the morning, though.

Eternity Vault

• Enrage timers have been increased by 1 minute for bosses (excluding the Ancient Pylons encounter) in this Operation in 16-player Story and Hard Modes.

The Emperor, however, has decreased the enrage timer on Soa just to gain more Dark side points.

Explosive Conflict

• Warlord Kephess’ enrage timer has been increased to 5 minutes, 30 seconds in 16-player Nightmare Mode.

You’re going to need a bigger gun.

• The Defected Imperial Commander now spawns correctly in the Colonel Vorgath encounter.

He decided not to defect after all.

Karagga’s Palace

• Enrage timers have been increased by 1 minute for bosses in this Operation in 16-player Story and Hard Modes.

Karagga will just sit on top of you after that.

Terror from Beyond

• The Gargantuan Lobel mini-boss now spawns correctly.

‘Gargantuan mini-boss is kind of like ‘jumbo shrimp’.

Items

• The Dread Guard’s Corrupted Mask now uses appropriate voice sound effects during cinematics.

BioWare lowered the pitch on the heavy breathing to add some more dread to the atmosphere.

• The Devastator’s Double-Bladed Lightsaber now correctly displays two blades.

This is down from the three or four that occasionally showed up for fun.

Legacy

• Using Priority Transport: Capital World now properly advances mission steps that require players to travel to Coruscant or Dromund Kaas.

You may now ‘pass Go’.

Belsavis

• Section X Weekly missions no longer autocomplete if the player has previously completed the component missions.

BioWare turned off the autocorrect, too.

• The Section X daily mission area has had some encounters removed and others relocated to provide easier travel between mission objectives.

They added a few cantinas to encourage the relocation.

• March of the Dread Guard: Players now use the remote device recovered from nearby enemy NPCs to free all prisoners. Only 5 prisoners now need to be freed (down from 12), and leader NPCs count towards this goal.

We’re not sure why the Dread Guard built in a ‘free-all’ mechanism into cages, but we think it’s A Good Thing.

• Imminent Threat: Only 8 escaped prisoners are now required for this mission’s objective (down from 16).

The other 8 prisoners are just out of luck with that rescue thing.

Class Missions

Jedi Consular

• Find the Ancient Weapon: Players can now complete this optional mission after recovering the item from the chest.

Removing it from any other body part than the chest won’t work at all.

Trooper

• Justice: An issue that could cause players to become stuck in the floor on The Justice has been corrected.

You’ll just have to drink a whole lot more Corellian ale if you want to become stuck in the floor.

Enjoy responsibly. You don’t want T7 hosing you down. (5)

NPCs

• After Dreadtooth is defeated, Dreadful Resurgence no longer persists. Dreadful Essence must be used to increase Dreadtooth’s difficulty.
• Dreadtooth’s difficulty when he is affected by 3 or more applications of Dreadful Resurgence has been decreased.

Dreadtooth was complaining that he was far too easy to kill and demanded that he be buffed and manicured appropriately.

• Dreadtooth no longer drops crafting materials when affected by less than 3 applications of Dreadful Resurgence.

You’ll just have to go to Hobby Lobby for your crafting materials instead.

• The anti-griefing “Dread” debuff applied by Dreadtooth now uses a shorter range.

Griefing works a lot better when you get up close and personal, you know.

• The Shriek attack used by Dreadtooth no longer causes too many visual effects to be played each tick.

While visual effects have been adjusted, the sound of a million voices crying out and then suddenly being silenced is unchanged.

Ancient Hypergate

• Players defending a pylon their team controls now gain defensive credit over time.

You might also receive offensive debits, but this is not clear at this time.

• Transmissions inside this Warzone now use appropriate voice effects.

It’s been changed from ‘slightly garbled’ to ‘completely unintelligible’.

• Players no longer gain attacker objective credit for finishing a capture attempt on an energy orb that has already been captured by another player.

If you get there a millisecond late, you’re just hosed.

Space Combat

• The costs for Grade 7 ship upgrades available from the Fleet vendor, Daily vendor, and Starship Upgrades credit vendor have been reduced.

There’s a glut on the market driving prices down.

• The credit reward from [Heroic] Space Combat missions has been reduced from 12,500 to 1,616.

The Empire had to raise taxes to pay for their new infrastructure programs. Like all good politicians, they pledge to lower taxes when the programs are complete.

General

• The “Unify to Chest” armor color option now works correctly for players and companions.

Mini-pets are still unable to use “Unify to Chest”. BioWare is still working on that.

You’re stuck with green Orokeets, sorry.

• Vendors now have a “Sell Junk” button that can be used to automatically sell inventory items that would be sold when sending a companion to sell junk.

The ‘sell good stuff’ button is still pending.

• Four new item sorting options and a button to swap between ascending/descending (where applicable) have been added to the inventory and Cargo Hold windows.

Galactic Trade Network

• Preferred Players can now post 5 sales at a time on the GTN. Previously, Preferred Players were incorrectly limited to 2 sales.

Preferred players had a strong preference not to be limited.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

• Several items that were missing correct translations in French and German have been updated.

Danish, Swahili, Gree, Nepalese, and Ubuntu are slated for the next patch.

• A rare issue that could cause a Premium or Preferred Player to function as a Free-to-Play Player temporarily has been addressed.

You’re not allowed to under-perform anymore.

• Using /stuck now kills the player without penalty when used on a Personal Starship.

There should be a penalty for being silly enough to get stuck on your own starship.

Special thanks to all the veterans I met at the Dapper Dan Spaceport on Nar Shaddaa on the Shadowlands server today. Your service to your country is much appreciated. You rock!

Did you know Dapper Dan can be dressed in denim? (6)

Feel free to follow me @JaeOnasi on Twitter, where I make a variety of sassy and not-so sassy comments.

Image sources: icanhascheezburger.com,  swtor.com community, dulfy.net, xkcd.com, legionnairesarms.web.com, hasbro.com