The online game's features will be continuously improved in the next few months

Jan 16, 2012 19:11 GMT  ·  By

BioWare, the developer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, has just revealed what areas of the online game will be updated with its next major patch, confirming that features like the Legacy or Guild systems, not to mention the ability and perk mechanics, will be modified.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting ready to receive its first major update, ‘Rise of the Rakghouls’ later this week, but this doesn’t mean that its developer, BioWare, isn’t already thinking about the next update and what that will bring to the online game.

According to the game’s general manager, James Ohlen, the next big patch is still far away as plenty of content will be a part of it.

“Well Game Update 2 is much bigger in scope. It's further out from launch, so we can have much more of the team focused on it,” Ohlen told CVG. “There's Part 2 of Rise of the Rakghouls, a brand new planet called Denova which has an 8-16 man Operation and a new Warzone. So that's three big pieces of content.”

Besides the new content, which might also include extra space missions, plenty of the game’s features and areas will be tweaked.

Chief among them is the special Legacy system, which benefits players who have more than one character on a single server.

“In terms of game systems we're releasing the full Legacy system. It's a system that really benefits players who like to play alts - instead of having characters who have no relation to each other you can create a family, and when you're playing any member of that family you earn experience points for your Legacy tree.”

Those experience points, according to Ohlen, can then unlock new abilities and perks for all your characters, so it pays to have them in a single family, whether they’re siblings, a couple or just friends.

The guild system will also be upgraded by BioWare, with things like Guild Banks being scheduled to arrive in March.

Last but not least, Player versus Player combat will also get plenty of new content, as a team is focused purely on making the PvP experience a great one.

“We have a team focused on Player vs Player. There's obviously a strong community of PvP guys, and we want to make sure that they feel that they're getting additional stuff to do. So we have them focused not only on adding new Warzones, but also adding new systems and new functionalities. The first thing that PvP fans are going to see is PvP rankings; you're going to be able to compare yourself against other players.”

Until these new features will be released for Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will have to be content with the upcoming update 1.1 for the game, which is out on January 17.