Today, the developers of the Free2Play title “Star Wars: The Old Republic” have given us a deeper insight into the upcoming update “Galactic Strongholds” and demonstrated how the future home can be set up starting from August 19, 2014, with some graphics.
First of all, the hard facts: A stronghold can be acquired once the character reaches level 15 and has their own spaceship, or has completed the storyline on their home planet (Dromund Kaas/Coruscant). However, the prices of the strongholds will be in the millions, which is probably not an option for low-level characters – alternatively, the buildings can also be purchased with real money currency.
Once acquired, all characters of your legacy can access the stronghold, decorate it, and expand it – and this will be desperately needed. Because even though it is your stronghold, you initially do not have access to all rooms. Depending on the design, a stronghold has 8-12 areas, all of which must be unlocked with cash if you want to use them.
Decorating, on the other hand, looks relatively solid in the pictures. Although numerous decorations cannot be moved freely, they can only be aligned to certain “anchors” (similar to pedestal spots) in the respective rooms. Large objects can only be placed on a large anchor, but several small ones can replace a large one, for example. Within the constraints of the anchor, decorations can then be tilted and rotated freely – this is not complete freedom, but certainly much better than feared.
You can grant both temporary and permanent access to other players and even give them the rights to make independent decoration changes.
Last but not least, with the strongholds, the legacy vault is introduced – an account bank that all your characters have access to. Thus, “bank alts” in Star Wars: The Old Republic will likely belong to the past. However, only players with a stronghold have access to this bank – a small extra for the high prices.
The full article can be viewed on swtor.com here: Developer Update: Introduction to Galactic Strongholds. Additionally, there was a longer livestream today about accommodations. You can watch it again here:
