Ranked Warzones are coming at 1.3!

Good news everyone! Rated Warzones are officially announced for 1.3!

Mindspore: Any update on Ranked Warzones in 1.3?

Daniel: Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3. All the heavy lifting (ratings, group persistence exiting warzones, etc) is done and right now we are working through some emergent conflicts with Group Finder and the process of queuing for multiple activities at once with multiple temporary groups.

1.3 would launch sooner than what we expected?!

Every Friday is a Community Q&A where SWTOR’s Devs answer to some questions from the community. I was thinking covering the Q&A and give my 2 pennies for each answer but instead, I decided to write about something that was caught in my attention. The signs are showing that 1.3 would launch sooner that we expected!

What are my clues? Here they are:

Lovarboy: Will we get dual spec with Game Update 1.3?

Daniel: Unfortunately, no. Game Update 1.3 is being kept a bit leaner to get the Group Finder and the next stage of Legacy in the game as fast as possible. After that we’ll be returning to some bigger updates and we’re hoping dual spec makes it for the next one.

The above answer along with the sudden pull of rated warzones makes me to believe that they did it, not because the system was broken but because launching server-only rated PvP would just be pointless. Groups would fight the same opponents all the time and there would be no point on the rating system. I believe that they decided to leave it rest for a while and when they will have the cross server queuing perfected, they will launch it. The other side of the coin is the server transfers. Right now, they don't have the technology to pull it out, to copy a character and transfer it to another server. If you remember, during 1.2 PTS, they were copying the level characters manually. So, they want to solve the cross-server problem once and for all.

Another of their big announcements for 1.3 is the group finder. I know that they said it would be server specific but don't say lies to ourselves. When they'll have the technology to do cross-server PvP, cross-server flashpoints would be followed. I don't know what they are going to do with the leveling PvP though. They should either allow a cross-server queue where they'll have brackets or they'll stick with the already existed, bolster system.

So, I won't be surprised if 1.3 is similar to 1.1. They would might add Nightmare Mode for Explosive Conflict and that's it for PvE. Unless they pull some more bosses to the Operation, but I find it very unlikely. I expect the next tier to be launch probably around the end of summer.

That's it for now. I'm thinking about doing a revamp of what we already know about 1.3, so if you are interested, stay tuned!