The original Star Wars trilogy featured the defeat of the Empire, but in The Old Republic the Empire is dominating.
In the first week after launch of The Old Republic, a million Warzone matches have been played. Warzone is the PvP match system in SWTOR that has eight players from both factions battling it out in objective based missions.
The Empire faction currently leads with 53 percent of all Alderaan Civil War and Voidstar matches being won by them. Huttball, which allows for teams on the same faction to battle each other has, unsurprisingly, been played the most accounting for 39 percent of all Warzone matches.
Good news for fans of the same faction vs. same faction gameplay as BioWare will be adding in a new Warzone that enables this feature in the near future.
BioWare is also making additions and improvements to the PvP system in SWTOR that players have been clamoring for. The first and biggest change will be a level 50 bracket warzone for those players who have reached the max level can challenge one another without getting put into matches with players of lower level.
Ilum and it’s open world PvP has been a point of contention and exploit for BioWare and fans since the game’s launch. BioWare claims that the planet is not up to snuff yet, but they will be making changes throughout January that will encourage more PvP conflicts while balancing the fights and rewards that take place on the planet.
BioWare will be addressing some combat mechanics that will also most likely include removing the ‘/getdown’ exploit that was exposed this week.
They also have plans to include ranked warzone matches, PvP stat tracking, open world PvP loot drops, more warzone medals, more level brackets and the ability to choose which warzone players want to play in. All of these will be added in future updates.
While the Empire is winning the current battles, they have yet to win the war. It remains to to be seen whether the Republic can take back the lead with all the new improvements BioWare has planned for the game.
Whatever the outcome, BioWare has crafted an MMO with obvious staying power that will be interesting to watch as time progresses. If they keep up these continuous game improvement updates, there will be many more conflicts to decide the fate of the galaxy.