Star Wars The Old Republic Rise of the Rakghouls Valor Exploit

Rise of the Rakghouls, the first major game update for Star Wars: The Old Republic, released today. Mere hours after the update went live, players discovered an exploit in Ilum that allows Valor to be gained at a massively accelerated rate.

In a post on the game's official forums, BioWare promises that an "official response" to the situation is forthcoming.

While exploits and glitches can hardly be considered strangers to massively multiplayer online role playing games, the situation with Rise of the Rakghouls is particularly unfortunate. The update, announced just last week, was originally slated to release January 17th, but got delayed at the last minute so that additional testing could be completed. Nevertheless, an exploit got through, and it's a big one.

All things considered, this may not have been the most opportune time for The Old Republic Game Director James Ohlen to state in a Design Notes blog post that, "This first Game Update will show everyone how serious we are about expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic..."

The issue, in a nutshell: giant turrets in Ilum's PVP area post 1.1 are awarding opulent amounts of Valor, leading a huge number of (mostly Imperial) players to farm them, which isn't too hard given that the turrets respawn instantly. As a result, players are allegedly able to max out Valor in practically no time.

What sounds like an inconvenience looks like utter chaos in-game. YouTube user suzpaz captured the action in a video named "This is Ilum -- Patch 1.1 (Republic Perspective)." Check it out below.

httpv://youtu.be/TL0kDP_Cexo

Makes you long for the days of The Old Republic's invincibility exploit, doesn't it?

While BioWare works to address the Valor exploit, Ohlen looks ahead to future updates.

"We have another major update planned for March and future content arriving throughout 2012 and 2013. We plan to release new Operations, Flashpoints, Warzones, Space Missions, single player content, vehicles, and companion characters. We’ll always be improving our existing game with additions like guild banks, PVP ranked matches and interface customization. Our Legacy system expands in March, bringing more options and a new level of depth to the existing character classes."

"Our Game Updates will also include bug fixes, balance changes, performance improvements and exploit-proofing based on your feedback. We review reports from the community every day and compare them to gameplay metrics, QA bugs and our own experiences in the live game–where we’re playing right alongside you. Although we already address critical issues during our weekly updates, the major Game Updates will implement some of the most sweeping changes and fixes."

Ranters, what do you think about the Valor exploit in the Rise of the Rakghouls expansion? Given what you've seen so far, will BioWare be able to deliver on all the promises it's made for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Share your take on the situation in the comments below.

Star Wars: The Old Republic and the Rise of the Rakghouls update are available now on PC.

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Source: Eurogamer, SW:TOR Community, SW:TOR Blog