The Old Republic's Galactic Strongholds expansion adds player housing and a bunch of other stuff , giving bounty hunters a place to hang their boots, their Wookies and their sarcastic Han Solo-style grins between missions. If you're a subscriber you were probably looking forward to the expansion's Early Access period on June 24th - so you'll be disappointed to hear that it's been delayed to August 19th, just one month before Preferred Early Access begins in September, and the content launches for free-to-play players in October. As a reward for your patience, the DLC will be getting a new stronghold location (Tatooine), conquest events and a few other things, as detailed in this announcement post . Hey, remember when games/expansions had a single release date? Simpler times.
Senior Producer Bruce Maclean had this to say about the delay:
"We have been listening to what you, our players, were hoping to see from the Galactic Strongholds expansion. When playing early builds of Galactic Strongholds it became that clear that our June Early Access date was simply not enough. For this to truly feel like an expansion, it needs to include the full set of features, including those originally coming later in the year. So what does this mean? We are moving the start date for Subscriber Early Access from June 24th to August 19th in order to deliver to you the most features at the highest level of quality. The result will be a far more compelling experience, including additional features such as the ability to place your vehicles and pets in your Stronghold and for Guilds to conquer planets."
With the new content, Galactic Strongholds will now comprise
- 3 unique Player Strongholds, one on each Capital World plus the Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace
- 2 faction-specific Guild Flagships (Valor-class Cruiser for the Republic and Harrower-class Dreadnaught for the Empire)
- Legacy Stronghold Storage
- Ability to gain Prestige tracked on Prestige Leaderboards
- Hundreds of Decorations to discover and collect
There's all sorts of bonuses on top of that too, if you pledge with your wallet to become a monthly subscriber by certain dates, but I won't pretend to understand what Cartel Coins are, and how they differ from credits or Itchy & Scratchy Money, which I believe is the official currency of the Star Wars galaxy as of Lucasfilm's recent breakup with the Expanded Universe .
