Comprehensive Review and Commantary on Patch 1.2 - Part 2: General Changes

To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.


General
-The Imperial Transportation Authority and the Galactic Republic Safety Council have authorized the use of vehicles in Orbital Space Stations and Spaceports.
--This is awesome, a real time-saver.  This and the change to Sprint (see below) are some really juicy changes to mobility.

-In-game rewards will be available to players who participate on the Public Test Server. Players will receive a title if they attain level 10 on PTS, and another if they complete Chapter 1.
--Darkhorse and I finished up chapter 1 on the PTS last week, so once these titles are available I'll be able to tell you what they are.

-A new preference, "Character Texture Atlasing," is now available. Enabling this option increases the texture quality used when rendering character models.

-A new "Customize" option now appears on the character sheet. One of the features this button enables is the ability to color coordinate any individual piece of armor with the equipped chestpiece.
--There's a lil chestplate icon on the character panel now.  In addition to the big "UNIFY TO CHEST" button there's also options for helmet and dark side corruption display.  Once you've hit the unify button a little checkbox shows up next to individual pieces so you can toggle color unification for those on or off.


-A new preference, "Awareness Radius," allows players to adjust the number of characters displayed on-screen. Reducing this setting can improve performance in crowded areas on low-end machines.

-On planets with an Orbital Station, players can now travel directly from the planet shuttle on the surface to their ship.

-The Sprint ability is now available at level 1.

-General Bug Fixes
--Cinematics throughout the game have been polished. A large number of cinematics have been improved to address incorrect camera angles, smooth out animation issues, and to correct Companion Characters that appear in the wrong gear or at the wrong time.

--Cinematics and mission phases have been updated for consistency. For instance, several occurrences of NPCs appearing alive in a phase after a cinematic in which the player chose to kill them have been corrected.

--Corrected many instances of misplaced geometry, visible seams, and incorrect collision with world objects throughout the game.

--Many locations where player characters could become stuck on world geometry or fall through the world have been corrected.

--Some visual effects and animations have been adjusted and fixed in instances where they played incorrectly.

--Dark side appearance, if enabled, now appears correctly at character selection. *UPDATED 3/23*