SWTOR To Begin Server Move to the Cloud Next Week, and Update 7.3.1 Will Begin a Changed Galactic Season 5

mmorpg.com:

 Star Wars: The Old Republic details update 7.3.1, which will usher in Galactic Season 5 and some tech updates. The team has also announced that the previously-announced server move into the cloud will start next week.

Next week, on August 16th,  after a series of tests that also involved moving the Public Test Server over to the cloud and moving a server to AWS in April, they will start moving the game's servers over on August 15th.  The goals of moving the servers will be to make things faster and to let the team focus on improving the game and running the game instead of having to manage the servers as well. This is also part of their modernization efforts. The first server move will happen on the 15th and it will involve just the Leviathan server. Once this server has been successfully moved and everything checks out, they'll begin revealing dates for the rest of the servers.

Update 7.3.1, currently targeted for late August or early September, will start Galactic Season 5, “Confidence in Power”, which comes with a few changes. The first is the new way of making story progression part of the rewards track. As you progress through the season reward track, you will start unlocking new story missions. Additionally, you will not get a new companion this time, but you'll meet several new characters during the seasonal story. One of them is an astromech droid named 3V-1L, who will test you.

“Under the command of a mysterious Master, 3V-1L will test the player through a series of trials, to see if they are worthy of the Master’s teachings of the “dark side”. Whether this is a prank or a serious threat, the player must decide how deeply they will commit to these “dark” trials to uncover the truth.”

Another change involves