Independent developer Trendy Entertainment has hired former LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez as its new CEO. Trendy Entertainment, best known for its action-RPG Dungeon Defenders, is hoping the former LucasArts president will help lead their company to future success. Rodriguez tells Game Industry Biz: “When I first visited here I saw tremendous potential–both in Dungeon Defenders II and their cross platform backend and technology, Playverse, and needed to be a part of it. Working with talented, passionate people and putting them and customers first to help unlock Trendy Entertainment’s potential is why I’m here,” Rodriguez said. “I have been extremely fortunate to work with some of the most talented and passionate people across various creative industries and at some of the most renowned companies in the world. I am equally impressed and blessed to work with the passion and skill that exist at Trendy.” He also discussed that Trendy Entertainment will…
Author: Lisa Clark
SWTOR Housing Speculation- What Can We Expect?
Some of us have been looking forward to SWTOR player housing since we first heard about SWTOR. Now that we know it will be coming soon, there is a lot of speculation about what we can expect to see in the actual final version of player housing. We know it’s coming this summer with the release of Galactic Strongholds but we don’t know a lot more about what this will bring. And since it’s coming soon, players have been doing a lot of speculation. We have learned to be cautious when it comes to news from Bioware about future features of the game but with one as highly anticipated as this, it’s hard not to be optimistic. We don’t want to get our hopes up and then bet let down but we are feeling good about some of the things we might see. We were told we would get “prestigious apartments” that…
Developer Blog: What’s New in Season Two?
Hello PVP fans! If you enjoyed Season One, you might be excited to know Season 2 is coming. This most recently Developer’s Blog has some great info for us about what to expect in Season Two:
Game Update 2.7 – The Invasion is Here!
CALLING ALL FORCES TO THE SITH ACADEMY AND JEDI TEMPLE! Welcome to Game Update 2.7: Invasion We are very excited to see the release of Game Update 2.7: Invasion today. In addition to many bug fixes and other updates, we also get to experience some great new content. We get a new story arc: Forged Alliances, new Flashpoints, Nightmare Mode for the Dread Fortress, Ranked Warzone Season 1 ends and you can start pre season for season 2, and we see Quesh Huttball Put, a new warzone that looks to be a lot of fun. Bounty Contract Week will be making a comeback and there is a new Galactic Starfighter Domination Map: Denon Exosphere. Developer Blogs explains: We believe this game update captures some of the key elements that make Star Wars™ special: the struggle between galactic factions; engaging in dangerous and difficult trials that push you to the limits of…
Known In-Game Issues
Tait Watson, SWTOR Community Production Coordinator made a post in the SWTOR community threads explaining the known in-game issues that currently face the community. If you have So here is that post: Hello everyone! We appreciate you joining us to play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, and we hope you enjoy the game. As MMORPGs are large and complex projects, inevitably we do discover issues that may affect gameplay. We’re working constantly to fix anything that will affect the player experience, but for now this is our current list of high priority in-game known issues. Please note that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all bugs that the developers are working on. Also, we encourage you to report any issues that you do not see on this list via the in-game /bug feature. General A number of Achievements do not grant as intended. A number of Codex…
Electronic Arts Names Amy Hennig Creative Director For ‘Star Wars’ Project
Steve Papoutsis, the Vice President and General Manager at Visceral Games had some important news to share recently. Amy Hennig was named creative director for their upcoming ‘Star Wars’ Project. Here is some of what he had to say about the announcement:
Bioware Austin is Hiring
SWTOR Community Manager Eric Musco also shared it on the SWTOR forums. Their web team is looking for a Front End Web Developer to work on SWTOR in the Austin studio. They say they are looking for someone who is passionate about SWTOR and wanting to work on some cool new things. The job listing says you’d be working on “the customer-facing web applications and the web site” for SWTOR.
SWTOR Double XP Weekend Coming Up! 4/11 – 4/13
It’s that time again! Time for another double XP weekend in SWTOR. You may remember that there were some issues surrounding the last double XP weekend and Bioware promised us they would “make good” with another one soon. So here it is: 4/11 – 4/13 That’s next weekend so get your Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets ready because this is a great time for a gaming fest. SWTOR Community Manager Eric Musco took to the SWTOR forums to announce this and also to explain a little about the confusion that happened at the last weekend event. Here’s part of that post: “You may remember back when we ran our last double XP weekend that there were a lot of forum reports around that Kuat Drive Yards was not issuing double XP. Once we realized that, as a “make good” to the issue, we would do another double XP weekend so you can…
Darth Vader for President: Ukraine
Darth Vader for president! Nope, it’s not a joke. Darth Vader is now running for president in Ukraine. The official announcement of his candidacy was made my Vader this weekend, where he was supported by Stormtroopers as he declared, “I alone can make an empire out of a republic, to restore former glory, to return lost territories and pride for this country.”
We Hit 35K Followers on Facebook!
We have some very exciting news to celebrate this week- we have 35,000 fans/followers on Facebook now. We know a good number of those are you so we wanted to take the time to tell you all a very big, genuine THANK YOU. It has given us a great deal of pleasure to bring you Star Wars and SWTOR news for all of these years and our Facebook page is one more place where we bring you our updated blog posts plus other tidbits, news and cool stuff. If you have not spent time on our Facebook page yet, you might not know that we share more there than just our blog posts. Not only can you stay updated on all of the news and info we share daily but you’ll also connect with other SWTOR and Star Wars fans. You can communicate with us directly, send us messages or…
EA Won’t Be ‘Worst Company in America’ for the 3rd Year in a Row
Remember when we told you it looked like EA might take home the prize of ‘Worst Company in America’ for the 3rd year in a row? Well, it looks like good news for them that they fell out of the running in round one. While they may have made some mistakes this year, it looks like there are some other companies who have people upset enough to bump them up in the rankings, sparing EA this year. In the first round, Time Warner Cable beat EA with a 51.2% vs. 48.8% margin. It was a close one but as a TWC customer, I can’t say I am surprised. In past years, I was a huge TWC fan but recent months have told a different story and now their impeding merge with Comcast just pushes them more negative territory. As Consumerist explains: In the narrowest margin of victory since 2011, when BP beat…
EA Plans to Model Star Wars Games after Batman Arkham Series
Reports and interviews coming out say EA plans to model their Star Wars games after the Batman Arkham series. “We’re not trying to build a game that replicates the storyline of any particular film,” says EA boss. EA is telling the fans we shouldn’t expect the upcoming Star Wars games to be based directly on the Star Wars films themselves. Instead, EA will approach it in the same way that Warner Bros. did with the Batman Arkham series. Basically they are not planning to build a game that copies any particular storyline of the films. Instead, they are going to take the core roots of the IP and create an additional interactive experience that fans can enjoy. This is interesting because it also gives the more flexibility with what they do with the games. Remember EA acquired the Star Wars license exclusively last May and it will last for at…
Imperial Entanglements – Original Star Wars Comics, Humor and Art
You know how we love to bring you cool and interesting stuff related to Star Wars? Well, one thing we really love is comics and fan art. So you have to check out this Tumblr blog we found, Imperial Entanglements. It contains original Star Wars comics, humor and art and we think you will enjoy it as much as we do. She’s been playing SWTOR since beta and enjoys creating and sharing fan fiction and art related to SWTOR. We are highly impressed with her talent and creativity and we highly encourage you to head over and check it out. The website/blog updates every Monday. She also visited The Community Cantina on March 23rd in Boulder, CO and took some great pics as well as talked about her questions to the BioWare staff and showed us the cool stuff from her thumb drive. She even won an awesome t-shirt (even…
Bastilla Shan Cosplay by Dahlia Thomas
This is an amazing Bastilla Shan cosplay from Dahlia Thomas. She has been costuming/cosplaying since July 2012. She makes her own costumes, gives panels at conventions about cosplay related shenanigans, works with photographers all over Florida and help support other cosplayers. Awards and recognitions for Dahlia: -Dana Snyder’s Judge’s award in the Florida Supercon Supergirl competition. [Morrigan, Dragon Age Origins] -Publication in We Rise Magazine. [Cortana] – Cosplayer of the week on Chicks With Lightsabers. [Bastilla Shan] Cosplay by: https://www.facebook.com/DahliaThomasCosplay Photo by: https://www.facebook.com/sghphotoartfans
SWTOR is now OFFICIALLY on Instagram
If you are a SWTOR fan who also loves Instagram, then you’ll be happy to hear this news. SWTOR is now officially on Instagram!
Why SWTOR Was a “Failure”
We keep hearing it everywhere- “SWTOR was a failure” and with many new MMORPGs coming out, we hear the claim that it might end up being a failure “Just like SWTOR”. Why all this hatred for the game? First, let’s clear the air and say that we don’t think SWTOR is a failure. And with the numbers they are bringing in financially, the stats don’t say it’s a flop either. But we hear this far too much to just write it off as a handful of trolls. So for this reason, we’re going to entertain this opinion for just a bit and see why some people think the game failed. When we talk about why SWTOR is seen as a failure to some, we have to look at player expectations vs. how SWTOR was hyped. As a standalone game today, most people will agree it’s a pretty decent game, even…
Wookieepedia What?
So if you are a follower of Wookieepedia you may have already run across from hilarious, witty or downright cute entries on the Star Wars themed database. It’s one of the reasons we like it so much. That and the fact that we love Star Wars. I mean where else can you find such a complete database of Star Wars characters, story, canon and more? What is Wookiepedia? (for those rare few in our audience who may not know yet) The Star Wars encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Warning: this wiki contains spoilers. So anyway, let’s go back to those funny entries we were talking about. We’ve found some really good ones lately. For example, have you seen The Emperor’s New Clothes or Order 66 Cookie? Or here is an entire page just about breasts… “Breasts were the mammary glands of mammalian species and some reptomammals, and were normally a distinguishing feature of…
STAR WARS: EPISODE VII to Start Filming in May 2014
Have you been as anxious about Star Wars: Episode VII as we have? We have been waiting to share with you some good news and it’s finally here. Disney and Lucasfilm are excited to announce that principal photography on Star Wars: Episode VII, directed by J.J. Abrams will begin filming in May 2014 (just 2 months away) in London’s historic Pinewood Studios.
Eric Musco Addresses Double XP Weekend Bugs
If you tried to play SWTOR this weekend for the double XP event, you may have encountered some bugs and not gotten your double experience like you should have. Don’t worry- you are not alone and Bioware is aware of the issue. Eric Musco addresses it in the forums: I know that there was definitely some unhappiness that came out of this past double XP weekend and I wanted to address a little bit about what happened, and we are doing about it. There are two main issues which plagued the weekend: In certain group compositions, no experience is granted during a Flashpoint. The Kuat Drive Yards Flashpoint was awarding only normal experience for NPC kills, it was not being doubled. Understandably, many players look to Flashpoints to level during our double XP weekends and so there is quite a bit of frustration that these bugs were present. Let’s take…
Does the Bolster System Need Fixing?
A lot of SWTOR players are saying the bolster system is broken. Is it really? Let’s take a look at the topic. First, bolster was believed to be a friend of the new PVPer but now that it’s out, many are questioning whether or not this feature is really a positive. While bolster was meant to bring a more even playing field to the PvP aspects of SWTOR, many players feel like it has succeeded only in bring more problems. Some players don’t believe it has leveled the playing field at all. So the idea behind Bolster is a good one- it’s intended introduce and level the playing field in PvP of SWTOR. It could also be a good way to introduce new players to this aspect of the game and its content. And some will say that level 10-54, Bolster is working as intended. But what happens at level…
Disney Already Casting for Star Wars Live-Action TV Projects?
Disney is a company that knows how to get the most out of a popular thing. The franchise is a leader for a big reason. With the new Star Wars movies coming out starting in 2015, they are probably already cooking up lots of good merchandising deals and other great ways to make money off the popularity that the new movies are going to bring. So while we all know this to be true, much of what is said about Disney’s plans about the Star Wars franchise is just speculation. Outside of rumors, we don’t really know anything for a fact. But as the release date for the movies grows closer, we do see more rumors coming out. This one, for example, has us a little bit interested. Cinelinx.com says they have it on an authority source that Disney is already casting for a Star Wars Live Action TV Project….
Double XP Weekend starts today!
It’s that time again! Time for a double XP weekend. As Tait Watson | Community Production Coordinator tells us on the SWTOR forums, “Advance at double the speed this weekend as you fight for the Empire or the Republic in exciting story missions, PvP Warzones and more!”
Does What Your Toon Looks Like Matter in SWTOR?
MMORPGs… there is a culture in this type of gaming that you just don’t find anywhere else. There are things that we just know and associate with certain types of games. That being said, we see many cool new things happening in the MMORPG world. But one thing that has grown over the gaming years and with the industry is the cosmetic side of things. Graphics have come a long, long way since the early days of RPGs and now with nearly every new game that comes out, we have even better aesthetic features. SWTOR is joining the ranks of many other MMORPGs and focusing on things that the players want as much as what they need. Player housing is a great example other this. Another great example is new orange gear. Some people will sit back and say, “Oh that’s dumb” and “Why are you worried about how you…
Theron Shan Comes to SWTOR with Patch 2.7
Alexander Freed, Charles Boyd and Drew Karpyshyn have been tweeting about Theron Shan making his way into SWTOR with patch 2.7 and you can view the conversation for yourself blow. If you are not familiar with this guy, I can tell you he is a Republic spy in Republic SIS, and the secret son of Satele Shan, making him a direct descendant of the legendary Jedi Knights Revan and Bastila Shan. He is also the main protagonist in the webcomic series The Lost Suns, and the main character in the novel by Drew Karpyshyn called Annihilation SWTOR Lead Writer Charles Boyd said that Alexander Freed and Drew Karpyshyn, who both featured Theron Shan in their books, had a large influence on the Theron Shan in SWTOR and set a high standard for this character. Also Alexander Freed seems to be working on a new SWTOR project since he’s gone freelance but we can’t be certain. Will have to keep an…