We saw a post from Tosche Station on their Cosplay Monday that really caught our eye because we love cosplay, especially when it’s about SWTOR or KOTOR: Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we try and brighten the start of your week with some of the awesome costumes we’ve seen around the internet! This week, we’re featuring another set of costumes from Knights of the Old Republic since today is it’s 10th Birthday. Check out these cool Visas Marr and Darth Nihilus costumes from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords by Sakara and her friend. Not only does the National Space Centre in Leicester make a pretty perfect setting for a KOTOR shoot but the costumes look great! Awesome job! We are super fans of cosplay, especially when it comes with a Star Wars theme so we’re real thankful to Tosche Station for helping us find Sakara,- costumer, alt-model and makeup…
Author: Lisa Clark
New SWTOR Arenas Coming Soon
In addition to the new Tauntaun mount that was revealed for SWTOR, Bioware also tells us we will be getting three new PvP arenas when Game Update 2.4 launches on October 1st. The three arenas will be found at Makeb, Tatooine and the new Space Garage. We don’t know a whole lot about them at this time but we do have some great pictures to serve as an example of what’s coming soon. At their San Diego Cantina Tour event they released some great screenshots of the new arenas (and Tauntaun mounts) so we all know what we have to look forward to. Just Push Start has shared some great images. Dulfy also shared some images and info from her flash drive. Alex Modny, Assistant Designer for SWTOR came in the forums to explain a little more about these new PVP arena zones: In such a small, intimate area, LoS…
Angry Birds Star Wars 2
Attention Angry Birds Star Wars fans: something new and awesome is coming in September! New stories, new levels, and new characters in Angry Birds Star Wars 2. Also introducing TELEPODS! You can get it September 19th. It will feature “over 30 playable characters.” But the biggest addition is something completely new- the TELEPODS. Apparently you can buy these little figures from the store and then choose which ones you want to play your game with and it will allow you to boost that in-life toy into the game. Engadget.com explains how it works: What is surprising is that the newest Angry Birds entry has a physical twist that we’ve yet to see from the brand: something called “telepods.” The Hasbro-created toy is a physical representation of an in-game character, and Rovio Entertainment’s VP of marketing Philip Hickey tells us it works by using a mobile phone or tablet’s built-in camera to read the…
Update to TORParse Status
If you were concerned (as many were) about TORParse shutting down, there has been a great piece of news that has developed. They have posted this on their website: Hey everyone, I want to provide you guys with a small update and let you know what’s going on. First and foremost, TORParse won’t actually be going anywhere! There has been a lot of interest from a lot of different people in continuing the project, and I appreciate everyone that has contacted me. If you have not yet received a response from me, I apologize for the long response time and will reply when I can (it may take me a few days). So that everyone is aware, no deals with anyone have been made yet, but I’m confident that one will be made. There is a possibility that transitioning the site will go past the original date I had specified…
SWKOTOR Devs Working on a New Bioware IP
Thanks to this tweet below, the rumor mill is buzzing today about what this new IP might be: Most of our core team that worked on SWKOTOR has been together throughout the Mass Effect series, and now our new IP project. #KOTOR10 — Casey Hudson (@CaseyDHudson) July 15, 2013 As the video here from Escapist Magazine shows, Bioware is working on a new IP. So of course everyone wants to guess and speculate what it’s all about. It’s not any of our old favorites or classics because it says a new IP. So what do you think they might be working on?
Datamining 2.3 PTS, Bounty Brokers Association Edition
SPOILER ALERT Since this datamine is about the Bounty Hunter, it does contain potential spoilers. Read at your own risk. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at what the SWTOR_miner has for us today: I had some interest in the Bounty Brokers Association details that aren’t currently accessible on the PTS. So here they are. An Event specific macrobinoculars and seeker droid are going to be used for the Kingpin quests. Bounty Seeker Probes – Launches a handful of bounty seeker probes to scan the area for your bounty target. Must be within designated target region Activate your Bounty Seeker Probes within the target region to triangulate the Kingpin bounty’s position. Bounty Seeker Scanner Look through your bounty scanner, allowing you to uplink to your bounty seeker probes and download any information they have gathered concerning your target. Use your Bounty Scanner to pull data from…
Summer of SWTOR Update
Bruce Maclean, Senior Producer of SWTOR, came into the forums today to give another update on the Summer of SWTOR content as well as an outline of what is coming and when it’s projected. Everything is pretty much still on target for when and how they described it before only now we get a few extra details. If you haven’t yet, take some time to read over it all and see what”s coming. Here is an outline of this post: Here is a fresh update on where we are at in terms of hitting our schedules for the Summer of SWTOR, and a recap of all the exciting things we have in the works for the months ahead. The usual disclaimer applies that all of the below dates are the dates the teams are shooting for. As you saw with Game Update 2.2.2 which had to be moved back by one…
“That’s So SWTOR!” Screenshot Contest – And the winner is…
Recently we brought you news of the “That’s So SWTOR” Screenshot Contest on Reddit and there is now officially a winner of the 2400 Cartel Coin card giveaway. The winner is Tacogoat! Her submission can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/vxzBBvh.jpg The contest host explains why she chose this as the winning entry: ” really feels like what I wanted out of this contest. The picture is alive! Lots of people being social, some guilds, some not, some republic, some inperial. Just wonderful. There’s lots of different things going on, too, but it’s still very easily recognizable as the Star Wars universe. Twi’lek Holodancers, lightsabers, droids, a Nar Shaddaa cantina… and that’s totally a holo-rancor in the back! It really just jumped out at me, but it definitely wasn’t the only one. I really loved a lot of the more cinematicly themed ones and the beautiful landscapes. So many great pictures! It was not…
Clarification on Patch Notes for 2.2.2
In the patch notes for 2.2.2 it is stated that Bioware has made ”Multiple environmental art changes have been made across the galaxy”’. Some users expressed concern and questions over this and it was brought up on the official forums by user tumpai in order to find out more about this change and how significant it would be. Amber Green, Live Services Specialist responded with a very detailed post explaining this part of the patch notes as follows: Hi there tumpai, This is actually a great question, and I’m a bit surprised it’s not come up before. The direct answer is that the note is a conglomeration of several small art fixes, and we often add a note like this to give people in the studio their props for fixing the whole darn galaxy almost every patch. These small things are not always visual, and sometimes they include things like…
Does Obama Love Star Wars?
Is President Obama a big Star Wars fan? It would certainly seem so based on recent news events this month of Obama recognizing Star Wars as a cultural event and even reminiscing a bit about it: “I remember when I first saw ‘Star Wars,’ ” Obama said during his opening remarks as he presented the 2012 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to Lucas and other recipients. “There’s a whole generation that thinks special effects always looked like they do today. But it used to be you’d see, like, the string on the little model spaceships.” At the event, Obama awarded a dozen National Medals of Arts as well as another dozen National Humanities Medals. These “extraordinary men and women” have used their talents “to open up minds and nourish souls and help us understand what it means to be human and what it means to be an American,” Obama…
KOTOR is 10 Years Old- SWTOR and Bioware Celebrate
July 15th marks the 10-year anniversary for Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™ (KOTOR™). Bioware and fans across the globe are celebrating today and we want to bring you a roundup of some of the great posts, stories and interviews of the big day. The Game Agent Blog brings us 10 Years of KOTOR: An Interview with Lead Designer James Ohlen which interviews KOTOR Lead Designer James Ohlen from BioWare about his experience on KOTOR. Here is a snippet: Jon Carr: Can you introduce yourself to our readers and explain the role you had in creating Knights Of The Old Republic? James Ohlen: My name is James Ohlen. Currently I’m a VP/Studio Creative Director at EA/Bioware. I’ve worked as Game Director on Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as lead designer on Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins. I was the lead designer on Star Wars:…
EA Makes Deal with Hasbro on Star Wars Toys
This was an interesting week for Electronic Arts after an agreement that would improve their stock value slightly. EA made a deal with very popular toy company Hasbro regarding the manufacture and sale of Star Wars toys ( And all EA Games) . With the new movies and everything else in the works, you know these toys are going to end up being very profitable and popular. The Motley Fool explains: On Tuesday, both Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS ) and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA ) stock rose slightly after the companies announced a new four-year agreement, under which EA will develop mobile games based on several of Hasbro’s most popular gaming brands. The deal, which extends the scope and length of an existing six-year agreement, will include new mobile versions of Hasbro’s Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of Life, Battleship,Boggle, Clue, Risk, and Yahtzee. For those of you keeping track, this is the second third-party content licensing agreement announced by EA in as many months. If you recall,…
Latest 2.3PTS Datamining
We love to bring you data mine info because it’s fun and interesting to speculate about what might make it into the game. As always, remember that this might contains spoilers, this is not official SWTOR news and we don’t actually know if any of this info will end up live in the game. With that said, let’s check it out! Here is some new info about 2.3 PTS data mined files a well as some corrections: Well it’s that time again. Going through the files I found artwork for new companion customizations for Qyzen, Skadge, Sgt. Rusk, Gault, Xalek, Ashara, and Yuun. Can’t really show them to you, as I haven’t had time to play around with character/npc models. They don’t have associated item entries, so they’re probably a little ways out. Apparently these went live with 2.2.2, and were body skins for existing customizations. Yay, for small fixes! Treek…
SWTOR Mid-term Report Card
Have you been playing SWTOR since the beginning? Those of us early adopters, beta testers and long time fans have seen a lot of changes over the years and months. While there were some bumps along the way, they’ve really shaped up with a lot of new content and features. Massively took a review-style look at where SWTOR is today. Massively’s Larry Everett writes: Well, we are about six months into the second year of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The first year was fraught with high expectations and slow delivery. Many failed attempts at greatness made the first year of SWTOR a bit of a downer. However, in this second year, in light of the ever-changing market of MMORPGs, the Star Wars MMO took steps to put itself on a better path. Using the Bartle Test as my litmus test, I will break down and grade this year’s performance so far. He…
Official Forums Class Representatives Announced
Eric Musco posted an interesting update to the official SWTOR forums yesterday. We will now be getting class representatives for the forums. Each representative will only serve for a term and then new representatives will take their places so it ensures there is some balance and rotation. Class Representatives are player elected and will not be granted any special access to the BioWare team. They will be used to help Bioware staff provide more information and community involvement on the topic of classes within SWTOR. What tasks will these forum class representatives do? What Will They Do? Upon the Class representatives being selected, we will release a schedule. On each scheduled date listed, the chosen representative for each Class will make a forum post in their Class forum with the top 3 things they want to have answered or commented on. Our current plan is to do 4 ACs each…
Playtesting for SWGEmu – What You Should Know
Have you played SWGEmu yet? We’re looking for your thoughts on it as Star Wars and SWG fans. Late last year I wrote a post about the SWG emulator and what SWG fans could expect from it. Guest Tosche Station actually posted a comment to that original article recently that we thought deserved its own post since it was so lengthy and well thought-out. You can see the original comment here: If anyone reading has an interest in playtesting for SWGEmu, there are a few things you should keep in mind; 1). If you’re never played Star Wars Galaxies at all, you’re gonna have a bad time. The SWGEMU community is comprised of diehard SWG players who put on a good show of being friendly and helpful, until you start asking questions they don’t know the answers to. Then you’ll discover just how insular the SWGEMU community is, and the fact…
TORPARSE to Close 27 July
TORPARSE had one simple mission: to provide the best and easiest to use combat log parser for Star Wars: The Old Republic. But now, they will be closing their doors forever. In an announcement made July 10th, TORPARSE explained that they will soon be shutting down the site. It is a sad and bittersweet announcement as the site has been such a useful tool for SWTOR players for all of this time. Here s a snippet of that End of Service Announcement: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 End of Service Announcement Hey everybody, I’ve got some bad news today. I’ve been struggling with this decision for a few months now, but have made a decision to end the TORParse project effective 27 July 2013. I’ve had a lot of fun developing this project and working with the community the last year and a half, but have ultimately made the decision to…
The Old Republic Insider – July 2013
The Old Republic Insider for July 2013 is here! In this episode, we learn about upcoming game content as well as what we can expect to see on the market in the future. There’s a new event: The Bounty Contract Week which will take place monthly, at the beginning of the month. So if you happen to miss one- no worries, as you will get a chance again the next month. Also in August, comes Game Update 2.3 Titans of Industry. Here’s a snippet of what to expect from this update and the Czerka Corporation: WE ARE THE GALAXY’S MOST TRUSTED BRAND For centuries, Czerka Corporation has led the industry in weapons design, Droid manufacturing, biological research, and much more. Here at our facilities on the private moon, CZ-198, we consider ourselves the heart of the Czerka Corporation. With state of the art labs and dedicated, robust R&D teams, CZ-198 continues…
The “That’s So SWTOR!” Screenshot Contest – 2400 Cartel Coin Card Giveaway!
What do you see when you first think of SWTOR? What if you had a chance to win 2400 Cartel Coins by sharing a screenshot that makes you think “That’s so SWTOR!” You can learn more from the Community post here on Reddit: Community Post | The “That’s So SWTOR!” Screenshot Contest – 2400 Cartel Coin Card Giveaway! | 7/5/13 Howdy guys! As mentioned last Friday, I’m starting a contest today to find the single most SWTOR screenshot. What does that mean? Well, it means that I want to see what SWTOR means to you! What screenshot have you taken that really remind you of everything that SWTOR is to you. Here are the rules: You can submit up to 3 pictures, but please only make one post. You can vote on submissions, but I will be choosing the winner, so don’t bother trying to downvote other peoples’ submissions. I…
Amazon Now Selling Cartel Coins and “Umbral Blurrg” Pet
Don’t you wish you could just buy your SWTOR Cartel Coin cards online instead of having to head out to the store? Well, now you can. Maybe… As some others on the SWTOR forums have realized, Amazon is now offering the Cartel Coins with “Umbral Blurrg” pet. However, there are some stipulations. For example, Amazon does not ship them outside of the US. But some players have found a workaround. For example, if you are in Canada, you can use this service (http://www.cbiusa.com/) to have your items shipped to their address or to purchase digital items like this one. Players in Europe are using a workaround with a gift card and US address to purchase it. Here it is on Amazon: And here is the official product description: The Star Wars: The Old Republic 2400 Cartel Coins Card allows gamers to purchase 2400 Cartel Coins via the convenience of their favorite…
Celebrate KOTOR’s 10 Year Anniversary in SWTOR
It was hinted at more than once previously that we would have the chance to celebrate KOTOR’s 10th Anniversary in some way in SWTOR. Well today we have an official announcement of what this will include. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me and I’m actually glad to see Bioware using this opportunity to celebrate KOTOR in SWTOR. However, these planned events are one-day-only so it sucks if you’re going to be away on summer vacation or something. Take a look at the timelines for the celebration and see if you can check in. Maybe fire up your laptop on the hotel WiFi and grab your brand new title. Or hop on over to Facebook page and try to snag some free Cartel Coins in the giveaway. This news article was shared this evening: Celebrate KOTOR’s 10 Year Anniversary We are happy to announce that on July 15th we…
500 CC Reward for SWTOR Subscribers
We’ve known for quite some time now that faithful SWTOR subscribers would receive some type of appreciate reward. But now we finally know what it is as Eric Musco confirmed in the forums with this post: Hey folks, As some of you have already begun to figure out, every subscriber is receiving a bonus of 500 Cartel Coins. Some of you may not have gotten them yet but don’t worry, the process takes a few hours. All of you should be receiving your 500 coins today. As an additional tease, we have something coming to the Cartel Market later this month that is going to be super, super cheap and available for one day only! All I will say for now is hang on to 10 Cartel Coins and look for details soon™. -eric Hey! Pretty cool, right? He also mentions that you should hold on to at least 10…
Scum and Villainy Operation Guide SWTOR
Don’t forget to check out constantly growing list of guides for Star Wars: The old republic The newest Operation to be released on the 2.0 PTS is Scum and Villainy and it has 7 bosses. It’s longer than previous Operations and offers a great deal more content. This is great for players who love Operations and are looking for more bosses and more challenge. The seven bosses in Scum and Villainy are: Dash’roode Titan 6 Thrasher Operations Chief Olok the Shadow Cartel Warlords Dread Master Styrak In storymode there is Vilus Garr, Captain Horicm Tu’chuk and Sunder. The suggested kill order is Vilus Garr <–> Captain Horic –> Tu’Chuk <–> Sunder. Each boss has 672K health. Tips and strategy: Both Vilus Garr and Captain Horic have taunt immunity and cannot be taunted. Captain Horic has a conal attack that he directs at one person in the raid. The raid should be ain…
2.3 Graphical Color Improvements to SWTOR
SWTOR is getting something of a makeover in terms of colors. Most will agree that it’s an improvement but for those who have grown accustomed to seeing it in its darker fashion might not approve. Personally, I like it. I really think some zones were just a bit too dreary and drab with all the grey/brown. I like the improved colors and crispness of it all. It also seems to have more of a real feel and texture rather than the cartoony feel in some zones. I like this. One user shared some before and after pics on Reddit to help us see what the color changes look like: What’ll strike you first is the sheer colour in the game. These screenshots were taken in the exact same locations, with the same gamma/brightness/graphics settings. Before: After: Before: After: To be honest, while I think this is a good move, I…