BioWare just released a new trailer for the upcoming expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The video is only around 1 minute long, but shows some interesting footage of the planet and what seems to be new armor. At the same time as the release of this video, BioWare have updated the RotHC homepage RoTHC pre-orders now get a mini-pet, Title, and Holo-statue. All players that pre-order Rise of the Hutt Cartel will receive an exclusive Title, Holostatue, and Mini-Pet when the Digital Expansion launches. The Dr. Oggurobb Hutt Holostatue Train under the illustrious Hutt scientist Dr. Oggurobb with this portable training device that he created in his own image. “”Scourge of the Hutts” Title Republic and Imperial forces that adorn this title will be feared and revered across the galaxy. The Makrin Seedling Mini-Pet Get your very own Makrin Creeper to follow you around and “creep” out your enemies! Possessing bark-like skin and grass-like nerve-rich…
Author: Soeren Kamper
Reminder: Scheduled Maintenance: January 23rd, 2013
BioWare will be performing Scheduled Maintenance for four hours on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013. All game servers, SWTOR.com, and the launcher will be offline during this period. There are still ~3 weeks till 1.7. This is probably just bugfixes, maybe a Cartel Pack. Don’t forget to purchase your Wookiee Life Day items! They will no longer be available after next weeks maintenance – We are assuming this is the maintenance they are referring to: Don’t forget to purchase your Wookiee Life Day items! They will no longer be available after next weeks maintenance. — The Old Republic (@SWTOR) januar 18, 2013 Anouncement: 01.18.2013 Scheduled Maintenance: January 23rd, 2013 Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 from 5AM CST (3AM PST/5AM EST/11AM GMT/12PM CET/10PM AEDT) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/9AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET/2AM AEDT). All…
Community Cantina Tour – San Francisco
Recently BioWare released the event date of Community Cantina Tour San Francisco. The event was original planned to happen this month, but do to unknown reasons, the event was pushed back to March. Check out the announcement below: We’re happy to announce that the next stop in the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Community Cantina Tour will be happening on Friday, March 1st, in San Francisco! This is your chance to join the Star Wars: The Old Republic community for a development team Q&A (featuring Lead Designer Damion Schubert) as well as complimentary drinks*, food, and giveaways. Every attendee will be receiving a highly coveted Tauntaun Fawn code and a code for a rare item from the Cartel Market. If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by and hang out with us! Venue: Jillian’s @ The Metreon Date: Friday, March 1st, 2013 Time: 7-11PM PST Address: 175 4th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Meet the Developers: Rob Hinkle
BioWare posted a new installment of the “Meet the Developers” series. This time the article features Senior Designer, Rob Hinkle. You can check out the full interview here, or our snippet below. Also remember to check out ToRWars podcast back from December, were they had the chance to sit down with Rob Hinkle and ask him questions regarding PVP. What does a typical day look like for you at the studio? My day can be broken down into a couple different major sections, not all of which happen every day but all of which occur with regular frequency. Planning: Discussions that center around what we might want to do for the future, be it the next patch or for the next year Designing: Doing the actual work fleshing out and implementing what has been planned and committed to. This is the lion’s share of most days, as it covers a wide variety of tasks. Polish…
Companions 101: Aric Jorgan
It was a busy day yesterday, so somehow we totally overlooked the newest installment of Companions 101. This time BioWare’s Courtney Woods talks about our all time favorite Cathar – Aric Jorgan. Jorgan is a male Cathar and a companion for the Trooper. He joins the player at the end of the Trooper’s Class quests on Ord Mantell. His primary role is that of Ranged DPS, and he is a romance option for the female Trooper. Meeting Aric Jorgan Efficient, loyal, and a perfectionist, Aric Jorgan is the ideal Republic soldier – and he knows it. Raised to be an officer, Aric is confident in his skills and doesn’t waste his time with niceties or politics. His credentials include four years in the academy and seven years in the field. Most notably, Jorgan was a part of the illustrious Dead Eyes, the finest sniper squad in the Republic. Eventually he was offered a promotion and a…
News on the Oceanic Server Population Issues
It’s no secret that the Oceanic servers didn’t get a server merge. This means they are basically dead now. Most people on the servers have been asking for a merge or for free transfers, but with f2p coming out, Bioware have been hesitating giving players this option. This has off course been frustrating for players down under, but BioWare are now looking for a solution to the problem. Today Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a post on the official forums giving an update on the issue and starting to re-open the dialogue: Hi everyone, I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated this thread, and I wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about our Oceanic players. Now that we’re at a more stable point in time (post Free-to-Play transition and post holidays), we wanted to re-examine this issue. We’re going to be completely honest with you: there…
TOR TV: Fan made Eternity Vault trailer.
This fan video is made by LaserLief. The video reminds me of old times when my old guild was grind though Molten Core over and over and over. I liked the build up to the end, but I think it would have been cooler to have the bass drop again there either when Soa breaks his shield, or when he gets hit by a pylon and then fade out from that. It could also be pretty cool if it had the speeches before each boss. Anyways. Check it out below:
1.6.2a Patch Notes 1/15/2013
As mentioned yesterday, BioWare took the servers down for Scheduled Maintenance today. For those wondering, BioWare diden’t add any new items at the cartel market. We did get a little patch though. Check itout below: General Implemented optimizations to improve overall server stability. Cartel Market Updated the Cartel Market art for the Skip Tracer’s Cartel Pack. The art now more accurately reflects the in-game appearance of the Fancy Reveler’s armor.
Reminder: Scheduled Maintenance Tomorrow
Just a friendly heads up to you all. BioWare will be performing scheduled maintenance and deploying a patch tomorrow. There for the servers will be down for a few hours. If you don’t want to do while the servers are down, you can always play some Pazaak We will be deploying a patch and performing scheduled maintenance this Tuesday, January 15th, 2013. Patch notes will be made available shortly after the servers come back up. The servers will be down for two hours on Tuesday, January 15th, 2013 from 5AM CST (3AM PST/5AM EST/11AM GMT/12PM CET/10PM AEDT) until 7AM CST (5AM PST/8AM EST/1PM GMT/2PM CET/12AM AEDT). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than two hours, but could be extended. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you…
BioWare are hiring playtesters for Rise of the Hutt Cartel!
Are you living in the Austin area? BioWare Austin is hiring temporary playtesters for the “Rise of the Hutt Cartel” digital expansion coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Current and former players of all experience levels are encouraged to apply. SKILLS/REQUIREMENTS Must be 18 years of age or older Must not have previous professional game development experience Strong verbal communication skills Comfortable giving objective feedback (positive and negative) in a group setting Passion for SWTOR or other massively-multiplayer online games Available to work weekends
TOR TV: Colicoid War Games – Solo
DISCLAIMER: You can potentially get banned for doing this as it falls under a game exploit. There are forum posts of people claiming to have been banned for doing stuff like this. My personal opinion is that this is very unlikely. Sure, he is getting to areas that he might not be supposed to be in, but it doesn’t really get you anything tangible, a couple thousand credits for 20 minutes maby? Regardless of this being an exploit or not, it’s still pretty awesome,
1.6.2 Patch Notes 1/8/2013
Servers are back up after today’s maintenance, and BioWare to the chance to push a new patch. This time we get tons of bug fixes were the biggest seems to be “The “Unify to Chest” armor color option now works correctly for players and companions. Also Tinsel Bombs can now be used on both friendly and hostile targets (Oh, it is on)! This new patch also ads two new armor sets to the cartel market and they look awesome! Check them out: ( Patch notes below the images) Cartel Market New Items Players can now unlock additional character slots! Cost: 600 Cartel Coins. The Newcomer Bundle is now available! It contains a wide range of items to help new players expedite their travels. Cost: 405 Cartel Coins (discounted by 50% for a limited time!). Two new armor sets, the Interstellar Privateer Armor Set and Clandestine Officer Armor Set, can now be purchased. Each…
TOR TV: Baby Got Bubble
Jason Barnett is back with a new swtor parody. This time Sith Sorcerers get a little dose of Sir Mix-A-Lot. I haven’t played Sith Sorcerer my self yet, but this video was still funny. “”I aint talkin about ranked games, caus those dont happen anyway” lol Keep up the good work Jason.
The SWTOR Community Cantina Tour Arrives in Paris and London!
Finally BioWare is coming back to Europe. This time with the Community Cantina Tour were they will be visiting London and Paris. So if you are in Paris Friday, February 1st, or London Saturday, February 2nd, 2013, you should definitely stop by and say hello. Check out the full announcement below: We’re happy to announce that the next two stops in the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Community Cantina Tour will be happening on Friday, February 1st in Paris and Saturday, February 2nd in London. This is your chance to join the European Star Wars™: The Old Republic community for a development team Q&A (featuring Executive Producer Jeff Hickman) as well as complimentary drinks*, food, and giveaways. Every attendee will be receiving a highly coveted Tauntaun Fawn code and a code for a rare item from the Cartel Market. Additionally, you are invited to join us before the events at the Louvre and the London Film Museum to check out…
TOR TV: Quintessential Conversations: “One of Us”
This video was mailed to us by the guys in the guild Pandamonium. It is a time of struggle. It is a time of rebellion. It is a time for vacation. Wait, what? A few of the galaxy’s greatest heroes are due a little R&R, but one of their number is in for a totally different Pandamonium is a guild dedicated to enjoying SWTOR and having fun. These media projects exemplify the creativity, the passion, and the camaraderie that they share. They have many traits in common with other SWTOR guilds with groups doing pvp warzones, flashpoints, and many dedicated eight-man operations teams (now 7 going on 8). But these machinima projects let them take it one step further and go beyond what the game designers envisioned. They create there own fun movie that they can enjoy crafting together and then, more importantly, share with their fellow SWTOR fans.”” The video below…
TOR TV: “Sex Bomb” parody – Smash Bomb
Jason Barnett made this comedic view of the post 1.4 “smash” spec: focus for sentinels and guardians, and rage for marauders and juggernauts. This pokes fun at the simplicity of the spec as well as the community’s overreaction to it. If you haven’t been around his youtube page before, hurry up! H really got some golden SWTOR Vidoes there for you to enjoy. We will definitely be posting more of his stuff in the cumming weeks. Enjoy the video below:
Star Wars Comics License Returning To Marvel?
The guys over at Blue Sky Disney reports that it’s all but that Disney won’t be renewing Dark Horse’s contract to publish Star Wars comics, and that the Star Wars comics will return to their original home: Fellow Disney brand Marvel. “”The Suits in the know have determined that no new contracts will be given to Dark Horse after the current ones expire. So all new projects after 2013 will be handled internally by Marvel.” The report continues: “”It’s not known yet if titles will be worked into the regular line up, or will Marvel create a special branch of the company that deals with Star Wars. It’ll take a couple of years for the old deals to work there course, but the stories that Dark Horse have coming down the pipeline will be the last. And you can expect anything new from Marvel dealing with Star Wars to arrive around 2015.”” When you think of…
TOR TV: Exploring Hutta / Uninstanced Jiguuna Airport Hangar
Youtube user guyfromostrava found an interesting mechanic in Star Wars: The old Republic. As you can see from the video below; he is able to pivot the camera upwards when he jumps. This Seems funny as it somehow influences the position of his hitbox making him jump higher. Also when you use “sprint” you actually jump higher. If you are are interested in exploration like this, I recoment you to check out owncore. They have a growing community for Exploration in Star Wars: The old republic.
Harrison Ford Star Wars Episode 7 Contract Negotiations
These sketches are made by my good friend David Ward and his team over at HUMORdy.com HUMORdy are a collection of comedians, actors, and filmmakers from Austin, TX. and they have quite a bit of funny material on youtube already. Check out there youtube channel here if you want a good laugh. Disney bought Lucasfilm for over 4 billion dollars. They immediately announced plans to do a new trilogy of Star Wars films. This is the story of the heroic Disney executives assigned the task of getting Harrison Ford to sign on as Han Solo in the new Star Wars movies. It took they guys about 5 days to write the scripts, one day to shoot all three, then probably two weeks to edit them. They don’t currently have any more Star Wars parodies planned, but I’m sure we’ll do more in the future. Remember to follow these guys on Facebook.
TOR TV: Civil Unrest RP Event by GFC
Empire guild The Galactic 5th Colum of The Ebon Hawk server is arranging role playing event happening on Friday the 28th. SO if your up to some rioting between xmas and new years eve, come to Dromund Kaas, Kaas City, the Spires of Victory at 9pm EST on Friday 12/28/12 . Check out the video below: A significant number of Dromund Kaas citizens are protesting Sith infighting and incompetent military commanders causing the death’s of many loyal servants of the Empire. Behind the scenes, the GFC has been inciting the protest. Naturally, there will be a massive crackdown and chaos will ensue. Just how we like it. So here’s more of the OOC stuff. Two groups will gather opposite each other. One group is the protesters, the other is law enforcement. Those RPing law enforcement should wear Imperial Trooper armor to get in the spirit of things. And the protesters should be unarmed and dressed in…
Jeff Hickman Interview
The guys and girls over at TORWars got an Exclusive Interview with Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s, Jeff Hickman. In the interview mr. Hickman answers questions from the readers of TORWars and while he do dodge a few questions, he also answers some questions so well, that it get’s me very confident in the future of the game we all love so much. TW: The studio has seen some staffing changes over the past year. Do you feel you are at a good staffing level now? JH: Absolutely. The core of what makes the game and studio great are still here; quality in our game and in our workplace, people that are passionate about both, a camaraderie with each other that helps us support one another, and people who continue to help us carry the banner of BioWare and who are dedicated to help evolve and improve…
Free-to-Play Preview Episode 3
In a new video from BioWare, Cory Butler delivers an overview of Star Wars: The old republic’s free to play preferred status program. In the video he explains details regarding “Preferred” status, and highlights several options available for players a the Cartel Market. At the end of the video he briefly speaks about the limited time Life Day items available. We’re always listening to player feedback and we’ve already made some substantial changes,” Butler says before going on to mention an increase in the number of available hotbars and character slots. View the vid below:
TOR TV: SWTOR 1-50 in 60 seconds
Now that’s what I call power leveling! Watch all the level ups for the imperial agent Pe’ter Pan. Here is his Youtube profile: heltidsluffare· Takes dedication to do this. Well done. Now… Can you spot which one he messed up and had to fix in post production?
SithTalk Episode 43: 1.6 Life Day Tinsel BOMB
Sith talk is back with a new episode, this time titled 1.6 Life Day Tinsel BOMB. This week they debate the success of the Life day Celebration and the community feedback that came with it. Bru’tis stops by with his latest trip through Star wars Lore. Sudo is in with another Chapter in Lost tribe of the Sith Saga. They also talk about their feelings about the latest content in the game. they even glance at the Next Chapter of the SW:TOR Saga. Lastly they announce the official Launch date of Sith Talk 2.0 Beyond SW:TOR – and what you can expect from that show. As always so much more watch it below or download it from podomatic. Remember also to follow the guys on Facebook