Here is Episode 23 of SWTOR News by ashermoore. All news in this video is from the week starting September 16th 2012. We will start featuring ashermoore swtor news once a weeks as they give a pretty good round up of what it’s going on. Hope you will enjoy it as much as we do:
Author: Soeren Kamper
Confirmed – Daniel Erickson leaving BioWare
A few weeks ago we wrote the story that Daniel Erickson was “Actively looking for new opportunities” . Today Mr. Erickson confirms this rumor via twitter as he has started his new twitter account for job hunting and design thoughts. Back in early September, we saw via Erickson’s LinkedIn profile that he was looking for new opportunities. We speculated about what this might mean but warned against jumping to conclusions and thinking this meant he was leaving BioWare. However, with so many BioWare Austin staff members making their exits, it wouldn’t be a big surprise. Well, now we stumbled across this Tweet and this new Twitter account from Daniel Erickson and it’s clear that he has officially left BioWare and is on the job hunt. So he has known for at very least, the month of September that he was leaving or was already gone. So now that we do know it…
The SWTOR Community Cantina Tour
BioWare announced via their facebook page this morning, that they are going on a road trip called Community Cantina Tour. The first meet and greet event will happen on Thursday, October 11th, 2012 in New York City. Check out the whole annoncement below Today we’re very excited to announce the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Community Cantina Tour! Starting with New York Comic Con, we’re going to embark on a series of Star Wars: The Old Republic Community meet & greets so that fans will get the opportunity to interact with our community team and developers! Before each meet & greet, we’ll be sure to publish a blog with detailed information so that you don’t miss out on complimentary drinks & food, a highly coveted code for an in-game Tauntaun Fawn, giveaways, and more!* After each event, we’ll be publishing a meet & greet summary blog so that those of you that aren’t able to attend will…
TOR TV: How to gear an alt fast
Youtube heltidsluffare made an interesting video showing how he geared his latest alt in SWTOR. The same day as he got level 50 he was fully geared to do anything. Personally I can definitely foresee some people really appreciating this video. However… 1.4 made his weapon choice much easier! You can use the ranked warzone commendations to get a war hero lightsaber immediately at 50 instead of down-ranking them to buy the battlemaster lightsaber. You get a better product, and you pay less. I know you made your plans before the patch, but it is such a significant change that players today need to be aware of. Still a great watch. Check it out below:
1.4.0b Patch Notes
BioWare is back to a normally schedule with maintenance each Tuesday . Servers are now back up, and below are the Patch notes. Looking at all the known issues with game update 1.4 I must say I had expected a bigger update this time., but I guss little is better then nothing. Check out the path notes below: 1.4.0b Patch Notes 10/2/2012 General Improved performance for players using NVIDIA graphics cards in an SLI configuration. (Please use the default SLI setting or AFR2, as AFR1 will result in poor performance with SWTOR.) Corrected an issue that could prevent players from exiting their personal starship after completing Group Finder content.
TOR TV: Lore of The Old Republic Part 2: The Planet of Coruscant
TeamTargran is back with a new video covering the lore of Star Wars The Old Republic. This time they continue with the story of Coruscant. SWTOR is a vast story-driven MMO, but did you ever wonder how much lore there actually was in the game? Did you ever wonder, but was too busy to read about it? We are here to help you. We are going to explain basics of lore to you in form of short videos, which you can watch and listen to rather than spend hours reading through the internet. For our first episode we shall we talking about The Sacking of Coruscant, which is marked as the starting point for this MMO. If you have any requests for future videos, let us know in the comments section below.
Star Wars: The old republic Encyclopedia trailer
The SWTOR Encyclopedia we have talked about so much in the past, has now got it’s own trailer video. The Cover Art of this book was revealed back in june, and DK Publishing has published illustrations from the book a few times also. Fist time we wrote about it was back in june were we posted these pictures, and less then a month ago we posted these. Several of the writers who have worked on the game, are also credited as authors of the book, Including Hall Hood, Joanna Berry, Charles Boyd, Ian Ryan, and James B. Jones. Anyways. The Encyclopedia should be interesting. Check out the trailer below: The book is to be released on October 12, 2012.
TOR TV: Lore of SWTOR: The Sacking of Coruscant
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a vast story-driven MMO, but did you ever wonder how much lore there actually was in the game? Did you ever wonder, but was too busy to read about it? TeamTargran are here to help you. They are going to explain basics of lore to you in form of short videos, which you can watch and listen to rather than spend hours reading through the internet. In this first episode they are talking about The Sacking of Coruscant, which is marked as the starting point for this MMO
Game Update 1.4: Terror from Beyond developer blog and launch trailer
With all the excitement around game update 1.4 , we forgot to update you about a new Developer Blog by James Ohlen and a new laucnhed trailer for Terror From Beyond just released. In the Developer Blog James Ohlen writesabout the release schedule for new content going forward for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This Game Update is also the start of a new release cadence. Our strategy so far has been to release big updates every few months. But this leaves long periods of time where you, our fans, don’t have anything new. So we’re moving to a model where we release Game Updates on a much more regular cadence. Our initial aim is for something as close to every six weeks as we can get. I’d promise an exact schedule, but in a live game we need some flexibility as the stability of the service trumps the release of an…
Game Update 1.4: Terror From Beyond patch notes
The highly awaited Patch 1.4 Available for Download! Just opened your launcher and start downloading the patch. Seems to be around 850 mb. Below are the patch notes: Highlights Terror from Beyond, a new Operation, is now available! Travel to the remote planet of Asation, where the Dread Masters have commandeered an ancient Gree Hypergate in order to unleash untold horrors upon the galaxy. Terror from Beyond features 5 powerful new boss encounters that can be challenged in 8- and 16- player Story or Hard Mode, offering some of the most challenging group content yet! A new set of PvE gear is available! Dread Guard gear is now the most powerful PvE equipment in the galaxy. It can be acquired from deep within Terror from Beyond (Hard Mode). Significant changes have been made to crowd control to address the amount of control a player can be subject to at once. See the…
Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Revan in paperback out today
If you haven’t already got a copy of Drew Karpyshyn’s Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan, now might be our chance. Randomhouse just released Revan as paperback for a price of $7.99. You can order the book directly from Random house. We have previously wrote about this book, and you can read an interview with Drew Karpyshyn about the book here or read an excerpt from the book here, any way I recommend you to check it out, if you are into reading or Star Wars Lore. Excerpt: Hero, traitor, conqueror, villain, savior—the man called Revan has been all of these. He left Coruscant a Jedi, on a mission to defeat the Mandalorians. He returned a Sith disciple, bent on destroying the Republic. The Jedi Council gave Revan his life back, but the price of redemption was the loss of his memories. All that’s left are nightmares—and deep, abiding fear. What happened…
No Maintenance today
Normally we are used to Tuesday scheduled maintenance, but today is different. Community Manager Joveth Golzalez did a Twitter update to announce the lack of a scheduled maintenance: TheCantinaBand asked if this meant that game update 1.4 was near by, and Mr. Gonzalez responded with, “keep an eye on the swtor.com website!” We will keep you update if any news on patch 1.4 emerge.
TOR TV: New patch 1.4 Emotes (male and female)
Emotes are a big part of MMORPG’s. It makes your character feel more alive. F2P is gonna be like a new launch. SOME new content, Lots and lots of polish. Already seeing this with shadow optimization, facial expressions and not emotes. Cant wait for armor dyes! Nov-December will be glorious! I really like the new set of emotes, how many other MMORPG’s have they actually implemented a “mood” feature for your character? None that I can recall at least, and that is excactly what the new emotes is about, setting up a mood for your character which can be changed at any time. The new emotes (emoticons) that will come in swtor patch 1.4.0 – Male 00:07Female 02:08 – Theese emotes are based on various moods. Here you will see all of them for both female and male. The moods you will find is the following: Neutral, Alarmed, Annyoed, Astounded, Awed, Cheery, Dejected, Depressed,…
BioWare and LucasArts LiveStream Q&A Event
With patch 1.4 just around the corner, BioWare and Lucasarts will be holding a LiveStream event. In this, the they will answer questions from the community concerning the content within each Game Update. The first LiveStream Event will discuss Game Update 1.4 – Terror From Beyond, and the team will be taking questions via Twitter, Facebook, and the Official Forum. LiveStream Event #1 BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce a new monthly LiveStream Q&A Event. The objective of this new LiveStream event series is to answer any questions our Community has concerning the content within each Game Update. Below is all the information you need in order to watch and participate in the first monthly LiveStream Event. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ – LiveStream 9/21/2012 4:00pm to 4:30pm CDT The first LiveStream Event will discuss Game Update 1.4 – Terror From Beyond. This Game Update brings a brand new…
Individual Server Forums Coming today
AllisonBerryman posted an update on the forum regarding individual server forums. Finally they are arriving, so let the flame wars commence! Starting tomorrow, we’ll be opening individual server forums. This means that the old Server Group Forums will be closing, so if you have any posts you’d like to save (such as recruitment posts or other posts you’ve put effort into), please do so at this time! They had groups of servers in a forum before. Given 9 pve and 6 pvp groups and 2 RP groups, the number of groupings are going to outnumber the number of servers.
Server merges happen today, plus allowed characters bumped to 12 for everyone
We have known for a couple months now that Mega servers were on the way. We have now reached the last part of the process as BioWare merging the last servers today. Earlier this summer we launched the Free Character Transfer Program which offered players the option to transfer their characters from specific origin servers to selected destination servers. Following the success of the Free Character Transfer Program, and after closely monitoring server populations, we have now taken the next step in our on-going server population balancing process. We have upgraded destination servers in order to support a significantly higher number of players. As of tomorrow, all characters on origin servers will be automatically moved onto the upgraded high population destination servers. By centralizing our player populations on these higher population destination servers, we feel that we can offer our players the best possible Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ experience. As a…
Tips for Stat Tracking in SWTOR
While we know that gaming is supposed to be all about having fun and accomplishing objectives, the reality is that in games like SWTOR, you are going to need to do a bit of legwork in regards to stat tracking. Whether you are tracking loot, affection, or gear, you are going to need to track stats. This is doubly important for raiders. Here are a few stat tracking tricks and tips. Excel Offers More Functionality Over Notepad The two most popular forms of stat tracking are notepad and excel. Notepad is great for those of you that are not in guilds or those that don’t want to the headache of managing raids. However, for the rest of you, Excel offers much more functionality for stat tracking as you can format your sheets and workbooks for your entire guild in an easy-to-read and manage format. Set Rules for Raids If you want to avoid drama that naturally ensues in…
TOR TV: SWTOR Explained #9: Meetra Surik Part 2 (Jedi Exile and Kotor 2)
xZeroTolerence55x have uploaded the second part of the Meetra Surik the Jedi Exile from Kotor 2. story. If you have no clue who Meetra Surik is, she was a charismatic female Human Jedi Master who, while still a Padawan, followed Revan and Malak to war against the Mandalorians, in defiance of the Jedi Council. Because of this she was exiled from the Jedi Order and came to be known as the Jedi Exile. Just prior to Revan and Malak’s fall to the dark side and the Jedi Civil War, Meetra Surik returned to Republic space to face trial with the Jedi Council and was stripped of her connection to the Force, exiled from the Order and spent several years wandering the galaxy. The near extermination of the Jedi Order at the hands of the Sith Triumvirate resulted in her reconnecting to the Force and leading a desperate fight to stop the Sith. During her mission to stop the Sith, she…
Maintenance today September 13 + patch notes 1.3.8
BioWare are taking down the servers to do an unscheduled maintenance today. What the issue is seems to be unclear, bit Patch notes will be made available shortly after the servers come back up We will be deploying a patch and performing an unscheduled maintenance this Thursday, September 13th, 2012. Patch notes will be made available shortly after the servers come back up. The servers will be down for two hours on Thursday, September 13th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 4AM CDT (2AM PDT/5AM EDT/10AM BST/11AM CEST/7PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than two hours, but could be extended. Servers are back up. Below are the patch notes: 1.3.8 Patch Notes 9/13/2012 General Corrected an issue that caused a significant performance drop for some players after patch 1.3.7.
Star Wars Fan film: Star Wars Armies of the Fallen
If you are a follower of our blog, you know we are huge fans of Star Wars: fan movies. Back in the summer of 2010 we featured a movie by Martin Klekner called “Star Wars: Shadows of the Past” Now he is back, and deserves a tone of support for the awesome job his is doing. Check out his Concept Teaser for his upcomming star wars fan film Star Wars: Armies of the Fallen. Plot: Several years have passed since the end of Shadows of the Past. War has been raging ever since. Fallen’s revolution changed the whole Empire, it turned the Master’s realm to shreds. Fallen’s armies, though weak and unorganized at the beginning, were forged into a deadly and unstoppable weapon. Now all that’s left is to strike a final blow and confront Master directly. Created by: Martin Klekner Music by: Tomas Zemler Voiceover by: Austin McComb
Game Update 1.4 is now on PTS, here are the patch notes
BioWare have already hinted alot about the upcomming patch 1.4 with there dev blog the other day. Now we get to try out the patch on the public test servers. Seems like a ton of great changes overall. Match to chest for companions, offhand modification, new gear level, addressing the pvp gear gap, return to where you were after a lfg queue… lots of stuff that they have listened to people asking for. Check out the patch notes below: Highlights Terror from Beyond, a new Operation, is now available! Travel to the remote planet of Asation, where the Dread Masters have commandeered an ancient Gree Hypergate in order to unleash untold horrors upon the galaxy. Terror from Beyond features 5 powerful new boss encounters that can be challenged in 8- and 16- player Story or Hard Mode, offering some of the most challenging group content yet! A new set of PvE gear…
BioWare Responds to Questions on the latest Developer Blog
A few days ago, BioWare posted a blog update by Senior Designer on Star Wars: The Old Republic Austin Peckenpaugh. The blog post was mainly about class changes and balance in the comming major update: patch 1.4. With that, the forums went crazy with questions for BioWare and so far the mods have been good with a few examples on how the new system will work in the future. Read our copy/paste below, or check out the full thread on the official forum. Allison Berryman Consider the following examples under the new system:ex. A: Player A stuns the target for 4 seconds. 1 second after the stun is applied, player B stuns the same target for 4 seconds. The target is controlled for a total duration of 5 seconds. Player A stuns the enemy for 4 seconds | effective control duration = 4 seconds | enemy gains 800 Resolve 1 second later,…
TOR TV: SWTOR Explained #8: Meetra Surik Part 1
xZeroTolerence55x is back with a new video telling the back story ( lore) of Star Wars: The old republic. Finishing off the story of Revan we now see the story of the Jedi Exile which is the person you play in Knight of the Old republic 2. This is an awesome movie to check out if you haven’t played KOTOR 2 yet.
1.3.7 Patch Notes 9/5/2012
As we mentioned a few days ago, this weeks Scheduled Maintenance: was was postponed do to labour day. But now the server are back up, and BioWare have patched the servers. This time BIoWare is fixing one of my greatest annoyances since the servers merge – the unique Legacy names. Finally players are able to have the same surname as others – just like in real life. Anyways, below are the patch notes: Flashpoints and Operations General Players will no longer be prevented from traveling to their group’s in a Flashpoint or Operation due to the instance being full. Group Finder Group Finder now retains a character’s role selections when joining or leaving a group. Items General The event outfits (the Rakghoul Containment outfit and Sand People Bloodguard outfit) now bind to Legacy instead of binding on pickup. Muse Vestments no longer clip incorrectly with character heads. Helmets, circlets, masks,…