The latest expansion of Star Wars The Old Republic (SWToR) seems to be paying dividends for Bioware. The recent content release called Galactic Strongholds, pushed the Star Wars themed MMO to the 14th spot in game rankings for the month of August according to Raptr. Other notable MMO appearances in the list include World Of Warcraft (no.2), Guild Wars 2 (no.12) and Final Fantasy XIV (no.1o). It’s worth noting that WildStar dropped off the list for the first time.
News
Bioware addresses network connectivity issues
Bioware’s production community coordinator Tait Watson was once again at the official forums today addressing server issues that affected SWToR gamers today (9/24/2014).
In specific…
SWToR Miner and (possibly) SWToR fan sites get a challenge from Bioware
You might have never heard of his name before, but if you have a moderate interest in SWToR you probably read about his work somewhere. SWTOR Miner is one more passionate fans of the game with a special skill. Every now and then he data mines SWToR source files for clues of what Bioware has in store for us next. In many cases, his findings get published In fan sites that are eager for more information about Bioware’s MMO.
Results for Conquest Week 4 – The Dread War
I run swtorconquest.com and I have been asked to be a guest writer summarizing the conquests each week. Full reddit post here Week 4 of Strongholds are officially over. I wanted to point out a few interesting bits. The Harbinger once again shows that have some seriously dedicated guilds. Their lowest score by the wampa stampers beating the highest scores on most other servers. Once again on Jedi Covenant; Rancor Bait , Working as Intended , Hellbent , and Holocron get early leads on each of their planets and never drop below first place. Early on in the week they had first place secure. On Jung Ma the battle for Section X and Oricon were close. Until Sunday Umbra seemed to have first place secure. But late on Sunday the remnants of hope finally managed to get past them and get first place. On Oricon, Uncharted Space and nightmare squadron kept going back and forth for first place. Few…
Former Electronic Arts (EA) CEO predicts free-to-play model evolution
Former Electronic Arts (EA) CEO, John Riccitiello is a controversial figure among gamers, especially with SWToR fans. During his tenure at EA, he spearheaded the strategy to develop and promote free-to-play games, an approach that Star Wars The Old Republic (SWToR) fully embraced. During a recent interview with Gamespot. Mr. Riccitiello predicted that both premium and free-to-play pricing models will continue to exist with the later possibly evolving. He also stressed out that both models (and possibly others we haven’t seen), will continue to co-exist without one gaining the upper hand over others.
Cartel market bug leads to Slot Machine sale!
Bioware recently released a new cartel market pack called Constable Stronghold’s pack as part of Patch 2.10. The pack includes the Smuggler’s Gambit Slot Machine that apparently a lot of SWToR fans were eagerly awaiting to become available. Unfortunately, yet another bug prevented cartel market shoppers from obtaining their slot machine as community manager Eric Musco confirmed at the forums earlier today.
Preferred access for Strongholds has an eventful start
Today was the day that Preferred access members were going to receive access to the latest SWToR expansion called Galactic Strongholds. Unfortunately the roll out wasn’t uneventful… Early Tuesday, gamers took it to the forums to inform Bioware that the much-expected expansion wasn’t available to them. This problem elicited a quick response by Bioware’s community manager, Eric Musco.
Conquest Week Watch – Results for week 3
SWToRConquest.com compiled the final results for week 4 of Conquest Battles in SWToR. As a reminder the battle lasted from September 9 to September 15 and saw multiple guilds fighting over planet dominance.
Out of the five planets that were available for invasion this week (Tatooine, The Black Hole, Quesh, Nar Shadaa and Makeb), two (Tatooine and Nar Shadaa) offered the most closely-fought-battles. The closest-one, took place a the Harbinger server where more than 5 guilds went neck-in-neck right up to the last minute.
Expansion Initials Revealed – SOR Teasers
We have some exciting expansion news today as we look at the teaser images and video file names, we see some leaked hints at the expansion title. This isn’t data-mined info but rather what Bioware themselves put out on the official news site. You’d think they had learned their lesson about this sort of thing in the past, or maybe they did it on purpose to stir up some more hype for the new expansion. If you at the file names for the images in the news post, you will see they are saved as “SORTeaser”, meaning the new expansion will be called SOR. See for yourself here: http://www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/vc/09162014_SORTeaser/SORTeaser_550x120.jpg http://www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/vc/09162014_SORTeaser/SORTeaser_854x480.jpg http://www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/vc/09162014_SORTeaser/gt_sor_FINAL_US.mp4 So what might it stand for? Forum members and Redditors are taking their guesses and we have one of our own. Shadow(s) of Revan sounds like a good bet to us since it also fits well to the Forged Alliance…
No patch Tuesday & other news!
Community production coordinator Tait Watson, took to the forums today (Monday) to confirm some information that was already known for the most part.
In detail Watson, highlighted that…
SWToR class forums getting a makeover!
Eric Musco announced today that SWToR class forums will be getting a makeover soon. The change will help to consolidate the content and make it easier to receive feedback on SWToR. You can review Eric’s post in detail below:
SWToRConquest.com releases conquest tracking widget
Want to show off your guilds’ accomplishments at your guild website and don’t know how? Fear not – SWTORConquest.com has got you covered! They recently announced a very cool plugin that allows you to show your guild’s conquest score at your website.
We tried it with our guilds’ WordPress website and it works very well with both pages as well as BBPress forums (you can embed it within forums posts very easy).
Patch 3.0 details to be released soon
Senior producer, Bruce MacLean was once again at the SWToR.com forums and this time let us know when Patch 3.0 information is going to be released. In specific, responding to a fan’s post he mentioned: You nailed it. We have been holding back 3.0 details because <SPOILERS!!>. But now that Forged Alliances is out there with this morning’s launch of 2.10 we’re letting folks have a little time with Rakata Prime and then spilling the beans on 3.0. Look for a teaser within a week, and then a full announce before the end of month! There you have it! Next week we should have a teaser trailer on the next chapter of SWToR while the full reveal will be later this month!
Conquest Watch – weigthed results for second week
The second week of Guild conquest is over and all guilds are already starting to plan their strategies for the next week. With the launch of swtorconquest.com we had the opportunity to keep track of all battles especially the ones that in some cases were decided at the very last moments. It’s encouraging to see more and more guilds trying their hand at conquest even though the current system is heavily weighted towards larger guilds. While Bioware is fine-tuning the system, the community once more came up with its own solution.
Get them while they last! Voss Embassy Sign to be removed when Patch 2.10 drops
The title is pretty self-explanatory but today Community Manager Eric Musco posted the following message at the official forums: Quick reminder before 2.10 drops tomorrow. Currently, if you visit the Binary Star Realty vendor, you will find the Republic Voss Embassy Sign is available for 1 credit. As a note, that item being on the vendor was available for only a limited time and it will be removed tomorrow with 2.10. So stock up on your 1 credit signs while they’re cheap. Thanks everyone. PS – On the vendor, there is a known issue where the items name appears to be blank, the name appears as just a set of brackets []. That is the Republic Voss Embassy Sign.
Think you know Star Wars? Think again!
With Star Wars Episode 7 and upcoming releases from Disney and Lucasarts, Screencrush.com took a closer look at some lesser known facts about the original two trilogies. Al Pacino as Han Solo? It’s not as far fetched as you might think! While some of the information shown is somewhat known, there are also some other interesting tidbits of information that I am sure very few people know about. For example – did you know that stormtroopers and bounty hunters have a really hard time seeing when they wear their “buckets”? Maybe you do but you wouldn’t expect them to knock their heads against door openings on screen!
SWToR makes Gamespot’s top 10 Free-to-Play PC games list….and that’s a good thing!
Depending on who you ask, SWToR’s transition to the Free-To-Play (FTP) model was one of the best or worst decisions Electronic Arts and Bioware has ever made. From one side, FTP models are somewhat unpopular with gamers who claim that buying your way into achievements and perks impacts the balance of the game for those who aren’t willing (or can’t) spend the money. On the other hand, some might argue that the model also helps games to become financially viable and remain in operation. In SWToR’s case, the decision to switch from a month-to-month subscription model was originally criticized by the press and still carries a lot of stigma associated with it. More recently however, Electronic Arts announced that their decision is paying dividends that allows them to invest more to the development of the game. Regardless of which side of the argument each one us stand, we can all agree that it’s a good thing when SWToR…
SWToR server issues lead to Patch 2.9.0d
It’s no secret that since yesterday a number of SWToR servers have experienced a series of issues. Lag spikes, dropped connections and queues started with the Harbinger server, and then expanded to Begeren Colony and the Bastion. These issues forced Bioware to take these servers offline for maintenance today. According to an official post by Eric Musco at the SWToR community forums, players in the Harbinger server experienced some “rollback” after the server’s downtime. Musco was also quick to point out that no other servers were going to be affected by this issue. The situation eventually lead to the announcement of Patch 2.9.0d set to be deployed tomorrow.
New SWToR Conquest Tracker goes online
With the recent release of the conquest system, fans have been asking Bioware for a way to track conquest scores on their browser. This was a request that also came up during the recent Cantina Tour event two days ago. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait long. A new website titled SWToR Conquest tracker provides an alternate way of keeping track of conquest competition across all servers.
Bioware SWToR Cantina Tour flash drive contents
As promised in the report-out article from Bioware’s cantina tour below you will find the contents of the flash drive distributed to all fans who attended the event. Pax Prime 2014 Scoop Rakata Prime Flashpoint screenshots Upcoming Cartel Market items Wallpapers included in the flashdrive
Bioware’s SWToR Cantina Tour Report-out (Seattle, Grand Hyatt Hotel, August 31,2014)
SWToRStrategies.com had the opportunity to attend Bioware’s SWToR Cantina Tour at Seattle’s Grand Hyatt hotel yesterday (Aug.31,2014) and bring you the latest information from the meeting.
Amazon Purchases Twitch
Big news today as Amazon has purchased Twitch. The $1 Billion deal is making headlines all over the Internet as Twitch is the most popular video game streaming site online. Google was making bids for the site through it’s YouTube subsidiary, which some fans were not happy with as they felt it narrowed the options of where to share their game footage and streaming. But Twitch came forward today to official announce the deal was done with Amazon for $970 million. It was approved by shareholders today and will be finalized later this year. Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch, had this to say on their official blog: Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office,…
Episode VII Update: J.J. Abrams Teases with Droid Hand
You may remember several months ago when JJ Abrams kicked off Star Wars: Force For Change, with the intent of raising money for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The grand prize was a trip to the set of Star Wars Episode VII and you better believe there were a lot of fans who wanted a chance to win. Slashfilm.com has an interesting update for us, as well as some details on the “droid hand” Abrams teased in the announcement. The first video revealed a brand new creature from the world. A second video revealed the new X-Wing fighter. And now, Abrams revealed the results of the initiative and winner’s name with another excitingly cryptic photo. Is it a Episode 7 droid hand? Or perhaps Luke Skywalker’s robot hand? Check it out and read more about the Force for Change winner below. And here you can see the Tweet for yourself if you missed…
SWTOR Earns $165 Million Last Year
According to research and data from SuperData, Star Wars: The Old Republic remains one of the top five subscription MMOs in the world, earning $165 million last year. The ambitious MMORPG started as a sub-based model but then later adjusted to a free-to-play game with paid options and this made all the difference in the world for EA in terms of earning potential. This figure includes subscriptions, expansion packs and microtransactions and it puts SWTOR in 4th place in the world for MMO earnings. As you can see from the chart, WoW took first place with over $1 Billion in revenue, Lineage 1 took 2nd place with $253 million, TERA: Online took 3rd with $236 million. Some games to come in after SWTOR include LOTRO, EVE Online, Aion, Blade and Soul, Lineage 2, and RIFT. Since 2010, the MMO market has been changing and growing. The pay-to-play model is dying and the…