Star Wars: The Old Republic: Annihilation from New York Times bestselling author (and Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ writer) Drew Karpyshyn was revealed at last year’s New York Comic-Con and scheduled to be released in November 2012. It’s his second novel and now the cover has been officially revealed. In addition to the cover image reveal, SWTOR.com brought us a great interview with Karpyshyn about the new book. *SPOILERS AHEAD* Here’s a snippet of the interview: Do you recommend that people finish their storylines in Star Wars: The Old Republic before picking up the book? Annihilation is set after the events of the class stories in Star Wars: The Old Republic, so there are things that I reference and mention that may serve as spoilers to people who haven’t finished the storylines. The balance of power between the Empire and the Republic has changed quite a bit by the time…
SWTOR
Want to Playtest Game Update 1.3?
Are you interested in what’s coming to SWTOR in game update 1.3? Your chance to playtest the new features to the game are coming up soon and BioWare is asking for testers. SWTOR.com put out this call for testers: Game Update 1.3 is almost ready for deployment onto the Public Test Server. We still need to finalize a few things, but we wanted to let you know that the Public Test Server will be coming down soon so that we can prep Game Update 1.3 for PTS deployment. You can expect the Public Test Server to come back up with Game Update 1.3 in the next few weeks. They said that 1.3 will be focused around the Group Finder function that helps you get other players to group up with for Flashpoints and Operations more easily. There will also be more updates and content added to the Legacy System. For…
BioWare CS Agent Might Get Canned – Threats Made to PvPers
If you saw the drama unfolding live, you know how funny it was that a BioWare GM apparently threatened action against world PvPers on the Fatman (a PvP server). The alleged threats were done in general chat channels which these appalled players took screenshots of (good going guys!). When they first brought the matter to the forums, they were accused of making it up and their accounts were yet again threatened. Joveth Gonzalez, Associate Online Community Manager said the investigation showed no proof of their claims against this BioWare staff member. At first it seemed like yet another troll attempt on the game and at this point, with subs and popularity dropping, is there really any need for that? But then… The drama was not yet over because Gonzalez came back to report that a further investigation proved the accusations against the BioWare GM to be true! Ouch, BioWare… that’s…
MCM Expo features SWTOR Presentation
This Star Wars: The Old Republic presentation took place recently in London at the MCM Expo. There was a Q&A session to provide more info about the game and upcoming updates and patches as well as new features we can expect to see soon. The discussion had the following topics: General Presentation of the Game Previous Updates Game Update 1.2 Legacy Presentation The Old Republic said this: This information was gathered from the available livestream provided by Gamespot and it summarizes the topics discussed in that hour, along with the Q&A. Keep in mind that at the Q&A the answers capture the essence of what was spoken. The host of this presentation was Emanuel Lusinchi, Technical Design Director for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The discussion included Game Update 1.3 Allies Presentation which tells us more about what we can expect from this update, including: Group Finder: • Bonus…
Q &A for Friday May 28- Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3!
This week’s Q&A is a special edition because we have great info on the upcoming 1.3 game update. One thing that many players are very excited about is the inclusion of ranked warzones. But that’s not all that we should expect for game update 1.3. Let’s see more of this special edition Q&A to find out. Here’s a snippet: >llesna: Can you please tell us why the upcoming Legacy additions for Game Update 1.3 are character-specific rather than Legacy-wide? Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Legacy Perks have a different purpose than global unlocks and are specifically designed to enable players to customize each individual character. Since you may not care about Space XP or running the Bonus Series missions on one character it is important that you’re not paying a premium that is calculated at the expense of 8 or more characters all gaining this benefit. This also means the…
SWTOR vs SWG Survey Results: Week 1
Remember that survey we told you about recently from Gemtrix? If you took part in the SWTOR vs SWG survey, you can now see the first week’s results. This survey will be ongoing so each week there will be updates to see how the survey continues to unfold. These results are as of May 24th, 2012 @ 9:18am EST. There are 1,096 responses in record here. Week 1 results are just the beginning. Each week this will continue. So if you didn’t participate in the survey yet, head back over and answer the questions. Your results will be part of week 2. Gemtrix.com said: There are a couple things that you should keep in mind: All questions, and responses are optional. As such, any voter is free to skips questions, vote for multiple line items, etc. This means that anyone is free to say that they prefer SWTOR, and SWG,…
Combat the Haters: Tell Us Why You Love SWTOR
Due to recent events, there have been many putting down the game of SWTOR and many who have lost faith in BioWare. When I tweet an update or a story, I get several responses telling me how “SWTOR has died” and the game sucks. I believe in freedom of expression and I respect the opinions of others and their rights to have such opinions but that doesn’t mean I agree with them. I’m not sure SWTOR is dead yet. I can understand the dissatisfaction some people are feeling. There are some things that I was really bummed at about the game, too. But there are also a lot of great things about the game. I feel like some people didn’t give it a fair enough chance. They tried it and thought ‘it doesn’t have everything I want’ and they quit. While some players were let down by the game, there…
What is This Stuff Coming in SWTOR Game Update 1.4?
Sure, we’re all excited about 1.3 because this is coming up next. Server transfers and group finders are top of the list and we also get more updates and expansions to the Legacy System (Legacy Perks) but at the end of their latest video, they also give us some teasers of what we will see in 1.4 and beyond. Here are some screenshots: But what the heck is it? The first image definitely looks like the Foundry. This could be interesting but how will they bring it into the game? A new Flashpoint, perhaps? I’m thinking the station could possibly have something to do with guild ships as well. Maybe we have to build these up over time to earn the ability to build our guild ships. Or maybe it is some sort of access to a guild hall of sorts (Beam me up Scotty!) What do you think it…
SWTOR Patch 1.3 Interview with Daniel Erickson
BioWare’s Daniel Erickson, Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic revealed some interesting information in an interview with SWTOR Hub about patch 1.3 and what we can expect in the future of the game. With many players and skeptics questioning whether or not there will even be a future of the game, this is as good a time as any for BioWare staff to come out with more info to keep players interested. Here is a snippet: Ten Ton Hammer: Is the developing team satisfied with the current direction of the game or can we look forward to the game moving into another direction, like harder content with more prestige items? Daniel Erickson: The best thing about a live MMO is that you have a living, changing game. SWTOR will continue to evolve and improve across the board. Harder content outside the operations is a personal passion of mine…
SWTOR to Finally Get a Group Finder
It’s been said and said again that SWTOR should have been launched with a group finder. So many players who have left the game say they did so because the lack of a group finder made it impossible to get a group together. Some have also said that if a group finder option was added, they would consider returning to the game. The memo must have made its way to BioWare because James Ohlen promises we will finally get our group finder and it might be sooner than you think. As Stephen Reid previously hinted on his Twitter, we could see server transfers and a group finder very soon. James Ohlen, Game Director of SWTOR, also took to Twitter to answer the cries of frustrated gamers. He Tweeted: “We’re hard at work on group finder and character transfer. We know how important it is to get these systems into the…
Star Wars: The Old Republic’s 1.3 Patch Revealed
We finally have some more details about the next SWTOR game update. Patch 1.3 is coming this summer (soon) and we have a bit of information to get us started regarding what we can expect from the game. IGN has an interview with BioWare lead game designer Daniel Erickson that gives us some more detail about 1.3 and what it has coming with it. Here is a snippet of that interview: IGN: The recent Rakghoul Plague Outbreak was the first world event in The Old Republic. How did you expect players to react, and how did that compare with the actual reaction? What are your plans for future world events? Daniel Erickson: We were hoping for three things: to surprise the players, to create community interaction, and encourage open world PvP on the PvP servers. All three were far more successful than we had any right to hope for. The…
Patch 1.3 Crew Skills Changes: Q&A with SWTOR Systems Designers David Hunt and Patrick Malott
Inquisitor Roadhouse has an excellent Q&A with SWTOR Systems Designers David Hunt and Patrick Malott and has shared that with us on their site. This is by far the clearest interview/explanation I’ve seen yet on this topic and it’s well worth the read. Complete with screenshots and answers directly from the BioWare staff, you can get a clearer explanation of the Crew Skill changes incoming with 1.3. Anexxia posts: Q: On the official SWTOR podcast, we heard that Augment stations were going to be added to the game with Patch 1.3. Could you talk a little bit about what they are and how they will work? A: Our goal with the modification system has always been to allow players to use any gear they choose and have it function at maximum statistical efficiency. Most of the major itemization changes we’ve added have been moving towards this goal, such as moving set…
James Ohlen Explains SWTOR PvP Nerfs
What do you think about the current state of SWTOR PvP? I was just talking with a guild member about this earlier. The funny thing about SWTOR is that it began as a game where no one expected PvP to be a big aspect of it. Sure, some players would enjoy it but it would not be the main premise of playing. Yet now, there are many players who PvP every day and some who admit they only keep the game subscription because of the PvP. I think BioWare noticed fairly quickly they would need to rethink PvP a little and maybe even revamp the way they were doing things. After game update 1.2, we saw many changes and upgrades to SWTOR. All were meant for the better but in all honestly, there were some that just don’t seem to make sense or that cause us to question why BioWare…
Diablo 3 Launch vs SWTOR Launch
When SWTOR first launched, we were faced with a lot of bugs, long queue times and other glitches and issues. However, for the most part it was still playable. Any time a new multi-player games launches, we’re going to expect a certain level of glitches. It comes with the territory. The first 24-48 hours are especially prone to being the worst. Diablo 3 was also incredibly anticipated and it’s facing its own set of bugs. It boots you from the game every few minutes for a 3007 error, erasing all progress since last checkpoint and some people cannot get into the game at all. By comparison, many will say that D3 is worse. Some are saying that there is not as much outrage over the D3 bugs as there was with SWTOR but I beg to differ. My Facebook wall had plenty of complaints and there are loads of forum…
Jinx Has Some New Summer SWTOR Shirts
If you’ve been thinking about getting a new SWTOR shirt but putting it off, now is the best time of any. Jinx has had some very nice gaming shirts and SWTOR shirts for some time now but they just released their SWTOR summer collection and I am more than impressed. We’re not just talking about one or two shirts here, either. There is a massive collection of some really great styles for men and women. I especially love the Huttball tees. They also have a really cool Darth Malgus women’s tee: in addition to the great t-shirt designs, they also have some cool SWTOR stickers that I am looking forward to getting my hands on. Check it out for yourself- they have over 70 items in their new SWTOR summer shop.
Why So Many Guild Leaders Play Tank Roles
Here’s a good MMO topic to ponder. It’s something I had noticed before but put less thought into until I attended the 2012 SWTOR Guild Summit in Austin. As we were mingling and meeting other guild leaders, it occurred to me that a great number of guild leaders play tank roles in MMORPGs. A huge percentage of the guild representatives at the Summit were tanks. I brought this up on a bus ride with Ian from Jinx who brought up a great point. He said that guild leaders are usually your Alpha players and this made perfect sense. As a guild leader, I’ve played the tank role but I’ve also healed and done DPS, many times coordinated a run or raid from those various roles. However, the traditional situation in an MMORPG is that the tank is the leader of the run/raid/instance/flashpoint. This is the person who calls the shots,…
Is SWTOR On the Decline?
Reports claim that SWTOR loses 400,000 subscribers since February. Some will say that this is a good indication that the game is dropping and that players are losing interest. But is this really true and are these numbers a good indication of the popularity of the game? It only makes sense that in the first few months of a game launch, there will be higher numbers as people try it out and share it with friends. Then the numbers will drop a little and balance back out as long term players continue to enjoy the game. Attack of the Fanboy brings us an update: Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO has seen a drop-off in subscribers in recent months, to the tune of around 400,000 lost since February 2012. Earlier in the year, EA reported that roughly they had roughly 1.7 million subscribers in February, and yesterday reported that…
Episode 4 of SWTOR News
This is a special episode of SWTOR news focusing in the current subscription numbers released by EA and what they really mean. There is a lot of talk about SWTOR, how it compares to WoW, and how it compares to other MMORPGs. This brings up the age-old question of whether or not it can be accurately compared to other games. We’ve talked about it before here on the site but I think what it really comes down to is the sheer fact that while you can compare certain elements of SWTOR to certain elements of other games, it simply isn’t accurate at all to compare the entire game package itself to another game because there has yet to ever be another game just like SWTOR. Since it stands alone in its genre for how and what content in presented, it wouldn’t be fair to make an overall comparison- positive or…
Future Upgrades to Space Combat
One thing that I was super excited about before the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic was the space combat. I was not the only person who felt quite let down by what we ended up with. I wasn’t expecting it to be EVE Online but I did expect something a bit more than what we got. The good news is that BioWare is listening to player complaints and they have many plans in mind to improve space combat and features in the future. Until recently, they have remained fairly tight-lipped about this portion of the game but recently, Lead Designer Daniel Erickson revealed some secrets in an interview with Now Gamer. ”Full 3D space battles’ topped a recent poll of new features that SWTOR players want to see in the MMO; when asked how many new features were still due to hit the game Daniel Erickson told NowGamer…
Community Q&A: May 11th, 2012
It’s that time of week again and the BioWare crew were back to us with answers to the community questions. There are some really great questions coming out lately and this time they have announced that it will be 2 weeks (May 25th) before we get our answers to the next set of questions, in order to allow for more time to fully answer the questions. They also said this week: We’d like to focus the next Q&A blog on Game Update 1.3, so please be sure to ask questions on anything related to Game Update 1.3. We have now opened an official thread for that week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CDT on May 22nd, 2012 (12pm PDT/3pm EDT/8pm BST/9pm CEST/5am AEST). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below. So now let’s move on to the questions. nakomaru: You have…
SWTOR Guide to Vanity Pets
When it comes to MMORPGs, I’m a pet girl. I have always loved my vanity pets and in every game that has them, I try to collect them all. I found out shortly after I got my first 4 that there were many more I did not have yet and I was on a mission to track them all down. I’m going to make it easier for you to get the pet or pets that you want by telling you just how to get them. We will update this guide as new pets are introduced to the game. SWTOR vanity pets are non-combat pets that can be obtain in different ways: As a monster drop Purchased from the Collector’s Edition vendor Purchased from Vendors with some restrictions like Social Level, Dark Side/Light Side Level As part of the Collector’s Edition If you want to have the best chance of getting…
SWTOR Official Podcast: Episode 1 – “Rocket Boots”
Eric Musco and Brooks Guthrie are happy to bring you episode one of the official Star Wars: The Old Republic podcast, “Rocket Boots”“. This was really great fun and I can’t wait to see and hear more from these guys. Here is the description from the first episode: In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Erickson and Damion Schubert to talk about what we saw in Game Update 1.2 and what we can expect as we look forward to Game Update 1.3. Also, David Bass stops by to tell us about how things went at PAX East and some of our convention plans for the rest of the year. If you have any questions or comments about the show, feel free to let us know. It’s really a fun and interesting little podcast and the guys are fun and entertaining. I can’t wait to see what they will do…
SWTOR Getting New Content, Reached 1.3 Million Active Subs
If you’re playing SWTOR, you know that there is still an interest in the game because well… you’re playing with other people. However, depending on which server you are on, it may sometimes feel like there are not as many people out there in the Star Wars universe as you thought. New numbers revealed at EA’s 4th quarter financial reports show us just exactly how many people are still playing SWTOR- and the number is quite large. SWTOR has1.3 million active subscribers (down from 1.7 million as announced in March). So those numbers are pretty cool but what does that really mean to us- the players? Well, it means new content is incoming very soon. The report said that two new content packs would be available sometime in the first financial quarter. They were called Legacy and Allies, so we can assume that we’ve already gotten the Legacy patch and…
SWTOR Interviews: Jodi and Patrick from ChewUI.com
I first met Jodi and Patrick on day one of the Guild Summit in Austin. We had a lot of fun, saw a tour of BioWare Austin headquarters, met some other awesome people and Jodi and Patrick came up with one brilliant idea! On the last day of Guild Summit, we said our goodbyes and promised to stay in touch and I was super excited about this idea they had for a new site dedicated to customized user interfaces. We had all just seen the preview of SWTOR update 1.2 and the new UI and we knew that there would be a great need for a site like this. Jodi and Patrick stepped up to the plate and began creating that site on day one. I sat down to talk with them now that the site is complete and functional to find out more about the site, the idea and…