BioWare have news today were they introduce upcoming double XP Weekends. You heard that right, 2x XP weekends … and they will stack with all current in game XP buffs. For nowt, there are four sets of Double XP weekends planed: March 15, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 18, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT March 22, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 25, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT March 29, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to April 1, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT April 5, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM to April 8, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT This could mean that we’ll see Rise of the Hutt Cartel drop for early access the week of April 8th already! Now back to the double XP weekends. Eric Musco posted in the official forums how double experience will work with…
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SWTOR PVP Changes in Patch 2.0
As you may already know, Patch 2.0 is going to bring a variety of changes and additions to SWTOR, all meant to improve the game overall and how we as players experience it. PvP and gear are two things we expect to see some changes in. In fact, there seems to be an overall trend of new gear stats, minus the pants, and a reduction in the stats provided by mods to gear. Some secondary stats are seeing changes or tweaks and War Hero gear critical rating has been replaced with power for some classes. There are new set bonuses for level 55 gear which we can see here: Marauder/ Sentinel DPS Weaponmaster’s Gear 2pc: Reduced the cooldown of Guarded by the Force or Undying Rage by 15 seconds, also increased its duration by 1 second. Weaponmaster’s Gear 4pc: Increased all damage dealt by 10% for 5 seconds after using…
Additional Patch 1.7.2 details revealed!
Bioware’s newly appointed community manager Eric Musco, stopped by the official SWToR forums to provide additional details about tomorrow’s patch. As we mentioned in a previous post, Patch 1.7.2 will see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful among the SWToR community. It will also remove the Golden Scalene armor from the cartel market. Musco was kind enough to provide details on the new items that will be incorporated in tomorrow’s update as well as pointing out that the Gree vendors will have new items for purchase. In specific, the new items added are: Dire Taskmaster’s Robe Dire Overlord’s Vestments Dire Warmaster’s Body Armor Dire Eliminator’s Chestguard Guard Captain’s Chestplate CZ-27k Stealth Ops Suit CZ-18x Avalanche Chestplate Honored Master’s Vestments Honored Champion’s Robe Honored Sabarist’s Harness Honored Adept’s Shroud MA-52 Med-tech Chestplate Emergency Responder’s Overcoat MA-53 Overwatch Chestplate Jawagram “I Love You” Jawagram “It’s A…
Mr. Force in Balance Fashion Show on The Harbringer
A very unique MMORPG event was held recently on The Harbringer server by Force in Balance guild- a SWTOR fashion show. It sounds like it was a lot of fun and I definitely want to know when they’re doing it again so I can try to pop on and visit. The leadership gave thanks where credit was due: *Huge thanks go out to the ladies of <Force in Balance> for putting on such an exciting event: -Vesayla -Lylah -Six -Tresse -Avelie *Here’s a shoutout to Nytraz for FRAPS-ing and Omer for DJ-ing. *And a huge and special thanks to Dulfy for serving as one of our guest judges! *Congratulations to Mr. Force in Balance 2013, Rengi! *Over 30 guild members attended this exciting event; we’re looking forward to putting on another show in the future. The first event was guild-only but due to the popularity, they plan future shows with…
Bioware talks about upcoming expansion and future content during SXSW 2013
In preparation for the upcoming Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, Bioware is increasing the pace of news releases and event participation across the US and Europe. This time around, SWToR Senior Producer Blaine Christine , Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert, Executive Producer Jeff Hickman and Production Director Dallas Dickinson hosted a panel discussion during SXSW 2013 – an annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin, Texas.
Developer Update: The Art of Makeb
This week has sees a number of news releases from Bioware about the upcoming expansion, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, focusing specifically on details relating to making planet Makeb. As you might remember from previous posts, Makeb is the new planet included in the expansion and it’s the main focus of the expanded story line.
Bioware releases details on upcoming expansion; Creating Makeb!
In a move that could possibly be interpreted as a sign that we’re getting closer to the release of the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, Bioware has released a video that provides additional details on Makeb, the planet included in the expansion
In specific, SWToR’s Lead Writer, Hall Hood and Lead Concept Artist, Ryan Dening provide insight on the background story of the planet as well as the new features we should expect to see.
Gree event returning with Patch 1.7.2!
Bioware’s new community manager Eric Musco revealed yesterday that Patch .1.7.2 will also see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful on its first iteration. In addition, the golden scarlene armor that’s currently available at the cartel market store will be soon removed from it. The armor will be returning at a later (unspecified) date.
In specific he stated:
Carrie Fisher to be in New Star Wars Film
The Internet world has been buzzing about whether or not Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill (which confirmed there are talks) and Harrison Ford will return to the big screen for the next installment in the Star Wars story. In an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated, Carrie puts some of those questions to rest. When asked if she could confirm whether or not she would play the role of Princess Leia, she said “Yes.” The interview was fun (in typical Carrie fashion) and went something like this: What do you think Princess Leia is like today? Elderly. She’s in an intergalactic old folks’ home [laughs]. I just think she would be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle. And still wearing the bagel buns? The bagel buns and the bikini, because probably she has sundowners syndrome. At sundown, she thinks that she’s 20-something….
Display Name Only Log In – Coming April 2, 2013
BioWare posted a new article earlier today regarding future login detalis. More security is always a welcome change. Too many people reuse passwords against the same email account. A few years ago BioWare’s Never winthers night website got hacked an all user data was stolen. When there is a new website that gets hacked, and loses a massive list of email addresses and hashed passwords (that get cracked) enterprising people from certain geographic locations take those and run them across multiple logon services, generally games, and see if people are stupid enough to use the same password on multiple services. They are. So, switching to to Display name makes this a little harder. I may or may not know a little about this particular situation and it DOES make things more secure, they should never have used email as the unique identifier in the first place. Anyways. Check out the article below or over at the…
New Locations for the Star Wars: The Old Republic Community Cantina Tour
BioWare just announced that whey will continue with there Star Wars: The Old Republic Community Cantina Tour. Today 8 new Cities was revealed covering covering seven places around the United States, and one place in Europe – Cologne, Germany when the video game conference is on. Today we are excited to announce that the Community Cantina Tour will be visiting eight more cities in 2013! Starting with Dallas, TX in May, we will be continuing our series of Community Meet & Greets. If you haven’t been able to attend an event before, these meet & greets are a chance for fans to meet, drink, and talk with our community team and developers. Before each event, we will be publishing a community blog and forum post with detailed information about the location, date, times, and how you can RSVP for the event. Please take a look at the list below to see if a Community Cantina Tour is coming to…
Community Cantina: San Francisco
Marshall Carr from TorWars attended the Community Cantina meetup in San Francisco (super cool!) and was kind enough to share the events and news with all of us. You can get the full story, along with pictures, at his blog post on TorWars but here are some highlights: It was his first Community Cantina but not his first meet and greet with BioWare There were some rockin’ costumes and prizes handed out Everyone looks like they had awesome fun without us! *sadface* The developers in attendance were the newly promoted Community Manger Eric Musco, Senior Producer Blaine Christine, and Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert. They received Tauntaun Fawn and Kowakian Monkey Lizard pets And the most important part to those of us at home- the Q&A event If you head over to Marshall’s blog and full write-up, you can see all the questions and answers that were discussed at this…
Possible fix for failed character copy to SWTOR PTS
Are you having issues with doing a character copy to the PTS in SWTOR? You’re not alone if you’ve been experiencing a bug with this process but some SWTOR players have found a fix that seems to be working for everyone who tries it. Take off all of your companions’ gear and put them in cargo bay, then transfer your character. Quick and easy fix! Some players are reporting that taking off the ship’s parts may also work. If you’re getting the message “We were unable to process your requested move of characters to Public Test Server. This account has reached the 12 character maximum on the server.” Then this fix will not help you. The probably with this is when you already have characters on both the open and the closed test servers. BioWare should be fixing this one but if we come across a fix, we’ll update to…
German and French CMs for SWTOR Follow Joveth Out of BioWare
What’s happening at BioWare? We can’t be certain but it definitely doesn’t make you feel good when first Joveth left and now both Lars Malcharek and Tony Moreno, the German and French community managers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. All the SWTOR Community Managers are leaving the scene. It’s unknown at this time whether any of these mean left on their own or were let go by BioWare but we’ll probably never known since the conditions of their exit probably also included a gag order of some type. So what does it mean for the SWTOR communities in the US, Germany and France? Will this open the door to new staff members or will the already-small staff of BioWare SWTOR just continue to dwindle? If you’re curious about what all of this means, Eric Musco did stop by the forums today to leave some type of feedback: Hello JPryde, You…
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Movie?
Will there be a Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic movie? Many fans would be ecstatic to hear this is true but we can’t find any evidence that it’s valid. With Star Wars spinoff rumors in the mix, it’s easy to see how some could quickly believe this one might be true but Karpyshyn himself said on Twitter that he knows nothing about it. @agentjaspor @headgeek666 this would be awesome, but I haven’t heard anything about a #KOTOR movie. But I’m not at #bioware anymore so… — Drew Karpyshyn (@DrewKarpyshyn) February 23, 2013 Ain’t It Cool News, cited sources at BioWare and said that Karpyshyn was secretly working on a screenplay for a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic feature film being developed by Lucasfilm. It’s a nice thought but doesn’t seem to be true. However, this wouldn’t be the first time a rumor was denied when it was leaked too…
BioWare Doctors to Speak on Sex and Video Games at GDC
BioWare writer David Gaider plans to tackle the issues of sex in video games at this year’s Games Developers Conference (GDC). He will be holding a talk called “Sex in Video Games”, which is explained below: Games have reached the point where realistic portrayals of sex and adult relationships are possible, but what does this mean to us as developers? How much responsibility do we have in addressing issues of sexism and sexuality, and are we inadvertently making statements about what is acceptable, even when we don’t mean to say anything at all? Our industry is struggling with a conflict between the desire to be taken seriously as an art form, and the desire to avoid addressing social issues because what we make are “just games.” These things have implications on our sales, and while they can be addressed, it can only happen if we are willing to acknowledge that…
The Gree Event and Star Wars Canon
If you’ve been enjoying the Relics of the Gree event, you’re not alone. However, this event has sprung some great conversation about the Gree and whether or not they are portrayed correctly within the game and the storyline in SWTOR. Is it accurate and keeping with the story and the timeline of events? Some players have questions about the legitimacy of the story and the rewards that come from these events. For example, we know that the Gree as a people are supposed to be far advanced but many of the galactic weapons and quest rewards don’t’ see all that amazing. It looks nice, yes, but it doesn’t seem to fall under the very rare and powerful that the Gree are best known for. And then there is the issue of the droids. In story, the Gree are known for disliking droids. In fact, it can almost be called a…
Stat Scaling for 2.0- Are Your Stats Lower on the PTS?
If you’ve logged into the PTS recently, you probably have already seen that the scaling is different from what is live in the game. Stats are usually around 50-70% of the character sheet value in live. Everyone on the PTS was aware that BioWare would be changing the scaling formula but we didn’t know exactly what that would be. Now with 2.0, you can tell what these changes are going to look like. One user on the forum has taken the time to work from the old formula and try to build new co-efficients that will govern the stat scaling (yes, lots of math involved but it’s really interesting.) Here are some of his breakdowns: Defensive Defense Rating – Now scales roughly 118% slower Shield Rating – Now scales roughly 50% slower Absorb Rating – Now scales roughly 127% slower Armor – Now scales 2.5% slower, but remains on a linear progression HP – Buffed…
Two Spawn Locations for Droid: Ancient Gree Defender and Destroyer
You may not be aware that the droid that spawns near the pylon of the PvP area will also spawn in the southern section of the Western Ice Cliff. This image created by Clopsy of Jeddit will show you exactly where to find it, including coordinates. This is a great find since it makes it easier to catch the spawn. There are eight confirmed spawn locations here and the spawn rate is 7 minutes. Check out the graphic to see for yourself. Thank you Clopsy!
Patch 2.0 is now on Public Test Servers!
You got to give it to Bioware! Just when we thought we were done with Patch 1.7 and the Gree world event, they announced patch 2.0 is now available at the Public Test Servers for us to test. Newly-released screenshot from the new level 55 operation For (the few) who don’t know, patch 2.0 is part of the upcoming digital expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel. Among other things the new patch incorporates: New legacy achievements New level cap set at 55 New level 55 gear A new level 55 operation Upgraded level 55 flashpoints (Athiss, Hammer Station, Cademimu, and Mandalorian Raiders) Terror from beyond Nightmare Mode Class combat changes
Cartel Market – New Market Items with Relics of Gree
Are you looking to see which new items have gone live with the new update Relics of Gree? There are some new items on the Cartel Market. So here’s an overview of what the update brought. Classic Looks for Armor BioWare has listened to the players when it comes to classic looks on the armor and streamlining the appearance of gear and they are bringing back some classic versions of armor sets that many players really liked. You can now find classic versions of Spymaster, Phantom, and Trailblazer armor sets. Space Pirate Cartel Pack The Cartel Pack’s description: Extraordinary items appropriated from pirates all across the galaxy. Packs contain rare bonus items found nowhere else. Features a wider variety of exclusive items than any previous pack. Other Stuff! We also had Jawagrams for Valentine’s Day which seemed to be a big hit at only 20 Cartel Coins and new customization…
Relics of the Gree: World Event Guide
If you’re excited about the Relics of Gree world event or still trying to work your way through the quests, you’re in luck because there are guides available to help you see it through to completion. I’m all about writing guides for SWTOR but for this world event, Dulfy beat me to the punch and there are no better guides than Dulfy’s. She spends so much time in the game and test servers that her guides are thorough and complete. So with that said, rather than type up my own Relics of Gree world event guide, I’m going to point you in the direction of hers. You can find it on her website: Dulfy.net Here is her navigation, complete with links to take you to each section of the guide to allow you to jump forward or backward as needed. Navigation How do I get there? Gaining Reputation Missions World…
Harrison Ford will Return to Star Wars in Episode VII
A new update in the Star Wars Episode VII scene is that Harrison Ford will be returning as Han Solo. We’ve told you about all the spin-off movie rumors, many featuring a young Han Solo and while though do sound interesting, for Episode VII, many fans are excited to hear that Ford himself will be back to play Solo. USA Today gives us the original source: Latino Review reporter Umberto “El Mayimbe” Gonzalez appeared on Fox News Latino today to break the news that Harrison Ford will definitely be back to reprise the role in Star Wars VII, slated for 2015. Rumors have been swirling since November, but Gonzalez is the first to claim he has confirmation. “I found out yesterday. I did my due diligence, like I do with everything. Triple checked. Legitimate sources…His deal is done,” Gonzalez said. Late last year when the news of Episode VII was first released, Ford did…
Relics of Gree New Updates
Patch 1.7.0b was deployed this morning. This small patch was to correct an issue with several Return of the Gree missions that would allow players to skip steps by accepting shared missions from groupmates (so no more shortcuts, peeps!) The hotfix also corrected the following Legacy issue: In order to prevent players from running into an unresolved issue with Legacy unlocks for Improved Priority Transport: Personal Starship from Global Unlocks > Other > Convenience, the ability to purchase them has been temporarily disabled until we find a permanent solution. These unlocks will be enabled again in a future patch, and players are still able to purchase and use the Legacy Character Perk for Priority Transport: Personal Starship. While many were disappointed the downtime didn’t correct some other (possibly more serious) issues and bugs, at least the servers were back up and running without too much delay. Via: Patch Notes Stay…