The TORWARS team has been playing SWTOR quite a bit and they are now ready to reveal some of their “end game” insight into the game. After nearly a month since release (for early access players) this has been more than enough time for many players to find their way to level 50 and even to experience a bit of what that post-50 content has to offer. This review is going to tell you about Ilum and daily questing, hard mode flashpoints, an overview of Operations and just general info about end game SWTOR. It’s definitely worth taking the time to read over unless you’ve already been 50 yourself for some time now (in which case, maybe you should be writing a review :p). *Spoiler Warning: Republic-based End Game content revealed below.* A snippet: “So how do I rate the end game? Well, it’s important to acknowledge that the game…
SWTOR Makes the Record Books
Star Wars: The Old Republic has been officially recognized by Guinness World Records which is a very cool honor indeed. Just shortly after its launch on December 20, 2011, the popular MMO was awarded a spot in the latest Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer’s Edition. The big title? the Largest Entertainment Voice Over Project ever. More than 200,000 lines of recorded dialogue were performed by several hundred voice actors, making it a far more ambitious recording project than any undertaking for a feature film. (via MMOSite.com) Because the record is such an awesome one, it received a full 2-page spread in the book, which I try to get every year because it’s great fun to read and have around. Here you will find a tribute to 30 years of Star Wars gaming with fun facts, new records, figures and more – all about Star Wars. The new Guinness World Records…
IGN’s Final Verdict on SWTOR
A gigantic MMO deserves a gigantic review and that’s just what IGN has given us for their “final verdict” detailed review of SWTOR. This review comes after 160+ hours of game playing time and IGN leaves SWTOR with a 9 out of 10 stars. This is a very thorough descriptive write-up of SWTOR from the IGN reviewers. They talk about the cinematics, the character creation and storyline, quest givers and other NPCs and much more. The review takes us deeper in to the game than many other “overviews” that claim to be reviews. Here’s a snippet: The classic scrolling yellow text of the films begins immediately after you’ve created your character, accompanied by the Star Wars theme. There is, in my mind, no better way BioWare could have kicked off your adventure. The text briefly explains who you are and in what context you’re entering the galaxy. It’s unique to…
The great hunt: Annihilation Droid XRR-3 (Eternity Vault 8man HM)
Ready to start raiding in SWTOR? Well you’ll want to check out this guide to the entry boss in the first available “operation” (raid) in the game. It covers both the normal and hardmode versions for a 8man set-up. There are three levels of difficulty available, normal, hard and nightmare. You can also go as a 8man group or 16man. Right now the difficulty shifts the damage done, the health of the boss and the speed/danger of some of his abilities. Swtorextreme will be bringing you guides on all the bosses through the next few weeks so make sure you don’t miss them. We hope to also bring you nightmare mode guides as well, but even we need some time to get them down! 😛 It’s also worth mentioning that we are now Live Streaming our raids (as well as other things such as pre-mades in PVP) over on Twitch….
SWTOR Introductory E-mail Upon Reaching Level 10 and Other Increments
Have you gotten an email from BioWare when you reached level 10 in the game? Have you gotten one at any other increments such as 20, 30, etc? While I personally did not get one at level 10 nor at level 20 and so on, some players are reporting introductory emails like this one. The email titled “Helpful tips and advice for level 10 and beyond” comes with a congratulations from BioWare about your new accomplishment and then reminds you of some things in the game that your character can now achieve or acquire at this level. It’s a nice little addition for a player and it’s a sign that BioWare wants to go the extra mile to help players and also to make them feel more welcome to the game. While some players (like myself) are not getting the emails, it is believed that they only go out to…
SWTOR Bonus Quests: BioWare Brilliance or the Ultimate Troll?
If you’ve played SWTOR past around level 20 or so, you’ve probably already encountered these “bonus quests” in the game. Touted as just another example of BioWare’s signature RPG storytelling, some gamers find it more like a massive annoyance. SWTOR is very much about the story and these different story arcs usually take place on the different planets or “zones” in which you play the game. These world arcs include stories that all tie in to said planet and finish up with a conclusion when you reach the end of the planet and are then sent to another planet. There’s just one little catch… the bonus quests. They hit you out of nowhere, right when you think you are good and done with the planet. MMORPG.com calls it more of an “ambush”, which is exactly what it feels like to most gamers. You think it’s just one more quest and…
Trolling Along SWTOR: Are You Annoyed Yet?
You just cannot have a game as big as SWTOR without having some trolls here and there. If you’re in any in-game chat channels, you’ve probably encountered a couple or more at this point. You’ve probably also seen them on the forums. We also have them on fan sites and well, basically anywhere in the SWTOR community. However, there is a trend going on in the official forums that is starting to grow very annoying for many people. At risk of sounding a bit conspiracy-theorist-ish, there seems to be a trend of making BioWare look bad going on. While I’m not quite sure what the intention behind it is, I am definitely not the first person to notice it. My own friends have brought it up and there are multiple forum threads and also posts on Reddit about the topic. First is the issue of people claiming they have been…
False Bans Reported in SWTOR Community
There seems to be a trend happening in the SWTOR community for the past week or two and I have to say that in all my years of gaming, I’ve never seen one quite like this before. For some reason, there is a relatively large number of players claiming to have been banned from SWTOR- some even with email “proof” – who were not actually banned at all. Most of the reports claim to be bans over silly things that get the community and other players in an outrage because they worry whether or not it can happen to them. Accusations are flying and gamers are getting paranoid, wondering if they will really be banned for such things or if they are supporting a game company that is a little too ready with the banhammer. But is any of it really true? Like this from the official forums: Originally Posted…
The Empire is Winning in The Old Republic’s PvP
Do you PvP in SWTOR? If you’re not part of the Empire, you might be getting owned. While it varies according to server, just like in any game, overall the Empire is winning PvP in The Old Republic. An article over at IGN.com tells us more about why and how the Empire is leading the warzones in SWTOR. IGN tells us: According to Gabe Amatangelo, lead PvP designer, Empire players beat Republic players in 53 percent of Voidstar and Alderaan Civil War contests across all servers combined. He said a same faction versus same faction version of Huttball, The Old Republic’s most played Warzone, will also be included. At some point in the future, BioWare will let players select which Warzone they want to play, though a timeline isn’t yet set. As it is now, when you queue up to enter a Warzone, you could be potentially dropped in any…
Server Maintenance yet again.
BioWare have closed down there servers to patch the dupe exploit that has been around for a few days. While I’m pretty bummed about not getting to play as much as I would like on my day off, I’m happy that BioWare fix these exploits as fast as possible. So what was the exploit about anyways? Well basically you fool vendors to think that they bought a stack of 99 items while they actually only bought one item. readers have mailed us how they made millions of credits before the server went down, but we have no screen shots to prove it. Funny thing about this bug is not the bug it self (shit happens and then you fix it) but the fact that Reddit and 4chan users tried rallying the masses to “take down TOR”. I’m not sure what’s up with these people, but you can read more about “Operation Occupy SW: ToR” here.
Outrage over SWTOR: Vette Makes the News
So apparently Vette has made the news (if you consider the Daily Mail news, that is). Today they ran a story about the outrage of SWTOR which allows players to ‘own’ and torment female slaves with electric shock collars. Bold subheadings declare that the game has “scripted lines such as ‘obey my every command’ and options to beat and torture a female slave. The article then adds that gamers “boast about how badly they treat her” but it hardly says one thing about the fact that you can choose to be nice to Vette. I, for one, took her collar off as soon as you proved herself by completing the task I gave her. Anyway, the Daily Mail seems to want to make everyone think that the game is evil with this horrible plot to demean women and promote slavery. It’s hardly that bad at all. First, we are talking…
SWTOR Race Issues Explained
Many SWTOR gamers have questions about the race choices in the game and why we can only play certain races. One of the biggest questions “Why can’t I play a Wookie?” Well, good for us, VideoGamer.com has a telling interview with BioWare writer Alexander Freed (a personal fave of mine since I had the chance to meet him this summer). In this interview, Freed tells us a little more about the races in SWTOR and why many of them are so human-looking. Basically, it all comes down to relatability. Freed says: “You know, the reason for our humanoid range of species, it’s a matter of relatability to a large degree. The further you get from human the more difficult it is for players to get into their mindset, the more difficult it is for all the other characters in the game to relate to them the same way. There are…
Social Armor Sets – Sith
Social armor sets are another one of those things about SWTOR that helps set it apart from other MMORPGs and makes it a little more fun. Here is a image that shows us what the social armor sets for the Sith look like. While the quality is not the best, the creator still took the time to get all those shots of the armor for us in one location so you can see them. If you want to travel all over the planets and see them all for yourself or see exactly what they will look like on your character, you can do so. Viewing with the companion view gives a higher resolution view on the sets. So here is just one more reason to be social in SWTOR and group up while playing the game. What do you think? Do you like the sets? Were you disappointed? Will you be saving…
PC Gamer Review SWTOR- Lengthy Observations
You know that we’re always looking out for you and bringing you great reviews and previews of SWTOR when we find them. While you’ve probably had a chance to check out the game for yourself by now and if you don’t own it yet, you probably know plenty of friends who do, we still like to pass on good reviews when we find them. This very lengthy write-up by PC Gamer is worth taking a read (or at least a skim) over because it has so much great info on the game from a reputable source like PC Gamer. The review is based on 85 hours of playtime in the game so you will get a lot more from your typical blogger preview out there. They played as an Imperial Agent to level 35 at the time the review was written so it does not contain information on certain endgame…
Unscheduled maintenance (1.0.2b Patch Notes 1/5/2012)
The SWTOR Servers just went down for an unscheduled maintenance. Here is the what why and when: We are working on getting a patch deployed to address the issues that some players are still experiencing after 1.0.2 including: Fixing an issue that causes in-game chat channels to stop functioning for some players. Preventing social emotes (like /getdown) from interfering with combat. We’re currently testing this patch, and we hope to have it deploy sometime in the early hours of the morning tomorrow (CST), but if we experience any issues with this patch, we may hold off its deployment until tomorrow night. The combat bug with social emotes we talked about yesterday was pretty game breaking, and so is the chat channel bug, so it’s nice to know that BioWare are ready to resolve problems fast rather then wait till next scheduled update. Random image is random. Nice Rancore though 🙂
BioWare Not Excluding a SWTOR Mac Version At This Time
If you’ve been waiting for a Mac version of SWTOR (I know a few friends who are), then there may still be hope for you yet. BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk are devoted to their fans and they know how important it is to reach a larger audience and for SWTOR, that includes Mac gamers as well as PC. When talking about how the game will continue to grow in the future, the topic of a Mac version is one that comes up repeatedly. Massively by Joystiq covers the story of what the BioWaredocs think about creating a Mac version: “”Weknow there’s a big Mac audience of BioWare fans … we know that’s an importantand large audience. And we want to serve that audience,” Muzyka told mewhen asked about a potential Mac version of the his company’s latest majorrelease, Star Wars: The Old Republic.” The Massively writer tells…
How to change the SWTOR boot up loading screen image
Are you tired of looking at the same SWTOR screen when you load your game? Do you wish you could do something fun or creative with the screen or find something better to look at for those few seconds while you wait for the game to load? Well, you’re going to get a kick out of this little bit of info we found (because we definitely did). This just in: That’s right! You can change the image that the loading screen uses when you first boot up to the game! To do this, go into your program files and find your Star wars the old republic folder. From there got to the file path: swtor>retailclient>LoadingScreens and add any .JPG file to the folder and simply rename it LoadingScreen and you’re finished! Enjoy! Here’s a thread on Reddit that shows how to change the SWTOR boot up loading screen…
Stephen Reid Clears Up Confusion Over SWTOR Bans
We posted recently about the confusion over SWTOR bans and also mentioned that Stephen Reid put word out that an official update and response was soon to come on the forums. Well, in case you missed it or you’re still wondering what is up with those aforementioned SWTOR bans, here’s the official SWTOR forum thread on the topic from Stephen Reid himself: Our Terms of Service team recently took action against some accounts playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we wanted to give you some insight into what happened and why. First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what’s commonly known as ‘gold farming’ – or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these…
Research firm: SWTOR has 350,000 peak concurrent users
Just how many people are actually playing SWTOR? It’s obvious that the game is very popular but how do you put numbers on just how popular it is? GamesIndustry.biz has a story that tells us a little more about just how many users SWTOR boasts today, just weeks after the official launch. One research firm says that SWTOR has 350,000 concurrent users. “”We view the early success of Star Wars as an indication of a healthy MMO market,” said Baird spokesman Colin Sebastian. These users are said to be spread across 215 servers in America and Europe. This is nearly half the 491 servers in WoW. However, these numbers from the firm are different from what the BioWare doctors are reporting. They had different numbers according to their blog post on the official forums. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk say: “Yesterday was quite a day here in Austin. We likely…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Patch 1.0.2 01/04/2012
All servers were down for maintenance for a few hours today. Originally BioWare planed a 8 hour downtime, but the servers are up again after only a few hours. Here is the new patch notes that came with the maintenance. General Guilds that are currently leaderless will have an Officer chosen and promoted to Guild Leader. Classes and Combat Sith Inquisitor General The Darth title is now properly granted to Sith Inquisitors. Bug Fixes Corrected an issue that could prevent players from taking cover when targeting large NPCs. Fixed a bug that caused some abilities with activation times to be interrupted when used from cover. Flashpoints and Operations Flashpoints Cademimu General Ortol can no longer be pulled out of his room. Maelstrom Prison Corrected an issue that could cause Grand Moff Kilran to behave incorrectly when defeated in cover. Taral V General Edikar now has the correct loot in Hard Mode…
TOR TV: The /getdown bug
You discovered a bug in the game to interrupt casting I should tell BioWare and not make it public – 50 Lightside points I should tell everyone in the public forums – 50 Darkside points Keep it to myself and get world first on some boss who is a bitch because of casted abilities and not enough interrupts – 150 Darkside points, ladies Now ad this and your golden! No clue if this is bannable, but I’m sure that we got BioWares attention now, and they will hot fix it asap. What ever way you look a it, this is some serious funky tanking! Interested in SWTOR Movies? We have new movies most weekdays here on swtorstrategies! Have suggestions for movie we ought to feature? Get in contact with us here
BioWare Banning for Using Profanity in SWTOR?
There has been a buzz recently about BioWare dropping the ban-hammer with prejudice on SWTOR gamers for things such as profanity, going to Illum before level 50 and anything that appears like chat “spam”, even if accidental. This has a lot of players asking if BioWare is being too heavy-handed in their banning practices. While most of the threads on the official forums about it are quickly locked or deleted, there is a discussion going on about it at Reddit and one user also captured a screenshot of their ban warning email which was posted on the forums but that thread was later deleted. Basically, this user said he was sent an email warning after using profanity in private tells to friends in game. The email warns the user that he will be banned if he is caught using this language again. No one seems to be able to get…
Corellia Datacron Locations
Corellia was the capital planet of the Corellian system, which included Selonia, Drall, Tralus, and Talus. It was also the birthplace of smuggler and New Republic General Han Solo as well as Rogue Squadron pilot and New Republic hero Wedge Antilles, along with many other humans who played important roles in the histories of the Rebel Alliance, New Republic, and Galactic Alliance. Collectively, the planets of the system were known as the Five Brothers. As the largest planet and the closest to Corell, Corellia was often called the “Eldest Brother” or the “Eldest.” Historians believed the Celestials assembled the system artificially, the worlds brought from other parts of the galaxy for unknown reasons. Some believed that these Celestials populated Corellia with Humans from Coruscant. Read all about Corellia here, and check out the datacron locations below: Don’t forget to check out constantly growing list of guides for Star Wars: The old…
How the Old Republic Didn’t Change MMOs from Escapist Magazine
I read a really interesting piece today from Escapist Magazine. It was part of a weekly column “First Person” written by Boston, MA-based freelancer Dennis Scimeca that I often enjoy. This particular write-up on how The Old Republic didn’t change MMOs is spot-on with how I feel about the game in many areas. Let’s start with saying that it’s not a negative review. In fact, the columnist seems quite content with SWTOR as far as the game itself goes but he makes some very valid points about the MMO aspects and how there are certain things that just cannot be revolutionized yet in the genre. While SWTOR has done some things that no other MMORPG has done, there are still some things that it just hasn’t changed about the genre in SWTOR. However, it may not really be BioWare’s fault. I mean, this is reportedly one of (if not the)…