Now it’s time to level up your alts! BioWare will be starting Double XP weekend that will run from november 27th til december 3rd. So many alts, so little time… DOUBLE XP – JUST IN TIME FOR GALACTIC STARFIGHTER! Enjoy an extended Double XP weekend this Thanksgiving holiday as you prepare to take your battle to space in Galactic Starfighter, the new Free-to-Play Digital Expansion featuring 12v12 Star Wars™ space combat. Subscriber Early Access for Galactic Starfighter begins December 3rd. Subscribe now to get early access, exclusive Starship paint jobs, and more! DOUBLE XP WEEKEND DATES Earn Double XP and level your characters faster during the following times: STARTS: Wednesday, November 27, 2013, 10AM PST / 6PM GMT ENDS: Sunday, December 1, 2013, 11PM PST / Monday, December 2, 2013, 7AM GMT Achieve even faster gains with XP Boosts, available in the Cartel Market. Level 55 players can also earn…
EA’s Star Wars Game Deal will be 10 Years Long
A lot can happen in 10 years and for Star Wars gamer fans, we’re hoping this means good things in the way of some new games from EA. Remember that deal they made with Disney that gave them exclusivity to Star Wars games? Well, we have found out now it’s actually for the next decade. Eurogamer tells us a bit more about this: Fortunately it sounds like none of EA’s new Star Wars games will be movie tie-ins aping the new Star Wars films, the first of which appears December 2015, directed by JJ Abrams. “We’ve done movie games over the years and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t doing a movie game – i.e. a game based on the movie,” EA’s chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said at a UBS conference (transcript by Seeking Alpha). “The beauty of the Star Wars franchise is that it’s so broad and…
More than 1,000 ‘Star Wars’ hopefuls answer Star Wars casting call in Troy
How would you like to have a chance to start in an upcoming Star Wars film? This is like a dream come true for Star Wars fans everywhere and today more than 1,000 people answered an open casting call in Troy. This means no previous acting experience was necessary. The roles were for Rachel and Thomas and open casting is still going on. You can apply online or in one of the locations to meet the casting crew in person. Learn more on their website here: http://www.opencastingcall2013.com/ There are two more in person Meet and Greets happening and the next one is right here in Austin (where I am). The other is in Nashville. November 22, 2013 Hilton – Austin 500 E. 4th St. Austin, TX 78701 3pm – 8pm November 24, 2013 Sheraton – Nashville Downtown 623 Union St. Nashville, TN 37219 12pm – 5pm Here’s some info on…
Developer Update: Scout Class Starfighter
Associate Designer, on Star Wars: The old Republic, Bret Hoffman posted a small developer update yesterday on Galactic Starfighter. In this he talks about his personal favorite type of ship, the Scout Class Starfighter. The Scout Class Starfighter comes in a few shapes and sizes and are not all the same. Read all about it over at the official swtor website, or read our copy paste below: Developer Update: Scout Class Starfighter 11.18.2013 Welcome Pilots. My name is Bret Hoffman. I am a Designer on the Galactic Starfighter™ digital expansion for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. I am here to discuss my personal favorite type of ship, the Scout Class Starfighter. The Scout’s sleek design and speedy gameplay harkens back to classic Star Wars™ ships like the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor. Scouts, as the fastest of all of the Galactic Starfighter crafts, are often the vanguard of any battle. Their light-weight hulls…
11/19/2013 2.4.3a Patch Notes
it seems like we were right regarding the patch notes. BioWare used today’s maintenance to fix the ranked warzone bug. 2.4.3a Patch Notes PvP Warzones Ranked Players will no longer be granted inappropriate Rating gains for victory in some instances.
Scheduled Maintenance: November 19th, 2013 – Patch 2.4.3a
Servers are going down so BioWare can preform some Scheduled Maintenance and deploy a small patch. There are now patch notes yet, but I am pretty sure they are trying to fix the ranked warzone exploit. We will post the patch notes when they come up. Below is the announcement form Amber: AmberGreen Maintenance: November 5th, 2013 | 11.18.2013, 03:58 PM On November 18th, all game servers will be unavailable while we perform maintenance. Patch 2.4.3a will be implemented during this downtime. Details are as follows: Date: Tuesday November 19th Duration: 2 hours Time: 3AM PST (11AM GMT) – 5AM PST (1PM GMT) Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Time Zone Start Time Scheduled End Time UTC Offset HST Tue Nov 19, 2013 01:00 AM Tue Nov 19, 2013 03:00 AM -10 hours AKST Tue Nov 19, 2013 02:00 AM Tue…
Galactic Starfighter Changes SWTOR PvP [Plus Domination Video]
12-vs-12 dogfights in space are coming in December. Are you ready? Now that sites are free to talk about and publish stories on the Galactic Starfighter content, we’re seeing more and more info release each day to help us prepare. This is how space battles should have been from the start if you ask me. Gamespot speaks about Galactic Starfighter in SWTOR: Considering the importance of space battles in the Star Wars universe, it was disappointing that ship combat was given such a cursory role in Star Wars: The Old Republic. After all, I can’t imagine A New Hope without the Battle of Yavin, which led to the destruction of the Death Star. (A useless gesture? I think not!) The Old Republic’s single-player on-rails battles looked the part, but they didn’t capture the essence of galactic warfare. With Galactic Starfighter, that’s set to change. And that’s just the beginning of the positive feedback…
What Would You Do with 16 Level 55 Toons?
So what do you do if you really, really love SWTOR? Or at least if you really love leveling in SWTOR? Well, we found someone who answered this by maxing out all 16 slots in max level toons. Here’s the screenshot to prove it. Honestly, it is pretty impressive. I’m far too busy to do this in MMORPGs anymore but there was a time when I would have loved to fill my character slots with max levels just like this. I wonder how many total hours he has into this account. If you have multiple 55s, did you get faster with each leveling experience? Maybe he really made use of some of those double and triple experience weekends! Here are some questions you might ask someone with 16 max level toons: Which one was the most fun to level? Which one leveled the quickest? PvP Daily – yes or no?…
Festive Tauntaun on PTS collections. Not sure if I like this or not.
While I don’t like this item as a “Canon” mount in the Star Wars universe, and I understand roleplayers who would trash this mount. It is for fun, after all this is also a game and games are supposed to be fun. Lately I have put the daily grind on the shelf and started playing the game for fun. Meaning that I can sit for hours dressing my characters in expensive gear, while pointless for stats and all, I am havingagoodtime! The fact that this type of item is released gives the impression that BioWare, while serious about the game and lore, wants to convey the fun aspect of the game as a game. Last christmas I cringed when I saw the Czerks life day mount, until I met a guy called Santa who had dressed his character accordingly. I mean after all it is Star Wars. All the movies…
Mission Juno – Great documentary on Jupiter and NASA’s Juno probe arriving at the gas giant in 2016
Following up on last weeks blog post about Mars, I wanted to stay in our solar system. Many interesting missions are already happening right now, and many more are on its way, helping us better to understand our nabor planets and our place in the universe. NASA’s spacecraft Juno is en route to Jupiter, and below is a video about why we’re headed there, and what we hope to discover about Jupiter while Juno is in orbit around our largest planet. The documentary is combined of hundreds of 1 minute videos, so the video changes style a bit and is a little long-winded. The video Features interviews with scientists and engineers working on the probe with interesting computer-generated imagery of the mission. It also Explains the science of the solar system, why this mission matters, the instruments on board and the scientists and engineers behind this mission. The Juno spacecraft…
SWTOR: Republic Ships Visual Customization and gunship class Preview (PTS)
Lightsaber from TheOldRepublic.Ru have yet again been fast, and recorded the Republic Ships Visual Customization for us. If you don’t have time to play around on the public test servers this weekend, you are really missing out. Below you can see the Republic Ships Visual Customization. It’s unknown if these can be unlocked to legacy, as BioWare haven’t given us any information on how the unlocks work yet. The Cartel Market is not available on the PTS, so we can’t try it to see. Note: Every ship on each faction has the same customization options.
PTS Game Update 2.5: Galactic Starfighter Patch Notes
Here are the latest patch notes from the Public test servers. If you have the time, go try out Galactic Starfighter now Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ PTS Game Update 2.5: Galactic Starfighter Patch Notes Last Updated: November 15th, 2013 All content and features on the Public Test Server are not final and are subject to change. Galactic Starfighter Access the Galactic Starfighter Hangar Bay by clicking the Ship Icon on the in-game minimap. Players can queue solo or as a group for free-flight 12 v 12 PvP Battles in the first Galactic Starfighter gameplay type: Domination! During Domination, players fight to control multiple satellites. Points are awarded according to how many >satellites each team controls, and the first team to reach 1000 points earns victory. Highly customizable Starfighters available: The Scout – Fast, agile, and maneuverable. Scouts make up for their lack of armor and shielding with incredible elusiveness. The Strike…
TorTools – SWTOR Translator
We love bringing you news of cool SWTOR tools and gadgets so here’s a neat little find: TorTools Ability Translator This tool created by a SWTOR player and fan was created to find the equivalent texts of the game between the English, French and German clients. He used dataminingn with the help of /u/swtor_miner and XeNTaX’s swtor fan. The tool has abilities names, descriptions, talents and maybe a few other generic texts for now and is growing. As explained on the website: This tool allows you to predict the impact of any stat change on your character, or determine what stats are currently the best to stack on your character. First select your class and level, then input your stats. If you wish, you may also use the “Possible change” column to enter possible gain/loss of a stat to compare the results. When you are done, hit the CALCULATE button…
SWTOR Galactic Starfighter is Almost Here – expansion previews
It’s here now- the Galactic Starfighter expansion! Well, it’s almost here. It’s still in beta but the NDA for beta testers lifted and now those who tested it are able to talk about it and tell us all what we can expect. With these hands-on reports from those who had early impressions, we can learn a little more about Galactic Starfighter and why it’s awesome. Massively talks about their hands-on experience with Galactic Starfighter: Combat in Galactic Starfighter boils down to match-based PvP within a set zone, but everything in that zone is as rail-less as combat gets. The 12v12 matches are set in one of two maps available at launch: the Lost Shipyards and the Kuat Mesas. The shipyards lie in space with large stations that can be captured for points as well as in detailed space terrain full of debris and various sizes of ship-crushing asteroids. By contrast,…
Two seater mounts confirmed?
This image was in the mail today. Two-seater mounts were in the game during the beta (like the Taxi’s on certain planets). The korrealis series is an example of this (they just put a piece of metal over where the other seat was. Your companion would sit with you, but when they added guys like M1-4X they scrapped the whole idea as they didn’t fit. This is Likely not for your companion though, but having your character sit in the side pod and be “driven around” by the droid.
San Francisco Cantina Tour thumbdrive files
The lifting of the Galactic Starfighter NDA, comes the day after BioWare hold their cantina tour gathering in San Francisco last night. At the event, all attendees got a thumbdrive whit images and info of upcoming content. Below are all the images including: Six GS screenshots, Tons of GS concept arts/paint jobs (mostly Empire ships) A forest trooper and mountain trooper gear set coming to cartel pack/cartel market New information on upcoming stuff from the events includes: Public Testing coming up this weekend New Flashpoint (Kuat Driveyards) in February. Role Neutral, Level Neutral. Bridge between regular game and GS. Early Access will feature Strike Fighters, Scouts, Gunships. Bombers in February. Every starfighter model present in the game world will eventually be available in GS. Most will be just be variants of the basic ships available to everyone. Most will be obtained through the Cartel Market Rakghoul/Chevin event coming back sooner than later and…
Galactic Starfighter – Your Questions Answered
NDA officially lifted at noon EST, so we won’t get in trouble for posting this Qand A from the beta forums. This is a great read about the upcoming expansion and will answer most of the questions the community have been asking for the last month. all credits goes to Ludwig Vancove from the Army of light guild Check it out: STAR WARS: The Old Republic – Galactic Starfighter Does Galactic Starfighter (GS) provide Joystick support? At the initial launch of GS, there will be no Joystick support. The purpose of this is simply time vs useability. Bioware wants to offer GS in a way that all MMO players can engage in the content. There has been debate by other testers on rather or not the use of Joystick controls in space may offer a benefit to the gameplay, therefor almost making it required to purchase and use on to be…
Discussion: Improving SWTOR PvP
PvP in SWTOR has long been a controversial topic. There are some who love it, there are some who hate it and everything in between. A recent post in the forums talked about how to improve PvP and it was written by a self-confessed old WoW PvPer. As someone who has also played hardcore World of Warcraft PvP, I can see a lot of their points as valid. However, SWTOR is a different game and I try to avoid any comparisons between two different games since it’s really different playing fields here. It’s apples and oranges- so comparing WoW PvP to SWTOR PvP just doesn’t stack up for me. However… there are some things that you can learn from doing PvP in another MMORPG, such as WoW that you can take with you into new games that you play like SWTOR. So with the spirit of that in mind, let’s…
New Starship Pet from Amazon Cartel Coin Cards
As of today, there is now a new pet being issued with you buy Cartel Coin Cards. It’s confirmed with Amazon card purchases to US customers and some players are reporting the same thing from Best Buy cards but I have not tested this yet. 11/12/2013 UPDATE: The SWTOR Cartel Coins bundle now features an Imperial Scout “S-12 Blackbolt Starship mini-ship. All redemptions on SWTOR.com made after 11/12/2013 at 10AM PST will get the new mini-ship rather than the old pet. You can see this yourself at Amazon: 11/12/2013 Important Note: SWTOR Cartel Coins bundle now features an Amazon exclusive Imperial Scout “S-12 Blackbolt Starship mini-ship. KEY INFORMATION: The Amazon 2400 Cartel Coins Card comes with a unique rotating in-game item. Key Redemptions after 11/12/2013 receive an Amazon exclusive in-game mini-ship, Imperial Scout “S-12 Blackbolt Starship To activate your 2400 Cartel Coins Card, follow these instructions: Go to www.swtor.com/redeem-code and follow the…
Bounty Contract Week Event – Now Live for all Classes Level 15 and up!
Bounty Contract Week is back. This time it will run from November 12 – 19, 2013. The basic premise for this SWTOR event centers around the Bounty Brokers Association. This organization, is overrun with the number contracts that it needs fulfilled and is willing to pay anyone for completing the bounties. If you need help to finish up any of these, have no fear. We got guides to help you out for some of them. The rest should be up before the event is over. : Guide to SWTOR Bounty Contract Week Voss Kingpin Bounty Contract Guide Tatooine Kingpin Bounty Contract Guide Coruscant Kingpin Bounty Contract Guide Below is the official announcement from BioWare: The Bounty Brokers Association needs you! The BBA has taken in too many contracts for their regular membership to handle and is asking anyone Level 15 and above to answer the call of bounty hunting between November…
SWTOR Art- Photoshopped Chiss and Mirialan
We love seeing Star Wars and SWTOR art of all types and we also love sharing it with you because we know our readers appreciate it as much as us. We stumbled across these really cool Photoshop tiles shared to Reddit by Florixia and wanted to bring them to you. She also explains a little about how she did the photos: “That jacket was just a white jacket I had that I photoshopped the colors on. Most of it is photoshopped besides the actual clothing. I had some makeup on by not this heavy” We’re impressed. They’re great photos and we’d love to see her do more. What about you? Do you have any similar SWTOR-inspired art? Have you seen some great SWTOR or Star Wars Photoshops or cosplay, or any type of art you want to share with us? Lay it on us!
Patch Notes – 2.4.3 – 11/15/2013
Here are the patch notes for tomorrows maintenance: Game Update 2.4.3 Patch Notes Highlights PvP Season One! Ratings have been reset to mark the beginning of the Ranked PvP Season One. Get in there and go berserk! Ranked PvP Leaderboards! Players can now visit the website to compare Solo and Group Rankings. Details under PvP Character Name Renewal Program! Many previously held names have been released! Subscribers are unaffected by the Name Renewal Program. Preferred Status: Characters below level 10 that have not been played in the last 60 days are flagged for rename. Characters below level 30 that have not been played in the last 120 days are flagged for rename. Characters level 30 and above are unaffected. Free-to-Play: Characters below level 10 that have not been played in the last 90 days are flagged for rename. Characters below level 30 that have not been played in the last 180 days are…
Documentaries: Mars, All aboard for the red planet
Today I will post a recap of all the documentaries found on youtube regarding Colonization of Mars. There is a lot of speculation, reports and planning for Mars Colonies in the near future, this seems to come out of nowhere in the last few years. Not only by NASA who have always been luke warm ,but several groups and consortiums. Russia, China and now India are planning various missions to the red planet. The Dutch are planning a Big Bros House, and there was an article encouraging older people to apply for first, for possible one way trips in case they cannot come back. Colonizing Mars [HD] Robert Zubrin, author and aerospace engineer, has the blueprints to build a colony on Mars. He and NASA Ames researcher Margarita Marinova explain how and why humans will one day turn the Red Planet green, establishing the next frontier of technological innovation and seeding the universe with…
Dewbacks in Collections next week
It looks like players finally will be able to get their hands on the Dewback mount. From the next patch comming this Tuesday, these mounts will be obtainable via packs on the cartel market. Eric Musco posted two teasers on the forum last week: Slow and steady wins the race! I heard a rumor that a Dewback mount is in the next pack, which is coming next week. That could just be a rumor though. Rumor has it that it will be in Collections on Tuesday with 2.4.3. These animal mounts are really the only thing these days, that people seem to really go crazy for. Give it time, they’ll throw in more. There is still one Varactyl and three (I think) Tauntaun mounts to be released. They’ll stretch out those Dewbacks for a very long time to sell packs. It’s going to look strange though, if they make the Dewbacks outrun speeder…