Mr. Stepehn Reid shared some interesting info on twitter yesterday. Apparently we are getting closer to a server merge. This is great news as many servers feel like ghost towns after Diablo 3 launched. This is not because SWTOR is dying, but the game got 280+ servers. TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY! Now, iIf you take that 280 servers then break it down into how many freaking instances and individual planets and other zones it’s no wonder the game feels like a ghost town. I play on one of the healthiest servers and I still find the population lacking compared to release. I think I haven’t fought a single Empire on PvP Warzones for the past week with my 50s toons. Merging servers now will solve the group/operations finder problem, PvP problems, lack of items on GTNs… I wonder who in BioWare can’t figure this out now. They need to merge servers if not now at…
Species of Starwars: Devaronian
Devaronians are a horned humanoid species from the world of Devaron in the Expansion Region, a planet of low mountains and deep valleys linked by thousands of rivers. It is believed that they are descended from a race of primates that lived in the mountains of Devaron, and that their horns were a genetic mutation that proved useful in fending off predatory birds. The Devaronians are one of the most unique races in the galaxy, as their male and female sexes are so vastly different in appearance and temperament. The males are docile, non-aggressive creatures, completely hairless, with red-tinted skin and a pair of large horns growing from their heads. They take great pride in their horns, and groom them quite regularly. Female Devaronians are covered in thick calico fur that ranges in color from brown to white and are hornless. They are aggressive by nature, and tend to dominate…
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…
1.2.4 Patch Notes — 5/15/2012
It’s the time again were BioWare takes down the servers for maintenance and patch some updates. Once again we get a pretty big patch, and you can now use your full columi Xalek, and after 2 months they FINALLY fixed the rebreather mask glitch as well as alot of other things. Check out out below: Classes and Combat General The Guard ability can now be reapplied if the player dies with it activated. Previously, players sometimes received an error indicating that their target was already guarded. Sith Inquisitor General Lightsaber Charge’s audio effects no longer loop indefinitely. Companion Characters Xalek Xalek now receives the correct amount of Shield Absorption from equipped gear. Crew Skills Crafting Skills French and German tooltips now indicate the percentage chance for reverse engineering. Flashpoints and Operations General Players who advance from level 49 to 50 while near an Operation phase gate now see the gate color change to indicate their…
TOR TV: SWTOR Class Stereotype
This video was made by ZybakTV. It is his first attempt at making a Machinima style video with voice acting. This video is intended to poke fun at some of the traits of certain classes and really exaggerate them.
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.
Kudos to George Lucas – but this Time It Doesn’t Involve Star Wars
So we’re all a little ticked at George Lucas for “retiring” from Star Wars but he just did something cool enough to redeem himself- at least a little in the eyes of fans. In case you were not previously aware, Lucas has been in a battle with his neighbors for years because he wanted to build a movie studio in what they considered to be their backyards. Here’s a pic from the San Francisco Chronicle: George Lucas will not be building a 270,000 square foot digital media production compound on Grady Ranch in San Rafael, Calif., on the clear hillside (front left, in front of red roof) fronting a 174 house community seen in the background on Friday, March 30, 2012. So instead, he’s decided to build something else, something that’s really better for the greater good than a media studio anyway. He has decided to turn his large piece…
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…
TOR TV: Join the Dark Side
DarthZarato is the man responsible for this Sith recruitment video. For some reason I always get a chuckle over Stewie Griffin. Personally I think it’s about time “Blue harvest” meets SWTOR. Hopefully we will se some Robot chicken mash ups in the future also. Check it out below and let us know what you think. Also, please send over any cool videos you come across. Sharing is caring 🙂
Jedi Consular Shadow PVP Build For 1.2
Today we have another PVP build and this time it is for the Shadow class and this one comes courtesy of SWTOR Savior. This build should help you out if you need a good PVP build for 1.2. The build will allow you to be awesome 1 vs 1 duellist and makes for some awesome survivability and you will also have very high damage output. To use the Consular Shadow you want to try and single out high priority targets or the squishy DPS players and healers. Although PVP is all down to the situation and the people you are facing at the time these rotations will help you if you need a guide: You will start a fight by stealthing or pulling your target with Force Pull and then use Spinning Kick. You can then follow up with Double Strike or Shadow Strike and Force Breach. Just keep an…
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…
1.2.3a Patch Notes – 5/10/2012
BioWare did some emergency patching today, fixing the issue with Matrix Cubes disappearing. Funny thing is the patch is about 50 mb, so I guess that the weight of A Matrix Cube 😉 General An issue that caused some mission items (such as Matrix Cubes) to disappear from player inventories has been corrected. Players that were affected by this issue will find their Matrix Cubes restored. The restored Matrix Cubes can be re-equipped from the Mission Inventory (Press “I” and then select the “Mission Items” tab at the bottom of the window).
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…
Species of Starwars: Gamorrean
Short, squat humanoids, Gamorreans are easily identifiable by their greenish skin and porcine features. On their home-world, they live in clans, where the male boars serve exclusively as warrior while the female sow tend the day-to-day affairs like farming, raising young and crafting weapons. Known for their physical strength and endurance, Gammoreans are generally considered a species of below average intelligence. Unable to speak Basic because of their physiology, most Gammoereans are still able to comprehend it and find a place in the galactic community as soldiers, guard or mercenaries. Due to their reputation for violence and brutality, they are often employed by crime-lords, gang leaders and various other criminal elements. The porcine Gamorreans tend to be heavy-set and stocky, standing about 1.8 meters tall and weighing in excess of 100 kilograms. Most tend to have green skin. Underneath their pig-like snouts, protruding from jowled cheeks are yellowed tusks. These…
Bonnie Burton laid off from Lucasfilm
Bonnie Burton, the face and voice of Star Wars fandom (especially for females) has announced via her Twitter that they have laid her off. She was the online contact with the fandom. The ways things have been going with Lucasfilm and StarWars.com, it almost looks like they are trying to do away with things that involve the fan community. It’s really hard to say what this move was all about. Bonnie was a huge asset to the company. She wrote content for the website and handled social media. She was hired in 2003, during the run-up to Revenge of the Sith. One thing that is for certain- Bonnie can land another job easily with her experience and her skills. In my opinion, freelancing is really where it’s at these days for writing and social media anyway. Companies are too unpredictable. You never know when the next one is going to…
StarWars.com is Redoing their Blog
If you’re wondering why you weren’t able to see the StarWars.com blog, it’s because it’s on hiatus as they rework and redesign the blog. They currently have a message on the home page explaining the hiatus: The Official Star Wars Blog is now on temporary hiatus as the Lucas Online team continues to explore new directions for StarWars.com. New authors, new articles, and new points of view are in the works for the Blog that will cover the entire Star Wars experience. As with all changes undertaken on the website, we are closely examining feedback from past surveys and user actions on the site, and we want to hear from you. Feel free to let us know in the comments what you’d like to see the Official Star Wars Blog become. So here is your chance if you visit this blog to speak up about what you want, what features…
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 Sith Juggernaut PVP Build
It has been a while so I thought it was time for another build from the team over at www.swtorsavior.com. This time it is a build for PVP that will show you how to build a decent class build with the Sith Juggernaut. First let us have a look at the build and the point allocation from 10-50: Sith Juggernaut PVP Build: The Juggernaut in PVP is an awesome class and is able to deal more than average damage but also has a fair amount of survivability as well. The build is to be used in the following way: Rage Generation is a must with this build and you will want to use Sundering Assault when it isn’t on CD and use Assault when it is. Both of these skills will generate the same amount of rage but sundering assault will deal more damage and will also lower your targets…
1.2.3 Patch Notes – 5/8/2012
I guess we can say that Tuesday is not patch day. It’s seem like it’s more the more the rule than the exception these days anyways. Below are the patch notes for today’s update. Some nice fixes in EC in here. Personally I like these changes: Custom (orange) moddable items that have no modifications installed can now be reverse engineered. and The default value for the Rarity field is now Standard instead of Any. This allows players to search for most items without requiring that they select an option in the Rarity field. Classes and Combat General Corrected an issue that prevented Smugglers and Imperial Agents from taking cover in place while moving Channeled abilities now fully complete if a buff providing an Alacrity bonus wears off while the ability is being channeled. Flashpoints and Operations Flashpoints Boarding Party This Flashpoint’s Hard Mode no longer has a daily limitation. Operations General Players now receive a “Timed Run” buff…
