There have been many Star Wars games before SWTOR- seriously, there have been TONS. But there is one Star Wars game that comes to mind first for those old enough to remember, the 1983 Atari game Star Wars. This was the first time a Star Wars game had been created. I was only a year old when it released and I would not see the game or an Atari for quite some time but I did have the privilege of playing it once at a friend’s, more than a decade after its release. Kotaku reminds us of the game on Star Wars Day: The game made its debut during “The Video Game Challenge,” a short-lived television program from the 80’s. Just like the force, this Star Wars game will be with you… always. Actually, considering how regularly I still think about that game…that’s true! Does anyone reading remember that…
TOR TV: Dance Wars: The Old Republic
It’s a new week and time for some new SWTOR Crazyness. This time we found a video made by TheThreeDerps who are giving us a tough analysis of the dance gear released by Bioware in the last patch with a PSA about “that guy”” My favorite part is the boxing match at the end:
BioWare Promises to Take Action against Gold Sellers and Fraudulent Code Users
Who likes a cheater or a spammer? They ruin games and there is nothing more annoying in an MMORPG than the gold spammer. Sure there are gamers who purchase gold/credits in games that they play and we don’t judge. However, even gold buyers have to admit that the gold sellers are annoying. They send unwanted mail, spam chat channels and not to mention the tactics they use to farm the credits in the first place. Then there is the added problem that unless you are playing a game that allows micro transactions (which SWTOR does not), then you are putting your account at risk if you participate in the purchase of credits from a third party. BioWare has gone to great lengths to try to make the economy fair and make it possible for anyone to earn the credits they need to fully enjoy the game. Regardless of how you…
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…
BioWare Wants Feedback on UI: SWTOR and Beyond
As we’ve written about before, BioWare is looking for your feedback on Star Wars: The Old Republic. They are now asking for your feedback on the User Interface and customization. BioWare’s Live Community Coordinator Amber Green posted in the official forums asking for feedback on the UI and its customization. This is a functionality that many gamers complained about from the start and that BioWare has been working diligently to add and update. Some players, however, are still not happy with the current state of the UI. Amber Green | Live Community Coordinator: Hello everyone. Now that you’ve been able to use the UI Customization features implemented with Game Update 1.2, the developers would like to request your feedback. In this thread, please post to let us know what UI features or functions you would like to see implemented in the future. We are already working on a few areas…
BioWare Wants Feedback on Future Content: SWTOR and Beyond
Where is the future of SWTOR going? This is a question that many are asking- both those who love the game and also those who have yet to try it out. You can bet the dev team of BioWare Austin is asking the same question. In fact, they have an entire department dedicated to this sort of thing: future content. What better way to make a game great than to go to the community and talk with them about what they want? BioWare is on the right track by asking for feedback of the players. This is who they are making the game for and while they cannot please all of the people all of the time, they can make the game a whole lot better for their audience by listening to what the players have to say. So here’s your chance to speak out about what you want from…
SWTOR on the Rise and More Incoming PvP and Endgame Content
Is SWTOR seeing its last days? According to who you ask, the answer might be yes but I am not fully convinced it’s time to weep for the death of the game just yet. In fact, I think there is reason to believe that its popularity is really just getting started. For those who have heard the rumors that SWTOR is dying, here’s some evidence that it’s not. Daniel Erickson, BioWare’s lead designer on the project said that rumors of the game’s demise are incredibly premature — and outright wrong. Massively has some info straight from Erickson himself: Following Update 1.2 and the Rakghoul Outbreak live event, Erickson reports that player activity in the game is increasing. He said that the studio is working hard to keep its customers happy: “The community has generally been excited about the direction the game is going as we finish up our last must-have…
Mtsbwy: Sith Cat
This cat really doens’t want to play with this dog and has an unfair advantage when fighting it away, coz who dares challenge DARTH KITTIOUS? Try as they might, the cat refused to go to the Bark Side. Thank you… thank you.. I will be here all night.. Anyways.. This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all week:
SWTOR Podcasts and Vodcasts- The Master List
What’s almost as good as playing your favorite game? Learning more about it- tips and techniques – and just having fun listening to some of the experts in the community share their wit and more. With SWTOR podcasts and vodcasts, you can do just that. You can subscribe to the ones you like the most or check in with all of them if you have the time. Some are explicit and some are tamer. Some are funny and some take a more serious approach but all are great! We’ve tried to compile a Master List here of all the recently updated podcasts and vodcasts online. Each of these has updated within the last 30 days or so and we’ll keep an eye on it and pull off old ones if they go stagnant and add new ones as they come across us. Podcast/Vodcast Twitter Corellian Run Radio @CorellianRun Keyboard…
Infographic: Crew Skill Guide for End-Game Gear & Mods
We absolutely love it when we discover great finds from members of the SWTOR community that we can share with you to help your experience in the game. The guys over at Ask Mr. Robot do a great deal of projects and tools like this to improve the game and playing experience for everyone. They’ve been kind enough to create a great infographic with full details about crafting. This visual guide shows exactly what end-game gear can be crafted for each slot. It’s a great way to find out what gear you need and where and how you can get it. It’s color-coded and clear and easy to understand with a legend at the bottom describing what all the icons are for. This is something you can easily bookmark, save to your computer or even print out and hang near your computer so you can refer to it often to…
Free Comic Book Day!
The day is almost here again- Free Comic Book Day! Every first Saturday in the month of May is free comic day, one of my favorite “holidays” in all the year. The best part of free comic book day is the free comics but there are usually many local events, activities and sometimes contests and giveaways so be sure you check out your local comic book stores and see if they have anything special going on this Saturday. I have been a fan of comics my whole life but even if you’re not a huge fan, what reason is there not to stop by and get a free comic? You might enjoy it or you could give it to someone you know. There’s nothing to lose when it’s free, right? If you have attended Free Comic Book Day events before, drop us a comment and let us know what the…
TOR TV: “How I PvP to WIN In SWTOR”
We haven’t featured ThisIsRefmo stuff, mainly be course she is more into other gems these days, but here are another of her adventures. like the easy mode datacron video we showed a few month ago. WARNING: If the combination of Refmo and doity woids offends your delicate ears, please do us both a favor and watch anyway. HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY PVP: Use “morale boosters” to support your team mates. They’ll play better and/or kick you from the warzone. Don’t SUCK. This was my second time ever doing warzones. The first time I ever pvp’d was back in beta and it was literally a joke (I ran around following Shaz only using Hammer Shot). Basically I’m saying I had no idea what I was doing. 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
Does SWTOR Suck Or Are the Standards of Measurement Unbalanced?
There is a lot of talk going around about SWTOR being a letdown. We’ve already hashed and rehashed the comparisons to other MMOs, WoW in particular. While some say that SWTOR is just not measuring up, there is one who makes a very valid point: maybe we’re not measuring with the same ruler. I, like many others, have had a pretty critical eye when it comes to SWTOR. We have all earned that when we purchased the game I guess. As consumers we review just about everything we buy. We make purchases on eBay, Amazon or even in-store and we are often asked to give a review of our product. Or at the very least that option is there for us if we so choose. Just like every other game in the last 10 years SWTOR went through the review process from all the big name videogame sites on the net. The…
How to get the Orokeet Orobird – a guide
This guide have been up on our forum for a while, but they are not being used that much which is a shame, and the Formatting sucked. Now I am posting it again in blog format. Hope you enjoy! As you may or may not know Bioware implemented a few new non-combat pets, such as the Taunta. One in particular is named the Orobird/Orokeet, as you can see below In this guide I will show you how to get the Orobird egg, AND how to hatch it. However please note that the egg has a 4-8 hour respawn time. To start off you will fly your Starship to Alderaan, and then take a speeder to a town you have discovered in the KAAMOS TERRITORY. Then make your way to where my character is below on the map You will see on your map and minimap that you have discovered a…
BioWare Studio Tour
G4TV presents a tour of BioWare’s TOR studio in Austin, Texas with your host Morgan Webb of XPlay. We are little late on this story, but for some reason I just came across it today. Oh well.. Better late then never I guess. Morgan Webb goes behind the scenes at BioWare Austin with the crew that brought us Star Wars: The Old Republic, getting a tour from Community Manager Stephen Reid, Art Director Jeff Dobson, and Lead PvP and Endgame Designer Gabe Amatangelo.
Species of Starwars: Duros
The Duros blazed some of the oldest trade routes and hyperspace lanes in the galaxy as they ventured into the unknown, millennia ago. This species achieved star travel before the founding of the Republic, and have almost entirely abandoned the soil of their homeworld to travel among the stars. They rank alongside the Corellians as the most seasoned space travelers in the galaxy. One of the Duros’ earliest colonization efforts was on Neimoidia, and over the millennia, the Neimoidians became a genetically distinct offshoot of the Duros race. The Duros were humanoids with smooth blue-green skin, red eyes, lipless mouths, long thin noseless faces and green blood. Olfactory organs beneath their eyes were responsible for their sense of smell. Both females and males were bald, though both genders were easily distinguished. Their large red goggle-like eyes also had slit pupils. Duros females laid eggs as they are descended from ancient…
Patch Notes: 1.2.2 Patch Notes – 5/1/2012
Servers are now back up after a short maintenance. This time BioWare have been busy fixing bugs. Personally I am happy that companion earpiece and implant stats really does seem to be fixed this time around! Classes and Combat General Corrected an issue that prevented damage shields (such as Force Armor) from re-applying properly when activated before the current damage shield expired has been addressed. Trooper Commando Plasma Cell now correctly deals its damage 3 times per application. Companion Characters General Corrected an issue that caused companion stat bonuses from equipped items to be miscalculated when the companion was resummoned. Crew Skills General Corrected some performance issues related to opening the crafting window if it contained a very large number of schematics. Crafting Skills Some gear that could be reverse engineered but erroneously displayed the “No Research Available” tooltip has been corrected. Gathering Skills Slicing Premium Slicing lockboxes now yield the correct amount…
The Guild sphere: Cynical
Today we hat the chance to speak with Ardinicus – Guild leader of Cynical. Cynical is a Semi-Casual Sith Empire guild on the Mind Trick server. They are an East Coast (EST) PVE Guild, currently recruiting for 16 man Operations. They use an EP/GP loot system. Right now the guild is actively seeking a competent, reliable player for their 2nd MT slot. Be you Powertech, Assassin, or Juggernaut (PT or Assassin would be nice for the cross-class synergies, but that’s not a requirement), if you can consistently and reliably be online during out raid times, have Ventrilo with a headset so that you can both clearly listen and be heard clearly, and want to tank endgame Operations encounters as well as Hard Mode Flashpoints, World Bosses, etc., then please apply, or talk to an Officer (Ardinicus, Tenebra, Felgrim). Check out our interview below: Where did your guilds name come from? Originally from…
TOR TV: The Juggernaut of your dreams
Aoakampfer made this extremely funny shortfilm of a Juggernaut getting ready for war zone. For those of you who don’t know, the song is Mars – The Bringer of War by Gustav Holst. When I looked it up, I thought it was some kind of quasi Eastern European thing (based on the name) and the lyrics – ‘Daddy’s home’.
SWTOR Character Transfer System Coming Soon
Have you been suffering from a dead server in SWTOR? Long warzone queues? No one to group with? Our high pop server turned into a low pop server after the first couple of months and it hasn’t really recovered at all. The only time I see a high pop status is on a free weekend. It can get to be a bummer when you need a group and there’s not even anyone on the planet. But BioWare might have an answer coming soon. In this week’s Q&A, the topic of server transfers was brought up again and senior producer Dallas Dickinson had some hopeful words: “First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice,” he said. “We know…
Class Distribution, Ganking, Alignment numbers and more
As part of their new recurring column Crowd Control, Darth Hater brings us some interesting statistics on the game and its players. This week is all about player habits as they relate to “ganking” behavior. This is especially interesting to me because I play on a PvP server, where “ganking” is much more likely and common. We found some other interesting correlations related to ganking as well. City dwellers are 5% more likely to gank than their rural counterparts (36.0% versus 31.1%). Players that choose body type number four — the roly-poly type if you happen to be male — are 6% more likely to gank players that choose the small or medium frames (40.1% versus 34.1%). And finally, players describing themselves as “dog people” are over 10% more likely to gank than others (40.7% versus 30.3%). So, what inferences can we make here? For one thing if you’re walking…
TOR TV: SWTOR Explained: Revan Part 2 (Jedi Civil War)
xZeroTolerence55x is back with part two of his Revan tales. this time he is picking up where the last video ended now explaining the Jedi Civil War. If you missed out the first video, you can check it out here.
SWTOR Q&A April 27th
This week’s SWTOR Q&A was expected to be fairly interesting. Previously they had requested a shift in focus of the type of questions that were being asked: As a reminder, we previously suggested a shift in focus in your questions. As development plans are always subject to change, questions about future features will often get vague answers which can be repetitive and sometimes annoying. With that in mind, the development team is more interested in questions about current in-game features or systems, or questions about why development decisions were made. You’re still welcome to ask questions about future features and we’ll continue to answer them where appropriate – just expect the occasional ‘soon.’ So here we have a snippet of the Q&A and you can head over to the SWTOR blog to read the full list of questions and answers and of course, to ask your own questions for next…
Companion Gifts Calculator
Do you ever wish there was a more organized way to keep track of your companions and companion gifts? While some gamers go at things haphazardly, there are others (like myself) who like to go into it with a plan. I am not ashamed to admit that I often do quite a bit of planning and analyzing in my games. And in a game like SWTOR with the story element, there is also planning into your character’s personality and characteristics. Would she really do that? Would she kill him or let him go? Should I take the money or decline the reward? So many decisions to make- all part of the fun of the game. So this companion gifts calculator is another great tool to add to the things of things that make planning in the game more efficient. And it’s just fun! Check out the Google Doc Spreadsheet which…
