We all know that SWTOR going free to play is big news. But what we don’t know yet is just how big it might be for the game itself. I personally know a lot of people who say they will play if it goes free now it is. Star Wars: The Old Republic could attract up to 50m monthly players says Wedbush! This could be very good news for the company which has been suffering a stock loss since November. Investors want to see some results and they expected a lot from this game so the new model may be just what is needed to get numbers back in the positive direction they want to see again. Michael Pachter, industry analyst for Wedbush says: “We remain incorrigibly positive on the EA story. Despite a relatively low number of packaged good releases this year, we expect EA to grow revenue and…
MTSBWY: Droidfriend – Justin Bieber Boyfriend Parody
Teddie Films wooed us last month with The Star Wars That I Used To Know and this time they’re at it again with what is sure to be another major hit. Droidfriend pits C3-PO in a Bieber likeness putting the moves on a nice Twi’lek. What makes this an even bigger nerdgasm for us is all the extras in the background. In this video, one of the most irritating characters of the original Star Wars trilogy tackles a kindred soul in the music industry – Justin Bieber! And for those who are a bit more purist in their love of Star Wars tributes, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. We’re going to double up this post with an amazing musical homage below in honor of the iconic cantina scene posted by YouTube user CharlesLaurita. Enjoy!
LucasArts president Paul Meegan steps down after two years
The high level turnovers with LucasArts continues as it was announced today that LA President, Paul Meegan, would step down after two years with the company. A statement was released today by parent company Lucasfilm that reveals the news. “”Development on all current LucasArts projects will proceed,” reads a line from Lucasfilm’s statement. “”Paul has been a valuable member of the Lucasfilm leadership team and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. We remain committed to our current projects and will be re-evaluating LucasArts’ leadership needs to ensure that we make the right decisions to keep the studio focused.” In his own statement, Meegan said LucasArts has “come a long away” and he is “extremely proud” of what the teams at the studio have accomplished. He said there are a number of projects that have yet to be announced, and that he wishes the company “all the best”…
SWTOR Free to Play and the Anonymous BioWare Employee
Remember not so long ago when we brought you the story of the anonymous BioWare employee who left the comments about free to play on an article? He claimed he worked for BioWare and couldn’t reveal his name and said that the fans were to blame for the current state of the game. He also predicted a free to play model was on the way. While some people believed he might be right, most others assumed it was a troll- some SWTOR hater trying to spread a rumor about the game being a flop or something or other… But very shortly after – perhaps too shortly- we get the news that the game is, in fact, going free to play. So could this anonymous poster have actually been a BioWare employee? Well, it certainly looks that way but then again, how hard was it to predict the free to play…
TOR TV: VENDORS – EPISODE 1
Vendors is a new animated series based in the era of Star Wars: The Old Republic made by TheWarpZone. The guys thought it would be fun to explore the lives of the unsung heroes of galaxy, the Vendors. Hope you like this one and stick around for more. At first I was a bit put off…and then the guy got stabbed with the lightsaber. Well done fellas
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II Restored Content Mod
Many SWTOR players were fans of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and if you’re missing the game, there is now a new, fun option for you. One of the greatest Star Wars video games ever made is back, 8 years after its release. LucasArts is releasing a combo package called Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Collection, Now fans can experience the Jedi role playing game from BioWare along with the Obsidian-developed sequel, both of which set the stage for Star Wars: The Old Republic as we know it today. Obsidian’s sequel Knights of the Old Republic II—The Sith Lords was well known as being a disappointing letdown to excited fans who waited for it and then got a buggy, basically unplayable game. It had a rushed development and launched with far too many flaws in place. So players, fans and modders set out to fix it the way they…
New SWTOR Content on the Way
With the news of the new free to play coming soon to SWTOR, we also learned that there will be some new content coming to the game. While dates have not been confirmed yet, there are five new pieces of content we know is on the way in the near future. Let’s take a look at these five new pieces of content and remember we will continue to update you with more information as it comes in. New Warzone There will be a new warzone added to SWTOR called the Ancient Hypergate. It’s supposed to be on the new planet of Asation and they promise us new game mechanics… whatever that means. A new warzone is a plus for anyone who loves PvP and since there will be many benefits with a free to play model, we can expect this to affect PvP as well as the population of servers….
Leveling Guide 1 through 400 for Artifice
The patterns in this leveling guide for Artifice crafts are only available from an Artifice Trainer and they’re for the Force users. The Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor are the classes that can use Artifice gear and mods. The primary gathering skill used in Artifice is Archaeology using artifact fragments and power crystals. The secondary mission skill needed is Treasure Hunting with Gemstones. After you complete a step, train for the next level by visiting the Artifice Crew Skill Trainer. You can cut back on some of the materials needed for crafting Artifice if you use reverse engineering for everything you craft. However, this process produces random materials so it’s impossible to calculate a precise number for players to use. For this reasons, this leveling guide is based on the materials needed when reverse engineering for Artifice is not used. Here are the materials needed for…
EA Q1 FY 2013 Earnings Call Recap
After the big news today about SWTOR going to a free to play model, Electronic Arts also held their Q1 FY 2013 Earnings Call. Live coverage of the call began at 2pm PST. Many fans and investors were hanging on for this call to see what might be mentioned about SWTOR, SWTOR subscriptions and the free to play model. You can also see the Prepared Comments and Q1 FY13 Slide Presentation as well as Q1 FY13 Earnings Release from the website. The Q1 FY13 Financial Model is available for download from the site but it’s legal mumbo-jumbo to your average person not familiar with business statistics. It shows the profit and loss margins for the company, quarterly net revenue statistics and more. It shows the breakdowns for different consoles and platforms and there is also a 12 quarter balance sheet. In the press tables they say: “We have…
SWTOR Free to Play is on its Way!
EA and BioWare announced today that it will be expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic by adding a new free-to-play option this fall. And for everyone who plays between now and then or who was previously subscribed, there will be benefits by way of Cartel Coins. Players who choose to engage in free-to-play will be able to experience a majority of the game for free, including the first 50 levels and all eight classes. BioWare did state that there will be restrictions, but those can be removed with microtransactions. SWTOR announced: Now is the time to play The Old Republic™! Over the coming months there will be more frequent Game Updates, including group content like Flashpoints, Warzones, Operations, and dynamic in-game events and more included in your subscription. They go on to show what the rewards will be, including a vote for “player’s choice” rewards. The Developer Blog explained the…
The Guild Sphere: Harbinger
It’s time for another guild interview. Today I had the chance to speak to Tomppa from my own server Tomb of Freedon Nadd. Tomppa is guild leader of the guild Harbinger, a Finnish republic guild currently looking for active players of any class. Where did your guilds name come from? To be honest i dont know the origins of the name since i am not the original GM, but i would imagine that someone had played Mass Effect 2 a lot 🙂 Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild? Harbinger is somewhere between hardcore and casual, when the game launched we were pretty much an hardcore guild but since that we don’t play that much anymore. Overall we are a very relaxed guild, probably 20-30% of our mumble talk is someone laughing. How did your guild come about? Most Finnish guilds are playing on the empire side, so it was the people who wanted to play as…
SWTOR Character Sheets
Have you ever wanted to be able to share your SWTOR characters with everyone outside of the game? Want to be able to post them on your blog, SWTOR website, guild site or elsewhere on the Internet and show off your toon? Well, now it’s possible and this is a pretty nifty tool. Here’s how it came to be Spread the SWTOR looooove! A fan (Miallen) stopped in our forums with a design idea for small embeddable character sheets. Then Scorpiux and Genshen over at Cali Killed Nox (CKN) picked up the project and used Mr. Robot’s API to make these a reality. They can be embedded on any site, including Enjin guild sites, wordpress blogs, you name it. It’s one of our favorite uses of the API, along with the SimulationCraft project that imports characters. Very cool! You can go to their site right now and check it out and then make your own. Here’s…
GDC Online debuts Smedley, SWTOR and more!
With GDC Online getting closer, we’re all looking forward to more information, updates and fun interviews. That’s exactly what they’re working on to give us. The show has added a new trio of talks, featuring Sony Online Entertainment’s John Smedley on transitioning to the free to play model, BioWare on the platform supporting Star Wars: The Old Republic, and CCP on nurturing an MMO community. Gamasutra brings us full details on these new sessions: – First, John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment, will discuss how the company transitioned its entire game lineup to the free to play model in theBusiness and Marketing track lecture, “Free-to-Play: Driving the Future of MMOs.”” Referencing games from EverQuest to Planetside 2(pictured), Smedley will share some of SOE’s insights and lessons learned to help other developers successfully adopt the free to play model. With this knowledge, attendees will walk away understanding how to grow not only their player…
Star Wars: The Old Republic is GDC Online Awards Nominee
GDC Online is on its way and the votes for nominees are in. The organizers have now announced the finalists for the 3rd annual GDC Choice Awards and Gamasutra has brought us the full story. There is a wide range of games in the nominee list this year and this also reflects the diversity in the industry and the creativity of the game developers. However, we were not at all surprised to see SWTOR on the list. Some might be surprised to see just how much the game was nominated, however. Gamasutra reports: The most-nominated titles this year include BioWare Austin’s MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, which grabbed six nominations, as well as multiple nominations for diverse titles including Omgpop/Zynga’s addictive social mobile app Draw Something, Playfish/EA’s Facebook treatment of one of gaming’s biggest franchises, The Sims Social, Blizzard Entertainment’s record-breaking PC online-integrated title Diablo III, Tiny Speck’s quirky casual MMO Glitch, and more. …
Community Q&A: July 27th, 2012
This weeks Questions and answers are up. Nothing really interesting this time. Servers having trouble since 1.3 with chat lag, warzone lags and unscheduled maintenance every three or four days, but the last question makes it sound like server perfomance has actually been improved. So when you’re stuck in the login screen next time or you’re chatting 10 minutes into the future than don’t worry, the server itself is reliable! Check it all out below: Skendra: Question about Legacy! Under Character Perks -> Travel, at 1.2 there was buff for Sprint Speed but locked and now in 1.3 it was changed to Priority Transport. Why? Will Wallace (Senior Designer): There were both internal and external balance concerns about allowing players to purchase upgrades to Sprint speed, especially as it related to advantages in Warzones. We don’t want someone to feel like they have to have an optional purchase to be competitive in PvP….
TOR TV: Assassin Kills Darth Malgus on Hard mode (Solo)
Darkness Assassin taking down Darth Malgus in HM The False Emporer. Well done for accomplishing such a feat but I can’t shake this feeling of this sort of stuff being unwanted amongst the devs. Being able to solo a HM boss, plus last through enrage with only a companion healer seems a bit too much for a single tank to do. I’m guessing when this news spreads out more, they’ll either do something about soloing HM’s or nerf assassin’s, because I doubt other tanks could accomplish this feat, since Vanguards/PT and JG/SJ have no passive self healing for their stance So after roughly 6 combined hours over 3 days of attempts I finally managed to solo Darth Malgus in HM FE on my Assassin. I just feel I have to show people ;D this is one of the hardest challenges I’ve had on my tank yet (it’s relatively easy though…
An Honest Personal Review on SWTOR Endgame
There are a lot of naysayers about SWTOR these days. In fact, since the game was in pre-launch phase, there were haters who protested and insisted the game would be a massive failure. While many are now trying to say that prophecy has come to light, not everyone believes this. In fact, there are still quite a few players who are happy with the current state of SWTOR and impressed with the game overall and in general. Reddit and the subreddit of SWTOR is not always friendly to those who love SWTOR but here is one poster who had a thorough report of Here is a snippet of the review talking about endgame content: So I finally get to the max level and am ready to finally “play the game” as I would say. First thing’s first — I need gear. A bit of online research tells me that Recruit…
1.3.4a Patch Notes July 26, 2012
As you might have noticed, the servers was down for a brief time this morning were BioWare fixed a bug with crafting that certain players were exploiting. Here are the patch notes: General Fixed an issue that could allow players to gain unearned items or crafting materials.
Unscheduled SWTOR Maintenance July 26th
BioWare announced an unscheduled maintenance on the official forums today. Community News posted: We will be performing an unscheduled maintenance this Thursday, July 26th, 2012. After the maintenance, there will not be a new patch to download. The servers and SWTOR.com will be down for four hours on Thursday, July 26th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.
Alloy Inc Pursuing Copyright on SWTOR Videos
A company by the name of Alloy Inc is claiming copyright on SWTOR videos, particularly those shared on YouTube and as such, creating a stir in the SWTOR community. Several users have posted in the forums and on Reddit about these claims of copyright ownership and there was no official word from EA/BioWare on the matter. This leads to speculation and even more speculation which has some players believing it’s all a scam and others who think the company is trying to shut down user videos of SWTOR. Why would EA do this when the players are promoting the game for them (and for free)? Well again, it leads to loads of questions but we also have to remember that if Alloy Inc is under legal contract from EA to handle marketing for sites like YouTube, then they may have reason to claim copyright on the videos since they can…
TOR TV: SWTOR Explained: Sith Triumvirate (Pre-Kotor 2)
ZeroTolerence55 returns to make another SWTOR Explained video, this time focusing on the Sith Triumvirate and the state of the galaxy leading up to Knights of the Old Republic 2. We have posted quite a few video from ZeroTolerence55 before, so if you haven’t seem the already you should deffetnly do so. Yout might even learn some lore 🙂 SWTOR Explained: Sith Emperor Backstory SWTOR Explained – Revan’s Backstory (Pre-Kotor) and his involvement in the Mandalorian Wars SWTOR Explained: Revan Part 2 (Jedi Civil War) SWTOR Explained: Knights of the Old Republic Story (Revan Part 3)
1.3.4 Patch Notes July 24, 2012
Servers are back up after some Scheduled Maintenance today. The most important fix must be the Warzone group frames bug. Playing with friends became an exercise in someone counting down in vent, “Ok, click in 3…2…1…”. Another interesting “fix ” is this: Soa’s orbs, lightning balls, and mind traps no longer grant social points. And this is what happens when you abuse a mechanic, people. 1.3.4 Patch Notes General Players can now use vehicles on Coruscant in the large areas of the Black Sun, Old Galactic Market, The Works, and the Jedi Temple districts. Classes and Combat > General All class “stun break” abilities now properly remove blind effects. For example, the blind effect caused by a Sorcerer’s Backlash skill can now be broken with each class’s “stun break” ability. Companion Characters > General Centurion Weaponmaster’s head gear no longer causes non-human companion heads to disappear. Crew Skills > General The crafting…
SWTOR Community Q&A: July 23rd, 2012
Last Fridays Community Q&A were postponed and released yesterday. This time the BioWare devs answers questions about Campaign gear,class balance and other PVP issues. Chimerashot: The way Campaign gear is set up, some DPS classes have the Armoring with more Endurance instead of their main stat. Can we expect this to change /what was the reasoning behind this? David Hunt (Systems Designer): It’s an undesired interaction between the distribution of the mods and the move to set bonuses on the armoring. Future gear provides set mods will use the primary stat over Endurance for all DPS classes. Achyllis: Why don’t cool downs all reset on death in PvP? Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Doing this would encourage a couple of things that, so far, we don’t necessarily want to encourage. When you take a position from another player or group of players in a Warzone, holding that position is harder when…
Anonymous BioWare Employee Rumor- Are Fans to Blame?
By now, you’ve probably heard about the anonymous BioWare employee rumor circulating the Internet yesterday. We saw it but I wanted to dig up some more information before bringing it to you. As a journalist, I’m not one for spreading rumors with no basis to the source. This article on Bettor.com claimed that an anonymous BioWare employee blamed the fans for the current state of SWTOR. The author, Gordon Miles says: A Bioware Austin employee has lashed out at fans regarding the state of the recently launched massively multiplayer online (MMO) Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) according to GamerTechTv. SWTOR or ‘Tortanic’ is being called one of the biggest blunders of this generation as Electronic Arts (EA) has thrown away over $500 million of development and marketing funds for the project and will now have to make it free to play because of the rapidly decreasing player count. The…
