This Friday’s Update brings us a new Choose Your Side video featuring the Consular vs. the Agent, and a Pre-Order Announcement for Razer’s Old Republic Peripherals. The Agent vs. Consular video contains footage of the many abilities available to each class, along with testimonials from members of the Bioware team like Alexander Freed, and Jo Berry stating their cases on who’d win. Lisa already covered the Razer story yesterday, so I won’t get any more into that one, but enjoy the movie below: From the moment we announced the eight classes in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, fans have been pitting them against each other, arguing who would have the advantage in a one-on-one fight. The hallways of BioWare echo this debate, with the writers, combat designers and other developers all chiming in on which class they feel reigns supreme. In the latest entry of our series “Choose Your Side,”…
Mirrored Classes According to MMORPG.com
Michael Bitton from MMORPG.com has been sharing their own opinions and updates about SWTOR. Recently they wrote about five “not-so-great” things about SWTOR. This is actually refreshing with all the good news going around and all the hype about the game. Seeing negatives keeps the balance and it keeps it real. No game is perfect, even if it seems close. However, they later admitted that they forgot one important thing on their original list so they wrote a new feature and dedicated it all to this one omission- mirrored classes. Here’s what they had to say about mirrored classes: Having mirrored classes generally implies that each class has a counterpart on the opposing faction, but in Star Wars: The Old Republic this idea is taken quite literally. SWTOR’s class mirrors are actually not just extremely similar, but identical. For example, if you’ve played a Smuggler, you’ve played an Imperial Agent,…
Razer’s TOR Peripherals Available Soon
Are you a SWTOR-aholic? You’ll be happy to hear that computer hardware designed by Razer for The Old Republic will soon be on sale. We know it won’t be long now because Amazon launched product pages for the items that will be available. You can’t place any pre-orders at this time but you can look through the photos to get an idea of what your options are so you can decide which ones you want to invest in. At this time, there are 4 gaming accessories available from Razer. TOR Gaming Headset- All gamers need a good headset to keep up with all the action within the game. This particular headset features a 5.1 surround sound with three-dimensional audio that will surely give you a tactical advantage. The sound is clear and precise so you can keep up with everything around you and the suggested retail price is $129.99. TOR…
New Level 10 Ability – Emergency Fleet Pass
For those of you in game testing, you might have noticed something pretty cool when you leveled back up to level 10 on your new characters. There is a new ability, although there is some confusion about its actual purpose. As the Reddit poster explains: “This should make some people happy. Decided to level a Sith Warrior on the friends & associates beta server tonight while the main beta servers were down, hit level 10, and this popped up. Edit: Here’s the downside – it currently has an 18 hour cooldown.” So what do you think of it? Personally, I’m thinking the cooldown is way too long to really be useful. It might help you out if you get stuck and want to avoid killing yourself and it could be a quick way to get back to your hub city when your hearth isn’t up. It could be helpful to…
SWTOR Original Music Tracks on Facebook
Are you counting down the days to December 20th yet? There are any hyped up fans who wish they had a time machine to take them to the 15th-20th so they can begin playing immediately. You are not alone because I am right there with you. The folks who run the official SWTOR Facebook page want to help us on the countdown to launch so they have a treat in store for those who follow them on Facebook. As they posted on their Facebook page: As we are on our final stretch to launch on December 20th, we have a special treat for all of you! Starting today, and continuing every day until launch, we will release one music track from STAR WARS: The Old Republic right here on Facebook! Spread the word and don’t forget to ‘like’ us on Facebook so you don’t miss a single track! We will…
SWTOR Will Have Time Cards
It’s getting closer to launch day and if you’re part of the many getting prepared, you might be ready for stocking up on game cards now. For those who were concerned about whether or not they will have a credit card to use for SWTOR subscriptions, Stephen Reid had some useful info to pass along via Twitter: @streamingpirate We’ll have time cards. As we said in the pre-order FAQ… from July. 😉 That pre-order FAQ he’s referring to states this: “I don’t want to pay my subscription using a credit card. Is there any other way to purchase subscription time? You can use your PayPal account to pay for your monthly subscription. You can also purchase 60-day pre-paid subscription cards through your preferred video game retailer.” And can be found right here. This is great news for anyone who doesn’t have or doesn’t want to use a credit card for…
Beta Patch notes: 0.742.27 ( Build Date: 2011.12.01)
BioWare just pushed out a new build for the SWTOR beta today. Here are the patch notes of what was changed. For the first time we are trying to include tooltips from Torhead. Please give us a heads up how it works for you as we are not sure if we should keep them yet. Anyways.. Here are the latest patch notes: General Experience gains on Origin Worlds have been adjusted to help solo players reach level 10 more easily. Improved the overall performance of vanity pets. Using the /stuck command will no longer kill the player unless a safe location cannot be determined. Players can now only use /stuck every 120 seconds. Moving to a new planet instance no longer uses the player’s Quick Travel cooldown. Classes and Combat General Further improved and balanced all class content above level 30. Slightly increased mouse targeting distance. Implemented improvements that increase…
The Sith Inquisition: Kotick Attacks The Old Republic; Experts Fight Back
In a recent articles , Bobby Kotick, head of Activision, publicly stated that he felt The Old Republic had little real chance of success, not only because Lucasarts was going to drain most of the revenue their direction, but because the amount EA needs to receive in the number of subscriptions from launch or withing one quarter of launch is simply too high. He went on to describe other minor points of error he felt were important, but they simply weren’t important enough to be restated here. Experts immediately retorted with accusations that Kotick, despite being one of the biggest heavy hitters in the industry, had no real information or facts to back up what he was saying. One analyst, Michael Pachter was quoted as saying, “Based on used commentary and user surveys, the profit potential for The Old Republic is high.” This outpouring of support from industry experts begs the…
Gamepro slams Star Wars: The old republic
We read through many many reviews of Star Wars: the old republic here at swtorstrategies. Most of them are positive about the game, but from time to time you come by people that really don’t like the game. Here is one from gamepro were the staff won’t be playing SWTOR when it comes out in a few weeks.
Torhead Launch Contest
We are all about bringing you cool and awesome stuff so we had to make a post to tell you about Torhead’s launch contest where you have a chance to win some really neat prizes. There will be a grand prize and first, second and third prizes just in time to help you get the most of your gaming experience with SWTOR. Grand prize features the Astro A40 Gaming Headset and Razer Naga. I currently use the Naga and I love it. These are really awesome prizes and it’s easy to get your own chance to win. As explained by Torhead: “With the big Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Test Weekend kicking off soon, we are celebrating the launch of Torhead with some awesome loot. Even though Torhead is able to garner a lot of TOR’s information automatically what really makes the site great are the user contributions. This…
Facebook Image of the Week #40
BioWare have updated there facebook fanpage with a new screenshot. This time we get to see the beauty of Nar Shaddaa Upper City. These Screenshots is getting less and less interesting as we can pretty much se the game by our self now, but we will keep you updated on these images until the game comes out. Though Nar Shaddaa’s upper city is ablaze with brightly colored neon lights, the lower cities of the Smuggler’s Moon are rife with danger.
LucasArts to Take “around 35%” of SWTOR Revenue- EA Still to Have Profit
We know that EA will not be pocketing all of the profit from SWTOR, which looks to be a very successful game but has also been quite a large investment. They will have to share with Lucas Arts, who owns rights to the Star Wars name. some have said that EA may not have much to gain in the way of profit from the deal but one analyst said there is plenty to go around. (Isn’t this what I just said yesterday?) According to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, LucasArts will take “around 35 per cent” of the revenue from forthcoming SWTOR MMO after EA earns back its investment in the game. “I think [EA] will make a profit,” said Pachter, who has proven to be right on these types of things in the past. He adds: “The revenue split is around 35 per cent to LucasArts after EA earns…
Video Guides & Commentaries
Hello everyone, my names Sheriden and I’m new to swtor-strategies. I’ll be bringing you articles covering a range of entertaining and helpful videos focused on Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have a YouTube channel myself which continues to publish such videos, but you can expect to see videos other than my own. I will make sure to warn you whether each video contains spoilers or not. Just like other MMO’s and games out there, videos guides can be extremely helpful to your experience. World of Warcraft has the famous ‘Tankspot’ website, which provides videos explaining strategies for killing bosses in many of the games raids and instances. While it is certainly fun to try out a boss with no idea what to expect, it can soon become irritating when you struggle to take them down after many attempts. Let alone dangerous to the stability and success of your guild….
A detailed SWTOR Beta Review by a MMORPG veteran
When it comes to SWTOR reviews, we’ve got you covered. In addition to writing our own, we like to bring you the best of what we find on the Internet from other fans, game sites and more. We stumbled across another SWTOR beat review from an MMORPG veteran who has a lot to say about the game. And when we say a lot, we really mean it! Merecraft of Far Beyond My Capacity wrote over 8,000 words about SWTOR beta. That’s like a small book! If you want to learn more about the game from someone who has firsthand MMORPG experience, this one is worth your time. Even if you just skim over the sections that interest you, it’s worth it to check it out. Merecraft is a 12-year veteran of MMOs who has been playing the game for some time now and the drop of the NDA means he…
SWTOR New Build Deployment- Game Testing
If you’ve been game testing SWTOR, you probably noticed that you couldn’t get in to the game today. This message was posted to the SWTOR community: Hello Testers! We are preparing to deploy a new build of the game for testing! At 12:00AM CST (6:00 London, 7:00 Paris/Berlin) on 11/29, we will be bringing the all game servers and SWTOR.com down for extended maintenance. Note to weekend testers: Your phase of the Game Testing Program has now concluded, and you will no longer be able to play the game. As part of the internal testing and deployment process, the game servers will remain unavailable for ongoing testers after the website is up at 12:00PM CST (18:00 London, 19:00 Paris/Berlin) on 11/29. We will update the stickies in this forum to keep you informed about when the servers will be available again. While we do not currently have an ETA, we…
The Sith Inquisition Marches Onward
Greetings swtorstrategies.com, we are The Sith Inquisition. Myself and the rest of my team are all diehard Imperials, and would rather shed our own blood as Sith than let the Republic overcome us. For a few weeks now we’ve been putting out Empire side news and opinion updates, recently being enhanced by a few pieces of beta video content, and now we’re happy to be invited to do a weekly column right her on swtorstrategies.com. You can look forward to a lot of news and opinion on the dark side and the Empire, although we do also like to put out general news content when it’s applicable. One thing we’ll be doing is short news broadcasts through twitter at least once a week, possible coinciding with the posts we’ll be putting up here. We’ll also be keeping you up to date on major roleplay and PvP activities that we’re emailed…
No Need to Uninstall SWTOR Client if You Tested This Weekend
Have you recently beta tested SWTOR? If you were one of the weekend testers this past weekend, you will not need to uninstall the SWTOR client before playing the actual game. Pretty much everyone seemed to be in this massive scale SWTOR game test this past weekend so if you were dreading having to re-download the game client afterwards, you are in luck. As long as you have the most recent version of the game client installed from the Thanksgiving weekend test, you can save some bandwidth and time and just patch the game client, rather than deleting and starting new. Stephen Reid tweeted today: “FAQ: if you played this weekend you do NOT need to uninstall the #SWTOR client. We are planning to patch it to Early Game Access / Live.” Not only is this good news for those who plan to play but it’s also one more sign…
Activision Questions Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Chances at Profitability
The days are counting down to the December 20th launch of SWTOR and as many are getting excited about the upcoming MMO, there are others who don’t quite fall into all the hype. Some are predicting SWTOR might not do as well as predicted and that even if it does, there won’t be much room for profit for EA with such an expensive game that they also have to share licensing rights with to Lucas Arts. Will there be any room left for profit from SWTOR? Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick says EA Will Lose Out with The Old Republic but could he be right? There’s no surprise that there are skeptics when it comes to SWTOR. In fact, with any big thing, there are going to be those who oppose it but how much truth might there be to the questioning? Kotick made his remarks about SWTOR at the Reuters…
TOR TV: Jedi Knight lvl 1 – 5 with commentary
Jesse from OMFGaming have Jedi Knight gameplay video up now. The last two stories we did about Jesse and his video I said that I found him annoying. After Looking through more of his stuff, and watching the Trooper and Sith Inquisitor videos again, I take it back. The guy is absolutely amazing at what he do – playing games and comment on it. He is actually so good at the commenting that he make a living out out of it. Check out this sample video he made. Oh, and check out the Jedi beta play though below:
INC Gamers SWTOR PvP Preview
For many MMOs, the PvP is one of the most exciting aspects. Some players choose games based solely on the PvP aspects. We’re still learning about PvP in SWTOR but the good news is that with the past couple of beta weekends and the NDA lifted, we can learn more about SWTOR PvP than ever before. INC Gamers tells us about about three of the PvP Warzones (it’s assumed there are more). The writer, Tim McDonald talks about playing in Huttball, The Voidstar and the Alderaan Civil War and he gives an account of how he felt when playing each of these warzones. Here’s a snippet: “There currently appears to be no way to queue for a specific Warzone, so I’ve played some more than others. To be more specific: I’ve played Huttball 52 million times.” 52 million, huh? Sounds like enough to form a good opinion on the experience….
SWTOR Graphic Benchmarks and Maximum Graphics
Are you wondering about the graphic benchmarks of SWTOR? Are you wondering how well your computer will run the game or what your max settings will let you get away with? The SWTOR Beta PCGH Nerd Test will give you some good answers to your nerdy questions. PC Games Hardware was able to take a first look at the current beta build of Star Wars: The Old Republic and they have a few things to offer in ways of benchmarks, which they were kind enough to share online for the rest of us. Some details: “At the same time, we have first benchmark with ten different cards, and it is tested, the CPU core scaling.” “At this point must be emphasized clearly that all tests with a very early beta version of the game were made.” “Anti-aliasing is currently disabled in the game itself and the rest of the engine…
Leia and Han Solo in SWTOR
While we have to admit that what this guy did is pretty cool, we also have to admit that it’s going to be very annoying to see loads of Star Wars movie characters running around the SWTOR universe, especially for those who are serious about their storyline and roleplaying. However, if you’re looking for something fun, here’s how one guy created Han Solo and Leia with the character creator of SWTOR. You can probably play around with the settings and controls and try to create other Star Wars characters that you recognize as well since there is so much customization available in SWTOR. He even tells you the slider numbers so you can make them yourself. And here’s some more fun from Starfleet Dental:
TOR TV: Sith Inquisition on Nar Shaddaa
The Sith Inquisition have submitted 3 beta videos showing some action on the smugglers moon of Nar Shaddaa. These vidio’s introduces us to the basic story premise of what the Sith Inquisitor is up to on this planet, as well as some space mission action in the last of the 3 videos. Unfortunately they are recorded on a pretty crappy computer ( I belive it’s recorded on a lab top), but the commentary adds up for most of it. Check it out below:
The Guild Sphere: Mobility Gaming
Today’s guild feature is something different then what we are used to feature here on swtorstrategies.com. Mobility Gaming is a Multi-Gaming organization focusing on many other game types then MMORPG’s. Check it out below, and remember to drop us a line, if you wan’t your guild featured on our website. Where did your guilds name come from? Mobility is the first part of the name for the Multi-Gaming organization we form part of (Mobility-Gaming.com). Also, Mobility is another name for “Movement” which is important because we want to be The “Movement” in Gaming. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentence description of your guild? Mobility-Gaming is a PvPvE guild dedicated to Highend PvP and End Game Raid Content. We’re Hardcore Minded, but understand gaming is not a “second job.” We want to enjoy the game most of all, but we think that winning and downing bosses is the best way to have fun. What…