Bioware released today the latest episode of The Old Republic Insider that covers the latest news about their game. The brief 3 minute video covers some of the new Cartel Market items including the Luxury Skiff Speeder and the Contraband Shipment, a set of five Cartel Packs! It also offers a glimpse on upcoming updates as well as the new operation coming with Game Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy.
SWTOR Developer Blog March 13: Cartel Reputation
03.13.2013 – We have some updates on Cartel Reputation from the Developer Blog this week. See a snippet below: Developer Blog: Cartel Reputation In Game Update 1.7: Return of the Gree, we released our exciting Legacy Reputation System, allowing players various rewards for their interactions with many different organizations across the galaxy. Now, with Game Update 1.7.2, the nefarious Hutt Cartel wants a cut of the action. The Contraband Resale Corporation Representatives from the Contraband Resale Corporation have convinced officials from both Republic and Imperial Fleets to allow them to set-up business. The Cartel’s blockade of Makeb has created some exceptional business opportunities for everyone, including a brand new Shipment from the Cartel – the Contraband Packs. The Contraband Resale Corporation is looking for ways to reward its most frequent customers by tracking the Reputation they gain. Players increase their Reputation with the Corporation through the acquisition of the new…
Patch Notes – 1.7.2a (3/14/2013)
BioWare took down the servers for scheduled maintenance today. The servers were down for 2 hours, and was done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that they can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. At the same time BioWare applied a new patch. Below are the patch notes: 1.7.2a Patch Notes General Character gift packages will now contain the correct items when granted to Digital Deluxe and Collector’s Edition players. Characters who were granted incomplete gift packages after Patch 1.7.2 can contact Customer Support to have the missing items restored. I’m glad this was fixed. I happened to create a new character last night to get the most out of the double XP weekends, and only received my Holocamera, 2x Flare Guns, and my Black-Yellow Crystal.
SWTOR Cosplay Comicbook
It’s time for another feature of SWTOR Cosplay swagger! This one is a special treat that has been out there for a while but most of us never even knew about it. It’s short, so take your time appreciating all the work that went into it, from costume design, backdrop, photography, post-production effects, etc, etc. In my opinion this is total genius and something to learn from for all Cosplayers. With that being said … We present you Issue One of Star Wars: The Old Republic – Arandani Comic: First Encounter, by Arandani Studios. But before all that, we flashback to Captain Kadd Aradan doing a drop on Ord Mantell moments right before the ambush. That’s all for now. A very enticing introduction, with blasters, double bladed lightsabers , Cathers, Sith Inquisitors and Scoundrels. What more can you ask for? More issues? Hell yeah! I really hope they make more,…
200% XP Weekends
BioWare have news today were they introduce upcoming double XP Weekends. You heard that right, 2x XP weekends … and they will stack with all current in game XP buffs. For nowt, there are four sets of Double XP weekends planed: March 15, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 18, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT March 22, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 25, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT March 29, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to April 1, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT April 5, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM to April 8, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT This could mean that we’ll see Rise of the Hutt Cartel drop for early access the week of April 8th already! Now back to the double XP weekends. Eric Musco posted in the official forums how double experience will work with…
LucasFilm Cancels Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Delays Star Wars: Detours
Somewhere, the ghostly hologram projection of Obi-Wan Kenobi just stopped in his tracks and started sobbing. After five seasons, LucasFilm has decided to stop production on Cartoon Network’s animated series set in George Lucas’s imagination. The news was announced onStarWars.com today. “”After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series. While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for Cartoon Network, we’re continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen. Stay tuned for more information on where fans can soon find this bonus content.””” Yeesh. The StarWars.com site has a video from The Clone Wars‘ supervising director Dave Filoni explaining the situation, and while he’s bummed about wrapping up the series, he’s excited for the future of the Star Wars franchise and LucasFilm Animation’s involvement in it, whatever that may…
SWTOR PVP Changes in Patch 2.0
As you may already know, Patch 2.0 is going to bring a variety of changes and additions to SWTOR, all meant to improve the game overall and how we as players experience it. PvP and gear are two things we expect to see some changes in. In fact, there seems to be an overall trend of new gear stats, minus the pants, and a reduction in the stats provided by mods to gear. Some secondary stats are seeing changes or tweaks and War Hero gear critical rating has been replaced with power for some classes. There are new set bonuses for level 55 gear which we can see here: Marauder/ Sentinel DPS Weaponmaster’s Gear 2pc: Reduced the cooldown of Guarded by the Force or Undying Rage by 15 seconds, also increased its duration by 1 second. Weaponmaster’s Gear 4pc: Increased all damage dealt by 10% for 5 seconds after using…
Patch 1.7.2 Notes 3/12/2013
Patch day! Below are the patch notes for this weeks server maintenance. Lot’s of bug fixes and many new updates to the cartel market. The new rep track, via Cartel Pack items only, is interesting. If they’ll be re-sellable via the GTN it’ll be a very steady method to convert CCs into Credits, I imagine. Check out the full patch notes below: 1.7.2 Patch Notes – 3/12/2013 Highlights The first Packs of Shipment Two are now available for sale on the Cartel Market! Most items in the Regulator and Enforcer’s Contraband packs are not found in the Shipment One Cartel Packs. Players may now gain reputation with the Contraband Resale Corporation, a group loosely affiliated with the Hutt Cartel! Reputation Trophies for this organization are now available in new Contraband Packs, and a new vendor has been added to allow players to capitalize on this reputation. Additional rewards have been added to many missions…
Additional Patch 1.7.2 details revealed!
Bioware’s newly appointed community manager Eric Musco, stopped by the official SWToR forums to provide additional details about tomorrow’s patch. As we mentioned in a previous post, Patch 1.7.2 will see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful among the SWToR community. It will also remove the Golden Scalene armor from the cartel market. Musco was kind enough to provide details on the new items that will be incorporated in tomorrow’s update as well as pointing out that the Gree vendors will have new items for purchase. In specific, the new items added are: Dire Taskmaster’s Robe Dire Overlord’s Vestments Dire Warmaster’s Body Armor Dire Eliminator’s Chestguard Guard Captain’s Chestplate CZ-27k Stealth Ops Suit CZ-18x Avalanche Chestplate Honored Master’s Vestments Honored Champion’s Robe Honored Sabarist’s Harness Honored Adept’s Shroud MA-52 Med-tech Chestplate Emergency Responder’s Overcoat MA-53 Overwatch Chestplate Jawagram “I Love You” Jawagram “It’s A…
Mr. Force in Balance Fashion Show on The Harbringer
A very unique MMORPG event was held recently on The Harbringer server by Force in Balance guild- a SWTOR fashion show. It sounds like it was a lot of fun and I definitely want to know when they’re doing it again so I can try to pop on and visit. The leadership gave thanks where credit was due: *Huge thanks go out to the ladies of <Force in Balance> for putting on such an exciting event: -Vesayla -Lylah -Six -Tresse -Avelie *Here’s a shoutout to Nytraz for FRAPS-ing and Omer for DJ-ing. *And a huge and special thanks to Dulfy for serving as one of our guest judges! *Congratulations to Mr. Force in Balance 2013, Rengi! *Over 30 guild members attended this exciting event; we’re looking forward to putting on another show in the future. The first event was guild-only but due to the popularity, they plan future shows with…
Guide to Patch 2.0 Commendation Changes
As we have already been told by the devs and also seen on the PTS, Patch 2.0 is bringing changes to the game in several different ways. One of these changes will be to the commendation system of SWTOR and this has been a source of confusion for many players so we have set up this little guide to help you understand a bit better. Here is what you can expect to see from the Patch 2.0 changes: Endgame Commendations- Some changes have been made to the endgame commendations you get at level 50. These changes are similar to the planetary commendation changes (described below) and now all of the older comms will be melded into one type. Tionese, Black Hole, Columi and Daily, etc. will now all be called “Classic Commendations”. Once the patch comes out, they will be converted according to this chart: · Black Hole – 1:1…
Reminder: Scheduled Maintenance 3/12/13
Just a quick heads up that BioWare will be taking down the servers for maintenance on Tuesday March 12th for four hours. Eric Musco took the forums to inform the hordes: Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing Scheduled Maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 from 5AM CST (3AM PST/6AM EST/10AM GMT/11AM CET/8PM AEDT) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/2PM GMT/3PM CET/12AM AEDT). All game servers, SWTOR.com, and the launcher will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended. This maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest…
Attack of the guild: Recruiting and Drama
One of the most rewarding experiences of running a guild deals with recruiting new members. It gives you the opportunity to capture the pulse of the SWToR community by talking to other players who just happened to see your recruiting message in general chat, explore what they’re looking for, and see how their requirements change over the course of time. Most chat sessions tend to be typical, others interesting while others thought provoking. Before server mergers occurred, new players were scarce and you would always come across people who found their way in the server (Axial Park in Alpha Strike Force’s case) either by mistake or because they left their guild. After the server mergers, every new recruit was essentially a refugee from another server or a returning player who just happened to hear that things were getting better in SWToR and decided to give the game another shot. (As…
Bioware talks about upcoming expansion and future content during SXSW 2013
In preparation for the upcoming Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, Bioware is increasing the pace of news releases and event participation across the US and Europe. This time around, SWToR Senior Producer Blaine Christine , Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert, Executive Producer Jeff Hickman and Production Director Dallas Dickinson hosted a panel discussion during SXSW 2013 – an annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin, Texas.
Developer Update: The Art of Makeb
This week has sees a number of news releases from Bioware about the upcoming expansion, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, focusing specifically on details relating to making planet Makeb. As you might remember from previous posts, Makeb is the new planet included in the expansion and it’s the main focus of the expanded story line.
Bioware releases details on upcoming expansion; Creating Makeb!
In a move that could possibly be interpreted as a sign that we’re getting closer to the release of the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, Bioware has released a video that provides additional details on Makeb, the planet included in the expansion
In specific, SWToR’s Lead Writer, Hall Hood and Lead Concept Artist, Ryan Dening provide insight on the background story of the planet as well as the new features we should expect to see.
Gree event returning with Patch 1.7.2!
Bioware’s new community manager Eric Musco revealed yesterday that Patch .1.7.2 will also see the return of the Gree event that proved to be so successful on its first iteration. In addition, the golden scarlene armor that’s currently available at the cartel market store will be soon removed from it. The armor will be returning at a later (unspecified) date.
In specific he stated:
Developer Update: Overview of the Planet Makeb
BioWare posted a new Star Wars: The Old Republic developer blog yesterday, that detailed the process of creating the planet Makeb, an all-original addition to the Star Wars universe coming in the Rise of the Hutt Cartel digital expansion. Makeb will be a beautiful world peppered by towering geological formations, but it has been ravaged by ecological disaster and is a hostile environment. The Hutt Cartel are the main antagonists on Makeb, and the story takes in a rare instance of the Republic overcoming the Empire. For the official blog post, please visit this link or check out a snip below: Early on, we seized on the idea of a beautiful planet that’s being ravaged by ecological disasters. A place that would normally seem serene and welcoming, transformed into an environment that feels like it could fall out from under you at any second. With that goal in mind, we designed the entire…
Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher Back for ‘Star Wars’ via George Lucas
We brought you the rumor yesterday of Carrie Fisher returning to Star Wars and it seems today it was confirmed true by George Lucas. But of course, that’s not all! According to Lucas, the whole crew will be back together in the new films- Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher! The original stars of the series have previously hinted that they would be making a comeback but this is the first “official” word that it is true. Yahoo Movies reports: “”We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison — or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on,’” Lucas told Bloomberg Businessweek when asked about whether he kept the actors in the loop about the Disney acquisition. So it looks like some of the stars had already signed on the dotted line before they even knew…
PTS update notes – March 6
BioWare deployed a new update to the public test servers yesterday with a new patch to Game Update 2.0. check out the full patch notes below. Annoyingly, many of these changes (Sniper changes, Missile Salvo change, etc.) aren’t new today but were put in a couple days ago. I don’t know why they listed them again. Classes and Combat Jedi Knight Alacrity no longer reduces the channel duration of Force Stasis. Sith Warrior Alacrity no longer reduces the channel duration of Force Choke. Jedi Consular Sage Empowered Throw now also increases the damage dealt by Sever Force. Shadow Force Breach’s accuracy debuff now lasts 30 seconds (up from 18) when Combat Technique is active. Kinetic Combat Bombardment now makes Project generate 15% more threat per point and cost 15% less Force per point while Combat Technique is active. Slow Time now has a 9second cooldown and costs 20 Force. Damage remains…
Carrie Fisher to be in New Star Wars Film
The Internet world has been buzzing about whether or not Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill (which confirmed there are talks) and Harrison Ford will return to the big screen for the next installment in the Star Wars story. In an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated, Carrie puts some of those questions to rest. When asked if she could confirm whether or not she would play the role of Princess Leia, she said “Yes.” The interview was fun (in typical Carrie fashion) and went something like this: What do you think Princess Leia is like today? Elderly. She’s in an intergalactic old folks’ home [laughs]. I just think she would be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle. And still wearing the bagel buns? The bagel buns and the bikini, because probably she has sundowners syndrome. At sundown, she thinks that she’s 20-something….
Star Wars: 1313 Development on Hold?
We’ve told you about Star Wars:1313 here in the past and have been following the production of the game to give you updates whenever possible. Well, it now seems like the development has stalled out. Will this be a temporary pause or is the whole game on shutdown? We don’t actually know right now. As Eucantina explains: The very impressive looking and possibly next-generation video game Star Wars: 1313 hasn’t been heard about since its last major showing at Star Wars Celebration VI in August. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, and thus LucasArts, word started to spread that Disney’s video game focus would be more on casual games than AAA console titles like 1313 was shaping up to be. Some fans started to get nervous. What did this mean for 1313? Would development shift to a different developer as Disney decided how to best use LucasArts? Would the game be cancelled? It wouldn’t be the first time an anticipated Star…
BioWare Co-founder Ray Muzyka Seeking a Quieter Life
We know that Ray Muzyka, BioWare co-found and one of the “doctors” left BioWare back in September, along with Greg Zeschuk. Both said they were leaving to pursue other passions but we really didn’t have a lot of information at the time about where they were going or what they were doing. Muzyka told the Edmonton Journal that he was seeking a job that would allow him more time at home with his family and less travel. A parent myself, I can fully understand this. It really can take a toll on you and the family when you’re constantly traveling. “I was in the air probably 250 to 280 days the last couple of years,” Muzyka said. “”That was part of the reason why, after five years spent running the division of a public company, I just knew I needed to seek a new beginning and try and do something…
Display Name Only Log In – Coming April 2, 2013
BioWare posted a new article earlier today regarding future login detalis. More security is always a welcome change. Too many people reuse passwords against the same email account. A few years ago BioWare’s Never winthers night website got hacked an all user data was stolen. When there is a new website that gets hacked, and loses a massive list of email addresses and hashed passwords (that get cracked) enterprising people from certain geographic locations take those and run them across multiple logon services, generally games, and see if people are stupid enough to use the same password on multiple services. They are. So, switching to to Display name makes this a little harder. I may or may not know a little about this particular situation and it DOES make things more secure, they should never have used email as the unique identifier in the first place. Anyways. Check out the article below or over at the…