Gamers often go a long way to get what they want and this story from Massively explains just what some SWTOR fans will do to get their server to play on. We are never lacking for creative and ingenious gamers who find workarounds for all of their problems and issues. The early lack of Oceanic and Asian servers led some players to get creative and find their own method around it, using BioWare’s own system to their advantage. Many MMOs have unofficial servers for regions and rulesets, but pulling them together can take an incredible amount of work and still end up halfway done. However, Oceanic and Asian players wanted to make sure that they all rolled on the same server right on launch day, so guilds began to get in contact with each other and use BioWare’s own guild registration system to link Republic and Empire groups together in…
Species of Starwars: Nikto
The Nikto were a reptilian humanoid species from the planet Kintan in the Si’Klaata Cluster with many subspecies. They have tan, leathery skin and flat faces with multiple breathing holes on their cheeks and jawbones. Radiation from a nearby nova is believed to have sparked rampant mutation among the animal life of Kintan, and has resulted in the Nikto species encompassing a number of distinct sub-races. Four small horns protrude from the Nikto’s forehead. Nikto can be found throughout the galaxy, often involved with shady activities in the galaxy’s fringe. Of all the “client species” of the Hutt Cartel, the Nikto are regarded as the most dangerous, especially due to the actions of a fanatical and fatalistic cult that has long plagued the Nikto people. The Kajain’sa’Nikto, or “Red Nikto” are probably the most common. These desert dwellers are characterized by reddish pigmentation, small horns along the forehead and orbits of the…
SWTOR Flashpoints: New Player’s Guide
As a new SWTOR player, you need the basics of flashpoints so you can get started in the game and learn the ropes. This guide is designed to help you do just that. Here you can find all the information you need to get started and to advance in the game to become an intermediate player. It includes the basics to get you started. What this guide is not: This guide is not a specific breakdown or walk-through of any specific flashpoint. Rather, it is an overview of what you need to know to succeed in flashpoints, especially if you are new to the game. Let’s begin… First, you should know that flashpoints are the same thing as dungeons in other MMO games. This is where you’ll find the best loot drops and it’s where the hardest fights take place. Normally, you’ll get a quest for the flashpoint before entering…
Asia Pacific Server Names and Launch Timing
Are you looking for more information about launch timing for SWTOR launches in Asia? Now that the game is launching in several new territories, players from these regions are trying to learn more about the launch times, servers and more. Stephen Reid posted in the official forums about the Asia Pacific Server Names and Launch Timing: Good morning, or to those of you on the other side of the world, good morning… for tomorrow. This week we officially launch Star Wars: The Old Republic in several new territories, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. Lots of more information on all aspects of the launch will be released tomorrow in an update to our official FAQ, but as we’ve heard requests for server names and timing, we thought we’d give you those details a little earlier. Here’s our official launch timing. All servers will be online simultaneously at approx…
Jedi Consular Shadow Leveling Build – Use This And RACE To Level 50!
We Got another build for you today courteous of swtorsavior.com. This build also includes full rotations so you will pack a punch when using the Jedi Shadow. This is a leveling build (PVE) and is more geared towards DPS… Jedi Consular Shadow Leveling Build Here is a quick run through of the point allocation: Level 10 – Shadow’s Respite (1/2) Level 11 – Shadow’s Respite (2/2) Level 12 – Infiltration Tactics (1/3) Level 13 – Infiltration Tactics (2/3) Level 14 – Infiltration Tactics (3/3) Level 15 – Misdirection (1/3) Level 16 – Misdirection (2/3) Level 17 – Misdirection (3/3) Level 18 – Security Breach (1/2) Level 19 – Security Breach (2/2) Level 20 – Shadow Technique (1/1) Level 21 – Vigor (1/1) Level 22 – Circling Shadows (1/2) Level 23 – Circling Shadows (2/2) Level 24 – Masked Assault (1/1) Level 25 – Profundity (1/3) Level 26 – Profundity (2/3)…
Interview with Jennifer Hale
Have you seen the face of the voice behind Satele Shan? What about the female Sheppard in Mass Effect? Or the femtrooper in SWTOR? Yup, all voices are done by Jennifer Hale. She is an amazing voice actress who always goes above and beyond in the roles that she plays. If you are a Jennifer Hale fan, then you’re going to appreciate the exclusive interview over at TORWars this week. Recently, Deirdre from TORWars was able to sit down and pick the brain of the beautiful and talented Jennifer Hale and they’ve been kind enough to post the two-part video series on their site for fans to enjoy. Some topics of conversation? What it’s like to do voice acting for one of the biggest names in the video game industry, her singing career and more. There are two parts of the ongoing series now live and they say to check…
SWTOR for $39.99 on Amazon Deal of the Day
This just in from Amazon’s Deal of the Day today- SWTOR for only $39.99 and it ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. If you’ve been waiting to buy SWTOR until the price comes down, thinking about buying it for a friend or a family member or wanted to get yourself a second copy, this is the perfect time to get the savings on the initial purchase. You save $20 on the game when you buy- today only- from Amazon.com. This special price is for the standard edition. It is in stock and ships immediately after purchase. Platform: PC (Windows Vista / XP) Product Features (from Amazon listing) Platform: PC | Edition: Standard · Define Your Star Wars Saga – Choose from one of eight iconic roles · Choose the Light or Dark Side – Meaningful choices throughout your journey will determine the light or dark side · Adventure with Companions –…
TOR TV: False Emperor Hard Mode – 2 Man
The False Emperor takes place right after the Battle of Ilum and your faction obtaining Darth Severin’s stealth fighter. Your party uses this to invade Darth Malgus’s space station in order to take the fight to him. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Do not watch this unless you are ready to have the higher levels of Star Wars: The Old Republic shown to you!! Fappy and Dreary of the Krath Server walk you through the False Emperor flashpoint in SWTOR — 2 MAN!
SWTOR Scheduled Maintenance Tonight
This week will see SWTOR updates back on the regular Tuesday night schedule. There will not be a new patch this week, only regular maintenance. Here are the details. via the SWTORforums: Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performingscheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 from 2AMCST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PMGMT/1PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during thisperiod. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but couldbe extended. For our new players, this weekly maintenance is done in order to makegeneral improvements and to check performance of the game so that we cancontinue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but notalways) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. This weekthere will be no new patch, but we will be performing…
SWTOR Fans Build SWTOR-Themed Beer Pong Table
Are you looking for something fun to do on patch day? Why not enjoy some SWTOR-themed beer pong? These two friends built their very own beer pong table inspired by the two sides in SWTOR. It’s a bit crude, but we got a kick out of it and if someone else is bringing the beer, we’d sure join in, too. Not sure what beer pong is? First, what planet have you beenliving on and secondly, you can read the officialrules of beer pong from The NationalBeer Pong League (yes, there is even a World Series of Beer Pong). Here are the basics of beer pong People Needed: 2 or 4 people(head to head or 2 on 2) What you need to play: (14) 12 ounce plastic cups (6 per team and 2 water cups) (2) Ping-pong balls (preferably more incase one gets broken or lost) (2-4) 12 ounce beverages per game A flat level…
Guardian Angel: Getting Geared Up for End Game on the Republic Side
So you’ve made it 50, you completed your story quests(even the ones on Ilum), and you’re sitting around wondering, “What do I do now?”. You’d like to run hard mode flash points or start going on operations, but the people spamming in general chat keep saying something about needing “geared” group mates. How does one go about accomplishing the task of becoming “geared”? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Being a fresh Republic 50 in Star Wars: The Old Republic can be a somewhat frustrating experience if you don’t know what you’re doing. Here are a few simple steps that should help you transition from you under-modded orange gear to some well earned purples. Dailies: Daily quest will be your first step in your quest to gear yourself out for end game content. As the name might suggest, daily missions can be repeated once a day. The first set…
The Guild Sphere: Imperium
Today I had the chance to talk with Council Member Kirai from the guild Imperium. Imperium is a hardcore guild that does pve and pvp very frequently – pritty much all week. Currently The guild is close to 300 members and have been around since pre-release on the Krath-US West server. The guild Have an awesomely designed guild site (imperiumtor.com) and are currently working on getting an podcast running. Check out the interview below: Where did your guilds name come from? Latin for Power to command Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild? Large, pantless, hardcore raiding guild, we run 3 raid groups almost every day of the week and have a pvp squad as well. Were laid back when not raiding but while raiding its no-bull shit zone and meaningless stuff isn’t tolerated. Otherwise were a fun entertaining guild all above 18+ one of…
SWTOR Faction Balance and Population Numerical Data
Here’s some really interesting information about US PvE/RP servers regarding faction balance and population. If you love data (like me), you’re going to appreciate this one. There’s not a lot of current information out about the server population. Which servers are over populated? Which servers are dead? Are you looking to join a server that will have people to play with regularly or do you want a low-pop server where you can just do your own thing? This is valuable information for any gamer and a poster at Reddit has helped us out with some data: That being said, there has being hardly any numerical data on the server population and Imperial/Republic balance. Bioware is unlikely to release this data anytime soon, if ever. I went to 79 PVE/RP servers and created two level 1 characters per server over the span of 3-4 days and recorded the population data for…
Memes of the week: February 20 – 26
Memes like “Advice Animals” and “Rage Comics” have been big part of social media the last year. On some websites like Tumblr and Reddit they have become so big that many is starting to find them annoying. Some might ague that subreddits have been destroyed by the amount of these memes being submitted. Examples of now useless subreddits is r/gaming and r/wow. Many reddit moderators have therefor taken a stand against these memes. This includes the moderators on r/swtor . This action is both good and bad, as might keep the subreddit way more clean and easy to navigate, but it also goes against the nature of reddit, and many good jokes never get to see the light of the day. So tarting today, we will bring you a weekly recap of memes that you never got to see. Philosoraptor on SWTOR: By AppleJuiceCookies Unimpressed Sith. By donnymocker Saw this odd glitch last night. By Novogrod The truth about death in SWTOR: By captapocalypse Regarding…
Community Q&A: Feb 24th 201
It’s time for the Community Q&A again and this week, some really interested questions were asked and answered by official staff of BioWare. It’s all laid out on the community blog but here’s a snippet of the questions: Chyp: Can we expect to see any animation/damage timing consistency changes between factions? Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): Yes. The animation team has been working on a new set of animations for abilities like the Trooper’s Mortar Volley to provide closer matching of animation timings and improved combat responsiveness. We expect to roll these changes out with Game Update 1.2. Zennis: Has there been any discussion to streamlining the Space Port process? Perhaps allowing speeders in the Space Ports besides the Fleet? Brian Audette (Senior Designer): We’ve absolutely heard what the fans are saying and have been exploring options to address these issues. While we are still investigating allowing speeder use…
SWTOR Players Average 4 Hour Sessions
According to Greg Zeschuk, head of BioWare Austin, the average SWTOR player plays for four to six hours per session. This is a startling number to non-gamers but not so shocking to those who enjoy spending some quality time in a good MMO. “When they play, their sessions are absurd,” Greg Zeschuk said in a recent interview. “What it implies is that we’ve managed to pull off this ‘just-one-more-quest, just-one-more-thing’ feeling. I find myself doing that all the time. I just get sucked back in. The playing of the game is off the charts.”” Many of us who have been playing for awhile now can understand this first-hand. Really, isn’t this what every MMO strives for? When you add the story elements that BioWare has in SWTOR, it’s easy to see how players can get sucked in for that “one more thing” and end up playing for several hours. In…
Penny Arcade Report Interviews BioWare Founders
Penny Arcade’s Report column has an interesting interview with the BioWare founders. Drs. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka visited with Penny Arcade editor in a nice hotel suite in Las Vegas doing yet another interview for the press. These guys never seem to mind talking about what they do and sharing info and fun with the fans. Ben Kuchera interviews the doctors and talks about TOR launch, ending a trilogy and what many people are asking- will there be a Mass Effect MMO: “We’re the fastest-growing MMO in history, and it’s really a credit to our fans,” Muzyka said. “The launch was fantastic.” Taking on World of WarCraft was considered a near impossibility in the world of online games, but Bioware has the strength of the Star Wars brand alongside the company’s ability to tell wonderful stories. It’s a hard game to say no to, even for MMO beginners like…
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Passes $1 Billion at Box Office
Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace has officially joined the very exclusive ranks of movies that passed the $1 billion mark. With $1,000,447,819 worldwide, Phantom Menace is the 11th film to reach this milestone and the first in the Star Wars series. Before its current 3D re-release, The Phantom Menace had about $926.1 million worldwide but thanks to a strong $74.3 million gathered across the world in this year, the once mythical billion dollar threshold was finally reached. To think that back in 1999 we only had a single film over that mark, Titanic, while today we have 11 and the number is sure to grow fast in the future thanks to 3D and the constant rise of movie ticket prices. Now The Phantom Menace might not be considered the most worthy of the six Star Wars flicks to reach such heights but realistically speaking, it was the…
How to Master Huttball: SWTOR PvP Guide
When you load into your first Huttball game, you may be totally confused. It may seem like a very complicated game but in reality, it’s pretty simple after you get the hang of it. Huttball isn’t a typical PvP scenario in the sense that killing isn’t your main objective. Instead, your main focus is on scoring goals. Think football meets an army obstacle course and you begin to get an idea of what you’ll be dealing with. You’ll have to deal with many obstacles such as multiple levels, fire pits and of course other players. You have to remember that your main goal is to score points. If your team has the ball, help get it to the other team’s pit and if the opposing team has the ball, kill them or intercept the ball. Whichever team has the most points at the end of the game, wins. If there…
TOR TV: PTR Patch 1.1.5 – Showing New Crystals, Shader Settings, /Random, & Speeder Price Reduction
This video shows the new PTR Patch 1.1.5 changes where /random functionality, new high-end preorder crystals, very low shader complexity were added and high end speeder costs were reduced. This video was created on February 24th, 2012, the same day the patch was released to the PTR. Any future changes are not reflected within. This is an additional change featured in PTR patch 1.1.5 that showcases the unnamed crystal vendor as well as the items sold by the vendor. This video was created on February 24th, 2012, the same day the patch was released to the PTR. Any future changes are not reflected within.
Zombie Star Wars Cosplay
This photo was taken on February 18, 2012 using a Nikon Coolpix S205. Who would survive a zombie apocalypse in a galaxy far, far away? These two might have some answers. Vill4no grabbed this awesome photo of zombie Star Wars cosplayers at Megacon 2012. This looked to be an awesome event and while this isn’t the only great photo he got, it was by far by favorite. In fact, it’s my favorite Star Wars cosplay yet! Check out his full photostream on Flickr for more great pics from the event- including more Star Wars (The Emperor, droids, dark side R2, jawas), Link, Drunk Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, Punisher, Batgirl and many more.
SWTOR PvP Healing Gripe: Long Player Names and Titles
There have been many gripes about SWTOR thus far and a lot of them I agree with. In some ways, it’s because the game is new and BioWare still needs to make some tweaks and changes for everything to roll out properly. In other ways, it’s just because gamers will forever complain about PvP until the end of time. It’s the nature of the beast. But some recent complaints I’ve heard about healing in PvP don’t make sense to me. I’ve read it on the forums and this user Darchseraph on Reddit posts: As a healer I find myself missing a lot of heals that result in people dying because I simply can’t click select my heal target. Yes, you can choose directly from Op screen, but sometimes there are multiple people getting low, but only 1 or 2 actively taking damage. I have to look at both screen and…
Understanding the Galactic Trade Network in SWTOR
If you have yet to use the Galactic Trade Network (GTN) in SWTOR, you might not realize yet that it is not an Auction House. Those who come from WoW or similar MMORPGs may be used to the auction house format but BioWare has done something different with the GTN. Different is not necessarily better for a lot of players. The GTN works by allowing the player to post an item for sale at a fixed price, along with every other player’s items. An auction house system allows players to post items with a minimum bid and lets the other players bid up to as much as they want for the duration of the auction- or to get it instantly with a “buy now” price. This isn’t the only difference with the GTN model compared to the models most MMOers are used to. The search function is also a bit…
Media launch of SWTOR to Australia on March 1st
It’s official and SWTOR will be launching to Australia on March 1st. That’s just a few days away and while there is no public launch event for the Aussies, BioWare and EA Australia do have a few things in mind to ring in the big day. TOROZ.com.au covers the news as well as an “ask Gabe a question” event that will take place at the launch. There will be a small press event in Sydney on the 1st with a special guest, BioWare’s Lead PvP Designer: Gabe Amatangelo. TOROZ is attending the launch and will have some time to speak with Gabe and ask him questions from the community so if you have a question you want them to ask, head on over to their site and leave it in the comments. They will be choosing the best questions for their interview session with Gabe. Read more at TOROZ and…