Coming off of last year’s wildly successful Star Wars themed Passat Super Bowl commercial, Volkswagen is out to continue that success once again. Ahead of the big game on February 5th, the automaker has just released this new teaser featuring another bit of Star Wars reference, only this time it features dogs and not a nine-year-old kid.You have to listen carefully (we had to listen twice to pick up on it), but the canine chorus is barking a very familiar tune. VW claims that the commercial will all make sense come game day. Until then, the teaser is a great laugh and we’ll see if this intergalactic canine bark fest can beat out last year’s fantastic young Darth Vader commercial.
Star Wars: Old Republic plans to cater to casual fans
Casual fans will be happy to hear the news that BioWare is planning new future content to high level casual players. With so many games pushing to the hardcore fans and players, it’s nice to also see a game that address the casual players- those in school, moms and dads with jobs and family responsibilities or those players who are also playing other games at the same time. Speaking to VideoGamer.com, the MMO’s lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo stated in the future he hopes to introduce new elements that will help high-level casual players play through difficult content the game. “…One thing I wanted was to make the Normal mode very accessible to casual players,” he explained. In the interview, he says they have plans to regularly release new Flashpoints, new planets, and other solo content in the future. He describes the process that goes into creating the content that…
SWTOR’s New Patch Created a Mess on Ilum
While some were celebrating the new patch today (SWTOR Patch 1.1), others were frustratingly being farmed on Ilum as they attempted to complete daily and weekly PvP quests. What resulted was a bit of a disaster if you’re on the wrong side. And even if you weren’t, it created some pretty severe system load from all of those people in one area. “”We’re currently investigating potential issues related to the Ilum open world PvP area post-1.1. We understand that this is a topic of much discussion and we ask that you please direct all discussions to this thread,” writes Joveth Gonzalez on the official SWTOR forums. He also reminds everyone of the forum rules when posting on this issue: “As always, we ask that the community keep the following things on mind when responding: No insults, name calling, or personal attacks Please stay on topic. If someone violates the Rules…
EA Has Invested Half a BILLION Dollars in Star Wars
In a story at MarketWatch.com, we learn a bit of interesting news about SWTOR. It’s an article/interview about Electronic Arts’ CEO Riccitiello, 52, but contains a fun tidbit about the BioWare hit of the year- SWTOR. According to the source: In a Dec. 23 statement, EA boasted that “The Old Republic” had attracted more than 1 million registered subscribers in just three days on the market. Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. says that Riccitiello’s tenure as CEO has featured misfires along with its successes but that “Star Wars” may represent his biggest bet of all, considering both the purchase price of BioWare/Pandemic and the development costs poured into the game since then. “I think it’s safe to say that the total all-in investment in ‘Star Wars’ is probably approaching half a billion dollars,” Creutz says. “EA has minimized its risks as much as it can on this bet, but…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Patch 1.1
SWTOR’s first major game update is now live! The updates goes under the name ‘Rise of the Rakghouls’ and features a number of additions to the game, including a brand new Flashpoint titled ‘Kaon Under Siege’ and an expansion to the ‘Karagga’s Palace’ Operation that more than triples its size! In addition to the new playable content and new item sets that you can acquire, Game Update 1.1 includes a number of bug and other various fixes which you can see in detail in the Game Update 1.1 Patch Notes below: Edit. SWTOR-Tanking.com did a small video going over the patch notes: General Anti-aliasing is now available and can be enabled in the preferences menu. Classes and Combat General Healing caused by crowd control abilities no longer generates threat. Tooltips for abilities modified by skill points now display correct damage values. Guard This ability now transfers to a new friendly target without…
March Update Will be Huge for SWTOR
While we were all awaiting Patch 1.1, which was delayed, there is news that in the not-too-far future, there will be a huge update for SWTOR. The second release, planned for March, is expected to be much bigger in scope- “huge” in fact, in terms of what it will add to the game. SWTOR Game director James Ohlen, who told CVG in a recent interview that Game Update 2 will include three major pieces of content, as well as “full” Legacy game content. He tells CVG: “Game Update 2 is much bigger in scope. It’s further out from launch, so we can have much more of the team focused on it. There’s Part 2 of Rise of the Rakghouls, a brand new planet called Denova which has an 8-16 man Operation and a new Warzone. “We might also be able to get some new space game missions into it. In…
HeroEngine Technology, Critical to SWTOR’s Successful Launch Now Used by Thousands of Game Developers
The HeroEngine Technology that was so critical to the development of SWTOR and its success which follows is not helping with many other video games across the industry. Thousands of game developers are now finding a way to make use of this technology in their own games. Business Wire reports: “Developers are seeing a significantly reduced time to market. The Star Wars MMO was a major, multi-year undertaking, but other MMO games have shipped on our platform in as little as 15 months.” HeroEngine Technology was designed to help with large multiplayer scalable games like SWTOR. It has development tools that allow real time updates and that helps streamline the process of creating the game. But BioWare is not the only game developer to take advantage of this technology. More from Business Wire: There are already thousands of developers using HeroCloud and according to President and COO Neil Harris, “Developers…
Republic Trooper Interview of Jeff Dobson
Graphics are a huge part of any MMO and it’s something that I look for when choosing a video game to play. Good graphics greatly enhance the gameplay. SWTOR has a lot to be proud of when it comes to the animation and visual effects of the game. The art team at Bioware did an excellent job with the graphics but I sometimes wonder how it’s even possible to create such amazing artwork. RepublicTrooper.com went right to the source and did an interview with Jeff Dobson, TORs Art Director to ask a few of the questions that gamers like me often wonder about but never have the opportunity to ask. One of the questions Republic Trooper asked was “How many different types of artists are there and what are their roles?” Dobson answered by saying, “We have concept artists, character artists, environment artists, VFX artists, GUI artists, animators, and technical…
Tuesday 1/17/2012 Maintenance Delayed
Today’s scheduled SWTOR Update has now been delayed to a future date. Here is the official news from Amber Green, Live Community Coordinator via the Official Forums: Hello everyone! Because we careabout ensuring that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ provides you with aconsistent and quality game play experience, we will be postponing weeklymaintenance this week. Downtime was originally scheduled for Tuesday, January17th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AMPST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET) and will now occur at a later date due to issuesrequiring additional testing that have been discovered with the Game Update 1.1content on the Public Test Server. These issues were primarily brought to our attention by the diligent players onthe Public Test Server Forums. Your participation in testinghelps to improve the game as a whole, and we appreciate your discussion andfeedback. The bug reports you provide are a valuable part of the…
TOR TV: 2V-R8 Infomercial
Imperial players have 2V-R8 and Republic players have C2-N2. Both of them are known to be most annoying thing in SWTOR. Some people find them so annoying that they are afraid to enter their ship. Wish they add the disable option for for this retarded robot. Pro tip, below this video is a elegant pathing to avoid conversation…
Bioware Puts Focus on story-based Flashpoints for SWTOR Future
Stay Classy, Consular… It has been almost a month since the release of SWTOR and the first patch, 1.1 is due out next week. Many players, like me, are anxious to know what new content the patch will add to the game. Some players love all the MMO instances they can get so they can fight bad guys for loot and XP to level up faster. Others prefer story based flashpoints where they can concentrate more on their character. It really depends on the player and your gamer style. Gamesradar.com interviewed Bioware Gabe Amatangelo and asked the question, “Do you think, moving forward, you’ll be focusing on the story-based flashpoints more than the traditional MMO-style instances?” Amatangelo answered by saying, “We’re taking a look at metrics, but we’re inclined to do more of the story ones.” How do you feel about that answer? Are you excited to hear Bioware’s upcoming…
BioWare Says LFG System is in the Works
The group locator system in SWTOR can use a little work. Okay, actually… it can use a lot of work. A group finder or LFG system is very important in MMORPGs where it is an essential part of the game. There is nothing more annoying that wanting to do a quest or group phase and having to sit around spamming in the general chat channel looking for people to help you out. This is boring and time-consuming and it can be frustrating enough to affect the overall appeal of the game. This is why BioWare says they are already in the works on an improved LFG system. GameZone reports how BioWare says this is high on their list of features to add to the game: “”Improving our LFG system is high on the list of features that Systems Design wants to add to the game,” said BioWare’s Damion Schubert. “We…
Intergalactic Intel: Wow Vs Swtor
Intergalactic Intel: WoW vs Swtor “Did you see that image on reddit?” I starred in disbelief at my friend. Over half of reddit are just images. “Why don’t you be more specific? Describe the image. Tell me what sub-reddit it’s on.” “It was posted on /r/wow. It compared the sith Juggernaut and Warrior class. They’re the same thing!” I looked at my friend with a raised eye brow. I knew where this conversation was headed. Welcome back to Intergalactic Intel! I feel like it’s time to address the elephant in the room. World of Warcaft’s influence on Star Wars: The Old Republic. This is going to be a long blog post, over two weeks.The idea of this blog is to not have a clear cut, “X is better than Y”. It’s to show the differences between the two games. So let’s get to it. Abilities: People claim that almost all…
Official SWTOR Server Forums Coming This Week
Allison Berryman, Senior Community Coordinator had an interesting update in the official forums about forum changes coming next week. All in all, it looks like the changes will help make the forums easier for everyone involved to use. One of the biggest changes- server forums are being implemented. Here’s more from Allison: In the layout we have now, things like Guild Recruitment and Server Events are spread out and can be difficult to locate. We’ve also seen some requests for places on the forums where players can go to discuss things more closely with others on their particular server, and for a place for suggestions for the game. To start addressing some of these concerns, we will introduce a new forum section: Server Group Forums, and will place the Suggestion Box back in its rightful place under General Discussion. The Server Group Forums will be divided by server type (PvE,…
Flashpoint Locations, Levels, and Gear in One Handy Infographic
Do you wish that you knew where to find all the SWTOR flashpoints, levels and gear? Wouldn’t it be great if you had it all in one handy location to help you know what was where and how to get there to find it? Well, of course it wouldn’t be long before someone came along and made something like that for SWTOR. In fact, it’s not even a month after the official launch and we are seeing many great tools and tricks to help gamers get more out of their experience. Here’s a handy infographic we stumbled upon that will give you all the flashpoint locations, levels and gear in one location. Save it, bookmark it and refer to it often as you need. If you come across any handy tools like this for SWTOR (or if you make them yourself), be sure to let us know so we can…
TOR TV: Crew Skills Guide
Youtube User MrSamDoolan recently made a basic crew skills guide designed to help out newer players who don’t completely understand the concept of crew skills and what they do. Crew skills are TOR’s equivalent to professions from other MMO’s. It focuses on sending your companions out to perform tasks for you in order to progress your skill in your chosen crew skills. Link to the linked crew skills image can be found in his latest blog post so make sure to check it out! Also remember to follow MrSamDoolan on Twitter. 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
Newbie SWTOR FAQ: What You Need to Know
So you’re new to SWTOR and you’ve got questions; we have the answers. Whether you are afraid to ask in general chat or don’t trust the answers you might get, we’ve got your back so don’t worry about it. This guide is meant to be a simple newbie FAQ for SWTOR. While it’s not meant to answer every question you may have about the game or to cover every aspect of it in detail, it’s a great overview for the new player. Even if you’ve played other MMORPGs (such as WoW), you’re going to find some differences in SWTOR that will make a difference from the very start. For example, while the UI and controls are familiar, there are other aspects of the game that are different enough that you might find yourself making some big mistakes early on if you don’t take the time to read up on what…
Rise of the Rakghouls, Patch 1.1 Overview
Patch 1.1, Rise of the Rakghouls update will be going live on Tuesday, January 17th and if you’re like us, you probably want to know exactly what’s coming. This is the first big update for SWTOR and there are several different official interviews and other occasions where BioWare staff has spoken out and given us details of what we can expect. They’ve also told us that we can expect to have more regular updates and patches like this to come in the future. So here’s a look at some snippets of those sources and whatthey say we can expect on Tuesday: Rise of the Rakghouls – James Ohlen Rise of the Rakghouls is our first content release. It includes an extension toKaragga’s Palace, which is one of the operations in our release game. It’squite a huge extension. In the initial release of Karagga’s Palace, we only hada single boss monster….
Ohlen to Eurogamer: SWTOR More Innovative Than an FPS
Some people don’t believe that SWTOR is all that innovative in terms of the gaming industry but game director James Ohlen begs to differ. He says to Eurogamer that SWTOR is more innovative than an FPS and then discusses the ways they have made strides in the industry but also why as an MMORPG, SWTOR is not too different. “It’s been a little bit of an unfair characterisation,” Ohlen remarked to Eurogamer. “”Because if you look at other game genres, if you look at a Battlefield or a Call of Duty or a Gears of War or even a Half-Life – those games use the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true game mechanics of the first-person shooter genre that’s been around for 20 years. Again, all very valid points. So many comparisons have been made between SWTOR and WoW and some believe that SWTOR is…
What Culture Review of SWTOR
So what do you think of SWTOR so far? Are you loving it or still deciding whether or not you want to drop the cash on it? If you’ve tried MMOs before, you know what a time and money sink they can be and that can be frustrating if the game turns out to be a disappointment. This is where great reviews come in handy. The problem with MMO reviews is that the games are so large and multi-faceted that it’s difficult to get all the important info you need into one review. This is why the best reviews are thorough and in-depth and broken into different sections to fully describe the different parts of the game. Here’s another excellent and thorough review of SWTOR from What Culture. We feel it fully covers what you want from a great MMO review and it’s more than worth your time to give…
SWTOR Trick to Improve Graphic Performance
If you want to correct the high resolution texture issue that a lot of people are complaining about with SWTOR, then there is a little trick you can do to improve your graphic performance in the game. For some people, it might be too much trouble just to correct some shiny floors but for those who are comfortable with tweaking their settings, it’s a fairly simple process. *Keep in mind that adjusting your settings is done at your own risk. * You can change the settings for your SWTOR profile GPU profile. The idea is to is to force your ‘LOD Bias’ to -3. Nvidia Inspector is freeware that will help NVIDIA users. ATI Tray Tools is freeware that will help if you have an ATI GPU. Once you have these tools installed, go to the 3D settings and choose “additional” (should be a tab for it) and then set…
BioWare Developing SWTOR for the Longterm Future
We all know that for SWTOR to continue to be as successful as it has been on launch, they will need to do a lot more work on developing future content. Of course, BioWare knows this, too and they are already working on it. In an article on PC Gamer, they reveal that they are working on content right now that we won’t see for at least a year or more. “Our writers are working on content you won’t see for over a year,” game director James Ohlen told PC Gamer. “We have a lot of plans. Because of the voice overs, cinematics and moving parts, we have to look way into the future.” This makes sense considering the game took so many years to fully develop in the first place and that it has so many different elements that must go into it. “We want to show our fans…
Ohlen Shares Details of SWTOR Legacy System
Lots of people are talking about the SWTOR Legacy System and I have to admit myself that it is a pretty cool implement to the game. I have seen far too many people (on my server, at least) trying to abuse it by creating names that are in violation but other than that, I really like the idea of it and the concept itself. But if you have questions about the Legacy System, you are not alone. Due to this, James Ohlen took some time to sit down with the guys over at GameSpot and answer some questions about the Legacy System now and plans for it in the future as well. Here’s a snippet: GS: In terms of the legacy system, how much can you say about the features we can expect out of that? JO: So the legacy system, it’s kind of inspired by the fact that the…
TOR TV: I Used to Be a Field Operative Just Like You…
The Skyrim “Arrow in the Knee” meme was all over the internet for the last few month of 2011. So much that gamers now grit their teeth every time someone beats this dead horse. Let’s give this old meme an official farewell and introduce a new one from Star Wars: The old republic. Its like the arrow to the knee reference but this guy got a lightsaber… to the lungs…