Here it is… the new SWTOR controller 3.o. It has everything you need for a hilarious, I mean, fun time playing the class of your choice. You may need to make the image bigger to see all the details but we think you’ll like it as much as we did. The Hatred Assassin, for example, has the “Instant win” button. It also has buttons for resetting the battle the 1st, 2nd and 3rd time. Lightning Sorc has the “ForceSpam” button and don’t forget about all of those LOLs. All in all, it’s a pretty hilarious diagram and we know our readers can appreciate it as well. Thank yous go out to Xinikos on Reddit for the heads-up and some of the commenters there have some pretty good ideas of their own. If you had a custom controller to play SWTOR, what would your functions be?
SWTOR
SWTOR Ranked third most popular MMORPG by the Xfire community in 2014
According to the Xfire community Star Wars: The Old Republic did very well on their final ranking for Digital Dozen. The scores were calculated by taking each weeks rank for the game and the games average ranking. If a game was not in the top 12 it did not end up on the list, giving it a score of zero. SWTOR ranked number 3 on the top 12. Its score in 2013 was 10.1 and rank was 3. The score for 2014 is 9.4 and the number of weeks that it was in the rankings is 52. The score for SWTOR did not drop nearly as much as its rival Guild Wars 2. SWTOR had an amazing strength during the last part of 2014 and took the number 2 spot away from GW2 in the last week of the year, after Bioware included new content, such as Shadow of Revan….
SWTOR Stays at the 14 most played PC game in December 2014
It’s that time again to take a look at Raptr’s Top 20 Rankings and where our beloved SWTOR placed at the end of last year. According to the stats, Star Wars: The Old Republic close the year out as the 14th most played PC game. This isn’t the best ranking but it certainly beats out not being on the list at all. SWTOR released Shadow of Revan in December and the play time jumped by 33.35%. This is probably because of the release which gave Star Wars fans something new to be excited about! LoL closed off the year in the number one spot, no big surprise there! The play time for LoL jumped by 30.09% in December. Other notable games in the rankings are WoW which placed second, Dragon Age: Inquisition placed 6th and raised in the charts by 4 spots! Overall, SWTOR finished out the year of 2014…
Pokket to Leave BioWare
If you missed the SWTOR stream this week, you also missed the big news that Pokket (Hillary Nicole) will be leaving Bioware. Pokket joined Bioware Austin as their new Community Coordinator. Her job was to help maintain relationships with fan sites, guilds, streamers and more. She also worked to build community relations and any other aspect of the SWTOR community. She posted this image and message to her Instagram after the stream: “Had fun on the #SWTOR stream. Thanks for the carry, y’all. Sorry for the bittersweet news. In case you missed it, next week is my last week at Bioware. /pout I’ll still be going to PAX South, though, as myself ofc ^o^ :D” While she is not saying the reason for leaving Bioware at this time, it is speculated that she was brought on for a contract job and not full-time employment so it could just be that her contract has…
Massively’s Prediction for SWTOR in 2015
Everyone listen up! We have found an awesome story by Massively and their predictions of the Star Wars: The Old Republic game that is said to be releasing sometime this year by BioWare. They have made five awesome predictions and we are crossing our fingers that they are true! If you love Star Wars, which you must if you are reading our post, you NEED to read this story. Here is an excerpt and a link at the bottom. Have fun! It’s that time again to make my educated guesses on what BioWare will attempt to accomplish in the coming year with Star Wars: The Old Republic. In the last Hyperspace Beacon, I gave my grade card for how I think 2014 went, but now I extinguish the Force ghost of Christmas past and get a visit from the blue-glowy of Christmas yet to come. I don’t always get everything…
SWTOR Performance Status Update
As promised last week, the SWTOR team is releasing more details on the ability delay and server lag, we all have been experiencing since game update 3.0 . Below wall of text is a good example of being transparent and informative without going overboard. Thank you Eric, now let’s keep it up all year. EricMusco Performance Status Update | 01.09.2015, 04:11 PM Hey folks, As I mentioned in my post last week, we have been working hard on assessing and figuring out how to address the “lag” issues which have been prominent since Game Update 3.0 went live. After speaking with our engineers, we thought the following would help explain what’s happening and what we are doing to address the issues: What The Problems Are Here are some of the issues that players have been experiencing since the launch of Game Update 3.0: Server performance: Ability delay, Latency issues Client performance:…
SWTOR Drops 2 Places in Raptr’s Most Played
While it’s still in the top 15, SWTOR has sadly dropped two ranks in the Raptr’s Most Played list this month. This means it moved from 12th place to 14th, which really isn’t a super large jump. Some big names topped the list in November, which could explain SWTOR getting bumped down two slots. Also, the release of WoW’s new expansion means it sits comfortably in the #2 spot, just below the ever-popular League of Legends. 3rd place is DOTA 2 and CS:GO brought up the 4th place spot. Spider Solitaire – Play Free Game Online is not on the list. Raptr credits this drop in ranks to some of the new titles that have been released (no surprise) especially to WoW’s new expansion. Another funny fact: “For the first time since October 2013, Spider Solitaire made its way back into Most Played. Turns out Thanksgiving isn’t just about turkey,…
Training cost is a thing of the past in SWToR
Bioware’s community manager Eric Musco, posted a very interesting thread at the official forums today relating to training costs. Musco, responding to a number of fan threads requesting the removal of training costs from the game, decided to take action and bring forward the suggestion to developers for consideration. After discussing the matter internally, they decided to remove training costs all together! So,when you login next week you won’t be required to pay any credits for your training! Eric’s complete post follows below: Hey folks, Let’s talk a bit about training costs for your characters abilities. One thing has become clear from the player feedback in not only this thread, but since launch: players do not like training costs. It is a situation where every level you will see your hard earned credits go to a holographic Hutt doctor in order to make yourself a bit stronger. We have been talking about…
Game Update 3.0: Shadow of Revan Early Access
The day we were waiting is finally here! “Shadow of Revan” is now available for download for anyone who purchased the expansion before November 2, 2014. The rest will have to wait until December 9 to get full access to Bioware’s latest expansion. Some highlights: All levels can now reach Level 60 New locations added – Yavin IV and Rishi Two new level 56-60 flashpoints Two new level 60 operations Dromund Kaas and Coruscant Strongholds can now be purchased for 3 credits! New class system (disciplines) Players can now send 6 Companions on Crafting Missions at level 56 (up from 5). …and much, much more! I have to admit that the list of changes is quite extensive and it does seem that Bioware took community’s feedback to heart. A lot of the features listed on their post are things that prominent members of the community have being asking for quite some time….
TOR Radio : A galaxy of podcasts
TOR Radio is back with the latest and greatest SWToR podcasts from across the community. With the imminent release of Patch 3.0 a lot of podcasts are focusing on upcoming changes and various community news. It’s certainly encouraging to see new SWToR community podcasts launching like “HOPE cast” and “Beyond the Stars” listed below. 1. Bad feeling podcast – Episode 42 (Released: Nov.24,2014) : Even though the crew of the podcast took of this week due to Thanksgiving but still managed to publish a “best of” podcast. 2. Star Wars Beyond the Stars – Episode 12 (Released: Nov.15,2014) : This week the show hit a little snag in our editing process so the show is coming out pretty late in the week. “Beyond the stars” discussed quite a few interesting things in this week’s off topic rants. 3. Corellian Run Radio – Special Episode (Released: Nov.24,2014) : Join Jason and Heather as they share their…
Cartel Market Black Friday deals are now live!
During a recent livestream Bioware’s Community manager Eric Musco, mentioned that in-game Cartel Market store will be receiving some discounted deals due to Black Friday. While originally there were rumors that these deals will change from hour to hour, it doesn’t seem to be the case with the offers listed below. Other than Eric’s mention during the official livestream, we haven’t heard anything else from Bioware so there could be more coming our way (Cyber Monday is just around the corner after all). Currently the following deals are offered through the in-game store: Hypercrate: Freelancer’s Bounty Pack – 5500 CC – 28% OFF Hypercrate: Enforcer’s Contraband Pack – 5500 – 20% OFF Hypercrate: Blockade Runner’s Cartel pack – 5500 – 25% OFF Hypercrate: Gatekeeper’s Stronghold Pack – 2520 – 50% OFF Black and Black Dye Module – 1500 CC – 25% OFF White and White Dye Module – 750 CC –…
SWToR Stats: 1 million active players, 57 million characters created and that’s just the beginning!
Bioware published a very nice infographic today providing random stats about the game and to thank SWTOR fans for their support. SWToR’s anniversary is approaching fast and the Austin-based developer is definitely increasing its community presence with frequent releases about Shadow of Revan and hopefully more reflections about the three years of the game’s existence.
Patch 3.0 commendation conversion rates announced
Community manager Eric Musco posted today some additional information relating to how Patch 3.0 is going to affect commendations. In response to his post a number of different fansites have posted online commendation calculators where you can calculate how the changes are going to affect you. The changes in detail: Here goes everyone. Here is the information on the conversion rates around Basic Comms and what will happen when 3.0 launches. Just to reiterate for those unaware, here are the basic changes coming to Commendations: All PvE Commendations will become Basic Commendations in 3.0. The Commendation types “Classic” and “Planetary” are being removed from the game. The types “Elite” and “Ultimate” will remain but the current Comms you have will become Basic. Warzone and Ranked Warzone Commendations remain untouched. Here are the conversion rates for all Commendations. 2 Classic Commendations = 1 Basic Commendation 1 Basic Commendation = 1 Basic Commendation…
Meta Preview: SWToR Shadow of Revan
With the imminent release of Shadow of Revan, Bioware’s PR department is working overtime. A number of different fansites were invited to take a look at SWToR’s upcoming expansion and write their thoughts about it. In addition, EA’s “The Beat” column also devoted a complete article on the upcoming expansion, along with well-established gaming sites that published their reviews. Below you will find links to all the before-mentioned articles Electronic Arts: Dig Into SWToR Shadow of Revan Gamefront: Shadow of Revan Puts The Old Republic’s Focus Squarely on Story IGN.com : Revan is out for blood in SWToR’s new expansion MMOBomb.com : Darth Times Ahead – our SWToR: Shadow of Revan Preview MMORPG.com: Star Wars: The Old Republic Previews: Shadow of Revan – A Look at Flashpoints ShackNews: The Old Republic – Shadow of Revan preview: sins of the past Swtorista: Shadow of Revan Developer Q&A Swtorista: Shadow of Revan Press Event Coverage at EA…
Is SWToR canon or not?
One of the questions that has been asked multiple times since Disney announced the acquisition of Lucasfilm was whether SWToR should be treated as canon or not. Multiple attempts to get it answered, resulted in a number of vague replies. The most recent that we can remember was during Bioware’s Cantina tour in Seattle, where community manager Eric Musco told us that SWToR is Star Wars. Fortunately, Gamefront.com posed the same question to SWTOR Senior Producer Bruce MacLean and Executive Producer Jeff Hickmanand. The website managed to get a somewhat better answer than most of us have gotten so far. It appears that the relationship between EA and Disney’s Star Wars Story group is still in its infancy. It does sound though that Disney hasn’t made a firm decision on what SWToR/KOToR is. They certainly wouldn’t want to interrupt the amazing storytelling that Bioware has done so far while at the same time…
Developer Blogs: Game Update 3.0 Class Changes: Shadow + Assassin
Bioware is continuing the release of Patch 3.0 information in their official website. This time around, their developer blog is focusing on Shadow and Assassin changes as part of the upcoming expansion. As always, they pointed out that the intent of developer blogs as they relate to advanced classes is not to capture every single change but to provide an overview. In specific: Force Potency is the most significant Jedi Consular change, that allows it to increase the critical chance of other channeled Force abilities like it already does for Telekinetic Throw. Forcequake, Cascading Debris, and Healing Trance (in addition to Telekinetic Throw) all now have their critical chance increased by Force Potency, and each use of these channels will consume one charge of Force Potency
Game update Patch Notes 2.10.3
Live Date: November 11, 2014 Highlights Bounty Contract Week Returns! Hunt wanted criminals in this returning event. The event begins November 11th at 4 AM PST/12:00 GMT and ends November 18th at 4 AM PST/12:00 GMT. General Guild Flagships will no longer vanish into the inky abyss of space, so players will no longer lose access to them. The Pending Mission Reward queue now has a cap of 3 Missions. Players are no longer able to accept Shared Missions when at the Pending Mission Reward cap. Players can no longer queue for Group Finder when they or one of their party members is at the Pending Mission Reward cap. Cartel Market Balanced Combatant’s Bracers no longer clip through the forearms on Male Body Type 3. Missions + NPCs Troopers on Belsavis now receive valuable experience for completing the Mission “Overwhelming Force.””
SWToR remains a challenge after Electronic Arts (EA) releases Quarterly report
Electronic Arts (EA) recently released their regular quarterly report that offered a glimpse on the performance of the mega-company. While overall, EA performed extremely well, a closer look of their released documentation revealed that SWToR didn’t contribute to the company’s overall performance. In specific: Net Revenue For the three months ended September 30, 2014 , net revenue was $990 million and increased $295 million , or 42 percent , as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2013 . This increase was driven by a $476 million increase in revenue primarily from the FIFA and Battlefield franchises, and Titanfall. This increase was partially offset by a $181 million decrease in revenue primarily from the SimCity, Crysis and Dead Space franchises, and Star Wars: The Old Republic . Service and Other Revenue For the three months ended September 30, 2014 , service and other revenue was $454 million , primarily…
Amazon drops prepaid SWToR game card prices by almost 40%
If you’re still on the fence about subscribing to SWToR then now is your chance. Amazon is selling 60-day prepaid game cards for $18.82 vs. the regular $29.99. Subscribing to the game will ensure that you enjoy the full benefits of SWToR as well as making sure that you play the upcoming expansion when that gets released as a subscriber. It’s worth noting, that this offer is only available through the US Amazon website. Typically discounts like these occur in randomly selected time frames so grab your time cards them while they’re available.
Developer Blog: Vanguard and Powertech Changes for Patch 3.0
Bioware certainly didn’t waste time with their updates for Patch 3.0 after announcing the upcoming changes on Commandos and Mercenaries. Today in a new developer blog post, the Austin-based developer offered details on Vanguards and Powertechs. The changes are not as extensive as the classes covered in yesterday’s post but are definitely worth a closer look. Some highlights: Vanguards All Vanguards are getting two additional passive abilities – Blaster Impact and Blaster Augs No drastic changes to vanguard tanking other than the addition of a new ability called ion storm that sprays waves of ionizing energy in a 10-meter cone range Assault specialist is now called Plasmatech and has undergone significant changes Tactics discipline gains two additional abilities – Tactical Surge and Cell Burst Powertechs All Mercs get two additional passive abilities – Puncture and Prototype cylinders No drastic changes have been made to Powertech tanking, but there is a new…
Developer Blog: Trooper and Mercenary changes announced
With Patch 3.0 just around the corner, the flow of information from Bioware is increasing. This time around, through their developer blog, they announced the upcoming changes for Trooper and Mercenary classes. In specific: Changes announced are subject to change Mercenary and Trooper classes will receive the most dramatic changes as compared to all other classes as part of Patch 3.0 Resource costs for troopers/mercenaries have been adjusted – in some cases they have been decreased, while in some others have been increased. Both Trooper and Mercenary classes get additional passive abilities added
Damion Schubert leaves Bioware
SWToR developer Damion Schubert announced on his personal website that he quit his job at Bioware. Schubert has been with Bioware for 8 years and admitted that working and launching SWToR was the highlight of his career. He was also quick to point out that his resignation will have no impact in the development of SWToR and Shadow Realms. Based on his announcement it appears that it was his own decision and he plans to take some time off away from the game development world. While no specific reason was given about his departure, he pointed out that his decision was unrelated to his comments relating to “Gamergate” controversy. Damion Schubert SWToRStrategies.com would like to thank Damion for his contribution to SWToR and wish him the best on his future endeavors. You can read his full announcement right here
Bioware posts stream schedule for upcoming advanced class changes
Bioware’s community manager Eric Musco, was once more at the forums today posting information about upcoming community team streams. With patch 3.0 just around the corner, Eric highlighted some of the topics his team will be covering. In specific: As many of you know, we will be streaming around each individual Advanced Class and the changes coming to their Disciplines in 3.0. We will be starting those streams this week and do one set of base Class mirrors each week for the three weeks thereafter. Here is our currently planned schedule. As always this could change, but here is our plan as of right now! Friday, November 7th – Bounty Hunter and Trooper Thursday, November 13th – Inquisitor and Consular Friday, November 21st – Warrior and Knight Wednesday, November 26th – Agent and Smuggler Thanks everyone! We’ll see you on stream to talk about all of the changes coming to…
Datamined: SWToR Miner livestreams Patch 3.0 Commando and Mercenary changes
You might never heard of his name before but if you’re moderately interested in SWToR, you definitely read about his work in fansites across the web. Recently, SWToR_Miner had some challenges from Bioware and the content he releases about upcoming changes and updates to our favorite game but this isn’t stopping him however from hosting livestream events on Youtube. This time around, he talks about Patch 3.0 commando and mercenary changes that we’re going to see when Shadow of Revan gets released. The livestream is a little bit over 2 hours but definitely gets into the details of Patch 3.0 and specific details of the before-mentioned classes.