With the news that Curse has fired all the Darth Hater team, we see a spur of conversations taking place about the game, its players and the community that revolves around the game. Some are saying that this is a sign of the community falling apart, a reflection of the current state of the game and some are even saying it’s BioWare’s fault for not caring enough about their game and its community. There are lots of different opinions but one very strong opinion comes from someone who was once a very big player in the SWTOR community. The guy who runs SWTOR Extreme YouTube account had some pretty harsh critical words for the SWTOR community: “The game had a massive audience yet some of the best content on the web, whether it was videos like my own or a websites blog/article, they got so little support and none of…
SWTOR
Darth Hater Team Let Go by Curse – Is This the End of Darth Hater?
If you follow DartHater.com, you probably noticed they have not posted any new content since the end of December. The rest of the community definitely noticed and it seems we now have a reason. The whole staff has been let go by Curse and no one knows whether or not they are going to try to revamp it with new staff or One of the most active members of the DH team, Jaspor, admits on Reddit that he is no longer working for them but he doesn’t seem to have any additional info on what will happen to the site in the future. In fact, it seems no one really has any information at all other than- they were let go. It was just back in September 2011 that Curse bought Darth Hater and made them a part of the Curse network. Most of the community seemed happy about it…
Damion Schubert Speaks on Phantom and Spymaster Gear Changes
If you spend any time in the forums the past day or so, you probably know that the community was upset regarding some changes to gear bought from the Cartel Market. Many players want their money back after spending cash in the Cartel Market for Phantom and Spymaster gear based on how it looked, only to have the appearance changed later. They see it as a bait-and-switch and while BioWare claims it wasn’t intentional, we can definitely see the point these players are making. So we were holding on to see when BioWare would chime in with a solution to this problem. Lead Designer Damion Schubert piped in to this thread about the issue: Hey, guys — We care a lot about the fact that you care about the appearances of your characters. In fact, the Mod system is my baby, largely because it allows players to customize their appearance…
Purchase More Character Slots for SWTOR
As we discovered recently, you can now purchase more character slots for SWTOR from the Cartel Market. This is great for people like me who suffer from alt-it is and like to have lots of different characters in the game. Massively brought us to news: Star Wars: The Old Republic’s 1.6.2 patch notes are now live on the game’s website. Along with a laundry list of tweaks and bug fixes, there are a couple of blurbs that might interest free-to-play players concerned about character slots. First of all, slot restrictions are now being enforced, so free players should see a maximum of two per server. Preferred status players get six slots per shard, while subscribers get 12. If you must know, the global active character limit is 350! The Cartel Market is selling additional slots at a cost of 600 Cartel Coins. But there are some players who are having issues with different…
Not Everyone Supports SGR in SWTOR
It’s no surprise that not everyone likes same gender romance in SWTOR. It’s been battled before in other games and it has been opposed in SWTOR previously as well. But with the recent update from BioWare about their intentions to add it to the game, there was one forum user who became exceptionally vocal about it Reddit, after being banned from the SWTOR forums for 7 days for “hate speech””. Missandei believes that being gay is an illness. Before we completely jump on the guy, he also says that doesn’t make them bad people; just sick people… His belief is that he doesn’t care if you’re gay if you keep it to yourself and not try to “infect others” but when you try to convince others your gay ways are right, he feels intruded upon. He says, “I am against any promotion and any advertising of the unhealthy behavior such…
Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game #2
It’s been awhile but BioWare decided to give us another State of the Game report. Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic post an update today to let us all know what is happening with the game. One of the biggest and most anticipated pieces of news: an update on Same Gender Romance in the game! Hickman says: First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in…
SWTOR PvP Imbalance and Possible Solutions
There is a lot of talk about PvP imbalance in SWTOR and the truth of the matter is it does seem to exist. Despite how hard a developer tries to prevent it, there will almost always be some imbalance amongst the classes. The real trick is to reduce this imbalance as much as possible. Some players believe SWTOR is struggling with that. Depending on who you ask, certain classes need to be nerfed and others need to be buffed and it’s the age-old battle with PvP in an MMORPG. The difference being that in SWTOR, some players have some pretty solid evidence on imbalance. Check out this screen shot for example: The fact that anyone, especially AOE, can hit for that hard in pretty outrageous. There definitely need to be some adjustments to the classes and to the types of damage but just what those adjustments are will vary according…
Happy Holidays from SWTOR Strategies!
Happy Holidays from SWTOR Strategies! It’s that time of year, friends! The end of the year, holiday festivities and New Year’s resolutions and one year since SWTOR released. We are happy to have you here with us on the site and hope you’re enjoying your holiday season as much as we are. We’re looking forward to a new year of many exciting Star Wars and SWTOR news to bring you. Christmas from LucasFilm It’s a great time of year to work for LucasFilm. Ok, well any time is probably a great time to work for LucasFilm if you’re a fan but we’re thinking anyone would be tempted to apply when they see the really awesome holiday bonus George sent out to all of his employees. According to various reports online, they got an iPhone 5, a 32gb iPad (3g enabled), a thank you card and a really cool unique LucasFilm…
SWTOR Flashpoint Guide: Athiss
Your team has been called together to travel to the planet Athiss and investigate a distress signal sent back from a Republic survey team. It’s possible that during their dig they uncovered something that should not have been disturbed. After all, this planet used to be the home of an ancient and unstable Sith Lord. Your mission is to discover what they unleashed and put it to rest again. Out of all the Flashpoints in Star Wars: The Old Republic, Athiss is one of the easiest for both Republic and Empire factions but you still need to be prepared to go up against 3 bosses. You can get the most out this flashpoint if you have an archaeologist and someone with Bioanalysis of 75 or more on your team. Upon arriving on the planet, this level 20 Flashpoint begins in a valley surrounding by tombs. You’ll hear a message over…
Top 5 Star Wars Games for Holiday 2012
If you have a Star Wars fan in your life, the holiday season is a great time to show them you appreciate them and a great Star Wars game is a fantastic way to do that. The difficult part, however, is that there are so many Star Wars games to choose from. If you have not looked before, you might be surprised at how many titles actually come up. So how can you choose which games are best? Well, it’s a hard call since all fans tend to have their own opinions about what makes a great Star Wars game and which ones were flops and when ones were successes. But here is a pretty safe list that nearly all the Star Wars gamer community can agree upon. Star Wars: The Old Republic Of course, there’s SWTOR – and with the free to play option now that wasn’t available last…
SWTOR Bug Causes Some Players to Cap Out on Pets and Mounts
I have a longtime history with collecting pets in MMORPGs. I’m not sure why but I just love them. When I play a game with pets, I want to have them all. I do this some with mounts but nothing at all like I do with non-combat pets. I love the fun of collecting them, having pets that few other players have and the variety of being able to pull out different pets whenever I want. If you’re a pet collection, too, you need to be aware of a current bug in SWTOR that makes it where some players cannot get more mounts or pets. I have seen several users post in the forums, in the game or on Reddit about a cap on pets and/or mounts but others do not have this problem. So why is it affecting some and not others? Well, no one actually knows. I have…
BioWare Leaves Fans in the Dark about Same Gender Relationships
Since before SWTOR even launched, we have discussed the topic of same gender relationships (SGRs) in the game. There are some who were for it, those who were against it and others who just didn’t care. The one thing that remained consistent throughout is that the topic causes a lot of controversy. While BioWare first said there would not be SGRs in the game, they later listened to fan reaction and changed their minds, promising that there would be – only not at launch. The reasoning made perfect sense- they just didn’t have time to change the story arcs properly. They didn’t want to simply go in and add the option for romantic encounters with either/or sex of character in the game. Rather, they wanted to do it right, in true BioWare-story fashion and make some characters open to SGRs based on their personalities and previous story line. Fans of…
Happy Birthday SWTOR!
Dec 20, 2011 was the official launch of SWTOR and one year later, here we are! Happy Birthday to SWTOR, all the SWTOR dev/staff, and all the SWTOR players! Can you believe it’s been a year already? It seems like it was just yesterday that we were anxiously awaiting the game and while a lot has changed over the past year, we’re happy the game is still around, happy the community is still here and happy to have all of our loyal readers still here as well. Let’s recap a few articles and news pieces over the past year: Our Big List of SWTOR Guides Really Cool Fan Art Stories How Stuff Works column There’s also a cool SWTOR t-shirt giveaway here so check it out for your chance to win! Dulfy also has a giveaway: Items that are part of the giveaway includes 40 SWTOR JINX shirts, 5 Cartel…
SWTOR Legacy Perks Guide
Star Wars: The Old Republic introduced players to the Legacy System when the Patch 1.2 went live. The Legacy system opened up a variety of upgrades on a global scale that you can unlock simply by playing more. For example, you can unlock a character’s race when you reach level 50 and it affects all characters on that particular account and server. This helped to make the game even more interesting. To unlock the Legacy System you need to complete Act one of your first characters storyline. This usually happens somewhere around levels 32 to 34. Once you accomplish this, you’ll be prompted to create a legacy or Star Wars Surname. You’ll also gain access to the Legacy UI, which is found on the top toolbar. This gives you access to your family tree and it will show you which class, race, and purchasable unlocks are available to you. The…
SWTOR’s Life Day Holiday Event Angers Gamers
SWTOR gamers were hyped up and ready for Life Day. Unfortunately, many were disappointed at what was offered in lieu of an event. BioWare said, “The stuff we are doing for Life Day are absolutely amazing … I am super excited about it. You guys are going to die when you see it.” So you can just imagine the reaction from the fans when the ‘big events’ fell, well… flat. As one player said “I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t a Wookiee Life Day customization for Bowdaar.” It makes sense- it’s Wookiee Life Day- why not even allow players to equip their Life Day items on Bowdaar. Why not have anything in the area to show respect for the date like NPCs in the area in Life Day robes? There wasn’t really any role-playing of it at all. It was pretty disappointing all around and seemed to serve no…
Very Cool SWTOR PC Case
If you’re into case-modding or if you just love cool stuff, then you will be very pleased with what we found. Here are some great pictures of an awesome computer case mod with SWTOR theme. Brian “Boddaker” Carter is the mastermind behind the design and he shows more about this over at The Best Case Scenario. There are some common themes in these cases- each has a mural with a lightsaber extension on one side of the case and they also have a 3-D mask built on the other side. There’s a fantastic holographic display on the front and honestly, even if you don’t like SWTOR, this is all very impressive. Boddaker has some really great projects going on, including this SWTOR PC case. See more here at Bod’s Mods. Check out some of the great images he shared of his modded cases.
Top 5 Most Popular Cartel Market Items
The Star Wars: The Old Republic new Cartel Market is getting a lot of attention for being the place to go to buy and unlock in-game items for your character. You can also buy or unlock a variety of enhancements and customizations to make the game more interesting and to enhance your online experience. So what can you get there and what’s worth the investment? While you’ll find a large variety of items in the Cartel Market, some of them are more popular than others such as the ones listed here. Here we have the top five popular cartel market items (currently). Carbonite Chamber You’ll need 720CC to buy Carbonite Chamber making it one of the most expensive items you can acquire at the Cartel Market. However, anyone who has seen it used will surely agree that it’s worth the price. This chamber makes your character unique and this gets…
BioWare to Tweak Endgame PvP Balance
In an interview with fansite TORWars this week, we found out from Senior Designer Rob Hinkle that BioWare has plans to make endgame PvP more fun- at least, that’s their idea. They want to make the PvP stat (expertise) equal across the board, no matter what the set of PvP armor. For some players, this is a welcome change but of course, there will be those who oppose. As is typical with an MMORPG, Bioware has struggled to keep endgame balanced for all players. There is a slippery slope in giving seasoned gamers something for their hard work and dedication yet not making them so overpowered that others cannot enjoy the game as well. Hinkle said in this interview that he commonly hears from players that they enjoy levels 10-49 but that at 50 (the current level cap), things change. Many players complain about the lack of imbalance in those who are…
Cartel Packs: Why They’re So Popular
You may have heard about Bioware’s statement concerning the Cartel Packs. When it comes to popularity among the gaming community, this item tops the list when compared to other items at the Cartel Market. Do you know why players are so interested in them or what the cartel pack contents will include? It’s speculated that their popularity has a lot to do with the rare items and the super rare items that drop into the Cartel Packs. These items are randomly placed into the packs so you don’t know which one you’ll get and there is no other way to acquire one. Here are the two options available along with the contents of each pack. The Black Market Cartel Packs sell for 180CC or $2 cash and it contains the following: a companion gift a boost item one rare item or one of the super rare items The Crime Lord…
BioWare LiveStream Q&A November 29th
BioWare hosted their second LiveStream Q&A November 29 at 3PM CST as we told you about yesterday. They took questions about the upcoming game update 1.6 and it lasted around a half hour. Those who were able to get their questions in early possibly saw them answered live at the event. They have Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez hosting with Damion Schubert (Lead Designer) and Jeff Hickman (Producer) available to answer questions that came in from Twitter, Facebook, the forums and more. Erik Muska was also available offscreen to take live questions during the event. Some very good questions were asked including how the transition to the new free to play model is going as well as what new things we can expect to see in 1.6. When asked how the numbers look for F2P, Schubert says “Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means…
Occupy SWTOR- Angry F2P Gamers Protest F2P Limitations
Something is asunder in SWTOR, at least that’s what one user who took this screenshot would have us to think. They protested by blocking GTN mailboxes and sending out this message “Occupying GTN mailbox for 2 more quick bars for free to play players!” One major downfall to their plan? All you’re doing is irritating your fellow players. This is not the way to get your way with BioWare but it might be a decent way to get a ban- temporary at very least. Players used to do this in WoW all the time until Blizz started banning for it and putting it more mailboxes all over the major cities so it hardly matters if one idiot wants to get on a huge mount, drink a firewater and sit on the mailbox. But what we can admire from these SWTOR “riots” is their determination and willingness to stand up for…
XFire Charts Show SWTOR on the Rise
We assume that since BioWare won’t really tell us population info and other stats, that those statistics are likely based on xfire user info gained from the xfire chat client. It would only represent xfire users that play SWTOR, so it’s a very small sample. However, from this we can see that SWTOR saw a jump when it went free to play and if it stays this way for the next few days and even weeks, then that is a good sign that the game is gaining momentum. If you’re not new to SWTOR and you’ve been around since the beginning (or at least for some time now), this still benefits you. More players means more people to do things with and it also means more money and resources being put into making the game great. So seeing that graph climb more and more over the next few days and…
Game Update 1.6: Ancient Hypergate is on Public Test Server
If you’re just settling in to game update 1.5 and learning about all the new content and features, you might be surprised to know that Game Update 1.6: Ancient Hypergate is now on the Public Test Server (PTS). But those who like to jump in the PTS and be on the cutting edge of the next release are probably already anticipating this. BioWare talks about it more on their blog today, letting us know what we can expect with the new game update, including a new PvP Warzone and Heroic Space Missions: Travel to a remote Warzone to discover a brand new PvP battle mechanic. The Republic and Imperial forces are locked in an intense conflict to control two energy pylons. Fight to take control of these powerful pylons and kill enemy forces to discharge energy into your faction’s gate. The first team to open their portal unleashes deadly reinforcements to wipe out…
Best SWTOR Tools for Raiding/Flashpoints
In a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic, gearscore and pure DPS numbers are very important. You should not use them to select or reject certain players but they can help you see who in your group needs help. This makes it possible for your team to work together to become stronger and there are several great character building SWTOR’s tools available to help. Here are three of your best options along with a little information explaining how they can help your group improve. Memories of Xendor Memories of Xendor or MOX is one of the best Imperial progression guild available today for real-time parsing. It’s great for players that only use one monitor because this parser allows you to see pop outs of your personal meters and of the raid group. Even if you run on full screen, you can still see them because these pop-outs are set…