Game Update 1.4 is coming soon and with it one of the most dynamic and difficult Operations in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. SWTOR is changing for the better and with free to play on the way, we are also seeing updates that are slowly bringing out things the game will end up with in F2P mode. Game update 1.4 is highly anticipated and the time is nearly here. Are you wondering more about what you can expect? We have a great video/trailer with a sneak peak of Terror from Beyond straight from the developers themselves. BioWare tells us more about it in this official news post: In “Terror from Beyond”, you will be called upon to face a mysterious new threat that has emerged from one of the most obscure places in the galaxy: the Gree planet of Asation. The Gree have been safeguarding ancient technologies on the planet…
SWTOR
Daniel Erickson is “Actively looking for new opportunities”
We learned in the past that making assumptions based on a person’s LinkedIn profile is not always the best idea. Some people take a little thing such as change of job description and blow it into something it’s not. However, if you take a look at Daniel Erickson’s profile, you will see that he says he is “Actively looking for new opportunities”. This lends itself to a little bit of conversation. The Lead Designer/Creative Director at Bioware/Electronic Arts works in the gaming industry, an industry we know is booming and at the same time, one that can change with the snap of your fingers. It takes an entire team of people to build and launch a game and after that launch, all of the same team members are not needed to stay on. Layoffs usually happen and those creative people have to search for a new job or a new…
Are Black-Cyan Sabers Coming in SWTOR 1.4?
It’s apparent that black based sabers are really popular in SWTOR, especially with end-game users. Everywhere you look you see people with them and fewer people with more traditional colored sabers. Playing on this trend, we might see some new sabers in 1.4. Rare crystals are very popular in the game. It’s fun to hunt for them and to have the bragging rights of having a rare saber color. But if they make it too hard to get, players get frustrated so what you often see is tons of people with the ‘rare’ saber because it was so popular, which of course, drops the rarity of it. If the black-cyan sabers are coming, this might be just what we see with them. They’ve been around the game for awhile now but not attainable, except through exploiting a bug but now we may finally be getting Black-Cyan sabers to SWTOR. In…
The Fan Favorite Reward is “The Party Jawa”
If you’ve been waiting to hear what the Fan Favorite would be, the info has finally been released. Not so shocking to me personally, it was the Party Jawa. I had a really good feeling when I saw the choices this would be the one to come out on top. SWTOR/BioWare let us know in this official post: BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that “The Party Jawa” has won our Fan Favorite voting contest. Over the past month, our Facebook Fans have had the opportunity to choose a favorite item to receive as a reward when Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ launches its new Free-to-Play option this Fall. Although it was hard to pick a favorite, The Party Jawa won by an overwhelming majority! The Party Jawa celebrates a player’s status as a veteran of the galaxy with a unique and fun animation. The Party Jawa will be rewarded…
Ilum Improvements Coming in January and More from Gabe Interview
Game Breaker talked with Gabe Amatangelo at PAX about revamp’d Ilum coming in January + closing PVP gear gap w/level 50 bolster and much more. You can see a video as well as read the full transcript of the interview on their website. Here’s a snippet.. On future content releases: We’re going to be having a faster cadence of delivering content and features. There’s going to be around a six-week cycle where you’ll see something new, like there’s going to be the new operation, the new warzone, the new HK-51 Belsavis area, things of that nature. On layoffs: You have different needs in development when you’re going to launch as opposed to after launch. A lot of it lies in the formation of the tools. You put a lot of work and effort toward getting the tools and you get more efficient with them. It’s kind of this sliding scale…
Noxxic Gaming Guides and Interview
Here at SWTOR Strategies, we’ve been bringing you great SWTOR news and info as well as Star Wars and MMORGP news and info since before SWTOR’s release. Well, we found something else really cool in our research- gaming guides from Noxxic guild. In particular, we found their SWTOR guide but then we saw they also have guides for many other great games, some of which you might also play. The crew over at Noxxic were nice enough to take some time to talk to me about their guild, their website, their guides and what they are all about. So here’s the interview for you to learn more yourself and be sure to head on over and check out their guides! Lisa: Can you tell us a little about Noxxic, the games you play and what you’re all about? At Noxxic, we only have one goal and that is to provide…
Developer Update: Class Changes and Balance in Game Update 1.4
Austin Peckenpaugh, Senior Designer on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has an interesting update today about the future of the game, class changes and balance that will come in game update 1.4. He explains in full detail on the community news page: For Game Update 1.4, we wanted to address several key issues with class gameplay usability and balance. Foremost among these are adjustments to crowd control and the Resolve system, the subsequent class changes made to harmonize with those control adjustments, and a reevaluation of stealth spec gameplay. He then goes on to talk about what some of these specific changes will be. Crowd control and resolve changes are first on the list. He explains further: In Game Update 1.4, we’ve made adjustments to the range of control abilities under a new philosophy. We want control to be something more readable, more predictable, and less chaotic in effect. To achieve…
Interview with Matt Bromberg about F2P model
The move from SWTOR’s pay to play model to the free to play model may be a blessing in disguise for those gamers who want to try the game but who do not want to pay. For the company, BioWare, this switch may not be a blessing for the company or the current players. While the company does want to make money, this is not the sole purpose of offering free to play to the public. What is more important is having the game played by a wider audience. According to an interview in Game Industry International with Matt Bromberg on Thursday, he stated: “”’My primary intention is to make as many people play this beautiful game that we’ve made,’ he added. ‘It just so happens that the business will naturally grow as more people come to play the game, but we’re not trying to squeeze every single penny out…
EA/Bioware F2P Hiring
Have you ever wanted to work for a game company? Now that SWTOR is going free, Bioware is recruiting new employees to help aid this expansion. The company’s headquarters are located in Austin, Texas and they are looking for a Digital Merchandising Specialist. This position does require that the applicant work well in a team setting in order to have the transition from a for play game to a free game to go smoothly. So do you have the qualifications to apply for this great job opportunity? The following is an excerpt from Linkedin that was posted by BioWare and shows the job description: “BioWare’s Analytics and Reporting team aggregates, analyzes, and reports data in order to inform decisions and track KPIs. The Austin studio is looking for an experienced, energetic, full-time Monetization Analyst (Digital Merchandising Specialist) to work with our development team. This person will focus on analyzing, managing,…
Jeff Hickman Interview
With the news of SWTOR going free to play, there are many who want to learn as much as they can about the game or any changes being made in the upcoming updates to the game. Even those who are already fans are listening with eager ears to anything new. This interview with Jeff Hickman didn’t have any big secret reveals over the game but it did have some very interesting topics and some insight into the very experience Jeff Hickman and his work on SWTOR. RPG Site says: With a background rooted in Mythic Entertainment, Hickman has a long history with MMOs – first on Dark Age of Camelot and then on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. We quizzed him not only on the future of The Old Republic, but of the MMO genre in general. Here’s what he said. They came prepared with some great questions and Hickman…
Interview with SWTOR Lead Writer Hall Hood
Last week TORWars had a great interview with SWTOR Lead Writer Hall Hood via their podcast. There are some amazing details in this hour-long interview and they cover topics like: ~ Character development that keeps players interested~ Why some classes are clearly Republic, and some are Sith, and some walk a very gray line~ Drawing inspiration from Episodes 4, 5, and 6 (and not so much from 1,2, and 3!)~ Why humor is important to Star Wars~ Writing characters and NPCs that people care about~ Why the Sith aren’t completely evil~ How does one write for players who like to be smartasses?~ Where do the stories go, now that players have leveled to 50?~ Why plot twists are essential to the Star Wars universe~ Can great villains (or heroes) truly die, or can they re-appear? Give it a listen and check it out for yourself. It’s definitely worth it and…
More Character Slots Per Server in the Works
Do you suffer from alt-itis like me? Do you ever wish there were more character slots so you could play more toons without having to go to another server? You have a common problem that many gamers face and with SWTOR going free to play soon, there’s a good chance there are going to be other people just like me who want to make new toons to level up with friends but do not want to lose existing characters. So more character slots would be the answer to all of this and there’s a good chance we’re going to get it soon. Allison Berryman SWTOR Senior Community Coordinator says: We do have plans to make more character slots available per server and will bring you more info as soon as we can. Thanks for all your suggestions in this thread! The one thing that comes to mind for me here…
NVIDIA adds native Ambient Occlusion support for SWTOR in 306.02 BETA driver release
NVIDIA is showing some love for Star Wars: The old republic in there upcoming driver release. In the new beta release NVIDIA is adds native Ambient Occlusion witch is a visual effect that was originally developed by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and used in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor. Hardware support has been available since 2003 with NVIDIA’s GeForce FX. One of the first games to use ambient occlusion was Crysis, which was developed by Crytek and released in late 2007. In 2009, NVIDIA added Ambient Occlusion as a Control Panel feature in its v185 drivers. An up-to-date list of games that support ambient occlusion through the Control Panel is given at the end of this article. What It Is and How It Works: One of the most difficult challenges in 3D game design is realistically modeling the behavior of light and its effects on various textures and surfaces without compromising frame rate….
SWTOR Biochem Leveling Guide 1 through 400
The patterns used in this leveling guide for Biochem are obtainable from the Biochem Trainer only. You use Biochem to make stims, implants and medical packs. Any class can use this skill but the healers will benefit the most. The primary gathering skill used in Biochem is Bioanalysis using compounds and Biochemical Samples. The secondary mission skill is Diplomacy using Medical Supplies. After you complete each step, you can train for the next level by visiting the Biochem Crew Skill Trainer. If you use reverse engineering, you can use fewer materials on the items you make. However, this method produces random materials, which means that you cannot calculate a precise number for the materials players need to use for crafting. For this reasons, this leveling guide uses the materials needed when reverse engineering for Biochem is not used. This makes it possible for you to know exactly which materials you’ll…
Gear Info for New Operation and Warzone
Allison Berryman, the Senior Community Coordinator for SWTOR had a great answer on the forums about future gear for the new PvP Warzone as well. In answer to the post from Ashania which asks: It said somewhere that with the new Operation will come a new tier of gear, so the next leg-up after Campaign. What are the chances that a new tier of PvP gear will be released along with the new Warzone and new PvE tier? Berryman tells us: I talked to David Hunt (Systems Designer), and he shed some light upcoming gear. He said that (for PvE), Terror from Beyond’s Hard Mode will include a new set of gear that is a sub-tier of the larger tier that started with Campaign gear. It will also have non-slot restricted armornings. Nightmare Explosive Conflict will speed up the acquisition of the new set and provides new challenges for Operation…
GamesCom 2012: Interview with Gabe Amatangelo
During the first day of GamesCom, DarthHater had the opportunity to get a quick interview with BioWare’s Gabe Amatangelo. Since it was short, they focused on some of the key areas that BioWare has presented at the event – Ancient Hypergates Warzone, future Operation content, and more. It’s a fun interview and I always like hearing from Gabe. The DH crew know how to ask just the right questions, even when pushed for time and they know how to try to dig up those little pieces of information we don’t already have (whenever an interview subject is willing to give it). Here is a snippet of that interview: First of all, you’re showing Ancient Hypergates at GamesCom right? Gabe Amatangelo: Correct. Yes. It’s the first time for many of the fans seeing it so it’s somewhat of a mystery. Give us the general idea of the Warzone and its gametype if…
More Legacy Rewards being Planned for SWTOR
Have you been wanting more Legacy rewards in SWTOR? Does it seem like a lot of effort to level up your Legacy for what you get? BioWare is listening and thre might be more Legacy rewards coming soon. Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez says this on the forums: Hello! So I spoke to Principle Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert about this, and he feels that with some of the Legacy rebalancing that has occurred recently, he definitely agrees that there is a need for more rewards for players with Legacy levels 25 and higher. The team hasn’t made any decisions yet, but it is something that they are exploring. My thoughts (especially after visiting BioWare Austin) are that they had a lot planned that just didn’t make it into the game yet and they are now finally getting permission to move forward and finalize a lot of these things they…
Jeff Hickman Interview from GamesCom
During the biggest gaming event in Europe, GamesCom gaming convention in Cologne, Germany, SWTOR Life had the opportunity to interview Jeff Hickman and ask some questions about the game. Mr. Jeff Hickman, the new Executive Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic sat and answered some interesting questions. You can see the video here: And here are some highlights of the interview from SWTOR Life. Introduction of Mr. Jeff Hickamn and his previous work as well as his tasks in the future His thoughts and plans on how to make the Free to Play model a reality When will Free to Play launch? Correlation between announced content (new warzone, raid etc.) and launch of Free to Play Once Free to Play goes live, will subscribers ever have to pay for anything (like a big expansion/content pack)? Will Makeb increase the level cap? How do you introduce a cash shop into a…
Does Player Marking Belong in PvP?
Here’s an interesting topic of debate- player marking in PvP. Both SWTOR and WoW have it and some people love it, where others hate it. I often play a healer in PvP (in both games) and I know what it’s like to be targeted for focus fire with a big mark over your head. You don’t have to see it to know it’s there. So here’s the question: does this feature belong in PvP? Some will say it is an essential part of the game, allowing teammates to coordinate and plan their attack, shut down the enemy healers and spot a targeted enemy from clear across the field. Others say it causes an unfair advantage and that is changes the play of the game, especially when the marks do not get removed upon death. So what do you think? Is player marketing an essential feature of PvP and warzones or…
SWTOR Grand Acquisitions Race Video Guide Roundup
Here are some pretty good videos about the current SWTOR event The Grand Acquisitions Race. If you’re still doing the event quests, they’re worth checking out. Remember you have until Tuesday to get it completed. Videos from SaiTorrsVideos: Part I of the Guide to SWTOR’s newest World Event, the Grand Acquisitions Race, taking place on multiple worlds in the search for miscellaneous items for personal enrichment. But could there be more behind the Chevin’s Scheme for Personal Enrichment? Items/Quests Covered in this section: (QUEST) On your Marks (QUEST) The Grand Acquisitions Race (ITEM) Vandrayk’s Tuning Apparatus (ITEM) Fossilized Krayt Dragon Pearl Part 2 of the Guide to SWTOR’s newest World Event, the Grand Acquisitions Race, taking place on multiple worlds in the search for miscellaneous items for personal enrichment. But could there be more behind the Chevin’s Scheme for Personal Enrichment? Also, do check out CC-Films, a friend of mine’s…
Chevin Grand Acquisitions Quest Tips and Hints
You still have until Tuesday to complete the Grand Acquisition quest chain and if you’re just now getting started, you’ll have to be quick to get it all done but there are also some benefits to starting later. For one, other people have already done it and leads have been revealed, making it a bit easier to get where you need to go and do what you need to do. I wanted to write a full guide to the quests for you but our dear friend Dulfy has already done all the hard work quicker and better than me. This is by far the best guide on the Internet you are going to find to the Grand Acquisition. Here she posts about the leads currently available (and bookmark the age because she is updating regularly): August 17 – Another Lead is now available August 16 – A New Lead is now available. August 15…
Ancient Hypergates Gameplay
Are you excited about the new SWTOR Warzone, Ancient Hypergates? I was definitely interested in knowing more about this warzone, the objectives and what it would be like. I really enjoy PVP in SWTOR but doing the same warzones over and over can get boring. A new warzone will be a nice refreshing addition to the game. Anyway, some of the folks in Cologne, Germany at Gamescom were able to visit the SWTOR booth and get a good look at Ancient Hypergates for themselves. Here’s some info on it complete with a gameplay video so you can see for yourselves: The objective of the warzone is to activate the two pylons which then start a countdown before they explode. To save yourself from the explosion all players must go to the middle room where they fight it out until the explosion is over. All the while each kill brings you…
SWTOR Armstech Leveling Guide 1-400
The patterns in this leveling guide for Armstech are obtainable from an Armstech Trainer only. Armstech is used to make weapons, weapon parts and mods for tech users and the classes that can use them are the Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent and Trooper. The primary gathering skill used in Armstech is Scavenging using compounds and scavenged metals. The secondary mission skill is Investigation using research compounds. After you complete each step, you can train for the next level by visiting the Armstech Crew Skill Trainer. Reverse engineering is an option that will allow you to use fewer materials on the items you make. However, this process produces random materials so it’s impossible to calculate a precise number for players to use. For this reasons, this leveling guide is based on the materials needed when reverse engineering for Armstech is not used, so you’ll know exactly what you’ll need. Here…
The One Thread on SWTOR Forums you Should Read and Contribute To
It began on August 13th and already the thread is 12 pages long. This is the one thread on SWTOR forums you need to read and contribute to. It’s “A Thousand Papercuts” and some of you may already be familiar with the concept. The original poster gives the background of the concept, which began on the EVE Online forums. The explanation is long but interesting and worth the read if you’re not familiar with the idea. In late 2010, there was a thread created on the EVE Online forums with the same title. The players organized to civilly and thoughtfully outline their issues with the game, sticking almost exclusively to small, quality of life issues, or very simplistic suggestions to improve their gameplay experience. These small issues were referred to as “papercuts”; small problems or issues that do not affect the overall playability of the game but that can be…