If you’ve been thinking about getting a new SWTOR shirt but putting it off, now is the best time of any. Jinx has had some very nice gaming shirts and SWTOR shirts for some time now but they just released their SWTOR summer collection and I am more than impressed. We’re not just talking about one or two shirts here, either. There is a massive collection of some really great styles for men and women. I especially love the Huttball tees. They also have a really cool Darth Malgus women’s tee: in addition to the great t-shirt designs, they also have some cool SWTOR stickers that I am looking forward to getting my hands on. Check it out for yourself- they have over 70 items in their new SWTOR summer shop.
SWTOR
Why So Many Guild Leaders Play Tank Roles
Here’s a good MMO topic to ponder. It’s something I had noticed before but put less thought into until I attended the 2012 SWTOR Guild Summit in Austin. As we were mingling and meeting other guild leaders, it occurred to me that a great number of guild leaders play tank roles in MMORPGs. A huge percentage of the guild representatives at the Summit were tanks. I brought this up on a bus ride with Ian from Jinx who brought up a great point. He said that guild leaders are usually your Alpha players and this made perfect sense. As a guild leader, I’ve played the tank role but I’ve also healed and done DPS, many times coordinated a run or raid from those various roles. However, the traditional situation in an MMORPG is that the tank is the leader of the run/raid/instance/flashpoint. This is the person who calls the shots,…
Is SWTOR On the Decline?
Reports claim that SWTOR loses 400,000 subscribers since February. Some will say that this is a good indication that the game is dropping and that players are losing interest. But is this really true and are these numbers a good indication of the popularity of the game? It only makes sense that in the first few months of a game launch, there will be higher numbers as people try it out and share it with friends. Then the numbers will drop a little and balance back out as long term players continue to enjoy the game. Attack of the Fanboy brings us an update: Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO has seen a drop-off in subscribers in recent months, to the tune of around 400,000 lost since February 2012. Earlier in the year, EA reported that roughly they had roughly 1.7 million subscribers in February, and yesterday reported that…
Episode 4 of SWTOR News
This is a special episode of SWTOR news focusing in the current subscription numbers released by EA and what they really mean. There is a lot of talk about SWTOR, how it compares to WoW, and how it compares to other MMORPGs. This brings up the age-old question of whether or not it can be accurately compared to other games. We’ve talked about it before here on the site but I think what it really comes down to is the sheer fact that while you can compare certain elements of SWTOR to certain elements of other games, it simply isn’t accurate at all to compare the entire game package itself to another game because there has yet to ever be another game just like SWTOR. Since it stands alone in its genre for how and what content in presented, it wouldn’t be fair to make an overall comparison- positive or…
Future Upgrades to Space Combat
One thing that I was super excited about before the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic was the space combat. I was not the only person who felt quite let down by what we ended up with. I wasn’t expecting it to be EVE Online but I did expect something a bit more than what we got. The good news is that BioWare is listening to player complaints and they have many plans in mind to improve space combat and features in the future. Until recently, they have remained fairly tight-lipped about this portion of the game but recently, Lead Designer Daniel Erickson revealed some secrets in an interview with Now Gamer. ”Full 3D space battles’ topped a recent poll of new features that SWTOR players want to see in the MMO; when asked how many new features were still due to hit the game Daniel Erickson told NowGamer…
Community Q&A: May 11th, 2012
It’s that time of week again and the BioWare crew were back to us with answers to the community questions. There are some really great questions coming out lately and this time they have announced that it will be 2 weeks (May 25th) before we get our answers to the next set of questions, in order to allow for more time to fully answer the questions. They also said this week: We’d like to focus the next Q&A blog on Game Update 1.3, so please be sure to ask questions on anything related to Game Update 1.3. We have now opened an official thread for that week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CDT on May 22nd, 2012 (12pm PDT/3pm EDT/8pm BST/9pm CEST/5am AEST). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below. So now let’s move on to the questions. nakomaru: You have…
SWTOR Guide to Vanity Pets
When it comes to MMORPGs, I’m a pet girl. I have always loved my vanity pets and in every game that has them, I try to collect them all. I found out shortly after I got my first 4 that there were many more I did not have yet and I was on a mission to track them all down. I’m going to make it easier for you to get the pet or pets that you want by telling you just how to get them. We will update this guide as new pets are introduced to the game. SWTOR vanity pets are non-combat pets that can be obtain in different ways: As a monster drop Purchased from the Collector’s Edition vendor Purchased from Vendors with some restrictions like Social Level, Dark Side/Light Side Level As part of the Collector’s Edition If you want to have the best chance of getting…
SWTOR Official Podcast: Episode 1 – “Rocket Boots”
Eric Musco and Brooks Guthrie are happy to bring you episode one of the official Star Wars: The Old Republic podcast, “Rocket Boots”“. This was really great fun and I can’t wait to see and hear more from these guys. Here is the description from the first episode: In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Erickson and Damion Schubert to talk about what we saw in Game Update 1.2 and what we can expect as we look forward to Game Update 1.3. Also, David Bass stops by to tell us about how things went at PAX East and some of our convention plans for the rest of the year. If you have any questions or comments about the show, feel free to let us know. It’s really a fun and interesting little podcast and the guys are fun and entertaining. I can’t wait to see what they will do…
SWTOR Getting New Content, Reached 1.3 Million Active Subs
If you’re playing SWTOR, you know that there is still an interest in the game because well… you’re playing with other people. However, depending on which server you are on, it may sometimes feel like there are not as many people out there in the Star Wars universe as you thought. New numbers revealed at EA’s 4th quarter financial reports show us just exactly how many people are still playing SWTOR- and the number is quite large. SWTOR has1.3 million active subscribers (down from 1.7 million as announced in March). So those numbers are pretty cool but what does that really mean to us- the players? Well, it means new content is incoming very soon. The report said that two new content packs would be available sometime in the first financial quarter. They were called Legacy and Allies, so we can assume that we’ve already gotten the Legacy patch and…
SWTOR Interviews: Jodi and Patrick from ChewUI.com
I first met Jodi and Patrick on day one of the Guild Summit in Austin. We had a lot of fun, saw a tour of BioWare Austin headquarters, met some other awesome people and Jodi and Patrick came up with one brilliant idea! On the last day of Guild Summit, we said our goodbyes and promised to stay in touch and I was super excited about this idea they had for a new site dedicated to customized user interfaces. We had all just seen the preview of SWTOR update 1.2 and the new UI and we knew that there would be a great need for a site like this. Jodi and Patrick stepped up to the plate and began creating that site on day one. I sat down to talk with them now that the site is complete and functional to find out more about the site, the idea and…
SWTOR Podcasts and Vodcasts- The Master List
What’s almost as good as playing your favorite game? Learning more about it- tips and techniques – and just having fun listening to some of the experts in the community share their wit and more. With SWTOR podcasts and vodcasts, you can do just that. You can subscribe to the ones you like the most or check in with all of them if you have the time. Some are explicit and some are tamer. Some are funny and some take a more serious approach but all are great! We’ve tried to compile a Master List here of all the recently updated podcasts and vodcasts online. Each of these has updated within the last 30 days or so and we’ll keep an eye on it and pull off old ones if they go stagnant and add new ones as they come across us. Podcast/Vodcast Twitter Corellian Run Radio @CorellianRun Keyboard…
Infographic: Crew Skill Guide for End-Game Gear & Mods
We absolutely love it when we discover great finds from members of the SWTOR community that we can share with you to help your experience in the game. The guys over at Ask Mr. Robot do a great deal of projects and tools like this to improve the game and playing experience for everyone. They’ve been kind enough to create a great infographic with full details about crafting. This visual guide shows exactly what end-game gear can be crafted for each slot. It’s a great way to find out what gear you need and where and how you can get it. It’s color-coded and clear and easy to understand with a legend at the bottom describing what all the icons are for. This is something you can easily bookmark, save to your computer or even print out and hang near your computer so you can refer to it often to…
Does SWTOR Suck Or Are the Standards of Measurement Unbalanced?
There is a lot of talk going around about SWTOR being a letdown. We’ve already hashed and rehashed the comparisons to other MMOs, WoW in particular. While some say that SWTOR is just not measuring up, there is one who makes a very valid point: maybe we’re not measuring with the same ruler. I, like many others, have had a pretty critical eye when it comes to SWTOR. We have all earned that when we purchased the game I guess. As consumers we review just about everything we buy. We make purchases on eBay, Amazon or even in-store and we are often asked to give a review of our product. Or at the very least that option is there for us if we so choose. Just like every other game in the last 10 years SWTOR went through the review process from all the big name videogame sites on the net. The…
SWTOR Character Transfer System Coming Soon
Have you been suffering from a dead server in SWTOR? Long warzone queues? No one to group with? Our high pop server turned into a low pop server after the first couple of months and it hasn’t really recovered at all. The only time I see a high pop status is on a free weekend. It can get to be a bummer when you need a group and there’s not even anyone on the planet. But BioWare might have an answer coming soon. In this week’s Q&A, the topic of server transfers was brought up again and senior producer Dallas Dickinson had some hopeful words: “First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice,” he said. “We know…
Class Distribution, Ganking, Alignment numbers and more
As part of their new recurring column Crowd Control, Darth Hater brings us some interesting statistics on the game and its players. This week is all about player habits as they relate to “ganking” behavior. This is especially interesting to me because I play on a PvP server, where “ganking” is much more likely and common. We found some other interesting correlations related to ganking as well. City dwellers are 5% more likely to gank than their rural counterparts (36.0% versus 31.1%). Players that choose body type number four — the roly-poly type if you happen to be male — are 6% more likely to gank players that choose the small or medium frames (40.1% versus 34.1%). And finally, players describing themselves as “dog people” are over 10% more likely to gank than others (40.7% versus 30.3%). So, what inferences can we make here? For one thing if you’re walking…
SWTOR Q&A April 27th
This week’s SWTOR Q&A was expected to be fairly interesting. Previously they had requested a shift in focus of the type of questions that were being asked: As a reminder, we previously suggested a shift in focus in your questions. As development plans are always subject to change, questions about future features will often get vague answers which can be repetitive and sometimes annoying. With that in mind, the development team is more interested in questions about current in-game features or systems, or questions about why development decisions were made. You’re still welcome to ask questions about future features and we’ll continue to answer them where appropriate – just expect the occasional ‘soon.’ So here we have a snippet of the Q&A and you can head over to the SWTOR blog to read the full list of questions and answers and of course, to ask your own questions for next…
SWTOR Tip: Gain Credits by Converting Unwanted Tionese Comms and Crystals
Once you have your 4-piece bonus, there’s not a lot of point to the Tionese commendations and crystals. Or is there? You may not have known that you can actually trade these into credits and earn a lot of cash quickly (especially if you have a lot of them on hand). So how do you do it when you can’t sell the comms and crystals? Well, it’s actually pretty simple. All you have to do is use the comms and crystals to buy gear pieces (that you don’t need) and then sell them back for credits. And if you want to earn the most from this trick, you need to buy the cheapest items from commendations because they actually sell for most credits. You could easily get 120k-150k credits if you have commendations and crystals saved up. Do you have any SWTOR quick tips or tricks like this you want…
BioWare: SWTOR subscriber numbers have remained steady
While we keep hearing the rumors that SWTOR is a sinking ship or that it is not as popular as BioWare claims. BioWare continues to deny these rumors and recently said in an interview with PC Gamer that the subscriber numbers have remained steady since launch. BioWare lead writer Daniel Erickson told PC Gamer: “”Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server.” This response came as a reaction to a prediction by Cowen analyst Doug Creutz that upset some fans who say the game is doing great. Last week Cowen analyst Doug Creutz ruffled a few fanboy feathers with his prediction of declining subscription numbers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. BioWare lead writer Daniel Erickson responded by saying that subscriptions are not dropping but that the number of concurrent users at peak times has gone down. So…
Over 50% of SWTOR Players Play Warzones
Have you ever wondered just how many players are playing warzones? I’m in a PvP guild on a PvP server and pretty much all of us do warzones on a daily basis. I typically do not have to wait too long to get into a warzone but I have noticed a trend that I start to see the same people over and over again. You start to learn who people are and discover their personalities. You spot the full-time PvPers fairly quickly. Lead designer Daniel Erickson over 50% of TOR players take part in PvP matches, dubbed Warzones, on a daily basis. Erickson said in an interview with GamerZines: “It’s not actually giving players something additional to do, I mean it does that, but it isn’t the motivation,” he explained. “What happened was that we also brought in the guys that had worked on PvP for Warhammer Online. Those guys…
SWTOR Launches in the rest of Europe and in the Middle Eastern Countries
Star Wars: The Old Republic has now officially launched in the rest of the European countries that missed out at launch, as well as throughout the Middle East. If you live in any of the following countries, you can now buy the game via buy.swtor.com or pick it up at local retailers. Europe Albania Andorra Belarus (only available at Origin.com) Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Estonia (only available at Origin.com) Gibraltar Iceland Kazakhstan (only available at Origin.com) Latvia (only available at Origin.com) Lithuania (only available at Origin.com) Luxembourg (not available at Origin.com) Macedonia Malta Moldova Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Turkey Ukraine (only available at Origin.com) Middle East Afghanistan Algeria (not available at Origin.com) Bahrain Egypt Israel Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Tunisia (not available at Origin.com) United Arab Emirates Yemen Check out the official statement below or at the official webiste We are excited to announce…
Stacy Haiduk Signed Items NOW LIVE For Charity Auction
Stacy Haiduk, the voice of Smuggler companion Akaavi Spar in Star Wars: The Old Republic is having a charity auction via her website and eBay to raise funds for her charity, Save A Kitty, CA. Stacy chose “Save A Kitty” as her charity, because “Every kitty deserves a chance at a good life. I always take in rescues and meeting the Women who started Save a Kitty showed me what is possible with love and care. The Save a kitty web site has a great quote: ” The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Gandhi” This just in from Stacy Haiduk’s website: Check out our eBay store for some super rare Stacy signed items and help Save A Kitty, CA with your bids! 100% of your bids go to help Save a Kitty, CA – Stacy’s charity of…
Tauntaun Pets Are Here!
Why is everyone huddled around the mailbox (even more than usual) today in SWTOR? Well, the pets for the 1.2 Legacy promotion have now arrived. If you were eligible for the free 30 days play time, you should also be seeing that reflected on your account before midnight Central Standard time tonight. Today is, in fact, the 25th and many were expecting these free bonuses yesterday (as our emails stated) but BioWare actually pushed the date up by one day so today by 1 minute before midnight, everyone eligible should have them. Hold off until then before you start submitting help tickets or angry forum posts. David Bass came in with this message to try to clear up the confusion: Hi everyone, I apologize for the confusion surrounding this but the Legacy Promotion page is accurate. If your account met the Legacy Promotion requirements by April 22nd, you will receive…
All GTNs Could be Merged to Neutral Access “Soon”
I remember at Guild Summit when we first all noticed GTN access from your ship. A friend sitting near me said “But I noticed it’s neutral. Is there not going to be a regular one on our ship?” It was a legitimate question because on my server and the servers of nearly anyone I have asked, the neutral GTNs are mostly dead. There’s hardly anyone who uses them and little point of putting anything on them because they never sell. We suspected at that time that maybe BioWare had plans of doing something different with the GTNs in the future. About 20 minutes into this conversation with Daniel Erickson, it is revealed that they plan to merge all GTNs to neutral access at some time in the near future. Players are discussing this on the forums already and one has laid out the good and bad points of this decision…
Is BioWare Scrambling to Keep Players in the Game?
This was a discussion I was just having with some gamer friends the other day. BioWare is doing all of these awesome promotions for SWTOR like free play time for those who come back, pets and in game events like the Rakghoul Plague event and more. They are being very open with their Q&A sessions, trying to reveal future content so we all know what we want to hang on for and trying to hear the player concerns and make adjustments as necessary. My friend says, “Yea, they know they are a sinking ship and they’re trying to stay afloat.” At first I thought he was just bitter because he’s let down by the game but when I really thought about it and looked at the facts, it’s possible he was closer to the truth than I thought. PC Gamer says “BioWare doing “anything and everything” to keep players logging…