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
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…
How to Calculate Companion Gift Affections
Here is another fantastic lesson on SWTOR. We really appreciate the time and attention to detail she puts into helping others understand the game and get more from their experience in it. This week she brought us a great guide on calculating affection with your companions from gifts and conversations. Thanks Dulfy! “Calculating Companion gift affections Many of you have probably seen a chart like this that list all the affection a certain gift will give. Have you ever wondered how that is calculated? If you are curious, those numbers are fairly easily generated via a simple formula! It is simply (gift rank – companion affection rank) * type of gift (green, blue, purple) * Likeness (indifferent, like, favourite, love) Rank Difference There are 5 ranks of companion affection and 5 ranks of companion gifts Rank 1: -1000 to 1999 Rank 2: 2000 to 3999 Rank 3: 4000 to 5999…
BioWare releases answers to SWTOR Community Q&A
This last community Q&A, BioWare had to put off posting the answers to the questions. Now they have finally released them along with this statement: Two weeks ago, we asked for your questions and unfortunately, we had to delay posting the answers to the Q&A until today. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity. We have now opened an official thread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CDT on April 24th, 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. If you want to discuss any of the answers given, please use this Forum thread! So here is a snippet of the Q&A. To read the full list of questions, visit the official post from SWTOR.com. BlackMink: Could you please explain SWTOR’s threat mechanics?…
Fresh out of a PvP Team Meeting from Georg Zoeller
Are you happy with SWTOR PvP or like many of us, do you still feel like there are some things missing or lacking? Here’s what Georg Zoeller had to say about a team meeting over PvP at the BioWare headquarters: Hey guys, A few additional notes on this topic, fresh from a meeting with Gabe and the PvP team. (a) Expertise difference between combatants is the single most important factor in time to kill in PvP. Having zero or little expertise on your gear (e.g. pure PvE gear) is the primary reason for people to experience a sped-up time to death in Game Update 1.2. While it was quite viable pre-1.2 to bring your Rakata or Columi gear without any added expertise into PvP, the increased focus on expertise in the PvP track of gear has made it much harder to compete with that equipment compared to even the entry…
Zombies in Space- Coffin Comics Fun
What is BioWare trying to tell us with this recent (the first) world event? Rakghouls are trying to infect everyone and they take a striking resemblance to zombies, as many have pointed out. Zombies in space? It wouldn’t be the first time a video game had done this. Coffinshaker from Coffin Comics has a real funny cartoon about SWTOR and the current world event going on- the Rakghoul Invasion. He also used this as an opportunity to talk about a current theme in games today- zombies: Heh, didn’t mean for a double swtor posting this week, but I wanted to get this out there before the rakghoul invasion event ended. Pretty cool stuff though! Reminds me of the lich plague in wowcrafts just before WOTLK came out. But what’s the deal with zombies anyways? They seemed to have gained quite a bit of momentum in the last few decades. Hell,…
The Lost Island Flashpoint Guide
The Lost Island is the new Flashpoint in the Game Update 1.2. If you haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, try to get yourself in a group after you read this guide (so you know what you’re doing). It’s open to both factions and it also has a normal and Hard Mode for level 50 players. It’s a lot of fun and I really like the story that is involved as well. In the story of the Lost Island, we are taken to a hidden island on Ord Mantell where we are called to end experiments by Mad Doctor. So anyway… what’s this Flashpoint all about and how do you succeed in it? First, be aware that this is a Flashpoint full of encounters that require you to move a lot. You want to be ready to move in any instant and don’t just stand around staring…
