What Race Would You Like to Play for Your First SWTOR Character?
14 Monday Nov 2011
Category Archives: SWTOR
BETA invites for everyone!
12 Saturday Nov 2011
Tags
Choose Your Side: Trooper versus Sith Inquisitor video, Star Wars The Old Republic Hardcover Atlas: Prima Official Game Guide, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SWTOR
SWTOR BETA invite
Like a million and a half others who signed up to test Star Wars: the Old Republic, I did a little happy dance when I received the BETA invite email. Turns out, they’re inviting all comers to help out in a nice big pre-launch stress test BETA weekend in the next few weeks. Of course, I was really hoping to have gotten an invitation for this weekend, but c’est la vie.
I’m looking forward to getting a sneaky peek at the game this way, before the early access kicks in.
In other news, I couldn’t resist picking up the Star Wars The Old Republic Hardcover Atlas: Prima Official Game Guide via Amazon, to be released w/release day delivery on 12/20. I had the World of Warcraft game atlas when I started playing WoW back in the day, and found it to be an invaluable reference. Yes, I am sure that given the many blogs and Wikis and fansites out there, soon enough all of its information will be spread across the Internet for free, but there is something awesome about having a game world atlas to reference.
Until next time, I leave you with the Inquisitor vs. Trooper video. Not to spoil it for you, but the Inquisitor wins, of course. And I’m not just saying that because I like to shoot purple lightning out of my hands…
November Fansite Tour Highlights
09 Wednesday Nov 2011
While most of us Star Wars: the Old Republic fans were sitting at home watching the Imperial Agent (not Smuggler as pre coffee me wrote) progression video you see at the top of the page, a number of lucky fansite publishers were packing for a trip to Austin for Bioware’s second SWTOUR fansite tour.
Thanks to Darth Hater’s SWTOUR link roundup, I was able to live vicariously through these other bloggers, and gleaned a few interesting tidbits on PvP (which seems to have been the current content sharing focus):
- Guild versus Guild operations are limited to 24 players. But it seems that # may not be set in stone.
- In unbalanced open world PvP zones, such as 100v20, the smaller group will receive some sort of buff to assist them.
- Warzones are always 8v8, and pull from your own server, and you can not go in with a full premade team.
- Operations (raids) are expected to take about 3 hours.
The TORWARS team has a couple of videos from the fansite event, including this CE unboxing. It’s a good thing I can’t upgrade to a CE without losing my spot in the early access line… Enjoy!
We’re Entering the Final SWTOR Stretch — the Wait is Nearly Over!
04 Friday Nov 2011
Posted in guilds, official announcements
As I keep telling folks, Star Wars: the Old Republic launches next month. Next month. Can you believe it? I mentioned that to someone who was on the fence about if they were planning to play at launch or wait until there was a free trial they could dip into risk-free, and I got that giddy “it’s almost Christmas” feeling again.
The movement of Guilds into Phase 3 only amplifies that we are in the home stretch of the game. At this point, guilds that have four members who have pre-ordered the game and redeemed their Pre-Order Code at the Code Redemption Center. I am pretty sure our guild met that requirement a few dozen times over… 🙂
Have you decided on your guild yet? Are you ready for launch?
Clever SWTOR Guild Names
23 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in guilds
Every so often, as you are traveling about in a game world, you come upon a guild name that makes you giggle, or even laugh out loud. Inevitably, if I am able to quickly stop and do so, I tweet out the cool guild name and then go about my business. But since tweets are ephemeral, I thought why not start a running list of all the cool/funny/awesome Star Wars: the Old Republic Guild Names I come across?
This will be that running list. Please feel free to share the guild names you spot in the comments, and keep this list growing!
Republic
- Bantha Poodoo
- Blue Shirt Mafia
- Corellian Coalition
- Curb Your Imperialism
- Ewok Dance Studio
- Ewok Massage Parlor
- Jawas Ate My Baby
- Jawa Insurance Co
- Jedi Meme Tricks
- Love in Alderaan Places
- Merely a Setback
- Mos Eisley Cantina Crew
- No Sleep Till Kessel
- Pigs in Space
- Sith Happens
- Starfleet Dental*
- The Antarian Rangers
- The Snark Side
- There is no Try
- We Ain’t Found Sith
- Wookie Love Machines
- Wookiee Tango Foxtrot
Empire
- Accurate Sand People
- Aliens Ate My Lightsaber
- Boba Fetish
- Dead Rebel Society
- Death Star Vent Designers
- Dukes of Durasteel
- Ewokalypse Now
- Hoth Beach Club
- Imperial Margarine
- Incurable Sithilis
- Intergalactic Planetary
- IT IS KNOWN
- It’s a Trap
- It’s Getting Hoth in Here
- Jawa Trading Co
- Juicy KOTOR
- Lazy Peon Tavern
- Let the Wookie Win
- My Wookie Steak is Chewy
- No Country for Old Ben
- OldSpice for Wookies
- Pew pew lazerguns
- Pirates of the Korriban
- Pretty Pink Pwnies
- Sector Forty Seven
- Sith and Twisted
- Sith Out of Luck
- Son of a Bith
- Super Silly Sith Squad
- The One Percent
- The Spice Must Flow
- Utini
- Wookie Cookies
- Wookie Crisps
As an aside, it’s interesting to see how many guild names are Game of Thrones references…
* A guild moving on to SWTOR from STO. I suspect we’ll see a number of World of Warcraft Guilds that pack up their guilds, moniker and all, for playing Star Wars the Old Republic.
Tantalizing SWTOR Tidbits from New York Comic Con (NYCC)
16 Sunday Oct 2011
We’re starting to get spoiled as far as Star Wars: the Old Republic news goes these days. We kicked off the weekend with the above “Signs of War” video and a new Operations overview added to the Game Systems page on the community site, and then all the NYCC SWTOR coverage started to kick in!
Live coverage of the Main Panel and the Q&A panel was shared via:
- Darth Hater (main panel liveblog and Q&A liveblog)
- Corellian Run Radio
- TORwars
Here are some of the prime info nuggets I saw thanks to the many intrepid live bloggers/tweeters…
Modification System
As the game currently stands, you can modify a high % of items. Lets you keep old stuff longer, especially iconic anesthetic armor. Keep your favorite look. High level mods difficult to get. More details later, mods and how they work are still being worked on to make it less complex.
Morality and How Romance Can Affect Dark/Light Side Affinity
Q: Is romance a problem with the Jedi Knight?
A: Erickson: Choices have to be hard. If you’re dark side, your commitment will be tested. A huge amount of Jedi fall to dark side because of romance. Three levers influence morality – social pressure, companions, your morals.
Sith Pureblood Inquisitor confirmed as a race/class combo.
Contract, Please!
Voice actors locked into long term contracts, will not change. Why is this a big deal? If you were a vanilla WoW horde player, and had to eventually live through the WotLK transformation of Lady Sylvanas from strong leader to bubbly cheerleader due to a change in voice actor, you will understand.
15 Flashpoints Available at Launch
Devs state there will always be a Flashpoint available to you as you move through the leveling experience. And promise more details at launch. Conflicting reports as to max level versions of flashpoints available to you at max level (level 50.)
Can Shuttle to Other Origin Worlds
If you and your buddies choose different races, it is possible to take a shuttle to another origin world after a short time of playing (30 mins) to help them quest. Thus no need to agree on starting race combos in order to play together.
Have You Started Planning Your #SWTOR Alts Yet?
11 Tuesday Oct 2011
So far, I’ve definitely identified a couple of classes I want to play through after my Inquisitor hits max level. And I am definitely one of those alt people who likes to have a self-contained crafting army of her own, so I inevitably continue to level up alts until I feel I have all my necessary crafting bases covered.
As of right now, I am thinking I’ll want to level a Jedi Consular and a Bounty Hunter (because I want my own Jawa companion). The rest remain to be seen, since I haven’t actively delved into all the classes yet.
Right now, while we’re playing the waiting game, it’s fun to sit and imagine our bright and shiny alt future…what are you thinking you’ll be doing alt-wise?
Companion Update Pt. 2
09 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in companions, developer blog, video
Although the “Choose Your Side: Jedi Knight Versus Bounty Hunter” video above got the bulk of the attention from the community this Friday, there was a developer blog continuation of note as well. It’s been a few weeks since the last Companion developer’s update, so it was nice to see this Friday’s developer blog pick up where the first part left off.
The blog notes that Companions originally have an AI that took on a life of their own, with little player control, but that after testing feedback, decided to go the route of more player control, similar to player-controlled combat pets we’ve gotten used to in other games, like World of Warcraft.
we’ve taken a page from other BioWare games and added AI toggles to each ability to control whether the companion should decide on their own when to use them, or whether they should be manually activated by the player. Players who are not interested in managing their companion can leave the default toggles on and let them run on autopilot. Skilled players can take complete control of the companion by expanding the companion bar onto their screen and using the abilities directly as though they were player abilities.
The blog goes on to note that you can choose to “disable some area-of-effect abilities when using crowd control or when fighting tough single enemies”, which rocks. It’s incredibly aggravating when a combat pet wreaks havoc on your CC.
It will be interesting to see what the most effective way will be to strike the balance with effectively managing your companion’s activities while not neglecting attention on what your character is doing as well. I’ve yet to get any BETA play time, so I’m not aware of if we’ll be able to write macros as a method of controlling their activities, or if it will be muscle-memory of hot keyed abilities that will make us successful in this area. Guess we’ll have to wait and see…
Choosing Your Class, RP-PvP realms confirmed, and a TotalBiscuit look at Huttball
02 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in blogs
- Don’t be sad Lord Vader– even though launch is a few months away, there’s still plenty of interesting posts in the SWTOR blogosphere!
Now that the majority of the Interwebs has gotten over their dismay regarding last week’s BETA survey email snafu, the blogosphere is back to giving us interesting content to read. A few of my favorite reads over the past few days:
- Torwars shared some thoughts about the announcement of RP-PvP realms, but without CM-enforcement of naming standards or behavior.
- SW:TOR Strategies pointed us to TotalBiscuit’s Huttball video, shot at EuroGamer expo, and had a short post on choosing the class/role that’s the right fit for your play style.
- Massively had a Hyperspace Beacon overview of the Star Wars story timeline leading up to SWTOR.
- PC Gamer shared a really nicely written SWTOR preview article. Not a lot of News, but a great piece to remind you why we’re all so excited about this game, and to share with any of your friends who haven’t quite decided to take the plunge with you at launch.
I should note that I shared links out to the above content via my twitter account, so if you want a more timely report out on what I’m reading and recommending in the SWTOR blogosphere, follow me on twitter (@anexxia) or subscribe to my paper.li daily.
Return to the Old Republic Sooner…
29 Thursday Sep 2011
Don't Let the Adventure End
I was *sooo excited* to see email in my mailbox from the Old Republic Community mailbox…alas, it was not the much hoped for BETA invite. Instead, it was the above email, encouraging me, as a former BETA tester, to preorder SWTOR. Except, of course that I’ve never been granted the opportunity to BETA test.
And then I saw another email from the SWTOR gang…maybe this time it was an invite?
SWTOR BETA testers post-testing survey email
Oh, no, not an invite. Just a request to take a post-BETA completion survey.
*sniffle*
Ah well, maybe next time!
UPDATE: From the outcry on twitter tonight, I think a ton of folks got the email…like every gamer I follow it seems 🙂 The community managers are looking into it and have promised to report back soon.
9:40 p.m. UPDATE: Still no official word on what caused the email malfunction. Interesting to see how many folks jumped to 1) crazy speculation and accusations or 2) hurled profanity-laced emails and forum posts at Bioware. Yes, it sucks that we got our hopes up for a second, but seriously– it’s not the end of the world!
9:48 p.m. UPDATE: Official response up on the community forums now:
Inquisitor's Roadhouse 