Tag Archives: swtor

Bioware has posted its first weekly developer Q&A over on the SWTOR forums, and in it, the firm addresses questions regarding upcoming content, and fixes currently in the works. According to the post, patch 1.2 will bring about the first rewards to the Legacy System, and will allow players to combine races and classes. More enhancements for the system are planned for future updates. Also, the next major addition to the MMO will add the Hue to Chest feature, social armor for Medium and Heavy wearers, guild banks, and a new same-faction Warzone. Read the Q&A for yourself through appropriate the link. Thanks, Massively.

SWTOR players have reported issues with the PVP planet Ilum since update 1.1.2 was released, citing kills not being registered, this daily and weekly quest requirements not being met. At lot of folks who have leveled in the game are participating in PvP until new content is released, and have posted the issue on the official forum. Bioware’s Joveth Gonzalez has responded to users, stating that the development team “has been investigating the cause” and are “closer to figuring out a solution.” The firm promised to keep players update as more information is known. Thanks, Darth Hater.

Bioware has announced plans to release a series video guides and weekly features for Star Wars: The Old Republic players. The videos are designed to help new players get acquainted with the MMO, and the first one, hosted by social media coordinator Eric Musco and posted below, explains how to create a character and how to participate in conversations with NPCs. The weekly features will consist of a blog post rounding the various forum posts by developers over the week, as well as a Q&A session pulling 10 questions from a community thread. Thanks, Massively.

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GDC organizers have announced a Star Wars: The Old Republic postmortem as well as a Q&A featuring Markus “Notch” Persson as part of the lineup for the show’s Main Conference.

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Bioware has announced the first Star Wars: The Old Republic Guild Summit, which will take place in Austin, TX March 4 – 6 at the DoubleTree Hotel Austin. During the event, guild leaders will be able to discuss “the state of the game” with the developers from BioWare Austin. Guild leaders or a designated officer in case the guild leader is unable to attend, will participate in Q&A sessions with developers, roundtable feedback discussions, and will get a preview of some upcoming game features. Bioware said its goal with the event is to “facilitate an open discussion between guild leaders and the game design team.”

Space is limited and will be “invite-only” with some invitations already sent. Interested guild leaders which have not been invited already, can fill out the application here.

The Family Research Council has taken great umbrage to the fact Star Wars: The Old Republic will eventually allow same-sex relationships in the MMO. So much so, its president, Tony Perkins, lambasted the game on a radio broadcast stating that “in a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists.”

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“There is a place for subscription-based games and if you’re going to build a subscription-based game it’s got to be huge in scope. People have to feel that it’s worth paying a subscription fee every month, so the scope of the game has to be much bigger than the free-to-play games. The quality, the polish has to be very, very high, and then you need to have a plan to continue to deliver free content on a regular basis. If you do those things, I think you can succeed as a subscription-based game. Obviously, there can only be a few subscription-based games. There is a limited MMO audience and not a ton of that audience is playing more than one MMO, but I still think there’s room for more than just one really successful online game. I think Star Wars: The Old Republic can coexist with World of Warcraft and other successful games like Rift. You can have multiple MMOs with a subscription being successful as long as those games fulfill the requirements of high quality, good polish, lots of content, and continuing to do high value updates on a regular basis.” – SWTOR director James Ohlen to IGN.

The LA Times has posted a retrospective on Star Wars: The Old Republic, and in it, the piece revealed that quite a lot of work from many sectors went into creating the game. So much so, that Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuck likened coordinating the efforts to “teaching elephants to do ballet.”

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AbleGamers has given Star Wars: The Old Republic its 2011 Accessible Mainstream Game of the Year award due to its strong performance when put through a string of accessibility tests for the disabled.

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Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter has said concerns over sales figures for Star Wars: The Old Republic and the resulting drop in EA stock prices are due to outside “speculation”, as NPD’s sales figures don’t show a complete picture. According to Schachter, the majority sales for the MMO were likely through Origin, and since NPD doesn’t track the service, the figures weren’t taken into account. The analyst believes around 1.5 million copies of the game were sold through Origin, but until EA releases its financials for Q4 and FY11, the exact figures will remain speculative. Another analyst, Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter, is of the same opinion as Schachter, but said the figure is likely closer to 800,000 through both retail and Origin, and the game will have sold 2 million units by the time its first anniversary comes around. Thanks, Gamasutra.

Bioware has released a video discussing the plans it has in place for Star Wars: The Old Republic over the next few months. As previously promised, UI customization, more Flahpoints, Warzones, and an updated Legacy system are in the works, along with Guild features such as a Guild Bank The storyline introduced with Update 1.1 storyline will also be concluded in the March update, and it will bring with it ranked Warzone matches, abilities earned through the Legacy system and more. Check out game director James Ohlen discussing the changes and upcoming content below.

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Bioware has released Update 1.1 for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rise of the Rakghouls, which the game’s director said will “show everyone how serious we are about expanding” the game’s universe.

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After announcing an initial delay for SWTOR Update 1.1, Rise of the Rakghouls due to “issues requiring additional testing,” Bioware has announced it intends to bring servers offline in order to apply the patch during the wee hours on January 18.

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Cowen & Co analyst Doug Creutz has estimated that EA has invested close to half a billion dollars in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Speaking with MarketWatch, Creutz said he believes EA has “minimized its risks as much as it can” on the MMO, “but it’s still a risky bet” and how well the investment pays off will rely on “how Star Wars performs.” Last year, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimated that in the end, EA would have invested $80 million in the game. SWTOR was released on December 20 and shortly thereafter, EA announced that 1 million users had signed up, garnering over 60 million hours of in-game play time. Thanks, Spong.

Bioware has announced a few details regarding upcoming additions to the Legacy System in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which allows users to create relationships between their characters, and develop a family tree of sorts.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic’s director, James Ohlen, has said he disagrees with the “unfair” assessment that the MMO is an adequate effort, but one lacking in innovation.

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Bioware has announced game Update 1.1, Rise of the Rakghouls, will be released for Star Wars: The Old Republic next week.

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James Ohlen, game director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, has said that some of those playing the MMO have gone to great lengths to reach max level on their characters.

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Bioware’s community manager Stephen Reid, as promised, as gotten to the bottom of discrepancies between the “low,” “medium,” and “high” texture options in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Turns out, the “medium” choice was never meant to exist in the game, meaning only “low” and “high” were actually implemented. So, the choice of “medium” was a bug. Interesting. Reid explains everything in lovely technical detail, and much better than we could, through here.

Bioware has said only a small percentage of Star Wars: The Old Republic players are experiencing performance issues with the MMO, and the majority are running the game on a low-end PC.

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