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HK-51: More Details Released

July 17, 2012 by

BioWare, following up from the San Diego Comic Con, have provided a trailer and a brief snippet of text on the HK-51 assassination droid, which will be available in “the very near future”:

Buried deep beneath the icy surface of Belsavis rests an army of the deadliest, most feared machines in the known galaxy. Thought to have been lost when an Imperial freighter was destroyed, they have recently been rediscovered by a group of renegade Sith Lords. Now both the Sith Empire and Galactic Republic seek to control these dangerous weapons for themselves. Those who are brave enough to venture into the wreckage will emerge with a powerful new ally.

We are excited to unveil the dangerous assassination droid HK-51! Cold, calculating, and ruthlessly efficient, HK-51 will stand by your side and loyally follow your command as you and your allies continue your journey. Journalists were given a brief preview of HK-51 at E3, but now we are happy to be able to show everyone at San Diego Comic-Con, and all of you at home, the full trailer.

Here’s the trailer (you now can’t embed the vids from what I can see – thanks BioWare!)

Over to you: is access to HK-51 something you’re dead keen on?

Filed Under: General News, News, SWTOR Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Community Q&A: 13th July 2012

July 14, 2012 by

There’s everything from new planet design to PVP in this week’s Q&A. There’s even some news on credit sinks that should bring a smile to most people’s faces.

It’s laid out in full as usual for you below:

Anzel: Credit Sinks appear to be one of the hot topics in the community right now. Are there any chances of severely lowering or possibly removing some of these at this early stage in the game?

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): Now that 1.3 has been out and legacy perks have been in the system for a while now, we will be looking at our credits sinks, particularly the perks, to see how they are performing. It is quite likely we will make some adjustments based on what we’ve learned.

BobertCole: Could you elaborate please on what role you see deception Assassins playing? Are they close to operating in the way that was envisioned?

Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): First, as to whether or not they’re operating close to what we envision, the answer is “depends who the operator is.” From the videos, logs, and anecdotes players provide us, it’s really very much the answer for all specs – some people “get it” and play it to its potential, and some people don’t. Frequently, the ones who “don’t” are hitting brick walls because their expectations for what a spec should be like or should be capable of are different than what the spec is designed for.

In the case of Deception Assassins, we see and hear about a lot of players expecting to go toe-to-toe with tough enemies. They expect that since they’re a melee spec, they should have the survivability they need to withstand the frontlines. That’s true for some melee specs, but that’s not what Deception Assassins were designed for. Deception should epitomize “hit-and-run” and “lone wolf” gameplay. Obviously that’s less the case in Operations boss encounters, but if this is a question of sustained DPS, the short answer is that they hit within the same 5% “grace window” targeted by every DPS spec in the game.

In solo and PvP environments, Deception is meant to be a high burst, high mobility, shutdown spec. When played properly, they provide some of the highest burst and highest pressure in the game. However, Deception is not a great partner. He can’t take hits, his shutdown requires that he set the pace of the fight, and his escapes leave allies open and vulnerable to counterattacks. I say that, but I’ve seen players dash my expectations and turn Deception into a spectacular teammate. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many more players try to facetank and fail. Assassins have a great team support role – Darkness; they also have a great well-rounded, high utility role – Madness. We left Deception to take the opportunity to do something fun and very different, but that comes with the risk of missing player expectation. If you like Deception and you want to pull it off, my suggestion is that you pick your fights and plan ahead, but I’d also warn that Deception is a spec of extremes – I would not describe it as “well-rounded.”

Coldin: Every class who fights primarily in melee range (Assassins, Warriors, Powertechs) gets some kind of ability they can use to close the distance outside of 30 meters. That is except for Operatives. What’s the reasoning behind the Operative’s apparent lack of ability to quickly get within range to deal their most powerful attacks?

Austin: In PvP, the short answer is a combination of stealth (including Cloaking Screen), the ability to self-cleanse, and the ability to self-heal. Operatives also benefit from a good deal of control with snares, Sleep Dart, Debilitate, and Flash Bang, with additional roots, snares, and knockdowns available in skill trees. However, those things don’t offer much benefit in boss fights that demand a high level of mobility and target switching. The question for us becomes one of how to best introduce a “fix” for a few encounters without dramatically impacting gameplay in other game modes or environments. That’s a much longer answer, and something of an ongoing discussion. High mobility fights and encounters with a lot of target switching are proving to be fun ways for our Operations designers to challenge players. So with that theme keeping up, this issue is quickly floating to the top of our priority list.

Sindorin: When you’re discussing a new planet, what sort of criteria do you guys lay out for the design process? How do you determine what’s in or out, and what sort of backstory or lore goes into it?

Alex Freed (Lead Writer): Any new world needs to feel different from the worlds around it (in game terms, the worlds with level ranges just above or below its own), and it needs to push the overall themes of the story forward. So we might start with basic requirements like “We want to show the Republic going on the offensive,” and “We want a wilderness world, since we’ve done a lot of urbanized planets lately.” Defining these basic requirements isn’t too difficult–they can usually be determined with an hour or two of group discussion.
After that, it gets more difficult. Figuring out the details of the world (including whether we want a canon planet to fill the role, or if we want to create a new planet altogether) takes much longer, but the basic criteria stay the same: Does the backstory fit the requirements outlined? Does the planet sound fun to play through? Is it practical? (If the art department can’t build a planet full of, say, 90-foot-tall giants who use buildings as melee weapons, then that idea isn’t practical, no matter what writing may want). Elements that contribute to the overall goals of the planet are retained; elements that don’t get put to one side.

Writing, art and world design work together closely during this process, and if all goes well, we get a planet that has a clear purpose while being broad enough to support a wide variety of interesting missions.

Talius-LH: Is there any plan in place for either re-implementing the removed codex entries and titles or removing them entirely from the codex?

Damion: The codex will get a clean-up pass in the not-too-distant future, and at that time, we’ll be either removing the entries that are no longer obtainable or re-enabling some those removed entries if it makes sense to do so.

Anything of particular excitement for you above? Let us know in comments!

Filed Under: Community, General News, News, SWTOR Tagged With:

The Third Edge: Mercenary/Commando Interrupts & Utility

July 12, 2012 by

It’s always great to welcome a new writer on board, particularly one with the passion of Jemima Moore. She’ll actually be writing two columns – more on that soon. The Third Edge is devoted to everything Bounty Hunter and Trooper. As you’ll see from the article below, Jemima knows her stuff and what she doesn’t know she knows where to find it. Welcome Jem!

On March 23rd, Lead Combat Designer, George Zoeller lit a bonfire when he claimed that giving Mercenaries and Commandos an interrupt would, “increase their combat utility, especially in PvP, beyond what we are comfortable with.”

Since then I doubt few debates have raged more fiercely. Interrupts are useless against 50% of classes. Interrupts are essential for stopping burst and increasing survivability. Lack of an interrupt is the cause of TracerGravSpam. A well-named interrupt could be the next Pope.

So in this, the first edition of The Third Edge, I’d like to take the wahhhmbulance out of the argument and put Georg’s claim to the most judicial test of all – mathematics.

How much utility do Mercenaries and Commandos actually have? On a scale of 1 to 10 where do we rate compared to other classes? What’s an interrupt worth in terms of utility? And the question I think BurdoThePious should have asked – is giving us an interrupt going to stop most of us from sucking at PvP?

I have to admit, when I first approached this task I thought it would be easy – a simple 4-step process:

1) Define utility.
2) Determine which abilities fit the definition and group them into categories.
3) Allocate a point score to each of them.
4) Add up the numbers and see who has the most.

It turned out to be far, far more complicated than that. I did stick to that basic methodology, but as usual the devil is in the detail. Do I compare specific builds? What optional talents come into play? Is a stun better than a slow? What’s a longer lock-out worth compared to a shorter cool-down? What about when one ability can do three different things?

The task was behemoth and labyrinthine, but with optimism in my heart and a Prozac in my pocket,
I decided to compare 15 different common tank and dps trees (not builds) and included talents only from the bottom two rows of other trees.

Abilities were divided into categories and within each category I defined a baseline that would score 5 points.  A good example of this is in the Release category. Every advanced class has the ability to free themselves from all incapacitating effects once every 2 minutes – this the baseline worth 5 points. Additional points are added and subtracted based on modifiers like range, cast time, duration of effect, length of cool-down.

I made very few distinctions about whether one ability category held more value than another. Given any and all situations one can’t objectively make the claim that, say, a stun is better than a slow, so each ability category holds the same 5-point baseline with one exception – ‘special’ abilities or those tricks that are unique to one class or a few classes. Stealth is clearly more useful than Stealth Scan.  Group Stealth is cool and kooky but not as useful as a Combat Res. To give you an indication of the differential – Stealth is worth 10 points, Combat Res is worth 5 and Stealth Scan and Group Stealth are worth 4.

When it comes to modifiers – what’s a longer lock-out worth compared to a shorter cool-down – there’s a lot of room for debate and I hope there’s going to be! But the important thing to remember is that the same modifiers were applied to ALL classes and, for the most part, across all categories. So, even if you don’t agree with the reality of the numbers, at least everyone was tarred with the same brush.

A full list of baseline definitions, modifiers and my calculation sheets are available at the end of the article for all the seagulls to swarm over like a hot chip at the beach, but in the meantime and without further ado…

How do Mercenaries and Commandos rate in the utility stakes?

We’re 10! 10? C’mon I knew it was low… but 10? Operatives and Marauders have DOUBLE our utility and all four of the Bounty Hunter’s trees modelled place in the LAST six on the ladder.

The only category Mercs and Commando’s score highest in is the Arsenal Mercenary/Gunnery Commando specced into Afterburners/Concussive Force for knockbacks.

What good is that? If you’re not a Sniper, Gunslinger, Sorcerer, Sage at range; an Assassin, Shadow, Smuggler or Operative in stealth; or a Warrior or Knight in a window of immunity to movement impairing effects we’ll punt you across the map every 9 secs (or 13,500 damage taken @1500dps)! Watch out Galaxy – Boo-ya!! … not.

Alright, with the shaking of fists and indignance of scoring lower than a Jedi, on any scale, slowing fading it’s time to draw some objective conclusions. After all, this exercise was supposed to test Georg’s March 23 bombshell and shine a light on utility and interrupts as they pertain to PvP.

Mercenaries and Commandos score across less categories than most: we have no interrupt, no speed boost, pull, push or leap and we retain only baseline talents in the CC, Stun, Slow, Mitigation, Release and Cleanse categories. Our heals score the lowest of all advanced classes by a substantial amount. But more importantly the majority of our abilities are watered-down versions of things other classes can do more of or do better.

Electro Dart/Cryo Grenade  stuns for 4 secs, but Electrocute/Force Stun , Backhand/Hilt Strike and Debilitate/Dirty Kick all stun for 4 seconds and do damage as well.

Jet Boost/Concussion Charge gives an aoe knockback with slow but Sorcerers/Sages can knockback and immobilise.

Unload/Full Auto slows our targets for 3 secs with talents but a Marauder’s Ravage/Master Strike with talents immobilises AND they can perma-slow with two additional abilities.

On the other side of the coin…

Concealment Ops/Scrappers score highest and are commonly regarded as the pariahs of PvP. Powertechs/Vanguards are akin to gods in Ranked at the moment and they are dead last. They both score reasonably well in the interrupt category but Juggs/Guardians with 3 true interrupts lead that category are not generally considered to be formidable, terrifying or unstoppable in PvP. Even if we were given a 5 point baseline interrupt, it wouldn’t make a dent in that 60 point gap and if it did it wouldn’t make us Powertechs/Vanguards.

One can only conclude that the hero factor in PvP lies somewhere other than utility.

The kings of PvP: Powertechs and Vanguards, Marauders and Sentinels burst away unfettered by mobility issues and they scoff at interrupts no matter how many of them you have. PT/Vanguard dots and delayed explosions keep killing you even after they’re dead and Maras/Sentinels off-the-chart mitigation makes them close to immortal for us ‘Jedi Killers’.

Bestowing us an interrupt is not going overcome this problem but then nor is it going to upset class balance beyond all reckoning. It would be nice to have one in PvE but if it only works at 4m or 10m range like the rest them then that’s about as reverse on a lawn mower.

It’s claimed that Mercenaries and Commandos have some of the best burst in the game but we’re also one of the few Advanced Classes that relies heavily on casted damaged. Snipers and Gunslingers are immune to interrupts while in cover and Sorcerers/Sages have a stellar combination of mitigation and heals to keep them alive through a lock-out.

If we’re to truly become Jedi Killers, we need a way to protect our burst without asking Bioware to completely redesign the class. A decent window of immunity to movement impairing effects; better releases, speed boosts and leaps; improved damage mitigation or one of the better suggestions I’ve heard: Make Tracer Missiles/Grav Rounds instant cast but give it a cool-down.

I’d love to hear your ideas below.

As promised earlier, here are the full calculations in PDF format for you to digest or dissect: Advanced Class Utility Calculations

Filed Under: Bounty Hunter, News, Trooper Tagged With: ,

Changes to Aussie and NZ Guild Listing

July 11, 2012 by

Since TOROZ launched back in May 2009, we’ve tried to keep some sort of guild listing for local guilds. Since SWTOR launched last December, guilds have sprung up everywhere and our old system of one listing has been pretty time-consuming to update.

So – as of today we’ve discontinued the big table listing guilds, instead inviting people to pimp their guilds on our server-specific forums.

For all the info, just go here. Hopefully that makes it easier for individual guilds to keep their info up to date.

Filed Under: Guilds, News Tagged With:

SWTOR 1.3.2 Patch Notes

July 11, 2012 by

The maintenance is over and lo and behold, we have SWTOR 1.3.2. The full patch notes for you below, enjoy!

1.3.2 Patch Notes

7/9/2012

General

  • The new free trial allows anyone to create a Star Wars: The Old Republic account and play up to level 15 free of charge with no time limit.

Classes and Combat

General

      • Stat bonuses derived from buffs that increase attributes and ratings are now always correctly removed when the buff expires.

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary
Arsenal
          • Target Tracking: Unload now correctly benefits from this skill’s critical damage bonus.

Trooper

Commando
Gunnery
        • Deadly Cannon: Full Auto now correctly benefits from this skill’s critical damage bonus.

Flashpoints and Operations

Lost Island

    • Players now receive Social Points during Dr. Lorrick’s conversation.

Group Finder

  • Characters no longer rarely become stuck in an empty group. Characters previously affected by this issue will find it resolved upon logging back in.
  • Players are now informed that pressing the “Update Roles” button is required in order to change current roles in the group.
  • Groups formed by the Group Finder now properly handle the dismissal of Companion Characters.
  • Groups formed for Planetary Destinations no longer see a “Travel” dialog when clicking the Group Finder button.
  • Players no longer see an “Invalid Group” state after changing roles when queued inside an active phase.
  • The “Leave Queue” button now displays a tooltip describing why the button can only be pressed by the group leader.
  • Corrected a rare issue that could allow characters under level 10 to open the Group Finder.
  • Players who have obtained initial Flashpoint missions (generally to travel to the Fleet and speak to Satele or Malgus, who will grant the mission to complete the Flashpoint) will notice these missions are now completed when the player is granted (whether by the Group Finder or by sharing) the mission to complete the Flashpoint.
  • The “Queue Group” button is no longer enabled if a group leaves the queue to find a replacement while in an active phase.
  • The role icon and name now match correctly on the Vote Kick window for players who are being kicked.
  • Players can no longer press the “Update Roles” button repeatedly on the “Invalid Group” dialog. This could cause several flytext messages to be displayed to other players.
  • Players now receive an error when attempting to invite players manually as replacements for a Group Finder group.
  • The role selection window now closes automatically when a replacement player is found.
  • If players manually enter a Flashpoint or Operation they are queued for, they can no longer use the Group Finder button.

Items

General

    • Ratings now update correctly on items when their armoring mod has been removed.
    • Equipping a relic that has an “on-use” ability now triggers the relic’s ability cooldown.
    • Players can now receive the Kurtob Alliance Speeder via in-game mail by referring a friend that subscribes to the game.

Legacy

    • The Improved Speeder Piloting II and III Perks no longer require the purchase of previous ranks.
    • The tooltip for the Improved and Advanced Field Repair Droid now displays the correct cooldown.
    • The Legacy UI no longer incorrectly informs players that they have completed the requirements for certain Perks that they are not yet eligible to purchase.

Missions and NPCs

Missions

Corellia
          • Hypermatter Directive: Players no longer receive an in-game mail with Hypermatter supplies after completing this mission.

PvP

General

        • The Warzone invitation window is now removed if a player is queued for a group unranked Warzone while an invitation to a solo Warzone they were previously queued for is active.
        • The Resolve bar now properly displays when a player is PvP-flagged and refreshes the UI outside of a Warzone.

Warzones

Huttball
          • Characters are now immediately defeated if they attempt to enter the enemy team’s protected spawn area.

UI

General

        • The button that allows players to purchase additional cargo bay slots no longer occasionally becomes unresponsive.
        • Players can now bind the “Acquire Focus Target’s Target” to a key of their choice.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

    • An issue that could cause the sky on Corellia to appear black and prevented some visual effects on the Republic Fleet from displaying with bloom enabled has been corrected.
Filed Under: News, Patch Notes Tagged With:

Server Downtime: July 10th 2012

July 10, 2012 by

A six hour downtime this week:

AEST: 5pm-11pm

AWST: 3pm-9pm

NZST: 7pm-1am

The full details:

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for six hours on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than six hours, but could be extended.

This weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than six hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Filed Under: News, Servers

How To Increase Your Zoom Range In SWTOR

July 9, 2012 by

Have you ever wanted to be able to zoom out further in SWTOR. Well here’s a little tip on how to do just that, via Reddit:

Follow the video to show you how to zoom out up to 200% in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr4LzXJEfSw

TL;DR – C:\Users\YourProfileName\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings

Then find the file named: LoginName_Account.ini and open it.

For example, if your login name is DarkSithx then the file will be DarthSithx_Account.ini.

After opening the file look for the line that says: Controls_CameraMaxDistance = 25.0

Change that 25.0 to something else like 50.0. Don’t take the .0 off at the end.

 

Of course it goes without saying that fiddling with settings like these are a risk and certainly aren’t encouraged by BioWare. I haven’t tried it myself but this post’s pic (get the full-size version by clicking on it) shows it can work.

[Thanks to Deadlee Laundry over at the SWTOR Gamers of Oceania Facebook Page for the heads-up. Pic is via here]

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Flash Point 36: Lucas’ Neck and Brown Hole Commendations

July 9, 2012 by

Ed’s back with a vengeance to help make some excitement out of what’s been a pretty quiet fortnight news-wise.

Points of discussion:
– 1.3 experiences
– Community Q&A
– Server transfer rewards
– Lore Update: The Cathar
– Oz Comic Con dissection from a Star Wars viewpoint – including audio live from the event
– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Google Plus page and Twitter account

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: News, Podcast Tagged With:

Community Q&A: 6th July 2012

July 8, 2012 by

The latest community Q&A answers are now available. The first answer on future playable species was interesting, as was insight into the different class story lines.

You can read them all in full below, so get to it!

CelCawdro: If Cathar are successful, what kinds of species can we expect to see? May we see anything beyond the current selection of near-humans? What is the process behind selecting new species and gauging community interest?

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): We’d like to open the selection of future species to the community as a whole with clear positives and negatives provided for each selection. That way we can go a bit further afield in our species selection.

 

Lurtzello: Are the various stories ordered? Meaning, when does the storyline of each Republic planet takes place compared to the Imperial storyline and the storylines of the other planets?

Alex Freed (Lead Writer): The short, unsatisfying answer: it depends!

The longer answer: The class stories tend to weave in and out of one another–they all happen (nothing’s “out of continuity”), and they all happen roughly at the same time (chapter 3 is chapter 3 for everyone, for example), but there’s not a set correspondence that runs all the way through. For example, you couldn’t say “the Jedi Knight is always half a planet ahead of the Imperial Agent.” But you could say “the Bounty Hunter chapter 3 finale takes place before the Trooper chapter 3 finale.”

For the world stories, it’s a little more complicated. In some cases, only one of the world stories can happen–the Republic and Empire can’t both defeat King Ulgo on Alderaan, or the villain of the False Emperor Flashpoint. For story purposes, we know these characters were defeated… but we don’t know by whom.

In other cases, different factions’ world stories happen roughly at the same time–aside from the final defeat of Ulgo, the rest of the Alderaan missions can be contemporaneous. Other world stories are, as you suggest, time-separated–Republic Taris takes place significantly before Imperial Taris, and Imperial Balmorra takes place significantly before Republic Balmorra.

For the most part, it’s best not to worry too much about ordering individual world events unless they actively reference one another–and if they contradict one another, you can assume that we won’t be writing future stories that depend on one faction’s participation at the exclusion of the other. (For example, you’ll note that the Corellia “Black Hole” storyline reconciles the events of the Imperial and Republic Corellia storylines so that going forward, we know roughly the state Corellia is in!).

 

caravaggio: The last few major patches have seen significant changes to the Sniper/Gunslinger Marksman/Sharpshooter tree. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys envision the class and what was not working that caused you to decide changes needed to be made? Do you think that 1.3 brought you closer to where you want to be or do you still see areas in the tree that need improvement?

Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Marksmanship and Sharpshooter have been a challenge to “get right” to be sure. Apart from cover and cover gameplay in general, Marksmanship and Sharpshooter have had a few specific hurdles for us to overcome. Thematically, these guys are high weapon damage specs, and that means that they can be easily countered (or even shut down) with a cooldown like Deflection. On the other hand, when their target is defenseless, their high weapon damage can actually become a little overwhelming.

These specs are also highly cover-dependent, and it has been a difficult task to communicate to players that in most cases they’re better off holding their ground than kiting like a Sorcerer or Sage would. Of course, even that depends on having chosen a good cover spot to begin with. We face the issue of rewarding clean shots from cover while not making extended stays overpowered.

To answer you more directly, our vision for these specs hasn’t changed, but I think we’re striking much closer to that target than we have in the past. I’m really quite happy with Marksmanship and Sharpshooter in Game Update 1.3. Prior to this update, these skill trees fell apart at the top tiers, so we really wanted to address that and reward the full-spec Marksmanship and Sharpshooter. They now have the tools to stand their ground when they need to, they have better energy management than ever before, and their gameplay is smoother, simpler, and more rewarding. That’s not to suggest there aren’t issues, but I expect most issues can be addressed with minor tweaks in the future.

 

Clymene: Are there any plans to buff companion tanks? Currently they are barely any better at survivability than dps companions, especially poor Xalek, and don’t hold aggro very well.

Austin: I’ll bring up the issue with the rest of the team and see if increased survivability and threat is something we can afford to give them. Without me revisiting our goals for what tank companions should do, off the top of my head, it certainly sounds like they could use some adjustments. Thanks for raising this issue.

 

Taitsuo: Would you guys consider adding root effects to the Resolve bar? At the moment, 3 well-coordinated Gunslingers could permaroot someone (5secs duration, 15 secs cooldown). With ranked warzones, that could mean a lot…

Austin: Resolve is meant to put a lid on effects that take control away from you, the player. It’s meant to limit the effectiveness of chain stuns, sleeps, and knockbacks. However, it is not meant to impact the ranged and melee (kiting and anti-kiting) balance of the game. This was a very deliberate measure taken to separate these two different aspects of control. I won’t say that we won’t limit the “chainability” of roots in the future, but given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment, it’s not something we’re very concerned about. Of course, we will be keeping an eye on how ranked warzone teams use the tools they have.

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:

Game of Thrones Lightsaber Duel

July 7, 2012 by

Some great Saturday Star Wars vids for you. First up, watch Jaime Lannister and Eddard Stark go at it, lightsaber style:

Thanks to Ben for the heads-up!

Filed Under: Humour, News Tagged With: , ,

Gannifaris and Black Holes: Server Transfer Rewards

July 6, 2012 by

BioWare are offering a nice little incentive for anyone that hasn’t taken up their offer of a free character transfer. Those incentives being 25 Black Hole Commendations and a Gannifari pet.

You can read all the info here, but here are the overall conditions:

Both rewards are granted to any character that meets the following criteria:

  • Your character(s) must be on a qualifying server (which includes destination servers) and your account must be active by July 30, 2012 at 11:59 PM CDT / July 31, 2012 at 4:59AM GMT.
  • Your account must not be banned.

If you do not have a character on a qualifying server by July 30, 2012 at 11:59 PM CDT / July 31, 2012 at 4:59AM GMT, then you will not receive any rewards. The rewards will be sent via in-game mail by August 7, 2012 at 11:59PM CDT / August 8, 2012 at 4:59AM GMT.

To start the character transfer process, login to your account, click My Account and then click ‘Character Transfer’ in the left hand menu. From there you will be able to select “Start a Character Transfer” to see if you have any characters eligible for transfer to pre-selected serves.

For more information on this program, please visit our Character Transfer FAQ and be sure to look at all the eligible origin, destination and reward qualifying servers at www.swtor.com/transfer.

 Over to you: do the rewards mean you’ll now make the jump or have you already?
Filed Under: News, Servers Tagged With:

Suggestion Box: Group Finder

July 5, 2012 by


Now that SWTOR 1.3 is well and truly ensconced in our lives, it’s worth a debate on one of the key features that update brought us: the LFG tool. I picked up my first PUG via the tool to complete the False Emperor Flashpoint, and it was a hoot, with no wipes or other issues.

How about you? Have you found the group tool useful? Post away below!

Filed Under: News, Suggestion Box Tagged With:
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