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UPDATE: local online game store Dungeon Crawler has SWTOR on sale for $71.50.
Just a quick heads up for anyone still looking to buy a copy of SWTOR. Retail chain Game are now selling imported copies of The Old Republic at the price of $78.00.
So if you are still looking for a copy head to your nearest store or shop online here.
See you all in-game!
Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer for SWTOR at BioWare, has posted an update addressing the issue of ability delay i.e. bashing one’s keys but not seeing one’s toon do anything. According to Georg, a fix for at least some of the issues will be hitting the public test server next update:
Hi everyone; I wanted to give you all an update on the ability delay situation.
Thanks to constructive feedback from the community, including some great videos, we were able to identify an issue that could cause abilities on global cooldown to appear available to the player, resulting in unresponsive/ignored player input. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.
Additionally, we have located an issue that would cause player input for certain instant abilities to fail in frantic combat situations, resulting in unpredictable and frustrating gameplay issues for the affected player. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.
Finally, our engineers have identified an issue introducing a significant delay between player input and ability execution in certain game situations, most notably (but not limited to) fast paced PvP. The magnitude of the delay varies with a number of factors, including processor hardware, but can, especially on dual core CPUs, result in a very perceivable reduction in game responsiveness. We are in the later stages of testing a fix for the problem and hope to be able to roll it out to the servers very soon.
We’re still investigating a number of additional issues, along with some usability and quality of life improvements for responsiveness regarding player input, but the above mentioned developments should provide a very measurable improvement in combat responsiveness.
Thanks again for your patience and support and we hope to see you on the public test server to help us validate these improvements before pushing them to the live servers.
In the meantime, think of the pointless key bashing as exercise that sets you up to fight any rampaging Rakghouls in real life. Well that’s my rationale and I’m sticking to it!
This week I thought we’d move the suggestion box away from the battlefield and get cultured. Specifically, let’s talk music. I still haven’t gotten sick of SWTOR’s soundtrack at all, which is probably helped by the fact it’s quite sparse depending on what you’re doing.
So jump in and let us know: are you playing SWTOR with the music on, and if not, what do you do instead?
Bioware have released a little taster of upcoming content in SWTOR. It’s a presentation by James Ohlen, which you can watch below, but the highlights disclosed are:
– Rise of the Rakghouls content is in two parts and has been worked on for around a year
– PvP is a big focus, with a ranking system and new Warzone
– A ‘Family Tree’ function allowing new characters you create to be linked with your other characters, with associated benefits as far as abilities and powers
– Guilds get some love with guild banks
– And yes – interface customisation is coming!
There’s no timeline specific for all this except that it’ll be occurring over “coming months”, but it at least provides a roadmap for some key features.
Anyway, have a look:
[Read more…]
If you’re already playing SWTOR you’ve probably received the email from Bioware, informing you that you can receive the Founder title for all your characters in-game. I’ve always been a sucker for a title or other virtual good, particularly when I’ve met the requirements without having to do anything extra!
All the steps are outlined below but essentially you just need to be a subscriber past your initial included game time, before the 19th March 2012:
As a ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped make Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ one of the most successful MMO launches in history, we are rewarding early members of The Old Republic with a unique Founder’s Medal and “Founder” Title!
To receive the Founder’s Medal…
* Purchase Star Wars: The Old Republic and redeem your official Game Product Registration Code at the Code Redemption Center.
* Complete one of the following transactions by March 19th, 2012 (12:01AM EST; Pacific: March 18th, 9:01PM PST; European: 4:01AM GMT, 5:01AM CET):
* Billed at least once for an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription
* Redeemed a Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Time Code
* Once you become eligible for the title and have surpassed your 30 days of game time included with your official Game Product Registration Code, you will be notified by email.
* Check your in-game mail for a message from “Star Wars: The Old Republic”. Your Founder’s Medal will be attached to this message.
* Place your Founder’s Medal in your Inventory and right-click the medal to unlock your “Founder” title. (TIP: You can choose to show the Founder’s title or any other title you’ve earned in-game by opening your character sheet and selecting a title from the character name drop down. Once applied, the title will show next to your character name on your nameplate.)
* This title is permanently bound to your account and will carry over to any character you make in the future.
(NOTE: It may take up to 7 days for the “Founder” title to be applied).
Over to you: does this mean anything to you at all, or is it just pap to curry favour?
UPDATE: There’s a two hour delay so add that into the calculations below!
Well it seems those damn Rakghouls have spent some time chewing their way out from the inside of game update 1.1, as it hasn’t been particularly smooth sailing since last night’s downtime. The most obvious issue has been the glitch with PvP on Ilum, where people have been able to camp the enemy medcenter, which prevents their opponents leaving to recapture control points. To resolve that issue and others, there’s now further downtime scheduled:
Please be advised that the servers will be unavailable beginning at 5AM CST (3AM PST/ 6AM EST/ 11AM GMT/ 12PM CET) as we deploy a new patch. This deployment will fix a few high priority issues in the game. We expect the service to be available again by 10AM CST (8AM PST/ 11AM EST/ 4PM GMT/ 5PM CET). Please watch this thread for updates and information as they become available. To view the status of your server, please visit the Server Status Page.
So locally this means no access to SWTOR starting tonight 19th January between 10pm and 3am AEDT, 7pm to Midnight AWST and Midnight to 5am NZDT.
Below is the full text from SWTOR’s, Principal Lead PvP, Flashpoints and Operations Designer, Gabe Amatangelo:
Hello everyone; I wanted to update you on the issues we’ve been seeing today on the live servers, specifically within the Open World PvP area on Ilum. We’re aware that on some servers, either Republic or Empire groups have been capturing the Ilum control points, entering the enemy’s base and ‘camping’ the medcenters, preventing the opposite faction from leaving their base to recapture control points. This is not a fair or balanced gameplay experience and can also severely affect client performance, so we’re taking steps to address this.
Our intended design for Ilum Open World PvP is that players are instantly killed when entering the enemy’s base safe area, just like in Warzones, and that the defending faction can take taxis to other points within the zone. In Game Update 1.1, this is not working as intended. We have found the issue preventing this from happening under server load and will be publishing an Emergency Patch to address the issue. We’re aiming to have this patch published early tomorrow morning (January 19th, 5 AM US CST).
In addition to these changes, we’ll be reducing the population cap on Ilum. This should help increase performance by requiring your client to render fewer characters on-screen at once.
Regarding Valor gains, with the 1.1 update, players now receive a base reward of 20 Valor per unique enemy player defeated in a short time, and this base reward is modified by the number of objectives that the player’s faction owns. The gains are rate limited per player killed, encouraging players to attack unique players, not to pursue vendettas. The Valor gains players can see over time will vary greatly depending on the activity level in the zone. This is expected.
To dispel a couple of rumors that have been seen today – there is no Valor gain from destroying turrets within enemy bases, and none from killing NPCs.
We encourage players to avoid Ilum until our patch is deployed. As a temporary measure we will be disabling taxi services which would normally take players into the Open World PvP area. However, players will still be able to taxi out of the area.
We will continue to monitor Ilum across all servers and will make further changes to gameplay if required. We welcome your feedback here on the Forums, but please ensure your feedback is constructive and specific. Feedback based on rumor does not help us isolate potential issues.
And finally – if you’ve been exploiting the glitch, punishment may be on its way according to Joveth Gonzalez, Associate Online Community Manager:
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to be clear and let you all know that we’re definitely aware of individuals who took extreme advantage of this situation and we will be carefully evaluating and taking action as necessary.
So it’s more downtime though it’s actually a more favourable time than we’re used to, so that’s a small consolation.
Over to you: noticed any good or bad stuff about the 1.1 update?
It’s back on after the postponement on Tuesday – the 1.1 patch that sees Rise of the Rakghouls become reality:
Scheduled Maintenance
Date: Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET)
All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours.
Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
So that means no access for Australians between 7pm Wednesday 18th January through to 3am Thursday 19th January.
For New Zealanders, you’re locked out between 9pm Wednesday 18th and 5am Thursday 19th.
In the meantime, be sure to have a listen to our latest podcast dissecting the patch, or have a read through the patch notes.
The hard-core folks at Oceanic guild Redemption have achieved a full clear of SWTOR hard modes. You can tell that after presumably quite a few attempts on Eternity Vault’s SOA in hard mode, there was some relief at getting the job done:
Here’s the kill shot itself:
It’s an impressive achievement, whether it’s an oceanic first or not. It’s also a short-lived achievement as in a little over 24 hours there’s four more bosses in Karagga’s Palace to down. And like any guild I’m sure that’s just the way they like it!
Any other guilds that have nailed this, feel free to post your claims in comments!
UPDATE: due to glitches with the 1.1 update, the downtime has been pushed out a ‘few days’. Thanks for the heads-up Ben!
The usual server downtime is on Tuesday evening, but it’s an extended one due to the 1.1 update being put live. Here’s the announcement and the time-zone conversions after that.
Scheduled Maintenance
Date: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET)
All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours.
So that means no access for Australians between 7pm Tuesday 17th January through to 3am Wednesday 18th January.
For New Zealanders, you’re locked out between 9pm Tuesday 17th and 5am Wednesday 18th.
In the meantime, be sure to have a listen to our latest podcast dissecting the patch, or have a read through the patch notes.
A historic episode personnel-wise, with our first four-way podcast as Simon Potter becomes one of the regular panel – welcome Simon! Rise of the Rakghouls is the focus but there’s lots more than that dissected.
Points of discussion:
– Patch 1.1 update and class changes
– Slicing changes
– End-game gear customisation
– EB Games stocking SWTOR locally in Australia
– Anti-aliasing improvements and pretty places in SWTOR
– Collector’s Edition digital content
– Different terms for the penis (yes, seriously) – and here’s the link to the Bloodhound Gang song mentioned (warning: contains gratuitous shots of bikini glad women)
– Movie recommendation and Stan Lee’s appearance Down Under
– Two upcoming special guests
– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Oceanic Guild listing, Google Plus page and Twitter account
Also after the show is Episode 2 of Star Wars Addicts Anonymous, Ed and his flatmate Collyn’s laid back look at everything SWTOR.
Listen via iTunes or right here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:49 — 78.0MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
This week we’ve got the Jedi Shadow, Kinetic Combat specced Tank. The Jedi Shadow uses the Force as its pacing mechanic, starting with a constant 100. I find that the Shadow pacing mechanic is easier to maintain than the Jedi Guardian or the Trooper Vanguard.
From a glance, the Jedi Shadow with its light armor and stealth looks like it should be a Avoidance tank, but it’s actually a third mitigation tank, although its armor rating isn’t as high as the Vanguard or Guardian. It has some tools that help even up the playing field. One thing that I feel helps make up for its lower armor class is the ability to mitigate more elemental and internal damage such as bleeds and fire. The ability to do this may not seem like a lot but for a Tank, damage that bypasses your armor can be extra deadly and the Shadow is more resilient to these type of abilities.
The Jedi Shadow has a lot of builds and rotations that can be used for everything from AoE add tanking (probably the Shadow’s true weak point) to single target raid tanking, and even PvP Tanking.
The two main builds for the Shadow tank are the 31/0/10 single target Tank and the 25/0/16 AoE Tank.
My Shadow follows the 31/0/10 build and does very well at tanking single mobs and even up to two or three mobs.
A good rotation for your single target 31/0/10 build is going to be:
1) Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD.
2) Force Breach if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec
3) Slow Time if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec
4) Telekinetic Throw with 3 stacks of Harnessed Shadows
5) Project if Particle Acceleration is up
6) Double Strike
7) Saber Strike if you are out of energy, or need energy to refresh an upcoming debuff
and then for AoE with the 31/0/10 build:
1) Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD.
2) Slow Time
3) Force Breach
4) Whirling Blow
5) Saber Strike if you are out of energy
Single Target for the 25/0/16:
1)Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD
2) Force Breach if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec
3) Project if Particle Acceleration is up
4) Mind Crush if DoT is not applied
5) Double Strike
6) Saber Strike if you are out of energy, or need energy to refresh an upcoming debuff
AoE with the 25/0/16:
1)Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD
2) Force in Balance
3) Force Breach
4) Whirling Blow
5) Mind Crush if you are out of energy
6) Saber Strike if you are out of energy
The Jedi Shadow can be just as effective as any other tank as long as you keep your head in the game. This Tank is very involved in lots of re-applying buffs and watching debuffs applied, but it’s also very fun for the same reasons.
May the Force be with you.
One month. That’s all it’s been since those with early game access on Day 1 started playing. It’s not a long time by any standards, but as shown with the two large patches already announced or implemented, Bioware aren’t backward in coming forward with updates.
That’s all chicken feed compared to the announcement that game update 1.1, called Rise of the Rakghouls, will be going live after next Tuesday’s maintenance downtime. The full patch notes are given below, but the bug ticket items are:
– a new level 50 Flashpoint called Kaon Under Siege
– the promised expansion to the Karagga’s Palace Operation, with four new bosses
– significant PvP changes with Ilum
We have some pics of Kaon Under Siege for you as well:
If you want a taste of Kaon Under Siege in action, have a look at this:
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