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TOROZ Reader Survey: help us get better and maybe win a prize!

March 3, 2012 by

Now that TOROZ has been around a while, it’s time to stand naked before our audience and see how many holodancers or light sabers are thrown at us. Seriously though, we’re extremely interested in finding out what you like and don’t like about what we do, so we can do a better job.

To get your thoughts, we’ve set up a 22-question Reader Survey, which we’d greatly appreciate you filling in. Aside from you doing a great community deed, anyone happy enough to provide their email address in the survey will go into a draw to win one either of the t-shirts shown here OR an equivalent value donation to Kiva.org.

The survey close on the 17th March, so please jump in by filling it in right here on this page or by accessing this direct link.

Thank you!

Filed Under: News, TOG News Tagged With:

Legacy Names and Server Transfers: Clarification

March 3, 2012 by
There’s been a hell of a lot of interest in what the impact of the free server transfers will have on those who have finalised their legacy names. Stephen Reid has jumped in with some information, albeit with the disclaimer that nothing is finalised:

On question (2), you will be able to transfer multiple characters, although there will be some limitations (eg available slots on a server). Again, more details will come closer to the time, but you will not be limited to one character.

On question (3) the only current restrictions are listed in the FAQ. After transfer:

The character will no longer be a part of its guild – Guilds and guild membership will not be transferred to your new server. You will need to create or join a new guild on your new server.

Your Friends list will be reset – Friend lists are server specific, so you will need to repopulate your list with players from your new server.

Before you transfer your character, it is important to ensure the following:

The character has no items listed on the Galactic Trade Network (auction house) – active Galactic Trade Network listings will not be transferred to your new server.

The character has no items or credits in their mailbox – In-game mail will not be transferred to your new server. Make sure you have removed everything in your mailbox before initiating the transfer. Otherwise, the contents will be lost.

Just as big as the confirmation that legacy names won’t be affected, is the mention that more than one character is able to be transferred for free. As mentioned above, if you’ve got a whole bunch of toons and a server is verging on full, there may be an issue, but for the majority, your couple of alts will be transferred as well.

Over to you: does this put your mind at rest?

Filed Under: News, Servers Tagged With: ,

Australian Server Transfers: BioWare update

March 2, 2012 by

BioWare’s Stephen Reid has posted an update on the official forums on the delay between the local server availability and the late April implementation of free transfers. HIs response essentially mirrors that of the one Gabe Amatangelo gave us yesterday, but it’s still worth a read:

Hello everyone. I can absolutely understand the frustrations expressed here, and I appreciate that for the most part, you’re being constructive in your comments. Here’s a little more insight into the situation.

The character transfer system is being actively worked on by the development team. It’s a large, complex project, made more complicated by the Legacy System – and it has to work perfectly. As always, it is not the only task the team as a whole is undertaking, but it’s a priority. It has not been deliberately delayed, nor is it being ‘held back’ for any reason. As you know, the first stage of the system will be a one-off, optional transfer for those who are based in the regions defined in our FAQ. At some point after that, we’ll bring a more fully-featured character transfer system online for all to use.

I can understand the frustration of those of you who have been playing on the US servers and waiting for transfers. We know your enthusiasm and excitement for the game – you wouldn’t have taken the steps you did to get the game earlier than the official launch if you weren’t enthusiastic. We’re working as hard as we can to get the system in place. If we could have brought it online earlier, we would have. However, priorities post-launch had to be directed towards the game itself. The team’s been working flat-out to improve the game, including bug fixes and additional content.

When we announced our launch territories last year we knew many more fans were excited to play The Old Republic. That’s why we moved quickly to launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, with more territories being lined up for future launches. Our primary focus when launching in any new territory has to be to reach more players. Ultimately, that’s best for the continuing success of the game. We want everyone who wishes to play on the new servers to be able to do so, hence character transfer being offered. With that said, in this case we felt it was important to get the game into the hands of new players as soon as possible. That, combined with our post-launch development priorities, meant that character transfer did not make our launch date for these territories.

The development team remains committed to delivering a robust character transfer system for all, with our first priority being for Asia-Pacific players. If we can bring the system to you earlier than expected, we will, but for now we’re aiming towards late April.

So it’s a call for patience folks – and there’s really not a lot of choices beside being patient, otherwise you’re going to have a frustrating seven or eight weeks…

[Pic via Asexual News]

Filed Under: News, Servers Tagged With:

The SWTOR effect? Blizzard lays off 600 staff

March 2, 2012 by

Over at VentureBeat, Dean Takahashi an interesting story on Blizzard Software cutting its workforce by around 600. SWTOR is cited as one impact, as is the life cycle of a long-standing MMO like World of Warcraft:

The cuts are believed to focus on the company’s community service department. World of Warcraft, the company’s flagship game, has seen its subscriber numbers fall from 12 million subscribers in 2010 to 10.2 million in the last quarter.

Atul Bagga, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, said in a note that the cuts were probably 20 to 30 percent of the company’s customer service staff. He said the headcount reduction is likely linked to the downward slope of World of Warcraft usage. He believes that WoW’s subscriber base will fall 300,000 to 400,000 users in the current quarter, due to churn and tougher competition from titles such as Star Wars: The Old Republic.

For what it’s worth, I don’t buy the line that SWTOR is having that much of an impact – at least yet. The life cycle issue is the much more pertinent one. At yesterday’s Australia/New Zealand launch, I heard a gaming journalist behind me say to the colleague next to him that he was underwhelmed by SWTOR because of it’s graphics – why would he play this when he has (insert latest console FPS) at home with its stunning graphics. He then went onto say it was the same reason he avoided WoW back in the time of Burning Crusade.

It’s a stark reminder of how old WoW is, and that has to be impacting subscriber numbers. Add up-and-comers like SWTOR and other MMOs on the horizon such as Guild Wars 2 and you can see there’s probably a downward trajectory for WoW. Not a terminal trajectory by any stretch however – even if SWTOR does pick up a few million more players.

Over to you: is SWTOR responsible to any great extent for the pain of layoffs over at Blizzard?

[Thanks to David K for the heads-up!]

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With:

Suggestion Box: One Bug Fix

March 2, 2012 by

It’s been arguably the biggest week ever for local SWTOR players, what with local servers and a (relatively low key) local launch. So I thought we might take a break from that area and look at the game more widely.

Here’s the question: if you could control what the next thing BioWare fixed in the game, what would it be? It might be content, an add-on or a bug that drives you mad. Spill your guts in the comments!

Filed Under: News, Suggestion Box

Asia-Pacific Transfer Emails Start Flowing In

March 2, 2012 by

As promised, BioWare have started sending out the emails to those SWTOR players eligible for the free server transfers at the end of April.

The most interesting part is the confirmation of what won’t transfer across if you choose to change servers:

If you request a transfer, the following will not be moved as part of this request:

• Friends List

• Auction Items

• In-Game Mail

• Guild Membership

Nothing really surprising there as we already knew guild membership wouldn’t transfer and the other three things can be remedied by individual players prior to transfer.

If you had originally set up a US address but changed it to Australia prior to there 28tj February, you should still get the email – we’ve already had someone confirm they’ve received theirs under that scenario (thanks for letting us know Tim!)

Over to you: have you received your email yet?

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Interview: BioWare’s Gabe Amatangelo on PvP, Server Transfers

March 1, 2012 by

As part of the local launch festivities, I had the opportunity for a one-on-one with Gabe Amatangelo, SWTOR’s Lead PvP designer. We had a bunch of great questions from the Oceanic community, and we managed to ask pretty much all of them. We also threw in a question about the delay with free server transfers.

Gabe was a friendly guy and it shows in his answers, so without further ado, here’s the interview:

If you had difficulty hearing all of the questions, the legends over at Torboard have done a nice summary:

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes

  • Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
  • There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
  • Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
  • New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
  • There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP

  • Phase one will be server specific.
  • Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

General/UI Changes

  • Combat log coming soon.
  • DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
  • Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing

  • Coming in phase two of pvp changes (later than 1.2)
  • Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
  • As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server queue.
Also – if you’re an RP’er or want a wider perspective on stuff from Gabe – definitely check out this brilliant piece from Ganden over at SWTOR-RP, which was completed yesterday as well. Some excellent info in there to say the least!
And for the record, here are the questions that were asked:

Are there any plans to allow lesser PVP tokens (Centurion etc) to be traded in for higher tokens (Champion etc) at a ratio? (Like Warzone tokens into Mercenary Commendations).
What is the outlook for Bioware’s rated pvp, are you aiming for an e-sport paradigm or something more casual.

When, when, when are dps meters coming out?!?!?!?

What are your impressions on the current PvP Warzones and what have you learned going forward for their future?

Are there any plans to allow trading up of Planetary Commendations like Daily’s or higher level planet commendations, I don’t think im ever going to use my 56 Tattooine Commendations anytime soon.

I heard we maybe going cross-server for warzones. How is that going to be handled? Are we going to be using battlegroups, or preferably RvR (realm vs realm)? With RvR, it’d at least keep that sense of community with your server.

Any chance we will see a larger scale instanced objective based Warzone? (Something along the lines of the epicness of Vanilla WoW Alterac Valley)

As I see it, the single biggest problem with Ilum PvP is the large scale kill trading. Why aren’t the organisers of KT (if not all participants of KT ops) banned for boosting / exploiting?

With the announcement of server transfers now not occurring until late April, there’s been some griping giving the assumption was made it’d be earlier. Is the delay due to the free transfers being part of the wider roll-out of transfers throughout the game?

Over to you: what did you think of Gabe’s answers?

Also a big thanks to Jodie at EA for videoing the interview.

Filed Under: Community, News, PvP Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Asia-Pacific Launch Event: Live Blog

March 1, 2012 by

Welcome to the TOROZ live blog of the media launch of SWTOR for Australia and New Zealand. We’ll be updating throughout the launch with both information and pics. You will need to refresh this page manually to get the updates sorry. Enjoy!

UPDATE: head over to Capsule Computers for some great pics of the event!

3.35pm: The event this evening is for people who’ve registered via EA’s social media presences – so not an open public event. This will end the live blog, expect the video and further info later this evening. Thanks for reading!

3.30pm: Sorry for the delay, was pulled in to interview Gabe Amatangelo. Very open interview, all community questions have been answered. Not to be a tease but you’ll need to wait until I get home to upload the video 😉 Can confirm definitely late April for the free transfers, delay is to ensure the tech is right and isn’t aligned with a wider server transfer program at this stage.

3.02pm: Time for people to play the game.

3.00pm: GA back on stage – discusses 1.1 update, 1.2 ‘coming soon’ and key new content given an overview. Ranked Warzones etc.

2.56pm: Couldn’t be happier with where the game is at right now. Lots of awards, great server uptime (95%+). Looking toward community for what they want. Starts video showing first 30 days of SWTOR, interviews with (US) community members. More than 14 million characters created. 6 million PvP battles daily. David Bass and Stephen Reid make cameos.

2:55pm: GA back on stage – vids not a reflection of class balance ;). Context of the game given on timeline. Unique opportunity to craft SW pre-history. Class overview.

2:49pm: Hope trailer played

2:45pm: Game intro cinematic played (Empire)

2:41pm: Game intro cinematic played (Republic)

2:37pm: GA: servers – we’ll open more as demand increases. Free transfer overview (no details different from announced)

2:37pm: Gabe takes the stage.

2:35pm: And we’re underway.

2.27pm: lots of mingling, so while we’re waiting for the official stuff to get underway, here’s a shot of the SWTOR mural and the PCs with SWTOR installed for journalists new to the game to have a play with:

2.16pm: Slightly late start – but the atmosphere is building:

12.28pm: Still hunting for info. There’s definitely something on this evening but not sure exactly what yet. Stay tuned. Sydneysiders – maybe keep your social diary free just in case 😉

10.48am: Rumours of a SWTOR community event tonight in Sydney? Will find out and post any info as soon as I have it.

8.23am: Welcome to the live blog, expect updates to start a little before 2pm AEDT / 11am AWST / 4pm NZDT

———-
Don’t forget the official Asia-Pacific launch FAQ for all the nitty-grittys, and we’d love you to post your ping times if you get a chance.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Asia-Pacific SWTOR Players: Post Your Ping

February 29, 2012 by

The local servers are live and from hanging out in general chat on the PvE server Dalborra, the bulk of people are more than happy with their ping times compared to US servers.

Although ping times can be impacted by dozens of different things, I thought it’d still be interesting to get people to post their ping times, particularly those outside of NSW/Victoria in Australia.

We’d particularly love to hear from any Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesian, Japanese or Malaysian players on whether the Asia-Pacific servers are any better for you. Please post your ping and geographical location in comments!

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With:

SWTOR Free Server Transfers: ‘Late April’

February 29, 2012 by

UPDATE: 18th April 2012 – The actual transfer date and conditions have been announced.

The FAQ for the Asia-Specific launch has now been updated, and it clarifies to some extent when the free server transfers will occur.  The quote in full is:

Qualified players in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, or Singapore, will be offered one-time free character transfers to Asia Pacific servers for a limited time period in late April. No specific date has been confirmed at this time. We will be sending an email to all qualified players by early March with more details. Stay tuned to www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for more information.

So for those hoping to transfer their primary toon in the next week or so, you have a bit of a wait yet. My guess is that the transfers may be part of a wider implementation of server transfers for the game as a whole. So I suppose you’ll just need to start levelling up an alt – I know I am.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Asia-Pacific SWTOR servers are live

February 29, 2012 by

And here’s the proof of local players in the Ord Mantell starting area:

 

 

General chat is full of Australian people rapt with ping times, so good omens so far there though some from Singapore are claiming less than optimal ping times. We look forward to continuing to bring you all the latest news and views from SWTOR, now available locally!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Launch Day Eve: servers and live blogs

February 29, 2012 by

As you may have heard by now, the local servers for SWTOR come on board this evening, so expect lots of people rolling alts or their first character on the three servers available initially. For those meeting the free transfer criteria, you’ll receive an email in the next few days telling you how to do that.

Which leads to the launch event tomorrow for media in Sydney. We’ll be live blogging it from around 2pm AEDT so just keep an eye on the front page and watch the information flow in. Unfortunately the live blog will be a normal post updated minute to minute, so you will need to refresh the page to see the updates – sorry. If you’re really keen you can also hang out in our Flash Point chat room – if the wireless reception at the event is up to scratch we’ll join you there as well.

Otherwise, enjoy your last evening as an official red zoner – that’s history as of late tonight.

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:
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