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New poll: oceanic server or not?

February 14, 2012 by

With the official local launch for SWTOR getting very close and the announcement of local servers, we thought it was time to start a new poll.

The question is: will you swap to the local server when it’s available? It may seem a no-brainer but I’m guessing quite a few people actually won’t shift given they may have lots of US friends as players or are part of a international guild.

So go to our front page and vote in the poll which is on the right hand side of the page a little way down. Also – make your thoughts below, particularly if you aren’t going to be swapping – why aren’t you?

If you’d like to see the results of previous polls, here’s where you go.

Filed Under: News, Opinion

SWTOR Guild Summit: live streams to be available

February 14, 2012 by

Some good news for guilds and other interested parties who won’t be attending the Guild Summit in the flesh. BioWare have announced that there’ll be live streams available to allow people to watch proceedings and in some cases also participate:

Thank you to all of the guild leaders who submitted applications to attend the first Guild Summit in Austin. We are currently reviewing guild applications and will be responding back to everyone who applied in the next few days.

For those who are unable to attend the Guild Summit for one reason or another, we’re very happy to announce that we will be providing a livestream of select events during the Guild Summit, including developer presentations and feedback discussions. These livestreams will allow players from around the world to observe and participate in some of the event discussions as well. As a reminder, the Guild Summit will be conducted in English, but anyone can join in on the livestream regardless of their location. If you can’t watch the livestream during the Summit, we’ll also be publishing videos of the panels after the event has ended. As we get closer to the event, we’ll provide more details for how you can get involved. Stay tuned!

For oceanic guilds: please let us know if you’ve applied to go in person and get accepted to attend – we’d love some reports and pics from on the ground and are happy to remunerate you for your time.

Just drop David a line.

Filed Under: Community, Guilds, News Tagged With:

Weekly server maintenance: 14th February 2012

February 13, 2012 by

One thing I hadn’t realised about BioWare, is that they’re all tragic romantics. That’s why they’ve thoughtfully made this week’s regular maintenance on Valentine’s Day. That way, you can spend some time with the woman / man of your dreams – or at least write a secret admirer note to your favourite SWTOR companion.

Ok, enough silly talk around what’s a normal scheduled maintenance. Here’s the local times you’ll not have game access:

AEDT: 7pm – 11pm Tuesday 14th Feb

AWST: 4pm – 8pm

NZDT: 9pm – 1am

Original details:

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET)

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

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

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News, Servers Tagged With:

Heavy Damage: Tricks of the PvP Trade Part 3

February 12, 2012 by

Heavy Damage is our weekly Tanking column – if you have suggestions of what you’d like covered, drop our resident Tank, Alec Bailey a line. Part 1 of this PvP roundup covering Huttball can be found here and Part 2 (Voidstar) is here 

This is the final installment of my “Tricks of the PvP Trade” series. It will be covering the offensive and defensive tactics I find useful in Alderaan Civil War (ACW) Warzone. The ACW Warzone is a three point capture and hold game. The three turrets constantly fire on the opposing team’s drop ship. The key to victory is to hold two points long enough to bring down the enemy’s drop ship and end the match. The turrets are usually referred to as left, right, middle; East, West, Centre;  or snowy side, grass side, and middle.

As usual I’ll break the strategies down to main points of intrest, explaining the tactics I use to help get my team the win. The main thing that sets ACW apart from the other Warzones is that your team will be playing offense and defense almost simultaneously the entire match.

Basic Strategies

Capture the Flanks! – Capping the flanks is the best plan of attack, but for some reason it is constantly over looked. Everyone wants that middle turret. I can’t figure why anyone would rush the middle turret over the flanks for the simple reason of an almost instant travel to the outside turrets through the speeders your team unlocks once the position is capped. This allows your team to react to which ever side is being hit the hardest by simply spawning and speeding straight to the turret itself. The middle turret takes the most amount of time to reach, which means you’re adding time to the gap of getting killed to reinforcements arriving.

Incoming! – Let your team know what is going on as often as you can. Calling out the incoming enemies seems common sense, but you would be surprised how often people think “It’s only one guy” then two or three stealthers pop and it’s over before they have a chance to react. Like with any team based game, communication is key – keep your team informed and on their toes.

Strong Side! – When my guild (Kan Kop) runs these together we send three people to the left side (Near side flank) and everyone else rushes the right side (Far side flank). This is a pretty decent strategy and works out more often than not. Usually we have a couple of strays (non-guildies or non-group members) who don’t listen and rush middle – even then they work out as a great distraction to the opposing faction. As a Tank and Guild leader I usually volunteer to guard the near side and kind of traffic control. Once near side is capped we keep two on and I start announcing to assault far side. Once both flanks are capped it’s usually a cake walk – just watch what side needs the help and reinforce once re-spawned.

Tank & Heals – A great strategy for a Tank to use is to find a Healer to stick with you on the original capped turret, because once you have your strong side in motion a good team will see it and could start rushing your capped turret. A Healer and a Tank can hold a few people off easily long enough to get some reinforcements.

As a Tank I try to use my pushes, pulls etc to keep opposing players off the turret caps. As with the other Warzones, use your debilitating skills as often as possible.

Troopers: when there is a group of enemies, keep your Explosive Surge debuff on enemies to help lower damage output.

Guardians: Force Sweep to lower accuracy.

Shadows: throw your Breach for its debuff and don’t forget your stuns. Keep your Guard on an ally for those defender points. Also try to throw your taunts as often as possible – as a PvP Tank your  job is to keep the enemy’s damage output on your teammates to a minimum.

As always stay frosty, and keep your team alive

May the force be with you!

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: News, PvP Tagged With: ,

Stephen Reid Q&A: Summary Transcript

February 11, 2012 by

It wasn't really the Spanish Inquisition

Earlier today we had a great time throwing some questions from the oceanic SWTOR community at BioWare’s Stephen Reid. He answered them all with aplomb and quite a bit of detail overall.

You can listen to the whole shebang here, but if you want a rough summary of the answers to each question then read on. Note: the answers are NOT word for word answers from Stephen, they’re summaries I’ve jotted down on the run. You’re much better off listening to the podcast to get the fully accurate picture. A big thanks to all those who posted questions as well!

So here we go:

Jono from Sydney NSW – Was BioWare surprised at the level of organisation of Oceanic players in populating three specific servers?

SR: Not surprised – knew it was coming. Made sure they got out announcements about oceanic servers / regional launch as close to launch as possible. Humbling to see interest from oceanic players prior to US/EU launch. Ideally would have loved to have launched in all territories.

Glenn from Southland NZ – Were you surprised at the level of sales from the oceanic area even though excluded as a launch territory?

SR: Again, not surprised overall given interest in SWTOR but Amazon certainly seemed the go-to place for Oceanic people to order the game.

Multiple sources – Where will the oceanic servers be physically located?

SR: “The good news is, the servers are going to be physically located in Australia”. Likely to be Sydney or Melbourne but unsure at this stage. Understands big distances in oceanic area but Sydney or Melbourne the more realistic locations. Also super close to being able to announce Oceanic launch date. Expect announcement within the next few days to a week. No plans for a launch trip to Australia at this stage.

Milza from the Sunshine Coast QLD – Can you reveal any more about the legacy system? Will previously locked species become playable?

SR: Some species previously not available will be come unlocked. But no you won’t be able to play a Wookiee. Legacy aimed at benefitting both alts and mains. Abilities WILL benefit gameplay but not unbalance the game ie. single toon players won’t be disadavantaged significantly but SWTOR is a game always designed for mulptiple toons.

Josh from Victoria – Will there be a Collectors Edition for Australia and will it and the game have bonus content like the current collectors edition?

SR: TBA in next week’s oceanic launch announcement

Dave from Perth WA – Just wanted to ask what is Bioware’s take on the complaints from community groups about the upcoming change to allow toons to have same sex relations?

SR: No real further comment but not going to change stance in supporting the option.

Tim from Canberra ACT – Hoping to learn about specific upcoming PvP changes — will there be changes to game announcements so player names are credited for achieving objectives, medals for accomplishing objectives, etc?

SR: Haven’t heard about those two specific ideas, but a lot of PvP changes coming – new Warzone in update 1.2 which is popular at BioWare. Certainly not leaving the PvP systems alone.

Ken from Sunshine Coast QLD – What are your future plans for light side / dark side… will some pvp rounds be light vs dark (so you have jedi and sith fighting other jedi and sith)… will there be planets where the questing will be divided by light / dark

SR: Interesting idea! But not anything that SR has heard discussed. Encourage you to leave that feedback on the forums.

Aaron from Melbourne VIC – Will you be offering any services in the near future for things like character server transfers/faction changes/renaming and will some form of this be available for oceanic players to be able to move characters from from US servers they currently play on to the oceanic hosted servers when they are released?

SR: Part of Oceanic planning is allowing any current players wanting to shift to new servers to do so. More details on that next week. Character transfer will definitely be happening at some point. Unsure of how faction change would work i.e. you couldn’t become a Jedi on the Empire side etc without radically changing class story. Renaming a possibility but not high on priority list.

Rob from Auckland NZ – Will character transfers be paid or free?

SR: Too early to comment but Oceanic transfers likely to be free around launch of the local servers as courtesy to those wanting to move.

Rob from Auckland NZ – Any chance of a Cut Scene stress relief event where we eject C2-N2/2V-R8 out the ship’s airlock so we can watch them float away into space and burn up entering a nearby planet’s atmosphere?

SR: Much laughter. Discussions occurring on adding more dialogue for companions – much more commentary during gameplay. But opinions divided and Dev team still looking at the issue.

Tyler from East Gippsland Victoria – Please can “”Are you sure?”” buttons be placed on important choices, such as advance class choice? ( Having rolled a Bounty hunter I got to advance class choice only to miss click a button and become a powertech instead of mercenary)”

SR: Could happen but you do get a fair warning of the choice being made. Other dialog boxes coming so it may be an option for the future and should be elevated for discussion. Advanced class switching not coming any time soon.

Glenn from Southland, NZ – Are there any plans to introduce a localised call center or at least a center that routes calls from oceanic areas to your main call center after launch to avoid serious toll charges?

SR: There will be a local Australian number but don’t know if there will be a NZ number – to be confirmed.

Ken from Sunshine Coast QLD – Will physical security keys become available to oceanic players either through stores or through origin?

SR: Pretty sure they will but wait for launch announcement FAQ

Gail from Wollongong NSW – Is there any particular reason that SWTOR maintenance is at the same time as WoW maintenance? I could see a lot more WoW players coming to the light side on a Tuesday if SWTOR maintenance were a different day…

SR: Tuesday nights one of lowest levels of overall traffic – so purely a cooincidence.

Ben from Brisbane QLD – Are there any plans to add additional features to the mobile app? Eg armoury and guild chat. Or maybe a something for the tablet market to do such as space missions on an iPad (or equivalent) or to send companions on crafting missions via an app.

SR: Mobile apps have been talked about, no announcements yet. Might happen in the future though space missions might be a bit much. Pthers ‘possible’ and have been discussed but no timeline.

Jonathan from Wellington NZ – Given the massive upset caused by mishandling of the launch (flipflop on grace period, exclusion of red zone, length of time to get answers on issues like IP blocking) has BW/EA learned anything and can we expect, most importantly, more transparency and more sticking to what has been promised in the future?

SR: Not a lack of transparency, but more too much with the grace period example. Never going to lie intentionally to anyone. Because we know we’ll get caught in the lie. Learning lessons all the time. BioWare take reactions to announcements seriously, but doesn’t mean things will always change as may be impractical or can’t be done immediately.

Mark (TOROZ) – What brought Stephen from England to Texas, was it the Job ?

SR: Not this job specifically, having a US-born wife assisted in migrating.

David (TOROZ) – Are there any plans for a big SWTOR convention at some stage in the future?

SR: Doing the guild summit is a great practice for doing something like that. If fans want such an event, then make it known. Also very keen to see local fan-organised events to support.

David (TOROZ) – BioWare founders Ray and Greg have alluded to the fact they understand the desire for a Mac port of the game. Are there any significant technical obstacles to be overcome to achieve this that would prevent it occurring in the medium term?

SR: Nothing to add – don’t believe it’s a priority but more likely to occur than a console port. Would give an excuse to have a Mac at work.

David (TOROZ) – One thing I’ve noticed since launch is a distinct lack of creative SWTOR machinima being disseminated and I’ve had some comments that they assume it’ll be pulled. What is BioWare / LucasArts’ approach to fan-created machinima?

SR: Can’t speak for LucasArts but we like to see SWTOR machinima so get creative! To be fair too, machinima options are limited in that access to Hero engine not available to players.

David (TOROZ) – Most humourous and stressful moments you’ve had at work since launch?

SR: Humour and stress go hand in hand at work. Lots of fun memes that have popped up around the game. Always stressful when things are going wrong with the service but that’s what we’re supposed to deal with in our jobs.

David (TOROZ) – Is the level of patching more than what you would have liked?

SR: Yes, more than we would have liked. Weekly maintenance a necessity as a base. Done extra patches to help players but not taken lightly. Overall want to reduce level of patching. Upside is where possible weekly patches may have early access to larger patch content.

Ed – Any plans for guild capital ships?

SR: We have no current timeline for a feature like that but it never goes far away from anyone’s mind. Don’t want to do a feature like that by halves. Being discussed but no details yet.

Simon – Any plans for an LFG tool?

SR: Definitely being looked at including cross-server Flashpoint tool. Definitely wanting to do.

Simon – Any work being done on being able to transfer characters from Public Test Server or higher-level premades?

SR: Yes – most likely to be character transfers, not premades. No timeline but not on distant horizon – absolutely know it’s an important thing to get in place.

END

So it’s fair to say there’s a lot to digest there. The imminent oceanic launch announcement is a biggie, the oceanic server location is even bigger, but there’s lots of meat in there in regards to the game more widely. Which part interested you the most?

Filed Under: Community, News Tagged With:

SWTOR oceanic server location confirmed!

February 11, 2012 by

You’ll need to listen to our most recent podcast for Stephen Reid’s take on Oceanic servers, but here’s the take-home messages:

1. The servers WILL be physically located in Australia

2. The specific location is unconfirmed at this stage but is likely to be Sydney or Melbourne

3. A broader announcement on local launch will be made in coming days and there will be no great surprises on the launch date.

We’ll have a full transcript of the Q&A up later today, but if you want the info hot off the wires, then listen to the podcast.

UPDATE (29th February 2012): The full details on server names can be found here.

Filed Under: News, Servers Tagged With:

Flash Point 26: Stephen Reid Q&A Special Edition

February 11, 2012 by

This episode we have BioWare’s Senior Community Coordinator, Stephen Reid, jump into the Oceanic bear pit to field questions from the local community.

A wide range of issues were covered and we’re confident Stephen escaped the colonies with his dignity intact – a big thanks to him for taking the time! Do have a listen as there’s some really interesting info in there, including some hard facts on Oceanic servers and a hell of a lot more. We’ll have a summary transcript up this afternoon as well (updated: here it is)

There is a little background noise here and there sorry, but I’ve removed as much of it as possible.

Points of discussion:
– Q&A session with Stephen Reid covering a big range of issues including a confirmation of whether Oceanic servers will be physically located down here
– A brief post Q&A discussion with the TOROZ crew

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:18 — 20.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: News, Podcast Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Patch 1.1.3 hits the public test server

February 11, 2012 by
Patch 1.1.3 hit the public test servers overnight, so read on to find out if you’re impacted by any changes. I like a couple of the companion fixes myself, good stuff!
Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ – 1.1.3 Patch Notes

Note: Because development is ongoing during testing, it should be noted that all changes and updates listed in the patch notes should be considered incomplete and are subject to change or removal before release to the live servers.The Public Test Server patch notes will be provided in English. The final release notes will be provided in English, French, and German when the content is moved to live servers.

Classes and Combat
General

  • Surge rating has been re-balanced. It now reaches diminishing returns the same way as other damage ratings, and its per point damage contribution has been reduced by approximately 10%.

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary

Arsenal

  • Stabilizers: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Unload.

Trooper

Commando

Gunnery

  • Steadied Aim: Correctly adds pushback resistance to Full Auto.

Companion Characters
General

  • Some taxis that failed to re-summon companions upon reaching their destination now properly re-summon them.
  • Companions no longer indicate they wish to speak with you when you are not yet eligible for their next conversation.
  • If a player is invited to a nearly full group and declines, that player is no longer prevented from summoning a companion.

Crew Skills
Crafting Skills

  • Non-stackable crafting materials are now refunded if the crafting assignment is canceled.
  • The number of non-stackable crafting materials a player has is now correctly reflected in the crafting UI.

Biochem

  • Exotech schematics will now function properly. – Updated 2/10
  • Crafting Exotech consumables now results in three items with a chance of one additional item on a crafting critical.

Flashpoints and Operations
General

  • Conversation rewards like Social and Alignment Points and Companion Affection are gained more consistently during Hard Mode Flashpoints.

Flashpoints

Boarding Party

  • In Hard Mode, players are no longer blocked from re-entering the Flashpoint in some circumstances when the group is defeated during the encounter with Jorland.

Kaon Under Siege

  • Expulsor Droid now drops the correct loot.

Operations

Karagga’s Palace

  • The chest in 8-man Nightmare Mode now spawns properly after defeating Karagga.

Items
General

  • Unique items can no longer be traded to a player that has the maximum number of that item in their inventory.
  • A confirmation dialog is now displayed when purchasing items with commendations or tokens and when purchasing expensive items.

Legacy

  • A confirmation dialog is now displayed when choosing a Legacy name. The UI has been updated to better communicate Legacy name decisions.

Missions and NPCs
General

  • Small amounts of Social Points are no longer lost in some circumstances (rarely at the beginning of a Flashpoint or in some mission conversations).
  • Bonus Series missions on Tatooine (Republic and Imperial) can now be abandoned.

Missions

Imperial

  • Eve of Destruction: This mission progresses properly even if the player does not immediately travel to Corellia.

Republic

  • Need to Impress: Resolved a dialogue issue with Ambassador Jannik that blocked progress in this mission.
  • Rapid Response: This mission can now be failed if the player leaves the mission phase while attempting to destroy the Bomb-Carrying Droids.
  • Taris Bonus Series: The cinematic for the objective “Return to Storm” now completes properly even if the player has not finished Reconstruction Efforts.

PvP
General

  • Fixed an issue causing players to not receive Warzone Win mission credit upon winning a Warzone match when the first player to enter the zone leaves the zone before the match concludes.

World PvP

Ilum

  • Players are now notified when they kill a player but do not receive credit due to rate limits.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Players are no longer occasionally disconnected from the game when interacting with a mailbox.
  • Players no longer lose mouse click functionality in some circumstances after pressing multiple mouse buttons.

 

Over to you: anything if note for you in this list?

Filed Under: News, Patch Notes, Support Tagged With: ,

Guild Starships: where’s Spaceball 1?

February 10, 2012 by

Not what I want, but it would do...

Starships.

 

It wouldn’t be Star Wars without starships. In every single movie, from the original A New Hope in 1977 until Revenge of the Sith in 2005, the movie opens with spacecraft. The battle between the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator and the Tantive IV in Star Wars: A New Hope was one of the most iconic scenes ever done for a movie.  The opening scene from Spaceballs was also iconic, if for VERY different reasons. Indeed, I doubt there was much that Spaceball 1 ever gave way for. But we are not here to steal air – we are here to play The Old Republic.

Many things have been written about the starships in The Old Republic. From the BT-7 to the Defender and the XS on the Republic side to the Mantis, the Fury and the Phantom on the Empire side, all are epic Star Wars goodness. Many people dislike the ‘on rails’ type of space combat, but as an adjunct to the ground game, it works fairly well most of the time. And come on, who DOESN’T enjoy blowing enemy fighters out of the sky, no matter their affiliation? But like all gamers, we want more.

One thing that many people have been asking for recently has been more guild related items. Guild banks are coming but many other games have guild halls. These structures serve as meeting places, decoration, and last but certainly not least, ways to flaunt how many people and resources guilds have. We are all human, right? We all want to flaunt what we have.

So, why NOT capital class starships as guild halls? We have all seen the Star Destroyer and Republic battleship designs from The Old Republic by now. Both designs would work as large scale trophy type things. Star Wars Galaxies had customizable guild halls. Many other MMOs did as well – City of Heroes comes to mind for extreme guild hall customisation. But how could we make it work? Starships are not small. Starships that would serve as a means of flaunting the guild would be even larger than the personal transports that are in game now.

What would we want? Do we want starships the same as the Empire and Republic have now? The frigates such as the Black Talon or Esseles and the cruisers such as the Overlord or Gav Daragon? Do we want something different? Would it be enough to have them or would we have to be able to make them stand out? If someone wants a rainbow colored Star Destroyer –gag me, but someone asked for it. I HOPE he was joking, but can they get it?

One idea for such things, IF Bioware does manage to get them up, would be to set player fleets across the galaxy. That way, Republic and Empire ships can be in similar places, visible to show off the guild’s ill or righteously gotten gains. Would we be able to build them, or would we have to buy them? I think a mix of the two. Buy the hull and build components. Armstech can build weapons for them, Armormech can build starship hull plating, Cybertech can build other pieces. I can think of all sorts of things you can build for large scale starships in a game. Heavy turbolasers, multiple launch missile systems with tracking, ECM pods, point defense weapons… The list goes on and on. Engines, hull, support systems, internal defenses… Wait a sec…

One cool thing that I personally never got a chance to try in City of Heroes was raiding opposing player headquarters. So, what if some rival guild comes along, finds your starship in whatever it is hidden –if it is not instanced that is- and tries to board it? Do you have epic scale PvP boarding actions? Or would that be too complex for this game as it is?

On that note, what would you want for a guild starship? Obviously something larger than the Millenium Falcon. What about something the size of the Tantive IV? I know everyone is going to say a Star Destroyer, but do you have ANY idea the fuel costs for something that size? Let alone the insurance costs…

Oh I can just see it.

Insurance agent: You want to insure WHAT? Against starfighter attack? Oooookaaaay….

In conclusion, I would love to have guild capital ships in the game at some point, but I have no idea how they would manage it. And I DO want Spaceball 1 as my own personal ride.

[Image from http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Destroyer]

 

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With:

A red zoner pulls the plug: thoughtfully

February 9, 2012 by

An interesting perspective from a disappointed Australian SWTOR player made it’s way on the official forums today. Unlike some people who’ve decided to cancel their subscription, Canisrah has actually gone beyond griping, to detail in a thoughtful way why he’s not found SWTOR to be the game he thought it would be:

Well, I just cancelled my sub.

Thought I’d offer a few comments as I’ve been following this game for years and felt it deserved some sort of farewell. I was one of the Red Zoners who raged when BW left us out of initial pre-orders, and I was one of those who breathed a sigh of relief when the decision was made not to IP block us so we could play at launch.

My experience playing the game – technically, has been great. No noticeable lag, very few bugs, highly polished game. No real complaints.

In fact, I’m really disappointed that I don’t like the game more than I do. Maybe it’s my problem – maybe my tastes are changing or maybe the sort of game that used to appeal to me simply doesn’t anymore.

I was the rabid SWTOR fan in my group – I was the guy who made all the other guys pre-order and play. My Malgus statue is glaring at me on the shelf and my collectors edition box is proudly displayed.

So why am I cancelling?

Well… I played and enjoyed my BH up to level 41. When I hit Belsavis I suddenly realized I was bored stiff. The story had lost its luster, and I was doing seemingly pointless grinding and losing the will to live. Skyrim started calling to me, and the promise of upcoming titles like Diablo III, Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, and Mass Effect 3 compelled me to acknowledge that when they arrived, there’s no way I would spend my limited game time grinding away in this mmo.

In a desperate attempt to maintain my SWTOR enthusiasm, I started a slew of new characters, leveling them in bits and pieces in an effort to re-engage with a new story. But in each case staring at a long road of grinding interspersed with only fleeting moments of true story engagement was enough to scuttle that expedition before it even left port.

I even considered just letting my sub run for a few months – but then the reality of bleeding money for no apparent purpose (a misguided sense of loyalty or a last ditch attempt to justify all the hours of anticipation waiting for this game notwithstanding).

The age of the mmo is over, at least for me. The old game-play model this game adheres too is no longer interesting and I regretfully say that if SWTOR couldn’t do it for me, no mmo that holds to the old design paradigm will. I may give GW2 a fleeting peek, but only because it’s a no sub thing so I won’t have to invest so much.

I suspect SWTOR will be the last of the big budget mmos. And as much as it pains me to say it… I think it will struggle to maintain a large play-base.

But that’s just my view – and if you are playing and loving it and are in it for the long haul more power to you. Wish I could have been the same.

Peace out.

Obviously there’s no right or wrong in regards to a decision to quit. Personally I’ve really enjoyed the game and haven’t become bored at all. I also tend to judge an MMO once it’s been bedded down for at least 6 months. More unique to SWTOR, I’m also waiting for the damn game to launch worldwide to see what impact the larger community will have on the game, good or bad.

All that said, some people will also come to a quicker decision a game’s not for them, and fair enough too. Some will try to claim this is the start of a wave. It’s not: it’s a normal part of the evolution of an MMO post-launch. One respondent to the post on the forums (lunabaguna) put it perfectly in my opinion:

Perhaps this is a case of book vs movie for you. When you read a book, you get to make up a character in your head, if the character doesnt look how you want, you can ignore the description and make up something in your head. You get to create a backstory in your head, make the person who you want. With the voiceovers, its like a movie, the character has a certain personality that you cant control. Perhaps you just cant get into it because you cant form the character the way you see them.

So again: no matter how good an MMO is, its mechanics will be somewhat derivative and it will disappoint some people. You’ll only see me stating a real concern for SWTOR if hundred or thousands of posts as well written as Canisrah’s start appearing on the forums. My money is on that not happening.

Filed Under: Community, News, Opinion Tagged With:

Patching 1.1.2: more server downtime tonight

February 9, 2012 by

The post 1.1.2 issues with Open World PvP in Ilum has lead to an unexpected extra patch tonight. Full post from BioWare below, but first the time conversions:

AEDT: 7pm – 11pm tonight, Thursday 9th February
AWST: 4pm – 8pm tonight
NZDT: 9pm – 1am tonight

Unfortunately for the AEDT time zone in particular, it knocks out the majority of the evening’s play. While away those hours by having a look through our recent posts, including a beauty from Simon on companions that includes an amazing spreadsheet with every companion’s stats.

We will be bringing down servers for four hours on February 9th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET) in order to deploy a patch.

This patch will resolve the following:
Killing players on Ilum will now consistently grant Valor and mission credit as intended.

All servers will be offline during this period. This deployment is expected to take no more than four hours.

Upcoming Patch

Date: Thursday, February 9th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET).

All game servers will be offline during this period. This deployment is expected to take no more than four hours.

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

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News

Suggestion Box: is patch 1.1.2 an improvement?

February 9, 2012 by

The weekend’s well and truly on the way, so time to drag out the soapbox for another session.

This week it’s your turn to give bouquets or brickbats to SWTOR patch 1.1.2, which went live late Tuesday night. Are you finding it’s made your gameplay experience better? Aside from the Ilum issues remaining, is there anything that’s still a major gripe for you that the patch didn’t fix?

Post away in comments and get it off your chest!

Filed Under: News, Opinion, Suggestion Box Tagged With:
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