Ah Firday, day of my most favorite thing ever on the SWTOR forums: the Community Q&A. Questions answered this week have actually been gathered from two weeks ago, but they are no less relevant on the current game state. I always love it when I see a game company opening up direct communication with their fans, so kudos to BioWare for taking the time out even during busy weeks like this one must be in order to reach out to the community.

You can find all of this week’s questions and answers after the jump, and if you want to submit a question for next week head over to the official forums and post it in the thread BioWare has created. Continue Reading »

The servers were down for an unscheduled maintenance last night in order to get in a couples fixes players have been experiencing since the launch of 1.2. This is not the first time the servers have gone down unexpectedly since 1.2, but it’s important to realize that this is not unusual. Whenever a big update like we saw with 1.2 gets deployed there will inevitably be a few bugs that seek through that need some TLC. While there is always the hope that these unscheduled maintenance periods are a rare occurrence, it is at least good to know that the development team is hard at work keeping SWTOR up and working for us. Here are the patch notes from last night’s maintenance:

Servers will be going down tonight at 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST) while BioWare deploys a patch. While the serves are expected to be down for 4 hours the maintenance time could be extended as necessary. Players will be required to download a copy of the patch upon launching the game after the servers go back online.

That’s right folks, the Republic Containment Officers are working hard an expect to have the Rakghoul infestation to be contained by the 24th, specifically on the 24th by 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST). Make sure to avoid Tatooinee (or the fleet) at all costs until then to help prevent the spread of these horrible monstrosities around the universe!

Unless you are the brave sort, then you will have until the 24th to gather all the Rakghoul DNA they can in order to buy any of the special event items being offered, and to gather the special Republic Containment Officer gear. It seems like new dailies are available each day for those who are participating, so make sure to complete them all each day in order to unlock new ones for the next day!

Both the servers and the website went down this week for the weekly maintenance. The servers were nothing special, oh we got a couple of patch notes but there was not real big changes included in them.

No, the big news with this update was the fantastic new design for the official SWTOR site.

The new site design is much sleeker and, dare I say, sexier than the old design. After looking at the same design for years it is nice to see it get a little love, and there are a bunch of little touches that make it look really nice. The inclusion of the in-game icons next to the available categories was ingenious, and it really was a great upgrade.

What do you think of the new site? Let us know in the comments section below!

This week’s scheduled maintenance will be taking place on Tuesday, April 17th from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 7AM CDT (5AM PDT/8AM EDT/1PM BST/2PM CEST/10PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than five hours, but could be extended.

In addition to the regular maintenance there will also be a new design for the official SWTOR website which will require it to be offline from 1AM CDT (April 17th, 11PM PDT/2AM EDT/7AM BST/8AM CEST/4PM AEST) until 11AM CDT (9AM PDT/12PM EDT/5PM BST/6PM CEST/April 18th,2AM AEST). Once the site comes back up, the new redesign will be unveiled.

Anyone visiting the fleet today should hear a little message about how there is a planetary alert on Tatooine. Rakghouls have been spotted on the planet and citizens are recommended to stay away for the time being, but what is the fun in that?

The announcement is to inform players of the first ever in-game event of SWTOR, occurring on Tatooine. A ship carrying the Rakghoul plague has crashed on Tatooine, releasing a large amount of these monsters north-east of Outpost Therazan.  Players will be able to tackle some new dailies there that reward “Rakghould DNA”, which can then be turned in to vendors in the same area for some event related items. These include black-green color crystals, and infected companion kit that will let you tun a companion into a Rakghoul, and even a Rakghoul mini-pet. There are also some new infected world bosses for player to take down as well. If the fleet announcement is to be believed then there should be new planets added to this event as time goes on.

No word yet on how long this event will be taking place, but keep you eyes on swtor-life.com as we bring you all the info as the event progresses.

Edit: Some new info I have discovered since posting this. The world bosses on Tatooine are located at the Sarlacc Pit, in Outlaws Den, and the other is an infected version of Trapjaw which can be found in his same location out in the Dune Sea.

I think everyone has had this problem. You want a life size Darth Malgus statue in your house, you don’t have $6,000 on hand to put him in your house. Well that problem is going to disappear for one lucky person.

Sideshow Collectibles, the company who makes this and other epic life sized statues, is holding a contest where they will be giving away one of these statues to one lucky player of SWTOR. All you need to do is to head over to the contest page on their website and sign-up. You will have until May 11th to register, but why wait when you can head there right now and secure your chance to win.

As this is a contest exclusively for players of SWTOR you must be sure to enter the e-mail address you use for the game when you are signing up, and there is a limit of one entry per household/IP address. You must also agree to pay for taxes that may be assessed on the shipping cost or value of the statue, but  it’s hard to say no to that when you are getting a $6000 statue free of charge.

Have you been playing SWTOR for a while now and felt like you got the short end of the stick by not getting some free game time just because you don’t have a level 50 character? Well no need to fret. BioWare’s Dr. Greg Zeschuk announced that not only will 50 days of free game time be awarded to all those players with a level 50 character, it will now also be awarded to anyone with a legacy level of 6 or above.

This comes after some community members complaining about not getting the game time just because they have not had the time to get a character to max level. This makes a lot of sense, some players love to play a lot of alts, some have hectic lives that keep the from always devoting a lot of time to the game, and some  have switched servers to try and find a home that is right for them. But these players are just a loyal and dedicated as someone who has a level 50, they just may not have the time on their hands to have reached that point just yet.

Players will have until noon on April 22nd to reach this goal. So if you want those free days, but have not had a chance to get a character till level 50 or Legacy level 6, you have a few days to make it happen. We all love free game time so hop on those characters and make it happen!

You can read the official post from Dr. Greg after the jump. Continue Reading »

No MMO can survive without a dedicated player base, that’s just the nature of the beast. In order to say thank you to all the players who have stuck with them so far BioWare has decided to give a couple thank yous to all the active subscribers of SWTOR.

First off, any player who has a current active subscription will receive the Legacy Tauntaun Ram Pet. In order to receive the in-game pet you must meet the following criteria either today or on April 21st.

• You must have purchased the game and redeemed an official Game Product Registration Code at the Code Redemption Center.
• You must have signed up for a recurring subscription using a valid payment method OR redeemed a Game Time Code.
• Your account must not be banned.

But the gifts don’t stop there. If you currently have a level 50 character you will be receiving 30 days of free game time. That’s right, a month of free time just for having been on of the many dedicated players of the game. You still must meet all the criteria listed for the Tauntaun pet, with the slight addition of having a level 50 character as of noon today. It’s a pretty sweet deal and it’s BioWare’s way of giving back to the players who have shown the most dedication to the game.

If you are one of the players who has cancelled you subscription for any reason and want to come see what the new game update has to offer you are in luck. Starting on April 13th, anyone with a former subscription will be able to log back in from the 13th until the 19th without having to resubscribe. It’s a great way to test the waters if the new features of 1.2 have you interested in returning to the world of SWTOR.

With all these little gifts, and all the new features included in today’s update, it is a damn good day to be a SWTOR player.