I found this interesting tidbit in the current EULA for Star Wars: The Old Republic – (verified identical in both the one from last Beta and the one currently downloadable at www.swtor.com/download ). In this Article, I will be speculating on the meaning of a specific section of the EULA:

Section 2, Part C reads as follows:

C. Transfer.

 

You may make a one time permanent transfer of all your rights to install and use packaged Software on physical recording media to another individual or legal entity provided that: (a) you transfer or delete all copies of the Software ; and (b) you retain no copies of the Software. You may not transfer your Account and/or any associated subscriptions to a third party, and EA may require that any subsequent end user of the Software register the Software online as a condition of use, and will not be responsible should you not be able to transfer the right to access game play, receive updates, upgrades, dynamically served content, any achievements and/or items already purchased or otherwise acquired by you through micro-transactions whether or not paid for, or the right to use any online service(s) of EA. It is your responsibility to ascertain the ability of any person to whom you intend to transfer the Software to receive the Software and/or open and utilise an Account, including by consulting any applicable Terms of Service to determine the conditions that may be applicable for the use of an Account, if applicable.

Now what exactly does this mean? Let’s take it one tidbit at a time.

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Server types have been announced and explained. We have PvE, PvP, RP-PvE and RP-PvP, so all the classics we have come to expect from our MMOs are present. Still, the question remains, how will they be named? This is an important decision for the community. Not many would want to be on a server named “Snugglypuff” or “Jar-Jar,” especially among those in the PvP Community, I suspect.
In games I have played in the past, server types were given names. In LotRO, the server names correspond to locations within the books and games. EVE Online only has one server. World of Warcraft and Rift are a mixture of NPC names and locations. So, what sort of names should be used for SWTOR servers? And, should those names have different themes based on the server type?

My suggestion is to use ship types, vehicle types and locations for PvE Servers. Imagine playing on the “Kessel Run,” the “Void Star” or even the “Phantom.” How about famous character names for PvP Servers? “Revan,” “HK-47,” “Vader,” etc. And planet names for RP servers? “Alderaan,” “Belsavis,” “Dagobagh,” etc.
Any thoughts or suggestions? Is it a good idea to have a different theme for different server types? Or not? What about RP-PvP vs RP-PvE? Should they have different themes? Or should they all share a single theme?

Should Bioware even release such a list ahead of the game starting? As Stephen Reid said, “Early server list con: massive population imbalance on servers that people think don’t sound ‘cool’. That’s the biggest.” Not everyone will agree on what constitutes “Cool,” and you can’t make fifty, a hundred, or even more servers, all with “equally cool” names. Sure, you can weed out the “Jar-Jar” names… but there are only so many “Vader,” “Void Star” and “Kessel Run” names to be had.

*Daelda and Rosie contributed to this article.

You can follow Rosie on Twitter at @Dawnsrose. You can also contact her directly via email at swtor.rosie@gmail.com.

I am not sure how this skipped everyone’s radar, but this last Friday update, entitled “The Old Republic at Comic-Con“, said that there will be some sort of announcements at the show. Here’s the exact quote:

This year is looking to be another big year for the event and both BioWare and LucasArts will be there to make some announcements about Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

It might be that people have grown tired of catching every little glimpse of what might possibly turn into big news, but I am still a sucker for hype and I will take this bait with open arms and share a few of my thoughts on what these announcements might be.
read more of my SWTOR geek out

Wait, what’s that you say?  Another “probable release date” rumor is spreading like wildfire through the SWTOR forums?  Well then by golly, we need to spring to action and report on this!

The “report” that’s making the rounds currently goes a little something like this:

We are officially moving the expected Star Wars launch from September to November. PopCap is not the key to getting ERTS right. We like this acquisition, but this is not going to make or break your ERTS trade this year. The success of Star Wars and Battlefield, on the other hand, will. All eyes now shift to them.

So aside from sounding like it was ripped straight out of a Nostradamus quatrain, what does this mean?

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Oh sweet summer, how I missed thee.  And with the incessant humming of every AC unit in the neighborhood, I am reminded that we are one more season closer to a SWTOR launch.  Well that, and that I’ll be paying through the nose on my next electricity bill… But as always, I digress.

Our very own MrWarlock penned a delightful piece highlighting the 10 updates he anticipated the most, and one of these got me thinking, specifically his thoughts on micro-transactions – what sorts of plans do you imagine BioWare might have cooked up for SWTOR in the MT (micro-transaction) department? Well, let’s take a look at what else has been done.

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It’s Friday once again and while we all wait to see what kind of information is given out on golden platters of awesomeness, i bring to you another post from the bowels of the Swtor forums. This week I jump on ship to tackle one of the bigger questions that EVERYONE is dying to know, the release date and the possible outcomes of what that might be. You can find one of the many official forum posts located here if you wish to choose through everyone’s thoughts, dreams and hopes of when it might be.

 
DISCLAIMER: Everything said in this article is the personal opinion of its author and does not represent any official information from Bioware. This is a speculative article and please treat it as such.
 
Lets jump right in on what I think. For me, I see the release coming in a September time-frame. Why? Well, I look at it like this. E3 happens in June and I expect some good information regarding aspects of the game to come out. I do not expect the release date to be given but I do think that a time frame for more beta invites to start happening to come up. The amount of time they stay in these beta phases will also play into realizing when the game really does launch.
Click here to continue reading about the logic behind September release speculation

My original post for this weeks edition was all written up and all I had to do was type it out. So what happens? My brain starts thinking about things that would be nice to have in edition to playing Swtor and I had a post ready to go on the forums. I head over there and BAM, it’s already got a post, dated today about the same topic I was thinking about. So while it is fresh on the mind, I decided to switch gears and pop out this little post, even though the thread was just started.The thread, and my thoughts, center around Swtor and the Razer Switchblade.

Where's the Jump button?

So are you interested yet? Read on then friends!

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I fall firmly into the category of players who were greatly intrigued by Friday’s Dev. Update, as much for what it didn’t say for what it did.  We learned that the Sith Inquisitor will have an Advanced Class that will be fully capable of Tanking, for example, which came as a pleasant surprise to many (myself included).

At this stage, the tanking rogue has now been done before, breaking from the “Tanks must wear plate” paradigm, so the Assassin tank will not necessarily be groundbreaking.  We know that the Sith Inquisitor wears light armor also, which has led to a number of speculations.  Will the Assassin be a completely avoidance-based tank, utilizing high Dodge and/or Parry rates to minimize incoming damage (rather than mitigating it outright through high armor rates)?  I  initially also thought of the Swordmaster class from Warhammer Online, which also fulfilled the tanking role without the usage of a shield.  It was from looking at the Inquisitor’s mirror class, the Jedi Consular, that the picture became somewhat less fuzzy.

Take a look at a screen grab of this talent, called Kinetic Ward, which I believe sheds some light onto how this mechanic may function:

As a mirror class, I’d say it’s probably safe to assume that the Assassin will be using something similar.  This fits in with the description of the Consular (specifically, the Jedi Shadow) using “Lightsaber defense and Force powers.”

And as an aside, we knew that the Inquisitor/Consular were going to have access to some degree of Stealth, but take a look at the last line in this tooltip.  I hadn’t anticipated the playstyle of “Stealth Tank” but that is exactly what it seems to suggest.  We can probably also count on seeing the Imperial Agent and Smuggler healers making use of Stealth in some way as well.  That has the potential to be a really interesting mechanic – I’m most curious to see how it plays out in PvP though.

So as it stands, while SWTOR may not be rewriting the rules of the Holy Trinity, they are at the very least, providing these tools to a number of different classes.  It remains to be seen whether or not the developers will give in and allow Advance Class respecs or not.  While this may not be the most popular stance to take, I’m actually kind of hoping that they don’t.  I can imagine this feature being a popular “Paid Service” feature if they ever offered it.

All in all, I can safely say that I am completely stoked to play this beast!

Darth Hater got a tip from one of their forum visitors that May issue of UK PC Gamer has released what they claim to be an entire list of species and compatible classes in Star Wars the Old Republic. Here’s the list:

Humans: Can play every class.
Zabraks: Can play every class.
Miraluka: Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular
Sith Pureblood: Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor
Chiss: Imperial Agent, Bounty Hunter
Rattataki: Imperial Agent, Bounty Hunter, Sith Inquisitor
Mirialan: Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular
Twi’lek: Sith Inquisitor, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler
Cyborg: Trooper, Smuggler, Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter

This is a great piece of information to speculate on. We first see there are no Cathar on the list (which is going to disappoint a lot of furry fans …) and then there are the Cyborg. For me, a huge sci-fi geek, the prospect of having a Cyborg character is dream fulfilling. I can’t decide which would be more cool, Cyborg light saber wielding Sith Warrior (ala general Grievous) or a dashing Imperial Agent whose cybernetic implants are all the talk among the ladies. Prospect of having such character almost makes me change my mind and play Empire at start. My Trooper and Smuggler Cyborgs would have a dark backstory as to why half their body is metal and not flesh. I wonder though why they didn’t do Jedi Knight Cyborgs. I mean, Luke Skywalker could be imagined as cyborg with his robotic arm and all.

To prove that his list is just speculation and nowhere near final we have Daniel Erickson posting on the official forums. You can check what he had to say on our Dev Tracker page (I am just linking there to show off how you can now link to single posts on our Dev Tracker page) or you can just read his post bellow:

Hey Folks,

The species/class combo list you’re referencing is not accurate. If it does appear in the magazine, that’s unfortunate.

My guess is that an enthusiastic member of the press wrote down everything he saw in the character creation screen which, as we’ve stated often, is nowhere near final. Occasionally we’ll have species in odd classes or in all classes because of a bug or testing.

Hope that helps!

Daniel

If you ever visit the Official Swtor Forums, you know that there are many, many discussions going on relating to what is known and what is still unknown in relation to the game. We all see these posts and probably even read some of the pages to see what everyone is talking about. One that I find interesting is a discussion on the General Forums talking about The Appearance Tab.

What this post, started by member Horeon, is about is whether or not there will be a system in place similar to the Outfit system currently used in Lotro and other games. This post deals mostly in how it works in relation to the PVP system in the game. Here is the original post:

Question: With the appearance tab we have two groups of players: Those who are well informed about the enemy’s weaknesses and those who are practically going blind. How will the a-tab manage to overcome such a serious and very important PvP issue?

For a person to “gimp” himself by using the a-tab system (keep it on during pvp), it means he will be able to see the a-tabs of ALL the players he encounters in his screen.

If the opposing team does not use a-tabs (which means have the a-tab off and thus see their opponents’ actual gear), then they will -by default- show their actual gear.

So in this case you have:

A-team: uses a-tab, sees all players’ a-tabs of those who have a-tabs on
B-team: doesn’t use a-tab, sees everyone’s actual gear and at the same time they show their actual gear.

This means that even though A-team chooses to see their opponents in the “wrong” gear, the opponents simply cannot be wearing it, unless they, too, choose to see their opponents “wrong gear”. Through this, it is impossible to hide your own gear, without hiding that of others. This completely solves the presented PvP “issue” of recognition and gear-identification.

I would love to see an appearance mechanic worked into Swtor. Just for those times you want to pull a Princess Leia and make everyone think you are a Bounty Hunter looking to claim a reward for the mark on a certain Wookie. It goes with the Universe. Not everyone is who you think they are or what they appear.

In regards to the forum post, most of the discussion is about its implementation in a PVP setting. In PVP, if using this system, how do you tell what class you are going up against to prepare yourself for the fight? Couldn’t the system be abused by some to give the false impression of being a certain class but in fact be another, thus trying to initially tip the outcome of the fight in their favor? sure it could and would most definitely.

This isn’t another character sheet to give you more gear options or anything like that. It is a feature that would let you keep the cosmetic look of gear that you find appealing on your character, while still being able to use better gear for stats and other features that outweigh the look of what you are showing everyone else.

Personally, even though I highly approve of the system itself, I don’t think it should ever be allowed in a PVP setting just because of those that would go out of their way to abuse it for their gain. For a game of this setting though, I think there should be something in place in case you want to look like how you want AND still PVP at the same time.

I’d like something to to make it so that you see your appearance look on your screen, but others could see you in the natural state of what your class is and what you are really wearing/equipped with. Exactly what is also stated in the thread:

We don’t want to look unique – we simply want to decide how we look.

We don’t want to appear with sexy sleeveless shirts while in fact we are wearing massive armor – we want limitations based on class.

We don’t want to enforce the appearance tab – we want everyone to be happy, so if you don’t like them, there should be a toggle available.

We don’t want people posting in this thread without reading the entire OP.

I think most people agree that an appearance tab on the Character Sheet would add massively to what already looks to be a huge game as is. Add another Appearance Tab to the Companion, and you would truly have something. Find the way to have it in PVP without it giving advantage to either side and I think you have a winner.

Forum Friday is a new weekly posting regarding the posts from the Official Swtor Forums. If you find a post you find interesting and would like to see it discussed here, then Contact Swtor Life with your idea.