BioWare announced this weekend that they will be adding a few new features to SWTOR.com. The first being a series of videos entitled “Begin Your Journey’ which are designed to help new players learn the basics of Star Wars: The Old Republic. They also announced that they will be starting two new weekly blogs dsigned to give players an insight into the development process.

You can watch the new video and learn more after the jump. Continue Reading »

Tags: blog, dev tracker, player guides, video

((The RP XP with MJ #24))

The Zabrak Padawan lay cradling his dead master as the two Sith approached, their crimson blades vibrating the air as he looked helplessly up at them.

Tarik knew this was it. He had always wondered how his end would come and actually hoped it would be in combat against Sith side-by-side with his master. Of course Tarik never saw the Sith slowly stalking him after slaying his master from a distance in any of his wishful visions, not giving either of them a chance to defend themselves.

“Get it over with!” He yelled at them, his eyes welling with tears though he tried to suppress his emotions.

Most of them.

The Rattataki girl spoke first after giving her saber a threatening twirl. “He seems angry, my lord. Perhaps we can turn him.”

Darth Tagious never took his yellow eyes off the Padawan. He merely said, “He’s yours, Veetha. Play with him awhile. I will meet you at the Works.”

“Of course, my master,” Veetha’s smile was as sly as a vine cat’s.

Continue Reading »

Tags: roleplayers, roleplaying, RP, RP XP with MJ

The Rattataki are pretty easy to recognize with their pale skin and bald heads that pretty much scream “I’m one of the bad guys!” They are relatively unknown in the greater galaxy, and there is little information on them as a species. The most well-known member of the Star Wars universe that was believed to be Rattataki, Asajj Ventress, has recently been confirmed to not be a Rattataki at all (despite the fact that she looks exactly like a Rattataki and was found on the Rattataki home world). Today I will share what little we do know about Rattataki so that we may all learn a little more about this mysterious species. Continue Reading »

Tags: Dark Coucil, lore, Rattataki, sith

BioWare recently released patch notes for update 1.1.2, which is currently live on the Public Test Server. It includes the usual plethora of ability, mission, and companion fixes as well as some tweeks to the Biochem skill.

Biochem users will now be able to give/sell Energized and Exotech stims and adrenals to other players as they are no longer bound to the user nor do they require skill in Biochem to use. There seem to be two big reasons why this change was made. First of all it removes the pressure on players to take Biochem in order to optimize their performance, particularly at endgame. Second it opens up more options for Biochem players to make credits by selling these stims and adrenals on the Global Trade Network. Biochem also will be getting another nerf as the effectiveness of Biochem exclusive Rakata stimpacks have been reduced to be equal to Energized stimpacks. In fact Bioware announced that they intend to reduce, over a series of patches, the effectiveness of situational consumables on endgame combat resolution. The end goal being to make the outcome of endgame combat be based more on player skill and less on what items they have on hand.

BioChem is just the first of the crafting skills to see tweaks in order to make all the skills more applicable to end game content. Major changes are currently on schedule for the next major content patch, such as extractable basemods (armoring, barrel, etc.) from purple items, critical crafting successes on orange outfits, more bind-on-equip schematic drops for artifice and other professions, increased relevance of augments, better reverse engineering chance, and other improvements.  PvP is also going to see some changes in the future, with the power difference granted by PvP gear being reduced to make it easier for new level 50 players to compete in PvP.

You can read the developer post about the crafting changes here, and the full 1.1.2 patch notes after the jump. Continue Reading »

Tags: Biochem, crafting, endgame, patch notes, public test server, PvP

Since last Tuesday’s patch there have been a large amount of issues concerning hitching and freezing being reported by players. BioWare has decided to do an emergency update starting at 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) and report that it will last until 4AM CST (2AM PST/5AM EST/10AM GMT/11AMPM CET).

This is a server side only update so players will not have to download anything once the servers are back up. While the maintenance is expected to take no more than two hours there remains the possibly that the time frame will be adjusted if the need arises.

Tags: 1.1.1, maintenance, servers

Are you the leader of a guild in SWTOR? Well then you may get a chance to head to Austin, Texas in March to speak with BioWare developers. BioWare is inviting guild leaders (or a designated officer in the case the leader cannot attend) to join them in roundtable discussions, Q&A sessions, and give leaders a chance to see some upcoming game features.

The goal of the summit is to facilitate an open discussion between guild leaders and the game design team. This event will provide an opportunity for attendees to voice their feedback directly to the teams responsible for the design of Star Wars: The Old Republic, hear the team’s thoughts and reasons behind design decisions, and discuss the current direction of the game. Guild from all over the world are more than welcome to attend, though BioWare reminds everyone that the meeting will be in English.

There apparently have already been guild leaders invited but there are still some spots open for non-invited guild leaders to attend. all you need to do is head to this page and fill out an application. All those attending must be 21 or older and will be responsible for their own travel, food, and lodging expenses.  If you are interested in attending make sure to get your application in by midnight on February 10th (central standard time).

Tags: Austin, developers, guilds, new game features

This week’s patch notes are a bit more substantial than last weeks, showing quite a bit more fixes and items than last weeks patch. You can read the full list below and, as always, you can check BioWare’s patch notes page to read up on all the patches that have occurred since launch. Continue Reading »

Tags: maintenance, patch notes

Rich Vogel, Executive Producer and member of the original development team, posted a lengthy blog post today entitled “Busting Bugs and Fixing Exploits”. As you can imagine the post is all about how the team at BioWare goes about fixing bugs in their system; what gets prioritized, how they attempt to discover them, and more. It is chock full of great information on how the team at BioWare works.

More after the jump. Continue Reading »

Tags: bugs, community, dev blog

If you have been to the forums lately you just might have noticed a few threads that contain players complaining about performance issues. Developers and maintenance teams have been working hard with players to find and fix the source of many of the performance issues they are experiencing when running SWTOR including, but not limited to; error codes, lows FPS, client crashes, and system errors. Today Avi Mintz, Associate Project Manager for the client engineer team, released a guide that her team compiled to help players optimize their PCs performance when running the game.

But do not think that is the end of the issue. Avi encourages players to continue talking with the team about any issues that they are experiencing when they run the game so that her team may continue to add to their optimization guide so everyone can get the best SWTOR experience possible. She also gives big thank to players who have given constructive feedback on the problems so far.

If you are having any performance issues then head over to the optimization guide and see if there are any tips in there that will help you out.

Tags: community, pc, pc performance

Just a reminder to everyone but the weekly maintenance is still scheduled for 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) and is expected to last until 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET). The maintenance is expected to take no more than 8 hours but, as always, the time frame could be extended if the need arises.

We will keep you updated if the scheduled time for the server maintenance changes in any way.

Tags: maintenance