BioWare posted a new video today showing off it’s brand new Warzone, Novare Coast.

For those that do not already know, Novare Coast will be a three-point domination style map, with a tug of war mechanic that comes in play when trying to capture objectives. It will also allow for same faction vs faction combat, giving people a much needed break from Huttball. BioWare will be showing off this warzone as the attend PAX East this weekend, a perfect opportunity for any who are lucky enough to be in attendance to give it a try.

There was also a little addition to Bioware’s post when they first uploaded, it announced that 1.2 would be released on April 10th. The was quickly edited out of the post, and BioWare has since denied that April 10th will for sure be the release date for 1.2. Still, this little slip up should give player hope that the new content will be released soon.

What do you think about the new Warzone? What do you think about the idea of getting our hands on a live version of 1.2 soon? Let us know in the comments below!

BioWare released the first two videos of the Guild Summit panel today. Both the Operations and PvP videos were released, making these excellent views for any end game player who is wondering what they can expect from update 1.2 and beyond. BioWare will be releasing more of the videos next week. Keep an eye on swtor-life for the videos as soon as they are released.

BioWare had a nice full day of surprises in store for players yesterday, and this one may have been the most unexpected of them all. The Developers have decided to start their very own podcast, with developer interviews and news straight from BioWare.

The first episode launched yesterday and is focused around the combat changes players will be experiencing in 1.2. Combat designers Austin Peckenpaugh and Cameron Winston sat down with show hosts Eric Musco and Brooks Guthrie to talk class balance, the new Warzone Novare Coast, and even gave a little hint to a new Heroic World Boss we can expect to see on Voss, the Nightmare Pilgrim. One of the most interesting little tidbits of info out of the show was concerning forum posts, specifically what kind of posts get the most attention from the developers (here’s a hint: Whining about your individual assumptions and experience is less likely to get noticed. Instead offer expanations about the overall game experience that are affecting the community as a whole without making unproven assumptions.).

Head on over to the official site and check out the new podcast. This first episode clocks in at just under 20 minutes long, hopefully the shows length will be extended a bit in the future. in the mean time be sure to let us know what you think of the new show in our comments section below!

PvP is going to be changing in 1.2. Now this is no surprise for most players, BioWare has be very vocal about their desire to improve on PvP with the launch of their newest game update. But some players (myself included) may be wondering exactly what that means. Sure, some info has been made public through various sources, but there has not been a nice long post from a developer talking about all the changes we can expect to see.

Gabe Amatangelo made it his mission to change that.

Gabe went the distance and made a huge blog post about what players can expect to see on the PvP horizon. While he does emphasize that when the new update launches the ranked PvP will be considered in “Pre-Session”, with more improvements coming the the future,  he still does a fantastic job on outlining what we all can expect to see in our PvP future. Gabe talkes about Ranked Warzones, the new rewards system, the AFK Vote Kick option, and some new ststs players can expect to see at the end of the match. Even if you just dable in PvP now and again it is well worth a read, and guilds who plan on grouping up for some Ranked Warzone madness need to head over and give it a read asap!

You can find the full post over on the SWTOR site, and we welcome your thoughts on the issue in our comments section below!

This week’s Community Q&A was all about the developers bringing players the answers to some of the most burning 1.2 questions they have come across, and boy did they deliver. This week’s article is chock full of all kinds of 1.2 goodness, including what has been my favorite response to a question since the Q&A articles began:

Aymi: You guys are including a whole bunch of things to motivate us to reroll and unlock stuff through Legacy, but if I’m playing on one server because the community is great, I’ll be limited to eight characters. You said during the Guild Summit you were going to think about it at some point, any update on that?

Daniel Erickson: We are 100% committed to providing more character slots per server in the future but unfortunately we’re not ready to talk about how that will work.

This is great news for players like me who have already used up all 8 character slots but have no interest in switching servers. Outside of that little gem there is still a metric ton of great info in the article, including a huge answer from Georg Zoeller about how gear and reverse engineering is going to work in 1.2.

Head on over to the official SWTOR site and read the article at your earliest opportunity. You will not regret it. And as always feel free to share your thoughts on everything with us in the comments section below!

It’s time again for one of my favorite features on the SWTOR official site, Community Q&A. This week we learn a little about why Commandos and Mercenaries don’t get an interrupt ability, if there is going to be a longer period of time before hitting the “enrage timer” on certain operation bosses, if we are ever going to see an finished “Timeline” section on the forums, and whether guilds will ever be able to openly communicate with their alt guild if they have one on the opposite faction. There is also a nice long answer discussing the reasoning behind the upcoming healer nerfs  that will be taking place across all classes that is a must read for all healers.

Next week there will still be a Community Q&A but there will not be a thread opened for players to pose their questions. This is because the development team will be looking for some of the most asked questions concerning game update 1.2 and devoting next week’s Q&A to answer them. They will also be focusing future Q&A sessions on answering questions concerning game mechanics and updates that have already been released to the live servers, focusing less on questions like “Will we ever see this?” or “When is this coming?” The whole point here is to respond to fewer questions where the answer will just be “maybe” or “soon.” If you want to pose a question in future Community Q&A threads you will have a much better chance of getting a response if you stick to questions about the current game state, not on stuff that may come in the future.

For the full list of questions and answers from this week’s thread check after the jump, and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below!

Continue Reading »

PioWare relapsed the Patch Notes for 1.1.5 yesterday. Among the usual general bug fixes there were some updates included to get players ready for game update 1.2, as well as the inclusion of the much sought after /roll function.

Several high-end speeders have been reduced in price until 1.2, making this the optimum time to pick up that expensive speeder you had you eye one. Previously unavailable endgame color crystals are also on sale for a limited time at the fleet, and the Dark/Light side requirements on some crystals have been removed as well. Word is that these items will only be available for purchase until update 1.2 is deployed, so head to the fleet and pick them up today while you still can.

There have been several changes to the PvP game as well. Now players can compete in Warzones and earn progress towards completing their Ilum daily and week quests. Healers will also be happy to hear that they will start receiving medals when a target they healed makes a kill in game. The Valor gained from Warzones has been increased, medals are now worth 500 Valor and 10 Commendations, and players affected by Damage Over Time abilities will no longer be interrupted when interacting with objectives.

These are only a small sampling of the changes made in the recent patch. If you want to read all of this week’s notes you can check them all out after the jump. Continue Reading »

The first official SWTOR GUild Summit officially kicks off today! As a special treat BioWare is going to be doing a livestream of today’s festivities starting at 10 am CST. Can’t catch the stream as it goes live? Don’t worry! We will be providing up to the minute details about the various reveals and facts announced by the developers as the day progresses.

Just check after the jump for all the reveals. This post will be updated all day long with all the facts, so keep checking back for more info! For a schedule of today’s events check out our previous post.

Update: The livestream is over. Thanks to everyone who joined us for the updates and a big thanks to BioWare for streaming today’s events for us! Continue Reading »

It’s Friday and that means it is weekly Q&A time from the developers over at BioWare. They only released answers to 8 of the community member’s questions this week but with them going over the limit every week up till now it is hard to complain about something like that, especially considering as we should get a bunch of new info this week from the Guild Summit.

We get a little insight this week into the chances we will get mailboxes and GTN hubs in our ships and it looks like these options, or ones similar to them, will be included as unlockable features within the legacy system. Snuck into the end of this answer was the hint that BioWare will be talking more about legacy features in the near future, something everyone is looking forward to. BioWare also talk about neutral alignment gear, server maintenance times, and crfated gear v.s. endgame gear in patch 1.2.

See all of this week’s questions and answers after the jump. Continue Reading »

Today marked the second installment of BioWare’s new weekly Q&A session with the players of SWTOR. Though BioWare has said they will limit the questions they answer to 10 a week they have been unable to limit themselves to that amount, answering a total of 12 questions this week. Topics this week included the possibility of a /roll option being implemented, endgame gear set bonuses being transferred with mods, and a lengthy post about healing during operations.

We will share some of the questions with you after the jump. Continue Reading »