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Wild Space: Graphics, Flashpoints, And Companions

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

Over on TORWars, they discussed a topic this week that is very near and dear to my heart: graphics! I’m a bit of a hardware junkie and manged to scrape enough cash together in order to rebuild my computer to prepare for the TOR release. As expected, my computer runs the game quite well with nary a drop in frame rates in sight. However, I have missed the ability to enable anti-aliasing, which smooths out the edges of the graphics in game.

Attempting to force the option on via the client_settings file can cause some instability in the game client, including causing it to crash. Obviously, since anti-aliasing is not supported by BioWare yet this behavior is to be expected. Also, to be fair, anti-aliasing is not really that high of a priority to get fixed, what with other problems that the development team is working on. But…it still bothers me and I would love for the option to be available. The TORWars article asks the question does the game need the anti-aliasing settings? I ask the same to you now, is this a necessary feature or is it a low-priority frivolity?

For those who have only played single-player BioWare games in the past, the concept of grouped flashpoints might seem a bit daunting. After all, you have to round up some other people, who you may not personally know, and then work together to overcome some challenging obstacle. Fortunately, SWTOR Face has some tips for how to make your flashpoint experience as enjoyable as possible. Some of the highlights are:

Try to be understanding of new players and be as helpful as possible.  These encounters are not the standard “dungeons” that most WoW players are used to and the roles required by each player can change during a Flashpoint. Sometimes a player will be needed to off-tank or interrupt special abilities; other times they might just need to do as much dps as possible.

Don’t be scared to ask questions on how to better play your character in an encounter. Some people will no doubt not expect this and may act rude or unaccommodating but the majority of people will see this as an opportunity to try and work together.

Remember flashpoints are supposed to be one of the more social aspects of the game, so treating your fellow players with respect and being willing to help will make everyone’s experience so much more enjoyable. Be sure to check out the full article over on SWTOR Face for all of their helpful tips.

As it has been mentioned before, the five companions that you get as your progress through the game all have different abilities and strengths. To help clarify what companions your character is going to get and what role that companion can fill (DPS, tank, or healer), Yufmelt has compiled a list of all the available companions for each class and their roles. For ease of use sake, they have compiled the list into a handy PDF that you can quickly refer to. Check it out!

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Posted by Cormeister | 5 Comments

Yellow Posts: Community Questions, In-Game Purchasing, Future Content, And Respecing

Forum user Spankyjnco posted a list of eight questions (expanded to ten) about various things in the game that probably a lot of players would like answered from BioWare. Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Manager, took the time to respond to all of the questions and let us know where they stand on the issues. Here are a couple highlights:

Q: Is there a plan to fix the graphic settings? Right now there is no real difference between medium/high graphics and it’s apparent that we are all stuck with the medium textures. What’s the reasoning for this, and do you guys have a fix planned?

A: It’s a bug, and we are working on rolling out a fix.

Q: A easier way to find groups. Having to spam in /1 is quite annoying to everyone in the zone, let alone those looking for a group. And noobdy seems to use that actual “Flag yourself for group” option because it’s not very successful. I would like to do flashpoints, but I’m not going to waste 30 minutes sitting in the fleet spamming /1 that I am looking for a group. Some kind of way to have a global search/group finder would be nice.

A: We’re aware of this desire, but we actually believe that finding others on the same planet as you encourages social interaction a bit more than a general ‘group finder’. We’re not saying it’ll never, ever happen but again, not high priority right now.

The post is pretty extensive, so I would encourage all of you to check it out for some valuable information.

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Posted by Cormeister | 3 Comments

Wild Space: Security, Crew Skills, And Datacrons

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

In this shortened holiday edition of Wild Space, I would like to join with Darth Hater for a public service announcement about account security. Security breeches are a real problem for online games nowadays so it is advisable that  you take advantage of as many extra security features as you can to secure your account.

BioWare has already instituted policies to secure your account, including having every user create five security questions and has offered a security authentication token for two-factor authentication into your account. This means that to log into the game or website (and access your account information) you would need to use your password as well as the security key to access it. This makes your account more protected from the possibility of someone getting unauthorized access to your account.

To order a physical security key from BioWare ($4.00 + shipping) or download the mobile security key to your iOS or Android device, visit this website.

One of the innovative features of TOR is the Crew Skills system that allows your companions to craft and gather materials while you are out “playing the game”. For those of us (like me) who have never been able to get into crafting because of the time investment, or just didn’t find it interesting in other games, the Crew Skills system offers a fresh take on an MMO favorite.

If you are looking for ways to maximize all of your Crew Skills effectiveness, then this video by SWTORFace is for you. Also be sure to check out their diagram for which Crew Skill best supports another.

Are you a big explorer? Want to uncloak every map and view every mountain top? Well, if you are the Magellan type, then I would encourage you to read this write-up about the Datacron system from Corellian Run Radio. They will convince you why you will enjoy figuring out the puzzles required to get every Datacron.

If you would rather just get on with it and find all of those Datacrons because of the stat bonus that they provide, check out this article from SWTOR-Spy that lists all of the locations for every Datacron in the game as well as walk-throughs on how to get them all. (Warning! Spoilers on Datacon locations are contained within).

 

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Yellow Posts: Early Game Access, Guild Leadership, and PvP XP Exploit?

Well, it’s here. By the time you read this, launch day will be about half a day away. I am super excited! Even though I got in for some Early Game Access, it will be really great when everyone logs in to play and we can really see how this game will truly shape up.

With that being said, everyone who pre-ordered and was supposed to have early game access has been invited to play by BioWare. Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Manger, started this thread to explain and ask people to let him know if they were having any problems getting into the game. Have you not pre-ordered the game? Well, you are in luck! As long as you pre-order before the 20th and redeem your pre-order code on the website you will be granted early game access for the rest of the early access period:

Hey everyone,

I’m happy to announce that we have now invited everyone who has pre-ordered and redeemed their pre-order code forStar Wars: The Old Republic to Early Game Access. If you haven’t yet received an email, start the SWTOR Launcher and you should be able to get into the game.

If you still have issues, please reply in this thread and we’ll try to help you as soon as we can. We know there have been isolated issues with code redemption, and we want to help you get into the game. Please be patient as we deal with your issues as fast as possible.

Remember, you will not have been granted Early Game Access unless you have pre-ordered the game, received your pre-order code, and redeemed that code on your account.

If you have picked up a copy of the game already and did not pre-order (for example, from most European retailers), you will not be able to access the game until December 20th, but you will be able to redeem your product registration code now. This should have been explained by your retailer, and was noted on European packaging.

We’re not done with invites yet, however. There’s still time to pre-order, and if you do redeem a code before Early Game Access ends, you’ll still have time to play. After you redeem a pre-order code, we will invite you as soon as possible. We’ll be sending invites continuously from now until the end of Early Game Access.

We look forward to welcoming all of you to Star Wars: The Old Republic!

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Wild Space: Combat (In Space!), Damage Meters, And Levels 1-10 Review

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

I was one of the lucky few to get in on day one of early game access. It certainly helped that I pre-ordered about 7 hours after pre-orders were announced back on July 21. Since Tuesday, I have been really enjoying playing my Sith Warrior and have been trying in-game to highlight all of his awfulness as a person. One of the things I wasn’t sold on going into the game was space combat. I had tried it in the beta but didn’t find it to be very enjoyable. However, once I got into the real game, I began to really enjoy the space combat.

Over on SWTORFace, they have a couple of terrific guides about space combat that they created during the beta.  I found these guides to be entertaining and informative so please check them out if you want to know more about the space combat in TOR.

Our buddies over on TORWars have written up an article titled “Open TOR Policy: The DPS Meter Made Me Do It” where they discuss the pros and cons to including damage meters in TOR. If you don’t know what damage meters are, the article does a good job of giving a basic overview of the concept and then goes into it’s analysis of why it might be good or might be bad to include damage meters in TOR. On the pro side, it’s a good way to monitor your own performance and improve your DPS if you find that you are doing something wrong. On the con side, it encourages elitism by constantly comparing yourself against everyone else. Check out the full article and participate to become a part of this not-soon-to-be-over debate.

Yufmelt has one of the first reviews I have seen for the game to date and I thought it would be worthwhile for those of you who are still on the fence about purchasing the game. It’s a review of the first 10 levels and includes opinions on the story, combat, and the first flashpoint that you experience in the game. Be sure to check it out!

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