Posted by Lethality | 5 Comments

1.7 Million Active Subscribers + Growing – EA Earnings Call

In what has to be seen as extremely good news, Electronic Arts announced during their earnings conference call today that Star Wars: The Old Republic has sold over 2 million copies, and currently has over 1.7 million active subscribers – and growing. MarketWatch reports:

“We are pleased to report a strong holiday quarter driven by Battlefield 3, FIFA12 and a strong showing by our digital games and services,” said Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello. “Star Wars: The Old Republic is developing a committed community of players with more than 1.7 million active subscribers and growing.”

Without a doubt, that makes it the fastest growing MMO to date, easily outpacing World of Warcraft, Warhammer, RIFT and others. Of course the test of time will be if they can retain and even grow that number, but I’d say the signs look good!

Congratulations to BioWare, EA and LucasArts on this tremendous accomplishment and milestone! Head over to MarketWatch for the full press release.

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Posted by Lethality | 6 Comments

The First Ever Guild Summit Announced – March 4-6 in Austin! Stephen Reid & David Bass Q&A

In case you’ve been hiding under a sand crawler all day and missed it, BioWare made quite an announcement today – the first ever Star Wars: The Old Republic Guild Summit!

In what promises to be the event of the season – catering specifically to the needs of the guild leadership community – BioWare is opening up their Austin studio to allow guild leaders from across the globe to come together to give their input and feedback about the past, present and future of Star Wars: The Old Republic!

TL;DR: First thing’s first. If you’re the leader of a guild in Star Wars: The Old Republic – no matter the size, shape or style – BioWare wants you in Austin! Obviously there’s a finite amount of space available, so be sure to head over to fill out the application ASAP!

We were lucky enough to grab a few minutes of time from Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid and Senior Community Coordinator David Bass to ask them about the Guild Summit, and see what kind of beans we could get them to spill. Luckily, they obliged our request and the Q&A follows.

On a side note, we’ve had the privilege to attend the Fan Site Summits in Austin, and the Guild Summit seems poised to deliver all of that excitement and more, to even more people! If you are one of the lucky attendees, come back here and let us know, and maybe you could even file a report on behalf of Ask A Jedi! We’d love to have you!

Without further adieu, I present Messrs. Stephen Reid and David Bass!

Guild Summit 2012 Q&A – Stephen Reid & David Bass

Ask A Jedi: So, the first Star Wars: The Old Republic Guild Summit! Very cool! Give us all the details! Date? Time? Place? 

David Bass: We’re holding the Guild Summit from March 4^th-6^th here in Austin, TX. We’re going to have guild leaders from all over the world coming out to speak directly with the designers of The Old Republic so that we can gather their feedback first hand, discuss the state of the game and talk about future developments. We’re looking forward to some great discussions!

AAJ: Obviously, guilds are a very important part of an MMO community. Can you tell us a bit about how this whole idea came about?

Stephen Reid: Doing a Guild Summit was one of those big ideas we’ve had for a while; I think we first discussed it in a ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’ sort of way back when we did the first Fansite Summit last year. We’re always listening to the community and getting their feedback across all our channels, but nothing beats a one-on-one, face to face meeting, so this was our ultimate goal.

AAJ: How can guilds be a part of this and possibly attend?

DB: Well, we’ve invited a number of guilds already, but one of the pieces of feedback we saw during the Fansite Summits last year was that people want to have the option of attending events on their own, so we’re opened up an application which you’ll find here. Guild leaders can apply there from now through February 10^th, at which point we’ll contact guild leaders and let them know whether we have space for them or not. Obviously we want to allow as many people as possible to attend, but the hotel only has so much space for us, so we’re going to have to limit the capacity.

SR: We really want to stress that guilds of any size or style can apply. We want to host a wide variety of players of all different types, so whether your guild is based around a style of play, a specific theme or maybe you’re just big (or small) we want to hear from you.

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Posted by Lethality | 88 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Are Your Three Wishes For TOR?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Even if you’re the most loyal fan, supporter and player of Star Wars: The Old Republic, you no doubt have some thoughts on what you’d like to see in the game. It’s just human nature – we’re given an inch, and we take a mile. Since BioWare themselves know full well that the long term life of the game depends on quality of service and frequent content and feature updates, I figured we may as well find out what’s on the AAJ Army wish list!

Your wishes might range anywhere from “I want a better GTN interface” to “I’d love to see a new class” to “Why can’t we have more Warzones” to “Fix the damn bugs.” Obviously, the potential wishes of players are going to be as varied as the players themselves. But you can only pick three for this topic!

As for me? My number one wish is for the worlds to feel more alive. I’d very much like to see world events along the lines of festivals, holidays and so on that not only provide additional things to do, but a nice distraction that makes the world feel organic and bigger than just your story. That things are going on with or without you there. Luckily, Game Director James Ohlen confirmed that they plan on doing just this soon, and have had a job opening for Senior Social Systems Designer for quite some time. Here’s hoping they find that person soon!

Due to the nature of the question, this is the first Blue Milk & Cereal we’re doing without a poll! I’m counting on your comments and discussion to fuel this one, so lets see how it goes! So please, let us know – what are your top 3 wishes for Star Wars: The Old Republic?

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Posted by Lethality | 0 Comments

Rich Vogel Talks Bugs & Exploits

For fans of the MMO genre, Rich Vogel needs no introduction. He spent his early career working on titles such as Meridian 59, Utlima Online and Star Wars: Galaxies – three of the most genre-defining MMO games of our time. Today however, Rich wears the hat of Executive Producer on Star Wars: The Old Republic at BioWare Austin, and as such has some pretty big boots to fill down in Texas.

This afternoon, he posted a developer blog for fans and players of Star Wars: The Old Republic to let them know how BioWare goes about prioritizing (and fixing) bugs and exploits, and how that meshes (and doesn’t interfere with) new content development:

Let me start by explaining how we go about determining when to fix an issue in the live game, whether it is a bug or an exploit. Let’s begin with exploits – those cases when we determine that a bug in the code can give an unfair advantage to a player. (Remember, not all bugs are exploits!)

If an exploit is discovered that threatens players’ experience in the game or the in-game economy, we will usually try to create an Emergency Patch to fix that exploit. Before we declare something an emergency though, we have to validate the issue with our internal Quality Assurance, or QA team. They gather data working with our Customer Service, analytics, and development teams to determine the extent of the exploit and the steps needed to reproduce it. Once we have the steps, we work on a plan to fix the issue. Depending how long the issue will take to fix and how risky it is, we will decide if we need to temporarily disable the cause of the exploit in the game.

Head on over to SWTOR.com for Rich’s full blog entry – it’s well worth a read for any TOR fan!

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Posted by Lady Republic | 4 Comments

Council Chambers: Good Officers, Apply Within

Council Chambers is all about the ins and outs of guild leadership in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Each week, we’ll look at running and managing a guild through good times, bad times and everything in between.  

To wrap up our Guild Formation series, I wanted to spend a little more time talking about officers – in particular, what to look for when hiring or promoting them.  (You’ll notice this nicely dovetails into the next couple entries about guild advice!  So stay tuned.) For the majority of TOR guilds, you’re just getting started in this new game – for some of you, your guild was established through the Guild HQ before the game launched, for others your guild was ported over from another game, and for some of you, your guild may be a brand new one formed since launch.

Regardless of how you got your start though – good officers really can make or break a guild.  You want officers that are responsible, fair, active, and reliable.  To make it even more tricky, being an officer isn’t even a paid position! Even so, having reliable officers that you can count on to manage the roster, deal with issues when you are offline or not around, and who can support you and the workload that goes with running a guild is a tremendously vital asset for any guild leader.

Let us begin by looking into the qualities that seem to make a good officer.  This can be tough – some are easy to measure (time online, for instance), and others can be harder (how does one measure maturity?)  Ultimately, it’s going to be a combination of observation, current officer consensus (for guilds that already exist and have officers), and a bit of sixth sense or gut hunch thrown into the mix.  Below is an initial list of qualities I usually request from prospective officer candidates.

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Posted by Lethality | 5 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1.1: GCD Tweaks, PvP And More

BioWare pushed out patch 1.1.1 this morning, and with it quite a few more fixes and items than the previous patch!

The full patch notes can be found below, and of course you can always get these and all previous patch notes on BioWare’s official page dedicated to the topic

Classes and Combat

General

• Fixed a bug that could cause the Global Cooldown to appear as if it has been cancelled when it is actually still in effect, resulting in a feeling of unresponsiveness to input.
• Corrected an issue that could cause an ability icon to appear usable but be unresponsive to clicks or keypresses for several seconds.
• Players revived by other players, including by in-combat revival abilities, now revive with 25% of maximum health.

 

Jedi Knight

Guardian

• Freezing Force: Now correctly lasts 9 seconds (up from 6 seconds).

 

Jedi Consular

Sage

• Mental Alacrity: Now correctly costs no Force to activate.
• Salvation: No longer heals targets twice on application. It now correctly heals all affected targets once when applied.

 

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Posted by Lethality | 28 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Miss Having A Reputation System In TOR?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Editor’s Note: Today we take another stroll back in time, and re-ask a question that we asked long before Star Wars: The Old Republic was in the hands of players. This time, it’s all about reputation systems. 

Learning that there wasn’t going to be any sort of reputation system in Star Wars: The Old Republic was sort of a let down for me. This revelation came as a bit of a surprise, since this type of system has been an MMO staple almost since the beginning of time. The ability to gain (or lose) favor with a given group of NPCs to unlock content or rewards presents an opportunity for interesting dynamics, especially in the Star Wars galaxy where political undertones play such a big part in the story. As a matter of fact, this page has been on the Holonet since the site launched in 2008. It looked ripe for expansion, but nothing ever came of it. That page sure made it look like a reputation system in waiting!

On the down side of these systems, the implementation of these reputations or factions in other games tended to lean toward the “grindy” side of available activities, and we know BioWare is interested in removing that aspect of the genre as much as possible. Now, you might be able to make the argument that the companion system is a type of “reputation” system, but I think that is a stretch.

Still, I think with a little creativity and ingenuity, a reputation system could work in a game like The Old Republic. What if it were called “diplomacy” as opposed to reputation? It suddenly takes on a whole new life. Perhaps this is something that BioWare would add to the game through an expansion, or maybe we’ll never see it at all.

How about you? What do you think of the absence of a reputation system in TOR? Do you miss it? What ideas do you have to make one that isn’t so “grindy”? Let’s hear ‘em!

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Posted by Lord Paladin | 5 Comments

Breakdown: Enhancements and You!

Breakdown is designed to to fill that stressful void while Star Wars: The Old Republic is down for maintenance. Each Tuesday morning, we’ll look at a topic and try to break it down to the basics. In the end, we hope to educate, entertain, and prevent you from having your own Breakdown!

If you follow the official TOR forums at all, you will see more than a few threads repeating themselves trying to clarify some of the basic features of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here in Breakdown, we’ll try to present all the currently known facts about how the game works in an easy to read format. Hopefully, we can clear up a few misconceptions, and answer a few questions; maybe we will even fill you in on something you didn’t know.

This week’s Breakdown is about Enhancements! If you’re an Artificer or a player over level 30, you know that the enhancements go from only having a few options, to having several dozen (about 56 at my last count). Enhancements come in almost every arrangement of secondary stats you could want, and they come in multiple quality grades; each one more difficult to craft than the next. This week, we’re going to break down all the different types available to you, so that you know which ones you want to slot into your favorite set of custom gear.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

Primary Stats: These are things like Strength, Endurance, Willpower, etc… They have a direct relation to how your character performs. Each class has a primary stat which increases almost everything they do.

Secondary Stats: These are derivative stats like Crit Rating, Surge, Power, etc.. and they are merely bonuses to your character’s performance. Secondary Stats, unlike Primary, are affected by diminishing returns. It has also been rumored that Power is not affected by diminishing returns.

Enhancement: This is the name of a specific modification slot in gear. Enhancements are universal, in that they are on both weapons and armor. Enhancements themselves can be purchased for commendations, or bought from an Artifice Crafter.

Enhancements can come in [Premium], [Prototype], and [Artifact] quality; they will always have Endurance on them, and then 2 other Secondary stats. The reason there are so many different combinations is due to the fact that you can get those 3 stats in different values.

Here is an example:

Both of these enhancements have the same 3 stats, but each has a different value. The important thing when choosing an Enhancement is to figure out which stat is most important to you.

Now, let’s get on to the list! I am using the green version, because they are the most widely available. Higher quality versions will have higher values, but the proportions will remain the same. (Also note there are duplicates in here which I will show, but strike out. These are covered elsewhere on the list.)

As you can see, there are many duplicates, and with time maybe this will be fixed to help fill in a few of the missing combos.

Hopefully this will help you next time you decide to peruse the Galactic Trade Market (and remember that the one on Nar Shaddaa is cross faction), or the next time you hit up your local Artificer. As always, I hope I’ve helped educate you on more of the basics, and I hope you’ll join me next week when the servers are down for another Breakdown!

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Posted by Lethality | 0 Comments

Scheduled Maintenance: January 31st

Just a reminder that BioWare will perform their regularly scheduled maintenance on the Star Wars: The Old Republic game servers tomorrow morning beginning at 2:00AM Central Standard Time.

This is just a reminder that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for eight hours on January 31st, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours, but could be extended.

Even though, according to the forums, most players can play ONLY during the scheduled maintenance periods, all is not lost! We’ll have another edition of Breakdown tomorrow during the downtime, where we take a topic, break it down, and show you the basics! You don’t want to miss this one – check back here at 2:00AM Central Standard Time!

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Posted by Lethality | 11 Comments

BioWare PC Performance Guide

No sooner did we tip you off to upcoming performance improvements than did BioWare deliver exactly that in the form of a post from Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez. Joveth gave the reigns over to Associate Project Manager Avi Mintz on the client engineering team:

Developing an MMORPG of this scale and detail means we must support a wide spectrum of performance-impacting scenarios, varied hardware compatibility issues and other unique challenges. Input from our community goes a long way to bolster our investigation efforts and narrow down elusive resolutions to these problems.

To that end, we’re hoping that we can start an open dialogue with you, the community; some of you have called out for this, others have taken the time to publish write-ups, and we are looking forward to collaborating with you to make this game a fantastic journey and a memorable experience for all involved.

Avi’s post is very long and very detailed, and as mentioned, designed to open up a dialogue with the community on these issues. I’d say this is a great step on BioWare’s part to address a very significant problem area for many users. Head over to the forums for Avi’s entire FPS optimization guide.

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