Posted by Lethality | 17 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Enjoying Space Combat?

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!

The other day, we talked about how Warzones as a great diversion from leveling through your class story. They’re easy to get into, give experience and other rewards for minimal effort, and of course there’s nothing more fun that making anyone from the other faction extremely miserable.

But today I wanted to talk about another diversion: Space Combat. When BioWare revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010 that players in Star Wars: The Old Republic would get their own starship – and be able to use it in epic space battles that Star Wars is known for, everyone was ecstatic! It was one of the major questions about the game up to that point, and BioWare finally answered!

Once we learned a bit more about Space Combat, some of the shiny came off. It was revealed to be a mini-game that didn’t tie into your story in any way. Worse, it was what they call a “tunnel shooter”. That means that you don’t actually get free control of your ship, but rather it’s “on rails” and has a very arcade-ish feel, rather than the freedom you’d expect from an MMO. Further, Space Combat had no multi-player modes and there was no PvP.

Having said all of that, once players finally got their hands on it, there was no denying: it’s fun! The gameplay is satisfying and the visuals are gorgeous. Not only that, it’s very easy to pick up and do a few missions when you have very little play time. These are the kind of dailies I can stomach.

So we just want to know… are you getting into Space Combat? Are you upgrading your ship? And what are your hopes and thoughts about how BioWare might expand on it in the future?

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Posted by Lethality | 9 Comments

Patch Notes: 1.1 (Public Test Server) – New Flashpoint, Kira Carsen And Anti-Aliasing

BioWare has just pushed a new build of Star Wars: The Old Republic to the Public Test Server for players to get their hands on. They’ve been doing quick and furious patches all this week, but this one is a bit more meaty!

Some of the highlights are a new Flashpoint, the Kira Carsen bug fix, and the re-addition of the anti-aliasing preference!

The patch notes can be found below.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Patch 1.1

General

• Anti-aliasing is now available and can be enabled in the preferences menu.

Classes and Combat

General

• Healing caused by crowd control abilities no longer generates threat.
• Tooltips for abilities modified by skill points now display correct damage values.

Guard

• This ability now transfers to a new friendly target without requiring deactivation on the previous target.
• Activating this ability while targeting a guarded or invalid target will still toggle the Guard ability off.
• A distinct visual effect is now present on characters using Guard on another character, and another effect is now present on the guarded character if they leave Guard’s range.

Taunt

• A new visual effect has been added to the user and the target of the Taunt ability for the duration of its effect.

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Posted by Lethality | 26 Comments

Razer’s TOR Peripherals Available For Pre-Order Soon™

It looks like the wait might be almost over for those TOR fanatics who have been waiting to part with their cash and plunk down for the all-new Star Wars: The Old Republic peripherals from Razer!

Amazon has just launched their product pages for each of the items, showing several new photos and what appears to be a suggested retail price. These products are not available for pre-order just yet, but when a product page appears in Amazon like this, it usually mean that availability is imminent.

The entire line of Star Wars: The Old Republic peripherals from Razer includes:

• Keyboard – $249.99 – Experience ultimate power and attain absolute control with the technologically revolutionary Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Gaming Keyboard by Razer. Ten dynamic adaptive tactile keys intuitively present all your skills, macros, and hotkeys with matching iconography straight from The Old Republic™ MMO for faster key-bind accessibility. And the multi-touch full-color LCD track-panel below can be set to either respond to direct gesture input or display interactive in-game information for an exciting new way to experience the game.

• Headset – $129.99 – Hear the ambient noises of an alien world, the chaotic explosions in battle on Alderaan, or the iconic buzz of a lightsaber powering up behind you, thanks to the positional 5.1 surround sound power of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Gaming Headset by Razer. Get clear, precise three-dimensional audio for the tactical advantage, preventing backstabs and pinpointing hotspots of action all around you.

• Mouse – $139.99 – The Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Gaming Mouse by Razer is also built with cutting-edge gaming grade dual wired/wireless technology to allow greater freedom of maneuverability when unwired without compromise on control or accuracy within the game. When the battery needs charging, switch the mouse to wired mode and jump back into the fray with zero downtime.

• Mouse Mat – $49.99 – Power and talent for the Force™ are nothing without focus. A hero without allegiance has no place in the galaxy. With the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Gaming Mouse Mat by Razer, choose to swipe either for the righteous good of the Galactic Republic or the ruthless domination of the Sith Empire. And secure your revered or feared status in the universe.

If you’re an avid MMO player, you’re likely already familiar with Razer for their fine products such as the Naga MMO mouse, and you know how great they are. We expect the TOR products to be even better, and we hope to get our hands on them for a review soon!

Until then, you could make one TOR fan extremely happy this holiday with any one of these gifts!

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Posted by Lethality | 4 Comments

Yay! First TOR Machinima! Oh no! First TOR Machinima!

In what might be the first attempt at “machinima” in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I am both amused and frightened.

Starfleet Dental is a casual guild forming in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and they’ve produced some entertaining and interesting videos with a web site that is… unlike any other guild site you may have seen. The videos are professionally produced and fun to watch.

On the one hand, this video is entertaining enough and shows off detailed character dance animations and environments set to a light-hearted tune. On the other hand, we see Jedi dancing like MC Hammer working at comeback. Oh, and don’t miss the naked Trooper moonwalking in the background at about :50 into the video.

On the plus side, I think we can count on a lot of high quality machinima style videos over the coming weeks, months and years as  passionate Star Wars fans get their hands on the game and comfortable with the tools needed for their creation. As a matter of fact, if you spot any on the web, or create some yourself, make sure you drop us a line!

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Posted by Lethality | 9 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: So, Are You Gonna Play Some TOR This Weekend?

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!

The day has arrived! Literally millions of players have been waiting to get their hands on Star Wars: The Old Republic, and beginning today they will get their chance – from the comfort of their own home!

The massive beta weekend, known as an “open beta” in other MMO circles begins later today and while it’s technically invite-only, everyone who has signed up on SWTOR.com has been invited, in addition to hundreds of thousands of others via beta key giveaways from various gaming sites. It’s safe to say this will likely be the largest MMO beta test in history.

What remains to be seen, however, is if this is the last beta weekend – or for that matter, the end of the entire Game Testing program. Will BioWare continue testing right up until launch?

So today’s question is pretty simple! Are you going to be playing this weekend? Do you have time set aside? Or are you going to fight the urge and hold out for the official release?

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