Posted by Cormeister | 0 Comments

Wild Space: Patch 1.1 Roundup, Jedi Knight Armor, and “Pro Tips”

It’s a big galaxy out 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!

Our first major content patch, Rise of the Rakghouls, is only days away! A ton of minor updates and changes are being made to the game in addition to a new Flashpoint and Operation. The good folks over on SWTOR Arena have a great roundup of all the changes in the forthcoming update. As you would expect from a round up, all of the interviews that James Ohlen, Game Director, gave to other major gaming publications as well as choice patch notes and RP “fluff text” are included. For anyone that is looking to find out exactly what is being added in the upcoming patch, definitely check out SWTOR Arena for the details.

On the official forums, a thread has popped up about the end-game PvP gear for Jedi Knights and how it looks. More specifically, the OP, Alexious, doesn’t like the look of the armor at all. Since the post has grown to 21 pages, SWTOR Face decided to weigh in and posted screenshots of the armor in question. To me, the armor looks similar to that worn by Obi-Wan in the 2003 Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series (sans cape, obviously) which is awesome! Is the armor flashy or avant garde? No, but neither are Jedi (at least, they aren’t “supposed” to be). To me, the armor perfectly describes the Jedi Knight from a story sense: someone who is supposed to get in quickly, get the job done with the least amount of violence possible, and get out. What do you guys think? Check out the article on SWTOR Face and let us know!

Lastly this week, I wanted to make you guys aware, if you weren’t already about an awesome recurring feature on Force Junkies. “FJ Pro-Tip” is a short feature where the Force Junkie crew offers up one tip that they feel the community can benefit from. Personally, I have learned some great tips from this column, including this one from January 11 about refreshing your crew skill missions:

Quick tip today for those who might get frustrated by not having the Crew Skill missions that you want. When you board and exit your ship, the missions available to you are reshuffled and different ones are available. So if you see missions you don’t want and don’t feel like waiting for them to shuffle back in, just walk in and out of your ship and.. Voila! You will have a new set of missions to choose from. 

I will definitely be doing that once I get back online! Check out Force Junkies for even more FJ Pro-Tips.

Posted by Lord Paladin | 7 Comments

Breakdown: Warzones 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!

Let’s begin by defining a few things:

Warzone Commendations: The currency you get for completing Warzones which can be used to purchase PvP items and gear.

Valor: Valor is like your PvP experience, or perhaps it’s better to think of it like social points. As you get Valor, your Valor Rank (like your Social Level) will increase. This will earn you titles, (Skirmisher at valor rank 10, and Duelist at 20) as well as the person with the highest Valor Rank being the Ops leader in the Warzone. Also there is PvP gear which requires you have a certain Valor Rank to use.

Badges: Badges are what you get for accomplishing certain things within a Warzone match (more on this later). Each badge you earn increases your reward by 50 Valor and 5 commendations.

Resolve: Resolve is the system that BioWare has implemented to help with chain CC. It is represented as a white/gray bar around your target’s picture (by their health bar), or around your own by your health bar. The bar fills up when you’re CC’ed and when it’s full, you become immune. It can be a tricky system to use, and I can’t explain it as well as forum poster Felnadir can here.

MVP: When a match ends, you will be shown a window that has all the players on the match, and their various different metrics. Next to each person’s name is a button that looks like a plus sign, and a trophy. Clicking this for a player will give them an MVP vote, and reveal to you who gave them to you. Each MVP vote gives you an extra commendation, and (in beta) could unlock special achievement titles (Such as the “Warzone Hero” title). These titles have not been seen in game since release, but it could be that their requirement was increased. Voting MVP can only help your faction, so remember to do it every match!

Posted by Lethality | 3 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What’s Your Favorite Warzone?

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!

It’s hard to believe that Star Wars: The Old Republic has been out for over 3 weeks, pushing a month if you count Early Game Access. So far, much of that time for most players has been spent leveling through their class stories. But one of the nice things about TOR are some of the diversions you can take along the way without slowing down your leveling progress. One of these side-activities is Space Combat. Once you get your starship, you can fly space missions for rewards and experience (and quite a lot, I might add!) But the other biggie is Warzones.

You can begin queueing up for PvP Warzones as early as level 10, and thanks to the assistance of the Bolster mechanic, players of all levels can be pitted against each other with relative competitiveness to one another. That’s not to say it’s always fair, and BioWare is recognizing that by creating a separate level 50 bracket for Warzones in an upcoming patch.

Right now, you can queue for a Warzone as a group, or you can queue solo and be matched with other players. But one choice you can’t make for some reason is WHICH Warzone you want to play. Each of the 3 currently available offer different gameplay styles: Alderaan offers a classic control point match, Voidstar is a great assault-style match and Huttball… well, it’s kind of like capture the flag. But you can throw the flag to other players. With acid and flames thrown in for good measure.

So at this stage of the game, we’re just curious which Warzone you prefer the most? Would you like to see more variety? Or at least pick which one you want to queue for? Let us know!

 Loading ...

Posted by Lethality | 18 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Which Warzone Do You Like Best?

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!

War is a big part of the Star Wars mythos. There is nearly always some type of Republic vs. Empire battle going on throughout every movie, TV show or video game. Star Wars: The Old Republic is no different. Heck, from the opening moments of the Deceived trailer, we saw what was perhaps one of the most bold assaults by either side on the other in the history of the franchise!

The cool thing about an MMO is that we get to play out that war against other real players! In TOR, there will be many ways to do this including open world PvP, the innovative and high-risk Outlaw’s Den and last but not least Warzones.

Warzones are instanced areas that are designed for a specific number of players, and have objectives and rules that define the conditions for winning. They’re great because they give some of the best team-based gaming experiences you can find if you work together (and some of this most frustrating if you don’t!)

TOR will ship with 3 Warzones: The Voidstar, which is an assault-and-defend style battle. Alderaan, which is a class battle for control points, which turn the tide of battle. Finally, and perhaps the most interesting, is Huttball. Here, the Hutts are using you for entertainment as you participate in a really violent sport where you have to get a ball across enemy lines. A little like football, but with more fire, poison and explosions!

Each represents a different style of gameplay and visual environment, so based on what you’ve seen and heard about them so far, which do you think will be your favorite? Perhaps you even had a chance to play them in Game Testing or one of the Beta Weekends. If you did, we’d love to hear about it below!

 Loading ...

Posted by Lethality | 8 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Server Type Will You Play On?

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!

It’s hard to believe we’ve never done a Blue Milk & Cereal on this topic before, but I had our official AAJ fact-checker look into it and he confirmed that it’s true.

A while back, BioWare revealed that there would be four official server rulesets: PvE, PvP, RP, and RP-PvP. Each of these represent a potentially very different gameplay experience.

PvE servers are great for those that like to go about their business while doing missions, and not be interrupted or attacked spontaneously out in the wild (unless they accidentally wander into Outlaw’s Den, of course ;)  PvP servers are for those players that like the excitement that comes with knowing you are in danger nearly everywhere you go. A fight can break out almost anywhere, and that feeling can be exhilarating. RP and RP-PvP rulesets aren’t really mechanically different than their counterparts, but offer a “sanctioned” place for role-players to have an environment more suited to their play style. It should be noted that BioWare will not be enforcing the RP rulesets, which is a bit of a letdown, but at least they’re an option.

By now I’m sure you can see where we’re headed with this one… we want to know what server ruleset will you play your main character on. Vote, and let us know why (or what you don’t like about the other rulesets!)

 Loading ...