There seems to be a trend happening in the SWTOR community for the past week or two and I have to say that in all my years of gaming, I’ve never seen one quite like this before. For some reason, there is a relatively large number of players claiming to have been banned from SWTOR- some even with email “proof” – who were not actually banned at all. Most of the reports claim to be bans over silly things that get the community and other players in an outrage because they worry whether or not it can happen to them. Accusations are flying and gamers are getting paranoid, wondering if they will really be banned for such things or if they are supporting a game company that is a little too ready with the banhammer. But is any of it really true? Like this from the official forums: Originally Posted…
The Empire is Winning in The Old Republic’s PvP
Do you PvP in SWTOR? If you’re not part of the Empire, you might be getting owned. While it varies according to server, just like in any game, overall the Empire is winning PvP in The Old Republic. An article over at IGN.com tells us more about why and how the Empire is leading the warzones in SWTOR. IGN tells us: According to Gabe Amatangelo, lead PvP designer, Empire players beat Republic players in 53 percent of Voidstar and Alderaan Civil War contests across all servers combined. He said a same faction versus same faction version of Huttball, The Old Republic’s most played Warzone, will also be included. At some point in the future, BioWare will let players select which Warzone they want to play, though a timeline isn’t yet set. As it is now, when you queue up to enter a Warzone, you could be potentially dropped in any…
Server Maintenance yet again.
BioWare have closed down there servers to patch the dupe exploit that has been around for a few days. While I’m pretty bummed about not getting to play as much as I would like on my day off, I’m happy that BioWare fix these exploits as fast as possible. So what was the exploit about anyways? Well basically you fool vendors to think that they bought a stack of 99 items while they actually only bought one item. readers have mailed us how they made millions of credits before the server went down, but we have no screen shots to prove it. Funny thing about this bug is not the bug it self (shit happens and then you fix it) but the fact that Reddit and 4chan users tried rallying the masses to “take down TOR”. I’m not sure what’s up with these people, but you can read more about “Operation Occupy SW: ToR” here.
Outrage over SWTOR: Vette Makes the News
So apparently Vette has made the news (if you consider the Daily Mail news, that is). Today they ran a story about the outrage of SWTOR which allows players to ‘own’ and torment female slaves with electric shock collars. Bold subheadings declare that the game has “scripted lines such as ‘obey my every command’ and options to beat and torture a female slave. The article then adds that gamers “boast about how badly they treat her” but it hardly says one thing about the fact that you can choose to be nice to Vette. I, for one, took her collar off as soon as you proved herself by completing the task I gave her. Anyway, the Daily Mail seems to want to make everyone think that the game is evil with this horrible plot to demean women and promote slavery. It’s hardly that bad at all. First, we are talking…
SWTOR Race Issues Explained
Many SWTOR gamers have questions about the race choices in the game and why we can only play certain races. One of the biggest questions “Why can’t I play a Wookie?” Well, good for us, VideoGamer.com has a telling interview with BioWare writer Alexander Freed (a personal fave of mine since I had the chance to meet him this summer). In this interview, Freed tells us a little more about the races in SWTOR and why many of them are so human-looking. Basically, it all comes down to relatability. Freed says: “You know, the reason for our humanoid range of species, it’s a matter of relatability to a large degree. The further you get from human the more difficult it is for players to get into their mindset, the more difficult it is for all the other characters in the game to relate to them the same way. There are…
Social Armor Sets – Sith
Social armor sets are another one of those things about SWTOR that helps set it apart from other MMORPGs and makes it a little more fun. Here is a image that shows us what the social armor sets for the Sith look like. While the quality is not the best, the creator still took the time to get all those shots of the armor for us in one location so you can see them. If you want to travel all over the planets and see them all for yourself or see exactly what they will look like on your character, you can do so. Viewing with the companion view gives a higher resolution view on the sets. So here is just one more reason to be social in SWTOR and group up while playing the game. What do you think? Do you like the sets? Were you disappointed? Will you be saving…
PC Gamer Review SWTOR- Lengthy Observations
You know that we’re always looking out for you and bringing you great reviews and previews of SWTOR when we find them. While you’ve probably had a chance to check out the game for yourself by now and if you don’t own it yet, you probably know plenty of friends who do, we still like to pass on good reviews when we find them. This very lengthy write-up by PC Gamer is worth taking a read (or at least a skim) over because it has so much great info on the game from a reputable source like PC Gamer. The review is based on 85 hours of playtime in the game so you will get a lot more from your typical blogger preview out there. They played as an Imperial Agent to level 35 at the time the review was written so it does not contain information on certain endgame…
Unscheduled maintenance (1.0.2b Patch Notes 1/5/2012)
The SWTOR Servers just went down for an unscheduled maintenance. Here is the what why and when: We are working on getting a patch deployed to address the issues that some players are still experiencing after 1.0.2 including: Fixing an issue that causes in-game chat channels to stop functioning for some players. Preventing social emotes (like /getdown) from interfering with combat. We’re currently testing this patch, and we hope to have it deploy sometime in the early hours of the morning tomorrow (CST), but if we experience any issues with this patch, we may hold off its deployment until tomorrow night. The combat bug with social emotes we talked about yesterday was pretty game breaking, and so is the chat channel bug, so it’s nice to know that BioWare are ready to resolve problems fast rather then wait till next scheduled update. Random image is random. Nice Rancore though 🙂
BioWare Not Excluding a SWTOR Mac Version At This Time
If you’ve been waiting for a Mac version of SWTOR (I know a few friends who are), then there may still be hope for you yet. BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk are devoted to their fans and they know how important it is to reach a larger audience and for SWTOR, that includes Mac gamers as well as PC. When talking about how the game will continue to grow in the future, the topic of a Mac version is one that comes up repeatedly. Massively by Joystiq covers the story of what the BioWaredocs think about creating a Mac version: “”Weknow there’s a big Mac audience of BioWare fans … we know that’s an importantand large audience. And we want to serve that audience,” Muzyka told mewhen asked about a potential Mac version of the his company’s latest majorrelease, Star Wars: The Old Republic.” The Massively writer tells…
How to change the SWTOR boot up loading screen image
Are you tired of looking at the same SWTOR screen when you load your game? Do you wish you could do something fun or creative with the screen or find something better to look at for those few seconds while you wait for the game to load? Well, you’re going to get a kick out of this little bit of info we found (because we definitely did). This just in: That’s right! You can change the image that the loading screen uses when you first boot up to the game! To do this, go into your program files and find your Star wars the old republic folder. From there got to the file path: swtor>retailclient>LoadingScreens and add any .JPG file to the folder and simply rename it LoadingScreen and you’re finished! Enjoy! Here’s a thread on Reddit that shows how to change the SWTOR boot up loading screen…
Stephen Reid Clears Up Confusion Over SWTOR Bans
We posted recently about the confusion over SWTOR bans and also mentioned that Stephen Reid put word out that an official update and response was soon to come on the forums. Well, in case you missed it or you’re still wondering what is up with those aforementioned SWTOR bans, here’s the official SWTOR forum thread on the topic from Stephen Reid himself: Our Terms of Service team recently took action against some accounts playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we wanted to give you some insight into what happened and why. First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what’s commonly known as ‘gold farming’ – or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these…
Research firm: SWTOR has 350,000 peak concurrent users
Just how many people are actually playing SWTOR? It’s obvious that the game is very popular but how do you put numbers on just how popular it is? GamesIndustry.biz has a story that tells us a little more about just how many users SWTOR boasts today, just weeks after the official launch. One research firm says that SWTOR has 350,000 concurrent users. “”We view the early success of Star Wars as an indication of a healthy MMO market,” said Baird spokesman Colin Sebastian. These users are said to be spread across 215 servers in America and Europe. This is nearly half the 491 servers in WoW. However, these numbers from the firm are different from what the BioWare doctors are reporting. They had different numbers according to their blog post on the official forums. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk say: “Yesterday was quite a day here in Austin. We likely…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Patch 1.0.2 01/04/2012
All servers were down for maintenance for a few hours today. Originally BioWare planed a 8 hour downtime, but the servers are up again after only a few hours. Here is the new patch notes that came with the maintenance. General Guilds that are currently leaderless will have an Officer chosen and promoted to Guild Leader. Classes and Combat Sith Inquisitor General The Darth title is now properly granted to Sith Inquisitors. Bug Fixes Corrected an issue that could prevent players from taking cover when targeting large NPCs. Fixed a bug that caused some abilities with activation times to be interrupted when used from cover. Flashpoints and Operations Flashpoints Cademimu General Ortol can no longer be pulled out of his room. Maelstrom Prison Corrected an issue that could cause Grand Moff Kilran to behave incorrectly when defeated in cover. Taral V General Edikar now has the correct loot in Hard Mode…
TOR TV: The /getdown bug
You discovered a bug in the game to interrupt casting I should tell BioWare and not make it public – 50 Lightside points I should tell everyone in the public forums – 50 Darkside points Keep it to myself and get world first on some boss who is a bitch because of casted abilities and not enough interrupts – 150 Darkside points, ladies Now ad this and your golden! No clue if this is bannable, but I’m sure that we got BioWares attention now, and they will hot fix it asap. What ever way you look a it, this is some serious funky tanking! Interested in SWTOR Movies? We have new movies most weekdays here on swtorstrategies! Have suggestions for movie we ought to feature? Get in contact with us here
BioWare Banning for Using Profanity in SWTOR?
There has been a buzz recently about BioWare dropping the ban-hammer with prejudice on SWTOR gamers for things such as profanity, going to Illum before level 50 and anything that appears like chat “spam”, even if accidental. This has a lot of players asking if BioWare is being too heavy-handed in their banning practices. While most of the threads on the official forums about it are quickly locked or deleted, there is a discussion going on about it at Reddit and one user also captured a screenshot of their ban warning email which was posted on the forums but that thread was later deleted. Basically, this user said he was sent an email warning after using profanity in private tells to friends in game. The email warns the user that he will be banned if he is caught using this language again. No one seems to be able to get…
Corellia Datacron Locations
Corellia was the capital planet of the Corellian system, which included Selonia, Drall, Tralus, and Talus. It was also the birthplace of smuggler and New Republic General Han Solo as well as Rogue Squadron pilot and New Republic hero Wedge Antilles, along with many other humans who played important roles in the histories of the Rebel Alliance, New Republic, and Galactic Alliance. Collectively, the planets of the system were known as the Five Brothers. As the largest planet and the closest to Corell, Corellia was often called the “Eldest Brother” or the “Eldest.” Historians believed the Celestials assembled the system artificially, the worlds brought from other parts of the galaxy for unknown reasons. Some believed that these Celestials populated Corellia with Humans from Coruscant. Read all about Corellia here, and check out the datacron locations below: Don’t forget to check out constantly growing list of guides for Star Wars: The old…
How the Old Republic Didn’t Change MMOs from Escapist Magazine
I read a really interesting piece today from Escapist Magazine. It was part of a weekly column “First Person” written by Boston, MA-based freelancer Dennis Scimeca that I often enjoy. This particular write-up on how The Old Republic didn’t change MMOs is spot-on with how I feel about the game in many areas. Let’s start with saying that it’s not a negative review. In fact, the columnist seems quite content with SWTOR as far as the game itself goes but he makes some very valid points about the MMO aspects and how there are certain things that just cannot be revolutionized yet in the genre. While SWTOR has done some things that no other MMORPG has done, there are still some things that it just hasn’t changed about the genre in SWTOR. However, it may not really be BioWare’s fault. I mean, this is reportedly one of (if not the)…
Contest to Win SWTOR Razer Gaming Mouse
Have you been looking to get your hands on that SWTOR Razer mouse but Santa didn’t bring you one for Christmas? We might have a good opportunity for you because we stumbled across this post and contest for a SWTOR Razer gaming mouse and you still have 2 more days to get your entry in! (The deadline for entries is midnight on January 4th 2012.) Ctrl + Alt + Del has a contest that you are going to want to check out, especially if you consider yourself a Photoshop aficionado. All you have to do is create a SWTOR image in Photoshop from a SWTOR screenshot as the starting point. How creative can you be? Contest rules: I have three sets of SWTOR mouse + mousepad by Razer to give away, so I’m going to ask you to get a little artistic for this one. I want you to whip…
Voss Datacron Locations
Voss was a planet located within the Voss system of the Outer Rim Territories. It was inhabited by Gormak and a less numerous species, who were named Voss like the planet. The two were engaged in warfare for many years circa 3,653 BBY. The Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire discovered the planet shortly after the signature of the Treaty of Coruscant. For centuries, the two native sentient species of Voss—the Voss and the Gormak—were at war with each other. Following the Treaty of Coruscant that ended the Great Galactic War in 3,653 BBY, Voss was accidentally discovered by the larger galaxy. It was invaded by the Sith Empire, and the Galactic Republic moved to defend the world against the Sith by occupying it themselves. However, the Voss were able to out-maneuver both factions due to the visions of their Force-using tradition, the Voss Mystics. In the aftermath of the…
What to Do During SWTOR Maintenance
So it’s maintenance day for SWTOR and you are finding yourself at a loss for what to do. You’ve been playing every day, working your way to max level, completing missions, earning credits and building a legacy. Now what? SWTOR maintenance day is not a need for stress and worry. There are many productive things you could be doing instead while SWTOR is down for maintenance. Here are some ideas of what to do during SWTOR maintenance: Read SWTORstrategies.com Go take a shower Step outside-remember that thing called the sun? Have a Star Wars movie marathon Sketch your character Play KOTOR Reintroduce yourself to non-gamer friends (do they remember you anymore?) Make a list of things you will do when the server is back up Organize your screenshot folder Spend time on forums talking about SWTOR Many people have work or school during the maintenance hours anyway so they don’t…
Intergalactic Intel: Resolutions
Intergalactic Intel: Resolutions “Can you believe that guy?” Any louder and I was going to mute my friend. “Be nice he’s new to MMO’s.” “How can I be nice when it’s so easy?! Don’t hit the CC’d mob!” “It takes practice; I mean we weren’t perfect back in Burning Crusade. Look how long it took for you to get the concept of line of sighting ranged mobs…” At that point I’m pretty sure I got a death glare through the internet. Welcome back to Intergalactic Intel! I hope everyone has enjoyed their new year as we bring 2012 into the works. With tons of new content coming from Bioware, and as servers make their communities, we here at Swtorstratgies will be keeping up with the latest information to provide to you. So everyone makes New Year’s resolutions. Lose weight, quit smoking, and start learning that awkward hobby that only five…
TOR TV: A Wasted Year
The guild Starfleet Dental, used their new years eave creating this little jewel of a machinima. The video for A Wasted Year is pretty spot-on for the material and keeps pace with the music fairly well. I was not aware that someone made a polka version of ZZ Tops ” give me all your loving” and I’m not sure I aprove of it either though. My favorite part is at the end, when they all break out into fireworks and dancing. It’s rare that videos make me wish I could be included in that game play. But if I’d had an invite to that party, I definitely would have been there with bells on. Interested in SWTOR Movies? We have new movies most weekdays here on swtorstrategies! Have suggestions for movie we ought to feature? Get in contact with us here
Is SWTOR PVP Broken?
Recently there have been a lot of complaints about PVP in SWTOR and not all of them are just from hardcore PvPers who don’t like the way things are set up in SWTOR. In fact, there are many bugs and legitimate complaints that lead a gamer to ask, “Is PvP in SWTOR broken?” MMO Crunch has a piece that asks “Where’s the PvP?” and brings up a pretty good question about the lacking world PvP in SWTOR. I have to agree with the author since I play on a PvP server and have yet to run into a PvP encounter in the open world once so far and I’ve been playing since pre-launch. MMO Crunch says: “The problem with the open PvP zones is there is absolutely no incentive for players, which is why they’re empty. Why bother in a open zone when you can queue up for a warzone…
TOR Wins MMO Game Of The Year From GameSpy
While it’s not really a surprise to any of us here, we are happy to announce that Gamespy ranked SWTOR as Game of the Year: MMO Category. Released just before the end of the year after years of anticipation, the game is off to a fantastic start, breaking genre records across the board and drawing in tons of happy gamers. In what many believe to be the first MMO to rival WoW, SWTOR has made an impressive launch into the industry and now only time will tell if BioWare can keep it up for the longterm. FromGamespy: “We’restill logging hours in a galaxy far, far away to bring you our full review, butthis award should give you an idea how we feel about BioWare’s long-awaitedStar Wars MMO. From day one, the renowned RPG studio said it would set its gameapart from the competition with story, voice, and choice — and…