SWTOR news

MMORPG Interview with Jeff Hickman and Matthew Bromberg

SWTOR is going free to play and it’s happening sooner than you think. We’re all excited about the news and here’s an interview from MMORPG.com’s William Murphy to give us more info about the game, the move to f2p and other questions you might have. It’s happening, and sooner than you might think. BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is going F2P with a hybrid business model this fall.  Players have been wondering about it, journalists have been begging for it, and it seems that all this time BioWare’s been listening and reacting.  After being informed of the then embargoed announcement this morning, I had the rare opportunity to sit in on a call with  BioWare’s Jeff Hickman and Matthew Bromberg (who recently took over as GM of the Austin studio.    We talked about the timing, the reasons, and the way in which they believe SWTOR going F2P is just finally giving…

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Twitter Post by Hall Hood (lead writer) Suggests New Event?

Do you follow your favorite game developers and staff on social media? Lots of us do and it’s one of the greatest parts of the popularity of social media. I love when I can look up someone who works on a game I enjoy and can find them on Twitter, especially if they update regularly. But one downside to this easy-access is that misinformation is sometimes spread. It’s a casualty of the platform and perhaps that 140-character limit. We saw a good example of that today. For those who follow SWTOR’s lead writer Hall Hood on Twitter, you may already know that he often teases us with snippets of things to come in the game. This morning he set Twitter afire with SWTOR fans expecting a new event after this tweet: #SWTOR SIS Intel Report: Rumors indicate Czerka research vessel “Theoretika” has been located by deep-space salvage team. Investigating. — Hall Hood…

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Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk Leaving BioWare? Unconfirmed Rumors

Rumors are going around the past 24 hours after this report on GamersGlobal says that BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have left the company or plan to do so soon. It has caused discussions on both the BioWare forums and the SWTOR forums but no one really knows for sure if this is anything more than just a rumor. GameBanshee says: A trustworthy source has been told by an employee of Bioware Austin yesterday that neither Greg Zeschuk nor Ray Muzyka have been present at a Bioware Company Meeting in Austin, Texas, just a few days ago. The employee claimed that this has not been the case before at such a meeting. The six others members of Bioware Austin’s leadership have been there. Also, Greg Zeschuk has not been seen for several weeks now, the Bioware Austin employee claims. There are supposed to be internal rumours at Bioware Austin that…

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SWTOR Free to Play is on its Way!

EA and BioWare announced today that it will be expanding Star Wars: The Old Republic by adding a new free-to-play option this fall. And for everyone who plays between now and then or who was previously subscribed, there will be benefits by way of Cartel Coins. Players who choose to engage in free-to-play will be able to experience a majority of the game for free, including the first 50 levels and all eight classes. BioWare did state that there will be restrictions, but those can be removed with microtransactions. SWTOR announced: Now is the time to play The Old Republic™! Over the coming months there will be more frequent Game Updates, including group content like Flashpoints, Warzones, Operations, and dynamic in-game events and more included in your subscription. They go on to show what the rewards will be, including a vote for “player’s choice” rewards. The Developer Blog explained the…

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Star Wars: The Old Republic is GDC Online Awards Nominee

GDC Online is on its way and the votes for nominees are in. The organizers have now announced the finalists for the 3rd annual GDC Choice Awards and Gamasutra has brought us the full story. There is a wide range of games in the nominee list this year and this also reflects the diversity in the industry and the creativity of the game developers. However, we were not at all surprised to see SWTOR on the list. Some might be surprised to see just how much the game was nominated, however. Gamasutra reports: The most-nominated titles this year include BioWare Austin’s MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, which grabbed six nominations, as well as multiple nominations for diverse titles including Omgpop/Zynga’s addictive social mobile app Draw Something, Playfish/EA’s Facebook treatment of one of gaming’s biggest franchises, The Sims Social, Blizzard Entertainment’s record-breaking PC online-integrated title Diablo III, Tiny Speck’s quirky casual MMO Glitch, and more. …

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Anonymous BioWare Employee Rumor- Are Fans to Blame?

By now, you’ve probably heard about the anonymous BioWare employee rumor circulating the Internet yesterday. We saw it but I wanted to dig up some more information before bringing it to you. As a journalist, I’m not one for spreading rumors with no basis to the source. This article on Bettor.com claimed that an anonymous BioWare employee blamed the fans for the current state of SWTOR. The author, Gordon Miles says: A Bioware Austin employee has lashed out at fans regarding the state of the recently launched massively multiplayer online (MMO) Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) according to GamerTechTv. SWTOR or ‘Tortanic’ is being called one of the biggest blunders of this generation as Electronic Arts (EA) has thrown away over $500 million of development and marketing funds for the project and will now have to make it free to play because of the rapidly decreasing player count. The…

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HK-51 Revealed!

SWTOR/BioWare had some exciting news to reveal today. In this update at SWTOR.com, they tell us about HK-51. Buried deep beneath the icy surface of Belsavis rests an army of the deadliest, most feared machines in the known galaxy. Thought to have been lost when an Imperial freighter was destroyed, they have recently been rediscovered by a group of renegade Sith Lords. Now both the Sith Empire and Galactic Republic seek to control these dangerous weapons for themselves. Those who are brave enough to venture into the wreckage will emerge with a powerful new ally. We are excited to unveil the dangerous assassination droid HK-51! Cold, calculating, and ruthlessly efficient, HK-51 will stand by your side and loyally follow your command as you and your allies continue your journey. Journalists were given a brief preview of HK-51 at E3, but now we are happy to be able to show everyone…

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SWTOR Scheduled Maintenance June 19th

Reminder: Tuesday scheduled maintenance is coming so here’s your chance to get some play time in before the servers go down. Scheduled time is only 4 hours and most of us will  be sleeping during this period anyway. Last week’s update brought us server transfers and this update will bring us one step closer to 1.3. Learn more about what’s coming with game update 1.3. What do you do during maintenance? From the SWTOR Community News team: Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, June 19th , 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8 AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended. This weekly maintenance is…

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How Awesome Would it be if SWTOR Goes F2P?

There have been rumors about it from the start and some experts even predicted that SWTOR might be the last pay-to-play MMORPG. Now that they are offering a free 15 levels of play and have hinted at the possibility of microtransactions, there is a new rumor on the scene- will SWTOR go free to play? Thanks to a story from UK magazine GamesTM, the rumor mill is abuzz again. In the article, BioWare’s associate lead designer, Emmanuel Lusinchi said: “The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.” So this has players wondering if they are going to switch to…

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RMT Coming to SWTOR

EA is trying to diversify their gaming experience and increase their earnings potential. This is not really a surprise as they want to keep up with the growing gaming world and give the customers/players what they want. Since SWTOR launched, many have been saying it just might be the last pay-to-play MMO to come out and it’s hard to disagree when you see the direction that games are going in. While SWTOR is not F2P, they are going to give you a free 15 levels to try to entice new players into the game. I think this is a pretty smart move as it gives you a real good taste of the game and helps you decide whether or not you want to purchase the game for yourself. It’s also a smart move on the part of EA/BioWare because it cuts off just as the story is getting good for…

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Daniel Erickson Interview – Players Progress Quicker than Thought

It seems the fans of SWTOR really got one over on BioWare, progressing much more quickly than they thought they would, says Daniel Erickson in an interview with GameSpy UK. This isn’t really surprising news to most who have played the game or even followed the news and updates regarding SWTOR. We saw firsthand how quickly some players barreled through the content, hungry for more. Star Wars: The Old Republic has done a pretty good job with supplying a constant flow of post-release content. Think about it: it’s an MMORPG that has only been out for six months and we continue to get free content updates, and there are even more on the way as evidenced from EA’s Press Conference yesterday. But are these upcoming changes to SWTOR the result of plans that were made far in advance, or are they a response to player behavior? Turns out it’s a…

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Class changes and balance in Game Update 1.3

There will be some class changes and game balance updates coming to SWTOR in Game Update 1.3. While there are bound to be some unhappy campers, for the most part, this is a welcomed change for SWTOR players. Here is an explanation of these changes from SWTOR official blog: Hello everyone. My name is Austin Peckenpaugh, and I’m a Senior Designer on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. My job here is to create, maintain, and balance class gameplay in The Old Republic. As such, I’m here to shed some light on the upcoming changes to classes in Game Update 1.3 to give you all a sense of what’s to come and why it’s coming. Like with any major patch, Game Update 1.3 will bring with it an array of class updates. Before I go into detail on any specific changes, I wanted to use this opportunity to share our philosophy…

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Game Update 1.3 is Available On PTS!

It’s finally here- game update 1.3 is on the public test realms. Not only does this mean you might have the opportunity yourself to play this new content before it is released to all players, but it also means we will start seeing news and updates coming from the PTS so we know what to expect from the game update ourselves. Here is the official announcement from SWTOR.com news: Please check out this Welcome to PTS blog for information on how to access the Public Test Server. Game Update 1.3: Allies has a lot of great new features, such as the Group Finder tool and Ranked Warzones, to name a few. One of the big focuses for us in testing this Game Update is the Group Finder tool and as such, we want to help incentivize our players to hop onto PTS and help us test it. There are two…

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MCM Expo features SWTOR Presentation

This Star Wars: The Old Republic presentation took place recently in London at the MCM Expo. There was a Q&A session to provide more info about the game and upcoming updates and patches as well as new features we can expect to see soon. The discussion had the following topics: General Presentation of the Game Previous Updates Game Update 1.2 Legacy Presentation The Old Republic said this: This information was gathered from the available livestream provided by Gamespot and it summarizes the topics discussed in that hour, along with the Q&A. Keep in mind that at the Q&A the answers capture the essence of what was spoken. The host of this presentation was Emanuel Lusinchi, Technical Design Director for Star Wars: The Old Republic.   The discussion included Game Update 1.3 Allies Presentation which tells us more about what we can expect from this update, including: Group Finder: • Bonus…

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SWTOR Patch 1.3 Interview with Daniel Erickson

BioWare’s Daniel Erickson, Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic revealed some interesting information in an interview with SWTOR Hub about patch 1.3 and what we can expect in the future of the game. With many players and skeptics questioning whether or not there will even be a future of the game, this is as good a time as any for BioWare staff to come out with more info to keep players interested.  Here is a snippet:  Ten Ton Hammer: Is the developing team satisfied with the current direction of the game or can we look forward to the game moving into another direction, like harder content with more prestige items? Daniel Erickson: The best thing about a live MMO is that you have a living, changing game. SWTOR will continue to evolve and improve across the board. Harder content outside the operations is a personal passion of mine…

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Episode 4 of SWTOR News

This is a special episode of SWTOR news focusing in the current subscription numbers released by EA and what they really mean. There is a lot of talk about SWTOR, how it compares to WoW, and how it compares to other MMORPGs. This brings up the age-old question of whether or not it can be accurately compared to other games. We’ve talked about it before here on the site but I think what it really comes down to is the sheer fact that while you can compare certain elements of SWTOR to certain elements of other games, it simply isn’t accurate at all to compare the entire game package itself to another game because there has yet to ever be another game just like SWTOR. Since it stands alone in its genre for how and what content in presented, it wouldn’t be fair to make an overall comparison- positive or…

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Devs Admit Players were Right on Warzone Scoring and Rewards

Players have been complaining since the launch of 1.2 that some things just didn’t seem right in PvP. At first, BioWare denied any problem but now, the devs have come forward to address the issue after more investigation. BioWare says they are aware of some of the problems with warzones and that they appreciate the feedback. As usual, they said they are working on a solution to complaints. But is there proposed solution going to be the kind of fix most players are looking for? Lead Game Designer Daniel Erickson had this to say on the forums: Hey folks, Some follow up news from observations of play and feedback over the weekend. In the next couple of days we will be deploying a small patch that will address the following issues: As discussed, minimum medals to gain rewards will go from 3 to 1 to better reward those who are…

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Brand New SWTOR Website!

BioWare has been hard at work the new game update to SWTOR, rolling out the Legacy System, listening to player feedback and revamping things to keep us all interested and enjoying their game. Today they revealed one more piece of fun and interesting news- a new website design! This just in from SWTOR.com news: We are excited to unveil the brand new Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ website! We’ve completely rebuilt the website from the ground-up, with the intention of providing you with the latest game updates in an easy to navigate way. In addition to all of the latest news and information that is released, we’re also going to give you much more information about in-game content. Right now, you can check out our updated Flashpoints page on the Holonet, which includes information for each of the seventeen Flashpoints currently in the game. In addition to information on every…

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Friday Feature: SWTOR May Reach 1 Million Subs after Game Update 1.2

Now that Game Update 1.2 is here, the big question that everyone is asking is “Was it worth the wait?” I suppose a good secondary question would also be “Will it bring subscribers back?” Gaming Target said prior to the release of 1.2 that they thought the big game update might cause SWTOR to reach one million paying subscriptions. With 1.2 and future update promises, will it be enough to keep that many players hooked? SWTOR, like Blizzard’s dominate World of WarCraft, has the potential to be “a successful long-term online subscription PC game,” according to the report. This is due in part to the high-profile Star Wars name, the game’s massive budget and the regular DLC drops including next month’s SWTOR Game Update 1.2. This has been the right mixture to hook subscribers, who are paying upwards of $15 a month for access to the game. “The current trend…

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Level 50 Players Get a Free Month of SWTOR + More from BioWare

BioWare wants to say thank you to those who have stuck with the game and made it to level 50 on at least one toon so they’re giving us a free 30 days of playtime! From SWTOR Legacy Promotion: As a thanks for being one of our most valued players, all active subscriber accounts with a Level 50 character as of April 12, 2012, 12:00 PM CDT, 5:00 PM GMT, will receive 30 days of game time** at no charge in appreciation for your support and loyalty. Just be sure you are an active subscriber (signed up for a recurring subscription or redeemed a Game Time Code) and have a Level 50 character by April 12, 2012, 12:00PM CDT, 5:00PM GMT. If you qualify, you’ll receive an email notification from ‘The Old Republic™ Community’‘. The 30 days of game time will show up on your account by April 24, 2012,…

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Star Wars: The Old Republic user-interface customization explained in new video

Have you been wondering about the upcoming new UI customization in SWTOR and how it will work? This is by far one of the more exciting parts of game update 1.2 and we’re excited about it as well. If you’re not on PTS and you haven’t been able to see it for yourself yet then you’re going to love this video the news team put out today. On the Official news feed, they tell us a little more about it today. Game Update 1.2: Legacy for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ introduces several new systems to the game, including the option for you to customize your User Interface. You’ll be able to alter the placement and size of each UI element to suit your own personal preference. In this new video, Lead Interface Artist Michael Voigt shows us how it all works. Watch Now User Interface customization is just one…

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Special Events in SWTOR: Coming Soon!

At Guild Stummit earlier this month, the dev team revealed to us there would be special events coming to SWTOR. However, they were very tight-lipped about the whole thing. We wanted to know what type of events, when they would be coming and of course, anything else they could tell us. All they could tell us was “we can’t say anything else about special events at this time.” Well, now Stephen Reid has decided to reveal just a little bit more to us. This post in the official forums reveals slightly more details than we were previously told about these special world events coming soon to the game. A snippet: Thanks for the questions, everyone. I chatted with the events team and got a few more details for you. Quote: Originally Posted by dosadnik1. Are you going to announce like “Today we are having the [insert name here] event” or…

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SWTOR Numbers Continue to Grow after Very Smooth Launch

Do we know if SWTOR had a smooth launch or not? While some will speculate and others will claim otherwise, you can see the evidence in the game forums, as well as by playing the game itself and you will learn if it had a smooth launch. The same can be said for any MMO, as Gamasutra reminds us. They spoke with Dallas Dickinson, production director at Star Wars: The Old Republic developer BioWare Austin at GDC earlier this month and learned a few more things about SWTOR launch and how the numbers continue to grow. “The launch went really, really well. I think sort of surprisingly smoothly,” Dickinson said, with hint of real actual surprise. But it’s true: the biggest MMO to launch in years might not be perfect, but it went off with no major hitches. “A smooth launch was one of our goals,” he added. “”We had…

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