Darth Hater

This morning, BioWare brings us the new 1.1.4 patch that primarily includes an assortment of bug fixes to Star Wars: The Old Republic. A few of the changes like the Soa Mind Trap issue fans will welcome with greater fervor than many of the alterations have in the past. 

For the 1.1.4 patch notes in full, hit the jump.

Update: All game servers are now online.

Ahead of the servers coming up with today’s 1.1.4 patch, BioWare announced the closing of the Public Test Server forum. However, do not fret. This closing is only a temporary one and the forum will open once again when a new update is available for the Public Test Server, with the caveat that BioWare will close the forum when the test client patch is the same as the live client in the future. 

Amber Green

Hey Everyone! Starting this week, we’re making some changes to the way we manage the PTS forum. We’re making these changes to help improve the visibility of important PTS feedback and to cut down on threads and posts that do not contribute to feedback about the changes currently on the PTS. Here is how the PTS forum will operate from this point forward:

• The PTS forum will be closed for posting when the current PTS version of the game is the same as the live version of the game. We still encourage you to post your feedback in the correct subforums, but because the changes are on live servers, it is not necessary to leave the PTS forum open. When we deploy a new version to the PTS, we’ll open the PTS forum back up for feedback!
• We’ll be archiving all PTS threads when we close the forum. This will help us ensure that active threads are relevant to the current PTS version.

These changes will help us ensure that we can easily gather feedback from the PTS, and will make the most relevant feedback much more visible. We appreciate your participation and look forward to more feedback!

Also included with the announcement are new guidelines on how to post in the forum.

As always, make sure to watch the site for the official 1.1.4 patch notes here on Darth Hater as soon as they become available.

After just two months of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s release, BioWare christened the occasion with a new video release. The video coined “A Look At The Old Republic” highlights developer and fan thoughts on the game post release.

News ArticleNo MMO launch is ever perfect, but we are pleased to report that the launch of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ on December 20, 2011 was a tremendous success. More than two million copies of the game have been sold, and the servers are full of players logging in to experience their own personal Star Wars™ sagas and to play with friends through the hundreds of hours of massively-multiplayer content. It’s an exhilarating experience to watch the game grow as more people join, and even more exciting to hear what players are saying they enjoy most about the game.

Hit the jump for the video embed.

BioWare released their second Quick Start Guide video today showing how the map and travel system works in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Social Media Coordinator Eric Musco covers taxis, speeders, and calling shuttles to quick transport players from one location in the galaxy to another. He also briefly explains the story locations and instances behind green and red barriers designed for specific classes or missions.

J!NX also unveiled their line-up of Star Wars: The Old Republic apparel including T-shirts for both men and women of each different class, faction, and alignment. Are you all about your Jedi Knight, or would you rather show-off your affinity for the Dark Side? You can see the full line-up over at the J!NX website.

BioWare released their second weekly Community Q&A, featuring answers from several BioWare developers on a variety of gameplay-related issues. Highlights include upcoming changes to Smuggler/Operative and Commando/Trooper healing, new warzone improvements, and set bonuses for moddable items. Also discussed were several cosmetic features, such as chat bubbles and the ability for force users to toggle their hoods up or down. Hit the jump to see the full Q&A session.

Next Wednesday, the Star Wars: The Old Republic servers will be down for approximately seven hours. Be advised that BioWare could extend the maintenance window.

JovethGonzalezHello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for seven hours on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than seven hours, but could be extended.

For our new players, this weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.


Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET)


All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than seven hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Adjust your furious gameplay accordingly.

BioWare deployed a new patch 1.1.4 to the Public Test Server this afternoon and as always, patch notes are now available. Most of the changes in the patch are bug fixes however, a slew of changes to the UI are also present. To see the patch notes in full, hit the jump.

Drew Karpyshyn, Senior Writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, announced in a blog post on his website he left BioWare to pursue other creative projects, such as his Children of Fire novel series. Karpyshyn was instrumental as a writer during the development of several BioWare games including Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2. He wrote numerous books including the Darth Bane trilogy, three Mass Effect novels, the recent Darth Revan novel, and is the process of writing another novel set during the Old Republic timeline. All of us here at Darth Hater wish Karpyshyn the best success in his future projects.

With the BioWare Austin Guild Summit quickly approaching, David Bass has posted on the official forums that responses to the applications are being sent out today. The emails will go out throughout the afternoon, so keep an eye on your inbox if you applied. We can confirm that you do get an email even if you were not accepted. So until you get an email either accepting or denying your attendance, you're still in the mix.

David BassHi everyone,

Thank you so much to everyone who applied for the Guild Summit! We received thousands of applications, have spent the past few days reading through every single one, and we really appreciate all the feedback we received.

In a few minutes we'll begin sending out emails to everyone who applied for the Guild Summit. These emails will let you know if your guild has been selected to attend the Summit at this time. Please do not book any flights or hotels unless you receive an email instructing you to do so. The event has an extremely limited capacity, and without an event badge you will not be allowed into the Summit. Guilds who have not been selected in this first round have been placed on a waitlist, and if any selected guilds do not respond in time, we will open up their space to the waitlist.

Please make sure you check your emails once we confirm that all the emails have been sent out. Any guild leader who receives an acceptance email must confirm their attendance within 48 hours. Guilds who do not confirm in time will lose their place at the Summit to another guild off the waitlist.

If you have any questions about the process once you've received your email, please contact guilds@swtor.com. Thanks all!

Current status update:

2:15PM CST - Emails have now all been sent. Please check your inbox and spam for the email. If you applied but did not receive an email, please contact guilds@swtor.com and we'll investigate.

UPDATE: All emails have now been sent out, though it could take some time before they show up in your inbox. David Bass also provided some more information regarding wait listed applicants and the live stream schedule. Further details after the jump.

BioWare has previously said that March 1st, 2012 was the estimated date for Star Wars: The Old Republic launcing in Oceanic regions. That date has now been officially confirmed. With the introduction of dedicated servers in the region, players will be allowed to transfer existing characters from the current servers to these new servers.

Courtney WoodsBioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012! Fans in these regions who purchase the game will be able to experience their very own Star Wars™ saga on regional servers. Players who have already begun their journey will also have a limited-time opportunity to migrate their characters from their current servers to Asia Pacific servers after the launch on March 1st, giving them the chance to take advantage of the decreased network latency by playing on a regional server. All players who qualify for a character transfer will be notified in early March with more details.

Read More

The entire post can be found after the jump, including pricing information for different versions of the game and some early information on character transfers.