BioWare announced today the beginning of a new series of videos to help guide new players in their journey in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Social Media Coordinator Eric Musco shows how new players can select their server, faction, and character from the moment players first boot the game up to the second they are in the game world. BioWare also announced a two new weekly community blogs: a Q&A and a summary of DevTracker posts from the official forums. The Q&A will be 10 questions chosen from a thread on the forums that closes on Tuesday at 2PM CST. You can read the full announcement and watch the first Quick Start Guide video after the jump.
-
-
Grab your lightsaber as this week’s DevTracker Highlights is all about PvP. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez hints at future updates to game’s launcher. Senior Online Community Manager Stephen Reid addresses concerns about stifling the community’s voice during server maintenance and patching. Senior Community Coordinator David Bass assures players that discussions at the Guild Summit will be in-depth, unlike those at conventions. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks PvP bags and the rate at which players acquire PvP gear. Lead PvP, Operations & Flashpoints Designer Gabe Amatangelo follows up and attests that players will see a less sporadic rate at which gear is acquired. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
Everything’s coming up Zoeller in this week’s DevTracker highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers everything from cooldown readability, protocol droid maintenance, and the Legacy system, to modification workbenches, speeders, and Rakata-level items from Nightmare mode Operations. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
The Star Wars: The Old Republic community has been asking for server specific forums on the official SWTOR site since before launch. BioWare has listened. Broken down by server type and alphabetical groupings, there isn't quite an individual forum for every single server. However when posting in these forums, users are required to choose which server they are from so posts are flagged with specific server names.
Allison BerrymanHey everyone! You'll notice that the new Server Group Forums and the Suggestion Box are now available! We configured the Server Group Forums to require you to select a forum name tag for each thread, so there is no longer a requirement to enter your server name manually - you'll just select it from the drop-down menu when creating a new thread. Thank you all for your patience. We're looking forward to your feedback! -
The amount of yellow posts from BioWare are staggering, but this week’s DevTracker Highlights will give you a breakdown of the important parts, straight from the mouths of the developers themselves. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers the illusive magenta crystal, Galactic Trade Network kiosks, moddable end-game gear, and a bug with the Smuggler’s Accomplished Sawbones ability. European Community Manager Chris Collins address concerns that patches are happening too often. Associate Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi updates the community about character responsiveness issues. Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert discusses mission discovery items, a looking for group system, and the economic concerns of slicing. Senior Community Coordinator David Bass seeks feedback about Star Wars: The Old Republic events through the year 2012. Lead Writer Daniel Erickson confirms that there is no HK companion currently available in the game. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
BioWare is hard at work addressing issues and gathering feedback in this week’s DevTracker Highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers tactics for higher-level combat, character responsiveness issues, character level progress, how moddable items work, vehicle damage ceilings, and the illusive magenta crystal. Assistant Designer Chris Schmidt asks for feedback concerning the final class mission for the Jedi Knight. Senior Online Community Manager Stephen Reid breaks down the procedure for addressing bug fixes and game issues. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez clarifies the rumor entailing players being banned for not taking advantage of special dance zones. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
It’s been a week since launch, and though BioWare is still addressing launch issues as needed, they found time to provide feedback to players in this week’s DevTracker Highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers skill respecs, the number of low-level abilities, and the thought behind Trauma. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman expands on the possibility of new forum sections in the future. BioWare co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk assures players that the BioWare Live team is working hard to reduce queue times to allow more people to play, and thanks the already over one million registered players for a successful launch. Senior Writer Alexander Freed shares glimpse into the process for creating new content with such a heavy focus on voice acting. European Community Manager Chris Collins affirms that shared maintenance times for both US and EU servers will create less downtime as the lifespan of the game grows. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
This week’s DevTracker Highlights covers everything you need to know for the less-than-a-week-away Early Game Access and launch. Senior Online Community Manager Stephen Reid reminds players that MMOs change, gives the status of a Walmart system error, and reveals details about Early Game Access. Senior Community Coordinator David Bass illustrates the kind of achievements that will be available in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman details upcoming forum changes for launch and how to determine if you have the right game client for when the game goes live. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers the challenges around balancing for one on one and group combat. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
-
BioWare introduced Joveth Gonzalez as a new Associate Online Community Manager for the Star Wars: The Old Republic community team. Stephen Reid mentioned him on Twitter amid the Thanksgiving Beta Weekend madness, saying the following:
Stephen ReidA sneaky @joveth appears - say hi: http://t.co/vnEiABVtRead on for more information about BioWare's newest community team member.
-
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG as you may know it, is a sub-genre of role-playing games. Set in a persistent virtual world, MMORPGs allow a large number of players to interact with one another simultaneously. Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR, is an upcoming MMORPG from BioWare, but you already knew that. What you may not know is that it took more than five years of development to get SWTOR to where it is today. SWTOR is part of a family tree of video games that traces its lineage back almost 40 years. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at all the games that paved the way for SWTOR, then take a quick glimpse at what is coming next.
-
This week's DevTracker Highlights are like the main course of a full-course meal; small in comparison, but full of meaty goodness. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks about different classes going head to head in PvP combat, and illustrates how each class brings their own flavor to the battle. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman lets players know that despite what they may have heard, Star Wars: The Old Republic will not require Origin in any fashion. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights. -
In the early days of MMOs there were no "do overs" when it came to making choices. Your class was your class, and your abilities were your abilities. If you wanted to change those choices, that's just too bad. Over the years developers have softened their implementation of character advancement, gradually allowing more and more forgiveness for mistakes and experimentation in terms of talent trees, abilities and powers. Some of these systems have been much more outlandish than others. For example, Tabula Rasa allowed players to make complete copies of their characters at certain points in the leveling process to allow them to more easily experience the game's branching, and mutually exclusive, skill trees. Rift allows players to mix and match souls on the fly, combining to create a nearly limitless number of skill combinations. -
After last week's notoriously light post count, BioWare returns for a full helping in this week's DevTracker Highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller touches on speculation, cover for the Smuggler and Imperial Agent, Jedi Sages survivability in melee, and realism vs. gameplay. Senior Writer Alexander Freed talks about how Jedi and Sith correlate to ranks in military roles. Hit the jump to see all the highlights. -
Release dates are tricky things. Release your game at the wrong time and it wont be successful no matter how fun the game is; release your game at the right time and a mediocre game can become a cult favorite. MMOs, however, are entirely different beasts. Because of their audience and the way they make their money (through subscriptions or microtransactions rather than initial box sales), MMOs can release independent of the normal release schedule and still be successful. Nearly three years after its announcement, Star Wars: The Old Republic finally has a release date. On December 20 in North America and Europe, we will be able to log in and experience the Old Republic era. On the official forums in the announcement thread titled Launch Date for STAR WARS: The Old Republic, people share their views on the release date, and whether they think it is the right choice or not. -
It is podcast time this week, and as always, we're looking for questions from the community. If you have any Star Wars: The Old Republic or website related questions you would like to have answered on the podcast, then feel free to ask them in the comment section of this post. We also have our voicemail line 559-9-HATER-4 (559-942-8374) for those that would like leave a question/comment in audio form.
This week's community poll/discussion follows the jump. -
During the first day of Paris Games Week, we had a chance to speak with Chris Collins, European Community Manager for BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic.Have you thought of extending the guild testing program to Europe?
Chris Collins: Definitely. It is something we're looking at doing. Stay tuned to swtor.com for more.
UPDATE: David Bass clarified the above answer from Chris Collins on the forums.David BassAccording to Chris Collins you haven't invited EU guilds yet:
Darth Hater: Have you thought of extending the guild testing program to Europe?
Chris: Definitely. It is something we're looking at doing. Stay tuned to swtor.com for more.
Source: PGW 2011: Chris Collins Interview
So have you or have you not invited EU guilds? Considering we are getting inaccurate information from either David Bass or Chris Collins.
When Chris was asked that question in Paris, he wasn't aware that I had been inviting guilds from all regions in the Guild Headquarters. This was due to a miscommunication on my part, and I apologize for any confusion it's caused.
To be completely clear: There are already a significant number of guilds in the Guild Testing program who have marked themselves as EU guilds on the Guild Headquarters. We no longer restrict our guild testing invites based on the region the guild selects in the Guild HQ.
Hit the jump for the interview in full. -
No doubt you've read some of the impressions released earlier today, so why not take a break with this week's DevTracker Highlights? Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller takes over as he discusses his GDC Online presentation, playstyle and how it relates to playtime, racial abilities, visible dark side corruptions on characters, and tanking as a Jedi Shadow or Sith Assassin. Hit the jump to see all the highlights. -
After you read this week's DevTracker Highlights, be sure to check out our coverage of Star Wars: The Old Republic at New York Comic-Con and BioWare's presence at this year's GDC Online. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks PvP incentives, the pitfalls of translations, and out of date gameplay. Community Coordinator Allison Berryman discusses iterative development and how feedback plays it's part. Writer Charles Boyd clarifies details about companions and their motivations. Hit the jump to see all the highlights. -
Why scour the official forums when you can get this week's DevTracker Highlights right here. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller talks about the Jedi Consular's Project ability, naming policies for roleplay servers, Force Leap tactics, global cooldowns, and class design. Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid announces RP-PvP servers for launch. Senior Writer Alexander Freed discusses planet locations in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Writer Drew Karpyshyn explains some decisions he made with the upcoming novel Revan. Hit the jump to see all the highlights. -
Romantic arcs are integral to BioWare's game design style. This is true all the way from Baldur's Gate II to Mass Effect 3, and Star Wars: The Old Republic is no different. By giving our companions gifts and picking the appropriate dialog choices, we may gain enough affection to pursue a romance with them. This process also leads to additional quests given by the companion and a richer understanding of who that companion is. However, this romance system isnt without its controversy, especially when it is concerning the romance arcs of the Jedi Knight and the Jedi Consular.
