SWTOR: From January 28th to February 15th – Part 2

Aww, how cute! A Twi'lek and his new friend.

It's been since February 15 that I've posted "Part 1", and now my readers, I give you all "Part 2" of my informative article series—the last article to conclude what I have for you about Star Wars: The Old Republic from January 28th to February 15th. Be ready for a lot of reading, folks! I'll be going through some general features and announcements, and then I will be briefly summarizing the community blog, developer tracker, patch notes, Q&A threads, and the bugs and its fixes. Links will also be provided in these summaries to the direct and informative sources.

Asia Pacific players may now battle in the Galaxy that's not so far, far away!

There was an update a couple of days ago, and BioWare and LucasArts are proud to announce that Star Wars: The Old Republic will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012 (the same day the new Star Wars Underworld website will be up)!

SWTOR.com announcement:

BioWare 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.

In the press release announcing the Asia Pacific launch date, General Manager of the BioWare Label’s MMO Business Unit and Co-Founder of BioWare Dr. Greg Zeschuk expressed appreciation for the patience of fans in the region:

Our biggest priority for The Old Republic has always been to deliver a high quality product and high quality service and we are pleased with our results in North America and Europe. We appreciate that our fans in these countries have been patient and we are excited to deliver this same great customer experience to players this March.

Full details can be found on the website's news article and their press release.

Games On Net interviewed Grant McDaniel, Senior Developer Director of Live Services, about the upcoming launch to the Australian region, and has some great questions and answers that are worth taking the time to look over. Among these are:

• How many servers are being deployed for the Australian launch? Will that number go up and meet player demand?
• Does EA/Bioware have any data on how many Australians are currently playing on US and European servers?
• Will Australians receive access to some sort of reprinting of the game's collector's edition for their launch, or was that strictly limited? Are there any plans for new editions for this launch?
• Does EA/Bioware feel the staggered launch has been successful? Were there any issues with the launch that were headed off by restricting it to one territory?

This is a nice interview to read even if you're not located in this region and if you're already playing the game. Read the full interview here.

I will continue to update all of my readers as the story develops.

Social Media Coordinator Eric Musco has launched the first in a new series of video guides for getting started in Star Wars: The Old Republic, produced by SWTOR! This is one of the many examples showing that BioWare goes the extra mile to give us videos, guides, help, art and music outside the game—all for free!

Choose a server first! PvP, PvE, RP, RP-PvP, or RP-PvE.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone entering the MMO genre for the first time. I know there are a lot of fans of the Underworld community who have probably never touched an MMO before, so I'd take a look at the series of videos to get prepped if you are going to play the game. If you are still deciding whether or not you should buy the game, take a look at the video and see what SWTOR has to offer. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Musco covers all the bases on what you need to do when you create your new account on SWTOR: Server selection and an explanation on the different server types, classes, and customization options. He also briefly covers the naming conventions and talks about the allegiances and the in-game tutorial.

"Begin Your Journey":

Musco does state that switching factions will not be an option in the game.

You can look at the rest of these guides here. So is there anyone you will want to share these videos with? I hope a lot of you in the Underworld do take a look! I would be excited to have more support for the Underworld guilds in SWTOR if many of you decided to purchase the game.

Sith Fury-class Interceptor, with a Lego Malgus and Imp troops. Adorable? Yes!

During the New York Toy Fair, Kotaku came across two Star Wars: The Old Republic Lego sets which will be arriving in stores this August. For those of you who like collecting these figures, the Sith Fury-class Interceptor will be a whopping $90 and a Striker-class Starfighter will be retailing at $45. No further details have been released yet, but do enjoy the photos available and begin planning your SWTOR Lego play-sessions.

Striker-class Starfighter with what looks like a Trooper and a Consular.

I'm a little confused why we're getting the Striker-class Starfighter and not something like a Defender to balance out the Fury, but all of this still looks quite entertaining.

Another entertaining thing about SWTOR is an easter egg found on a planet called Tatooine (pronounced /tætu'in/). There are the small things in an ordinary game that make it extraordinary. Easter eggs and related features like what's seen here reminds us all how much dedication was put into a game like this. These extra features captivate us gamers in many amazing ways.

In this easter egg, you can clearly see the United States, Mexico and South America. The planets rotate so you won't be able to see the same section each time, but as you are coming in to land on Tatooine, you can see these familiar lights and silhouettes.

Another nice feature to bring in something new to the game is the option to add your own custom loading screens. A lot of SWTOR players are having fun doing this to bring in something new, and they also get to express their creativity and it's just plain fun. You don't have to stare at the same loading screens which might get stale and boring to look at as time passes by.

You now can learn how to do this yourself! Dijon posts on SWTORpano.com:

As requested by a number of users, I’ve created a simple template for making loading screens and will include loading screens for each panorama I create from now on.  It’s very easy to replace your loading screen – make sure to create a backup of the original!  Bioware has suggested to be cautious with this, patching may require a repair if there is an altered background.  Honestly, I’ve never encountered this. But beware!

Panorama update tomorrow!

Cheers,
Dijon

Along with Dijon's post you will find some nice panorama templates you can use to help make your own customized loading screens for SWTOR. Be creative, and most of all, have fun with it!

There is a review by Gaming Age that I found, and I recommend reading it for those who are still deciding to buy the game, or for those who have the game, deciding whether or not to continue your subscription. Let me just say, not everyone is obsessing about BioWare's and LucasArt's MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. Gaming Age rates the game with the whopping grade of a B+ in a solid review that I consider to be fair, not over-the-top, and good for a game that has its faults. This review gives us the basics and discusses about the accusations made about SWTOR that it's just WoW with a Star Wars skin (and how this accusation is somewhat true), but then the review switches its rails and goes on sharing that SWTOR is different than WoW or any other MMO.

Gaming Age says:

And overall, I feel like SWTOR is a pretty great MMO. It’s certainly one of the more polished MMO’s at launch I’ve seen in a while. My system is pretty low-end nowadays, but still capable of running this game well enough.

Gaming Age also discusses about companions, a feature of this game that sets it apart from other MMOs:

The companions get added to your overall crew over time, and their introductions usually play out in a similar fashion to expanding your party in any other offline RPG. Each companion is fleshed out, and has certain likes and dislikes that get triggered based on the conversation options you choose. They also have a likeness meter that you can fill by making choices that are more in tune with their interests, and filling that meter impacts how quickly you’ll accomplish tasks for crafting purposes.

You can read the full article here. Maybe my discussion about SWTOR in the Underworld podcast didn't convince you to buy the game, but surely reading this review and this article will finalize your decision and [-Force Persuasion-] you will buy this game.

Do you all remember the Guild Summit BioWare is hosting? Well, there are several updates! In a recent developer post, BioWare's Courtney Woods took the time to thank all the guild leaders and representatives that submitted an application, promising that all the attendants would be notified during the next couple of days. She also stated that BioWare is planning on livestreaming a number of events during the Summit so you're just not left hanging and wondering—this will definitely keep everyone well-informed.

Here is the official announcement:

Thank you to all of the guild leaders who submitted applications to attend the first Guild Summit in Austin. We are currently reviewing guild applications and will be responding back to everyone who applied in the next few days.

For those who are unable to attend the Guild Summit for one reason or another, we’re very happy to announce that we will be providing a livestream of select events during the Guild Summit, including developer presentations and feedback discussions. These livestreams will allow players from around the world to observe and participate in some of the event discussions as well. As a reminder, the Guild Summit will be conducted in English, but anyone can join in on the livestream regardless of their location. If you can’t watch the livestream during the Summit, we’ll also be publishing videos of the panels after the event has ended. As we get closer to the event, we’ll provide more details for how you can get involved. Stay tuned!

There has also been news regarding the Guild Summit application status. If you applied to represent your guild, you would have received an email that tells you whether or not you were selected. If you weren't chosen for the first round, hang on to your blasters for a couple of more days.

Chosen guild leaders have 48 hours to respond to reserve their place or other guilds who have been placed on a waiting list will be chosen in their place.

Here is the official announcement:

Hi 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.

I wouldn't like to bore everyone on all the information I have on these patch notes and other reliable sources of information that may have answers to your questions, so I will be posting the links you'll need with brief summaries on what you'll be reading.

Dev Tracker: The dev tracker is a reliable source which posts general announcements like upcoming maintenance days, the current Q&A discussions, answers for questions members like us have, etc. It's definitely a source you should look at!

Patch Notes: I have started from where I left off from one of my older articles. Patch 1.1.1 (1/31/12) is where you can begin and work your way up. If you need a brief summary of some of the older patches go to either link.

Weekly Q&A + Dev Tracker Summaries: Read this announcement about the additions of the weekly Q&As and the Dev Tracker summaries.

Q&A Announcements: February 10th, February 17th, and February 24th.

Q&A Threads: February 10th, February 17th, February 24th, and March 2nd.

Q&A Discussions: February 10th, February 17th, and February 24th.

Busting Bugs and Fixing Exploits: Read what Executive Producer Rich Vogel has to say on how the dedicated team puts these bugs and exploits as their first priority!

Blog: Start here and read summaries, patch notes, and more!

Ilum: Just when you thought PvP on Ilum was fixed, BioWare came in and messed it up again! Patch 1.1.2 is reported to have caused even more bugs on Ilum. The biggest issue was that kills on Ilum were not counting towards daily and weekly quests. Associative Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez came in for an update saying this:

The dev team has been investigating the cause of this issue and they're closer to figuring out a solution.  As mentioned before, we'll keep you updated with any new developments.  Thanks again for your patience on this.

Emergency Patch 1.1.2a was then deployed and fixed the issue.

Thank you all for reading this extremely long and informative article. Expect a follow-up article later this week, which will roundup many important announcements, updates, and more from February 16th onwards.

  

To keep up with all the latest news and updates about Star Wars: The Old Republic, be sure to 'Like' us on Facebook. And for everything that the rest of the Star Wars universe has to offer, please 'Like' The Star Wars Underworld, also on Facebook. Comment, share, and 'like'!