Uhm Bioware? Nice Patch. Kthxbai!

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™
Game Update 2.2 PTS Patch Notes

Last Updated: 5/24/2013

The patch notes published for the Public Test Server are intended to guide testing. They are not final and are subject to change.

The Public Test Server Patch Notes will be provided in English. The final release notes will be provided in English, French, and German when the content is moved to live servers.

 

General

• Characters in a guild will receive an XP and Reputation bonus based on the number of characters from unique accounts in the guild. For every five active unique accounts in a guild, the XP and Reputation bonus increases by 1% (on top of the base 5%) for the entire guild, up to a maximum of 10%.

 

Classes and Combat

General

• All stunbreaks (Determination, Escape, Unbreakable Will, Resolute, etc.) will have their cooldown reset after a character comes back from a defeated state.

Jedi Knight

Guardian
Vigilance

• Shien Form now increases movement speed by 15%, in addition to its other effects.

Sith Warrior

Juggernaut
Vengeance

• Shien Form now increases movement speed by 15%, in addition to its other effects.

Jedi Consular

Shadow
Infiltration

• Breaching Shadows, granted by Shadow Technique, has a new visual effect that persists while 3 charges of Breaching Shadows are active.

Sith Inquisitor

Assassin
Darkness

• Dark Ward has a new visual effect that persists while active.

Deception

• Static Charge, granted by Surging Charge, has a new visual effect that persists while 3 charges of Static Charge are active.

Bounty Hunter

General

• Made visual improvements to Flamethrower.

 

Crew Skills

Crafting Skills

• Underworld gear can now be Reverse Engineered and learned as a schematic.

 

Operations

Terror From Beyond

• Nightmare Mode is now available for Terror from Beyond!
• Story Mode drops have been updated to include the following in addition to current rewards:
  • The Writhing Horror now drops the Arkanian Bracer Token
  • The Dread Guard now drops an additional random Black Market Item

Scum and Villainy

• A PTS sneak preview of nightmare mode is now available for Legions of Scum and Villainy! This will be released as part of Game Update 2.2.2.
• Story Mode drops have been updated to include the following in addition to current rewards:
  • Dash’Roode now drops the Arkanian Waist Token
  • Titan 6 now drops the Arkanian Implant Token
  • Thrasher now drops the Arkanian Earpiece Token

 

Items and Economy

Items

• A new sub-tier of gear is available! Kell Dragon gear can be obtained from Nightmare Mode Operations at level 55.
• A new vehicle, the Helix Hyperpod, is now dropped in Nightmare Mode Terror from Beyond.
• A new vehicle, the Titan 6 Containment Vehicle, is now dropped in Nightmare Mode Scum and Villainy.

Vendors

• New vendors have been added to the Gav Daragon and Ziost Shadow where players can exchange unassembled Kell Dragon tokens for gear.
• New Rated PvP Weapons have been added to the PvP Ranked Gear Vendor. These new Weapons cost 400 Ranked Commendations, and require a pvp rating of 2400

PvP

Warzones

General

• Players that are backfilled into a Warzone will be awarded a Reinforcement Medal that will count toward their total medal count for the match. This also means that backfilled players will no longer be put into a situation where they get backfilled into a match and don’t have enough time to get one medal and thus miss out on the warzone rewards at the end of the match.

Alderaan

• Turret (Objective Control Points) will no longer be interactable while changing ownership.
• Players will no longer be backfilled into Alderaan Civil War Warzone when one team has twice as many points as the enemy team.

Ancient Hypergates

• Players will no longer be backfilled into Ancient Hypergate after the 4th explosion.

Denova

• Players will no longer be backfilled into Novare Coast Warzone when one team has less than 25% remaining on their shields and the other team has 75% or greater remaining on theirs.

Huttball

• Players will no longer be backfilled into Huttball Warzone after 10 minutes have elapsed in the match.

What say you TORWarriors? Anything in there of remote interest to you? I can find a few things but I’d like to see your thoughts in the comments section below.

Summer in Austin, TX

This just released on swtor.com.  Senior Producer Bruce Maclean has posted the announcement we were teased by Eric Musco yesterday.  In it, he discusses what’s coming up in June 11th’s Patch 2.2 and goes even further to lay out BioWare’s gameplan for the summer of 2013.  Here’s what he had to say:

Hello everyone,

My name is Bruce Maclean and I am a Senior Producer here at BioWare Austin. I know there have been a lot of questions around the forums about what kind of content you can expect from us this year and so I’m here today to give you all a bit of information about what we’re working on bringing to you this summer!

First up, Game Update 2.2, which is currently targeted for launch on June 11th:
Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond. It’s got vicious new mechanics and is definitely not for the faint of heart. I’m very excited for you to see the new gear that comes with this, which uses a new appearance system we’ve developed for armor and weapons called ‘Scrolling UVs’.
New Guild Bonuses! Players in guilds currently receive a +5% experience bonus, but now every 5 active players in the guild will add an additional 1% bonus to XP and reputation, up to a maximum bonus of 10% each.
Crafters can now craft Underworld gear! But don’t RE that piece if you are still using it…
Unified fleet chat channel for each faction, for easier group finding without having to hop between instances.

We’ve seen a lot of requests for a rerun of our Double XP weekends. Well, okay! We’d like to help you stay cool in the heat of the summer with three weekends starting June 22nd and continuing through July 7th. The third and last weekend will actually start early on Thursday the 4th of July, in case you are enjoying a long Independence Day weekend.

By July 9th Ops groups will have had four weeks to cut their teeth on Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond. That’s when we will launch Nightmare Mode Scum and Villainy as a part of Game Update 2.2.2! New mechanics and unique loot for you.

July 23rd look for a return of the Relics of the Gree Event for a nice two week long run. Per community request the Event will scaled up to level 55 on this next run!

August 6th is our target date for Game Update 2.3, which we are working on right now and will be our biggest update since 2.0. Some of the bigger parts of this update are:
New Flashpoints
New Daily Area
New Recurring Event
Significant graphical upgrades

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and we are also working on some longer term stuff. Sometimes we have been averse to discussing specific dates well in advance, because we aren’t going to release anything unless we feel it is ready to go live and we don’t want to upset folks if we move a date back. Well I think we should just tell you what date the teams are shooting for, and if we don’t hit them we’ll just tell you why. Radical thinking, I know. As we get closer we’ll have a lot more juicy details on these – keep your eyes peeled to the forums and SWTOR.com for more information. Also, for those who are curious about the next updates to PvP, I will just say… apart from minor tweaks (like stunbreak abilities cooldown being reset on death in 2.2) you should look forward to Game Update 2.4. /rubshands

So, that’s a good chunk of information to digest. More news than is usual for us to get all in one lump sum, many tidbits to gnaw over and think about. What are your thoughts on all of this, TORWarriors?

And it’s a new Loading Screen, sponsored by the Dromund Kaas Taxi Driver’s Association!

In the world of MMO gaming, one of the rudest things a player can say is ‘the devs are lazy!’ Today, I’m going to explore a couple of the more common insults found both on a game’s official forums and elsewhere in social media. I’ll start with a little bit of full disclosure here. My sister is in the industry as a community manager and was a former BioWare employee on the Star Wars: the Old Republic project prior to launch, and she’s worked for other AAA developers both before and after that tenure. Through her, I’ve been introduced to a large number of her past and current colleagues, many of whom have gone on to become my friends in their own right. Thus, when someone yells about allegedly lazy devs, it really grinds my gears.

I’ve touched on this topic in a previous article, but I thought I’d share with you some insights as someone who doesn’t quite walk in those circles but hears enough stories from the inside to have a good idea what’s really going on. I can pretty much firmly say that the vast majority of people who hurl that line on a game’s forum, or in their personal Twitter feed, or in comments on Kotaku or whatever have very little idea what they’re talking about. They might see a dev’s personal Twitter feed mentioning being out with their family, or a community manager playing games with their friends or coworkers, or a lead designer basically doing anything but working. They might be dissatisfied with a feature or three on the game in question. They may think that any given option was rushed or slapped on. They may find a typo in a dialogue box. It doesn’t matter what set the gamer off, the end result is that the gamer chose to publicly claim that a dev, community manager, or other game studio employee is somehow lazy and/or incompetent.

The sad thing is that this sort of thing isn’t just a gamer thing. The actual term armchair quarterbacking comes from similar behavior amongst sports fans, where the fan rails against a coach and/or a player or a team for what may be perceived as poor performance but isn’t him- or herself capable of doing the same job with better results. In sports, however, there’s a definite winner and loser of any given match or game, and it’s much easier to tell if someone’s goofing off. Also, they tend to only play a certain number of games in a season, and even if you factor in training, it’s nothing like a year-round job. They generally only have to work a few hours a day, get free travel to other venues, massive paychecks and endorsement deals and people fighting over equipment they may have used in an arena or stadium somewhere, and an off-season lasting months where they don’t have to do very much. Game devs and community are expected to be on the clock 24/7 to service the needs of their players. Something is wrong with the game and it has to be fixed right now. I’ve blown through all of the endgame content already and I’m bored.

People discount creators and makers all the time, demanding perfection and excellence across the board, voting with their wallets if something’s for sale, voting with their mouths if something is free. Worse, makers and artists whose living comes from these sorts of sales are constantly being asked to either work for cheap or gratis. Musicians are expected to work on the cheap and still create works of aural majesty that folks like me who can barely hold a tune in a bucket can only imagine. Society doesn’t value the time and effort they put into their work because it’s dismissed as ‘art’ or ‘games’, not so-called ‘real work’. I know artisans who create magnificent works of costuming who wreck their bodies just to make something because it’s that important to them. Other craftsmen (and women) go without sleep or all that much downtime because they’re focusing on their projects to the near-exclusion of all else.

Now, let’s play a little game. Put yourselves in the shoes of a studio employee, art department or QI or community or writing staff or whatever. Pick your poison. So, you have your chosen vocation at a game studio. You have a product to create. You have forums to moderate. You have stories to write. You have code to test. You have art to plan out and get from basic sketch to finished in-game model. You have a soundtrack to edit. You have to cat-herd a bunch of fansites and press sites. You have to plan a beta test. This isn’t crunch time, where overtime would be expected. It’s not launch, where hype is the greatest and you and your colleagues are about to pass or fail the test of whether this game is going out the door and succeed. However, you have to constantly put in 60+ hours a week, and that’s on a light week.

Your spouse can rarely expect you to be home anything resembling ‘on time’ or you’re always sequestered in your home office. You miss every single one of your kids’ soccer practices, school plays, first words, first date you need to have a lightsaber handy in order to make sure nothing untoward happens, everything. You put off having kids entirely because you know you can’t be a good mom and work 70 hours a week because you’re already exhausted by the time you get off work. You have to reschedule your kid’s birthday party or ‘make it up’ to your spouse when you can’t honor your anniversary on the right day. You can’t be anyone’s best man or maid of honor or drunkenly crash the wedding dressed as a Stormtrooper. Your dad goes in for major surgery. Your last surviving grandparent passes away and the funeral is next week. You miss all of that. So sorry, you have to work. You’re working from home at 2:30am when you take a break, notice a friend’s in crisis, and reach out to them to ask if they’re okay. You’re at work when all of your other friends are out having a good time at the movies. You can’t remember the last time you just sat around and watched the sun set.

However, you’re in the game industry. You’re so passionate about doing what you’re doing that while you probably thoroughly hate the fact you sacrifice all of these things, you still put in the time, because that creative muse is smacking you on the head and won’t let you go. You believe in your game and your work on it with all of your heart and soul. You’ve given up a reasonably normal life as a nerd to help make this beautiful title that may one day be launched, or was launched last year and is now gearing up for its first expansion. You’ve gone back and helped fix bugs, gotten up early for Patch Tuesday. You’ve gone to events such as PAX East where you have to spend three days hawking your game and not getting to see what everyone else’s games are, you get little to no swag, and you generally wind up having to set up and tear down your company’s booth and lug computers and furniture around. If you’re truly lucky, you’ll get a few minutes to hang out with your friends and fellow industry professionals, the only people who really get you.

You have to deal with the stress of an industry where layoffs are almost weekly news and you’ve learned to pack light because you don’t know how soon you’ll have to move across country or overseas for another job. You’ve had to dodge or adhere to so many corporate mandates on how your game should be, what features it should have, how to make a system work the way they want it to work with only moderate success in telling a suit with an MBA that you (the dev with a Bachelor’s of Science in game design) actually do know what will work better and what will bring in more players and thus more money. You come up with an idea, craft it lovingly, and then watch it get modified by every single other department the idea passes through before it goes live (if it survives the process at all). You put your very best effort into your work, using all of the tools and knowledge you have, forging this game like Vulcan in his workshop. You’ve sacrificed so much to get that product out the door, you’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears into it.

And here comes the first pitch of snark!

“This feature I wanted doesn’t do precisely what I wanted it to do or isn’t there, so the game devs aren’t listening to their fans!”

“This bug has been in since a patch three years ago! Why haven’t they fixed it yet? The devs are lazy!”

“That guy’s incompetent! That’s not how you create that system! It should have X, Y, and Z features instead!”

“Who in the world created that piece of armor? It’s not showing enough skin! Fire the artist!”

“She couldn’t write her way out of a paper bag! That story was boring!”

I’ll stop there because all of this is true, these things actually happened, and it’s sickening how badly gamers treat the industry’s employees, the makers of our fun. Every single example, both of what game employees have sacrificed for their jobs and what these ‘fans’ abusively hurl back at them is utterly true. I culled these examples from stories I’ve heard from friends who work for various game studios or by reading the forums and a couple of fansites. We all know the gag that game forums are wretched hives of scum and villainy. We know not to read the comments because the trolls will be out in force. We know that the community folks have to sift through the morass of negative comments and personal attacks in order to find the constructive criticism and commentary that actually represent a potential for improvement of the game. Some will just shrug and say something like ‘That’s the internet’ and give the trolls a pass.

We often forget the human cost of our words, because we don’t see the faces behind the names unless someone posts their photo. It’s far too easy… and lazy… to hurl an insult to express our displeasure with just a few keystrokes. The game doesn’t meet our precise expectations, so therefore, the people who got this out the door must somehow not know how to make a game or are obviously spending their 60+ hours a week playing Parcheesi or juggling live wombats instead of doing any real work.

It would be a far different situation if gamers had to say that to someone’s face. Most people wouldn’t spout such rude and cruel things if they were speaking to the dev or community manager at a con. It’s far too easy to forget that those names we see in the credits (if one actually bothers to read them) are real people and deserve simple dignity and respect just for being a human being. They also deserve some respect because they are professionals in a cutthroat industry where their jobs are rarely secure, where they could work so hard on a game and watch it go up in a puff of smoke… or have to deal with the verbal face-slaps from the game community. Jobs are hard to keep when contracts run out or game studios close due to corporate whim and layoffs happen. No game out there can afford to hire someone who’s truly lazy or actually incompetent, none of them.

So, I would like to appeal to the folks who like to express their displeasure by stating that a dev isn’t doing their job or wasting time. If you think it’s so easy to design a game and create content, I’d love to see you try it. Most of us aren’t trained game developers or forum moderators or what have you. Still, there are game-making tools out there you can get for free where you can design some quests, write some dialogue, code up a little database of objects, that sort of thing. It’s not hard to go out and create a set of basic forums and muck about with moderator tools. Have a bunch of your friends come in and post comments and threads. Since you might actually have a life, it’s okay if you only take a week and putter around with this in your spare time. Put your best effort into creating something interesting, something that works, something that pleases the gamer in you. Make it something you’re busting with pride for having created it. Pretend it’s the most important thing in your life aside from your pug, since the lawyer had a hell of a time finding you to serve you with divorce papers but she actually tracked you down. Give up something else during that same time that’s very important to you, something you can live without but really don’t want to. In short, do an extremely watered down version of what game devs live through on a daily basis. Now, pretend to release this content into the wild.

Some random person you’ve never met just posted a gigantic ‘you’re lazy, you’re incompetent, and your quest is nothing but crap!’ on your forum, and a lot of other people who know nothing about you and your processes chimed in to create an avalanche of dissatisfaction with your hard work. They’re nitpicking every single aspect of your content to pieces. They’re stalking your social media accounts and snarking on the pictures of your goldfish. You just put 75 hours into your favorite project on the planet and some person with an axe to grind just came up and called you an amateur who should go back to crayons and coloring books.

That is what it’s like to be a dev. Is it any wonder many of them actively avoid their own games’ official forums, much less fansites and press sites? Many of the ones I know do so far more because of the nature of the fanbase than a corporate mandate for devs to keep quiet. I’m surprised more community managers haven’t gone completely nuts from having to deal with such negativity and mindless hate all the time.

So, when all is said and done, I’d politely suggest that folks who wish to snark on their favorite game’s devs and call them lazy might want to get to know some personally. Stop by their booth at a gaming convention and say hi. Watch to see how many of them are exhausted and yet still willing to talk to you about their game with passion and pride. The ones who aren’t exhausted are most likely simply hiding it better. You might learn that your assumptions are incorrect.

LEOG Yoda it is!

The Yoda Chronicles

Over at TV Guide News they’ve run an article about an upcoming Cartoon Network Special called LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles. The show will premiere Wednesday, May 29th at 8/7 central time on the Cartoon Network. The first episode of a 3 part series is titled “The Phantom Clone”. This was penned by Simpsons producer Michael Price. It’s billed as a “humorous, kid friendly adventure where the legendary Jedi master takes a group of Padawans on a mission to stop Darth Sidious”. Along the way they’ll cross paths with some iconic Star Wars characters like C-3PO, General Grievous and Admiral Ackbar. Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) has a surprise role in the first episode. The second and third chapters of the Yoda Chronicles are unscheduled as yet but slated to appear later this year. As part of the promotion for this Lucasfilm has teamed up with LEGO and done something truly epic…

GIANT X- WING!

This…is pure epic awesome!

LEGO has built a life size replica of an X-Wing starfighter! This piece of awesome is fully realized out of little tiny bricks, 5, 335,200 of them to be exact. It’s 43 feet long, 11 feet tall and has a 44 foot wingspan. It was built in the LEGO model shop in Kladno, Czech Republic and shipped across the Atlantic in a cargo ship. This project took 32 builders 17,336 hours and it weighs about 46,000 pounds. It is 42 times the size of the LEGO kit that it is based on. As if all of that wasn’t epic enough, the engines actually glow and make the authentic engine noise. It is on display in Times Square in New York. After its stint in Times Square it’ll be transported to the West Coast where it’ll stay until the end of the year. When I find out where it’s going to be on the west coast I’ll be sure to update you all via the regular Around the Galaxy column!

Check out the fantastic GIZMODO article here which includes lots more pics and a video of the X-Wing.

Images One Two

On July 18, 2013 there is a scheduled Community Cantina taking place during the biggest Comic show on the West coast. In addition to the June Cantina taking place the month before in Los Angeles, your friends here at TORWars will be in attendance. So, if you would like to meet us, we would love to meet you too. You can contact me via email at dmhollis [at] torwars [dot] com and let me know if you’re going to be there so we can shake your hand and stuff you full of pie.

Livin’ it up at ol’ town cantina…what a lovely place…what a lovely place…

Here are the wonderful details of the San Diego event:

We’re happy to announce that the next stop in the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Community Cantina Tour will be happening on Thursday, July 18th, in San Diego!

This is your chance to join the Star Wars: The Old Republic community for a development team Q&A as well as complimentary drinks* and giveaways. Every attendee will be receiving a highly coveted Tauntaun Fawn code.

If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by and hang out with us!

Venue: The Commons Bar

Date: Thursday, July 18th, 2013

Time: 7-10PM PDT

Address: 901 4th Avenue – San Diego, CA 92101

Space will be limited, so be sure to arrive early! You can RSVP on Facebook here (Facebook RSVP is not required for attendance).

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Star Wars: The Old Republic Community Team

So let us know if you’re going to be in attendance and we can all get our groove on!

Star Wars Rebels Announced!

I saw this the other day and thought “Why is he drawing TIE Fighters, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!”

After the last few weeks of announcements from Disney where it was starting to feel like they were doing their best to dismantle the George Lucas era Star Wars empire, we finally got some news that is addition rather than subtraction. Earlier this week Disney/Lucasfilm announced that they are in development on a brand new animated series called Star Wars Rebels. (Truthfully, I had received some scuttlebutt awhile back stating that Disney was putting together another Star Wars animated project and discussed it briefly with another TORWars staffer, but since I could not verify my source I decided not to run the story at that time.)

When Disney announced back in March that it was canceling Cartoon Networks Star Wars: The Clone Wars show after five seasons in order to take its animation in a new direction fans were left wondering what exactly that meant. Announced as premiering in the fall of 2014, Star Wars Rebels will explore and expand upon the era between the prequels and the original trilogy.

Set in the two decades between the trilogies, when the Empire is expanding its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the remaining Jedi, this means that Lucasfilm will have the opportunity to bring us a look at an era that’s previously unexplored on screen and one that fans have been pretty curious about.

Star Wars Rebels will debut as a one hour special on the Disney Channel and the series will have a regular slot on Disney XD.

Some of the best news about this is that Dave Filoni the supervising director of the Clone Wars series is coming on to Rebels as an executive producer so that means fans can probably expect the same dedication and care that they got with the previous series. Also along are Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, The Spectacular Spider-Man) and screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men First Class, Sherlock Holmes).

Check out this short video featuring Dave Filoni and Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo talking about Star Wars; Rebels

While not mentioned here at all, I have to wonder if this doesn’t almost guarantee that we’ll see some sort of wrap up or tie in from the Clone Wars show that will dovetail into this new project before it premieres. It’s also possible that they could resolve some of the Clone Wars stories via flash back episodes of Rebels that give some details on unresolved plot points. There’s almost a year and a half between now and then and last we heard there were some stories that were still left to be concluded in the Clone Wars Saga. It will be interesting to see what approach (if any) they take.

Those fans lucky enough to be attending Star Wars Celebration Europe this July will get a first look at the new series. Casting details and more about Star Wars Rebels will be revealed via StarWars.com and you can also follow the Rebels Facebook page for more info.

If you missed the announcement over at StarWars.com you can read it here.

Meanwhile in Merchandising…

Merchandising the Schwartz

When George Lucas originally made his deal with FOX to make Star Wars he asked for merchandising rights instead of a lot of cash from the studio. At the time people in the business thought he was crazy to make a deal like this. The truth is that he made so much money going this route that no one has ever gotten as good a deal on merchandising from the studios ever again.

Last week a little story about J.J. Abrams and the constant struggles between CBS and Paramount Pictures over merchandising and ceative rights to Star Trek popped up over at TheWrap. With all of the other goings-on around Star Wars and last weeks premier of Star Trek Into Darkness I think this story sort of flew under the radar a bit.

In a nutshell, the rights to the Star Trek franchise are split between CBS, who retains the rights to the original TV series and the ability to create any future TV shows, and Paramount who retain the rights to to the film series. This means that Paramount must license Star Trek characters from CBS in order to merchandise them as toys, games or other spinoff products. This leads to a conflict because CBS is making money, about 20 million dollars a year, licensing products from the old series and isn’t really interested in giving up that cash in order to allow Paramount – and by extension J. J. Abrams – to market products based on the newest Star Trek films.

Because of this ongoing situation, Abrams has been prevented from really cashing in on the Star Trek franchise reboot via merchandising and spinoffs and ultimately this is costing him money. It’s being speculated that this, as much as anything is why he decided to take on the Star Wars franchise because lets face it, George Lucas has made FAR more money via merchandising Star Wars than he ever made from the films. Regardless of Abrams (or anyone’s) professed love for Star Wars, if Kathleen Kennedy walks into your office and throws her Disney wallet down on the table to entice you to join the Empire, that’d be pretty hard to pass up.

Via TheWrap:

TheWrap has learned that Bad Robot asked CBS to stop making products featuring the original cast, but talks broke down over money. The network was making roughly $20 million a year on that merchandise and had no incentive to play nice with its former corporate brother, the individual said. In response, the company scaled back its ambitions to have “Star Trek’s” storylines play out with television shows, spin-off films and online components, something Abrams had been eager to accomplish.

It would appear that going with Disney/Lucasfilm will turn out to be a far a more lucrative (and less frustrating) opportunity than the reality of staying with the Star Trek franchise as Abrams seems to be getting some creative control as well as the rights to truckloads of cash via spinoffs and associated projects with Star Wars:

Abrams’ ambitions to create a multi-platform film franchise will find a more natural home at Disney, analysts and industry experts tell TheWrap. As successful as “Star Trek” has been, few franchises match the profitability and cultural prominence of George Lucas’ space opera, which would be difficult for any director to pass up.

“Disney has always been oriented to multi-platform revenue stream situations,” Seth Willenson, a film library valuations expert, told TheWrap.

Moreover, Willenson notes that Abrams, who has a deal that is believed to include creative and profit participation in “Star Wars” inspired merchandise and spin-offs, will have more control in shaping the legacy of the Skywalker clan than he would have had with developing side projects for the “Star Trek” crew. Unlike with “Star Trek,” with its rights split between Paramount and CBS, Disney owns the rights to “Star Wars” outright thanks to its $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm last year.

This is…interesting, and it’s certainly far more than what we initially heard about Abrams involvement in Star Wars when things were first announced. The situation between CBS and Paramount has pretty much killed off Abrams interest in continuing to work on the Star Trek franchise according to TheWrap and they make it sound as if he’s ready to wash his hands of the whole Star Trek deal. It does a lot to explain his seeming flip-flop from “not interested in Star Wars” to being all-in with the new owners of the Star Wars franchise. There’s been speculation that Abrams would return for a third Star Trek film but I have to wonder about that because the Star Wars opportunity appears so much bigger than just directing a single film. Could we be looking at the guy who is going the be the new “father” of the Star Wars franchise going forward? Only time will tell but if Disney really hands over the keys to the Star Wars kingdom we could be in for a long and very interesting ride.

It would appear that Mel Brook’s take on this wasn’t that far from the truth…

You can read the whole article from TheWrap here.

Death Star vs Enterprise!

Last but not least this week, a bit of fan film fun. I’m not going to say a whole lot about this because I don’t want to spoil it for you but it’s described as “Star Trek vs Star Wars in the streets of San Francisco”. Enjoy!

As always, we welcome your constructive comments and feedback in the comments section below!

Around the Galaxy is a regular feature where we make a slight detour from Star Wars: The Old Republic and offer up news and opinion about all things Star Wars. In addition to news about development of official Star Wars projects we curate related news and items of interest from the community. I’m always looking for interesting things to share with the community so if you see something that you’d like me to share here don’t hesitate to contact me via TORWars or on Twitter @HolyCrapItsLate.

Image Two

Jen’jidai: Jung Ma

The basics:

Guild type: RP/PVE/PVP

Faction: Empire

Server: Jung MA

Date founded: 2009

Guild Leader: Luniara

Recruiting Officers: Minali

Main time zone: EST

Number of members: 66+

About your guild:

Jen’jidai offers even doses of PvP, RP and PvE and welcomes all classes. Something we have become quite proud of is our progression PvE – which caters to both casual and hardcore raiders with two operation groups. We’re diverse. Whether it’s PvE, RP or PvP you crave, casual or hardcore, we cater to everyone! In Addition, Jen’jidai is not only a single guild, we are part of Legend Gaming, a multi-gaming community comprised of several guilds. So we have the advantage of providing our members with an environment that favors pretty much any play style. As a result, we have members in our community that have been with us for up to five years, because even if games come and go, the community feel we provide keeps our players with us and that is something we value a lot. We have an application process and interview that allows us to educate the player further about our community and also to let us get to know the player and what they are hoping to acquire by joining our guild. We try to ensure that not only is the player the right fit for our community, but also that we are the right fit for them. Joining us is not an abnormally hard task, we are on the Web to meet new people and take the most we can from our players and the only way to do that is to recruit lots of different people with different focus. However, we are rigorous with our rules and do watch our members closely during the trial period, many new recruits tend to underestimate this fact and, needless to say they are no longer in our community today. We believe in consistency, commitment and stability, the values of our players need to match those of the community to ensure success.

Do you have a lot of alts?:

We try to maintain a low number of alts in the guild. Inactive alts are removed after a certain time period.

What is your current level breakdown?:

52-55

When are your busy and quiet times? Which days of the week are you most active:?

Our busy times are during the weekdays (during our pvp and pve nights). Quiet days are mostly on Sundays.

Do you use voice comms? If so what sort, and what proportion of the guild uses it?:

We require all members to use Ventrilo. 100% of the guild uses this as this is mandatory upon joining.

Do you have a website?:

Yes, www.jenjidai.com

(NB: You can find some awesome artwork in their gallery!)

The guild

Recruitment:

Are you recruiting, and if so, what are you looking for?: We are recruiting all classes.

What are you NOT looking for: We do not discriminate.

Are you looking for a lot more people or just a few:? Any amount is welcome.

Operations:

Do you have an active Operations schedule? If so tell us how you organize it.:

Tuesday-Thursday, 8:30pm – 12:00am EST. Around 8:15-8:20 invites are sent out to all those who have signed up previously to dedicate their time to the operations group. Everyone is given a chance to get in and take down bosses and switches are made on group make up.

What requirements do you have for guild members who want to join in Operations runs?: 

We expect raiders to read up on the boss strats prior to raid time. While we are happy to explain things and answer questions, watching videos of boss kills is key.

Do you use a loot system?:

We use an EP/GP system, which is much like DKP.

Into battle!

PvP:

Do you PvP together? If so tell us more!: 

Of course we do! Mondays & Wednesdays starting at 7:00pm EST. We also frequently do sub 50 and 50+ all throughout the day and week regardless if an event is scheduled.

Guild events:

Do you have regular guild events?:

Yes, we try our best to run guild events. Whether it is guild ceremonies, guild story-line RPs or World PVP, we strive to have something going on every week.

Have you got any events planned for the future?:

We are currently trying to plan server-wide RP/PVP events with other guilds on the server.

A guild ceremony

Guild history:

How did you get started?:

Jen’jidai was founded by Xenith and Drahl in 2009. It was started as a chapter of our gaming community; Legend Gaming.

What’s the story behind your guild name?:  

The origin of Jen’jidai came from the idea of being Sith. We looked into the Sith language, finding Jen’jidai to mean ‘Dark Jedi’. We began to delve into Sith lore and created a guild based on the concept of it being led by fallen Jedi.

What’s the biggest challenge you have faced so far?: 

The biggest challenge we faced was during the transfers between servers. Our server was left to be the smallest of the few left and recruits are minimal. Despite this, we strive forward.

Can you share a funny or interesting story about your guild with is?: 

The most recent ‘funny’ story I can think of was during one of the guild’s RP story-lines I was hosting. The guild was having quite the random conversation in g-chat and somehow I ended up saying “Going in through the backdoor” and mistelled in the RP channel. They all took it as canon…and now my RP character has to face this failure.

Guild event on Tatooine

About you:

What inspired you to start your guild?: 

Unfortunately, I did not start the guild but merely inherited it after Xenith’s departure to start a family. I started from a trial member and literally worked my way up the latter during my time in Jen’jidai, which started in September of 2010. What inspires me today to keep going with Jen’jidai is the love for the community. They have helped make me a braver person in life and a better leader.

What behavior from other players annoys you most in game? 

Elitist behavior. I can not tolerate it. Many guilds will possess these kinds of people and it’s only a matter of time before that attitude is squashed quickly.

What would you most like to see added to Star Wars: The Old Republic?: 

There’s a great many things I’d like to be added but the two I can think of that I’d love most? LONG hair and DANTOOINE!

Thanks very much for showing us around!

Chaaaarge!

If you’d like to see your guild featured on Guild Spotlight it couldn’t be easier. Simply write to me at alice [at] torwars [dot] com with the subject ‘Guild Spotlight’ and tell me why you think your guild deserves to be featured. Please answer the questions above in your email  (if you want a nice blank template please see our first post here). Please also include a minimum of four images, plus your guild logo if you have one. You can also include a video link if applicable.

[If you want to see what else Alice is getting up to, take a trip over to Gamersaurs, a place for news, reviews and articles on games of all shapes and sizes!]

Many people may be leveling a new alt character now that the Cathar species has gone live so I wanted to share some personal tips and tricks that some of you may be or not be aware of. After all, the faster you get one character to the level cap, the sooner you can start on the next one. So when you are leveling a character remember these three rules.

Pick on someone your own size

No one likes a bully, not even BioWare, and so they don’t reward players as much for doing tasks that are below their capability. You are playing the role of one of the heroes of the galaxy, there is no need to spend your time beating up monsters that were in diapers when you were graduating from college, plus it’s not worth very much experience points (XP) to do so.

If the creature you are fighting is yellow (the color of their level number in their frame when you click on them or hover over them) then you know they will put up a pretty good fight for you. If they are orange then it may be a bit challenging, and if they are green then they are not worth your time. Let’s take a look at an example on Alderaan.

Man those Rancor’s are waaaay bigger in real life than they are on TV

Level 28 Killik Warseeker, at level 30 is yellow, and gives you 755 exp (with rested)

Level 28 Killik Warseeker at level 31 is green, and gives you 608 exp (with rested)

Level 28 Killik Warseeker at level 32 is green and gives you 423 exp (with rested)

So you can see that even a creature a few levels below you gives you significantly less exp than the ones two levels of you. As you go up the scale you will see greater gains so sometimes it is worth it to really challenge yourself and fight in territories where the enemies are all orange. If they get too high above you however you will have a difficult time killing them and so even though you will get more XP off a red than you will a yellow, it will generally take you a lot longer to kill, and in that same amount of time you could have killed multiple enemies of your own level.

One of the best ways to gain fast XP is to ensure you are always one level behind the leveling curve of a planet, go into it and leave it one level before the recommended level. This way you will ensure that you are always fighting yellow and orange mobs and never hindering your XP by playing with greens.

To Group or Not to Group

Many people enjoy questing solo because they can work at their own pace and not be held back, or hold other players back. This of course is great but it is definitely not the most efficient path to level 55. Each time you group with someone you gain a little bit less XP than normal from killing enemies, usually around 3/4 of what you would normally get. As you gain more members though the decrease is less drastic, so by the time you have four people in the group and are killing enemies four times as fast, you are still gaining roughly 1/2 of the exp that you would by killing it solo, so you are already ahead. On top of that, if you do any quests that have a bonus mission, you gain bonus group experience for completing it. You will receive half of the XP they receive for completion, and you get it for every single group member. This means that a group of four people executing a simple quest with a bonus will rake in the bonus group XP at the end.

Be wary of grouping too far outside your level, however, because there is a penalty once the group has strayed outside of those two levels. The higher group members are penalized more but even the lowest group member will be penalized and the payoff is not nearly as great.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Getting a group can be quite an ordeal so if you know you are logging in for a decent amount of time ask around for a questing partner and hopefully you can find someone in the same area as you are. A great way to take advantage of this is through a leveling guild. These are usually large guilds of many players with characters of a variety of levels. Then you can set up groups for specific planets within the guild before going out to wreak havoc in the universe.

Gold is Good

I see it all the time when I am questing, players skirting around the outside of the room so they don’t end up accidentally pulling the elite mob in the corner. For some reason players have an unnatural aversion to enemies with more hit points. In reality elite enemies provide the best payout of XP to health in the game.

Consider these numbers pulled on a variety of planets: Number are for Weak, Strong and Elite

• ● Level 11 exp/hp – 166/510, 508/1485, 1273/3400
• ● Level 34 exp/hp – 415/2475, 1257/7340, 3147/17225
• ● Level 45 exp/hp – 531/4140, 1605/12300, 4013/27310

As you can see here, strong enemies provide the largest jump up in XP from one level to the next at a rate of 3-1, however, the ratio is almost identical for XP and for hit points. On the other hand the elite enemies give you 2.5 times more XP than the Strong’s, while only boasting 2.2 times more health than them. So all things considered an elite enemy is really the best bang for your buck.

What’s with the big gun there hoss, you compensating for something?

Now this does not take into consideration the fact of AoE damage. Some classes that have very strong AoE, like Sage/Sorcerer and Trooper/Bounty Hunter can mow down four or five enemies in very short order if they can get them grouped up and so these classes should always be on the lookout for groups of weak enemies. However if you happen to encounter an elite, don’t avoid them, they are worth your time to kill. This is why players should gravitate towards heroic quests because since you are grouped up, and taking on mostly elite enemies you are truly maximizing your exp potential.

Hopefully this gave you some insight into leveling characters beyond the obvious factors of bringing in a guild for the 5% bonus and using XP consumables. Do you guys have any tips or tricks that you use to level faster? Let us know in the comments section below so we can keep those alts on the move.

Sometimes a spa day, even on Kashyyyk is necessary for every good Wookie to feel less angry about getting Customized….

What, pray tell, do I mean?  Well have a look at our show notes (and listen to the podcast!) and the TORWars team will tell you all about it!

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Meta News:

● This week our fearless leader, Jeff, had a birthday, so a big happy birthday to him (which means Deirdre served as this week’s guest moderator)!

News:

● The building of a better Reddit community?  Goldegl – SWTOR Reddit Moderator — started a Community Q&A post to bring all of the common questions about SWTOR into one place on Reddit, and to try and turn Reddit into a much friendlier, open place. So, if you have any questions, please hit this post or look for future posts by the /r/swtor moderators.

● New Gree event slated for May 21-28, 2013 – Just a reminder the event is level 45+ this time around and the next time the event comes to the servers, we are told it will be level 55.

● Game Update 2.1 now live and has been met with both accolades and controversy.

● Initial impressions were extremely positive in regards to all the customization and convenience features in the game.
● Later in the week, complaints about content (particularly free content for Subscribers) began to surface. We talk more about this in our discussion topic later in the show.

● Community Cantina – Festivities were in full force in Dallas for the Community Cantina where we got some inside information as to what our future may hold.

● According to Damion Schubert, the next big patch after this upcoming patch will be huge for you PvPr’s out there. More details will surface and we can promise you that as we get the info, so will you.
● There was a question about flying mounts and what we have heard direct from Damion’s mouth is an absolute NO.
● Thank you to our guildmate and friend, Ox, for attending and bringing us the inside skinny on what the future holds for us in the world of SWTOR.

● Upcoming Star Wars Film – Much excitement orbits around this addition to the long line of Star Wars lore and JJ Abrams, the films chosen director drops a few hints (and hears from fans) this last week.

Discussion Topic:

This week’s hottest thread on the official forums became a news story itself, and the the thread became very, very hot indeed.  The questions that were asked was certainly pointed ones.

● Are BioWare’s F2P promises just a “bait and swtich”? Have the Subscribers been “lied to all along”?  Or is this just trolls trolling?

● Conversely, has BioWare substantively lived up to their commitments to both the F2P and Subscriber communities?

● Is this level of vitriol really necessary?  Is the naming of names (as well as the name calling) of BioWare personnel at all warranted?

● We also make mention of Musco’s bravery, Butler’s honesty, and the perilous perils of community management (which is pretty perilous).

Mind you, this is a lively discussion amongst our hosts, and we jump right into the deep end on this topic.  Of course, we also welcome your input in the comments section below.

Shout Outs:

●Enjin.com
●TORWars Guild
●Corellian Run Radio
●TORWars Columns and Columnists:

● Alice Wilkes with Guild Spotlight – This week Alice shines her spotlight on The Incredible’s. If you would like your guild featured on TORWars, please contact Alice at alice [at] torwars [dot] com and she will get back to you with a questionaire.
● Major Snarl with Command Decisions – A weekly column dedicated to giving great tips and advice on the many intricacies of guild leadership
● Aaron Frede with SWTOR Flyby – A great weekly feature giving you all the latest questing tips and bonus series intel for each planet in Galactic space.
● SWTOR Loading Screen by Jean Prior – Jean hits on topics that center around the social and community aspects of Star Wars: The Old Republic and opens our minds to new and different thoughts about the society we share.

PayPal Donors:

● Francisco
● My own personal Dane, WowDane
● Thank you so much, we love you guys!!!

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And that, dear friends, is all we have for this week.  Please, please please leave us a comment, below, and tell us what you think.  The show isn’t over until we’ve heard from you!

“Please sir, can we have some transfers?!”

Today on the Star Wars: the Old Republic devtracker, Community Manager Eric Musco has announced the current plans for server transfers!  Firstly, he posted in the Asia Pacific Server Transfer thread the following information:

I know we have been a bit quiet about our plans for your consolidations and although I don’t have any concrete details yet today, I wanted to pass on what I know. Our current plan is that next week we will start to give you details surrounding your free transfers off of the APAC servers. Specifically, we want to try to give you an exact date of when those transfers will start. We are still working through some issues with transfers so this could still change but that is our plan as it stands right now.

To be specific as I can be without setting anything in stone, our goal is to have you folks able to start transferring before 2.2 goes live. Again I need to reiterate, this is still subject to change as we lock things down.

And then, shortly thereafter, the news the rest of us have been waiting for:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to give an update on paid character transfers as I know it is something that everyone has been chomping at the bit for. The reason for our silence on the issue is that we are still working through some issues with the transfer tool and so we didn’t want to set an expectation on timing and not meet it. Also, it was very important to us that we informed our APAC players of our plans first, since transfers related to their current issues as well.

With that said I wanted to let you know what our current plans are. As it stands today, our goal is to launch character transfers with Game Update 2.2. Now, as I noted above, we are still working through some things so please note that this is just our goal and that it is entirely subject to change.

I will update you with more information as I get it, thanks!

That said, it’s important to stress, as he did in his original posts, that things can change, but if all goes according to this plan, we’ll have the APAC transfers first, and then hopefully in 2.2 on June 11th, the rest of us will get to bounce our toons about.

Of course, my biggest concern now is the golden question: “How much?”  Some players have suggested the notion of BioWare making transfers be part of the cartel market and purchasable for cartel coins.  Personally, I can’t see this happening for two main reasons.  Firstly, they’ve always touted the cartel market as strictly for cosmetics, not pay-to-win. We want things on the market, but we don’t need them to play.  Server transfers are more of a need than a want, in my opinion, a need to play with friends and be able to perhaps switch guilds to one that better meets a player’s preferred method of causing chaos (or peace) across the galaxy.  Secondly and perhaps more relevantly, subscribers could conceivably save up over a period of months to buy a transfer with coins… without spending a single dime of real money.  I don’t honestly see that being part of BioWare’s gameplan, whether or not it came from upon high in EA or from Austin itself.  Personally, I’ll be happy if we get it at the same price we expect from other games’ server transfer prices, but I’m not holding my breath to see if they announce an even friendlier price point.

What do you think, TORWarriors?