This week’s scheduled maintenance will be taking place on Tuesday, April 17th from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 7AM CDT (5AM PDT/8AM EDT/1PM BST/2PM CEST/10PM AEST). All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than five hours, but could be extended.

In addition to the regular maintenance there will also be a new design for the official SWTOR website which will require it to be offline from 1AM CDT (April 17th, 11PM PDT/2AM EDT/7AM BST/8AM CEST/4PM AEST) until 11AM CDT (9AM PDT/12PM EDT/5PM BST/6PM CEST/April 18th,2AM AEST). Once the site comes back up, the new redesign will be unveiled.

Anyone visiting the fleet today should hear a little message about how there is a planetary alert on Tatooine. Rakghouls have been spotted on the planet and citizens are recommended to stay away for the time being, but what is the fun in that?

The announcement is to inform players of the first ever in-game event of SWTOR, occurring on Tatooine. A ship carrying the Rakghoul plague has crashed on Tatooine, releasing a large amount of these monsters north-east of Outpost Therazan.  Players will be able to tackle some new dailies there that reward “Rakghould DNA”, which can then be turned in to vendors in the same area for some event related items. These include black-green color crystals, and infected companion kit that will let you tun a companion into a Rakghoul, and even a Rakghoul mini-pet. There are also some new infected world bosses for player to take down as well. If the fleet announcement is to be believed then there should be new planets added to this event as time goes on.

No word yet on how long this event will be taking place, but keep you eyes on swtor-life.com as we bring you all the info as the event progresses.

Edit: Some new info I have discovered since posting this. The world bosses on Tatooine are located at the Sarlacc Pit, in Outlaws Den, and the other is an infected version of Trapjaw which can be found in his same location out in the Dune Sea.

I think everyone has had this problem. You want a life size Darth Malgus statue in your house, you don’t have $6,000 on hand to put him in your house. Well that problem is going to disappear for one lucky person.

Sideshow Collectibles, the company who makes this and other epic life sized statues, is holding a contest where they will be giving away one of these statues to one lucky player of SWTOR. All you need to do is to head over to the contest page on their website and sign-up. You will have until May 11th to register, but why wait when you can head there right now and secure your chance to win.

As this is a contest exclusively for players of SWTOR you must be sure to enter the e-mail address you use for the game when you are signing up, and there is a limit of one entry per household/IP address. You must also agree to pay for taxes that may be assessed on the shipping cost or value of the statue, but  it’s hard to say no to that when you are getting a $6000 statue free of charge.

Have you been playing SWTOR for a while now and felt like you got the short end of the stick by not getting some free game time just because you don’t have a level 50 character? Well no need to fret. BioWare’s Dr. Greg Zeschuk announced that not only will 50 days of free game time be awarded to all those players with a level 50 character, it will now also be awarded to anyone with a legacy level of 6 or above.

This comes after some community members complaining about not getting the game time just because they have not had the time to get a character to max level. This makes a lot of sense, some players love to play a lot of alts, some have hectic lives that keep the from always devoting a lot of time to the game, and some  have switched servers to try and find a home that is right for them. But these players are just a loyal and dedicated as someone who has a level 50, they just may not have the time on their hands to have reached that point just yet.

Players will have until noon on April 22nd to reach this goal. So if you want those free days, but have not had a chance to get a character till level 50 or Legacy level 6, you have a few days to make it happen. We all love free game time so hop on those characters and make it happen!

You can read the official post from Dr. Greg after the jump. Continue Reading »

No MMO can survive without a dedicated player base, that’s just the nature of the beast. In order to say thank you to all the players who have stuck with them so far BioWare has decided to give a couple thank yous to all the active subscribers of SWTOR.

First off, any player who has a current active subscription will receive the Legacy Tauntaun Ram Pet. In order to receive the in-game pet you must meet the following criteria either today or on April 21st.

• You must have purchased the game and redeemed an official Game Product Registration Code at the Code Redemption Center.
• You must have signed up for a recurring subscription using a valid payment method OR redeemed a Game Time Code.
• Your account must not be banned.

But the gifts don’t stop there. If you currently have a level 50 character you will be receiving 30 days of free game time. That’s right, a month of free time just for having been on of the many dedicated players of the game. You still must meet all the criteria listed for the Tauntaun pet, with the slight addition of having a level 50 character as of noon today. It’s a pretty sweet deal and it’s BioWare’s way of giving back to the players who have shown the most dedication to the game.

If you are one of the players who has cancelled you subscription for any reason and want to come see what the new game update has to offer you are in luck. Starting on April 13th, anyone with a former subscription will be able to log back in from the 13th until the 19th without having to resubscribe. It’s a great way to test the waters if the new features of 1.2 have you interested in returning to the world of SWTOR.

With all these little gifts, and all the new features included in today’s update, it is a damn good day to be a SWTOR player.

The hour has finally arrived! 1.2 is now available for download on the live servers, be prepared for a download because this baby is huge. To give you an idea of just how big, check out these patch notes for the update. Here are the highlights:

• Players can now unlock a wide variety of rewards by leveling characters and reaching new Legacy levels, including buffs for your characters, unlocking additional Species choices for every class, and upgrades for your personal Starship. Build your own Legacy with the new Family Tree!
• Lost Island, a new Flashpoint, is available for play! Having uncovered the sources of the Rakghoul plague outbreak in the Tion Hegemony, players must travel to Ord Mantell and confront Dr. Lorrick, the mad scientist who engineered this horrific biological weapon.
• Explosive Conflict, a new Operation, is available for play! The Trandoshan mercenary warlord Kephess has seized the planet Denova, a world rich in resources valuable to the war effort. Players must assault his war camp, situated atop a mountain in densely-wooded terrain, fighting Imperial defectors and heavy war machines along the way. 8- and 16-player Story and Hard Modes are currently available for this Operation.
• Novare Coast, a new objective-oriented Warzone on the planet Denova, has been added to the game. This Warzone, like Huttball, supports same-faction matches if there are not enough members of the opposing faction to be found.
• New repeatable high-level daily missions are available in a new area on Corellia, the Black Hole!
• Guilds now have access to a shared Guild Bank, accessible on the Fleets, with expandable storage.
• A new tier of gear has been added for both PvP and PvE.
• Players can now customize their User Interface by moving and resizing UI elements!
• A new level 50 World Boss with a challenge for a well-coordinated 16-player Operation Group has been sighted in the Gormak Lands region on Voss.

Are you as excited to check out all these new features as we are? Let us know what you think of the changes in the comments below!

BioWare announced today that the Ranked Warzones feature will not be included in tomorrow’s 1.2 update.

Despite some wonderful testing from volunteers on the Public Test Server it was decided that Ranked warzones is a feature that just needs a little more polish before it is released to the live servers. This was not a decision made lightly, but in order to make sure this feature is everything the developers, and players, hope it will be it will be postponed for the time being. Daniel Erickson, lead game designer for SWTOR, had this to say:

Hey everybody,

It is with great reluctance that I have to announce Ranked Warzones are not going live with Game Update 1.2: Legacy. We had a fantastic run of testing on the Public Test Server and I can’t begin to thank the community enough for their tireless advocacy for this feature and the time people took to file bugs and voice their concerns.

After careful consideration, it is clear that to make Ranked Warzones the feature we all want it to be is going to take a bit more time. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause and ask for your patience as we work to make sure the Ranked Warzone Preseason launch is polished and fun. With Legacy, the new Warzone, Operation, and Flashpoint, as well as many other amazing features of Game Update 1.2 ready to go, we’re very excited for tomorrow’s additions.

In the future we’ll be rolling the Ranked Warzone Preseason out in phases, listening carefully to player feedback and making adjustments as we go. The first phase will be full team, eight-player queuing only and from there we’ll look at next steps as Preseason progresses. In the meantime we have provided an alternate purchase route for War Hero gear so you can start building your set while figuring out your teams.

Daniel Erickson
Lead Game Designer

This is, without a doubt, a big disappointment to a lot of players out there. Hopefully the team at BioWare will be able to get any issues they have with the feature fixed as soon as possible so it can be rolled out to the live servers.

BioWare updated the SWTOR site today to announce that we will be seeing game update 1.2 go live this Thursday, April 12th. After hinting several times that we would be seeing the update this week we are finally getting a release date, which coincidentally has the number 12 in in. 1.2 being released on the 12th, coincidence? Probably, but either way the servers will be down for 8 hours on Thursday in order to deploy the patch. Here is the official announcement from BioWare:

Hello everyone!

We will be bringing down servers for eight hours on April 12th, 2012 from 12:01AM CDT (April 11th, 10:01PM PDT/1:01AM EDT/6:01AM BST/7:01AM CEST/3:01PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST) in order to deploy Game Update 1.2 – Legacy. All game servers will be offline during this period. SWTOR.com will be available. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours, but could be extended.

Please note the timing on this maintenance period, which is beginning earlier than usual.

Game Update 1.2 – Legacy introduces new content and features for all Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ players. Earn new rewards and build your family tree with the expanded Legacy System, explore Lost Island, a new Flashpoint, challenge the new Operation: Explosive Conflict, and face off against your foes (or your allies) in Novare Coast, a new Warzone. You can also experience new daily missions on Corellia, customize your User Interface, create a new Guild Bank for your guild, and more! Learn more about Game Update 1.2 here!

After this maintenance is over, restart the game launcher to patch to Game Update 1.2. This patch will be up to approximately 1Gb in size, depending on when you last updated the game.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Thursday, April 12th, 2012 (See PDT timing below)

Time: 12:01AM CDT (April 11th, 10:01PM PDT/1:01AM EDT/6:01AM BST/7:01AM CEST/3:01PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST)

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

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

So who else is anticipating a sick day on Thursday?

As usual there will be a period of maintenance this Tuesday, but only for swtor.com this week. While the website will be down from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST) the servers will remain up the whole time. While the website should only be down for four hours there is always a chance the time will be extended if necessary.

Enjoy the uninterrupted playtime this week!

The 1.2 discussion in the Community Q&A from last week was so huge a single week could’t fit it all in. This week’s post built on the premise from last week, having the BioWare developers take some time to answer all of our burning 1.2 questions. This week the developers talk about some changes in PvP armor and what players can do with their commendations once 1.2 goes live, answer some crafting questions about reverse engineering and augments, and the chance of new items being added to the VIP fleet vendors. There is also talk of a few bugs people are seeing on the PTS getting fixed, ability and class tweeks, and the titles those who spent the time helping to test update 1.2 can expect to receive.

BioWare also reminded players that to get the most out of these Community Q&A threads they should focus on asking questions about current game mechanics, not those that may be in development. Asking questions about future content is allowed of course, but more often than not they will not be able to release many details about these features other than “you will see them in the future.”

You can check out all of this week’s questions and answers after the jump, and if you have a question for the developers you can post it here on the official forums. Maybe you will see you question in next week’s post! As always please feel free o let us know what you think of this week’s Q&A session in the comments section below. Continue Reading »