Hot off the twittersphere we got this announcement from Stephen Reid, aka @Rockjaw

@Rockjaw said: If you want to work in QA at BioWare on #SWTOR and live in Austin, TX (or nearby), you might want to head to @AustinBooks this Saturday.

This is a great opportunity to involve yourself in a career with Bioware if you live in the Austin Texas area.  I just wish I lived nearer to their headquarters as this is the field that I personally am employed in.  Quality Assurance can be a very rewarding career as you are in the position to effect the overall success of what ever project you are working on.  As someone involved in this field with Bioware, you will have the ability to help ensure that the realm of Star Wars the Old Republic is top notch for us all!

For any who are lucky enough to be in the area and apply, good luck to you from your friends at www.swtor-life.com !

🙂

Tags: bioware, employment, hiring, Q&A, Quality Assurance

Here’s a list of preliminary thing that we can share about the upcoming Fan Site Summit Event Bioware is hosting in their offices in Austin, Texas.

• This is the first such event where only fan sites are invited.
• There are as many European as there are US based fan sites attending.
• The official Twitter hash tag is #SWTOUR (Stephen Reid is responsible for the pun).
• We will be interviewing developers.
• We will be taken on a tour through Bioware’s offices and we hope to share that experience with you.
• There is a schedule for releasing information so do not expect everything to be heard day one.
• I would not get my hopes up on seeing additional gameplay footage. Impressions are OK though.
• You can follow all of our coverage, including live blogs and image feeds by visiting the official Fan Site Summit page here on SWTOR Life
• You can already start posting your questions and requests on what you want us to find out by commenting in this post.

Click here to find the list of attending sites

Tags: information, SWTOUR

Floodgates have opened and it is now widely known in the SWTOR community that there will be an event held this weekend at Bioware’s offices in Austin, Texas. The participants – fan site representatives. Fifteen fan sites will be attending. This seems to be an extension of events that were organized for regular press members at the recent UK event and for PC Gamer (they said in their article that they too were flown to Austin for two day SWTOR bonanza). Click here to read my full mission statement about the upcoming event

Tags: bioware, community, gameplay, Q&A, questions

As it is finally the 18th in my time zone, I can now officially announce that representation from   www.swtor-life.com will be going to Bioware headquarters in Austin, Texas to take part in an on site, fan site event held by Bioware. The event will start on the 24^th and last through the 26^th of April and Bioware has graciously offered to bring us there for this grand time.

Me, Derek “Swtorcrafter” Green and my partner in this grand adventure,  Serge “Swtorlife” Stanarevic will do our very best, to bring you, the fans of the Old Republic, the best coverage and information we can. Our goal is to bring you all as close to the action as we are allowed to. We have interviews planned, live picture blogs of our journey through this adventure via Twitter, and of course you can count on our witty and informative articles to satiate your appetite for Star Wars The Old Republic information!

Although we are probably going to have to hide from Daniel Erickson cause we know he wants to kick our butts for our portrayal of him in gungan attire,

and we might just have to hide from Blaine Christine as well so he doesn’t try to drag us into a LARP game!

Be sure to stay tuned to this site and also through Twitter for all the action from the fan sites and the Developers using the hashtag #SWTOUR (great name!  -credit to @rockjaw -aka- Stephen Reid, Senior Community Manager for Bioware)

You can follow the Swtor-Life team through Twitter at the following accounts, @SwtorLife, @SWTORCRAFTER, @MrWarlock_, @Grant__D, @ForceMeridian and @BorukBH

We hope that you will follow us and join us in this grand adventure!

I would like to make a personal thank you to Bioware for this opportunity!  They have done much more for me and my partner Serge than provide a way for us to enjoy what is to be one of the most awesome events in SWTOR pre-release history, they have given friends the opportunity to meet in real life.

Some of you that know us here, may know that I am located in the Central United States and Serge is located In Serbia.  While we are fully committed to making this fan site one of the best in the community for SWTOR, we never actually thought we would get the chance to meet in real life because of obvious distance issues.  Bioware, thank you, you have made our dream of one day meeting a reality, we will never forget this!

WOOT LET’s GET READY TO PARTY!

BIOWARE,

WE R IN UR BASE!

(almost 😛 )

Tags: austin texas, bioware, Blaine Christine, community, Daniel Erickson, event, hands on, interview, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor, SWTOUR

Usually when I wake up in a good mood and begin pouring over twitter, facebook, swtor, swtor-life, darth hater, CRR, MER, etc…  it only takes about 15-20 minutes of reading before my mood is shot to shit and I develop an urge to commit homicide by tossing swtor forum members into a Sarlacc.  Today, I am unusually surprised to find one hell of a gem buried in the pile of rehashed shit and whipped to death horses.  This of course got me thinking, and well all know how badly that usually turns out.

The Official SWTOR forum user Revchong posted a GREAT idea and topic.  A mobile Pazzak App.    Thats right.  A WoW inspired idea that doesn’t make me want to pour acid on Jawas until my rage subsides.

There are tons of possibilities that I personally hadn’t thought of.

• Crafting Monitor App.
• Jawa Punting.
• Space Darts
• Space Donkey Shows
• etc…

This would provide BioWare with a micro-transaction or as they like to call it “service” (which I believe is Latin for “gimme all your money dumbass”) option that didn’t make them appear to be greedy money whoring, space bitches.  They would be extra services that really add functionality to the game that really only affect people who give a crap about that particular section of BW/SW cannon.  The rest of us would never know it was even there.  Nor would most of us even care.  God knows I wouldn’t.  Well maybe the Space Donkey show idea…

Now as much as I hate the idea of micro-transactions and people running around with little flying Jawas or pet Wamprats that do cute little things like OD on death-sticks every 30 seconds or nibble your bum when you stand still, this idea I think is sound.  Additional revenue for game funding without impacting a subscription plan and forcing us to endure a glowing button ingame that flashes every time they release a new pet Mini-Wookie [mini-wookie 2011 Flagg – Patent pending] that glitters like a barbie doll after a 3 day crack binge.

We all know BioWare and EA are on this moronic and silly yet persistent “social networking” kick to exploit the huge market of internet stalkers and pedophiles around the world (THANKS FACEBOOK!) because, well, lets face it.  The majority of them are idiots and have more money than common sense.  I guess in retrospect I would milk them for every penny too.  In the immortal words of my hero Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does”.    If they choose to implement something like this, the sheer volume of  “tweens”  (once again, latin for “to young to have a job but old enough to spend money”) that will bolster the games income could be justified, not to even mention adults that think $50 for  pixels of a see through wanna-be pegasus is a sound investment.  I have some great beachfront property on Hoth if you are interested…

In conclusion I would like to point out that I am an opinionated bastard with a lot of issues pent up having to do with my uncle forcing micro-transactions on me at a very young age.  I think he works for Cryptic now.  Anyway….

If I had my way I would go to BioWare and smack a release date out of them, then proceed to hide all the office snacks until I got a beta invite, but as much is in life: It just ain’t like that.  So I wait and seethe.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me, that I despise micro-transactions and simply will not play games based on pay-to-win.  So why do I think this is a good idea?  Simple.  I don’t have to see it, experience it, or deal with it in any way.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I respect BioWare and their talent and skill, but I remain steadfast in one opinion. Someone should force-pimpslap their   PR department.  With less than 8 months until the announced window closes, we know exactly enough to cover less than 4 minutes worth of commentary on G4.   That’s so sad I think i’m gonna go adopt a kid from one of those Sally Struthers countries.  At least that way I can meet Jabba and get a cheap lawn service while I wait.

The upcoming PC Gamer May edition has a 6 page special on the Old Republic. PC Gamer staff had a chance to sit down and play the game for two days in an epic 17-hour long gaming session. They got to play the Bounty hunter and Imperial agent starting worlds as well as some PvP on Alderaan. This issue is infamous for its races/classes chart that mentions the Cyborg for the first time and that Daniel Erickson said is wrong to some extent. What I found interesting is that they clearly put the following stamp at the start of the article: “Release: Autumn 2011”. It is also mentioned that each class’ story is 3 times as big as KOTOR, which means that just the class stories are as big as 24 KOTORs.

Click here to read more about the author’s impressions of the game and to find links to the scans of the issue

Tags: pc gamer, preview, review

My original post for this weeks edition was all written up and all I had to do was type it out. So what happens? My brain starts thinking about things that would be nice to have in edition to playing Swtor and I had a post ready to go on the forums. I head over there and BAM, it’s already got a post, dated today about the same topic I was thinking about. So while it is fresh on the mind, I decided to switch gears and pop out this little post, even though the thread was just started.The thread, and my thoughts, center around Swtor and the Razer Switchblade.

Where's the Jump button?

So are you interested yet? Read on then friends!

Continue Reading »

Tags: Gear

One of the big items of news that came from the UK player event SWTORGB, that I especially liked was the information we got on the mysterious “Datacrons”.  Credited by Daniel Erickson as the first known person in a community play event to discover one, “Kandycane” brings us this tidbit on the discovery and it’s use from his game play impressions…..
Continue Reading »

Tags: beta, bioware, Daniel Erickson, Datacrons, gameplay, Georg Zoeller, speculation, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor

SWTOR’s current class system is nothing new, Ultima online had this. Even though it did not have a class system in the traditional form we all know now.

Yet, it did give you the ability to take on a number of roles, Mage, Warrior etc.

Continue Reading »

Tags: classes, speculation, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor

It has been a week since fans of the Old Republic were able to play the game at the London event. As with any hands-on event, we were flooded with impressions and information from people that got to play the game. The cool thing is that most of these impressions come from your regular gamers and not the gaming press or fansites since very few got to be there (or are under an embargo). What I found encouraging that most impressions were very positive, even from people that used to be skeptics before. Here’s a compilation of the most important things we’ve learned from the event and surprisingly most of these are rather big and brand new revelations. Sources for most of these are the transcript of the Q&A after the event by DogHouseGamer and player impressions found in this thread on the official forum. I would also suggest visiting Moon Over Endor and reading their great hands-on impressions, or listening to Aartan Away podcast as they were also at the event.

• At this time companion characters are allowed in flashpoints and they occupy a live player’s spot (so if you have two players with one companion each in a group none else will be able to join unless a companion is “de-summoned”). It was said at the event that:
  

  CCs are powerful but they are not the same as having smart humans nor are they equal in power. So on a less difficult Flashpoint with amazing players or players that had a couple extra levels it’s likely possible to two man or three man them but I will say that when Alex and I (*Daniel Erickson) tried to two-man the Heroics on Dromund Kaas with our CCs we got stomped flat.

• There is a Social points mechanic. You get social points when you win multiplayer dialogue stuff. They’re things that say “hey, I’m a social guy. I talk to other players.” Social points will be used to purchase “thing you can use to socialize with”.
• In hard to reach or seldom visited places on planets there are Datacrons that can be collected and that will permanently increase one of your base stats. There are very few of these on each planet and are designed as an exploration reward. Kandycane is the first person ever seen to get one at an event.
• Daniel Erickson confirmed that players will earn titles as they progress through The Old Republic. Often cited examples were titles for Sith players including Darth and Lord.
• There are light side and dark side icons on the dialogue wheel if you are using the mouse. If you are using number keys to pick dialogue options, you’ll never see them. So if you hate the idea of choosing wrong, you’re going to be a mouse user for dialogue. If you hate the idea of hand holding you’ll be a number key player. Best of both worlds.
• The number of slots in a player’s inventory will be upgradeable, though it may take some saving in order to afford increasing your total slots. Reports tell that the first inventory upgrade costs 15,000 credits. For context, the average low-level mob drops about 20 credits.
• Codex entries will automatically fill in as players enter new areas, these will be essential for both the completionist and the lore-lover.
• Swimming is not implemented in the game and is not planned for launch! The explanation behind this is that there is no content associated to water surfaces and the feature needs a lot of man hours to be made properly, so they chose to put more important stuff in the game for launch instead. (Read the full explanation by Georg Zoeller here)
• Class quest answers are not arranged by Dark Side/Light Side but by class appropriateness. So the most “Boba Fett” response (curt, professional, all business) goes on the top of the Bounty Hunter. The most “Vader” on top of the Sith Warrior etc. So if you’re playing purely to your class fantasy you can just keep moving along easily. So in similar situations a Sith Warrior might have a “[Kill Him]” option as a first response but an Inquisitor might have it second and the first response might be trying to look deeper at the situation and discover what’s really going on.

Tags: codex, companions, Datacrons, hands on, Social points, swimming, SWTORGB, titles