Who’s the cutest little snow horse/camel creature? You are, that’s who!
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.
Release of the “1.2 – Legacy” patch is imminent. We have less than 12 hours remaining before it hits the live servers (you can read the full announcement here). This patch is one of the biggest patches in the history of MMOs and it will bring a whole lot of changes and improvements to Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is very hard to cover all the changes included in the patch, but we have tried to compile a small list of the most interesting changes you will see once you install the new patch. This has all been put into a form of a guide on our sister site SWTOR Spy and by browsing through various tabs you can see all the changes we discovered while playing the test version of the patch. Our resident Lore junkie, Mr Joshrooms, also posted an article about how the Legacy patch and Star Wars Lore are intertwined. Among our patch 1.2 coverage we have also managed to find out which gifts will your Ship Droids like once the patch is active. Yes, ship droids will now receive gifts and you can increase your affection with them! Check out all the aforementioned features on the links bellow:
Greetings once again everyone! You may have noticed that TOR Lore has not been appearing on the site for the past few weeks. This is because I need to retreat deep into my lore cave and recharge my geek power cells in order to keep bringing you all of the sweet lore tidbits that you love. But now I am back, recharged and ready to go!
To celebrate my somewhat Ali-like return to the realm of lore I am going to be talking about some of the changes we will be seeing in 1.2, specifically how these changes are going to affect us from the lore immersion of our game. It’s no secret that there are players out there who are not happy with some of these changes and their reaching implications. I am referring to the Legacy unlocks, specifically the various species unlocks and Heroic Abilities. How are these going to affect our immersion, and are these changes going to be positive or negative? Continue Reading »
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)
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.
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 »
“BioWare doesn’t let me out of my cage often, so when they do I make sure to announce something big even if they don’t want me to.”
While SWTOR is at PAX East this weekend showing off some 1.2 features, it really has not been a big event for new SWTOR information. Well, until James Ohlen was taking questions during the MMORPG.com panel discussion yesterday afternoon. The entire pannel was asked by an audience member “Why are we excited about your game?” Here’s James’ response:
“You’re going to see so many changes and additions to the Star Wars Universe. It’s going to be impressive. We have our Update 1.2 coming in the next week and then after that it’s going to continue to roll out month after month. It’s exciting.”
Does this mean that we will for sure be seeing 1.2 coming in this next week? Hopefully, though it could just mean we will be able to download the patch next week with the official update going live some time after that. Either way SWTOR players have reason to rejoice, 1.2 is coming our way very soon!
BioWare posted a new video today showing off it’s brand new Warzone, Novare Coast.
For those that do not already know, Novare Coast will be a three-point domination style map, with a tug of war mechanic that comes in play when trying to capture objectives. It will also allow for same faction vs faction combat, giving people a much needed break from Huttball. BioWare will be showing off this warzone as the attend PAX East this weekend, a perfect opportunity for any who are lucky enough to be in attendance to give it a try.
There was also a little addition to Bioware’s post when they first uploaded, it announced that 1.2 would be released on April 10th. The was quickly edited out of the post, and BioWare has since denied that April 10th will for sure be the release date for 1.2. Still, this little slip up should give player hope that the new content will be released soon.
What do you think about the new Warzone? What do you think about the idea of getting our hands on a live version of 1.2 soon? Let us know in the comments below!
