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1 CommentStar Wars: The Old Republic Gree in-game event returning May 21
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 19, 2013 05.19.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic players will be able to participant in an in-game event featuring an ancient Gree starship, the Gray Secant, beginning on May 21, according to an announcement on the game's website. The Gree are a tentacled species in the Star Wars universe noted for being one of the oldest civilizations in the galaxy. During the event, players will be able to snag special rewards, including blue, white and red Scalene Armor, a Blue Sphere Transport Enclosure Vehicle and the L1-1 Defender pet. To pick up the blue and red armor sets, players will need a "Friend" ranking with the Gree and a "Champion" ranking for the white. Those with a "Legend" ranking can grab the special vehicle, while the L1-1 Defender drops from a rare Ancient Gree Defender Spawn. For a shot at this pet,...
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1 CommentStar Wars: The Old Republic patches dated, 2.1 due next week
By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 07, 2013 05.07.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic will receive two updates that will feature "customization and convenience features" May 14 and June 11, community manager Eric Musco announced on the game's forums. The announcement comes as a way to address concerns of how much players will receive in the update, Musco writes. Game Update 2.2 will not feature new Cartel Market features, but both updates will fix bugs and add general improvements. "I think the core of some of your frustrations is that you feel like Game Update 2.1 is 'eating up a slot' for our regular content cadence, and because of that, you won't actually be receiving any new content in this 'cycle,'" Musco wrote. "If you are keeping track and we hit those dates, Game Update 2.2 will be releasing eight weeks and two days from the time...
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15 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic monthly average revenue 'more than doubled' since going free-to-play
By Dave Tach on May 07, 2013 05.07.13
Monthly average revenue for Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare's massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has more than doubled and subscriptions have increased since adopting the free-to-play model last year, Electronic Arts president of labels Frank Gibeau revealed in an earning's call today. EA announced that the MMO would adopt a free-to-play model last July, and the transition took place in November 2012. Since then, Gibeau said the game has grown significantly. "Since it was induced in November, we've added more than 1.7 million new players on the free model to the service," Gibeau said. "And the number of subscriptions has stabilized at just under half a million. "The really interesting thing that's happening inside the service right now is monthly average revenue for...
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4 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic dev blogs detail Jedi Consular, Sith Inquisitor class changes
By Megan Farokhmanesh on Apr 21, 2013 04.21.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic game update 2.0 includes several mirrored class changes for the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor, senior designer Austin Peckenpaugh wrote in two recent dev blogs. The lengthy update improves Alacrity, DoT and shield abilities for both classes, allowing players to attack faster, suffer fewer cost for DoT attacks and absorb damage better. Individual class abilities, such as the Inquisitor's Dark Heal and the Consular's Force Armor, are now more efficient. The update affects all skill trees as well and improves abilities throughout. A new ability, Force Barrier, has also been added for the Sorcerer and Seer trees. Force Barrier allows players to nullify hostile effects and damage for up to 10 seconds. Check out the updates for Jedi Consular or Sith...
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11 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic 2.0 update will introduce new bolster system, PvP brackets
By Megan Farokhmanesh on Apr 07, 2013 04.07.13
The upcoming 2.0 update in Star Wars: The Old Republic will implement a new bolster system and PvP brackets, assistant designer Alex Modny wrote in a recent blog post. The Bolster system will no longer be based on character level alone, Modny wrote, and "is not as linear" as its previous form. The current bolster system helps bring characters to a set level of stats for entry-level PvP. The cutoff is level 50, which results in "a huge drop of effectiveness" after a character moves from 49 to 50, Modny wrote. With the new system, stats will no longer be dependent on that level. "Rather we look at each one of the item ratings (including the mods, augments, armorings, etc. that go into the armor/weapon) of the current equipped gear and base the amount of stats given based on these...
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14 CommentsBioWare details the bumpy first year of Star Wars: The Old Republic
By Tracey Lien on Mar 30, 2013 03.30.13
BioWare's massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, had a rough launch year because the studio underestimated how much content the game would need and how resource-intensive it would be, according to senior creative director James Ohlen. Ohlen gave a talk at the Game Developers Conference this week titled "Designing a live MMORPG: The First Year of Star Wars: The Old Republic" where he outlined the growth and bumpy road of BioWare's first MMORPG. He said the studio experienced challenges both before and after the game's launch, and these challenges contributed to a rocky 2012 for the studio. Ohlen said prior to launch, the team at BioWare faced challenges like entering a crowded field (MMOs) without an existing MMO engine. Where competitors had had...
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9 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic Asia Pacific servers to close
By Emily Gera on Mar 26, 2013 03.26.13
BioWare announced its plans to shut down Asia Pacific servers for its MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, then transfer local users onto North America servers. After consulting with the game's users via the forums, BioWare finally made the decision to merge these APAC servers with high population North American servers. BioWare Austin community manager Eric Musco took to the forums in a post explaining the decision and what will be necessary before this merge can happen. "Getting to the point of being able to merge the servers is going to be a multistep process," he writes. "First off we need to update our Free Character Transfer System to include the game changes that we have made recently along with the upcoming changes in Game Update 2.0 and the Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt...
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19 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic's first expansion is BioWare's hope to win back lapsed players
By Griffin McElroy on Mar 25, 2013 03.25.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic's first expansion, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, will attempt to retain the game's growing audience and bring lapsed players back into the fold when it launches April 14. The expansion to the recently converted free-to-play MMORPG covers many of the bases you'd expect from an online add-on; the level cap has been expanded from 50 to 55, a handful of new features and class abilities have been added to the title, and an entirely new planet — Makeb, which has its own fully voice-acted set of quest lines — is ready to explore. The Empire's motives on Makeb, which we had a chance to check out at BioWare Austin's studio last week, is straightforward: The criminal Hutts have amassed resources that the Empire needs to recover from the Republic's crippling victories...
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9 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic gained two million accounts since going free-to-play, receiving new customization options
By Dave Tach on Mar 21, 2013 03.21.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare's massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has seen two million new accounts created since going free-to-play and will receive a new character customization feature this summer, according to an update posted on the game's official site by executive producer Jeff Hickman. Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in Dec. 2011 with a subscription-based model. Last Nov. 15, it adopted a free-to-play model, after the game began losing subscribers. "Since launch of the free-to-play option we have had over two million new accounts created and have thousands of new players jumping in every single day," Hickman wrote. "This means more people to play with, more growth for your guilds, more Warzone matches and more ways for players to continue to advance...
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5 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic's first double XP weekend begins tomorrow
By Dave Tach on Mar 14, 2013 03.14.13
Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare's massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe, will feature four double XP weekends with the first beginning tomorrow, March 15, according to a recent post on the game's official website. Double XP weekends will be held at the following times: March 15, 2013 beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET to March 18, 2013 at 3:00 a.m. ET March 22, 2013 beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET to March 25, 2013 at 3:00 a.m. ET March 29, 2013 beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET to April 1, 2013 at 3:00 a.m. ET April 5, 2013 beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET to April 8, 2013 at 3:00 a.m. ET The XP-rich weekends coincide with the return of The Old Republic's in-game Relics of the Gree event, which pits players against enemies on the ice planet Ilum and runs from...
