Once Again BioWare Clears the ORIGIN Air....

To those that for some odd reason hate competition in an industry that always needs it and only want to use one product to download games Mr. Reid has a little to say in a thread called "EA has crossed the line".

Regardless of what other games may choose to do in their integration with Origin's desktop client, here's what our situation is:

You are not required to use the Origin desktop client to download, patch or play the game client for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

This applies whether you purchase The Old Republic via Origin.com or from a retailer in boxed form. You will not be forced to install the Origin desktop client.

There are still various consumer benefits to the client itself, but it's not required for The Old Republic.


This info of course has been released a few times.  Hopefully its the last time we have to talk about this service.  It's only used as a device to download the game.  Or for those that want to play BF3 and the next COD. 

Hopefully we can move forward and Mr. Reid can comment on the Sept Beta, or plans for release, or why the smuggler is going to face own the Bounty Hunter.  Things of IMPORTANCE PEOPLE!!!

EU Beta Q&A

To our friends in Europe Mr. Reid had something to say... rather he had a lot to say! 

So without much waiting..... Mr Reid, if you would please:

ou guys and gals have been busy. As have we; Gamescom was a very big and very busy show. Now I'm back Stateside (and nine hours removed from Germany) I can answer a few questions.

You may not get all the answers to your questions here, but we will hopefully be able to answer all of them in time. Thanks to Shingara for gathering together a bunch so I can answer concisely.

I will say that the one big question you probably all have ("When do Beta Testing Weekends actually start?") won't be answered for a little while, but we're working on that.

Stephen has of course elaborates in his wall of yellow.  Not the wall of crazy we so often hear from BioWare, but a wall of yellow text!  Honestly head over to the EU Beta thread for a ton of great information.  We have a few friends on the other side of the pond and we can only hope this helps. 

Fan Friday is Fan Foozball!

Well we did not see this coming at all.  Huttball.  It's a faction mixed warzone on the planet of Nar Shaddaa.  But before we dive into Huttball - Dallas Dickinson is finally looking ok!  Healthy and happy.  No more bags under his eyes or the look of a man with the weight of the LucasArts and EA sitting on his shoulders.  So Kudos to Mr. Dickinson!

A new event has captured the hearts and minds of the citizens on the Smuggler’s Moon of Nar Shaddaa. Known as “Huttball,” two teams clash for the amusement of the masses and to win favor with the famed Giradda the Hutt in this new video that highlights just one of the Player-vs-Player (PvP) Warzones in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!

This offers a lot of promise as a fresh approach to MMO battlegrounds.  We also hope that we will see other ideas very different than the standard fair found in todays MMO battlegrounds. Kudos to Daniel Erickson and his brain child:

Hey Folks,
Totally fair question. I wrote Huttball personally and gave it my big stamp of approval. Huttball came from a request by the pvp team to have a mode that could mix sides in the event of unbalanced factions. So it's not Empire vs Republic playing insane death sports, it's anyone who wants to win some prizes and flex their muscles going to Nar Shaddaa, gambling center of the galaxy, and blowing off some steam. Story is important but so are alternate, setting-appropriate activities that give some depth and variety to the world and the gameplay experience. There is a crazy Hutt that likes running huge arena events for his amusement. Your choice if that's the way your Bounty Hunter enjoys spending his downtime.

Hope that helps,Daniel Erickson

Kiting SUCKS! - The Life of A Smuggler

We wanted to cover some quick interesting points about the Smuggler in a little bit longer then normal post.  First off.... Don't KITE!

• Try kiting a Sith Warrior, who can force charge up to 30 meters and can throw their Lightsaber.
• Try kiting a Sith Inquisitor, who has powerful control effects and the ability to enter Force Speed for a few seconds, with greatly increased movement rate.
• Try kiting a Bounty Hunter, who may have the ability to use their jetpack to catch up to you or use a grappling hook as well as good range with their blaster rifle.
• Try kiting Imperial Agents why may have a sniper rifle with long range equal or better than your own.

It just does not seem to be the best option.  In fact it does not sound like an option for any of the classes:

There's certainly the option to make use of environment/line of sight and advanced players will find that for example Warriors can be made miserable by a Smuggler dodging around in their dead zone (out of melee range, not yet in Force Charge range), hitting hard with the scatter gun (15m range) - but kiting overall in our game isn't simple due to the wide range of utility all classes have.

I have to admit - this sounds amazing.  I have never liked the concept in WoW being stuck unable to have full movement while looking at another class that is picking me off. 

So why would you want to play a Smuggler?  Come on you get that classic Wookie Side-Kick!  Or we let Georg Zoeller handle this one for us:

• A Smuggler can be a Medic, healing and supporting his allies.
• A Smuggler can be a marksman, entrenched in cover and decimating the enemy with devastating single target attacks.
• A Smuggler can be an explosives specialist, leaving craters and blown up Imperial squads in his wake.
• A Smuggler can be a stealthy mid range scrapper, approaching enemies unseen and hitting them hard with his scatter gun.
• A Smugger can be a daring risk taker, running and gunning into close range and finishing enemies with a few good kicks into places where it hurts.
• A Smuggler can be a Smuggler, delivering his group behind enemy lines unseen.

Well that's a damn good summary for us. 

Faction Talk AKA Faction Trash Talk



Cross Faction Pointing is out...Trash Talkin IN!

Ever wanted to have that nice friendly chat with the Sith you where about to kill?  Or maybe as a Bounty Hunter you wanted to get to know that Smuggler that was about to go down.  Well the guys at BioWare feel you should have such an opportunity.  And why not.... we all speak english 'Basic'.

Nothing has changed since San Diego Comic Con.

As discussed at SDCC, the decision was made to separate the general chat channels by faction. However, this decision ONLY affects the planet-wide chat channels such as "General Chat." If you're standing next to another player (local chat), you can talk to them regardless of what faction you're part of.

The only thing we removed, as already mentioned at Comic-Con, was the ability to communicate with the opposing faction across the entirety of a planet to avoid the issues (like griefing, abuse, and other factors which led to a very unpleasant experience) which we saw way too often in testing.

We discussed the option of hiding the global chat and defaulting it off, but ultimately the ratio of negative incidents was too high to justify that. The reasoning here is simple: We really didn’t want to create a game option that essentially says "[x] Give me an 80% chance of having an infuriating and annoying chat experience," and putting the onus on the user ("you can just /ignore them") is not our idea of a quality game experience.

Removing planet-wide cross-faction chat radically reduces the amount of reach a misbehaving player has before account action can be taken. We’ll likely add the ability to filter local cross faction chat as well.

Hopefully that clears it up a bit.

Thanks Z-man aka Georg Zoeller aka The Newly Installed King of Trash Talking!  As always you can find more on this topic in the forums.

Dromund Kas Wednesday

Our dislike for facebook.com continues.  But once again like all prior Wednesday's BioWare gives us the goods.  And this time the goods are "Most Impressive" (that never gets old).

The Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas holds ancient and powerful secrets that Sith Lords have sought to unlock for centuries.

While the text is as always some what Star Wars cheese, its over powered by the sheer quality of this weeks image.  One of our favorites by far. 

So impressive is this image is the need to post other Dromund Kas pictures:

Stop The Press!! GUILD BETA!!!

You pretty much have to less Bass (davidbass) do all the talking with this one:
We are very pleased to announce the start of Guild Testing for STAR WARS: The Old Republic! This program will allow guilds to be considered as a whole for inclusion in the Game Testing Program, allowing us to gather important data regarding how guilds play The Old Republic, as well as how organized groups deal with various mechanics and systems in the game. The program is already underway, as we’ve invited the first wave of guilds into testing, however we’ll be adding more over the coming weeks alongside the general Game Testing invites.

Also you need to be some what helpful in the community.... A very interesting concept:

ll be looking to let in both large and small guilds, so as long as your guild meets the minimum requirement, you have an equal chance of being invited to testing. In addition, we may, at our discretion, choose a few select guilds that are active and helpful in the community, since we could use that sort of helpfulness in-game and on the Testing Forums. Note that this will be done in rare circumstances, in order to reward our dedicated community members. Please do not contact any BioWare staff requesting access to Guild Testing, or else your guild may be removed from consideration.

For all the info head over to David Bass' post on the subject. 

In addition if you spend a lot of time at Shacknews.com.  Their guild can be found:

PvP Guild - Giant Sith Meatbags
PvE Guild - Bad Motivator Units