About

The Oceanic Gamer (formerly TOROZ) is a site devoted to covering the Massive Multiplayer Online genre. Launched in May 2009, The Oceanic Gamer started out covering Star Wars: The Old Republic and evolved from there.

David Holloway – Founder and Editor (Australia)

David Holloway has been involved with gaming since the early 1970’s and with virtual worlds since heavy use of a MOO in 1993 – he even admits to having owned a Vic 20 and used it heavily to play cassette-based roleplaying games.

As far as Star Wars goes, he still owns his original set of Star Wars figures and can vouch for the fact that a 1978 Stormtrooper can be blown to bits by shooting it with a slug gun from a distance. He’s also played Star Wars games as far back as the Super Nintendo console and to this day is devastated by the accidental erasure of all his progress on Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

Aside from being a Level 50 jedi Consular in SWTOR, David refuses to confirm or deny that he’s also a Level 85 90 Mage in World of Warcraft. He’s also levelling up an Asura Mesmer in GW2 and loves playing his Blood Templar in TSW.

Contact David via our contact form, or drop a line via Twitter.

 

Simon Potter – Flash Point Co-Host and Writer (Australia)

Simon has been into Star Wars since 1978 when the original movie blew his mind. Some pieces remain missing. His first Star Wars game experience was the original vector arcade game and he still owns almost every Star Wars game ever made for PC and XBox. At night he dreams that LucasArts will release an updated version of Tie Fighter. He’s played a variety of MMOs including LotRO, WoW, DCUO and (briefly) SWG.

He’s owned Star Wars on every media, from 8mm film to DVD but refuses to buy the blu rays until George stops tinkering. He also owns the double LP of the soundtrack, but doesn’t own a turntable. That’s how committed he is.

His Star Wars figures were lost during the fireworks powered SFX of a diorama, ‘Destruction of the Death Star’ which also set fire to the school gym’s scoreboard, however he is the proud owner of a full size Darth Vader which unfailing frightens unsuspecting visitors.

Simon will be a Powertech Bounty Hunter and he hopes to be able to put shock collars on all his companions in a future expansion.

Contact Simon via our contact form or via his Twitter account

 

Edward Wilson – Flash Point Podcast Co-Host and Writer (Canada)

An avid Star Wars fan, Edward Wilson owns every single Star Wars game that has ever been put out for PC starting with the original X-Wing. He has played every single arcade, platform or PC Star Wars game in existence. He has been a Star Wars fan since he saw it from the back seat of his father’s car at a drive-in theater in 1978. Admittedly, since he was six at the time, he spent every scene with Darth Vader in it, hiding behind the seat in front of him. He has since then grown up, but still feels an irrational pang of fear when he hears heavy breathing. When Star Wars came out on VHS, he was one of the first in line in his city to get the movies. And when the DVD came out, likewise.

As far as MMORPGs go, he is remarkably tightlipped about his experience. Something was dropped about having level 50 heroes and villains battling somewhere called Paragon City and something about the joys of sniping at level 50 when one had a blank slate. Or was that a Tabula Rasa?

Currently, Edward is writing fanfictions for SWTOR under the pseudonym Kalenath. Names have been changed to protect the guilty and incriminate the innocent. And he cannot wait until he can roll a trooper and allow some Sith to join the Force. By blasting them.

Contact Edward via our contact form.

 

Jemima Moore – Writer (Australia)

Jemima fell in love with Star Wars at the movie’s cinema premiere in 1978. Later that evening she fell out of love, when her mother refused to do her hair Princess Leia-style. Thus began a life-long passion for Sci-Fi, fantasy … and tantrums over her hair.

At 12, her Aunt introduced her to a weird device with rubber suction cups called a ‘modem’ and dialled her into Zork – an early MUD . Since then Jem has played A LOT of computer games from Pong & Galaga to Leisure Suit Larry & Baldur’s Gate to EQII, WoW, Warhammer, Rift  & SWTOR.

Her rise in MMOs has been meteoric. From humble beginnings fetching lost pocket watches for farmers in Westfall to leading a crack team of hellbent Imperials to victory through the ravaged minefields of Denova, Jem’s ability to eat dirt and reincarnate are fast becoming the stuff of legends.

In SWTOR, she plays a both a Mercenary and a Powertech making her ideal to write and moderate our Bounty Hunter/Trooper column “The Third Edge”. She is also GM of Aftermath, an established Oceanic progression raiding guild, and shares her insights, advice and a little bit of satire with us in /gchat.

Jemima can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account

 

Kristy Green – Writer and Flash Point Podcast Co-Host (Australia)

Kristy has been gaming ever since she was little. Her earliest memory is playing a platform adventure game on an old IBM computer that could only display the colour green.

From there her gaming prowess grew to include any sort of game she could get her hands on. Her pocket money never lasted long in the local computer store and the plastic wrapping around her new game never lasted the trip home.

Her gamer title was earned the day she built her first computer as a teenager. A feat she accomplished because she just had to be able to play the latest games. A philosophy she still lives by.

She has seen both sides of gaming code, having experienced worked in game development. When asked if she prefers being a developer or a gamer, she can’t decide. A gamer can never fully understand why a game is this way but a developer can never enjoy the fun and mystery of just playing the game.

Right now she can be found slaying dragons and exploring as many different worlds as she can.

Kristy can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account

Luke LePage – Writer (Australia)

Luke is currently studying a Bachelor of Teaching/ Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English and Ancient History.

He first began gaming on the original NES system as a kid and his love of games has continued to grow from there. Xwing Alliance was his first online game and he joined a clan that he still games with today, almost 15 years later. Luke’s first MMO was SWG which he played up until it was shutdown. As far as WoW is concerned Luke has been playing since launch. He has been an active raider in all content, including numerous server firsts in AQ40 and Naxxramas, with the exception of the Firelands.

Luke also plays Guild Wars 2 and SWTOR.

Outside of gaming Luke plays lot of sports including AFL, Basketball, American Football, Cricket and Soccer. He has a bucket list of sports to play before he passes on and the vast majority of them are ticked off.

You can find him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Roebiggs

 

Matthew “Scope” Pearce – Writer (Australia)

Scope has been playing games for over 20 years back in the days of the Atari 2600 and fondly remembers the first day his Nan took him to see Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Special Edition at the cinemas. He has played all the Star Wars PC games from the original X-wing all the way to the current SWTOR and is still waiting for Battlefront 3, Bounty Hunter 2 and Republic Commandos 2 if they ever ever get around to doing them

In SWTOR, Scope has a 50 Sniper, 50 Operative, 50 Gunslinger, 50 Power tech, 50 Commando, 50 Sith Warrior, 50 Sith Sorcerer and a 50 Sith Assassin, but spends most of his time playing the GTN until ANY story content can be added to the game that is apparently a story-driven MMO (but not even once in 9 months has any story content been added bar 2 events).

In World of Tanks Scope has over 35 tanks with 5 of them at tier 10 including the Maus, E-100, JagdPz E-100, Bat Chatillon 25t, and the new Object 263. He currently plays World of Tanks with small sessions of SWTOR and Guild Wars 2 in between.

Matthew can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account

 

Sean Robinson – Comics Writer (New Zealand)

Sean is a student from Wellington, New Zealand, studying a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media and attempting to break into entertainment press.

When he’s not staring blankly at his computer screen, trying to formulate an essay, he procrastinates using all forms of digital media; games, television, film and comic books.

Sean grew up enamoured with Star Wars and all things science fiction thanks to his father, and to this day is still an avid fan of Star Wars in all entertainment forms. Even the prequels.

His current favourite comics that are still continuing are Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, Scott Snyder’s run on Batman, and Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga.  His favourite finished runs of comics include Cable and Deadpool by Fabian Nicieza, Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison by W. Haden Blackman, as well as Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.

Matthew can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account

 

Darren Taylor – Writer (Australia)

Darren has been a gamer since the good old days of the Atari 2600 console. Growing up playing games and various platforms such as the Commodore 64 and Amiga 500, he eventually moved into PC gaming. His first MMO was Everquest in 2002 and he has played many titles from World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online and Rift to name a few.

For several years he was a semi-hardcore raider in World of Warcraft . Since then,he raided end game in Age of Conan, Rift and most recently SWTOR. Darren also really enjoys the more relaxing sandbox MMOs and has spent countless hours in EVE Online, Fallen Earth and Wurm Online.

Lately he has taken a more casual approach to MMOs and enjoys being able to spend time in a few at the same time. Currently Darren has a lifetime subscription to TSW, a subscription to WoW , Rift and Wurm Online.  Darren lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

 

Toby the News Droid (Australia)

Toby is a mysterious young man from Queensland who works a night-shift job, thus making him our day-shift news hound. He’ll be bringing you any breaking news. He is willing to disclose he’s “over 30” and has played pretty much every Star Wars game released.

Toby can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account.

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Our Writing Alumni :

Mark Duncan – Writer (Australia)

Mark has been a gamer for almost 30 years, owning a Sinclair ZX81 with a whopping 1k of memory to the Commodore 64 with more games than he knew what to do with. (Last Ninja FTW)

As far as Star Wars goes he was hooked from A New Hope and collected every figure and most of the other toys that were released around the time of the original 3 movies. He has spent many a dollar on the Star Wars arcade machines and has played through just about all the Star Wars computer games that have been released through the years. With regards to MMO’s he spent many hours on SWG (Unlocked his Jedi pre-CU), WoW and has lately been seen on World of Tanks while waiting for SWTOR.

He owns just about all the Star Wars novels and is currently reading through the Old Republic novels gearing up for SWTOR’s release but is still un-able to quench his thirst for all things Star Wars. He will be rolling a Sith Warrior Juggernaut.
He currently spends his time recruiting for his Sith based guild, working on the guilds website and looking for inspiration for his next tattoo which will be a Star Wars tatt.

Contact Mark via our contact form

Tim Buchalka – Writer (Australia)

Tim Buchalka has been a gamer for more years than he cares to remember.

He fondly remembers spending hours playing multi-user tank at his first job using a state of the art (at the time) mainframe – with considerably less power than one of today’s iPhones.

His first computer was the mighty Microbee upgraded to a staggering 16Kb (Not Mb) of ram.  Over time he purchased various computers including an Amstrad CPC 464, Atari ST,  PC’s and now Apple hardware where he plays SWTOR by dual booting into Windows 7.

He has built up an impressive range of games over the years and now wishes he has taken a lot more care of the packaging and disks they all came in.

In 2008 he gave up his career as a software developer and went into Internet Marketing full time with his brother Anthony. He figured the time saved not having to commute to and from work each day could be spent playing games instead!  So far so good apparently.

He rated himself as a relatively hard-core World of Warcraft player until he gave it away for SWTOR, apparently even multiboxing (playing 5 characters simultaneously via 5 separate accounts).   Some would say that was a little excessive and greedy, Tim prefers to think of it as “challenging”.

Currently he is having an absolute blast with his Jedi Consular (Sage), a Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer) and Imperial Agent (Operative) characters, although he refuses point blank to call them toons.   Having created and edited literally 100’s of videos with his online gig he is now aiming to apply those skills to SWTOR related video, showing his skills (or lack thereof) in game.

Fun for Tim comes in the form of exploring all aspects of the game rather than rushing to level up to as quickly as possible.  Sounds like an excuse to us  🙂

You can contact Tim via our contact form or via his youtube account.

Timothy Gow – Writer (Australia)

Tim is a university student in his final semester.  A casual gamer, Star Wars fan and when not enjoying spare time, involved in politics in various ways.  He is an all-rounder, enjoying PvP, solo play, Tanking, Healing and DPSing.   He can be found contributing and lurking on the SWTOR forums.

Ken Clark (Australia)

Ken has been a Star Trek fan long before he became a Star Wars fan. Having been turned off Star Wars by the Phantom Menace at the age of 9 he found Star Trek which led to Stargate which by the age of 15 led back to Star Wars. He willingly admits that he never thought Playstation would catch on and that nothing could beat a 1024×768 CRT (and technically nothing can. I’ve dropped it down stars and it still works – yes, I keep it as a backup).

Ken enjoys long walks on the beach.

Ken doesn’t have very good money skills which ends up leading to him owning excessive amounts of DVDs and Games. However his favourite 4 are Skyrim, Minecraft, SWTOR and Mass Effect. He has also tried many different MMO’s including World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, AION and Guild Wars 1. WOW was played for 2 years (and I regret half of it) where as the rest where played for under a week.

Ken drinks Bundaberg Rum.

Ken plays a republic Jedi Consular however, he also plays everything else. You can posibly find my main doing suspicious stuff by the name of THEFUZ.

Ken can be contacted on our contact form or via our Twitter account.

Alec Bailey – Writer (USA)

Alec has been a gamer for more than 16 years starting with a NES and a Gameboy. Being a huge RPG fan, which most likely comes from his first real addiction: Pokemon, Red version. Alec has played every game Bioware, Obsidian, and Bethesda have made and beat Mass Effect, Mass effect 2, and Dragon Age at least 10 times. He also enjoys gunning down helpless noobs at FPS games such as Black Ops and Killzone.

Alec has been a Star Wars fan since the first time he saw A New Hope at the age of 8. He has played almost every single Star Wars game and read a modest amount of the EU (mostly comics). He is also proud to be a geek and loves everything that comes with being one, such as the endless amount of useless knowledge he has obtained.

Alec has also played nearly every MMO from EQ to FFXIV but, is proud to say that out of all the MMOs he’s been addicted to, World of Warcraft was not one of them. Alec’s play style is usually main or off tanking. He loves helping out new players with quests and helping them get a grip on the game. He will be rolling a Trooper Vanguard as well as a Jedi Guardian.

Alec is a self proclaimed Playstation fanboy. Any like-minded individuals are invited to send their Playstation friend invite to Emo_Slayer. Alec is enrolling in college in February. He is majoring in Game Design.

Contact Alec via our contact form

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The Oceanic Gamer is a publication of Creative Shed Services, Wollongong NSW Australia. ABN: 64 969 281 861