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Why financial analysts need to be Force Choked

January 20, 2012 by

I stumbled across this little gem tonight, and it got me fuming:

Shares of Electronic Arts Inc. fell nearly 3% to $17.75 on Thursday morning after an analyst with Brean Murray Carret & Co. cut his price target on the stock to $22 from $28, citing concerns about the recently released online multi-player game “Star Wars: The Old Republic.” In a note to clients, analyst Todd Mitchell wrote that “creeping concerns” about the performance of “Star Wars” — which was released in late December — is causing him to trim his earnings estimates for the 2013 fiscal year. “Specifically, initial sales appear to be below expectations, and casual observation of early play is causing us to rethink our churn assumptions,” Mitchell wrote.

Ok, so one guy who has ‘casually observed’ some early play, combined with some guesswork on sales numbers that only EA / Bioware would know at this point, makes EA shares drop nearly 3%.

Whether you love or hate the game, can you see the insanity in a system that drives perceptions that way? If SWTOR sucks as a game, well that’ll become apparent when people leave it in droves. That’s a better measure than one guy putting making prognostications without nearly no data. It’s the equivalent of this site being the arbiter of whether SWTOR is good for oceanic players or not. We may have an opinion but we don’t package up the little turd nuggets we publish each day and claim them to be expertise from up on high.

My rant’s over but I’d love to hear yours. Do you think one person should be having such an impact?

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: ,

Suggestion Box: Music or Not?

January 20, 2012 by

This week I thought we’d move the suggestion box away from the battlefield and get cultured. Specifically, let’s talk music. I still haven’t gotten sick of SWTOR’s soundtrack at all, which is probably helped by the fact it’s quite sparse depending on what you’re doing.

So jump in and let us know: are you playing SWTOR with the music on, and if not, what do you do instead?

Filed Under: News, Opinion, Suggestion Box Tagged With:

Upcoming SWTOR content revealed

January 20, 2012 by

Bioware have released a little taster of upcoming content in SWTOR. It’s a presentation by James Ohlen, which you can watch below, but the highlights disclosed are:

– Rise of the Rakghouls content is in two parts and has been worked on for around a year
– PvP is a big focus, with a ranking system and new Warzone
– A ‘Family Tree’ function allowing new characters you create to be linked with your other characters, with associated benefits as far as abilities and powers
– Guilds get some love with guild banks
– And yes – interface customisation is coming!

There’s no timeline specific for all this except that it’ll be occurring over “coming months”, but it at least provides a roadmap for some key features.

Anyway, have a look:
[Read more…]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,

Bioware announce Founder title for early SWTOR players

January 19, 2012 by

If you’re already playing SWTOR you’ve probably received the email from Bioware, informing you that you can receive the Founder title for all your characters in-game. I’ve always been a sucker for a title or other virtual good, particularly when I’ve met the requirements without having to do anything extra!

All the steps are outlined below but essentially you just need to be a subscriber past your initial included game time, before the 19th March 2012:

As a ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped make Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ one of the most successful MMO launches in history, we are rewarding early members of The Old Republic with a unique Founder’s Medal and “Founder” Title!

To receive the Founder’s Medal…

* Purchase Star Wars: The Old Republic and redeem your official Game Product Registration Code at the Code Redemption Center.

* Complete one of the following transactions by March 19th, 2012 (12:01AM EST; Pacific: March 18th, 9:01PM PST; European: 4:01AM GMT, 5:01AM CET):

* Billed at least once for an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription

* Redeemed a Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Time Code

* Once you become eligible for the title and have surpassed your 30 days of game time included with your official Game Product Registration Code, you will be notified by email.

* Check your in-game mail for a message from “Star Wars: The Old Republic”. Your Founder’s Medal will be attached to this message.

* Place your Founder’s Medal in your Inventory and right-click the medal to unlock your “Founder” title. (TIP: You can choose to show the Founder’s title or any other title you’ve earned in-game by opening your character sheet and selecting a title from the character name drop down. Once applied, the title will show next to your character name on your nameplate.)

* This title is permanently bound to your account and will carry over to any character you make in the future.

(NOTE: It may take up to 7 days for the “Founder” title to be applied).

Over to you: does this mean anything to you at all, or is it just pap to curry favour?

Filed Under: Community, Merchandise, News Tagged With:

Patch on the patch: more server downtime tonight

January 19, 2012 by

UPDATE: There’s a two hour delay so add that into the calculations below!

Well it seems those damn Rakghouls have spent some time chewing their way out from the inside of game update 1.1, as it hasn’t been particularly smooth sailing since last night’s downtime. The most obvious issue has been the glitch with PvP on Ilum, where people have been able to camp the enemy medcenter, which prevents their opponents leaving to recapture control points. To resolve that issue and others, there’s now further downtime scheduled:

Please be advised that the servers will be unavailable beginning at 5AM CST (3AM PST/ 6AM EST/ 11AM GMT/ 12PM CET) as we deploy a new patch. This deployment will fix a few high priority issues in the game. We expect the service to be available again by 10AM CST (8AM PST/ 11AM EST/ 4PM GMT/ 5PM CET). Please watch this thread for updates and information as they become available. To view the status of your server, please visit the Server Status Page.

So locally this means no access to SWTOR starting tonight 19th January between 10pm and 3am AEDT, 7pm to Midnight AWST and Midnight to 5am NZDT.

Below is the full text from SWTOR’s, Principal Lead PvP, Flashpoints and Operations Designer, Gabe Amatangelo:

Hello everyone; I wanted to update you on the issues we’ve been seeing today on the live servers, specifically within the Open World PvP area on Ilum. We’re aware that on some servers, either Republic or Empire groups have been capturing the Ilum control points, entering the enemy’s base and ‘camping’ the medcenters, preventing the opposite faction from leaving their base to recapture control points. This is not a fair or balanced gameplay experience and can also severely affect client performance, so we’re taking steps to address this.

Our intended design for Ilum Open World PvP is that players are instantly killed when entering the enemy’s base safe area, just like in Warzones, and that the defending faction can take taxis to other points within the zone. In Game Update 1.1, this is not working as intended. We have found the issue preventing this from happening under server load and will be publishing an Emergency Patch to address the issue. We’re aiming to have this patch published early tomorrow morning (January 19th, 5 AM US CST).

In addition to these changes, we’ll be reducing the population cap on Ilum. This should help increase performance by requiring your client to render fewer characters on-screen at once.

Regarding Valor gains, with the 1.1 update, players now receive a base reward of 20 Valor per unique enemy player defeated in a short time, and this base reward is modified by the number of objectives that the player’s faction owns. The gains are rate limited per player killed, encouraging players to attack unique players, not to pursue vendettas. The Valor gains players can see over time will vary greatly depending on the activity level in the zone. This is expected.

To dispel a couple of rumors that have been seen today – there is no Valor gain from destroying turrets within enemy bases, and none from killing NPCs.

We encourage players to avoid Ilum until our patch is deployed. As a temporary measure we will be disabling taxi services which would normally take players into the Open World PvP area. However, players will still be able to taxi out of the area.

We will continue to monitor Ilum across all servers and will make further changes to gameplay if required. We welcome your feedback here on the Forums, but please ensure your feedback is constructive and specific. Feedback based on rumor does not help us isolate potential issues.

And finally – if you’ve been exploiting the glitch, punishment may be on its way according to Joveth Gonzalez, Associate Online Community Manager:

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to be clear and let you all know that we’re definitely aware of individuals who took extreme advantage of this situation and we will be carefully evaluating and taking action as necessary.

So it’s more downtime though it’s actually a more favourable time than we’re used to, so that’s a small consolation.

Over to you: noticed any good or bad stuff about the 1.1 update?

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News Tagged With: , ,

Rise of the Rakghouls server downtime is back on

January 18, 2012 by

It’s back on after the postponement on Tuesday – the 1.1 patch that sees Rise of the Rakghouls become reality:

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

So that means no access for Australians between 7pm Wednesday 18th January through to 3am Thursday 19th January.

For New Zealanders, you’re locked out between 9pm Wednesday 18th and 5am Thursday 19th.

In the meantime, be sure to have a listen to our latest podcast dissecting the patch, or have a read through the patch notes.

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News Tagged With:

Lazy Jedi: how to eat breakfast in style

January 17, 2012 by

With all that’s been going on, it’s been a while since a humour post, so here’s some brand new funny stuff to amuse you.

I’m wondering how many of us SWTOR players are already wishing we could do this…..

Oh – and if you didn’t the first time, make sure you listen to the radio broadcast in the background!

[via io9]

Filed Under: Humour Tagged With: ,

SWTOR post-mortem: it’s more innovative than an FPS

January 17, 2012 by

Labelling Star Wars: The Old Republic competent but not innovative is “unfair”, BioWare told Eurogamer – the MMO does more than today’s FPS and action games to push its respective genre forward.

“It’s been a little bit of an unfair characterisation,” SWTOR game director James Ohlen remarked to Eurogamer. “Because if you look at other game genres, if you look at a Battlefield or a Call of Duty or a Gears of War or even a Half-Life – those games use the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true game mechanics of the first-person shooter genre that’s been around for 20 years.

“If you look at real-time strategy games, they kept the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true mechanics that existed for 20 years. Same with adventure games, same with platformers, same with fighting games, sports games.

“I don’t know why the MMORPG genre is not considered to be a genre,” Ohlen shrugged. “It could be that World of Warcraft has dominated for so long that people just think of it as just a single game genre.

“But it is a genre, and we wanted to appeal to fans of that genre – we don’t want to turn them away by making something that’s radically different. And we wanted to take the lessons that have been developed in that genre over years and years and years and basically refine them, much like other companies do with other genres.
Via www.eurogamer.net

Filed Under: From the internets!

First oceanic clear of all SWTOR hard modes?

January 16, 2012 by

The hard-core folks at Oceanic guild Redemption have achieved a full clear of SWTOR hard modes. You can tell that after presumably quite a few attempts on Eternity Vault’s SOA in hard mode, there was some relief at getting the job done:

Here’s the kill shot itself:

It’s an impressive achievement, whether it’s an oceanic first or not. It’s also a short-lived achievement as in a little over 24 hours there’s four more bosses in Karagga’s Palace to down. And like any guild I’m sure that’s just the way they like it!

Any other guilds that have nailed this, feel free to post your claims in comments!

Filed Under: Guilds, News Tagged With:

UPDATED: Server downtime this postponed: bring on Rise of the Rakghouls

January 16, 2012 by

UPDATE: due to glitches with the 1.1 update, the downtime has been pushed out a ‘few days’. Thanks for the heads-up Ben!

The usual server downtime is on Tuesday evening, but it’s an extended one due to the 1.1 update being put live. Here’s the announcement and the time-zone conversions after that.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) to 10AM CST (8AM PST/11AM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours.

So that means no access for Australians between 7pm Tuesday 17th January through to 3am Wednesday 18th January.

For New Zealanders, you’re locked out between 9pm Tuesday 17th and 5am Wednesday 18th.

In the meantime, be sure to have a listen to our latest podcast dissecting the patch, or have a read through the patch notes.

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News, Patch Notes Tagged With:

Flash Point 24: Rise of the Schlongs

January 15, 2012 by

A historic episode personnel-wise, with our first four-way podcast as Simon Potter becomes one of the regular panel – welcome Simon! Rise of the Rakghouls is the focus but there’s lots more than that dissected.

Points of discussion:
– Patch 1.1 update and class changes
– Slicing changes
– End-game gear customisation
– EB Games stocking SWTOR locally in Australia
– Anti-aliasing improvements and pretty places in SWTOR
– Collector’s Edition digital content
– Different terms for the penis (yes, seriously) – and here’s the link to the Bloodhound Gang song mentioned (warning: contains gratuitous shots of bikini glad women)
– Movie recommendation and Stan Lee’s appearance Down Under
– Two upcoming special guests
– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Oceanic Guild listing, Google Plus page and Twitter account

Also after the show is Episode 2 of Star Wars Addicts Anonymous, Ed and his flatmate Collyn’s laid back look at everything SWTOR.

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:49 — 78.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: News, Podcast Tagged With:

Heavy Damage: Jedi Shadow overview

January 15, 2012 by

This week we’ve got the Jedi Shadow, Kinetic Combat specced Tank. The Jedi Shadow uses the Force as its pacing mechanic, starting with a constant 100. I find that the Shadow pacing mechanic is easier to maintain than the Jedi Guardian or the Trooper Vanguard.

From a glance, the Jedi Shadow with its light armor and stealth looks like it should be a Avoidance tank, but it’s actually a third mitigation tank, although its armor rating isn’t as high as the Vanguard or Guardian. It has some tools that help even up the playing field. One thing that I feel helps make up for its lower armor class is the ability to mitigate more elemental and internal damage such as bleeds and fire. The ability to do this may not seem like a lot but for a Tank, damage that bypasses your armor can be extra deadly and the Shadow is more resilient to these type of abilities.

The Jedi Shadow has a lot of builds and rotations that can be used for everything from AoE add tanking (probably the Shadow’s true weak point) to single target raid tanking, and even PvP Tanking.

The two main builds for the Shadow tank are the 31/0/10 single target Tank and the 25/0/16 AoE Tank.

My Shadow follows the 31/0/10 build and does very well at tanking single mobs and even up to two or three mobs.

A good rotation for your single target 31/0/10 build is going to be:

1) Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD.

2) Force Breach if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec

3) Slow Time if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec

4) Telekinetic Throw with 3 stacks of Harnessed Shadows

5) Project if Particle Acceleration is up

6) Double Strike

7) Saber Strike if you are out of energy, or need energy to refresh an upcoming debuff

and then for AoE with the 31/0/10 build:

1) Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD.

2) Slow Time

3) Force Breach

4) Whirling Blow

5) Saber Strike if you are out of energy

Single Target for the 25/0/16: 

1)Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD

2) Force Breach if debuff is not applied or debuff time < 1.5 sec

3) Project if Particle Acceleration is up

4) Mind Crush if DoT is not applied

5) Double Strike

6) Saber Strike if you are out of energy, or need energy to refresh an upcoming debuff

AoE with the 25/0/16:

1)Kinetic Ward with no current charges up – Kinetic Ward is off the GCD

2) Force in Balance

3) Force Breach

4) Whirling Blow

5) Mind Crush if you are out of energy

6) Saber Strike if you are out of energy

The Jedi Shadow can be just as effective as any other tank as long as you keep your head in the game. This Tank is very involved in lots of re-applying buffs and watching debuffs applied, but it’s also very fun for the same reasons.

May the Force be with you.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,
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