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About David

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.

SWTOR Downtime 23rd October 2012

October 23, 2012 by

UPDATE 2: Servers are now up.

UPDATE: BioWare are now saying the maintenance is being extended with no ETA for when the servers will be up….

It’s a four-hour downtime this week – assuming it’s not a repeat of last week where things blew out from 8 to 12 hours. Although the SWTOR PTS has been taken down, BioWare have confirmed patch 1.5. will NOT be deployed during this maintenance.

The time conversions for you:

AEDT: 6pm-10pm

ASWT: 3pm-7pm

NZDT: 8pm-midnight

And if you’re after something to do during the downtime, why not have a listen to our latest podcast episode?

The full BioWare blurb:

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/6PM AEDT) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/10PM AEDT). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.

This weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/6PM AEDT) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/10PM AEDT)

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

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

Filed Under: General News, Servers, SWTOR Tagged With:

Flash Point 44: Impactions and Box-Wrangling

October 21, 2012 by

mmo podcastTime for another quality MMO podcast from Down Under, with our resident WoW-ophile Luke LePage joining us again. We also bid a temporary farewell to Ed and cover the big four plus some League of Legends, Marvel Heroes and more.

Points of discussion:

SWTOR
– 1.5 on the PTS
– 12-hour downtime last week
– Oceanic Server Merges
– Shout out for Scope’s One Shot One Kill Column
– Lore Update: languages and Galactic Basic
– falling for 2012’s James Cameron/George Lucas new Stars Wars Trilogy April Fool’s joke

GW2

– Halloween event
– Dev Team Reddit AMAA

TSW

– Response to Joel Bylos interview
– Halloween Event / Issue #3 content
– Reticle combat

WoW
– more impressions and kudos
– Blizzard as a continuing innovator
– 5.1 patch

Other
– League of Legends popularity
– Marvel Heroes beta invites
– New Rift player housing

– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Twitter account and Simon’s Twitter account.

Please review or rate the podcast on iTunes if you can – it makes a huge difference!

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:11 — 31.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: General News, Podcast Tagged With:

Oceanic Soap Box: Maintenance Leisure Time

October 19, 2012 by

This week I thought we’d get on our debating socks to talk about a subject that’s near but not very dear to most of our hearts: MMO server maintenance. This week saw a rather long maintenance of 12 hours over at Star Wars: The Old Republic – you only have to read the comments to see how maintenance can be a little annoying, particularly if it runs longer than scheduled.

So here’s the question: what do you do to while away the time a server is down? Do you play other games? Do you have a backup MMO you jump right into? Post a comment and share – we’re keen to know!

Filed Under: General News, Op-Ed Tagged With:

The Secret World Issue #3

October 19, 2012 by

Funcom as promised have rolled out the Issue #3 content update for the Halloween event. There’s a brand spanking new video for you to check out, then don’t waste anytime jumping in-game as the event only runs through to the 1st November:

So – who’s pumped for some dark halloween action?

Filed Under: General News, The Secret World Tagged With:

Guild Wars 2 Developers Answer Questions on Reddit

October 18, 2012 by

Guild Wars 2 DevelopersA bunch of ArenaNet’s dev team jumped on Reddit to take part in an AMAA (Ask Me Almost Anything) session in the past day. The level of response was good, with hundred of questions asked a decent amount answered. The focus is quite understandably on development issues rather than gameplay or community stuff. That said, there’s some pretty fascinating insights into a range of things, including:

– plans for an FOV slider in GW2
– how ArenaNet keep server downtime to a minimum
– the biggest defects in the game and what’s restricting the devs from remedying them
– GW2 programming methodologies, standards and practices etc

That’s just the tip of the iceberg so have a read-through for yourself – there’s lots of gold in there.

Filed Under: General News, Guild Wars 2 Tagged With:

SWTOR 1.4.2 Patch Notes

October 17, 2012 by

SWTOR 1.4.2 Patch Notes

After a marathon 12-hour maintenance last night, SWTOR Patch 1.4.2 is live. The full patch notes for you:

 

1.4.2 Patch Notes

10/16/2012

Classes and Combat

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary
        • Sweeping Blasters now correctly causes the player to face the ability’s target.

Smuggler

Gunslinger
      • Sweeping Gunfire now correctly causes the player to face the ability’s target.

Companion Characters

General

      • Some companion abilities now show more descriptive failure error messages.

Flashpoints and Operations

General

          • The UI for lockout tabs (for groups and lockout timers) now displays correctly.

Operations

Explosive Conflict
            • Some terrain has been adjusted to prevent players from skipping some encounters in this Operation.
            • The Defected Imperial Commander no longer occasionally becomes untargetable.

Items

        • Consumables that have an activation time are no longer consumed on a subsequent activation even when that activation is canceled.

Missions and NPCs

Class Missions

Sith Warrior
            • General Faraire: This mission no longer fails to update upon entering its phase.
Trooper
                • The Ambush: Corrected an issue that could prevent players from completing this mission.

PvP

Warzones

              • Implemented changes to correct issues that prevented Warzones from backfilling when a pre-made group member let the Warzone invitation time out.

UI

General

              • The map and other UI elements no longer occasionally flicker on machines with SLi or Crossfire setups.

Maps

              • SLi performance is no longer degraded when opening the Galaxy Map.
              • GTN kiosks now on player ships are now properly represented on the map.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

          • Players who log out on another player’s ship without ever having boarded their own are now correctly evicted to the docking bay.
          • Vehicles can once again be used in the Black Sun, Old Galactic Market, The Works, and the Jedi Temple districts on Coruscant.
          • Resolved an issue that caused the game client to sometimes treat mouse clicks outside of the window as valid clicks when using virtual on-screen keyboards.
          • Performance is no longer degraded in the Walker interior on Ord Mantell when moving the camera around the character.
          • Certain visual effects no longer disappear as they pass over particular types of geometry.
          • Some misplaced art assets, seams or holes in the terrain, and locations where players could become stuck have been corrected.
Filed Under: General News, SWTOR Tagged With:

SWTOR Maintenance 16th October 2012

October 16, 2012 by

UPDATE: The server downtime ended up being on the 12-hour mark – there’s been no word from BioWare on why. Judging by the comments you posted below, there’s some bemusement at the time taken.

An eight hour maintenance this week, and to confuse things, our changeover to daylight saving means the quoted times from BioWare may be incorrect. From what we can see the local times for the maintenance are:

AEDT: 6pm-2am (not 5pm as quoted)

AWST: 3pm-11pm

NZDT: 8pm-4am

BioWare’s info:

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for eight hours on Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEDT) until 10AM CDT (8AM PDT/11AM EDT/4PM BST/5PM CEST/1AM AEDT). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours, but could be extended.

This weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Please Note: maintenance has been extended two hours longer than our original post on Friday.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEDT) until 10AM CDT (8AM PDT/11AM EDT/4PM BST/5PM CEST/1AM AEDT)

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™.

Filed Under: Servers, SWTOR Tagged With:

Pocket Planes: Review

October 15, 2012 by

This is a little off the beaten track, but over the past week I’ve found a new gaming addiction to add to my repertoire. I’m a sucker for a sim game at the best of times, but when it’s a free, 8-bit graphic airport and plane sim that’s a lot of fun, then I’m doomed.

Pocket Planes was created by NimbleBit and its premise is simple: build up a fleet of planes and successfully fly people and cargo between cities. There’s a standard levelling mechanism, with the need to accumulate coins and Bux. Coins allow you to buy new airports and upgrades, Bux are the currency that allow you to buy new planes and/or plane parts. Bux are the currency you can use real money to buy more of, and it’s likely you’ll want to do that if you’re in the game for the long haul.

That said, this game is semi-generous in allowing you to build up Bux in-game so do date I haven’t needed to spend anything to get up to 8 plains and a dozen airports – which is the result of my first day’s play.

Aside from solo play you can compete in world events with a Flight Crew you set up and if you’re playing on iOS or Mac you can compete with friends via the Game Center. There’s also full iCloud and Notification Center integration for those platforms, meaning you can play on any device and it knows where you’re up to in the game. Android users may have something similar too – post in comments if that’s the case!

For the stats geek, there’s lots of information on your fleet including the number of miles each plane has done, how much revenue its generated and the number of passengers and cargo carried.

Overall, this game is incredibly addictive but easy to have in the background if you need to get other stuff done. If I decide to spend some money buying some Bux in this game, I actually won’t begrudge it – which is unusual for me.

Overall score: 4/5 Greeblies

Go grab a copy for yourself:

Android version

iOS version

Mac App Store

Have you played Pocket Planes and if so, are you still a fan?

Filed Under: General News, Other Games Tagged With: , ,

The Most Popular Game In The World? League of Legends

October 13, 2012 by

So – what do you think is the most popular game in the world? Is it single-player or an MMO?

Over the past few months I’ve been hearing about how popular League of Legends is, and it appears that over thirty million people agree each month. Over at Forbes.com, Jason Evangelho has penned a piece on the game, including this pretty fascinating infographic on the game:

most popular game in the world

Of course, determining a game that’s absolutely the most popular is risky, particularly given a lot of these assessments don’t take into account games played in non-English speaking cultures. That said, you can safely say that League of Legends appears to be in a elite rank of games.

If you’ve played League of Legends we’d love to hear from you – tell us why you think it’s the most popular game in the world!

[A big thanks to eagle-eyed and dedicated reader Gail for the heads-up!]

Filed Under: General News, League of Legends, Other Games Tagged With:

The Secret World Reticle Combat and More: Live Stream

October 13, 2012 by

Overnight Funcom ran a live stream for over an hour, showcasing a range of things. They opened with a demo of the reticle combat, which is still in beta but is slated for release in the 1.4 update and will be further improved from there.

There’s a lot of footage of the feature in action, and from what I’m seeing I’m liking it a lot and if you’re a fan of first person shooters you’ll probably see it as a big improvement as well. In between all the gameplay footage, Game Director Joel Bylos answers a bunch of community questions, so it’s well worth a watch. Here’s the stream via MMORPG.com:


Watch live video from mmorpgcom on TwitchTV

Do you like the reticle combat? Is it something you’ll definitely use?

Filed Under: General News, The Secret World Tagged With: ,

SWTOR 1.5 Hits The PTS: Patch Notes

October 12, 2012 by

SWTOR’s latest game update, 1.5 has hit the Public Test Server. It contains the HK-51 addition, some more missions and a bunch of bug fixes.

The full patch notes:

Highlights

  • Travel to Section X on Belsavis and learn why the nefarious Dread Guard has seized control of this ravaged sector of the planet! Section X can be accessed on Belsavis and via the daily mission shuttles.
  • HK-51 can now be acquired as a Companion Character! A shipment of the infamous assassin droids can be found in the wreck of an Imperial transport ship, The Fatality, in Section X. Reactivating HK-51 requires finding and assembling parts from across the galaxy.
  • Nightmare Mode is now available for Operation: Explosive Conflict! Bosses in Nightmare Mode present a new level of challenge, new mechanics, and high-quality rewards (such as a new vehicle and Dread Guard set pieces)!
  • Dreadtooth, a new world boss, can be found roaming Section X. Each time Dreadtooth is defeated, he returns with a temporary, stacking power buff which increases his difficulty and the quality of his loot rewards.

Group Finder

  • Travelling to a new area while in a Group Finder queue no longer occasionally causes the UI to behave as if the player is not in the queue.

Items

  • Campaign armorings are now available for purchase on the Black Hole vendor for Black Hole Commendations.
  • Dread Guard relics are now available on the Daily vendor for 300 Daily Commendations.
  • A new set of droid armor is now available from the Daily vendor.
  • More robes have been adjusted so that their backsides are not inappropriately large when worn.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Several typos and instances of incorrect text have been corrected in all languages.
  • The Imperial Medcenter in the vicinity of the wreck of the Ambria’s Fury has been moved Northeast.

Then there are the known issues with the patch:

HK-51

  • HK-51 currently joins players without gear.
  • While completing the missions to obtain HK-51, the Mission Log may display progress incorrectly.

Flashpoints and Operations

  • In Explosive Conflict, nameplates currently display for Kephess’ Saturation Fire ability. These nameplates should not be visible.
Filed Under: General News, Patch Notes, SWTOR Tagged With:

Australian SWTOR Servers: Merger or Closures?

October 11, 2012 by

Australian SWTOR serversOne of the most fascinating and  frustrating issues we’ve followed here over the past three plus years is the issue of local servers for Star Wars: The Old Republic. More widely it’s an issue of how local players perceive they’ve been treated.

In the months leading to launch there was the controversial issue of launch territories (North America and part of Europe only), then to regular lobbying for local servers (which went live in February this year), the wait to be able to transfer current characters to the oceanic servers and finally the issue of declining populations on the three servers.

It’s the last issue that’s obviously dominating at the moment, with a significant thread running on the official forums. Over the past month or so, BioWare have alluded to the fact they’re looking at the issue, but no announcement has been made.

The latest, brief, non-informative word comes from Joveth Gonzalez:

Hi folks,

Unfortunately, I have no new information at this time. In my last post, I did say that I would update this thread when I had new information but I currently do not.

With that being said, I will make sure to update this thread as soon as I have more information.

As a reminder, please remember to follow forum guidelines within this thread.

Thank you.

I’ve thought server merges have been on the cards for a couple of months and like a number of people I’ll be far from surprised if the local servers are closed altogether. Aside from any challenges the game faces more broadly, the absolute lack of local promotion of the game has made the server issue a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’d love to hear your thoughts: would the removal of Australian SWTOR servers be an absolute deal-breaker for you?

Filed Under: General News, Servers, SWTOR Tagged With:
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