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HeroEngine is the unsung platform behind SWTOR

January 23, 2012 by

Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most ambitious undertakings in video game history. When the game launched in December, it was the fruition of six years of work by as many as 800 developers and an investment of an estimated $200 million.

One of the secrets behind the successful development of the game was the HeroEngine, a development platform for building online games that was created by Maryland-based Idea Fabrik.The goal of the engine is to break down the barriers to good online game development by creating a free-to-use solution that lets creators take over and push the technology to the background.

The Star Wars game is the first gigantic title to use Idea Fabrik’s HeroEngine, which was designed to enable designers of huge multiplayer games, or massively multiplayer online games, to quickly add content or update existing features on a continuous basis. While the Star Wars game required a huge number of developers, the HeroEngine tools helped streamline the process so that those developers could work more efficiently and so BioWare, owned by Electronic Arts, didn’t have to hire an even larger army of game makers. With the HeroEngine’s technology, developers log into the HeroBlade client, where they can code, drop in art assets and build the entire game.
Via venturebeat.com

Filed Under: From the internets!

SWTOR named game of the year for disabled gamers

January 23, 2012 by

The folks over at AbleGamers have given SWTOR a massive thumbs up, naming it their 2011 Accessible Mainstream Game of the Year Award. Their bouquets are numerous:

This game performed strongly against most of our accessibility tests while still maintaining a fun environment for those who enjoy solo or group play. Perhaps one of the most unintentionally accessibility features turned out to be the addition of companions. These NPC characters which accompany the player through most of the game provide support to those who need it without forcing them to request help from other players. Companions are an integral part of the crafting game as all crafting and some resource gathering is actually done by the companions themselves allowing those who wish to be more social and less lethal to still participate in this cutting into game.

Some good points there, but there’s even more aspects given the nod of approval:

SWTOR also features many accessibility options such as full subtitles, queue-able actions, multiple action bars, area looting, auto looting, and built-in mouse sensitivity. Other built-in features such as automatically turning to face the monster you are killing, mini map colors being colorblind friendly, full subtitles, and the ability to control the entire game from the keyboard or with the mouse, only increase the reasons to herald this game as a success for game accessibility.

It’s not all champagne and roses, with AbleGamers giving some tips for further improvement, including  close captioning and adding the ability to modify the UI or the size of text displayed. Overall though, they’re mightily impressed and Bioware should be feeling pretty proud of the wraps their getting from a sometimes overlooked quarter.

We’d love to hear from any disabled gamers playing SWTOR on their thoughts of the game – are you finding it a superior experience accessibility-wise compared to other games?

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Heavy Damage: What’s your poison?

January 22, 2012 by

Now that I have reviewed all three Tank specs, I’ll be pitting them against each other to decide what Tank is the “best” for certain situations. I have played all three tank classes to 25. From my experience I would have to say for any situation, the best all-round Tank is going to be the Vanguard.

The Vanguard has very good mitigation and is very versatile – I love its ability to go from ranged to melee in its Tanking. Even though most of its hard tanking mechanics are up close (about 4-10 metres) it still has a wide array of damage abilities that can be used from afar. One such ability is Mortar – it is devastating to trash mobs and is a great opener (before you get Storm as a distance closer) to generate some decent threat on a harder mob. I use Mortar for clearing the way of those trash mobs that like to block paths to quest objectives.

The Vanguard does have some pitfalls – I’m not a huge fan of the “Ammo” pacing mechanic. I find it’s much easier to run out of Ammo than it is to run out of Focus on my Guardian. The other thing that the Vanguard is missing is an early-level closing ability. By closing ability I’m referring to an ability that closes the distance between you and your target – it could also be called an opener.

Some people might think I’m contradicting myself because a bit higher in this article I spoke of how the Vanguard was great at range, well he is, but when your group is needing a Tank like a Wookiee needs a comb, the Vanguard has to be up close and personal.

The Shadow has my vote for second best tank on the grounds that it’s probably the most versatile tank I’ve ever got to play, not to mention it’s up there in the fun factor. Having stealth on a tank doesn’t seem like a big deal, other than when you don’t feel like fighting a bunch of trash mobs on your way to an objective. Stealth in PvP is an entirely different beast altogether.  On the Alderaan Warzone it’s very useful for stealthing and capping the turrets. On HuttBall your force sprint is great. In Voidstar it’s a decent ability to pop off when playing offense to plant the bomb, if your team can distract the opposing force on the other side.

The cons on the Shadow are few but pretty big from my point of view. Being another mitigation Tank, they have substantially lower armor than the Guardian and Vanguard. The Shadow doesn’t have a distance closer other than Force Speed which only gets you close – it adds no hate or damage. Project isn’t bad but it’s no Mortar or Force leap.

The Guardian is your standard melee tank. Good mitigation and threat on a single target, and has probably the best opener of the three: Force Leap. Once you obtain Force Push, the combo of the two is extremely effective in both PvE and PvP. Another great attribute of the Guardian is that they can go from Tank to DPS with the click of a button. Switching stances can take you from a tank to an off-Tank DPS . The Guardian is also the class I recommend for any beginner Tanks, for the simple fact that it’s your most traditional tank, doesn’t involve all the focus and involvement that a Shadow does, and its ability to be a damage dealer with relative ease compared to the Vanguard. Riposte is a really big part of Guardian tanking after you start in the Tank tree of the Guardian Advanced Class, as it gives you a defensive buff that helps a lot.

One big thing about Tanking in SWTOR that you’ll have to learn (or if you’ve played other MMO’s, forget) is that DPS players are responsible for the adds and trash mobs. Your focus is the big guys. Hold their hate and keep their focus. As long as your team knows that the DPS players should be picking up the adds and burning them down, you’ll stay alive and be able to keep your team alive. In PvP, make sure you have Guard on the Huttball runner, and Guard on any healer you can talk into healing you during the Warzone.

 

 

Filed Under: News, PvE, PvP Tagged With:

SWTOR Patch 1.1.1 details released

January 21, 2012 by
The fixes keep on coming thick and fast, with Patch 1.1.1 hitting the public test server. The promised ability delay fix is included plus a bunch of other stuff, so have a browse through!
Star Wars: The Old Republic – 1.1.1 Patch Notes

Classes and Combat
General

  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Global Cooldown to appear as if it has been cancelled when it is actually still in effect, resulting in a feeling of unresponsiveness to input.
  • Corrected an issue that could cause an ability icon to appear usable but be unresponsive to clicks or keypresses for several seconds.
  • Players revived by other players, including by in-combat revival abilities, now revive with 25% of maximum health.

Jedi Knight

Guardian

  • Freezing Force: Now correctly lasts 9 seconds (up from 6 seconds).

Jedi Consular

Sage

  • Mental Alacrity: Now correctly costs no Force to activate.
  • Salvation: No longer heals targets twice on application. It now correctly heals all affected targets once when applied.

Smuggler

Scoundrel

  • Flechette Round: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
  • K.O.: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
  • Shoot First: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.

Imperial Agent

Operative

  • Acid Blade: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.
  • Jarring Strike: This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.
  • Hidden Strike: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.

Bounty Hunter

Mercenary

  • Sweeping Blasters can now be made free with Thermal Sensor Override.

Powertech

  • Oil Slick now correctly costs no heat to activate.

Flashpoints and Operations

Flashpoints

Directive 7

  • Bulwark’s Area of Effect cone abilities now properly fire in the direction Bulwark is facing.
  • Some of Bulwark’s abilities were incorrectly susceptible to interruption. Bulwark is now immune to interrupts.

The False Emperor

  • Fixed a conversation that could cause the cinematic with Arkis Wode to function incorrectly.

The Foundry

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent the final fight in this Flashpoint from beginning after the cinematic.
  • The final boss can no longer become stuck in an invulnerable state; there was still a small window where this could occur.

The Red Reaper

  • Lord Kherus now grants less experience.
  • Some of Lord Kherus’s abilities have had their damage values adjusted to be more in line with the level of the Flashpoint.
  • Players now enter into melee range with Lord Kherus in order to stop him from throwing crates.

Operations

Eternity Vault

  • Players no longer randomly die in this Operation after being in Gharj’s lava.

Karagga’s Palace

  • Foreman Crusher’s enrage now includes a movement speed increase, allowing him to catch players who attempt to run.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the Materials Disposal Unit’s main control station from becoming useable again after the Operation Group is defeated by the G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator on 16-man Hard Mode.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator from deploying the correct number of Proximity Pulse Mines and Security Stun Drones during combat.
  • Karagga no longer snaps up above portions of the walls during combat.

Bug Fixes

General

  • Fixed an issue that prevented some players in Operations Groups from receiving credit for the missions “[WEEKLY] Deadly Operations,” “[WEEKLY] Galactic Operations,” and “Journey to the Belsavis Depths.” The entire Operations Group now receives credit when the objective is completed.

Items
Bug Fixes

  • Comparative tooltips for researched items no longer have their stats reversed.

Missions and NPCs
Missions

Imperial

  • Number One with a Bullet: Corrected an issue that prevented Bounty Hunters from leaving The Founder.
  • The Eagle’s Nest: The Assassin’s Fortress mission is now correctly a prerequisite for this mission.
  • The Mandalorian Killer: Thendys Noori no longer continues to heal Kellian Jarro after she has surrendered.

Republic

  • Death Spiral: Fixed an issue that prevented Jedi Knights who completed the Commander Rayfel encounter from using the shuttle back to Belsavis Orbital Station.

PvP
Warzones

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent players from receiving mission rewards for completing Warzones.

Space Combat
General

  • Added two daily mission commendations to the high-level space dailies Operation Ascendant Pride (Imperial) and Operation New Eclipse (Republic).

UI
General

  • Attempting to loot an item in a group when the Master Looter is off-planet now generates an error message.

Bug Fixes

  • The leader of an Operations Group will no longer receive an incorrect message informing them that their companion has been dismissed.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Special items related to different editions of the game have been re
  • sent if they were deleted by the mail system prior to being claimed.
Filed Under: News, Patch Notes, Support Tagged With:

More impressive oceanic guild clears: Karagga’s Palace

January 21, 2012 by

I love weekends because all the news flows in on guild clears. This weekend is no exception. Last night I had Khaotikk from the guild Chaos Theory drop me a line:

Hey Guys,

Wanted to drop you a line and let you know Chaos Theory (Empire Swiftsure) have just cleared Hard Mode Karagga’s Palace. As far as we’re aware this makes us the first Oceanic guild to down Karagga’s in hard mode.

Then I heard from Fenix at Redemption:

As I messaged you last night, we cleared Nightmare Karagga’s Palace for (I believe) an oceanic first. We just killed Soa on Nightmare mode also, which I believe makes us Oceanic first for all Nightmare content 🙂

Here’s a pic of Karagga The Unyielding, as downed by Redemption in Nightmare mode (full sized version):

Congrats to both guilds and I’ll let you fight it out on who did what first 😉

Filed Under: Guilds, News Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Available in another Aussie store

January 21, 2012 by

UPDATE: local online game store Dungeon Crawler has SWTOR on sale for $71.50.

Just a quick heads up for anyone still looking to buy a copy of SWTOR. Retail chain Game are now selling imported copies of The Old Republic at the price of $78.00.

So if you are still looking for a copy head to your nearest store or shop online here.

See you all in-game!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Ability delay issues: fix on the way

January 21, 2012 by

Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer for SWTOR at BioWare, has posted an update addressing the issue of ability delay i.e. bashing one’s keys but not seeing one’s toon do anything. According to Georg, a fix for at least some of the issues will be hitting the public test server next update:

Hi everyone; I wanted to give you all an update on the ability delay situation.

Thanks to constructive feedback from the community, including some great videos, we were able to identify an issue that could cause abilities on global cooldown to appear available to the player, resulting in unresponsive/ignored player input. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Additionally, we have located an issue that would cause player input for certain instant abilities to fail in frantic combat situations, resulting in unpredictable and frustrating gameplay issues for the affected player. A fix for the issue is currently scheduled to go to the public test server with our next update.

Finally, our engineers have identified an issue introducing a significant delay between player input and ability execution in certain game situations, most notably (but not limited to) fast paced PvP. The magnitude of the delay varies with a number of factors, including processor hardware, but can, especially on dual core CPUs, result in a very perceivable reduction in game responsiveness. We are in the later stages of testing a fix for the problem and hope to be able to roll it out to the servers very soon.

We’re still investigating a number of additional issues, along with some usability and quality of life improvements for responsiveness regarding player input, but the above mentioned developments should provide a very measurable improvement in combat responsiveness.

Thanks again for your patience and support and we hope to see you on the public test server to help us validate these improvements before pushing them to the live servers.

In the meantime, think of the pointless key bashing as exercise that sets you up to fight any rampaging Rakghouls in real life. Well that’s my rationale and I’m sticking to it!

Filed Under: News, Support Tagged With: ,

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: , ,
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