SWTOR Guilds Servers Are Out!

From SWTOR.com:

Member Of: Squad

Assigned to Server The Harbinger

Thank you for your participation in the Pre-Launch Guild Program. At this time, guilds can no longer be created or modified on the website.

If your guild qualified for deployment, it has already been imported into the game. Server assignments can be found by visiting your guild's homepage. If your guild did not meet the deployment requirements, your guild was not imported into the game. Guilds can be created in-game at the Imperial and Republic fleets.

All web support for guilds will be removed by 01.03.12, and we encourage you to save any important data you wish to keep before that time.

For more information, check the Guilds FAQ.

See you at launch!

The Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Team

So if you looking for us in game please say hi! We will be taking new members in game too!

SWTOR Companion Gifts: An Explanation

From Swtorface: It's getting close to Christmas, the time of gift-giving. In SWTOR, the benefits reaped from giving gifts to your companions are immense. Not only do gifts grant extra reputation with your companions, and possibly unlock romantic interludes, but every new level you reach with your companion unlocks a series of very simple quests which are often just a conversation. These conversations can grant massive amounts of experience really fast. I found myself jumping through half a level in five minutes when unlocking a series of companion quests. There are multiple levels of gifts which grant multiple levels of companion reputation and you can either purchase these companion gifts from vendors in major cities or you can acquire them through crew missions from professions like Treasure Hunting. Make sure you give your companions the rights gifts though. Every companion has particular preferences. Some gifts will grant lots of reputation and others will grant no reputation at all. You will waste a gift if you give it to the wrong companion.

Read on

SWTOR Advanced Space Combat Guide Video

Advanced space combat is hard! This video gives you an Advanced Space Combat Guide and runs through two full level 45+ missions and shows you how to use high level upgrades like the Electronic Warfare Pod Power Conversion Module and the level 50 Proton Torpedo Tube.

For basic space combat please see this video:

SWTOR Companion Gifts: An Explanation

It's getting close to Christmas, the time of gift-giving. In SWTOR, the benefits reaped from giving gifts to your companions are immense. Not only do gifts grant extra reputation with your companions, and possibly unlock romantic interludes, but every new level you reach with your companion unlocks a series of very simple quests which are often just a conversation. These conversations can grant massive amounts of experience really fast. I found myself jumping through half a level in five minutes when unlocking a series of companion quests. There are multiple levels of gifts which grant multiple levels of companion reputation and you can either purchase these companion gifts from vendors in major cities or you can acquire them through crew missions from professions like Treasure Hunting. Make sure you give your companions the rights gifts though. Every companion has particular preferences. Some gifts will grant lots of reputation and others will grant no reputation at all. You will waste a gift if you give it to the wrong companion.

Gifts are easily identified in the game as companion gifts. They come with a deep purple label and a category:

Weapon
Military Gear
Courting
Luxury
Technology
Republic Memorabilia
Imperial Memorabilia
Cultural Artifact
Trophy
Underworld Goods

For each category there area variety of different items. I discovered the hard way ingame and wasted a lot of credits giving my companions the wrong items. If you use the gift system through leveling, it will help you get to 50 a lot faster as it will unlock easy quest storylines.

For every companion I have listed which categories of gifts they each like or are indifferent to. They are listed on the Companion List pages. Check it out here.

SWTOR Bounty Hunter Full Companion List and Gifts

Bounty Hunters really scored big when it comes to companions. Their first companion, Mako, is a pleasant enough companion who gives you ranged healing or even a little bit of DPS right off the bat. They also get Blizz; I mean who doesn't want a Jawa tank hanging out with them?! On top of that, they get a Devaronian. If that doesn't say bad-ass when you enter a room, what does?! The companion combination alone makes we want to play Bounty Hunter early on. I got to mess around with it a bit in beta and I loved the gameplay style. I have no doubt that we'll see our fair share of Bounty Hunter players in the galaxy.

Check out a full list of information about the companions for Bounty Hunter, including the gifts that do and don't work for them, here:

SWTOR Full Trooper Companion List and Gifts

The order in which Trooper's gain access to their companions gives them a lot of gameplay style options early on. The first companion is DPS and the second heals, which allows the player to settle into a gameplay style by around level 15. Using a DPS/tanking companion provides a very different gameplay than tank/DPS healer. DPS/tank with a healer might take a little longer to get through quests and mobs, but you definitely die a lot less, whereas using two DPS or even a semi-tank/DPS combo might allow you to kill things faster, but there are a lot of circumstances where you're waiting for the resurrect timer due to miscalculations or accidentally attacking more than one elite.

The Trooper companion line-up has good variety and there is a hot chick as the healer which is great for players wanting a romance storyline with a female character. Not only does companion affection help your relationship with that companion, it also unlocks valuable conversations which grant a lot of experience. I didn't learn the value of gifts to companions until I had already reached high level 40s on beta.

Check out a compilation of everything I have been able to gather about Trooper companions and their gifts here:

New Face Joins SWTORFace Say Hi To Natassia

I'm excited to join SWTORFace and can't wait to contribute to the site. I have been an avid gamer for the past 15 years, playing both PC and console games. I've played my share of MMOs starting with Legends of Kesmai and including but not limited to EQ, AoC, Anarchy Online, LOTRO, CoH, WOW and DCUO. A born Star Wars fan (early memories include Star Wars trivia during car rides with Dad), I'm stoked for SWTOR. What Star Wars fan wouldn't love a Bioware Star Wars MMO? I'm always up for good conversation so feel free to circle me on google + or email me at natassia@swtorface.com.

From John: I might need to get a female face now?

The Music of Star Wars the Old Republic Preview

If you haven't noticed, BioWare has been giving us a sample each day of the music from Star Wars the Old Republic since December 1st.

These tracks can be found here :
http://www.youtube.com/user/swtheoldrepublic

While being an avid fan of musical scores from movies and video games, I can say I was quite impressed with what we have been given to listen to thus far. The music, while not composed by John Williams (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Jaws), follows in much of the same tradition. I have always believed the music is one of the most important parts to telling a story in the form of a motion picture, or even a video game. It can set the tone and feeling throughout the story and almost push the dialogue out of perspective.

The track titled The Mandalorian Blockade, which was composed by Mark Griskey, Wilbert Roget II, Gordy Haab, and Lennie Moore, sets a very fast paced tone much like we would expect from an action sequence in the Star Wars saga. It has a very epic overtone to it and can be quite inspiring. I noticed much of it was used during combat sequences in the game.

http://www.youtube.com/user/swtheoldrepublic#p/u/15/F5MoBb8-75E

Coruscant, the Capital, composed by Lennie Moore, sets the tone to our complete feeling of being overwhelmed by thousands of cars in flight, scurrying from building to building at a frenzied pace. The mood then turns into a bit of a melancholy feeling as we realize there is much corruption on the planet from the storyline, leaving us with a warm tone at the end leading us to believe there is light at the end of the dark tunnel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/swtheoldrepublic#p/u/4/cAWDeWTlMjc

My personal favorite is a track titled Korriban, the Homeworld, composed by Mark Griskey. It has a very dark overtone to it that reminded me of Anakin Skywalker's turn to the Dark Side of the Force we saw in Episode III on the planet Mustafar. It has a very eerie feel to it, paying homage to themes used by John Williams when we were introduced to scenes featuring Emperor Palpatine. When I walk around in game as my Sith Warrior, I would like this music to be playing.

http://www.youtube.com/user/swtheoldrepublic#p/u/14/heuveUxnLkA

Each day, until December 20th, one more track will be added. BioWare has also stated that these scores WILL NOT be included on the soundtrack featured in the SWTOR Collector's Edition. They are available for us now to enjoy and they may inspire you.

SWTOR Launch Party Invites

If you are in Austin Texas, New York, Paris or London then there is a SWTOR launch party event that you can attend, where developers and other key peeps from BioWare or Lucasfilm will be on hand to sign free swag. If I had my pick of any of the four I'd head to Oxford St in London, which is handily the same location of the infamous Lonely Planet mega Sci-Fi memorabilia store.

Full details here.

SWTOR Friday Update: Last One

For this week's Friday update, BioWare have given a link to their community blog. Essentially the blog will replace the Friday updates, now that the game is about to go live. You can find this new official SWTOR blog here. This will save you from having to filter through fifty sites all posting the same news every Friday. There have been a lot of fansites out there that have been replying on the Friday updates as their sole source of news; this new blog will force some of them to produce their own content or fade away.

Also in this Friday update is the character progression video for the Sith Inquisitor. I got to play around with a Sith Inquisitor, up to around level 20, in Beta. The storyline is awesome. I chose Assassin as my Advanced class. Check out the progression video below: