The Many Looks of Khem Val

Khem Val customizations

What follows is some basic information about Khem Val, but not much more than you'll find out when you first unlock him. Then I'll go on to show you the vast amount of customizations available for him - more than any other companion. Plus, I'll tel you where you can get them from.

About Khem Val

Khem Val is your own personal bodyguard as the first companion for Sith Inquisitors. One of the last few remaining Dashades, he is unique among assassins, thanks to his specie's force resistance. Khem Val's legacy goes back thousands of years as, like most of his species, he was suspended on Korriban for future generations to find. Khem Val is ruthless, to put it bluntly. He doesn't like being soft, but that doesn't mean that all of his decisions are Dark Side in nature. He hates slavery. Khem Val's storyline is closely tied to your class story and his personal story is not complete until after your class story has concluded at level 50. I found Khem Val's story to be quite entertaining and different to other companion's - almost comical in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer type way, which plugs in nicely to the Sith Inquisitor class story, which has a similar feel.

Khem Val Customizations

When you first unlock Khem Val you will get a choice of looks, customizations 1, 2 and 3, plus the default look, giving you a total of 4 looks to chose from immediately. There are 15 total looks for Khem Val, although only 5 different skins; the other 10 looks are clothing and armor variations on those 5 skins.

The screenshot above shows customizations default, 1, 2, 3 and 4. The image shows a front and back view of Khem Val in just his loin cloth. Being an alien of non-humanoid dimensions, default clothing and armor don't make any appearance changes.

Customizations 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (above) include a cloth outfit variation on the first 5 skins. This adds a bit more color and variation to Khem Val's appearance.

 Customizations 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 equip Khem Val with armor. Although only superficial, the armor does make him look quite menacing. He's still bare-chested from front view but these outfits provide a look as though he is protected from rear attacks.

Wel-Nolan in the Cantina on Balmorra has customizations, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 and 13 - all listed for 12500 credits (each). There are no special requirements for any of these customizations and they're available from Keith the companion customization vendor on Taris as well.

 The Collector's Edition vendor on the Imperial Fleet has 3 more customizations available for Khem Val which include 2, 7 and 12. These customizations are only available to Collector's Edition owners. They are 2000 credits each.

The security key vendor on the Imperial Fleet has the last ones, for anybody who has a security key attached to their account. Customizations 4, 9 and 14 cost 12500 each. Once you have purchased items from the security key vendor they are yours to keep forever, even if you remove the security key at a later date.

I personally chose all the red customizations, which allow me to change his outfit depending on my mood, without the discrepancy of his skin changing color.


Don't forget to check out similar posts: Here 

Rise of the Hut Cartel: What to Expect (no spoilers)

The Rise of the Hut Cartel is Star Wars The Old Republic's first digital expansion. If you were really keen and pre-ordered back in January then you'll have access on April 9th, everybody else (who pre-order between 7th January and 13th April) will get access on April 13th. But what is this expansion? What will you get with it? Well, I had access to it for about a month so read on and I'll tell you what to expect, without revealing any story line spoilers.

What you get for $10

Just like all things in this world, you get what you pay for. This is a $10 expansion (or $20 if you are not a subscriber) and you really do get $10 worth of content. This digital expansion is more like a bloated major patch. It doesn't come with all the regular things we're used to receiving in our MMO expansions, like new player races, fifty hours worth of play time in missions, and new classes. The Rise of the Hut Cartel expansion is one new planet, two separate story lines - one for Imperial and one for Republic - and a bunch of new missions.  I was able to finish the story arc in two casual days of playing. If you are expecting this to compete with the expansions you may have experienced in WoW, Rift, and other MMOs, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting $10 worth of content, you will be satisfied.

Story lines

All eight classes have their own unique introduction to the main story line on the new plant, Makeb. After these introductory video cut scenes though, the story and missions are then the same for all Republic players and for all Imperial players. The re-play-ability is limited for players with multiple alts. BioWare tried to disguise the lack of variety by telling players that all their characters will have a unique experience but really, that is an overstatement. The only difference after that initial cut scene is what the NPCs refer to you as. The story on Makeb is not a continuation of your classes' main story.

The story also doesn't use your companions - they have nothing to say on any of the missions. Your companions do comment on things like the scenery though, but they have nothing more than a superficial role. It has been said in multiple interviews that class missions in SWTOR finish at 50 and that it is not cost effective for BioWare to extend with the same level of detail as in the first three Acts. So after playing through the first story on Makeb I tried it again on a second character. I found myself tabbing through identical blocks of voice acting to speed it up.

Leveling

The Makeb story arc and adjacent missions don't provide enough experience to level from 50 to 55. If you start the new story in the expansion at level 50 then you will finish at around 53 or just above. The missions can be a challenge if your level of gear is basic. My full war hero geared Gaurdian had no problems for the first few levels but also didn't get any new gear until level 55. Players in recruit gear or story mode operations level gear will find it a little bit harder and might find the occasional upgrades at around level 53. I found the missions easier the second time around by first going out and doing a whole heap of dailies and getting to level 54 before even starting the missions on Makeb.

Mini games

Outside of Makeb there is a variety of new content in the way of microbinocular and seeker droid missions. These missions will excite people who like travelling all over the Galaxy on exploration style journeys. Using microbinoculars to reveal hidden items, or seeker droids to track down missions objectives - similar to tracking for Bounty Hunters in Star Wars Galaxies or mining in WoW - these new missions will be loathe by some and loved by others.

But what about my alts?

Playing through the story line in Makeb seemed very fluid as it moved from island to island and the story itself is very well written and enjoyable. Because the story is the same for all Republic or Imperial  players I think that many players will focus on playing one or two characters rather than a legacy of characters.

Same Sex Romance - The Gay Planet

This is an overstatement! There was an uproar all over the Internet about same sex romances being introduced in this expansion. People are still upset, but for a different reason. The story arcs only have ONE flirt option for each faction. Republic players will get to flirt with one female NPC, regardless of their gender and Imperial players will get to flirt with one male NPC, regardless of their gender. Players were expecting multiple romance options but this is simply not the case. The characters I played through on were both male, Republic and this new romance option was just no different to the options I'd had before the expansion. What a load of hooha for nothing.

In conclusion

So all in all I am disappointed that my character's story is not continued by this expansion but hey, let's get real - it's $10, it's new content, it's fun and it's worth every penny. End game really hasn't changed a lot, with one new operation and no new warzones. Expect to be doing exactly the same thing you're doing at level 50 when you reach level 55.

Let the lag wars begin Asia-Pacific servers close down!

BioWare are closing down Asia-Pacific servers of SWTOR. I just found this news on Google+ and I must say, I think it's shocking that BioWare would not listen to the suggestions made and would instead opt to close down the Australian servers completely. This will force me, and other Australian and New Zealand players, back to the laggy experience we put up with when the game first came out in the US and did not yet have Oceanic servers.

To make it even worse, names that we had secured on original servers are now gone, forcing us all to now change our SWTOR identities. I understand that other players had to change their names as well when the server merges took place, but older veteran players at least had the opportunity to keep their identities if they had active accounts. We are now going to be limited to hyphenated weird names because of the massive populations on the US servers.

Being an avid PvP player, the 200+ ping is going to be completely unacceptable and won't allow me to be competitive.

This is one massive nail in the coffin for Oceanic players.

One of the three Asia-Pacific servers has a more than satisfactory population and a simple merge of all Oceanic players to that most populated server would solve the issues that BioWare have.

Fans suggested several ways to address the problem, with BioWare eventually opting to remove the servers altogether. Musco says the studio will need to update the Free Character Transfer System in order to cater for recent game updates, as well as the forthcoming 2.0 update and Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion pack, so it may be some time before the transfer is completed.

Once those issues are addressed, players on APAC servers will be offered Free Character Transfers to the buzzing North American servers of the same gameplay type. “Mastar Dar’Nala (PvP) will transfer to The Bastion (PvP), Gav Daragon (RP-PvE) will transfer to Begeren Colony (RP-PvE), and Dalborra (PvE) will transfer to The Harbinger (PvE),” the community post reads.

Making the most of Double XP

The first weekend of Double XP was definitely a success for most players. I personally got 2 of my level 40-odd characters through to level 50, giving me a total of 6 completed level 50s.

One of the characters I leveled from 43 to 50 in about 7 or 8 hours. I did this by:
1) using the Double XP
2) combined with the 25% bonus buff and
3) I played through the class story line and the planet story main mission line only.
I found that by doing this, by the time I reached Corellia, I was level 50. By the time I finished the planet I was on at level 43, Belsavis, I was way ahead of the level requirements for all missions, making it very easy gameplay.

By sticking to just the class story line and planet story main missions, it was almost like being involved in a movie. Gone were the distracting side missions that I've already done four times by now on other characters. I generally find that leveling characters, especially alts, can be a little bit confusing when it comes to stories, especially if you have a gap of weeks between major chapters. Throw in one or two other alts stories and it can be quite confusing.

With my second character, my Comanndo, I used a different tactic. I was invited to join a group in my guild that was power-grinding on Ilum. A full raid of 30 players were all leveling at lightening speeds. So I took my level 43 Commando out there and within 2 hours he was level 50.

Bioware will be fixing this play style on Ilum before this weekend's Double XP by removing the boost in stats for sub-level 50 players. To be honest, I don't think that leveling in this way is as big an advantage as people thought. Yes, you get to 50, but you have no credits, no companions and you haven't unlocked any of the story line bonuses to do with your legacy. So even though it only took 2 hours to get from 43 to 50, I still had to spend the following day finishing off my character's story line. If anything, all this did was to make it a little bit easier to play through the class missions - not that they are hard, especially if they're green (playing above the level requirements). Having spoken to other guild members who also leveled in this way, they also agree that it wasn't the best tactic after all, as they now have had to spend this week farming credits to pay for training and gear.

This coming weekend I have a level 14 Inquisitor to level. In preparation I have maxed out warzone experience and class mission experience bonuses in my legacy for this character. I also have boosters in the character's inventory. I intend on playing through her class story line and PvP only, skipping all other side missions. This will give me more than enough experience and credits to have an enjoyable leveling experience, whilst still achieving my goal of getting to level 50 by the weekend's end.

In my quest to provide detailed companion information, by the end of this Double XP weekend I will have all eight classes with completed class story lines - and also all companion story lines completed to maximum affection.

SWTOR Face needs your Help!

OK we need help! With all the news and content out there we are swamped! We are looking for people that can help out with the site in any way. If your a SWTOR fan and want to get involved please email me

Gree event Back March 12th with a new cool mount!

I don't know if I like it being back so soon, I still have a stockpile of rep tokens in my bag will the event be ass cool if we see it every 2 weeks? I think if its an event make it that keep it away for 1/2 months or keep it live all the time and just make it new content!

 From EricHere are the details! Game update 1.7.2 is going live with tomorrow morning's maintenance! That's right, you will be playing the Gree Event once again within 24 hours. Also since I know this will come up, the Gree Event will be running from March 12th - March 26th.

There are some other things I wanted to keep all of you apprised of as well. Aside from the Golden Scalene Armor being embargoed from the Cartel Market, so are a few other items. They are:
Dire Taskmaster's Robe
Dire Overlord's Vestments
Dire Warmaster's Body Armor
Dire Eliminator's Chestguard
Guard Captain's Chestplate
CZ-27k Stealth Ops Suit
CZ-18x Avalanche Chestplate
Honored Master's Vestments
Honored Champion's Robe
Honored Sabarist's Harness
Honored Adept's Shroud
MA-52 Med-tech Chestplate
Emergency Responder's Overcoat
MA-53 Overwatch Chestplate
Jawagram "I Love You"
Jawagram "It's A Surprise"

One last thing I wanted to tease... Make sure you check out the Gree Event vendor. You will see what I think is the coolest looking mount in our game to date. Like, seriously it is amazing.

The Many Looks of Jaesa Willsaam Light & Dark

Companion customizations: Jaesa Willsaam Light & Dark

Jaesa is a unique companion as she has a split personality. Depending on your decisions prior to unlocking her, her persona will be either Light based (as in a Jedi Consular) or Dark (as in a Sith Assassin). The difference between the two personas effect her looks, personality, skill set, missions and the story line.

Light Jaesa is the type of girl you'd be proud to take home to your Mom for dinner. Dark Jaesa is the type of girl to take home if you wanted to really upset your parents. These are the two default looks (Light on the left and Dark on the right). It's mainly her makeup and eye color that is different with the default looks. When it comes to customizations though, there are four extra looks for each and they involve different skin colors, hairstyles and makeup.

It's not only her looks that change but it's her complete story. The conversations that you have with the Light Jaesa are completely different to the ones you have with a Dark Jaesa. Her gift preferences are different and the way in which she responds to conversations is also different. Light Jaesa likes compassionate Light side decisions. Dark Jaesa is evil to the core and will not approve of you being soft in any way. To fully experience the Sith Warrior story line you'll need to play it through as both Light and Dark. Even different missions are unlocked. The only way to experience them both is to play Sith Warrior as Light side and then play it again as a Dark warrior. I personally felt that the Light side story line was more intriguing.

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First let's have a look at the five Dark side options, each one of them bad-ass in their own way. She's definitely a bad girl and her looks show it. In combat she will taunt your enemies and exclaim how she loves pain.

As you can see in the close-up images below, she's a passionate person and her passions control her connection to the Force. Be careful not to cheat on her, or she'll hunt down your mate and slice them up into little pieces.

These are the looks for the Light side Jaesa. She's clean cut, her hair is pulled back for practicality and there's very little make-up. She's the girl next door. She's sweet, compassionate and loving in everything she does. She'll help you convert the Dark Lord's of the Sith from within using her unique power to uncover other compassionate Sith to join your cause.

Customizations 1 (Light) and 5 (Dark) are available from the security key vendor on Illum orbital station. To access this vendor you will need a security key attached to your account. You cannot purchase customizations for a companion you don't have. If your Jaesa is Light then you can't purchase a Dark look. Customizations 1 and 5 are 12,500 credits each.

You can purchase customizations 2, 3 and 4 (Dark) and 1, 2 and 3 (Light) from the customization vendor Keth on Taris. Each one costs 12500 credits.

At first I thought it was going to be a bit of a chore having to level a second Sith Warrior to get this information and screenshots. I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity in the story lines that was revealed simply by making Light or Dark decisions. The Sith Warrior story line is definitely one of the most engaging and I'd highly recommend playing through it in both forms, Dark and Light, if you're passionate about experiencing the full extent of the SWTOR story.


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Gree reputation requirement guide

Gree gear is highly sort after, so I thought I'd put all of the information I've found into one post so that you can figure out how many missions you need to do to get the gear you want.

Two of the armor sets, the black with red highlights and black with blue highlights, only require friend reputation, a total of 7500 to unlock Friend.

Here are all of the different ranks and the required amount of reputation to unlock each one:
Outsider = 2500
Newcomer = 5000
Friend = 7500
Hero = 10000
Champion = 15000
Legend = 30000

So to work out how much reputation you need to get to Champion, add Outsider, Newcomer, Friend and Hero together.

The weekly reputation cap is 12000 but you can squeeze in a little bit more. So if you use 44 green tokens (11880) and one purple (1440) you end up with 13320. You can min./max/ these amounts by taking off two green, throwing in a blue and then a purple to get the most out of it. Needless to say, if you have at least one purple token you can get at least 13000 reputation in a week just by using the purple token just before you hit the cap of 12000.

Green (g): 270 rep
Blue (b): 630 rep
Purple (p): 1440 rep

The amount of reputation available per day per character by only doing PvE quests, before Newcomer rank, is 1440. The amount of reputation available  per day per character  by only doing PvE quests, after Newcomer rank, is 2070. 

To unlock extra missions you will need to purchase the token off the main Gree vendor who has the weapons for 1000 credits. This token must be purchased for every character.

Thanks to a post i found in the forums, here's a breakdown of daily PvE mission rewards:
Day 1: 270 (one-time rep for introduction quest) + 1440 rep from PvE dailies = 1710 total rep.
Day 2: +1440 = 3150 total rep
Day 3: +1440 = 4590 total rep
Day 4: +1440 = 6030 total rep
Day 5: +1440 = 7470 total rep
Day 6: +1440 + 1440 from one-time newcomer quest + 630 from new daily = 10980 total rep
Day 7: +2070 rep = 13050 total rep (1050 over cap)

It has been confirmed by Bioware that the Gree vendors will remain after the event. Since you have to manually activate the tokens this means, you can't have too many tokens and it is very possible to reach Champion in the two weeks that we have in the event.

Another thing that some players haven't realized is that every time you kill the Boss in the center of PvP area, next to where you drop off the orbs, he drops a green token. I have personally picked up 10+ tokens off him over the last week. This in itself is one of the main reasons that my guild has spent so much time PvPing in the zone. Killing this droid every couple of minutes was a lot easier and more fun than doing all the missions on four different characters. World Bosses in the zone drop mutiple tokens too. Only players in the first few groups of an operation group actually get to loot the token. It is quite easy to kill these world Bosses with 8 or 16 players. With all the extra tokens acquired by world Bosses, area elites and the operation to kill Xendanalyst II drops mutiple tokens on both story and hard modes.

Hope this helps you get the gear you want. a big thanks to the reddit community for help on this.

The Many Looks of Blizz

Blizz customizations

I am now working my way through the story line of my seventh character on SWTOR, a Bounty Hunter. Although I played a Bounter Hunter character on a different server last year, to around level 30, I decided I'd start again and play it this time as tank. To say that Bounty Hunter's have a colorful array of companions is an understatement. Not only do they have the cutest female companion in the game, Mako (check out all her looks here), they also get what I consider to be the coolest companion in the game, Blizz.

Blizz is a Jawa and his personality is brilliant. He's very accepting and helpful and just an all around likable guy. He's not the best companion for a tank but I find myself taking him out and putting DPS gear on him anyway, simply because his comments, his look, and the way he sounds, are such a blast. What's not to like about a Jawa who can not only fix things but tank elites with ease?

Like Bowdaar, the wookie companion that Smugglers get, you can't change the appearance of Blizz's clothing through armor. The clothing look can only be changed through customizations. So changing Blizz's customizations is just like changing his clothes. Blizz is one of the few companions where having a variety of customizations makes sense if you use him a lot (for other companions, the customizations are more of a way to change their look for the long term whereas with Blizz's customizations it's just a wardrobe maneuver).

Above and beyond the default look, Blizz has four customizations. The default look (top center) has him in a bandoleer with a fury lining on the edge of his hood, matching shoulder pads and patches on his hood and cloak. Customization 1 (top left) changes him to a plain Jawa with no bandoleer or extra frills at all. Customization 2 (top right) simply adds a bandoleer to the plain Jawa look. Customization 3 (bottom left) adds dual bandoleers, crossed over his chest, and a shoulder pad on the plain Jawa cloak. Customization 4 is not in the game at the moment. Customization 5 (bottom right) is the most exciting. He has a custom cloak with all sorts of gadgets, a vest, shoulder pads and a backpack full of gizmos. It's the customization I've chosen to stick with.

The first three customizations are available from R-N05 on Belsavis. You will find this vendor as soon as you get off the shuttle to Belsavis. He sells customizations 1, 2 and 3 for 20 000 each.

Customization 5 is available from the security key vendor on Illum orbital station. To access this vendor you will need a security key attached to your account. Customization 5 is also 20 000 credits.

Relics of the Gree Event Sneak Peek Video Pink sabers and all...

I don't know call me old school but do we need odd color sabers? White, pink, red/black? people in SWTOR don't want to use the classic blues and greens for Jedi and just red for Sith. How cool was the original SWTOR  video with all the Sith red sabers?  Are we losing somthing in game when we have Jedi using Red sabers and Sith using Pink? Would we take Vader the same way if he pulled out a pink saber? I say let people keep the odd colour sabers but give a force bonus to the classic colors. What do you all think?
  

Between February 12 and February 26, visit the in-game News Terminal, located on Carrick Station or Vaiken Spacedock, to begin your adventure in an all new in-game event, Relics of the Gree!

 Uncover the real mission of the Gray Secant, an enormous ancient Gree starship that has mysteriously appeared over Ilum's Western Ice Shelf. The Gree have promised advanced technology, including highly-advanced weapons and armor, to anyone who is brave enough to aid them by taking on an action-packed mission.

Gree: Will you sing for your Galactic Reputation?

With Patch 1.7 bringing Galactic Reputation into SWTOR, how will it change our play styles? 

If you have played any MMO you will know that reputation grinds can be both rewarding and monotonous  SWTOR has survived over a year of popular existence without it but now it's coming to the game. Could this be the missing elements for end game players? Have you found the daily quest rewards to be lackluster? How will this reputation grind change how we perceive end game?

From the screenshots of the preview of this new feature, it looks like we'll be provided with four unique reputations:
The Gree Enclave
Imperial First Mobile Fleet
Imperial Guard on Belsavis
The Voss

Now these may branch out to be six across your legacy because the Imperial and Republic are separate. It has not been made clear yet whether you will have separate reputation for your character's faction, even though reputation will be shared across your legacy.

Reputation has six unique levels which will (obviously) unlock new rewards as you level up. This will provide a unique way for subscribers to acquire cool new gear to brag about. But will Bioware make us sing for our rewards? How many months will it take to become a Legend and how awesome will the rewards actually be for our efforts?

I actually enjoyed reputation leveling in other games like WoW. It provided an extra level of achievement that you were rewarded with, apart from credits.BUT - the rewards can make or break the reputation grind. I can see reputation bonuses being a hot seller on the Cartel Market for people who prefer to hand over cash to speed up the grind.

What type of things do you want to see from your reputation and how long do you think it should take?

Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game #2

A nice way to tell us a lot without giving away anything thanks Jeff! Wait What?????

Hello again everyone!

It has been an amazing couple of months since my last State of the Game blog. It feels like a good time to jump in again and give you a brief rundown on how we are doing, what is coming up next, and to tackle some issues head on. Let’s start with some comments about now and the future:

As you can probably imagine, the launch of the Free-to-Play option with our new Cartel Market has been an amazing event for our game. The game is incredibly healthy with an ever increasing number of players who are actively playing (the servers are rocking!). Having said that, we know we haven’t gotten everything perfect, and we are still working hard to make The Old Republic everything you guys desire. More than anything we wanted to get folks back in and playing the game, and bring back the excitement and camaraderie - we feel like we've made great strides over the last 6 months towards these goals. All signs point to a very bright future for our game!

Speaking of the future – we have two excellent updates coming your way in the upcoming months. In our Game Update 1.7 you should look forward to some interesting changes to a special PvP area that you have all been asking about (sorry for being cryptic, but this is technically not announced yet), as well as a visit from some old friends, The Gree Enclave (though maybe not in a way you would expect). And later in the spring, our Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel! The team has been working for a long time on this, and is very excited to get it out to you. We have greatly expanded on the original concept with several new systems, 5 new levels, a big new planet, new storylines, new skills and abilities and more beyond that. Keep your eyes open for more information over the next several months.

Now for everyone’s favorite section – Hot Topics. I will try to be as frank and open as possible.

Topic #1: Elder Game Content – What is our intent for keeping level 50’s occupied? Answer: Introducing new content and activities for the elder game is a top priority in the coming year. We’ve got new Operations, new Flashpoints, new difficulty modes, new PvP areas, and of course, the entire Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel (which is targeted at our high level players). We have a plan mapped out for the upcoming year that will keep the elder game fresh and interesting for players of all types. Overall, we’re aiming to introduce a more diverse array of activities – more stuff to do with your Companion, more challenges to tackle with groups, and more reasons for guilds to recruit. We’ll also be improving our itemization, introducing new incentives to revisit existing areas, and a lot of other exciting things that will be revealed as we move through the upcoming year.

Topic #2: World PvP – What happened to making Ilum better? What is going on with Open World PvP? Answer: We have not forgotten Ilum! I think you will see (fairly soon) the answer to this question in the game itself - something big is coming to the Western Ice Shelf, but it’s quite a departure from what was there before. As for pure Open World PvP…well, that’s a more difficult proposition. We are dedicated to providing excellent PvP experiences to our players, but we intend to focus our energy on PvP Seasons and new Warzones. We will be experimenting with a different approach to Open World PvP, something that encourages organic PvP in contested areas in a new and interesting way, but do not look for massive new Open World PvP this year (outside of what I mentioned above). It is still on our design wall, but is taking a back seat to other forms of PvP.

Topic #3: Character Copy to Public Test Server (PTS) – What is taking so long? Answer: As of the writing of this letter, we are in focused, internal testing on character copies for PTS. You should expect to see this come within the first part of this year. It will provide free character copies to PTS at any time (with possible restrictions dependent upon our testing needs at any given time). This will also lay the foundation for our new live character transfer system that will be coming later this year.

Topic #4: Same Gender Romance: Any news on this front would be great… Answer: First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.

Secondly, I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future. More details to come!

Whew! I think we got through this State of the Game pretty well. The team and I will continue to scan the forums, read the boards, and listen to feedback. We’re dedicated to giving you the game that YOU want to play and are making changes and improvements at a rapid pace to keep up with your desires. Please keep posting and keep talking about The Old Republic. Together we will continue to care for and expand this fantastic game.

Until next time,

-Jeff Hickman

-Executive Producer, Star Wars: The Old Republic


So Sorry you didn't want to let the Aussies know what is going on with the Dead servers over that side of the world :( but thanks for all the things you didn't tell us! :)

How to get the most value out of your Cartel Coins

With the Cartel Market embedded in our game, I thought I'd better work out what is the best value for your coins. Read on, because I can save you 5 million credits worth! The first thing I did, like everybody else, was to blow all the coins I earned via my subscription on Cartel bags. I ended up with a whole heap of crap that nobody wants. Unlike the bags I opened on the test server, the frequency of good stuff in the bags was low. I ended up with lots of very similar mounts and lots of worthless titles.

The value for almost all of these items - that were meant be rare items from Cartel packs - have dropped to about 10k each because SWTOR is flooded with them now. You can see here from the screenshot of the Galactic Trade Market from my server the mounts are desperately being sold for as little as 10k.

So, what do you spend your 500 coins on each month if you're a subscriber? Well, if you have multiple alts, I found that the best value is in Unlocks. The Cartel Market gives you the option to use credits or Cartel Coins to unlock things like extra bank slots. If you purchase the low level bank slots using credits you can save millions of credits by using Cartel Coins to unlock the extra bank slots on all your characters on your account!

Another thing I did was to use all my Cartel coins like the target dummies, mail box and Galactic Trade Market on my ships. These unlocks, paid for by Cartel Coins, are account wide and extremely good value for money when compared to paying for it in credits. For less than the cost of a set of armor you get to unlock the Galactic Trade Market on your ship. If you were to use credits it would cost 5 million! For 5 million credits you could purchase almost every item available in Cartel packs off the Galactic Market including exclusive mounts like the Emporer's chair.

So at this stage I would highly recommend that you don't spend your Cartel Coins on the random packs - especially  if you're looking for individual items. Due to the massive volume of initial packs that were sold it is far cheaper to get this stuff from the Galactic Trade Market now.

New SWTOR Free To Play Video

This is one cool video if your a Star Wars fan and have not played SWTOR this is your chance it free to play  all the way up to level 50! Max level the story's are amazing and the game has 8 full story's to pick from.

The Free-to-Play option is now live! Step into the Star Wars™ universe and play a role in the ongoing battle as you start your own personal saga. Play now as a Jedi, a Sith, a Bounty Hunter or as one of many other iconic Star Wars roles up to Level 50 for free. Watch "A Galaxy of Possibilities" and see the action-packed adventure that awaits you in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!