Get ready for game update 1.2 with user interface options

Big changes coming this Thursday are with the user interface options. I found myself in awe at what you can do with them in the editor. for example, I play on a 27" screen and I've always found  the HUD to be too big. using an option in the new update I was able to shrink it all down to 0.8 and I moved all the buttons closer together, as you can see in this screenshot below.

I know I'll change it more as I start to PvP and do Ops but I saved this interface I created ready to go for Game Update 1.2. Here's the snitch from Bioware, with a video guide:

Game Update 1.2: Legacy for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ introduces several new systems to the game, including the option for you to customize your User Interface. You'll be able to alter the placement and size of each UI element to suit your own personal preference.

Game Update 1.2 locked in for April 12, 2012

Bioware just announced the impending release of Game Update 1.2. This is one of the largest free patches ever released for an MMO, and Bioware are extremely excited to finally have a date for it. Check out this blog for all the info about maintenance tomorrow night.

David Bass from Bioware wanted to point out that the maintenance period is intentionally earlier tomorrow night. "This deploy is a very large patch, and Bioware wanted to shift it earlier to ensure SWTOR can be back up in plenty of time for the majority of our players to be able to play on Thursday night without issue."

Hello everyone!


We will be bringing down servers for eight hours on April 12th, 2012 from 12:01AM CDT (April 11th, 10:01PM PDT/1:01AM EDT/6:01AM BST/7:01AM CEST/3:01PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST) in order to deploy Game Update 1.2 - Legacy. All game servers will be offline during this period. SWTOR.com will be available. This maintenance is expected to take no more than eight hours, but could be extended.



Please note the timing on this maintenance period, which is beginning earlier than usual.


Game Update 1.2 – Legacy introduces new content and features for all Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ players. Earn new rewards and build your family tree with the expanded Legacy System, explore Lost Island, a new Flashpoint, challenge the new Operation: Explosive Conflict, and face off against your foes (or your allies) in Novare Coast, a new Warzone. You can also experience new daily missions on Corellia, customize your User Interface, create a new Guild Bank for your guild, and more! Learn more about Game Update 1.2 here!


After this maintenance is over, restart the game launcher to patch to Game Update 1.2. This patch will be up to approximately 1Gb in size, depending on when you last updated the game.


Scheduled Maintenance


Date: Thursday, April 12th, 2012 (See PDT timing below)


Time: 12:01AM CDT (April 11th, 10:01PM PDT/1:01AM EDT/6:01AM BST/7:01AM CEST/3:01PM AEST) until 8AM CDT (6AM PDT/9AM EDT/2PM BST/3PM CEST/11PM AEST)


All game servers will be offline during this period. SWTOR.com will be available. 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™.

Guild goes from 0-50 in under 30 days

The opening of the new Asia-Pacific servers forced a lot of players to re-roll. I ended up in a raiding guild (set up for operations) in the first week that the new servers were opened. To my surprise, the guild got a complete raid team together and it only took 29 days for them to clear all the standard operation content. Now is that too fast or is it just right? 

New raid content in games like WoW took far longer. The attempt would be spread out across several nights which got quite frustrating at times. You'd want to complete the raid but you'd also want to do something other than WoW some nights ... at least with the length of the SWTOR raids that balance is easier. I am finding that the current amount of raiding is allowing me to spend time doing other things ingame including leveling alts and PvP. With alts being a crucial part of the legacy system, maybe Bioware doesn't want players raiding 3-4 nights per week.

Everyone on the guild had already played a character to level 50 previously, so that probably sped things up since we knew where to go and what to do. On the other hand, I had never tanked most of the content so although I'd played for over five months, a lot of the boss kills were new to me and others in the operations. Undeniably, the content was cleared due to exceptional leadership. 

The swift progress through these operations has also revealed that new level 50s are very capable of doing operations. We took a lot of the guild members into the operations just days after they reached level 50. A lot of the content can be completed without the need for high end epic gear. A lot of players believe you need to spend weeks gearing up before you start doing operations but that's just not true. The operation story-mode content is for new level 50 players. It's just as efficient to gear up as you do operations as it is to gear up using heroic flashpoints or PvP. So if you think you're not ready for doing operations yet, take my advice and give it a go. If you can take somebody who knows the strategies it will help a lot. Having a vocal leader who knows the content is a necessity for success. A big kudos to Tombstone, Fusion's raid/operation leader.

In Star Wars The Old Republic, operations consist of eight players and can be completed in story mode, hard mode and nightmare mode, once a week.

Crimson Nova girls from Pandamonium

When people go to this length to promote their guild it truly inspires me. I know definitely, if I ever tried to sing a parody, or anything else for that matter I'd loose count of the amount of dislikes the video would get. The Crimson Nova girls from the Pandamonium guild have done a fantastic job on this parody. The video is definitely worth checking out and also check out their guild if you happen to be on their server which is Darth Bandon.






I am a little bit concerned about the still frame they've chosen though for the cover of this video. Looking closely at the character on the far left makes we question the character's gender!

SWTOR Legacy Companion Unlocks in patch 1.2

Bioware is giving us a real reason to get in the good books with our companions. As of patch 1.2 increasing your companions' affection to 10 000 unlocks a unique enhancement for that specific class of companion. There are a total of five different companion classes and they are healer, melee damage, ranged damage, melee tank and ranged tank. Also, every single companion you cap affection with grants you 10 bonus Presence with all your characters under your Legacy name. So theoretically you can eventually have a default 400 bonus Presence on all your characters, if you play all eight classes and max out affection with all the (40) companions.


Somehow I think people are going to be spending a lot more time chasing companion gifts!


After doing some testing I discovered that the bonus I unlocked by maxing out Kira's affection on my Jedi Knight was applied to every other character I created, on both Republic and Sith sides. For Kira it was a bonus to surge and although it applies to all characters, the bonus surge can only be unlocked once. The Presence, on the other hand, can be unlocked on every companion and every class.

In the notes about what is unlocked is says "You may only receive this bonus for one healer/melee tank (etc) companion". It took me a bit of research to figure out that what this means is that if you unlock a healer companion on your Jedi Knight, you get the bonus for all the characters you create. It is not stacked or re-applied when you unlock another healer companion though on a separate character.

Here you can see the bonus surge applied to a naked level one Trooper. It is clearly not present in patch 1.1. Interestingly, base DPS with no weapon equipped seems to be higher in 1.1.

So, let's look at the bonuses that you get with each class of companion.

Achieving maximum affection with a healer grants you a bonus to the total healing you receive, increases your heroic moment by 12 seconds and reduces the cooldown by 1 minute. (Also grants 10 bonus Presence to all characters)

Surge rating goes up. Heroic moment goes up by 12 seconds and cooldown goes down by 1 minute.

Critical Hit Chance gets a boost for ranged damage companions as well as the usual increase of heroic moment by 12 seconds and reduction of cooldown by 1 minute.

With the melee tank companions you get a bonus to your accuracy (plus the usual).

With ranged tank it's the usual plus a Max Health bonus.

Here's a summary:

Campion class	Bonus*	Heroic Moment*	Cooldown*	Presence
Healer	Healing Received	Increased by 12 seconds	Reduced by 1 minute	+10 bonus
Melee Damage	Surge rating
Ranged Damage	Critical Hit Chance
Melee Tank	Accuracy
Ranged Tank	Max Health

* Is only unlocked once

All this means that getting on your companions' good sides is even more important than ever. To review the gift preferences of companions, check out our information pages.

Hot off the Press for 1.2: Become Your Ship Droid

"Note posted on April Fool's"

Have you ever fantasied about getting down and dirty with Scorpio, the hot Imperial Agent droid companion?! Or are you looking for cool old Star Wars games like Super Star Wars? Bioware have answered all your pleas with this hot update.

The ability to be able to jump into first person mode in your droid character and play Super Star Wars is a big enough draw card for the monthly subscription for me. After unlocking this feature, I can't see myself doing anything else ingame ...

... apart from maybe sexing it up with Scorpio that is! What's not to like about this evil woman? Read on the see the other fabulous features coming in game update 1.2.

Four New Achievement Missions in Patch 1.2

Found next to your trusty vendor sales rep on your fleet station is a set of new achievement missions. Unlike other achievements in the game, these babies have unique rewards. For your efforts you'll be able to show off to the galaxy your shinny new speeder, knowing that only people who have completed these missions will have access to these new mounts.

Aratech Ice speeder: This ice cold slick mount is awarded for completing all of the following Flashpoints in hard mode: Esseles, Taral V, Maelstrom Prison, Directive 7, The Battle of Ilum, The False Emperor, Kaon Under Siege and Lost Island.

The vehicle listed here is the Aratech Nightscythe but the reward is listed as Praxon Firaxa. Not sure if that's a bug, but either way, the reqrd is given for defeating these Operation bosses in Hard mode: Droid XRR-3, Gharj, Soa, Bonethrasher, G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator, Karagga, Zorn and Toth, Colonel Vorgath, and Kephess.

As I am going through these screenshots I collected to share I am noticing that a lot of them list a vehicle name and then a different reward. In this case it's a Aratech Fire vehicle and the reward is Praxon Trackmaster, which also sounds like a vehicle name to me. Mayb ethe Praxon Trackmaster is commonly known as an Aratech Fire, or vice versa? I am just hoping it's bright red with flames! This reward id given for defeating these Operation bosses in Story mode: Droid XRR-3, Gharj, Soa, Bonethrasher, G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator, Karagga, Zorn and Toth, Colonel Vorgath, and Kephess.

This one lists the same vehicle name and reward name: Aratech Coral. Snowblind, Gargath, Primal destroyer and Nightmare Pilgrim world bosses all have to be defeated for this one.

I can see these achievements driving more people to operations and world bosses. General chat is going to be abuzz with people trying to get groups together for these. With the right group leader most of the story operations and world bosses are easy to achieve at level 50. My level 50 character on the new Australian server has only been level 50 for a week and I've completed all of the operations listed above in Story mode. Our guild will start Hard modes in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to see if these achievement missions are backwards compatible with kills that your character has already done when the patch goes live (or will you have to do the operations again in order to get these achievements?).

Taunta: Close up with the new Collector's Edition pet in patch 1.2

One of the most exciting things about patch 1.2 is the introduction of Taunta. Tauna is an awesome new pet for those of you who forked out the extra credits for the Collector's Edition, unlike that little droid that looks like a vacume cleaner and goes beep ... and not much else. Now you must admit that just the look of Taunta is very well done, right down to the little horns on his head and his cute little tauntaun sounds.  

You can purchase Taunta if you have access tot he Collector's Edition vendor. He will set you back 200 000 credits, but me being a sucker for pets, I didn't think twice about dropping that type of cash for a new buddy.

The second you pull Taunta out he will focus on you with admiring eyes and follow you everywhere.

Unlike your other companions, Taunta won't abandon you as soon as you pull out your mount. Taunta can keep up with you, even when you're riding a 110 speed mount.

Taunta is also a chick magnet! Kira seemed to be fascinated with him; or is that jealousy?

You'll find yourself starring at Taunta, watching his cute little yawns. He also seems to constantly scratch at the ground, kind of like a chicken.

Taunta will be available in patch 1.2.

Developer Dispatch: The Legacy System

Is that a jet pack mount unlock I see for Bounty Hunter? I so want that on my Jedi!

The Legacy System is coming in Game Update 1.2, and with it, a new dimension to The Old Republic™ experience. Like the Skywalkers, you'll build your own family tree in the Star Wars™ galaxy, linking your characters on the same server together. Your achievements will open up new species options, new abilities for all the characters in your Legacy, and that's only the beginning...

Trooper Companion Information Updated

Troopers, it's your turn: our Companion List information for Trooper Companions has now been updated to our latest style of presentation. Character information, Gameplay information and Gift Preferences are all included.