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.

Video The Old Republic Insider Episode 5

Get ready for some weekend Grinding!! Dubbed XP weekends!!


Bioware has announced the game’s first – Double XP weekends, scheduled on the following dates:

• March 15, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 18, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT
• March 22, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to March 25, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT
• March 29, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT to April 1, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT
• April 5, 2013 at 1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM to April 8, 2013 at 2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT

Double XP weekends will help all SWTOR fans prepare for the upcoming Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel. As a part of this promotion double XP affects literally everything (space, quest rewards, PvP, etc). If you’ve already hit Level 50, don’t worry your Legacy XP will double too, but this does not affect things like Valor.


Today we are pleased to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Insider Episode 5 is now live! This video details some of the new Cartel Market items including the Luxury Skiff Speeder and the Contraband Shipment, a set of five Cartel Packs! Also, preview the exciting gameplay updates coming in March and get a glimpse of the new Operation coming with Game Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy.

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.

Making of Rise of the Hutt Cartel Part 1: Creating Makeb video and screenshots

In this video, Hall Hood, Lead Writer, and Ryan Dening, Lead Concept Artist, join forces to give more insight into the exciting new planet, Makeb, coming with the Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel.

Watch as they discuss unique areas never-before-seen in The Old Republic™ universe, including the exotic settlement on Makeb and the vast plateaus that await you on the planet's volatile surface. Find out how Makeb continues your character's storyline with a galactic struggle for the planet's dwindling resources. Plus, get a sneak peak at the beautifully rendered Taloas City and other new graphic enhancements that will compliment your gameplay experience!

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.


D

SWTOR Public Test Server Character Copy Fix!!

Someone on reddit discovered this. I tried it and it worked for me.

1) Take off all your companion gears. All of them, every single companion, including customizations. Put them in cargo bay or sell them.

2) Log off to character select

3) Log on to your account and do the transfer

http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/commen...r_copy_to_pts/

Off to do some testing!!!

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.