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Chill, Teo and Hyp discuss a few developer posts, and a few key points from the recent SWTOR-related interviews at GamesCom. We also have the next instalment of our hard mode guides for the level 50 in a hurry, this week covering The Battle of Ilum.

1. Introduction

2. Question to the panel

Chill’s Sith Sorcerer has achieved Dark V; he invites us to contrast the appearance from the character’s creation to her current dark incarnation:

3. Trivia question

This week’s question: What does Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope have in common with two other great action films: A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven?

If you are interested in being entered in the random drawing for a Tauntaun Fawn code, please send your answer to ootinicast@gmail.com.

4. The Holofeed

• In an attempt to reduce the lag encountered in operations, their solution—to reduce the population on a hardware shard hosting operation instances—had the unintended consequence of locking some members of a raid out! It appears that subsequent tweaking has resolved the issue.
• Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer) gives us some insight on the accuracy of bosses in operations.
• When SWTOR goes free-to-play, we are told that cash shop items (boost consumables, unlocks, vanity items, etc.) can be per-character (but will tend to be bind-to-legacy) or account-wide. In some cases, a cheaper per-character option will be available in addition to the more expensive full account-wide purchase.
• Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer) answered a couple of questions about PvP:
  • The new warzone, Ancient Hypergates, will be added to those available for ranked warzones as soon as it’s available;
  • 8-man pre-mades for non-ranked warzones isn’t going to happen anytime soon;
  • Queuing with less than an 8-man for ranked warzones is coming post-1.4; and
  • Season 1 of ranked warzones (we’re currently in the pre-season) will kick off sometime post-1.4.
• Something went wrong earlier this week that caused some players to be unable to access one or more of their characters. The issue was fixed within a day or so.
• Jason Attard explains the process used to allocate stats across the armoring, mods and enhancements that are present in operation gear.
• Dueling on the Fleet isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future, it seems.
• The first two Lego kits based on SWTOR are available for purchase! You can get a  Republic Striker-class Starfighter for $US44.99:

• You can win your own 1:4 scale Darth Malgus statue courtesy of Sideshow collectibles. Entries close 23 September, you won’t receive it until March 2013, and you’ll have to pay for shipping!
• We discuss a few key points that emerged from numerous interviews conducted with SWTOR’s leadership at GamesCom:
  • Matthew Bromberg (General Manager, BioWare Austin)
    • SWTOR: Interview with Bioware on the future of the Star Wars MMORPG (buffed.de)
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Free Future (IGN)
  • Jeff Hickman (Executive Producer, SWTOR)
    • The Future of SWTOR – Jeff Hickman Interview (SWTOR-Spy)
    • The Old Republic Interview: Bioware’s Jeff Hickman (RPG Site)
  • Gabe Amatangelo
    • GamesCom 2012: Interview with Gabe Amatangelo (Darth Hater)
    • Interview with Gabe Amatangelo of Darth Josh (swtor.ingame.de)
  • Lars Malcharek (SWTOR German Community Lead)
    • Interview with Lars Malcharek (inSTARWARS.de)

5. Force Feedback

We discuss tweets from @ForceChuckle, @bytorsnowdog (Snowy), @rbleamon (Ray Leamon) and @Rrubb, and comments from Voyak and masterjedi.

Mags upgraded his repair droid to the third (the highest) tier, and to his surprise observed that its another C2-N2!

Our guildmate Chong is organising a ranked warzone team, starting at one day a week, kicking off weekly at 8pm Saturday PDT. If you are interested, please email chong@ootinicast.com.

6. Sarlacc Digest

We continue our series that provides hints and tips for the player who wants to get their daily Group Finder hard mode done in a hurry. This week we discuss The Battle of Ilum, a hard mode Flashpoint available to both factions.

Next week, another shared Flashpoint: The False Emperor.

7. Outro

Thanks to Hyp (@Hypknotoad) for joining us this week.

You can email questions and comments about the show to ootinicast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter via @OotiniCast. Check out our website, ootinicast.com, which has links to our presence on Google+ and Facebook. We are a proud member of the TOR Syndicate! Subscribe to us on iTunes, and watch for us in your Bind on Equip feed.