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Chill, Teo and Hyp have much to cover this week: Disney is buying LucasFilm, Star Wars: Episode 7 is coming in 2015, EA had its latest earnings call, and there’s plenty of updates on the free-to-play conversion, as it continues to be tested in Game Update 1.5 on the PTS.

1. Introduction

2. Trivia question

Congratulations to this week’s winner, JT Long. He plays Arveshet of the Timor sub-guild of AIE (Alea Iacta Est) on the Jedi Covenant server.

3. The Holofeed

• The news that George Lucas has sold LucasFilm Ltd to Disney took the Star Wars world by storm this week. The sale includes LucasArts, the company which makes Star Wars games, and which partnered with BioWare to make SWTOR. As part of the announcement, it was revealed that Star Wars: Episode 7 will be released in 2015. A source within LucasFilm indicates that it will be an original story, rather than based on an existing story from the Extended Universe.
• Fans were quick to create some suggestive imagery reflecting just what the Disneyfication of Star Wars will mean.

• Patch 1.4.3 was deployed during a long scheduled maintenance on Tuesday. Along with a few fixes, the patch included a beefing up of the rewards offered by story mode operations. It seems they went a little too far when they were reduced in Game Update 1.4!
• Electronic Arts held its 2Q 2013 earnings call this week, though SWTOR was barely mentioned. No subscriber numbers were revealed, and when questioned, the response indicated the subscribed community was “stable”.
• Peter Moore, COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Electronic Arts, was interviewed by Wired. Many topics were covered, though a couple of questions directly applied to SWTOR and its free-to-play strategy.
• Due to an apparent increase in buying credits with real-world money from unauthorised sources, BioWare has warned that the penalties for doing so are severe.
• There was also plenty of news on the free-to-play front, as Game Update 1.5 continues to be tested on the PTS.
  • Nathan Emmott goes into detail about Preferred Player status, which is earned once a payment has been made for a given account (e.g., purchase of Cartel Coins, subscription). Any player who has previously been subscribed will automatically be elevated to Preferred status once free-to-play is launched.
  • Damion Schubert describes the changes that are being made as testing of Game Update 1.5 continues, including the relaxation of some restrictions on free-to-play players. He also confirms that account unlocks apply to all current and future characters, regardless of server.
  • Blaine Christine answered many player questions about the free-to-play conversion.
  • It’s well worth checking the current patch notes for the PTS, to see the current shape of Game Update 1.5.

4. Force Feedback

Our sincere thanks to Howard for his donation! He also emailed us for some PvP tips for a Gunslinger; Chill was most happy to oblige.

We discuss tweets from @DarthPops (Marshall Carr Jr.), @weihanthekidsun (Weihan Sun), @EmpireDivider (Chong), @John_K64 (Ry), @rbleamon (Ray Leamon), @voyak, @ForceChuckle, @Dimbo56, @StoleTarts (Megan), @AspisVodox, @Rabbi_Shekky and @bytorsnowdog.

We’d like to recommend the Coffee Talk with Niq and Lance podcast, a general gaming show from the former hosts of Pink Side of the Force.

Our guildmate Terg has demonstrated some quite remarkable pumpkin carving skills for Halloween, creating a pretty accurate recreation of everyone’s favourite Sith, Darth Malgus!

5. 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 Zune, and watch for us in your Bind on Equip feed.