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After covering the light news from this week, we revisit what to expect in Game Update 2.3: Titans of Industry, which is due to arrive on Tuesday!

1. Introduction

2. Tip of the week

Congratulations to this week’s winner, Ki’el Over! (Yes, we know.)

3. Holofeed

• While we had no patch to the game, the launcher has been significantly updated to support a streaming model for downloading content.
• The polls to select the class representatives were made available late last week, and after the voting we have our winners!
  • Each class representative will serve a single term, and their sole responsibility is to come up with the three top issues for their Advanced Class (one PvE, one PvP and one wildcard).
  • Every two weeks, based on this schedule, two class representatives will be asked to present their issues, first up being Sniper and Sentinel, who will each present their three issues by the end of this week (2 August).
  • Note that each mirror Advanced Class (e.g., Sniper and Gunslinger) have separate representatives and will have their own opportunity to put forward their issues.
  • Eric Musco set the expectation that while this program is intended to establish a dialog on current issues for each Advanced Class, it doesn’t guarantee that things will necessarily change.
• While an email sent to all players with characters on any of the three APAC servers indicated that their was only a week until those servers would be shut down, the actual shutdown (also as stated in the email) is confirmed to be on 13 August.
• While BioWare intended a second expression of subscriber appreciation for the end of July (following on from the Cartel Coin grant early in the month), it turned out not to be ready in time.
• The times and locations for the next two Community Cantinas have been confirmed:
  • Friday 23 August, 7-11pm CEST: Radisson Blu Hotel, Cologne, Germany
  • Saturday 31 August, 8-11pm PDT: Garage Billiards, Seattle, WA, USA
• While the Gold Scalene Armor (sold over the weekend only) is not currently added to the Collections UI, it seems that this was not intended and will be fixed.
• Alex Modny’s blog about the mechanics of warzone arenas coming in Game Update 2.4, which he teased last week, is scheduled to be published in the week beginning 12 August (week after next).
• It seems that not only can new items be added to the Cartel Market without the need of server downtime, but specials can change daily! While some changes may be notified via Twitter, the recommendation is to login each day to see what’s changed. Dulfy is tracking the discounts daily, as Njessi (of Hawt Pants Republic) pointed out on her blog.
• Eric Musco mentioned that there’s a good chance the Gold Scalene armor and Solus Secant speeder will be back again this weekend!
• Amber Green responded to concerns about the changes made to the Seeker Droid mechanics, in terms of what can be dug up. Some fixes are in the works for those situations where undesirable loot is still being found.
• David Demaree clarified when Force Barrier can be used, clarifying that it’s not available when Hindered, an effect created by the Commando/Mercenary’s Electro Net. It is a bug (and should be reported) if Force Barrier goes on cooldown (rather than simply being forbidden) when attempting to it when Hindered.

4. Community

George Lindsesay (@wannabePhD) is hoping to get ranked warzones happening again on The Harbinger on a regular basis. See his thread on the official forums for more information.

Dan O’Brien (@DsanOB) has updated his @SWTORTracker to respond to dev posts more quickly.

For those interested in joining Ootini Fight Club for some endgame PvP, please contact Chong by email (empiredivider@gmail.com).

5. Force Feedback

Thanks to Pathlight for his kind words about the show!

We discuss tweets from @Swtorfamily (be sure to follow him back to join the #swtorfamily!), @Kooz5 (Mark K), @EmpireDivider (Moff Chong), @Casmas_, @GregCarter78, @JediKal, @terencemyers, @banyo1984, @ben_b55, @ForceChuckle, @JediElkatt (Theekatt), @O_JohnnyBravo_O (JB), @HamSammich509, @Kodo (Anthony Harris), @AckaanTalgala (Akaan) and @ChazLobo.

The new Razer Naga MMO gaming mouse is here, including a left-handed version!

The scoreboard from the warzone in which Moff Chong demonstrated his unquestionable prowess:

 

Also, his video, Chong’s Thoughts: Voidstar.

6. Sarlacc Digest

Game Update 2.3: Titans of Industry is due to be deployed next Tuesday 6 August. We discuss what it will bring, including:

• Change to The Civil War (removal of the speeders that connect directly to snow and grass).
• Our first Ewok companion, Treek. Post-recording update: we now know that Treek will cost 2100 CC (with no legacy level requirement) to obtain, as an alternative to legacy level 40 and 1 million credits. In both cases, item obtained can be sold on the GTN (though latter item still requires legacy level 40). Once obtained either way, Treek can be unlocked account-wide via Collections for 700 CC, or per character via legacy for 300,000 credits.
• The new daily area on CZ-198, offering new reputation rewards. See Gaddock Teeg‘s latest PTS videos covering the dailies on his YouTube channel.
• Two new level 55 Flashpoints (each supporting hard mode and role-neutral story mode) on CZ-198, Czerka Corporate Labs and Czerka Core Meltdown.

You can find the PTS patch notes here.

7. Outro

Thanks to Redna (@R3DN4) and Hyp (@Hypknotoad) for joining us this week.

Information about our guilds on The Harbinger, Ootini Knights (Republic) and Ootini Rage (Empire), can be found here.

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! You can subscribe to us on iTunes and Zune, and listen to us on Stitcher and Radio4Gamers.