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This week we talk about Game Update 2.3.1, the changes coming in Game Update 2.4: The Dread War (now on the PTS) and the community reactions to the removal of ranked 8v8 warzones.

1. Introduction

Hyp found the following proposed concept art for the upcoming episode 7:

2. Tip of the week

Thundermoose provided this screenshot showing where to stand in the Trooper starship such that you can preview lightsaber ignition sounds:

3. Holofeed

• Game Update 2.3.0c was deployed late last week, to make the information retrieval from Shady Characters a little faster.
• Game Update 2.3.1 was deployed on Wednesday morning, delayed from the usual Tuesday to ensure they got some bug fixes in. Serendipitously, this also meant there’d be no interruption to the final hours of Bounty Contract Week!
• A somewhat specific yet nasty bug was introduced in Game Update 2.3.1, causing some event armour to acquire a new, unintended alignment requirement.
• Game Update 2.4: The Dread War is on the PTS, featuring playable Warzone Arenas! Alex Modny also confirmed that the gas cloud won’t really be survivable by anyone, and that Warzone Arenas supported matches between teams from the same faction as well as the opposite faction.
• There are some substantial changes for Powertechs/Vanguards included in Game Update 2.4, which players believe are a nerf to DPS output. SWTOR developer David Demaree indicated that changes were already incoming, and that at least one aspect of the apparent nerf was due to numbers obtained against a target dummy being misleading.
• Players were given a chance to face off against a team of four BioWare (including Community Manager Eric Musco) developers in Warzone Arenas over a couple of hours on the PTS. A follow-up post afterwards indicated that the BioWare guys may not have had resounding success.

4. Community

@Ben_b55 has written up his thoughts on the removal of ranked 8v8 warzones in his article Warzone Arenas of Death: New Life to Ranked Play or Final Nail in the Coffin?

The @SWTORTracker Twitter feed, created by Dan O’Brien (@DsanOB) now has over 200 followers. Follow it to see SWTOR dev posts (almost) as they happen!

OotiniCast now has its own forums, where our Australian Republic-side ops group, Ham and Kal’s Ootini Templars, are still looking for more members!

For Empire-side players on The Bastion, our old friend Izaak recommends his guild, Descension. They have four scheduled ops runs per week, full hardmode clears, do pick-up runs almost nightly, and are setting up teams for Game Update 2.4.

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

5. Force Feedback

We discuss tweets from @Swtorfamily (be sure to follow him back to join the #swtorfamily!), @Geldarion, @JediKrackr, @KairiahMedens, @rbleamon, @Eskatun, @Seth_Eldarg, @GregCarter78, @nicknightmoves, @masterbearjedi, @BenAKenobi, @IzaakTheMad, @tehknuck and @HamSammich509, emails from Raymond Wilson, Hash, Graham Sellars, and comments from Oxi-jin and DroidDreamer. @JediKrackr, inspired by @rbleamon, proposed the following OotiniCast merchandise:

Raymond Wilson has uncovered yet more proof that Hyp’s long sought after day/night cycles are viable:

Graham Sellars has created this most amazing (and enormous) wall poster:

6. 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.