OotiniCast Episode 36

Posted on by July 20, 2012
3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Chill, Teo and Hyp go over what little news there is, before diving into the main topic: how to gear up at level 50 in the brave new world of Game Update 1.3, along with some tips on using the Group Finder. We also provide some etiquette recommendations for responsible grouping.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. The Holofeed
  • Patch 1.3.3 was deployed during Tuesday’s regular maintenance.
  • Rich Vogel leaves BioWare ahead of a second round of layoffs. EA BioWare subsequently released a statement about the layoffs.
  • EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, says that they’re looking into “different models to bring more users into [SWTOR]”, though he didn’t actually say it’s going free-to-play.
  • BioWare confirms that no characters will be lost (i.e., deleted) when the automatic transfers from origin to destination servers happens “later this summer”.
  • BioWare was at San Diego Comic-Con, though the information revealed was fairly light. The one big reveal was the trailer for HK-51! The trailer can also be seen on YouTube.

4. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @ForceChuckle, @Dimbo56, @IRBountyHunter, @weihanthekidsun (Weihan Sun), and @D_Willoughby (DeWayne Willoughby).
  • @YojeVawree (Yoje Vawree) retweeted @psynister’s reference to the following that appeared on Reddit:

5. Sarlacc Digest

We start with a summary of how to gear up a new level 50. The following two guides from the ever-productive Dulfy provide more specific details:

Then we discuss the Group Finder, hitting the main points in a BioWare post by Toni Phillips (A Guide to Group Finder Part 2), which follows up from James Ohlen’s original pre-1.3 post.

Finally, we give our personal tips on group etiquette, particularly as it pertains to SWTOR.

6. 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 35

Posted on by July 13, 2012
1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This week, Chill and Teo are joined by Hyp to go over the latest news. We also respond to listener feedback, discussing possible extensions to the space game, and whether we really need add-ons after all.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. Trivia question

This week’s challenge: There are three rock-solid canonical lightsaber colors from the original trilogy: blue and green for good guys, red for bad guys. But let’s break this down: Luke Skywalker originally had a blue lightsaber, which was his father’s. Then his father cut off his hand. Not a good day for Luke; he lost his hand, his lightsaber, and his dreams that his father was merely dead and not the second worst person in the galaxy, all literally at a single stroke. It’s worth noting that his mentor Obi-Wan also had a blue lightsaber. So the question is: why, in Return of the Jedi, does Luke have a green lightsaber?

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
  • Patch 1.3.2 was deployed during an extended (6 hour) maintenance on Tuesday.
  • The unlimited (up to level 15) SWTOR free trial has begun!
  • It was revealed that the Kurtob Alliance Speeder, a picture of which was revealed on Facebook last week, is the account-wide mount that is the reward for referring someone to SWTOR who subsequently buys the game and subscribes.

  • It would appear that server mergers are coming “later this summer”. It was explained in a blog post (Character Transfer, Server Populations, and You (Part II)) that all servers that were designated as origins (such as our own former home, Space Slug) are now locked to new players, and sometime this summer any toons remaining on those servers will be automatically transferred to their associated destination server. After that, presumably the origin servers will be shut down.
  • For every character on the destination servers (those who transferred there or natives), BioWare is giving each character a Gannifar mini-pet and 25 Black Hole Commendations. So get those characters slots filled to take full advantage of the largess!

  • In an interview with GamesIndustry International, James Ohlen gives some insight into the game’s early development, including its use of the NWN (Neverwinter Nights) toolkit for initial prototyping. He also mentions the “megaserver” tech that is on its way.
  • We go over some questions from the latest Community Q&A: July 6th, 2012.
5. Force Feedback
  • @ForceChuckle referred us to the article EVE Evolved: Four things MMOs can learn from EVE from Massively; a couple of things there that could improve SWTOR.
  • Thanks to Belthallusii of The Sith Dynasty guild on the Nightmare Lands server, and to our guildmate Mags, for their most generous donations!
  • Belthallusii wrote in with some speculation about the upcoming expansion of SWTOR’s space game, which gave us the opportunity to once again discuss just what they could be dreaming of.
  • Bill D commented that it’d be better to provide better in-game visualisation of aggro levels and fight mechanics, rather than opening the field for add-on developers to provide their own solutions.
  • Saj commented about the Group Finder issue where you need to click the [Update Roles] button for a change in your role to take effect.
6. 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 34

Posted on by July 6, 2012
3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

In this week’s show, Chill and Teo are joined by Oni and Hyp to talk about our adventures with the Group Finder, speculate about the next world event, and chew over the two latest Q&As.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. Trivia question

Congratulations to this week’s winner, Voyak!

4. The Holofeed
  • Following Game Update 1.3’s deployment last week, there were two unscheduled maintenances required to fix some initial issues, patches 1.3.0a on Thursday morning and 1.3.0b on Friday. During Tuesday’s regular maintenance, patch 1.3.1 was deployed.
  • BioWare clarified that the “Legacy of Crafting” character perk, each tier of which indicates that it “Increases the chance of an augmented result while crafting by 1%”, also applies to the chance to crit when crafting non-wearable items (e.g., stims made by BioChem).
  • On Tuesday morning, the following teaser image was posted on SWTOR’s Facebook page:

    A couple of days after we recorded, the full picture was shown:

    This is apparently a Kurtob Alliance Speeder, which will be available sometime soon.
  • Thanks to some data-mining of Game Update 1.3 done while it was on the PTS, we have a suggestion that the next world event will be the “Grand Acquisitions Race”.
  • Additional character transfer options were made available to players on the European RP-PvP servers; in addition to the original same-language PvP server, they can now transfer to the same-language RP-PvE server instead. For those on the sole US west coast RP-PvP server Ajunta Pall, whose initial option was the east coast RP-PvP server, they now have the option of transferring to the west coast PvP or RP-PvE servers.
  • We catch up on the last couple of community Q&As, from 22 June and 29 June.
5. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @ForceChuckle and @TShapedVisor.
  • Griseus of the Tempest guild on The Bastion emailed in to ask whether you could double up on set bonuses by putting Armoring mods from the Campaign gear (which includes the set bonus) into Tionese/Columni/Rakata shells (which also have the set bonus). He also asked about whether we’d been experiencing any lag spikes in operations; his own raid team had been having problems with this in Explosive Conflict.
  • The mighty Chong emailed in to ask whether it would be possible for one member of the guild to purchase Legacy Repair Astromech Unit for their ship, and then to let others onto their ship to purchase the sensor units that provide efficiency/critical bonuses for one’s ship droid when crafting. The Legacy Repair Astromech Unit costs 1,000,000 credits to unlock; each sensor units costs 100,000 credits, and is bind-to-legacy. The following are available:
    Engineering Droid Sensor +5 Scavenging Efficiency +5 Cybertech Critical
    Exploration Droid Sensor +5 Archaeology Efficiency +5 Synthweaving Critical
    Hunter Droid Sensor +10 Investigation Efficiency + 2 Armstech Critical
    Scout Droid Sensor +10 Artificing Efficiency +2 Treasure Hunting Critical
    Medical Droid Sensor +10 Biochem Efficiency +2 Diplomacy Critical
    Security Droid Sensor +10 Armormech Efficiency +2 Underworld Trading Critical

    It is also worth noting that you can now increase affection with your ship droid, to make them more useful when crafting for you, by giving them gifts:

    • Loves: Cultural Artifacts
    • Favourite: Technology
    • Likes: Republic Memorabilia (C2-N2) or Imperial Memorabilia (2V-R8)
  • Ape2man left a comment for episode 33, where he asked whether we thought that further transfers would be needed given the current occasional queues, especially when new subscribers are taken into consideration.
6. Outro

Thanks to Hyp (@Hypknotoad) and Oni (@Freakin_Ninja) 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 33

Posted on by June 29, 2012
2

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

In this week’s episode, we go over what’s been added in Game Update 1.3, giving our impression of the changes. The panel includes Agi, Hyp and Oni, as well as your hosts Chill and Teo.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel

Teo used this guide to help maximise the affection gain with Qyzen when running the Esseles on his Jedi Sage.

3. Trivia question

This week’s challenge: How was Star Wars used in real life by certain official members of Britain to thumb their nose at a foreign emissary they didn’t like?

HINT: The Imperial March figures very strongly in the answer.

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
  • The three European RP-PvP servers (English, French and German) have been granted free character transfers to the single PvP destination server of the same language. BioWare explained this was what they deemed to be the best compromise, choosing a destination that offered the same (PvP) rule set, even without the RP designation.
  • Game Update 1.3 (release notes) was announced last Friday, and deployed during Tuesday’s regular maintenance. While scheduled for the normal 4 hours, the servers were actually down for closer to 8 hours.
  • James Ohlen (SWTOR’s game director) penned a Welcome to Game Update 1.3: Allies post.
  • Damion Schubert provided A Guide to Group Finder a couple of weeks ago, prior to Game Update 1.3’s release. We are now very much enjoying it! SWTOR developer Antonia Phillips gave some more detail about the Group Finder, including letting us know that sometime in the future we will be shuttled back to our starting point upon completion. At the moment, when you’re done, you leave the instance normally.
  • David Hunt (System Designer) authored Crew Skills and Items in Game Update 1.3, giving an overview of the final state of the itemisation changes, as well as going into detail about adding augment slots.
  • William Wallace (Senior Game Designer) wrote Legacy Perks in Game Update 1.3, explaining about the per-character legacy perks that have been introduced. A useful summary of what’s available is provided by the endlessly productive Dulfy in her post Patch 1.3 Legacy Character Perks.
5. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @lesman72 (Les of the Saltedslug legacy), @voyak, @sterlinglee38 (Sterling), @Rippthedeceiver (Ripp), @tshapedvisor, @Dimbo56 (Dimbo) and @ForceChuckle.
  • Thanks to @voyak for adding us to the Dead Men Walking gaming community’s list of unofficial SWTOR podcasts. He also provided the solution to the issue Chill encountered where copying his 8th character.
  • If you’re interested in some Trooper SWTOR-based fan fiction, check out Dimbo’s blog, Dimbo the Trooper.
  • We very much appreciate the generous donation from @ForceChuckle. Thank you, mate!
  • Doc Ropata raised the excellent issue of being unable to easily identify the numbering of mods, and the somewhat odd numbering scheme.
  • Grim emailed in with his impression of free-to-play in LOTRO, giving some more insight into how it could be implemented in SWTOR.
6. Outro

Thanks to Oni (@Freakin_Ninja), Hyp (@Hypknotoad) and Agi (@Agitarsi) 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 32

Posted on by June 22, 2012
2

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Hyp joins Chill and Teo to discuss the aftermath of the character transfers, and revel in being on a heavily-populated server at last! We also talk about the latest BioWare hints that SWTOR may one day go free-to-play.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel

We discuss our experiences in transferring from Space Slug to The Harbinger. Hyp expressed his sadness at leaving our old server through art:


All SWTOR servers have now been allocated in this first (and possibly final) round of free character transfers. You can see how things ended up in this chart (click on the image to see the full-sized version):


During the discussion, we mention that after your characters are transferred to their destination server, your legacy name has to be chosen again. You can choose any name, either the one you had on your old server (if available) or a new one. However, until you do so, your legacy unlocks will not be accessible. So don’t hold off choosing a new legacy name! After you do enter your legacy name, you’ll have to log out; the next time you log in to any character, all your legacy unlocks will be available.

3. Trivia question

This week’s challenge: How was Star Wars used in real life by certain official members of Britain to thumb their nose at a foreign emissary they didn’t like?

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
  • Patch 1.2.7b was deployed during Tuesday’s regular maintenance. It appears to be server-side only, as it simply lowers the number of characters to allow in a given instance of each faction’s Fleet (we believe from 300 down to 250).
  • We go through most of the questions from the Community Q&A: June 15th, 2012.
5. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @IzaakTheMad (Izzy), @RippTheDeceiver (Ripp), @Dimbo, @thehatfield (Hatfield), @weihanthekidsun (Weihan Sun), @IRBountyHunter, @JT_HoloNet (Jason Taylor), @lesman72 (Les), @sterlinglee38 (Sterling) and @Rrubb (Rub). A common theme was commiserating about the departure from our former home, the mighty Space Slug server!
  • Sizzlor emailed in to ask us about the usefulness of Courting gifts when trying to increase your companions’ affection. In answering his question, we reference Dulfy’s most excellent Companion Gifts and Crafting bonuses for 1.2 guide.
  • Grim tells us that his computer has struggled to run SWTOR reliably since the move to the Harbinger. We’re working with Grim to help diagnose what’s going wrong, to hopefully get him back into the game!
  • Ripp tested the theory that if you delete all your toons on a server, your legacy there is preserved. After deleting all his characters, he created a new toon, and confirmed that it retained the legacy XP and unlocks that had been attained with the deleted (or transferred) characters.
6. The Sarlacc Digest

BioWare have announced that they will be offering a free trial that allows players to get to level 15 before there is any need to pay for the game or subscribe. We anticipate that this will be delivered as part of Game Update 1.3.

Lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi, in an interview that will be published in issue 124 of games™ magazine (to be released on 5 July), said the following in an excerpt that was subsequently removed from the magazine’s site:

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

Adding fuel to the free-to-play fire, EA’s Frank Gibeau (President of EA Labels, the division which includes the BioWare “Label”), in an interview with GamesIndustry International, also left the door wide open for a free-to-play conversion at some point. The sense from the interview was that this wouldn’t be any time soon; instead, they are going to see how the free trial goes as an initial foray into the free-to-play space.
Finally, James Ohlen (SWTOR’s Game Director) said in an interview with PC Gamer that:

“I think it [free-to-play] can work for different games. It really depends on how you go with your game. Games that have been built to be free-to-play from the start definitely work out. Now, there have been games that weren’t free to play from the start and transferred over to becoming free to play that have worked as well. But it’s definitely not something that’s super easy to do.”

Our conclusion is that they’re actively thinking about going free-to-play, but at best it’s in the conceptual stage. Converting a subscription-based MMO is a non-trivial exercise, and it would probably takes many months of development effort to achieve. If it happens at all, we don’t think it will be this year!

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.

Share

Our new home: The Harbinger!

Posted on by June 21, 2012
2

Space Slug has been designated as an origin server for free character transfers, with The Harbinger being our destination.

We will be moving the guild to The Harbinger, and I encourage everyone to come along with us!

We’re taking the opportunity to change the name of the guild. Our Republic-side guild is “Ootini Knights”. On the Empire side, it’s “Ootini Rage”.

The new guild should be created by no later than 5pm PDT Monday 18 June 2012 (10am AEDT) on The Harbinger. Please /cjoin ootini for an invitation into the new guild.

I’d suggest that transfers be done sometime after that time so you can join the guild immediately, but no reason to wait if you’re in a hurry! To initiate the process, log into your account on swtor.com, and click on the “Character Transfers” link on the left. For more information about the transfer process, see their FAQ. The process itself appears to take only a minute or so.

[UPDATED] Our guild on Space Slug (“Robes on Head”) has been disbanded so that we can get the guild bank re-created over on The Harbinger by Customer Service (rather than pay the 1.6M credits for our two tabs!).

See you on The Harbinger!

Share

OotiniCast Episode 31

Posted on by June 15, 2012
1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Hyp joins your hosts Chill and Teo to discuss the latest news, including the additional post-Game Update 1.3 information that has trickled out of last week’s E3. Our discussion is once again about server transfers, talking through how they’re progressing and speculating on how things will shake out.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. The Holofeed
4. The Sarlacc Digest

Character transfers are underway! You can see the current state of things in this chart. It’s obvious now that BioWare have chosen to consolidate players onto far fewer destination servers than we’d previously imagined. It seems to be averaging out to one or two servers per type (PvE, PvP, RP-PvE and RP-PvP) in each region: US West, US East, Europe (English), Europe (German) and Europe (French).

No news yet on Space Slug, though the way things are going for PvE servers in US West, it looks like we may end up on Drooga’s Pleasure Barge or The Harbinger. We’ve decided that if (when?) Space Slug is designated as an origin server, our guild will indeed be moving to wherever we’re being herded. When we find out for sure, our guild page will be updated with our plan.

Our discussion covers the state of things at the time of recording (Wednesday evening US time), how we feel about the process, and our plans for dealing with the apparently inevitable move.

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 watch for us in your Bind on Equip feed.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 30

Posted on by June 8, 2012
2

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Oni returns this week with Hyp to join Chill and Teo to discuss the revelations coming from E3 about what’s coming beyond Game Update 1.3. We also talk about the sudden revelation that server transfers would begin next week on Tuesday (12 June).

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. Trivia question

This week’s challenge is carried over from last week: what do the following Star Wars terms have in common:

  • Palpatine
  • Mon Mothma
  • AT-AT Walkers
  • Sandcrawlers
  • Slave One
  • Ewoks

Hints:

  1. The fact that the terms are all from Episodes IV-VI is not the answer; a similar list could have been compiled for Episode I-III
  2. It has nothing to do with grammar or spelling
  3. The following terms would NOT be on the list: Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Landspeeders, the Millennium Falcon, Wookies

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
  • Patch 1.2.6 was deployed during Tuesday’s regular maintenance.
  • Dr Ray Muzyka, CEO and co-founder of BioWare, gave a 3 minute presentation as part of the EA (Electronic Arts) press conference at E3, being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This included a trailer which was later made available on YouTube. SWTOR’s existing achievements were described, and then Dr Ray gave some glimpses of what was to come over the next year:
    • Level cap increase
    • New planet: Makeb
    • New operation: Terror from Beyond
    • New companion: HK-51
    • New warzone: Ancient Hypergates
    • New race: Cathar
  • Dr Ray also announced that the unlimited free trial, up to level 15, is coming in July.
  • Elaboration on the E3 presentation was provided to game journalists in behind-closed-doors press conferences, including DarthHater.
  • Game Update 1.3 (patch notes) has arrived on the PTS!
  • Gamespy had a great interview with Daniel Erickson, including some the best indication yet of what’s coming for the upcoming evolution of the space game!
  • There was yet another Community Q&A (June 1) this week.
5. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @weihanthekidsun, @CaptainCheebra and @ForceChuckle.
  • Masticon emailed us with a clear description of the bug that causes companions weapons to be readied when out of combat, and (if you so desire) how to get your companion to put it away.
  • Carlo Cravatzo emailed us with an explanation on what we were doing wrong in the final encounter in Cademimu: our DPS was simply too high, triggering the next rocket firing sequence (which is based on percentages of the boss’s health) before the previous had completed, thus filling all four quadrants with fire. This has been fixed in Game Update 1.3, to ensure that there’s at least 15 seconds between each time the rockets fire, regardless of the boss’s health.
6. The Sarlacc Digest

Sooner than we expected, BioWare announced (Character Transfer, Server Populations and You) that character transfers will commence next week on Tuesday, 12 June. Plenty of BioWare answers were provided in the discussion thread in the forums to the questions that inevitably followed.

We discuss the mechanics of the process, and what this will mean for the SWTOR community, and for us. Will we be gently herded off Space Slug? Are they going to salt the Slug?

7. Outro

Thanks to Oni (@Freakin_Ninja) and 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 29

Posted on by June 1, 2012
1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This week your hosts Chill and Teo are joined once again by Hyp to go further into Game Update 1.3, discussing the information coming out of the SWTOR panel at MCM Expo in London.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel
3. Trivia question

This week’s challenge: Palpatine. Mon Mothma. AT-AT Walkers. Sandcrawlers. Slave One. Ewoks. What do all these Star Wars terms have in common?

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
  • Patch 1.2.5 was deployed during maintenance on Wednesday, which was delayed from Tuesday due to the Memorial Day holiday in the US. Things didn’t quite go as smoothly as usual, with the downtime extended from the expected 4 hours to 8.
  • A lot of extra detail about Game Update 1.3 was revealed by Emmanuel Lusinchi (Technical Design Director) during the SWTOR panel held at the London MCM (Movie Comic Media) Expo, which is also known as London’s Comic Con. You can watch the panel via the coverage provided by Gamespot on TwitchTV, or browse Dulfy’s most excellent summary and transcript of the panel and the subsequent Q&A.
  • We also go over a few answers from the latest Community Q&A (25 May) and DarthHater’s interview (Game Update 1.3 With SWTOR Development Team).
5. Force Feedback
  • We discuss tweets from @sterlinglee38 (Sterling), @MuskokaJ and @IRBountyHunter (Arron Thornton). We leave @ForceChuckle’s question for Oni until next week.
  • Our guildmate Visaan provides an audio contribution, summarising the game Star Wars: Battlefront II that was mentioned in Episode 22. Sounds like it has a lot of elements which would make fantastic additions to SWTOR’s space game!
  • Eric Zeigler emailed us to confirm that the issue with companions being in combat stance appears to be a bug that appeared in Game Update 1.2. He also indicates that alacrity is fine as it is: players just need to learn to manage their resources. Similarly, generalising companions isn’t needed; keeping their fixed roles associated with their character is a good thing.
  • We also apologise for any misunderstanding associated with Hyp’s attempt at humour relating to “dirty RPers”.
6. 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.

Share

OotiniCast Episode 28

Posted on by May 25, 2012
1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Hyp once again joins Chill and Teo to go over the detail revealed this week about the upcoming Game Update 1.3. We also discuss the layoffs at BioWare Austin affecting the SWTOR team, and what this means for the game.

1. Introduction
2. Question to the panel

The UI setting that takes the pain out of having multiple windows open is accessible in the main window of the Interface Editor:

Ensure that checkbox for “Enable Movable Secondary Window” is set, and all will be well!

3. Trivia question

From last week’s challenge, here is the entry sent in by Visaan and Chong:

Vis and Chong dancing on the datacron!

This week’s challenge: where in the game can you find a Hutt frozen in carbonite?

If you are interested in being entered in the random drawing for an in-game prize offered on Space Slug (either faction), please send your answer to ootinicast@gmail.com.

4. The Holofeed
  • There was no maintenance this week, and no patches deployed.
  • BioWare released a trailer for Game Update 1.3 (also on YouTube).
  • The trailer included a couple of teaser images for what’s coming after Game Update 1.3; make of them what you will!

5. Force Feedback

We discuss tweets from @ForceChuckle, @IRBountyHunter (Arron Thornton), @John_K64 (John Kuntz), @cypher_x (Cypher) and @lesman72 (Les).

Cypher suggests that the following Star Wars-themed bed, though sadly it remains only a concept at this point. As Hyp suggest, perhaps this warrants a Kickstarter project?

6. The Sarlacc Digest

Early this week, the BioWare doctors announced that their Austin studio was restructuring, which would result in a number of layoffs. While no further details were released about who was let go, we’ve subsequently found out that Stephen Reid (Senior Community Manager), Brian Arndt (Senior Video Editor), Tina Wall (QA) and David C. Simon (Writer) lost their jobs.

We attempt to remain objective as we discuss what this could mean for SWTOR. Our consensus is more or less that it’s too early to tell, and that we simply have to wait and see what impact the reduction in the size of the development team has on the rate of content production and its quality.

The hosts of the show wish those affected the very best in finding alternative employment, and offer our sincere thanks for the wonderful work they’ve done in helping to create the game that we continue to enjoy.

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.

Share