Imperial Agent

• Fitting into the MMO Trinity
  • DPS Both Sniper & Operative Advanced Class
  • Healer Operative Advanced Class Medic Tree
• Advanced Class Variants
• Operative
  • Stealth DPS, Concealment Tree
  • Lethality Shared DPS Tree
  • Healing Medic Tree
• Sniper
  • Marksmanship Sniper Rifle Damage
  • Engineering Tech Damage Probes and other devices
  • Lethality Shared Damage Tree
• Hybrid
  • Operative Combining Medic & Concealment Tree
  • Operative Combining Medic & Lethality Tree
• Complimentary Companions
• Kaliyo D’Jannis
  +Range Tank (Male Romance)
• Vector Hyllus
  • Melee DPS (Female Romance)
• Dr. Lokin
  • Healer/DPS (Transforms Into Rakghoul)
• Ensign Raina Temple
  • Range DPS (Male Romance)
• Scorpio
• Melee Tank (Psychotic Droid)
• Storyline Overview
  • You are an Agent fresh out of training, using guile and deception to forward the Imperial Agenda… Just remember, as an Imperial Agent, Conscience is optional
• Equipment / Stats Overview
  • Cunning, Cunning and more Cunning
  • Agents of any Advanced Class or Spec will want to focus on: Critical Rating, Surge Rating, & Alacrity.
• Iconic Moves
  • Snipe
  • Vibro Knife Stabbyness
  • Orbital Strike
  • Explosive Probe
  • Cover Mechanic

Republic Trooper

• Fitting into the MMO Trinity
  • Tank – Vanguard Class
  • DPS – Either Advanced Class
  • Healer – Commando Advanced Class
• Advanced Class Variants
• Vanguard
  • Tank Shield Specialist Tree
  • DPS Tactics or Assault Specialist Tree
• Commando
  • Healer Combat Medic Tree
  • DPS Gunnery or Assault Specialist Tree
• Hybrid
  • Commando Combining Combat Medic & Gunnery Tree
  • Vanguard Combining Shield Specialist & Assault Specialist Tree
• Complimentary Companions
• Special Note All Trooper Companions use Heavy Armour and Aim/End as their primary stats which is great for hand me down gear.
• Aric Jorgan
  • Range DPS (Cathar, Female Romance)
• Elara Dorne
  • Healer (Imperial Defector, Male Romance)
• M1–4X
  • Range Tank (Prototype Battle Droid)
• Tanno Vik
  • Melee Tank (The Loose Cannon Soldier)
• Yuun
  • Melee DPS (The Philosophical Soldier)
• Storyline Overview
  • You are a Republic Trooper from Special Forces Division, joining the most elite unit in the Republic Military, “Havoc Squad”
    +You take on the missions that no one else can.
• Equipment / Stats Overview
  • Aim for Commando’s and DPS Vanguards along with Power, Crit, Surge, & Alacrity
  • Endurance for Tanking Vanguards, along with Defense, Shield, & Absorption Ratings.
• Iconic Moves
  • Full Auto
  • Sticky Grenade
  • Mortar Volley

Star Wars: The Old Republic not losing subscribers, says dev

• Speaking to GameSpot in a recent article, BioWare’s Daniel Erickson claims subscriber numbers have not dipped, but concurrent users during peak playtimes have.
• He says that this is why players may have experienced “light” server populations and that BioWare is considering merging servers in response the lessened concurrent user population, but this action is not a priority.

Georg Zoeller explains the PvP changes in 1.2

• The formula for Expertise (a stat found only on PvP gear) has been changed so that is more important in PvP than any other stat bonus. Because of this even the base Recruit gear is better than Columi gear for PvP. He goes on to say that since burst damage is “slightly higher than we are targeting” more changes will likely be coming.
• Source

TV Campaign / Expansion into New European and Middle Eastern Countries

• Bioware is now expanding into Europe and the Middle East, for a full list of countries
• There are also new commercials coming out for The Legacy, Jedi, and Sith

Action being taken against exploits and cheats

With Game Update 1.2, new measures were put in place to improve our detection of exploits, particularly in relation to ‘speed hacking’ and teleport cheats. With the help of this improved detection, we recently took action against hundreds of game accounts."These speed hacks and teleport cheats were something that I saw people QQing about in the PvP zones.
+ Source

James Ohlen, SWTOR Game Director, on In-game-events

• “The Rakghoul Plague was a very popular event. You’re going to see more surprises like it in the future. I want to hear your thoughts on why you thought the Rakghoul plague was fun. Also, what kind of stuff would you like to see in the future?” Source
• Erickson said that the events may be one-off events in a recent PCGamer article
  • “Events are, by their very nature, transient things that build a sense of history within the game”
  • “Later you’ll pull out your red rakling pet and say, ‘remember when the rakghoul plague hit.’”
  • James Ohlen @JamesOhlen

EA Stock Soars With Nexon Buyout Rumors

Free-to-play developer/publisher Nexon could be looking to buy Electronic Arts. According to Bloomberg, which picked up on the news from a Korean newspaper, Nexon “has contacted EA about making an offer.” No word on whether this would see EA absorbed or merged.
EA’s shares are, as of press time, up almost six percent following the alleged approach, which is the highest they’ve been in six weeks. Source

• Mr. Mars Base “The idea of Nexon buying out EA is a little preposterous given the amount of cash Nexon would have to come up with, if anything a merger is more likely… Furthermore there is a possibility that the US government might not allow a merge due to monopoly laws.”

Math Segment – Rested XP

• Intended to provide casual players with a boost to XP gain that would help them to make up for not being able to spend more time playing the game.
• By leaving your character in a rest zone (cantina / fleet / personal ship) when you log off you will receive the XP boost which can be seen as your XP bar becoming green.
• The longer you remain in a rested area, the greater the XP boost you receive.
• The boost provides double XP for the amount of “rested XP” you have saved up.
• You can get up to a maximum of 100% of the XP cost of your current level.
  • You gain this at a rate of 14.3% of your current level total per day.
  • Level 24 requires 126,595 XP to attain.
  • Leaving a level 24 character in a rest zone for 1 week would gain 126,595 rested xp meaning that the character would get double xp for the next 126,595 xp gained.
• Once the rested xp boost is consumed, the xp returns to normal colouring.

Community Q&A: April 27th, 2012

• Events
• Expect different formats to future events to avoid becoming predictable
• Event sizes will vary from server wide, highly publicised events to stealthy additions
• Overall, the Rakghoul event is considered to have been a great success

• Dual Spec
• Intended as being within your advanced class
• Example: Sith Warrior cannot swap between Juggernaut and Marauder but could swap between the 3 available skills trees within each advanced class
• Tentatively scheduled for path 1.4

• Datacrons & Legacy System
• Currently need to be collected on every character to gain the benefits
• Proposal to have them benefit across all characters in a Legacy is being considered

• Crafting Math
• Baseline crit chance is derived from your current crew skill level compared to item difficulty
• Orange difficulty means 10% crit chance / Yellow,Green, Grey means 15% crit chance
• Companions with bonuses specified as +1 or +5 mean + 1% and +5% respectively
• Affection level is crucial here too as using a companion with +2 bonus on a green level crafting mission with maximum affection means a 22% bonus [15+2+5]
• This means that every 2,000 affection points grants a 1% bonus

• Social Gear
• At present, armours from social vendors are locked as light / medium / heavy
• In patch 1.3, these armours will adapt to the armour proficiency for your class
• Example – Imperial Trooper Helmet when purchased by an Inquisitor is a Light Armour item but when purchased by a Warrior it becomes a Heavy Armour item

• Commendation Mods While Levelling
• Not intended to be optimal for your class while levelling
• Designed to encourage you to seek out a crafter for custom orders

• Unify Colour For Companions
• Not currently scheduled but being planned for future inclusion
• Will likely include the option to hide the head slot also

• Loot Drop Bias For End Game Flashpoints
• All loot tables are biased towards dropping items for classes present in the group
• Levelling Flashpoints are also subject to this loot bias
• End Game Flashpoints have not been using this loot bias thus far
• This is intended to “almost” guarantee a high level drop that will be useful to one of the classes in the group during that specific end game flashpoint

• Character Transfer /Low Population Servers
• Rolling out early this summer
• At first there will be free transfers from/to specific servers, to allow players to move onto higher population servers
• Later, promotional transfers and paid services will be available

• RE’ing Armour Set Bonuses
• Items with set bonuses can have those extracted and moved to an equivalent “orange” item
• Only applies to the armoring modification in affected items
• This only works with new armours added to the game with 1.2 and anything added later
• Older items cannot be handled in this way because the set bonus is attached to the “shell item” rather than the armoring modification

• Patch 1.3
• Group finding system
• Next stage of the Legacy system (already advertised in game from the Legacy menu)

Next Episode Teaser

• *Next week on TORked: *

  • We visit with the Guardians of peace and justice in The Old Republic – the Jedi Knight & the Jedi Consular to learn how they intend to keep the Sith Empire from dominating the galaxy.

  • We’ll have a new Math segment with Nikki – “The Hard-Mode Flashpoint & Operation Preparation Guide” where she will share the secrets of forging your level 50 into a viable, hard-mode Flashpoint, & Operation ready machine! AWWWWW YEAH!

May the Force Be With You!