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SWTOR brings back the Rakghoul event
What's both the most terrifying and exhilerating thing that could happen this Halloween? For Star Wars: The Old Republic players, it might just be the return of the Rakghoul Resurgence. The event is currently live and will run for a week or so. There are a few tweaks to the popular event, such as two new housing decorations to purchase (because everyone wants a plague bulb in hers or his living room, right?) and a brand-new world boss to fight. Toxxun, the world boss, is located in Axial Park and drops a cute little plague pet.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR guild ships and Rakghouls
This weekend was full of space zombies and capital ships in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I ended up dividing my time between the live servers hosting the Rakghoul event on Tatooine and attempting to make the most out of having a guild ship on the public test server. Unfortunately, my guild's capital ship fell victim to the Bermuda Triangle bug that makes ships completely disappear, and I wasn't even able to buy a new one. I chalk that up to testing. And I certainly will not cry foul because of it. Besides, the ship was eventually restored, just not in time for my guild to really make any headway in the conquests for this week. However, I did get to experience the ship some because I was on the SWTOR official livestream last week, and I also created my own guild on PTS to test out the capital ship features. But first, let's talk about Rakghouls.
The Daily Grind: Do you adjust your in-game routine for events?
I coughed my way through a couple hours of Star Wars: The Old Republic gameplay this weekend. When I say gameplay, what I mean is standing at the AH and playing the market while waiting for my companions to finish crafting. And since BioWare's rakghoul plague event is currently a thing, I contracted the exploding green goo glowy eyes disease multiple times courtesy of the people who love to pass it around on Fleet. Eventually I wised up and acquired a stack of those anti-infectants, but not before I thought "hey, I can probably turn this into a Daily Grind!" So, here you go. Do you stop your normal themepark routine to participate in in-game events? Which ones are your favorite? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
SWTOR suffers from the Rakghoul plague again
Last week, we began to see the warnings from Alderaan of wild beasts attacking random citizens in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Today, Massively has discovered that it is in fact a new outbreak of the Rakghoul plague that hit Tatooine nearly two years ago. Addalar Hyland, the director of Galactic Solutions Industries, confirms these reports after sending multiple teams to investigate the attacks. Governments of both the Empire and the Republic are asking citizens to be wary when traveling as the plague is highly contagious. Based on the image above, we discovered that it could be spreading off the origin planet of Alderaan and might have made it to the Imperial fleet. If you have skills that might assist in ridding the galaxy of this lethal plague, we urge you to watch this video below then report to the nearest GSI representative immediately.
SWTOR's rakghoul event starting... soonish?
Do you like space werewolves? Do you like Star Wars? If you answered yes to both of those questions, may I recommend some Dark Horse comics and an old BioWare RPG called Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You've probably heard of it. If not, surely you've heard of its distant MMO cousin Star Wars: The Old Republic. The latter also features space werewolves rakghouls, and according to a brief community team blurb on the SWTOR forums, the title's recurring rakghoul event is coming soon. BioWare's Courtney Woods wrote earlier this morning that "strange animal attacks have been reported by soldiers serving on Alderaan. An investigation is currently underway." There are a couple of other in-character postings in this thread, but there's no firm date for the event just yet.
Hyperspace Beacon: Star Wars: The Old Republic predictions for 2014
Knowing my luck, when I finish writing this, the marketing team for Star Wars: The Old Republic will release a huge announcement about 2014 that no one saw coming. And it wouldn't be hard for BioWare to release something unknown to the community at large because it's said next to zero about what we should expect for 2014. Normally, BioWare promotes the upcoming features to death. We knew about the Cathar coming at least a year before they actually hit the live servers. Players and fans (and enemies) of SWTOR have speculated wildly as to why the developers have remained silent on the subject, my favorite being that BioWare has run out of content to produce, which kind of reneges on the 10-year plan it touted before launch. Whether or not BioWare has new content in the works, we do know a few things that will be coming, and we also have some super-secret things we can speculate on thanks to some intrepid SWTOR fans. So let's talk about what we do know, what we don't know, and what we think will happen.
Hyperspace Beacon: The summer of SWTOR
Every time I listen to the BioWare developers talk about Star Wars: The Old Republic, I am impressed with how passionate they are about the game. When Producer Bruce Maclean, Executive Producer Jeff Hickman, and Community Manager Eric Musco spoke to us yesterday, they sat on the edge of their seats because of how excited they were about telling us about the next updates coming to their game. Despite the game being a year and a half old, these three appeared to be riding the same hype-train the game launched with. Although these three BioWare employees suggested that the majority of the conversation on the livestream would feature discussion about Game Update 2.2, they ended up highlighting features and events taking place beyond the next patch. The questions they answered, filtered from the forum, Twitter, Facebook and the chatroom, jumped all over the place, but I believe they can be narrowed down to three major categories of concern: events, PvP changes, and the valued subscriber.
SWTOR increases Sniper damage, fixes bugs, and cures the Rakghoul plague
Snipers and Gunslingers should be happy about the changes to Star Wars: The Old Republic this morning. Five of their most prominent abilities have received a 5% increase in damage output. With the latest patch 1.2.1, abilities like Snipe, Charged Burst, Aim Shot, and Ambush now have a measurable difference in damage output. Although Snipers and Gunslingers were the only classes to receive a bonus to damage, many other minor and why-is-this-an-issue bugs have been fixed with the introduction of this patch. For instance, each player can add other players to his friends list even if those other players are offline. And that persistent and annoying jet-engine sound heard on Carrick and Vaiken station has been fixed. On a sad note, the Rakghoul plague has come to and end (or is that good news?). Either way, the announcements on the stations have stopped, and the crash site has been fully cleaned up, including the jawa vendor. But chin up, event-fans: Lead Designer Daniel Erickson mentioned on Mos Eisley Radio that although BioWare does not have plans to revive this specific event, there is a whole team specifically dedicated to creating future live events.
Hyperspace Beacon: Outbreak
A year ago at PAX East, I spoke to Community Manager Stephen Reid about events in Star Wars: The Old Republic. He asked and answered a popular question at the time: "Will [SWTOR] have events where we randomly spawn NPCs for players to fight? No, but we will have events." He couldn't elaborate, but it did leave me wondering what that could possibly mean, especially when later at PAX East, Lead Writer Daniel Erickson said that SWTOR would not break the fourth wall by holding holiday-type events. Earlier this year, Update 1.1: Rise of the Rakghouls brought us a new flashpoint called Kaon Under Siege. A ship crash landed in the heart of the Tion Hegemony, taking the Rakghoul virus off the planet Taris and spreading it to a new world. Both the Republic and the Empire sought to find the source of this outbreak. Like all flashpoints, Koan Under Siege is instanced and separate from the rest of the open world. Relatedly, and quite surprisingly, BioWare started its first world event without announcing it on the official website or even letting anyone know that it was happening. On Sunday morning, everyone who was stopping by Carrick or Vaiken station could overhear an announcement that the planet Tatooine had been quarantined due to an outbreak of the Rakghoul virus. So started my investigation...
A Rakghoul plague has broken out across the galaxy of SWTOR
Citizens of Star Wars: The Old Republic are advised to steer clear of the the planet Tatooine to avoid infection from a Rakghoul virus outbreak. A ship carrying infected passengers crashed in the northeast quadrant of the Dune Sea; quarantine teams have been dispatched to the local interplanetary space port to prevent the spread of the disease. Please, avoid all infected citizens at all costs! It is possible for you to carry the the virus yourself. If you are infected and attempt to flee the planet Tatooine, you will be fired upon for the safety of all Republic citizens. At this time, the disease is contained to one planetary system; however, our advice is to avoid travel in major space stations and other areas with travelers who may be coming from the Tatooine system. We will keep you informed of further developments as they unfold. May the Force be with you, and watch the official Imperial holonet broadcast after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Guided tour of the new SWTOR flashpoint
Yesterday, BioWare invited some members of the press to take part in a guided tour of the latest update for Star Wars: The Old Republic. In recent Hyperspace Beacons, we've covered everything from the user interface changes to the crew skills system. However, the specifics of some of the new story content have been a bit sparse. Thanks to help from BioWare, that's now changed. Beyond the break, we have put together a 15-minute video describing the ins and outs of the latest flashpoint: The Lost Island. Together with a member of the BioWare development team, we explored this new level-50 zone, destroying everything in our path and maybe learning something along the way.
