This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.2 is here, new items have hit the cartel market and Damion Schubert has things to say about next gen consoles.

There was a bit of a delay but it’s finally here! Everyone say hello to SWTOR patch 2.2. Luckily, the delay wasn’t nearly as long as people expected.  But.. what came with the patch?

Well.. For one.. the horrifyingly worded Nightmare mode of Terror from Beyond. Yeah.. I’m just gonna go over here now…

Okay.. So what else? Well.. For one: guilds are getting experience bonuses for every five players — not counting free players. That’s an interesting take for a F2P game, isn’t it? In addition, the CE vendor has been updated and the bindable dye situation seems to have been sorted.

Sadly.. Larry is still being denied chat bubbles in SWTOR patch 2.2.

New items in stock!

There a new cartel pack in the market as well as some other interesting items like a mint ice cream lightsaber? Are we eating them now? Is this how this works?

The more sports minded among you can look forward to some new huttball armor while the more goth Jedi and Sith can get some black-core sabers. Aaaaand. For those of you who’d like to get off your feet for fifteen seconds… There’s the all new “portable relaxation unit” optimized to make sure you don’t end up sitting around for too long.

Damion Schubert on consoles everyone!

Relax guys… Bioware has no plans for SWTOR on consoles… At least.. Not according to this:

Oh.. Wait.. Um… Well… I guess maybe we might eventually see it on consoles anyway? I guess it’s good to leave your options open.

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post SWTOR On Consoles? appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

As games start crossing platforms and genres the lines of what made a Massively Multiplayer Online game different from just regular multiplayer games is getting more and more blurry.

There’s a lot of debate going around with newer MMOs regarding if they are “real” MMOs and astonishingly it isn’t all debate created by the players. Recently Matt Firor, Game Director of The Elder Scrolls Online referred to ESO as being more of a multiplayer game than a MMO. Just a couple of days ago Division was announced and people are already debating if it is actually a MMO or not. So what makes a MMO?

Massively Multiplayer…

The first characteristic, which seems simple but isn’t, is there should a massive number of real people playing in the game world. The crux here is massive is sort of a subjective term, and what does it mean in terms of numbers of people who play the game or the numbers of people you see in game?

For me the key here is there needs to be people who can just run through your game without you having to invite them. Part of what makes Diablo 3 and SimCity not MMOs is because you only ever will come across another player if you invite them to play with you. In a real MMO even if you choose to play through all the content solo, you will still encounter other players out in the world.

Must have an open world!

Another argument some people make is “a MMO needs to have an open world”. Open world refers to a world where you can roam around and not have to zone everywhere. When it comes to MMORPGs the number of truly open world MMOs is staggeringly small (when you consider how many MMORPGs have or do exist). An example of a totally open world MMO is Asheron’s Call. You could wander from one end of that game to the other without ever seeing a loading screen. Even World of Warcraft forces you to zone into certain areas of the game. Sure it’s mostly when you are switching continents and it is done to speed up travel, but it does make it not a fully open world game.

On the other hand there are games like Neverwinter where the world is almost completely instanced. You can’t walk from say Protector’s Enclave to the Black Lake District without going to a loading screen first. Another current game with a lot of loading screens is Star Wars: The Old Republic. SWTOR does have some larger zones than Neverwinter, but you still have to go through loading screens to go between zones. In fact the list of MMOs which do not have an open world is longer than the list of those which do.

Give me levels, classes, and roles!

A criticism many people had with Age of Wushu is there are no classes or levels. This is also something people are pointing to in Division to say it isn’t really a MMO. Now if your experience with MMOs consists of games like WoW and Dark Age of Camalot then it might seem like a valid complaint. However, let us recall a little game called Ultima Online. In UO characters were advanced through improving skills not by selecting a class and leveling. I’m not sure anyone would even bother trying to make the argument Ultima Online not only was a MMO but also was a successful one… Well Strauss Zelnick probably would but that’s a whole different thing. Classes and levels merely give players one way of playing their characters, not having these things actually opens up more play options and definitely does not disqualify a game as an MMO.

MMOs are played on computers not consoles!

The most baseless criticism of some MMOs is they can’t be MMOs if they are played on consoles. I don’t even get why this is a thing. Final Fantasy XI was one of the first MMOs to be played solely on a console and it was pretty successful. IT reached 500,000 subscribers in April 2009 which is a really good showing for any MMO outside of WoW. There is also another point of view to consider when thinking about console MMOs. By more MMOs going to both PC and Consoles developers are complicating things a bit, but what they are also doing is increasing their pool of people who would play their games which in the long haul makes it more likely for more MMOs to be successful. Which is a big part of why i don’t think we should be discounting consoles MMOs.

Must have endgame!

What about endgame?? Endgame is one of the few things I don’t think we can really hedge on when talking about MMOs. One of the amazing things about the whole MMO genre is the game never ends. You fight a boss, but then you can go do it again or do something completely different. The issue comes in when people say there is no endgame, but what they really mean is there is no endgame they want to do.

Guild Wars 2 has had its fair share of the misdirected ‘there’s no endgame!!” complaints thrown at it. Examples of things to do at max level are finish the storyline if you didn’t do it while leveling, explorable dungeons, fractals, WvW, sPvP, working on making a legendary (which can take a lot of time if you don’t toss real money at the game), and there are regular content updates (that are free!) which add new things to do. I get if these things aren’t appealing to you, that’s fine. Making the claim there is no endgame in GW2 however is just not at all accurate.

However not all complaints about a game not having an endgame are unfounded. When SWTOR first launched its endgame was a complete mess. Its heroic flashpoints were far more difficult than the ops were to start with, but at the same time doing ops was a pain because there were so many bugs. As a result people ignored heroic flashpoints, finished gearing up in ops pretty quickly, and then didn’t have much to do. The PvP was fun but that was about all there was to do. There were no mini games to pass the time but there were dailies. The real issue was there just wasn’t enough things to do after 50, which was partly related to the Developers thinking it would take players five months to reach 50.

What really matters for a MMO?

Clearly there are many other categories I could break things down to, and there are many games I haven’t mentioned. I have tried to hit most of the big points with the most appropriately fitting game as an example, and I haven’t even gotten into what makes a good MMO. As far what makes a game a MMO, I have narrowed the important qualifications to two main categories. Many other players and a game that doesn’t end are the two foundations all MMOs should be built on. If either of those things are missing you don’t have a MMO.

When do you consider a game a MMO?

The post At What Point Is A MMO Not A MMO? appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

This week on the Republic, SWTOR guild bank issues, dyes are confusing, and GOOD NEWS, EVERYBODY! on Asia Pacific servers.

So it seems like some people still just cant be trusted. I mean, what’s this I hear about SWTOR guild bank issues? You get access and you can’t keep your grubby little paws off of things? Okay… Well.. Yeah. Probably not you specifically. Most of you are good eggs. But still. Some people are the reason we can’t have nice things.

Of course, the big problem with having a guild and that one person that just can’t resist dipping into the bank and running away is that it’s totally unfair to the rest of the guild and well.. You’re left standing there going “What now?” For a lot of people the answer is to try to get the devs to replace what was stolen. But guys… That’d be a lot of work for the SWTOR devs wouldn’t it?

In fact… Eric Musco states as much…

I think there are two lessons to learn from this. 1. You’re on your own when it comes to things like SWTOR guild bank issues and other guild drama and 2. be really certain of who you’re giving access to.

Much like math… Dyes are hard!

So, in 2.1 dyes were added and they were meant to be bind on pickup. But due to a bug, they weren’t and a bunch of them ended up on the auction house despite the fact they should have been exclusive to CE owners… Bioware decided to just leave them as they were and move on. Okay.. That’s cool… Besides, they’d just make two more dies that were bind on pickup. Everyone wins!

Until, that is, patch 2.1.1 hits and fixes the bug unintentionally… This means all four dies are exclusive, for those who may have gotten lost here.

So now what? Well.. It seems that 2.2 will fix the fix and the two most recent dies will remain exclusive. Fair enough?

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post Exotic Leotard appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.2 hits June 11th, early details on patch 2.3, and Bioware does care about PvP!

Wait.. Weren’t we just talking about 2.1? Oh well.. On to new things… Like SWTOR patch 2.2 being on the PTS right now. So, what do we know about 2.2 so far? Well, apparently there are some nifty bonuses for just being active. For instance, for every five active unique accounts in a guild, players receive 1% bonus XP and REP up to a maximum of 10%. That’s pretty nifty!

The question here is, is using this to encourage players to join guild and be more social a good thing? It seems that is is.

SWTOR patch 2.2 will also be bringing changes to PvP, such as… All stunbreaks will now have their cooldown reset upon death.

Interesting…

There are several other changes that the hosts look at as well.

Because 2.2 isn’t enough.

It looks like patch 2.3 is slated to hit August 6th, although at this point that is subject to change. But, we do have a few details in the mean time. 2.3 will be coming with new flashpoints, a new recurring event, and “significant” graphical upgrades.

Hmm.. Gotta say that last one is a little vague… I mean.. What is one person’s “significant” is another’s “meh”. I guess we just have to wait and see on that one and hope for the best.

Bioware cares about PvP

It’s true! Want proof?

See… Straight from senior producer, Bruce MacLean.

Just no one tell Larry.. Okay?

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post Bioware ♥’s PvP appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

Star Wars: The Old Republic fan Julian Checkley took his cosplay skills to a new level with his recent rendition of Darth Malgus.

This video represents the first full test of the Darth Malgus costume and includes a “suiting up” time-lapse so you can see just how involved the whole costume is. His movements as Darth Malgus are limited and there are no action shots because they filmed it in a little corner of their workshop in front of a small black backdrop. A friend of Julian Checkley’s named Kamil Krawczak filmed the test on a Red MX camera. Kamil was there to film another project and when there was time leftover they decided to do this test run of the Malgus costume.

There are no CGI effects in this video though they had thought about editing in some saber effects. The saber used is by Ultrasabers and he used the “Malice” pommel. As a result of using the Red MX camera to film this the saber did not end up outshining everything the way it does in reality. The mask was done by CFX using the “geezer” mask as a base. CFX did many customizations for Julian and in addition once he tried it on decided to make additional customizations.

How close did he get to the original Darth Malgus? Incredibly close. Take a look at the SWTOR Deceived Trailer for a comparison (relevant parts start at 1:50 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing). The attention to detail is absolutely amazing. Really there is only one part of the video which is a bit odd, the point where the mask seems to be jerking around a bit. Julian was talking during that part and they had planned on dubbing in a voice over there but decided to not do that for this run.

You can follow Julian on twitter @darthserberus and for more information about this build he has a whole thread about the process on the RPF Forums.

The post Amazing Darth Malgus Cosplay appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.1 has landed and that means… CAT PEOPLE!

That’s right. SWTOR patch 2.1 is here and it’s brought with it the Cathar playable race. Of course, it’s brought along a bit more than that as the theme of this entire update is appearance. Now.. Before anyone get’s upset about them not concentrating on other stuff, keep in mind that patch 2.2 for Star Wars: The Old Republic will be arriving shortly as well. So just hang tight and see what happens.

Then get mad about important things not being changed.

In the meantime, the question for SWTOR patch 2.1 is: “Is there anything missing that should be there for an appearance patch?”

Well, it seems you still can’t change your gender. This will of course be a bigger deal to some than others. Personally, I’ve never felt the need to change my character’s gender, but then I almost always choose the same one.

Of course there’s a whole laundry list of things that did hit, so it’s possible that for the most part, players should be pretty pleased.

Drama llama!

Ooooh.. You guys are good. Well.. and by you guys, I mean the forum members who managed to find a quote from Jeff Hickman made back in August, 2012 and post it to the SWTOR forums resulting in a 60 page thread.

So… What is this quote?

Okay.. Yeah.. I can see why players might go digging that back up. Still, if we compare SWTOR to other MMO’s it makes sense that some content just won’t be free. No matter what.

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post Herding Cats appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

In game update 2.1 Star Wars: The Old Republic finally added many of the customizations players have been asking for since SWTOR launched.

In addition to being able to customize your characters beyond character creation, SWTOR also has finally introduced the Cathar Species for 600 Cartel Coins.

One particularly nice feature is Dye Modules. You can obtain these through crafting (artifice), some vendors, and from the cartel market. Two vendors who currently sell Dye Modules are the Collector’s Edition and Security Key Vendors. In addition if you would like to buy the schematics for certain dyes they are available at the Galactic Reputation Vendors. Once you use a Dye Module it is consumed and you can not use it again. If you try to remove the Dye Module from gear the Dye will be destroyed.

A word of caution on using Dye Modules, if you use the “Unify Colors” option it will overwrite an Dye Module you used on other pieces of gear. So the best option is to just use the Dye Module on your chestpiece and then unify everything to that, or use different packs on different pieces and then remember to not click the “unify to chest color theme” option.

There are also a few new appearance options available on the Cartel Market: Human Hairstyles 1 (240 Cartel Coins), Human Hair Colors 1 (180 Cartel Coins), Mirialan Tattoos 1 (90 Cartel Coins), Chiss Customizations 1 (240 Cartel Coins), and Human White Eyes (100 Cartel Coins). In addition there is also a  new “Appearance Designer” available for use in Dromund Kaas, Coruscant, and both the Republic and Imperial Fleets. The Appearance Designer allows you to change any aspect  of how your character looks including what species you are. The only thing you cannot change using the Appearance Designer is what gender your character is.

In addition you also finally have the ability to change the name of individual characters, your legacy name, or the name of your guild. Both the character name changes cost 1,000 cartel credits and the guild name change costs 3,000 cartel credits. Subscribers do have a permanent discount on the cost of these changes.

The post New Character Customization Features Come To SWTOR appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

This week on the Republic, we talk the big operation of SWTOR 2.0 Scum and Villainy, a collections UI has been announced, and people are still unhappy about having to pay for the Cathar.

That’s right, the gang just had to talk about the biggest operation in SWTOR 2.0 Scum and Villainy. It seems that the operation is just a bit too easy. The question is: is it really too easy? Or, are we just hearing the complaints of the few?

The gang also discuss their experiences with Scum and Villainy; whether or not it was plagued with bugs, how the raid itself functions — the amount of bosses, the fun factor, etc.

Collections UI?

So, what exactly is a “collections UI”? Bascially a way of copying certain items so they can be used on multiple characters at once? Does it work on all gear or just cosmetic gear? To be honest, it would probably be a bit strange if it worked on regular gear, wouldn’t it?

Paying for the Cathar?

So the people who are subscribed to SWTOR aren’t happy about having to pay for the cat people. In a way, it does make sense… They’ve already dished out money, why should they pay more. Eric Musco took to the forums to offer the following explanation.

Whether or not this is reasonable may still be in question. However, you have to use those Cartel coins for something.

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post Easy Operations? appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

Disney Gives Exclusive Rights To Make Star Wars Games to EA

All Star Wars games will now be made by EA. Earlier this year, Disney acquired all Star Wars property from LucasFilm, including movies, merchandizing, and even the Star Wars games. It didn’t take long before they decided to shut down LucasArts, the company responsible for making Star Wars games. It was announced that Disney would license the games somewhere else, and now we know where.

In what was probably an inevitable move, Electronic Arts now has the exclusive rights to publish Star Wars games. DICE, Visceral and BioWare will be responsible for developing future games. BioWare is already in charge of Star Wars: The Old Republic, a free-to-play MMO that started out with so much promise.

A press release from EA president, Frank Gibeau, was posted today on the EA news site. In it, Gibeau reminisces about being a child and a true believer in the “Culture and ethos of Star Wars.” He talks about how the characters, planets and battles lend themselves perfectly to gaming.

No definitive titles have been announced, but the plan is to bring Star Wars games to PC, consoles, tablets and mobile.

“While we don’t have any details to share today on specific titles, our development teams are already brimming with design ideas.  The EA Studios that will develop these games are some of the most innovative and popular creative teams in the world.”

The Star Wars games will borrow from the movies, but will be stand-alone original stories. There is no word yet if the games that LucasArts was making before the shut down will make it into the mix.

It is hard to look at this news as entirely positive, as EA has a bit of a notorious reputation at the moment. SW:TOR might not have been handled with the utmost concern with the “Culture and ethos of Star Wars,” and the SimCity mess is still quite fresh. We can almost certainly expect micro transactions and for the Star Wars games to be always online. Those things aren’t bad in and of themselves, but the question is: Can they do it right?

The post EA: The Future Of Star Wars Games appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.

This week on The Republic, we welcome our supreme cat overlords the Cathar, bolster may finally be fixed and it’s time to go shopping!

That’s right guys. The Cathar will be arriving in SWTOR update 2.1. It hasn’t been solidified yet, but the gang are expecting that the Cathar will be available for purchase with cartel coins, probably using the new “barber shop” feature that will be coming at the same time? So, perhaps instead of just rolling a new alt you’ll be throwing some cat features onto your already existing characters? That will be interesting.

Fixing the fixes.

The last time we checked in with SWTOR they’d been busy fixing that naked PvP thing. However, it seems that the fix messed up a bit of stuff with Bolster. Or rather, it became more noticeable as it seems that the bug may have been a result of changes with the way it was calculated in 2.0.

The question now is what kind of affect it’s had on players’ perceptions of the Hutt Cartel.

Let’s go shopping!

That’s right guys. There’s new items in the cartel market. Players can now get their hands on items such as two new color crystals, bounty hunter/trooper armor, sith armor, and a trench coat.  There’s also something called a “relaxed uniform”. Um.. Bioware. Can we talk about this a minute? Really guys? Really?

Cover energy gloves are a thing. And players can look forward to some new mounts and something called a music therapy probe.

All that and more!

If you’d like to submit a viewer question, you can send it to submit@gamebreaker.tv.  If you want to send a video question, make sure it’s about 30 seconds long and upload it to YouTube.  Then just email us the link! And,  if you missed last week’s episode, you can check it out here.

The post Thundercats! appeared first on Gamebreaker.tv.