The Republic 99: Star Wars The Old Republic Reveals Companion HK-51

Written by: Gary Gannon (@garygannon) | July 17, 2012 4:00 am

45 Comments

On this weeks show…Gary Gannon, Justin Lowe, and Larry Everett keep you up to date and in the know on the latest news surrounding Biowares Star Wars The old Republic.

Topics include:

HK-51 Revealed at San Diego Comic-con
Legendary weapons coming to SWTOR
Server mergers later this summer
This weeks community Q&A
And more!

The Republic 99: Star Wars The Old Republic Reveals Companion HK-51

45:20

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

Legendary is joined by Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Brian Holinka for a live video interview!Read more »

21 comments
1:00:49

MMO News

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

26 comments
1:22:33

World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

25 comments

Depravity

You know what? I appreciate and support the hard work put into the Republic show and I honestly respect all the hosts that contribute to it, but given the state of the game, I’d think twice about running this thing further than episode 100.

I know you’re thinking about it, I know the plug is getting labile.
- Mathieu Tremblay
  
  Why?
- Deacon1979
  
  state of the game? the game is in pretty good shape atm, infact according to torstatus the game has been growing since 1.3
  - http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen
    
    LOLOL dude torstatus uses a scale of is the server is full, med, light and so on. Of course when you move everyone to a handful of servers the server will be full now. We don’t even know what full means. The game has not grown since 1.3 lol. Just everyone went from being on 40 servers to 4…. wow how dense are you? *head-desk* stay in school young man….
    - Deacon1979
      
      you might want to check again there is section called server stats that shows growth in activity acroll ALL servers, and the number has been green for weeks now (rather than red), it gives an over all change in population from week to week, and the weeks since 1.3 has been live the activity across all servers (including those that are now near empty) show that more people are playing
      
      If they had closed the origin servers you may have had a point but as the data collected includes those, you dont
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson
        
        You don’t know what you’re talking about.
        The stats for each server will only go as low at .95
        A server can have 0 people on it and it will still register as light and be read as .95
        
        No MMO in history has been able to reverse downward population trends without going free 2 play. SWTOR is no different.
      - Deacon1979
        
        But its not just torstatus all sites that track game activity are showing swtor growing since 1.3, check swtor on xfire its seen over 10% increase in the last month
        
        These are the 2 sites that have been used to show how fast swtor has been losing subs and have been pretty accurate so far, so I have no reason to believe that them showing growth over the past month is somehow less accurate and niether have you
- Randy McRandom
  
  Heh. Kind of sad. More pre-launch shows than post-launch shows.
  
  But I agree. Talk about a nose dive.
  
  And I mean the game, not the Gamebreaker crew!
- Depravity
  
  Content-wise it’s been stagnant for a long, long time. Features have been introduced to keep it afloat, but as said/mentioned by countless avid supporters of the game lately, there is just not enough to talk about to keep the engines going.
  
  The Republic has done a remarkable job at covering the developments of the game for almost a hundred episodes, but to keep a topic of discussion hot, there needs to be information flowing in uninterruptedly and advancements in the dialogue to make it viable. I’m afraid there isn’t much to talk about anymore, there really isn’t.
  
  p.s.: All that said, I personally thank the GBTV crew for keeping it real for so long, it’s been an awesome journey… even if they keep covering the game in the future (although I’d rather see the manpower/time being invested in other games on the rise – and merge The Republic into a medley with Rift or possibly TSW).
http://twitter.com/Patrikules Patrick Hargan

The state of the game right now is better than it was pre 1.2 … The game is not ‘dead’. I am running into more new players to the game than ever before and these newbs are getting past the ‘free to lvl 15′ cap. I understand people feel like they were betrayed by bioware for how underwhelming the game was at launch… BUT there are people who still enjoy the game and this show for that matter, so keep your hate to yourself.
- http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen
  
  The amount of content is light for those of us who have played MMOs at a serious level. For more casual players who find rolling alts satisfies their needs to pay $15 a month, that is fine. If you like the game that is great, but for a lot of us it isn’t hating on it, it is just the truth when we say the raiding was easy and super small. And that they have held off the nightmare mode of us for months now has most of us just giving up and going elsewhere. Yes it is nice to finally have servers with tons of people, but there is still nothing for the more serious player to do with all these people.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
    
    Welcome to the face of mainstream gaming in the 21st Century. There are still a lot of hard core niches out there, but it was obvious that mainstream games would be going the more casual route for years now. We are in the age of the “Serious” casual gamer – that’s why games like the Sims, Bejeweled, and Facebook games are so popular; that’s where the money is going to be made. That’s why SWTOR isn’t in EA’s top 5 – because they will be making mucho dollars on one shots like SimCity because those types of games will sell multi-millions, whereas an MMO will only have a steady income relying on a multiple of thousands at best. Resource/Development time and money is limited, so the majority of devs and pubs are going to put that money in where the greatest return will be felt – that means hard core content will be minimal at best. Nothing wrong with it really – it’s just a reflection on how our society has changed to where us hardcore gamers of old no longer wish to spend our time or money on trying to be hard core.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac
    
    Yet, there’s some pretty large content initiatives in the works. The rate of the content release will be the important thing but we do know that the game has stabilized. And now that it generally has, it is expanding. We’re looking at the addition of quest chains involving more than one character, additional difficulties of operation content, additional operation and PvP content in general, a level increase, an entire new zone. Plus whatever the significant space content expansion is.
    
    Now, we can argue the quality of these things as they come but the thing is that TOR’s been preparing for some pretty significant expansion in the near future. Will it be *enough*? I don’t know. But we do know that the game is going to see growth in this area within the next few months. Incrementally, likely.
    - http://twitter.com/DavidBarnard8 David Barnard
      
      1 fp, 1 op, 1 wz, 1 event and 0 class story in 7 mos = not good for a paid service. if this were a f2p i wouldn’t say boo about content, but being in a perpetual state of “preparing for significant expansion” isn’t what i’m paying them for.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul
      
      “significant Space content expansion”
      
      I humbly suggest, that in a game based on a Space Opera,
      space pvp should be a priority.
      
      It doesn’t mean a few more space on rail-missions attacking the exact same space station for either side.
      
      Nothing blew my sense of immersion more than copy pasta space stations.
      
      -Well, that and desert nomads (Tusken) with longrifles waiting to attack You until You were 8 meters away.
  - http://twitter.com/MrSunrock Sunrock
    
    Well it has been a trend within MMORPGs for the last 10 years to deliver weaker and weaker PvE raid content. From EQ’s 72 man raids that tock you a year to get you a full set of the top end gear to WoWs 40 man raids that tock 6 months all the way down to 8 man operations that tock you 1-2 month to get a full set.
    
    However the T2 raid in SWTOR is not too bad and I have some good hops for the new T3 raids.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul
      
      Wow, for instance..
      -never even beat c’thun, not once.-remembers the material requirements the entire server had to farm, just to open the gates to Ahn’ Qiraj..
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul
    
    1 main and 4 alts,
    all got their ship by lvls 11-12.
    
    I took screenshotsand posted them on the forums, not because I’m a hater,
    but rather because I see the game as being way too easy.
    
    way too easy = no sense of investment into progression/reward.
    way too easy = quick endgame.
    
    FWIW, I’m not even very good,
    You usually just take one of the supporting mobs out,
    run out of the story area and lather/rinse/repeat.
    
    -this is a serious oversight on their part, methinx.
    One they choose to ignore, at their own peril.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul
  
  ”
  so keep your hate to yourself. ”
  The attitude of being afraid to discuss issues for fear of being labelled a “hater”
  is a serious problem in any creative team.
  
  It usually starts at the top, and is terminal.never believe your own hype.The game would be in a much different state right now if bioware had a few more”Haters” on the development staff.
  
  What some call “hate”, others call well deserved criticism.The longer an element can stand up under constructive debate/criticism, the more successful it’s outcome usually is.
http://twitter.com/Patrikules Patrick Hargan

/
hotpei

Gary wears Lacoste…..

I never saw that coming.
jgelling

BW spends a lot of money on trailers…
Allyndaar

Content is definitely lacking. Im from a social WoW guild that raids once a week for 4 hrs, and (as an example of our level of competance ) we only just killed LK before Cata launched – I mean the Friday before the Tuesday launch, so patch 4.0 had already hit AND we had the 30% buff – so I think you can understand just how bad we are at organized fight mechanics. Yet we have one shot almost every boss in EV and KP normal modes, and often with different people each week on fresh or grossly geared 50′s.

We walked into Denova with only 4 Rakata pieces between us and finally met a challenge, of sorts, and one we would have beaten had we not run out of time – we’re a guild of mums and dads, so we don’t raid for more than an hr on Thursdays.

Now I get that there are three levels of difficulty, but we’re bad. I mean, really bad. We should not be walking through this content without a care in the world. Is this content meant to be at LFR levels of easiness? I feel so sorry for those of you who are actually good at this game and play it passionately with the desire to be challenged. Why Nightmare modes haven’t been released yet is beyond me – which isn’t saying much given I’ve already proved almost anything even remotely challenging IS beyond me, but it is a great cliche after all.

*sigh* BioWare, get your act together and your shite into gear. Bitch-slap us with some content. Please!
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Its not looking very good. With another round of layoffs and all the promise of content from updates far down the pipeline. Starting to look like BW is just going to milk the playerbased for as much sub fees as possible.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The GamebreakerTV Republic show should be good for awhile. The cast is solid, Justin and Larry both write about SWTOR and I don’t think they will stop playing anytime soon. Gary seems to have have his pacing down for this show. BW still seems to be releasing weekly information, so content should be there. While missing Ed on the show, Ed’s work on GW2 PVP has been amazing.

Justin really wants his Operative Shadow Step. e-hug
- Depravity
  
  On point, the cast is great and I personally never contested that. But the player base numbers are, in my honest opinion, at the levels of Rift and Eve, to name a few, so investing the tremendous talent Gamebreaker has into a game that really isn’t cutting it anymore in terms of popularity is what my initial qualms were aimed at.
  
  Just that. I might be biased though, possibly even regarding the wider MMORPG stalemate the industry is in. We’re hearing the same shit every week, regardless of how funny and cool the team is. It’s the game itself that offers no more “meat” to talk about than what a football match over the weekend would. That’s why I suggested merging The Republic into a multigame show (albeit this could clash with TWiMMO).
  - jgelling
    
    I don’t see why they scrapped the Starcraft 2 show – you have a vibrant e-sports community there and the HoTS expansion coming up. Granted it’s an RTS and not an MMO, but there’s plenty to talk about in what amounts to a great PvP platform.
    
    Starcraft 2 is infinitely more popular than SWTOR and has a great future. If they scrap The Republic, I’d look there for a new show.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Lore’s Starcraft show? I think Lore Starcraft show was taking him 20 hours a week to produce. Unless he got some serious sponsorship for the show, it didn’t seem financially worthwhile. It would probably take an assistant or two to keep it going.
Dekin

Oh snap, next episode is 100! Y’all should do like an 8 panel show…..OOO or just stream StarWars Episode 3 except mute it, stream it, and do voice over for it……IDK bout you guys but I would watch that…That idea is certified gold…..by me

<———scott
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

How can you reveal something 2 times?
CCLemon77

So now the question is….
Is it going to remain WORTH IT to spend $15 bucks a month just for going through ‘world’ content without any new class story content?
At least to myself and some of my friends, the most fun we had in the game was doing the class story quests. Now that we’re maxed out and finished those story quests, and after grinding dailys (and being thoroughly bored with that), we’re pretty much numb when thinking about the regular world content.

I personally think that SWTOR will continue to bleed population loss until they release a substantial expansion containing more levels of class story content.
- http://twitter.com/MrSunrock Sunrock
  
  If you ask me it’s worth to spend $15 a month on any game if you like to play it for more then 3-4 hours a week. If you play more then that it’s defiantly worth it.
  - CCLemon77
    
    Yup, and thankfully there are plenty of people who are happy with it. Yet, there are plenty of people who are not. I think server merges are an indisputable fact regarding that. Perhaps the pops will stabilize, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it keeps dropping.
    
    I think we should remember that there was a time when most servers had a very healthy population. So, the decrease in subs and pops wasn’t due to a pre-existing lack of population, but a symptom of something else in the game being a problem. If they don’t fix the cause, then we’ll likely see further population drops. I personally believe lack of engaging class story quests post max level is ONE of the reasons why this has happened and stands to continue happening until they put out new content that is class story focused.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  So what sort of things do you have left to do now? Stuff like crafting/gathering materials for crafting? What kind of things can you set as long term goals in the game?
  - CCLemon77
    
    People have different play styles. The game lends itself to requiring people to role ALT characters if they want to continue to experience the same type of class story content. However, in doing so, it’s a requirement to play through much of the same content one already has done on the former character(s). Doing repetitive content just becomes more and more unattractive, even if one plays an ALT.
    Coming back to play styles. Not everyone are raiders or crafters either. I’d almost venture to say that there’s typically more straight out adventurers in any given MMO game versus dedicated raiders, crafters or role-players. Plus, an expansion that provides more class story quests should of course also in parallel provide more crafting, roleplaying and NEW world content.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
      
      I don’t think any dev can really keep a constant flow of content so repetition is pretty much required. I guess the trick is coming up with something that can be repeated without becoming boring too quickly.
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

take 50 light servers and make them 5… you’re gonna get a bunch of high pop servers.. the game DID NOT gain much if any subs… wow how is this hard to understand…. the hosts on this show are just such fanboys… I know it is your job to love on the game… but heck on the other shows the hosts tell it like it is more… again a site that ONLY shows you if the server is High, Med, or Low, and NOT the real population will of course show servers with more High times when you merge so many people onto one server…. it does not mean there are NEW people…. just all the servers together equal a high pop…. example: High pop is 100k pop. Take 10 servers with 10k pop which is shown as low and put em together, and now you have a 100k server which torstatus will show as an increase in people, but you are just moving the people, not gaining people… Sorry for the rant, but wow can’t believe the hosts actually tried to pass this off as new people joining the game… they aren’t.
testguy111

Gary: about spiders in the aftershow:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse only a tiny fraction of bites are even visible EVER, let alone lead to necrisis.
since already 80% of bites in known recluse regions are misdiagnosed, meaning they are something much more dangerous or fucking contagious (like MRSA) I bet most of these pictures on the web are people who got lyme disease, or another serious bug from the list on the wiki page, but don’t seek help from doctors, get really sick, or infect others just because of this stupid brown recluse myth.

wiki states a case of 2000 brown recluse spiders living in a house with a lot of people over many years and NO ONE WAS EVER EVEN BIT.

and there seems a real panic in california (WHERE THERE ARE NO SUCH SPIDERS) going on as well… and all these cases are much more serious things as spider bites, but people are hysterical and irrational about spiders and dont seek the right treatment.

spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html
testguy111

Gary: about spiders in the aftershow:

(goto wikipedia: Brown_recluse) only a tiny fraction of bites are even visible EVER, let alone lead to necrosis.

since already 80% of bites in known recluse regions are misdiagnosed,
meaning they are something much more dangerous or fucking contagious
(like MRSA) I bet most of these pictures on the web are people who got
lyme disease, or another serious bug from the list on the wiki page, but
don’t seek help from doctors, get really sick, or infect others just
because of this stupid brown recluse myth.

wiki states a case of 2000 brown recluse spiders living in a house with a
lot of people over many years and NO ONE WAS EVER EVEN BIT.

and there seems a real panic in california (WHERE THERE ARE NO SUCH
SPIDERS) going on as well… and all these cases are much more serious
things as spider bites, but people are hysterical and irrational about
spiders and dont seek the right treatment.

spiders .ucr .edu /myth .html
http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

K-9 is that you?
http://profile.yahoo.com/RAHQ6XOIAVJHM4ZOWRAPAODRQA Michael B

A trailer for a companion is a sad attempt to excite the player base.Where the hell is my Dev.HM?Full servers be damned,the game still lacks.An increase in players “returning” for their last months of their subs maybe,but an increase in subs Larry?Your fanboi’ism has gotten ridiculous.Try telling that to the new layoffs,see what they think about all the “new” subs pouring in.
LordTrikke

Another swtor hate show : (
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

who the hell moves to singapore…WHAT the hell is in singapore..
- scottsummer
  
  One of the best city in the world if not the best with great opportunity for software developing?
  
  You are making a fool of yourself.
pathargan

justin try keybinding your cover skill.. personally i dont play a scoundrel/operative but i’ve seen them using the cover mechanic as a gap closer or to run away. Also the one good thing about filling resolve fast is that you can trick someone into using their CC breaker too soon, stealth out, wait for their resolve to drop (which drops fairly quick after someone uses the CC break) then drop them again, using your non dmg breaking stun at the end to finish them off. Biggest thing to know when pvp’n w/ a stealth class is when to use your stuns.. Same thing goes for infiltration shadows.

The Republic 99: Star Wars The Old Republic Reveals Companion HK-51

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

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