The Republic: Critical Of 1.3 -- The Star Wars: The Old Republic Show

Written by: Ryan Verniere (@Shaddoe) | July 3, 2012 8:00 am

37 Comments

Our panel has had a week to mess around with Star Wars: The Old Republic Update 1.3 — Allies.

But were things all peaches and cream?

Although our experts individually focus on specific areas of the game, collectively they do touch on all aspects.

Justin Lowe concentrates on the raider’s perspective, while Larry Everett talks about lore and general PvE. Ed Park is the master PvPer and, of course, Gary Gannon holds it all together. When their powers combine, they are Captain Critique – sort of like the Voltron of critics. All the minute details of the latest SWTOR patch are brought to light, and you’re not going to want to miss what they’ve got to say!

Tune in this week as our illustrious panel gets granular about group finder, ranked warzones, and Star Wars: The Old Republic going forward.

If you’re into SWTOR, or are looking to get back into the game, you need to tune in this and every week to The Republic!

The Republic: Critical Of 1.3 -- The Star Wars: The Old Republic Show

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Comment

David Alcon

I gotta say, I watch the show every week and love the cast, but (whether this is intentional or not) after every episode I get bummed about the state of SWTOR. It must be some conspiracy!
- Deathstar2x
  
  More conspiracy theories!
MMO_Doubter

Holy trinity MMOs need to be designed with the realization that most players want to play DPS.

Design dungeons for party of one tank, one healer and 4 or 5 DPS. Combine that with a viable (not equal) DPS alt spec for tanks and healers.
- http://twitter.com/MrSunrock Sunrock
  
  Well SWTOR have party limit of 4 so you cant really use more then 1 tank and 1 healer.
  - MMO_Doubter
    
    Well, that’s kind of my point. They went the wrong direction with group sizes. If the engine can handle raids, than it can handle larger groups than 4.
    - David Alcon
      
      I agree. On paper it looks good (I.E. 3/8 classes can Heal, 3/8 classes can Tank, 8/8 classes can DPS). But in reality people gravitate to DPS for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that Tanks and Healers have the largest responsibility in a group.
MMO_Doubter

AOE tanking sucks. It ruined dungeons in WoW.
Avan Gore

I think the banana question was about that we still cannot remove the set bonus from a piece of gear and move it to another piece of gear. As far as I know the set bonus was supposed to be attached to certain (armor) mods to enable us to move those too, but it does not seem to be implemented yet.
- Judeau
  
  Its implemented, but only on War-Hero and Campaign level gear.
Malloci

After not playing for well over a month while waiting for 1.3 ive been playing every days since 1.3 and ive been having a pretty good time. That being said bw still needs to do alot of work.

Swtor really needs rework its gear progression, Things like useless gear tokens given out in current dungeons (who has actualy used a tionese token? i have three raid geared characters and ive never used one once.) and raid gear that drops in 4 man instances is rediculous in a AAA mmo.

Small things like the still archaic GTN and no gear or role check in the lfg tool all build up to make the game seem like its run by amateurs when compared to WOW or Rift.
http://twitter.com/WaylandX JB

Great Show Guys!
tommythepower

You guys for real, talking aout set bonuses and players look like bioware want them do.’
The guy in that topic was talking about battlemaster and rakata mods etc dont transfearing set bonus to other gears.
Spencer Kennedy

Love the show!
Also love that the handle is missing in the picture and it looks like the guy has a giant light sabor for a penis.
- David Alcon
  
  That is hilarious. I didn’t catch that before, but now that I see it I can’t unsee it!
- Brosaxon
  
  Is that a lightsaber in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Tom Mullin

Post the conspiracy theory pre-show talk. I tuned in way late for Monday’s live show, but watching the recording, found that I had caught most of the actual show. I want to see that hour’s worth of conspiracy talk. Should be hilarious.
Jay Nielson

For the pre show just watch over at twitch…

I had to find a new guild because everyone from my orig guild on Po5 quit and are not coming back. It was the largest pub guild on the server and now it’s just me. Joined up w/ another group but we can’t get enough on to play an 8 man rated…. Saying stuff like pvp seems to have more content is just foolish. No open world, no class balance (And the fact that you’re not still beating that drum ed is disappointing.), and a system that rewards big guilds at the expense of the lower guilds. That’s not complete that’s half ass. And the fact that the pvp lead has got to keep his job is just a joke.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Not surprised to hear that its hard keeping a 8-man rated team together.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Filip-Buhov/1379207683 Filip Buhov

u no respect grorious deveropement teamu briowaru ! DING DONG BANNU
http://twitter.com/Cpt_Badger Krzysztof Róg

Good patch + transfers = a chance to stabilise the subs.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson
  
  It isn’t hard to stabilize subs. Warhammer Online has stable subs.
  The question is what number will they stabilize at.
http://twitter.com/TrippinNinja Trippin Ninja

Gary! ConspiracyBreaker! Make it happen! I would donate massive amounts of my time and money for this. I have always wanted to do a show like that. There is so much material and so many people to talk about you could go on forever. I always thought your format here at Gamebreaker would work perfect for that. No two people ever seem to have the same beliefs when it comes to this type of stuff so it would make for really good back and forth discussions.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Doyle-Hargrave/1182733324 Doyle Hargrave

lfg tool+custom ui = hey were catching to you mmos in 2005 take that haters!
Valadus

“…sort of like the Voltron of critics” that cracked me up, nice one
Spatology

i dont even know what raptor is….
http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac

The game certainly feels much more alive post 1.3.
It’s certainly not perfect but for such a relatively simple patch, 1.3′s had a fairly positive effect. The big push now is going to be content and seeing if BioWare’s big additions this year will be sufficient. There’s a lot of future content planned but the question becomes if the rate of released is sufficient.
http://www.facebook.com/joseph.handibode Joseph Handibode

I think people were talking about PvE high end gear. I rather have pvp gear with transfer of pve mods/armor. I like pvp armor much better. PvE gear in SWTOR stinks.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin-Dirk-Zimmer/100001751755929 Martin Dirk Zimmer

For about a year now „The Republic“ has been my favorite show about SWTOR. I used to listen to TOROcast, before Musco quit and the podcast tanked. „The Republic“ captivated me with its mix of hosts coming from different domains of gaming: PVE, RP, PVP. I even donate a couple of bucks via PayPal now and then.

As of late I find the quality of the show slipping. Sure, Gary has relevant topics of discussion on cue and at least Larry and Justin seem to be actively playing the game. But Ed seems to get reinvited, although he has left SWTOR far behind himself. Gary mostly deals in common places and keeps regurgitating the seditious troll-threads about dropping subs, micro transactions, free to play, general doom and gloom…

Myself, I have tested SWTOR since August 2011 and will keep playing for the foreseeable future. I know the show is not meant to be unpaid, unsolicited advertising for the game, but come on… I feel like saying: „Get your shit back together, guys.“
- MMO_Doubter
  
  You should be saying that to BioWare.
  
  Don’t kill the messenger.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin-Dirk-Zimmer/100001751755929 Martin Dirk Zimmer
    
    I should be saying to BioWare: „I love your game, but the media are wrecking it for you.“ ? Is that your suggestion?
    
    It’s the messenger I am complaining about.
    - MMO_Doubter
      
      GBTV didn’t cause the mass exodus from SWTOR. BioWare did.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin-Dirk-Zimmer/100001751755929 Martin Dirk Zimmer
        
        Beg to differ. BW had promised a story-driven MMO – and they delivered. Now spacebaring ADD-monkeys without RLs are complaining about endgame lacking, while I roll alt after alt and savor both the story lines and the formidable voice acting. Buy a car and complain it’s not a chopper – go figure.
      - Andrew Crispe
        
        I have to say I’ve really lost my love for this show, while my love of SWTOR is still very much intact. Merely saying “Don’t shoot the messenger” shows more than a little ignorance. The messengers are the BioWare PR people. Gary and his team are here to entertain as well as inform… and the entertaining aspect has obviously been slipping – read the comments after each show. Yes, the information has been on the gloomy side, but that’s not what I’m referring to, nor what I think Martin is either.
        The general attitude being picked up is “I really don’t give a rat’s arse about this game anymore, so let’s feed the trolls instead. At least that entertains us.”.
        It’s their show to do with as they will, but I (and others as well, it seems) just don’t feel like watching it anymore.
      - Revanhavoc
        
        As a diehard SWTOR fan who also tested the game I must say your protective rose coloured opinion is the minority. SWTOR failed to deliver the quality we fans demanded. Please don’t defend the fourth pillar as the main support for the game…One pillar is not enough when you don’t have good combat, graphics, or style.
        
        Iwaited since 2008 for this on the forums everyday. They failed me.
        
        Gamebreaker has been my only solace from my misery, so thanks for great reporting all the way through guys.
      - Spatology
        
        I agree Martin, ive been playing mmo’s a long time. I know a good product. The general tone of this show has been trounced. I haven’t resubbed to wow or gotten on the GW2 bandwaggon because SWToR is still very good. I really honestly dont value Gary Gannon’s opinion anymore, i cant, i feel his opinion is skewed for some reason….
        
        Cant wait to try out the Rated Battlegrounds, the LFG system is working pretty well. I’m finally getting to enjoy the game’s full content experience!!!
- jgelling
  
  “Seditious” troll threads? Besides the fact that no one owes loyalty to EA or Bioware, the most seditious trolling has been Bioware’s handling of the game ever since launch.
  
  They didn’t do themselves any favors firing Stephen Reid.
  
  That said, I do believe the show’s production values are slipping – they spent more than a half hour before this episode talking about conspiracy theories and basically anything except SWTOR. It’s kind of obvious Gary’s lost interest in the game. The tone changed after the mass layoffs.
  
  In fairness, if more people still watched this show, he’d probably try harder. But it’s not the media that’s manufacturing fading interest in SWTOR across the board.
Sharuko

lol at all their faces when Gary whipped out the Raptr news.

The Republic: Critical Of 1.3 -- The Star Wars: The Old Republic Show

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