#LOOK I know I haven't played swtor in like. months

[haledamage]

what if... I got Qora that Expatriate armor set...

[greyias]

I really don’t want swtor to shut down it’s the only eu thing that’s active we have left

I knew these asks were going to start coming in.

So for those who haven't heard, it was reported, and then later confirmed by Keith Kanneg on the forums, that EA is "selling" SWTOR to another developer, Broadsword. For those who want to read the article discussing it, you can read here: https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-development-third-party-bioware

TL;DR -- It's not shutting down. The servers are going to stay active for a while

There's a few points to note here:

If I understand things correctly, EA actually owns Broadsword. So EA is in fact not actually offloading a property, I think what's actually happening is BioWare Austin itself is being divvied out and would not be surprised to see if that branch is shut down

At least half of the SWTOR dev team is part of this move, so the key things to keep an eye on is which members of the dev team are moving. If the narrative staff is kept intact, then we have more story ahead of us beyond what's been written, and they've confirmed we're getting 7.3, 7.3.1, and 7.4. It's important to note that their production timeline is generally a year out from things being written, so story-wise, if they have narrative staff, we'll likely still have some story drops ahead of us

SWTOR is profitable (it hit over $1 billion in profit several years ago), and I will admit I don't have the best understanding of video game finances, but my impresion it was far into the black and maybe not an enromous cash cow, but a decent consistent revenue stream. EA is a publisher that is about profits, so as long as the game is profitable, even if there's not new story drops, the game will stay online

Disney has seemingly taken a recent interest in SWTOR after mostly ignoring it after its acquisition of Star Wars, even going so far as to finally acknowledge the general KOTOR/SWTOR era in their presentations last year at Celebration. Does this ultimately mean anything? I don't know, but SWTOR is one of the longest running current properties with a stable player base. They're just as interested in profit as EA. Probably another indicator that the game will keep running for a while.

Other properties that Broadsword operates, such as Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online, are old games. Ultima Online was released in 1997, and the servers are still active. So like, I think regardless of what happens in regards of the story, we're not losing the ability to log in and play the game

Long term subscriptions - I remember reading, and forgive me, because I've long forgotten the source, that a key indicator if the servers are going offline is to also keep an eye on the six-month subscription option. Basically, if suddenly the only option for subs goes down to one month, that's when to worry about being able to actually play the game.

This is probably not about SWTOR, but BioWare as a whole. It seems there's a leadership issue at the main Alberta office that's causing issues. This is likely an Anthem issue all over again, but Anthem this time happens to be the Mass Effect and Dragon Age properties. Unfortunately, BioWare Austin looks like it's going to suffer the consequences of that, even though they've been running a tight ship overall compared to the rest of the branches. I feel for them. This sucks.

Now I'm not an oracle, I have no idea if this is ultimately a good or bad thing for the game itself. There's a lot of evidence for both sides of the coin, so right now the best thing is to wait and see. We at least have the promise of the next two patches. Let's focus on enjoying that, and celebrating what we love about our silly space game.

If you love the game, keep playing it. Spend money on it, and keep it profitable and it will stay around. Be kind and supportive of the devs, who regardless of how this shakes out, are going through a major transition. But immediately decrying an active game's death and going into doom and gloom is not going to help things.

Will we get more story beyond 7.4? I do not know one way or the other. I hope we do, but it's hard to say for certain on that front. But I do believe we'll still have our toons and be able to replay all of the released content for quite a while to come. Again, for now I'm just going to enjoy my favorite game, and support it as long as I have it. Even if this inevitably means it's going to change.

[hurricanek8art]

Okay, I don't know what's going on with Tumblr and everything has been absolute chaos with my life the past few months, so y'know what, screw it. I think I'm actually brave enough to share some of my art. At least it won't just be sitting on my tablet that way.

This is my Sith Inquisitor turned Force-sensitive Outcast from SWTOR, Roodaka Greatstorm-Kallig. I haven't really plotted everything out with her regarding her story, but she's not my Outlander. She leaves the Empire right after Ziost, after losing all of the family she'd used her Dark Council connections to find and save from slavery, and Lana recruits her to help Sana-Rae run the Enclave about two years before the Outlander (my Knight Aja Verdona) is rescued. She's prickly and petty and spiteful but I love her dearly. And because I've never posted art before, art process and a little bit of character lore ramble under the cut, I guess?

I usually work with lined art/sketches that are admittedly very messy, but when I did the first one back in May I was experimenting with actually rendering/painting, and I saw a fashion post thing that looked like something Roo would wear, so I was mostly just playing around, it's not a solid outfit design for her. It's janky and wonky and oh Lord please don't look closely at the anatomy or face it is not up to my usual standards, but I was so proud of myself for the lighting on this one, as well as how I managed to render the muscle. Like, the lighting! I have no idea what I'm doing but I think it looks so flipping good! And I was happy with how the crackly lightsaber blade turned out—it is supposed to be Aloysius Kallig's lightsaber, meaning it's at least over a thousand years old, right? It should be a little janky with age!

The second one is supposed to be post Fallen Empire, after she's left the Sith and become sort of a wandering Force-user—think Ahsoka as of, well... Ahsoka, but more on the side of Ventress if she'd survived TCW (don't get me started on that choice 🙄🙄🙄). I came into it knowing a little more of what I was doing, but I kinda got in over my head and gave up on the 100% lineless thing, you can definitely tell with the sword/clothes. 🥴 The second piece has been sitting unfinished in my WIP folder for months, so I just said screw it, finished up some details and called it because I am SO PROUD of her face and hands (I DREW A GOOD HAND WITHOUT LINEART WHO AM I?!?!) and how I rendered her skin, I don't want it to live in WIP purgatory forever. You can actually tell that's muscle! And a neck!

I'm proud of how her tattoos turned out, too. I played around with Cham Syndulla's tattoo pattern, turning it at different angles. It felt like a good way to root her in Twi'lek culture despite the Kallig bloodline having been separated from it for so long. She gets the first one to cover up a slave tattoo, and the rest after Ziost to further reclaim her identity and culture, leaving the Sith behind.

I have no idea how to close this post. Um... thanks for reading all this, if you have? I've never posted art before, I'm kinda terrified. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[tiredassmage]

god i just finished what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. spoodle talk + pics under the cut for some end of update stuff no peeksies if you don't want that.

oh and obligatory new agent va thoughts as one of ur resident agent posters.

hold on I need about. twenty minutes to process everything I witnessed today holy FUCK. MY GOD.

SHAE WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! SHAE!!!! SHAE PICK THE PHONE BACK UP!!!!!

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. okay look the amount of times tyr was able to basically tell the dark council to go suck a nut was fantastic but FOR FUCK'S SAKE SHAE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE TIMES WAS FOR YOU. FOR BEING INVOLVED IN SOMETHING HE HAS THOUGHT FOR MONTHS WAS GETTING OUT OF HAND. SHAE!!!!! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!!!!!!

fucking. tyr "everything is under control" deckard lying boldfaced to vowrawn himself. "is there anything else?" to krovos. holy fuck. dude. god. tyr i love you. obligatory blorbo posting.

he really just fuckin said "nah. die mad about it." oh my god. oh my fucking god.

he doesn't know what the glowy fucking box does any more than you do and he's going to keep it that way because [piano keyboard slam] he doesn't trust you at allllll <3

anyway. spent the whole update with the new va for male agent now. I have decided I Like Him. felt a lot better after I found the post saying it was a new va. Probably would've been insanely less jarring on the front end of playing to have known that before I launched the game today because I think most of my initial awkward piano keyboard smash about it was Not Knowing.

No reasons are posted and it is absolutely none of my business, as it should remain so, but I admit I'm not... entirely surprised by the recast. Didn't expect it to show up here, evidently, and I haven't followed anything outside of the game, but the last update or two was a little... rougher around the edges I'd noticed and having another character at max suggested it wasn't exclusively a studio recording-related occurrence, so I wish our original legend the absolute best, but Scolding appears to have had a lot of fun picking up the role here and I applaud that, it's a lot of fun to hear.

And now that I am. a little bit more coherent having discussed something Else about the update, I'll also pitch a chip into the idea that I don't... entirely mind that they used KOTOR style cinematics in sections of this update because it gave us a lot more variance in exactly what to say in those moments and it felt fitting for what they were trying to achieve with Sa'har.

Which. sniffles. Ouuuu Sa'har, idk if I'm ready to get started on that. THIS UPDATE. AND LEAVING ME ON THINGS. THAT ARE CAUSING ME EMOTIONS!!!! DAMN!!!!!

SLAY, GIRL, SLAY!

okay general photodump from the whole update time you know how I am about seeing my favorite barbie kicking ass and being in peril <3

damn this was good. nice outing, swtor. nice outing.

[systemic-dreams]

Hi! Saw in your posts that you play an IA in SWTOR (your chiss ocs look so good). Haven't played but thinking of getting into it (Late to the party LOL). Any advice on how to get nicely started as an IA? Is a sniper better than operative (also, what's the difference? never really got it...)? Is subscribing also recommended before starting to play or is there a good time to subscribe after coasting with free to play? Any other advice would be so helpful (controls, etc.) Thank you

I would recommend subscribing for one month. It's like $15 and you get all the dlc forever and by the end of the month you'll know whether you want to keep playing. F2p is a bummer but definitely good to try b4 u buy for people on the fence.I played marksman sniper in pvp for a while so I like that better. Snipers take cover and concentrate on staying put and long range dps. Operatives run all over the place and go in close and can also heal and stun and poison but they deal less dmg. It's a personal preference. If you play sniper i recommend binding Take Cover to the F key in your preferences for ease of use and so it doesn't take up ur move slots.Feel free to msg me or ask questions :)