#SWTOR anniversary

[legends-expo]

Happy eleventh anniversary SWTOR! We're so glad that this piece of Legends is still receiving new content!

Who is your favorite SWTOR character?

Join us in celebrating the Expanded Universe at LegendsCon in Burbank, CA on September 9th & 10th!

Darth Malgus cosplay by @longshot7014

[tython-datacron]

bruh i went to dromund kaas stronghold to check out a new deco and it literally made me emotional seeing that planet again?? i don't know what i'm feeling exactly but stars have i missed this game

[jbeansdraws]

Redraw that sad birthday cat meme because it's my SWTOR son's birthday!

[eorzeashan]

Ahh, I caved and decided to replay the IA story. I make it a habit if not an outright code that I have to make all the opposite decisions of my first playthrough, to see every possibility of the storyline as long as it doesn't stray from the character's personality.

But that's the problem.

I started this playthrough to see Jadus, thinking I would deliver him another Hand- ruthless, cold, lacking all empathy and heart.

Once again, my own OC surprises me. This did not happen. I can still feel the nobility of Orradiz's character shining through those choices, because I failed to remember he was already a perfect storm in his main timeline. Reasons why it makes me bittersweet to reflect on, since that's supposed to be the happy universe. He ended up with Theron. He survived everything; yet comfort and light hardly equates to healing, and I look at him every day in that story with sadness knowing he'll never truly find the peace he longs for.

Making the reverse of all those choices makes him far more innocent and optimistic than I remembered. Even his questioning of Jadus leaking vibe arsenic into the room sounded more like a curious observation rather than the bitter and carefully concealed edge of sass he does in the main timeline.

What does this mean?

It means this is a lighter, kinder character than I signed up for, and this sounds insane- but if he can survive the story's gauntlet, he may be able to flip Jadus' force bond on its head. By that I mean a bond is two-way street, and like how Revan influenced the Emperor for 300 years to do things out of his character, maybe just maybe he can force that damn Sith Lord to feel the Light.

Greater women have fallen for lesser beasts before in fiction. Perhaps this is another of those stories.

[felassan]

A former BioWare Design Director has tweeted his take on the recent BioWare and SW:TOR news. tweet compilation, as it's interesting and illuminating insight:

"My take on the SWTOR/BioWare split For SWTOR: This is a Good Thing For BioWare: This is a Big Loss A thread:

My point of view is someone who worked for BioWare Austin on SWTOR from 2009 as an Assistant World Designer through 2022 as Design Director (with some Anthem, Shadow Realms, and <NDA> years sprinkled about).

BioWare Austin (BWA) was its own studio for many years, founded in order to make that game. MMO’s are expensive, y’all.

We didn’t really collaborate with BioWare Edmonton (BWE) on the dev side much, because there was no need to (with some exceptions – they had built the original on-rails space shooting component, for example).

As a business, in this model all revenue and expenses roll up into the greater whole (BioWare), which then roll into EA’s Group, and so on.

After many years, this model shifted and changed, for a large variety of reasons I won’t get into. BWA would no longer be a separate entity, but under the same core leadership as BWE – One BioWare (BW).

What this meant realistically was you had a boxed product business that had been tried and true for years, combined with a live service MMO business that wasn’t really understood by the boxed product folks. Arguably by EA either, to be fair.

You see, MMO’s can be fairly predictable if they run long enough. We knew the SWTOR business very well. We knew how to turn every dollar invested in the game into several more. SWTOR was (and continues to be) a very profitable business, with loads of heart behind it.

But an older game isn’t sexy. It’s not new. It doesn’t get marketing orgs excited or social media teams jazzed. It’s a ‘legacy game’, despite the mountains of income coming in that other franchises are built off of.

And you FELT it, as a member of the team. It’s a fantastic dev team, filled with incredible talent. How then, with such a close-knit team, did you always feel less-than?

Well, just take a look around. Look at BW’s social media posts and count the proportion of SWTOR game/fan/anything posts compared to ME or DA. Remember that BioWare 25th anniversary book? The beautiful 328 page recollection of BioWare’s history, and celebration of all franchises?

For a game like SWTOR that had been live already for 9 of those 25 years at the time of publication, how many pages, dear reader, do you think had any SWTOR imagery or content at all? Ten. Teams notice this. They feel it, and it feels like shit.

Does BW despise SWTOR? I don’t think so – they don’t understand it, and it was someone else’s game. Does EA despise SWTOR? I don’t think so – it’s a legacy live service, and again, was someone else’s game.

As a dev on SWTOR, you feel like your game is a burden to all of the layers above you, but you persist. You put so much heart and passion into the game, and you thrive on the fans and tremendous partnership with LucasFilm.

So to bring us back to current news, imagine a team excited about a game, with incredible plans, that have felt ‘less-than’ by their own studio and company for years, being unleashed.

Being part of an org that KNOWS the MMO business, and understands those player communities and the incredible stories and connections they form.

This feels like an exciting new chapter to me, and I’m optimistic about what this means for that team and the game. SWTOR is, to the best of my knowledge, the longest-running Star Wars anything, ever. It’s a special game and I’m so happy to see where the team takes it.

As far as BW, it would have certainly be in their best interest as a business to maximize exposure and support for SWTOR publicly over the years, since the SWTOR revenue has allowed for the…unusually long…dev cycles to continue for the last several games.

But now without SWTOR, there will be less places to hide heads, R&D, and time. You’ve got blockbuster single-player experiences hitting high Metacritic scores with…2-3 year dev cycles? And the BW pattern has been…double? Triple that?

I think it will be interesting to see how the EA/BW relationship continues to evolve in this new world. /end"

[source]

[theshieldbladelegacy]

Missed my SWTOR anniversary at the end of last month! I have now been playing SWTOR for 10 years!

[oolathurman]

1st anniversary party of Stim Please and Down With Sith Bus!

Last year I was finally fed up enough with how white and how ableist swtor and its fandom has been, and I created the pub side guild <Stim Please> and its sister guild <Down With Sith Bus> on Star Forge. This year, we're hosting a giveaway for guild members!

Each faction will hold a giveaway for Secret Items TM, and each faction will have three prizes each. After the giveaway we'll play hide-and-seek on the flagships. (Don't have to be there if you don't want to!) Giveaways starts at 4pm pst (7pm est and 11pm gmt). Imp side giveaway will be Saturday and Pub side is Sunday.

Come join the party! DM me on tumblr or discord (also 'oolathurman') for an invite to the discord server. Once you're familiarized with the rules, I can send out guild invites c:

[thegarbagechute]

Today was my 11 year SWTOR anniversary. How time has flown! A doodle to celebrate my OG character Sodi.

[sullustangin]

Fluffy February Day 13 - Splurge

SWTOR

Time: Life Day, 25 ATC

Pairing: Theron Shan/Eva Corolastor

Words: 773 (oh look, something reasonably sized)

~~

“…it sort of got away from me.  Bit of a splurge.  First, it was a welcome back gift…then it was a happy birthday gift, but the order was too complicated to be done by then.  Then it was too late for a dating anniversary present…”  Eva gave an uncharacteristically nervous laugh. 

Theron stared at what was now parked in Odessen’s speeder pool, with an obnoxiously huge bow on it. 

…it was his first Life Day after Nathema.  After he came back.  After his 38th birthday.  After they marked 4 years since they were officially together (and she was out of carbonite).  After her 30th birthday.

Eva had gotten him a top-of-the-line swoop bike.  Every bell and whistle imaginable.  It was the sort that only people with sponsors with huge pockets could afford.  …honest to the stars, it made the dream bike in Theron’s head pale in comparison.

He’d been in work mode when the Captain had summoned him.  Now… he’d be lucky if he could add and subtract properly. 

It was probably the most elaborate gift anyone had ever gotten him. 

He didn’t know what to do with it. 

Yes, there was the obvious “Ride the bike” idea, but … he didn’t want it.

They’d had conversations before – how she had so much money she could buy anything she wanted and how he never wanted anything, because desires fulfilled and unfulfilled were discouraged.  Eva had been a profound exception. 

Theron didn’t know what to do with the bike or his feelings about it. 

Because he didn’t like it.

He didn’t want it.

But how was he going to explain that to her, who was so anxiously waiting for him to tell her she did it right?  Waiting for him to tell her she knew him best?

They both made those desperate reaches for affection after Nathema.  The legal marriage was the most permanent, and they’d dove into it headlong, together.  What they said during sex was the most fleeting, but the highs got higher with the right words. 

This… was probably the most expensive and the least well received.

And she’d figured it out.  “You don’t like it.”

Theron forced himself to look at her utterly crestfallen expression and told her the truth.  “No.  About as much as you would like my design of a personal shuttle for you to use instead of the Thief.”

Despite the hypothetical, Theron saw that temper flare up – how dare he even say that –and then it fizzled out when it registered. “You…you build them yourself.”

Theron nodded.

 “…but you sold your last swoop – the one you had on Nar Shaddaa,” Eva stated, the question baked in.

Theron shrugged.  “Had to.  Needed the money during the Revanite crisis.  It was for the mission.  Can’t get attached to some old bike if it means saving the galaxy.”

“…but you built it,” Eva repeated.  “How can you –”  She cut herself off with a shake of her head.  “Your attachments thing still doesn’t make sense to me.  The fact that you still can’t –”

“One notable exception.”  He had to correct her on that count.  “And maybe a few others, depending on how much they’ve annoyed me during the week.”  That provoked a smile from the both of them. 

He was better, she had to admit that. 

Eva looked at the swoop bike.  Then she sheepishly offered, “If I had Corso and Guss disassemble it for us and we put it back together –”

She didn’t finish that sentence before Theron laughed.   “We might not see the parts again, Eva,” he managed. 

“And then I really wouldn’t be able to return it.”  Eva gave the bike a bemused look.

Theron’s chuckling tampered off.  “…you’d do that?”

She shrugged.  “What’s the point of a bike you don’t ride or a ship you don’t like?”  A tiny little snarl erupted on her face.  “Even in the abstract.”

The amusement returned to Theron’s face at her absolute caginess about the Thief.  “I promise to never take up a drafting pencil on that concept.”

“Good,” she said, sharply.  Then her own smirk floated up to her face.  “How about I send you off to Taris or Telos or something with Blizz and go have a scrounge for parts?”  She put her hands on her hips. “I bet I could even find you an intel mission to do at the same time.”

Theron swaggered toward her for the first time during this whole exchange.  “Again, I’d never see the parts again if you sent Blizz.”  He paused.  “You got some spare time?”

She closed the rest of the distance between them.  “I can make time.”

~~

@fluffyfebruary

[queen-susans-revenge]

Thank you to both @oenothera5 and @doodlingbreak, who asked me to list five things that make me happy or that I'd like others to know about me. This seems like a good day to practice gratitude so I'll focus on the happy things.

My cats, Luna and Stella, who are fuzzy and soft to touch. They have triangle ears and whiskery noses and beautiful blue eyes and toe beans on their feet, and if all that wasn't enough already, they also purr. Stella likes to wake me up in the middle of the night by sitting on my pillow and I never even mind it, because she purrs when she does it, so it's always like "oh! Thank you! I am honored by this mouthful of cat fur in the small hours of the morning."

My three boys. The oldest is 17 now which feels absolutely unreal. I was so afraid that puberty would change them and make them mean, but actually, they are still just as sweet as ever. They are my gift to the world. They are the best parts of me, and they'll go on when I am gone. I worry about my youngest, because he is autistic and only partially verbal, and it seems increasingly unlikely that he'll be able live independently. My major life project for whatever years remain to me (I'm being dramatic, I'm not even fifty yet) is to make sure he'll have a good life even after I'm gone.

My little house! It is small, two bedrooms and a little under 1350 square feet. But it's an arts and crafts bungalow with a lot of historic touches (built-ins, wood paneling, some of the original light fixtures) and it was just so intelligently put together that it's possible for five people to live here and not feel like we're constantly tripping over each other. The three boys share a room (bunk beds for the win), but in addition to the bedrooms there's separate living and dining rooms, a breakfast nook, and two small bonus spaces that Sam and I have claimed for offices. (My office was probably originally a sleeping porch, as it's off the main bedroom, separated by french doors. His might have been a cloakroom or sitting room, we're not sure. They're snug, but big enough for a desk and bookshelf apiece.) Rooms! I love rooms. Will never understand the fad for open floor plans. Rooms let you have doors that you can close. The kids often spread out; usually my eldest will set up his laptop on the dining table, while the middle boy works on his computer in the breakfast nook and the youngest sort of bounces around. There's a half-wild backyard too. I wrote about it here. Right now the camillas are blooming in the backyard and I can see them from my office window. They are so pretty.

My husband Sam, who I love and who loves me. I know that he loves me because he gets up first every morning and makes the coffee, and then brings me a cup of coffee and a kiss in bed. Every single morning. We recently celebrated our 18th anniversary. It is wonderful to love and be loved.

Friends! My friends are mostly online. In fact I am practically a shut-in: the last group I was in was a scouting group for the boys, but we wound that down just before the pandemic hit, and I feel no need to go out and join any more. I rarely leave the house except for daily walks. Even when the boys were smaller and I was doing a lot of school volunteering, I had "mom friends" but they did not feel deeply connected to me. How could they? They don't play D&D or read sci-fi or share any of the imaginative life that is so important to me. They were colleagues, and now we don't work together any more. Sam is a homebody too, so we don't really go out. My bff and I met in college a full thirty years ago, but we have lived on opposite coasts since I moved to California in 2000. We chat on Discord, just as I chat with the newer friends I've mostly met through gaming or social media. I have a very low social battery so I'm good with like, one fairly active Discord server and occasional one-on-one chats with friends. My main sorrow in life is that my SWTOR guild server has petered out to very little activity; I have a wholly unreasonable but deeply held grudge against Final Fantasy for poaching so many of them away.

Those are my five favorite things (not in order), but a big shoutout to books and games, which also sustain my everyday existence. Oh and food! I cook dinner for the fam most nights and I've become a really good cook. It's very gratifying when my boys tell me that they love my cooking.

I am supposed to tag other people for the meme, but I always feel awkward about that, because I'm half afraid it would be an imposition and half afraid to offend anyone I don't mention. So to anyone who sees this and would like to list your own happy-making things, I would be very interested to get a glimpse into your lives!

[panther-os]

Do you have thoughts about Jedi holidays?

Oh, I actually haven't thought about this before. 👀

I wanna say they definitely have at least one festival dedicated to each of the five core parts of Jewish holidays - candles, singing, leaves, food, and "the people who tried to kill us failed, woohoo!" I've been playing a lot of swtor lately so I feel like that last one would be the anniversary of the Coruscant Temple's destruction in the Sith Wars. Candles is light, obviously. Singing, maybe something to do with kyber? Leaves, hm, I have vague half-formed thoughts about the Room of One Thousand Fountains and similar gardens in other temples. Food is pretty self-explanatory but there could be something like World Thinking Day in scouts where different ethnic groups gather together to make little booths with their local cuisine for everyone in the temple to try.

The idea of Shaak Ti walking Ahsoka and Ashla through traditional Togruti recipes and the two girls beaming with pride as other Jedi walk up to try what they made.... How they vibrate with wanting to go see all the other booths but they also want to stay and keep giving out food and eventually Shaak smiles at them and asks them to go find something they think she'd like because she's hungry - and don't worry, she'll take good care of the food they made and tell them all about the Jedi who come by while they're gone.

I also feel like there would be festivals of knowledge, days of contemplation/peace, and giant carnivals of harmony/community. The carnivals could also tie into the food festival. I can almost visualize in Ye Olden Days padawans and younglings putting together floats and such to march in parade down the Processional Way from the temple to the Senate and those ethnic food booths being set up like food carts along the way, on the steps of the temple, or both. There wouldn't be enough time or supplies towards the prequel era as the Jedi were slowly strangled by the Senate but at one time, I could see it being absolutely glorious and something all the non-Jedi on Coruscant looked forward to eagerly.

Thank you for asking this! I don't think I would've thought of it on my own. ❤️

[angstmongertina]

WIP Wednesday Sentences

I'm over a day late but it's fine. Real life got a little hectic, so I'm late, but I have sentences, at least!

As always, accountability sentences after the cut!

Oh Brother: Nadia/Thomas shenanigans (2 sentences but have some extra as a belated celebration of their 1 year anniversary)

Her brother is, ostensibly, the most socially inclined of her siblings. He has always been the most outgoing, the most sociable. The most likely to recognize these societal clues. And yet…

Dinghun Zhou: Camyon Cinderella AU (1 sentence with an extra bit of dialogue)

When she gave no reply, her mother let out a quiet breath. “You are disconcerted.”

That Which Binds Us: Chrobin slowburn (1 sentence)

He swallowed, feeling his stomach twist at the thought.

Officium et Honestas: SWTOR Regency AU (6 sentences with a bonus because I started one before Wednesday)

Through such advantages, they were able to survive the journey to the Malcom family box with minimal casualties, just in time for the attention to turn towards the stage. Or so she had thought, but it was not quite to be so. The fashionably late arrival of Lord and Lady Kallan, further accompanied by what could only be described by a small entourage of their own, had drawn eyes from throughout the audience. The lady seemed pleased enough by the attention, and one of the lord’s companions as well, his lighthearted chuckle bright enough to be heard over the opening strains of the overture. “That man would be Marquess Vowrawn.” She turned, sniffing, towards her friend. “I see your proclivity for interjecting yourself when not asked has not improved in recent years.”

Law of Attraction: ArtemRosa AU (1 sentence for Lavi <3)

The case itself is a lost cause—that is, of course, why she is the one assigned to argue it in court, rather than risk any of the more senior attorneys’ success rates against Themis Law Firm dropping any lower—but that doesn’t mean she intends to go down without a fight.

Anyway, thanks for reading! I am going to go to sleep now lol.

[reallystellacadente]

It's my 10 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

This was the official start of my Star Wars: The Old Republic obsession. I started playing in 2012, but I don't remember what started the inexorable slide into this magnificent hell. Though I do have an older Tumblr account lying around here somewhere, I started this under a different username solely for obsessively following SWTOR tags. 🤗🤗🤗 The whole Quinn/Sith Warrior kidnapping of my soul would still be some months away. 💝💝💝💋

[abysskeeper]

For the Spotify ask: 27 and 63!

Ooh yay! Ok...

27. Shoulders - The Art of Sleeping

Two reasons this got as high as it did. There's a version of this song that no longer exists on the internet (a demo, I'm guessing) that has been the main song for my Dnd PC, Nox, since her conception. I actually dislike this version of the song for her campaign, but added it to her playlist anyways. And I'm excited because it probably will fit her BG3 campaign both in relation with her twin and in her relationship with Gale.

The primary reason this got so high though is because I spent the first half of the year intermittently playing this on repeat as I wrote for the major plot point for our 11th anniversary of our SWTOR RP, which was encountering and eventually taking down Trick's abusive ex-slave master. One of the secondary points was Trick herself having to reckon with the fact another girl wound up in her place after she escaped the Sith compound and...well...she doesn't take learning that well.

63. Changes - The Eden Project

I have less to say here lol. It's a general ship song, I don't think I wrote anything to it...but I love just about everything Eden does, especially lyrically, and I listen to a lot of his electronica at work to stay awake.

Thanks for the ask! ^^

[felassan]

Article: 'Star Wars The Old Republic director thanks players for 11 years of SWTOR'

Project Director Keith Kanneg published an update on the game’s 11th anniversary to thank the players who have kept the multiplayer experience going for over a decade.

“Every year that passes, I am amazed by the work that has gone into Star Wars: The Old Republic,” he wrote. “Today, we have hit our 11 year anniversary, and I have been reflecting on everything that transpired throughout the year.”

[source]