Are you interested in the upcoming Operation in Update 1.4? Well the developers have dropped some knowledge on us in the form of a developer’s blog.

Terror from Beyond is a new Operation that takes us to Asation, a remote planet in the Gree Enclave. Asation is a swampy, wetland world that was terraformed by the Gree thousands of years ago. It is not a Gree homeworld, but it does house some incredible technology assembled long ago by the Gree crafter caste. Key among this technology is the Hypergate, a massive device capable of transmitting matter from across the galaxy. The Dread Masters have sown chaos on Asation by activating the Hypergate, letting through untold horrors and monstrosities. It’s up to players to cut a path through these creatures, defeat the agents of the Dread Masters, and deactivate the Hypergate at any cost.

It seems to be an exciting time for TOR with more content coming soon. Check out what the full developer update here on their own blog.

After the GamesCom announcement regarding Terror from Beyond, the new Operation coming to SWTOR in September, players began wondering whether or not they’d be able to get a chance to test the new Operation on the Public Test Server (PTS). BioWare, in the past, has released some fairly bug-ridden content updates, and no fan of the game wants to see that trend continue. How do players help ensure a bug-free release? Easy– PTS testing.

Allison Berryman responded to one such question regarding the PTS server yesterday:

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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We do plan to continue to use the PTS to test upcoming content (like the new Operation). We haven’t mentioned dates for testing or live release, but we’ll be testing on the PTS in addition to our internal testing in order to help ensure a good quality experience when the Operation reaches the live servers. We do want to make sure that testing is thorough and that any major issues are uncovered and corrected before the Operation is live. We’ll have more information about when to expect releases as quickly as we can.

It’s interesting to note that the September release date isn’t mentioned here. It is good, however, to hear that BioWare fully intends on using the PTS for testing new content. Hopefully they will continue to do so when the F2P model goes live, as well.

This year’s Gamescom is sure to bring us a couple interesting updates about Star Wars: The Old Republic. The events kicked off yesterday, when EA held a press conference and talked about numerous games, including SWTOR. Most of what was said during the conference was information we already knew about, but one thing was confirmed– new content is on the way before the launch of the game’s new hybrid F2P model.

Specifically, we found out about three new additions: Terror from Beyond, which is a new Operation on Belsavis, Ancient Hypergate, a new PvP Warzone, and new space missions for level 50 players. Attendees of Gamescom will be able to test out Ancient Hypergate for themselves, in fact, which was previously announced on SWTOR’s official site.

Yesterday on the forums, we also received a confirmation of what kind of release schedule we’re looking at, at least as far as Terror from Beyond goes:

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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Hey everyone, just to be clear on what was said during the presentation – Terror from Beyond, a new Operation, is on its way next month, and we have more content updates coming after it, including the new Warzone and Space Combat Missions. We have lots of exciting new content coming!

From the sounds of it, the new content will be released in a staggered manner.

For the full EA Press Conference, check out this video. The SWTOR-specific part starts at around 51:35.

Today we received a second episode of the official SWTOR podcast. It comes complete with a glimpse of some behind-the-scenes philosophies on flashpoint and operation design, along with some previously-recorded footage about Game Update 1.3.

Hello everyone! My name is Eric Musco and I, along with Brooks Guthrie are happy to bring you episode two of the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ podcast, “Nightmare Mode”. You can listen by using the embedded player, by downloading and listening on your preferred MP3 player, by subscribing and listening on iTunes or check it out on our YouTube channel.

In episode two, we sit down with Jesse Sky and George Smith to talk about the design philosophy behind some of our existing Operations and what the future of Operations and Flashpoints looks like for SWTOR, including Nightmare mode. We also talk with William Wallace about some of the great new character perks that you can unlock through the Legacy system now that Game Update 1.3 is live. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the show, feel free to stop by this forum thread and let us know.

Thanks for listening!

Give the podcast a listen here. There’s even a transcription available!

On the recently-discovered planet of Denova, a brutal conflict between an invading Imperial battalion and Republic-hired mercenaries has come to an abrupt end. The mercenary leader, himself a legendary warlord, has turned his back on his Republic contractors, convinced the local Imperial battalion to join his cause, and declared himself ruler! Now heroes from both the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire must deploy on Denova to take down the warlord and investigate what prompted him to go rogue.

When dealing with MMO’s the topic of End Game is inevitable, but the answers are not always the same.  SWTOR has been called out several times now for not having enough end game to satisfy their players.  However with three different Warzones, two different Operations, and a plethora of Daily Quests the question becomes why do players feel this way?

SWTOR removed two major components from a player’s daily grind, mats farming and reputation grinds.  These are typical staples in the average MMO.  And while you can still technically go farm up mats with a gathering skill out in the world, very few players actually do that due to the crew missions.

While some players (me included) love not having to grind out mats and reputations, this was part of why many players logged in each day between raids and pvp to work on their grind.  However in SWTOR, there’s not much to do outside of Daily Quests and PvP when on your own.  And not everyone is happy about that.

What do you think?  Was removing these grindy mechanics from the game good for SWTOR’s overall health?  Or was this a mistake?  Leave a comment below!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Twitters: @SkeletonJack_
Twitch TV: /skeleton_jack

In a recent interview at the Guild Summit Georg Zoeller had this to say:

Georg Zoeller: (Source) I don’t think three Operations is optimal; you probably want to go at least four or five but that’s not necessarily my call. That is Gabe’s call and everyone else who is involved, but we need to build a nice state of endgame. We’re building up and yes, at some point you have the discussion “which point do we have an accessibility problem?” You need to be able to get new blood in there.

If you’re not sure what he’s talking about, they announced that the 3 modes for Operations will now be Story Mode, Hard Mode, and Nightmare Mode. The 1.2 Legacy Patch will release a new Operation that has a Story Mode and a Hard Mode only. Sometime in the future, most likely 1.2.1 or 1.2.2, Nightmare Mode will be released as well.

In addition to this they will be adding new mechanics to Hard Mode (not new animations), and Nightmare Mode will also have additional mechanics beyond Hard Mode.  They said that Nightmare needed to be a nightmare.  If you missed my article, The Heroes of MMO’s, I talk about some of the changes that needed to be made and are in fact currently in the pipeline for release.

What’s amazing about Georg’s statement is that he recognizes and sees that the range of player skill and need for challenge can’t be neatly quantified by three simple degrees.  That in fact to reach everyone equally they need a more diverse scaling method to satisfy all of their players.  I for one am truly impressed with that level of foresight and open mindedness.

But what about you guys?  What do you think of having possibly four to five different Modes for Operations?  Keep in mind that all Operations are intended to be on the same lockout except for Story Mode (the easiest setting), so you’d only be doing one “difficult” Ops each week.  Leave a comment below telling us what you think!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Twitters: @SkeletonJack_
Twitch TV: /skeleton_jack

Now this is some awesome stuff. SWTOR’s raids have three different difficulties to them, the easiest being Normal Mode. We were contacted by Agent Smith of Midnight Reveries whose guild took on 8-Man Eternity Vault normal mode with only four people. It’s quite a feat. We got him to share with us his story of what went on and how they did it.

Keep reading after the break for his story.