An update on Republic Trooper and a massive thank you to all of our readers!

Written By: Andy Muchmore

This past week, July 2nd to be exact, Republic Trooper turned 1 – happy birthday RT! Although it is our birthday week, I felt it was appropriate to update all of you with the status of RT as a whole. Obviously over the past several months things have slowed to a crawl and I would like to personally address the situation.

Three years ago a very good friend of mine, Dave, approached me with the idea of RepublicTrooper.com. At the time I was neck deep in other projects and I was unavailable to help out, even though I was eagerly following the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Over the years I would get phone calls, emails, texts, and the like asking if and when I would be available to “make it happen.” Around May of last year I was finally in a place where I could offer my services to Dave and help build Republic Trooper from the ground up. After several months of planning and development RT saw its first public reader and we were off to the races!

Since that time RT has seen tremendous growth and acceptance within the overall Star Wars: The Old Republic community – and I have to say, all of us cannot thank you enough for being readers, listeners, fans, and for not only playing the Trooper class in game, but being believers in BioWare and SWTOR to begin with. When RT went live we were woefully late to the game, in terms of established fan sites, but we did this for the love of the game, the love of the class, and to be honest – the love of the company that made it all happen. As long time gamers we had faith that a company like BioWare would, without a doubt, blow our minds with their new MMO.

Tags: Andy Muchmore, Ask A Jedi, beta, Bioware, Blizzard, Blizzard Entertainment, community, David Bass, David Souza, EA, Early Game Access, Electronic Arts, fan fiction, LucasArts, Mike Kern, MMOs, Patch 1.1, Project Titan, R2-DB, Republic Trooper, Sith Empire, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Stephen Reid, SWTOR, Titan Everything, TOR, TOR Syndicate, TORWars, Trooper

When the weekend rolls around it’s time to relax, grab a cold one, sit down with your squad, and catch up on some scuttlebutt. RT is here to provide you with some things that are worthy of talking about over a good pint with a few friends.

Hating On 1.3!

The roadmap for The Old Republic relies heavily upon BioWare’s ambitious patch schedule to keep the livelihood of the MMO intact. The first two major patch iterations have, if nothing else, delivered a lot of changes to the game. The nature of the changes that BioWare has included is the topic of much debate amongst the community and the information that’s beginning to trickle out regarding Patch 1.3 is no exception. The evildoers over at Darth Hater have a SUPERB guide—which they will keep updating—regarding any and all information on Patch 1.3.

Tags: Bioware, Corellian Run Radio, Darth Hater, David Souza, EA, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, MMOs, Operations, Patch 1.3, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SWTOR, The Avengers, The Escapist, TOR

When the weekend rolls around it’s time to relax, grab a cold one, sit down with your squad, and catch up on some scuttlebutt. RT is here to provide you with some things that are worthy of talking about over a good pint with a few friends.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Content!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Content is King. I didn’t make that up and I wasn’t the first to say it in regards to MMOs, the guys who started EverQuest were. It’s an axiom that applies to all gaming but is especially important to MMOs, which aren’t supposed to last days, or weeks, or months but years. Everyone has criticisms about what they want in a product, and The Old Republic is no different. One thing that is clear though is that people need more to do in TOR, and Daniel Erickson stopped by over at RPS to talk about that and some other cool stuff.

Tags: Bioware, Daniel Erickson, David Souza, EA, Electronic Arts, EverQuest, F2P, Legacy System, LucasArts, MMORPG.com, MMOs, Rock Paper Shotgun, RPGs, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SWTOR, TOR, TORWars

Always in Motion is The Future is our column that deals with general news and information regarding The Old Republic based facts and finally spiced with the unique perspective of Republic Trooper.

The Legacy system was one of the core features which were highlighted by BioWare long before The Old Republic found its way onto millions of PCs spanning the globe. A system that builds upon each character’s achievements to pass down power, knowledge and items to later generations…

The Legacy system is a treasure trove for players who enjoy playing several different characters. There are some problems inherent with the system however. Most notably is the fact that nearly all of the features currently implemented with the Legacy system are tailored only for that single purpose of playing multiple characters, colloquially known as “alts” in the MMO-space.

In my opinion this accentuates an already common problem with The Old Republic, and that is the fact that players don’t feel particularly invested in any single character. Roleplaying games often build community around a player playing a particular character, and even when alting many players are still referred to by their “main” character’s name. Alting has become more and more common over the evolution of the MMO however, and The Old Republic seems to be the first title to take such a keen focus around the idea with the Legacy system.

Tags: AoE, Baldur's Gate, Bioware, David Souza, Dragon Age, EA, Electronic Arts, EverQuest, Fortification, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, Legacy System, LucasArts, Mass Effect, Millenium Falcon, MMOs, Slave-I, space combat, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SWTOR, TOR, Trooper

Earlier this week Dave, Andy, and Mike from Republic Trooper had the pleasure of hanging out with the gang from Galactic Public Radio as guests on their podcast “All Classes Considered.”

The topic of discussion was, of course, the Trooper Class and a lot of ground was covered in the discussion. Leveling, Storyline, Skill Trees, Healing, DPS, Tanking, PvP, Operations, and even going commando!

Tags: Andy Muchmore, Assault Specialist, Bioware, Combat Medic, Commando, David Souza, EA, Electronic Arts, Flashpoints, Galactic Public Radio, GPR, Gunnery, LucasArts, Mike Kern, Operations, podcast, PvE, PvP, Republic Trooper, Shield Specialist, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SWTOR, Tactics, TOR, Trooper, Vanguard