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About David

David Holloway has been involved with gaming since the early 1970′s and with virtual worlds since heavy use of a MOO in 1993 – he even admits to having owned a Vic 20 and used it heavily to play cassette-based roleplaying games. As far as Star Wars goes, he still owns his original set of Star Wars figures and can vouch for the fact that a 1978 Stormtrooper can be blown to bits by shooting it with a slug gun from a distance. He’s also played Star Wars games as far back as the Super Nintendo console and to this day is devastated by the accidental erasure of all his progress on Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

David is TOROZ's founder and editor.He's been involved with gaming since the early 1970′s and as far as Star Wars goes, he still owns his original set of Star Wars figures and can vouch for the fact that a 1978 Stormtrooper can be blown to bits by shooting it with a slug gun from a distance.

Find more about me on:

Here are my most recent posts:

Suggestion Box: SWTOR playing time

May 18, 2012 By 6 Comments

This week’s topic of debate is the amount of time you spend playing SWTOR. With Diablo 3 released this week, there’s a lot of people who seem to have taken a breather from SWTOR to kill their wrist clicking a mouse to move their hero round some dark dungeons and cathedrals. Once people have had their fill of that, there’s plenty of other games coming up.

So it’s over to you: compared to say 3 months ago, are you playing SWTOR as much as previously, more than previously or is it playing second fiddle to something else?

Post away in comments!

Filed Under: News, Opinion, Suggestion Box Tagged With:

Star Wars RP Research: Hutt Space!

May 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

In the course of some studies this evening, I stumbled across a fascinating little research abstract. It’s about a research study looking at a group of Star Wars RP’ers who use a region in Second Life called Hutt Space. The full research article is still a month or two off publication, but here’s the abstract:

Immersive virtual settings are evolving to become new “spaces of life”. Humans inhabit these different virtual worlds through their avatars, and tend to gather into communities. However, the behavioral factors underlying the cognitive process of immersion in virtual worlds are still far to be understood. We here investigated these factors using the Star Wars Role-Play community of the virtual setting of Second Life as a model. More specifically, our studies focused on the immersion process in the “Hutt Space”, a portion of the Star Wars Galaxy ruled by the alien species of the Hutts, which combines the trademark aspects of Star Warsuniverse. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we identified some of the factors which favor the immersion process. Our results suggest that the different behavioral factors contributing to the immersion process can be organized in three structuring dimensions: commitment, cohesion, and coherence. We also unveil a compensatory mechanism between appearance and behavioral factors in creation and maintenance of social groups in virtual worlds. Finally, we point out some of the behavioral aspects of the evolution from passive media engagement (spectators), to active media engagement (actors), and suggest a theoretical framework to investigate how human inhabit immersive virtual spaces.

My semi-educated guess is that research studies are already underway in relation to SWTOR. Anyone want to suggest what the research topics will be?

Filed Under: News, Roleplay Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Patch 1.2.4 Notes

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The servers have been back for a while, so if you haven’t already, check out the 1.2.4 patch notes below. There’s quite a few changes although most are bug fixes. Enjoy:

1.2.4 Patch Notes

5/15/2012

Classes and Combat

General

      • The Guard ability can now be reapplied if the player dies with it activated. Previously, players sometimes received an error indicating that their target was already guarded.

Sith Inquisitor

General
      • Lightsaber Charge’s audio effects no longer loop indefinitely.

Companion Characters

Xalek

    • Xalek now receives the correct amount of Shield Absorption from equipped gear.

Crew Skills

Crafting Skills

    • French and German tooltips now indicate the percentage chance for reverse engineering.

Flashpoints and Operations

General

      • Players who advance from level 49 to 50 while near an Operation phase gate now see the gate color change to indicate their eligibility to enter.

Flashpoints

Directive 7
        • Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.
Lost Island
        • LR-5 Sentinel Droid now reliably activates his Plasma Coils during the encounter.
The Battle of Ilum
        • Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.
The Black Talon
        • An audio effect from the fusion cutter in this Flashpoint no longer loops indefinitely.
The False Emperor
        • Players can no longer obtain the missions for Story and Hard Mode for this Flashpoint at the same time.

Operations

Explosive Conflict
      • General Vorgath’s speech now features the correct voice modulation.

Items

General

    • Rebreather head slot items now appear on Sith Pureblood characters.
    • Equipping a hooded robe in combination with certain head slot items no longer causes baldness.
    • Players can no longer add color crystals to some items that did not appear to have color crystal slots, causing the crystals to become irretrievable.

Missions and NPCs

Missions

World Missions
Belsavis
          • Breakthrough: All members of the group now receive credit for completed of this mission.
Ilum
          • World Story missions on Ilum can no longer be abandoned.
Taris
          • No Escape: Republic Astromech Droids are no longer attacked by nearby friendly forces.
Voss
          • Players can no longer complete The Dark Hollow without first completing Primary Target. Completing these missions out of order could prevent players from completing Primary Target.
Class Missions
Jedi Knight
          • Fate of the Jedi: The cinematic with the Jedi Council no longer takes much longer than intended to begin playing.
Jedi Consular
          • Automated Defense: Euphony Guard Droids now count towards this mission objective.
          • Vivicar Awaits: This mission can no longer become blocked if a player logs out during the “Defeat the Ambush” step.
Sith Inquisitor
          • Into the Pit: The final conversation with Major Bessiker can no longer be repeated.
Imperial Agent
          • Shadow of the Dark Lord: Darth Zhorrid now follows through with her threat to torture a character in one of the dialogue paths in this mission.
          • The Star Chamber: Players who destroy the codex and fight the Sith Lords aboard the station are now able to enter the Tenebrous to complete the mission. Players who were previously blocked from completing it must reset the mission.
Trooper
        • The Battle of Corellia: The Striker One Uplink can now be used from the mission tracker.

PvP

General

      • Mini-pets can no longer be summoned inside Warzones.
      • A fix for some causes of players becoming stuck dead in Warzones has been implemented, though the issue may still rarely occur.

Warzones

Voidstar
      • Characters that exit the protected spawn area before the match begins are now killed.

UI

Guild Bank

      • Crafted items stored in the Guild Bank now display their tooltips correctly.

Social

    • Closing the Add Friend dialogue no longer makes the Add Friend button on the friends list unusable.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Actions in the UI layout editor, chat window, and crafting window now prevent a player from being labeled as AFK.

Filed Under: News, Patch Notes Tagged With:

Server Downtime: 15th May 2012

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Another nice standard four-hour downtime this week:

AEST: 5pm-9pm
AWST: 3pm-7pm
NZST: 7pm-11pm

The full blurb below as always!

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Time: 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8 AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST).

All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Filed Under: News, Servers Tagged With:

For Our Senior Sith Citizens

May 14, 2012 By 5 Comments

Here at TOROZ we believe in helping out the community, and it’s in that vein that we bring to the attention of our senior citizens, a mobility aid with a difference:

It was created by Keith Greenstein – nice work Keith!

[via Technabob]

Filed Under: Humour, News Tagged With:

Oceanic Guild Spotlight: Rogue Squadron

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’d like your guild spotlighted, just use our contact form to let us know. Or if you like, respond to the questions shown below and send them in – we love to profile guilds and the work they’re doing. The only requirement is that you’re an active oceanic guild. Please be patient if you don’t hear back from us immediately – we will only be spotlighting a guild every week or so.

Name of guild

Rogue Squadron (Mirror Guild: Renegade Squadron)

Guild website

http://rogue-squadron.guildlaunch.com

History of your guild’s name?

Rogue Squadron was selected by our Guild Leader Arctorro when the Pre-Launch Guild program was setup. Obviously it is drawn from the movies and particularly the books which Arc quite enjoyed. It also fits in with our philosophy which is to not be bound to any strict regimen. Renegade Squadron was setup some time later after the Game when live. To allow an output to explore the game from the other side.

What sort of guild are you? 

We are a casual guild with members taking part in both PvE and PvP. We have been dipping our toes into Operations. Our aim is to try and experience as much of the content that the game has to offer but at our own pace.

What are the achievements that your guild is most proud of?

We have completed both Eternity Vault and Karagga’s Palace on normal mode. Including Karagga’s Palace on the first serious attempt.

Why did you choose to be Republic?

Since the guild didn’t come across as a whole from another MMO, for us it was a personal choice that would have many different answers. We each chose it for one reason or another and found a friendly home in Rogue Squadron.

You have one minute to convince someone they should be in your guild – what would you say to them?

If you want a guild with a mature group of players who are still able to be silly and have fun. And you want to experience the game as a part of a group without making yourself feel like you’re being tied into a daily chore, then this is the guild for you.

Are you recruiting at the moment and if so what classes / type of players are you looking for?

Yes, we are looking to expand now that we have made it across to Dalborra. We are looking at all classes but primarily we need a couple of healers plus some more ranged DPS, preferably Smugglers and Troopers. Check out the website for details.

What are your predictions for the next 6 months for the guild?

Expanding and progressing steadily through the content, moving onto the Hard Mode ops and into Explosive Conflict.

Filed Under: Community, Guilds, News Tagged With:

SWTOR Video News: Patch 1.3 Speculation

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Asher releases Episode 5 of his video news and it’s another great roundup – notes supporting it are below:

Episode 5 off SWTOR News. All news in this video is from the week starting 06/05/2012. Please remember to share, comment and subscribe!

Links for this weeks articles:

Dev Q&A
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-may-11th-2012

Next Weeks Dev Q&A question submition
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=452578

Offical Star Wars: The Old Republic Podcast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWLao5M8bA

SWTOR News Special Edition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxpzBkHlH-U

EA Blames the casual gamers
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-08-ea-blames-star-wars-the-old-repu…

Patch Notes for 1.2.3
http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.2.3/582012

Patch Notes for 1.2.3a
http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.2.3a/5102012

Star Wars 1313
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=%2085613835

Crew Skills Tutorial
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=132015

TOROZ
http://toroz.com.au/

Lencorp Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/lenc0rp

Fan Art
http://www.nobodythere.ca/

Filed Under: Community, News
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