When we left off a couple of weeks ago, I had just arrived with my baby Inquisitor Sorcerer on the planet of Dromund Kaas. The planet of milk and honey and giant frigging predators right outside the official Imperial Space Port.I think that the Sith Empire is taking this “let the weak perish” thing a bit too far, when you want to make even visiting your capital city an exercise in Darwinian jungle laws. Maybe all Sith lords are just complete adrenaline junkies that enjoy the rush of knowing that at any moment you take more than 5 steps outside the city walls there’s a good chance that something is going to try to shoot, bite or stab you in the face and neck area.

Also you would imagine that the capital planet of the Empire would have enough soldiers stationed to not have to rely on random passing strangers to keep the wheels turning.No really guys, I appreciate the chance to save the capital city of the Sith Empire from being destroyed by lightning storms, but you would imagine this is the kind of task that you maybe would not want to entrust to some fairly unproven “just-off-the-shuttle” hotshot that’s barely learned which way of the lightsaber you point away from your face (admittedly, that’s a mistake you normally only make once).

Anyways, after having saved the day I was able to make my way to the originally named Kaas City (Earth City, anyone?), which appeared to be suffering from some sort of outbreak that kept 90% of the population indoors.At least that’s what I must assume was happening, because I was jogging down huge roads and over large squares that were all but completely empty. For something that is supposed to be the hub of the entire Sith Empire it sure is deserted.Perhaps the citizens had stepped outside the city walls for a quick smoke and were promptly eaten/shot/stabbed/struck by lightning. Helps to keep congestion down, I guess.

Dromund Kaas offered me more chances to venture into yet more ancient Sith tombs. At this point I was starting to suffer from tomb raiding fatigue, or as we call it in the business: “Croft-Syndrome”.Really, if you’ve seen one old Sith tomb then you’ve seen them all, but as my master had previously demonstrated a penchant for frying people with Force lightning, I figured that I didn’t really have much say in the matter.
Eventually tombs were raided, schemes were carried out and my master was all round happy with my performance, to the point that she gave me my very own starship (honestly I would have been happy with a fruit basket, but thanks!).

By the way, let me just say that the moment you get your ship is wicked cool and it fills you with an appropriate kiddie level of “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” when you first step into the space dock and see it sitting there.

My first destination in my very own ship was the planet of Balmorra.

Unfortunately I cannot remember a single thing that I did on Balmorra.Now this could just be a result of my memory not being what it used to be. After all I’m pushing 30 and I sometimes indulge in the occasional drinking spree. Or it could just be that whatever happened on Balmorra was simply not interesting enough to leave a lasting impression on me.It could also just be a result of my memory not being what it used to be.
Honestly, I don’t remember anything of what I did on Balmorra. Ask me anything about Balmorra and I’ll just go “I have no frigging clue”.You could hold me at gunpoint and demand that I give you information on what I did on Balmorra and all I could say was: “Dude, you seem unhealthily obsessed about the details of the Balmorra storyline. Maybe you should just chill out and play some Tetris”.

In any case I’m pretty sure it wasn’t offensively bad, though I have a vague idea that there was some tomb raiding going on at some point, but that may just be a ghost memory left by my experiences on Korriban and Dromund Kaas.

In all honesty I have to say that my Sith Inquisitor storyline took somewhat of a dive after I finished up on Dromund Kaas. The Prologue was extremely cool, but the start of Chapter 1 was not terribly interesting and my fondness for SWTOR itself kept me plugging through the game rather than the excitement of seeing what would happen next.
The gray amnesia haze of Balmorra behind me, I was off to the Hutt controlled moon of Nar Shadda, with its Blade Runner like neon lights and dystopian mega city setting.
And that’s where we’ll begin our story in the next chapter…

Welcome to our sixth Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide. This time we reveal the locations on Tatooine which can be obtained by both Empire and Republic.

Tatooine was one of the more fun locations thus far, particularly the Blue and Strength datacrons which are located at the same location. Mainly because I ran into Republic players during my journey, which was the first time I was able to partake in open zone PvP with multiple players.

Coordinates for the 5 datacons on Tatooine.

• Aim +3 X: -628, Y: -30
• Cunning +3 (Empire) X: 726, Y: 3137
• Cunning +3 (Republic) X: 2140, Y: -3671 (not shown in video)
• Willpower +3 X: 2115, Y: -596
• Blue Matrix Shard X: -2391, Y: -1381
• Strength +3 X: -2391, Y: -1381

The Blue Matrix Shard and Strength datacrons are located in the same locations, on a sandcrawler in the Dune Sea. To get on the sandcrawler you first have to travel to the south-west where you’ll find another sandcrawler that you can climb onto (see below screenshot). Wait there for a balloon which you’ll need to jump onto. If you just missed it you’ll have a 40 min wait for it to come back around.

Be aware both Republic and Empire players need these datacrons so don’t be surprised if see other player from the opposing faction there. When I did it, there was about 8 of us and we all waited peacefully, jumped on the balloon, but once it cleared the sandcrawler all hell brook lose. My faction, Empire, was able to knock off all the Republic players leaving them there to wait another 40 mins. I felt bad, but it was either them or us.  I didn’t start recording until I got to the sandcrawler with the datacrons, so unfortunately you won’t get to see that.

Below you can find the datacron video guide for Tatooine. More guides coming soon.

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide
• Balmorra Empire datacron location guide
• Korriban Datacron location guide
• Nar Shaddaa Datacron location guide

Welcome to our fifth Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide. This time we reveal the locations at Nar Shaddaa for the Empire, although two datacrons can be obtained by Republic also (Cunning/Yellow Shard). Datacrons are hidden items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

Get ready, Nar Shaddaa has one very difficult Datacron that requires expert jumping skills.

Coordinates for the 5 datacons on Nar Shaddaa.

• Cunning +3 X: 1958, Y: 3288
• Yellow Matrix Shard X: 1781, Y: 3084
  You MUST obtain the Cunning Datacron before you get the Yellow Matrix Shard.
• Aim +3 X: -3699, Y: -1692
• Presence +3 X: 2930, Y: 400
  Hardest datacron to obtain thus far. Have fun.
• Strength +3 X: 2017, Y: 2441
  

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide
• Balmorra Empire datacron location guide
• Korriban Datacron location guide

Below you can find the datacron video guide for Nar Shaddaa. More guides coming soon.

I’ve been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic for a couple of weeks now, frying foes with Force lightning, splashing space ships with missiles, chatting up companions and generally having a good old time in a galaxy far far away (not that it really narrows it down much. How many galaxies are *not* “far far away”, after all?).

I thought I’d spend some time sharing my experiences and impressions in SWTOR here on MMOCrunch, and so I give to you the “Sith Journals”, my personal gaming diary/ongoing SWTOR review/personal ranting space that I will subjecting you all to. I’ll try to steer clear of major story spoilers, but there will be some spoiling of story going on, so if you absolutely do not want any part of the SWTOR story revealed to you, just punch yourself hard in the temple whenever you come across a spoiler, and the mild concussion should wipe your short term memory and ensure maximum Old Republic story enjoyment.

I’m not sure how long this journal experiment will run, but it will probably go on until:

1. I feel it has run its course and there’s nothing more interesting to write
2. I get tired of SWTOR and quit the game
3. Mind controlling aliens invade Earth and I am forced to give up my quiet life of supply chain management and computer games writer in order to form a xeno worshipping cult that appeases our tentacle-faced overlords through the means of ritual dancing and human sacrifice.

I have been spending almost all of my time in SWTOR playing my Sith Inquisitor, which I’ve so far gotten up to level 35. So come along with me and let’s jump back two weeks in time and join me as I first stepped out onto the hot sands of Korriban, just another slave with the simple hope of a better life and a chance to melt the faces of people with scorching Force lightning.

After a warm welcome from my friendly trainer, who apparently wanted nothing more than to see us ground up into Bantha fodder, I set about with my various tasks on Korriban, most of which involved venturing through old tombs and recovering some priceless artifact or other.

Considering that the Sith have been present on Korriban for many years, and considering the number of initiates that have been sent through those tombs to kill the undesirable inhabitants and loot anything of worth, I must say that I am quite surprised that they are apparently still full of monsters and archeological wonders.

Much can be said about the Sith, but their skills at retrieving artifacts from right outside their doorstep, and keeping said doorstep free from things that want to shoot them in the face, leave much to be desired.

Speeding through the first rounds of quests gave me a good taste of SWTOR’s combat systems, which is pretty much off-the-shelf MMO style “click the quickslot button”, with the small twist that there is no auto attack. As I was playing a lightning wielding Inquisitor, and I usually play mage classes in other MMO’s, it makes little difference to me if there is an auto attack or not, though it did mean I had to spend some time during my low levels hitting the “swing lightsaber” button between the cooldowns of my lightning attacks.

Well, I say lightsaber, but of course at this point in time I was not yet worthy to have such a noble weapon, so instead I was just clobbering my enemies with a “vibrosword”, which presumably causes death by vibration somehow (anyone that has had a cellphone in their pocket knows the dangers of excessive vibration, which can easily lead to ever so slight, temporary irriation and numbness).

I found the early story of the Inquisitor to be fairly interesting, complete with the expected Sith intrigues and foul play, but a special mention must go to the quest that gives you your first companion, Khem Val. During the large beta week I had a chance to play the Bounty Hunter and Sith Warrior up to where they get their companions, and while that’s also a pretty cool moment for both of those classes, I think it is handled much more interestingly with the Inquisitor. When you finally have your big grey Hulk/Predator hybrid tank you really get a sense of having earned him. It’s just too bad that I found him to be pretty crappy compared to the DPS companion of the Warrior or the healer of the Bounty Hunter, but he wears a loincloth and kills people with a giant two handed sword, so you just can’t be too disappointed with the big fella.

One other thing that I also noted as I was tomb raiding my way through Korriban was that there were an awful lot of Inquisitors around. Now granted, Korriban is only the starting planet for the Sith Inquisitor and the Sith Warrior, so it was never going to be a fantastical rainbow of classes, but my completely unscientific survey indicated that only about 20-30% of my fellow player initiates were going down the Vader path instead of the Palpatine path. It just goes to show you that there is no substitute for POWER! UNLIMITED POWER! I guess my crazy uncle was right after all.

With Khem Val at my side, and a new title of apprentice to a Sith lord, I left the warm sands of Korriban behind me and curled up in a fetal position as the crippling post-traumatic stress from the multiple assassination attempts on my life set in. Actually, that would not have been very Sith like, so instead I channeled my fear and anger and made a little ball of pure emotional hatred that I stored in the back of my brain, right next to my horrible slave childhood and that time I had to sponge bathe a Hutt.

Arriving on the Sith Fleet space station I was immediately sent to my class trainer to pick my advanced class. Let me just say that I think there is a lot of room for improvement in the way that you pick an advanced class. The game makes it pretty clear that this is a big and important choice, but as a new player I don’t think you know enough about the advanced class choices at that stage of the game to make an informed decision. Some quests that let you try out a bit of gameplay from both advanced classes before you have to make a choice would be very much appreciated. Also, it really doesn’t feel meaningful enough that I am determining my advanced class just by clicking a button. In this game that is all about story and immersion, where the hell is my advanced class selection story quest?!

Luckily I had already done some research on the Inquisitor advanced classes, so I picked the Sorcerer class without hesitation, which is the advanced class that focuses entirely on ranged, lightning induced carnage. I also took a stroll through the crew skill trainers and loaded up three gathering skills, as I figured that it’d be a good idea to focus on getting some money first and then work out later if I wanted to pick up a crafting skill. Of course, had I known the stupid amount of money I could have gotten from slicing before the recent nerf I would have taken that as one of my skills, but I decided to instead go for Bioanalysis, Scavenging and Archeology.

And so it was time for me to make my way to Dromund Kaas…

Datacrons are special items found within Star Wars: The Old Republic that reward players with permanent stat boosts and items when found, but they’re a pain in the ass to find. So today we release our first Datacron location guide starting with the planet Hutta.

Hutta is a starting planet for players level 1-10 and contains three datacrons listed below.

• Blue Matrix Shard X: -22, Y: 319
• Presence +2 X: 497, Y: -13
• Aim +2 X: -96, Y: 861

However location points can be deceiving as most of the time the datacrons are in some hidden or hard to get to location. Below we have a video guide to show you exactly how to obtain the 3 datacrons. More datacron guides will be release soon so check back often.

I accidentally labeled the 1st and 3rd parts wrong in the video. The first part of the video is the Blue Matrix and the third is Aim.  The locations in the video are correct and the correct order is as shown above.

Ever wish you could play video games to help someone in need? Now you can! On Saturday, October 15th, join charity-minded gamers across the globe in a gaming marathon for charity. It’s a 24-hour video game playing marathon to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Much like the walk-a-thon charity events where walkers earn for their charity of choice for every mile they walk, gamers are asked to find sponsors who will pay $1 for every hour they stay awake and in game. I’m really late to the party on this one – I wish that I’d heard about it sooner!

You can start your own team, or join existing ones. Trion Worlds has one (their free weekend this weekend is dedicated to this charity event), as does Funcom, and both companies will be having giveaways during the 24 hour run. You could earn in game items and titles in RIFT, or beta access to the upcoming MMORPG The Secret World, Funcom points and more playing Anarchy Online or Age of Conan. I just spotted Team Razer, G4 Tv, Activision, and Wizards of the Coast, and I’m sure there are plenty of other recognizable names as well. All you need to do is turn on your computer (or your console, or even pull out boardgames – any game will do) and start playing!

Sign up for Extra Life and play games to help children in need!

Trekkies rejoice, a new Star Trek web series called Star Trek: Reunion released their first wepisode, The Gathering Storm.  The series is created by Cerberus Films, headed by Oliver Smith, and was recorder entirely within Star Trek Online.

The first episode is about 25 mins long and takes place about 30 years after the end of The Dominion War. The cast is made up of five Starfleet Academy officers that get back together for a ‘reunion’ and talk about some of their previous adventures which are told in a flashback format.

Check out the first episode of Star Trek: Reunion – The Gathering Storm by continuing below.

A new Diablo 3 video was leaked out over the holiday weekend by an ex-Blizzard employee that shows the current character selection process. This footage is from the “family and friends” beta phase, not closed beta as that has not yet begun.

The video begins at the hero selection screen where players can select from Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard. Then shows a screenshot of the character selection screen that displays previously created characters, their level and how many hours of game-time you spent with that character.

The next part is the Campaign Game Access screen where players select from Invite Online, Public or Friend games as well as if it’s a Campaign or a Versus match. If you select Campaign, you’re then given the option to select what quest you want to start off with, if you have previously completed it.

The rest of the video then just shows some in-game screenshots of one of the towns. Check out the D3 leaked video below.

ABC News recently reported on a young Chinese couple that sold all three of their children so they could keep playing online games.  The couple, who met in 2007 at an internet cafe and are both under 21, first sold their second child, a girl, and then decided to sell their first born son.

They they proceeded to have a third child, another boy, for the sole reason of selling him to fund their gaming habit.  They received RMB 3,000 (less than $500) for the girl and about RMB 30,000, or about $4600, for each boy.

The couple was finally turned into authorities by the boy’s mother when she found out what her son and girlfriend were doing.  When the couple was asked if they missed their children they stated, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money“.  The couple claims they didn’t know selling your children was illegal.

WoW, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they sold their 3 children or they didn’t realizing selling human beings was illegal. What’s even crazier is the fact they sold these kids for almost nothing. Is human trafficking so common in China that a girl is worth less than $500? This whole story is insane.

Today Jagex, the guys behind Runescape, issued an announcement on their site updating players on their fight against botting. In the statement, Jagex revealed they are taking legal action against websites that support botting, developers and even going after players who purchased bots.

Jagex is actively pursuing companies that support the macroing market as well as those who bot. As such we are currently pursuing various bot developers through multiple legal channels, although sadly we cannot yet disclose the full details of our actions for legal reasons. Separately, as part of normal legal process and procedure, we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots.

If you remember a few years ago Blizzard did the same thing and won against the developer of the WoW Glider bot. No information as to what websites or developers have been contacted thus far, however once Jagex files suit against one of them, I’m sure will hear about it and we’ll update you.