December 3rd Information Extravaganza


And as I predicted there’s a lot more articles from the press event that BioWare held in November. But instead of quoting each one of them here I’ll just refer to Sean’s post:

As some of you already know, we had two press events last month; one in Europe and one in the United States. Today, articles from various websites (and magazines) are being released based on information collected at these two events.

We will keep a list of the articles and update this post as new ones arise.

G4

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Hands-On Preview
BioWare has just released Dragon Age: Origins… Mass Effect 2 is on the horizon… but there’s a third game in development at the RPG mega-studio and it is none other than Star Wars: The Old Republic, the company’s foray into the MMORPG genre. X-Play’s Matt Keil recently got to check out the game’s final two classes, the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor, and was kind enough to write-up his impressions:

GameSpot

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Hands-On – The Sith Inquisitor
Star Wars stole the limelight at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. There, the creative forces of BioWare and LucasArts revealed some juicy new information about their upcoming sci-fi online role-playing game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. In addition to unveiling a mouthwatering cinematic trailer at the show, the developers gave us a taste of the smuggler and bounty hunter character classes behind closed doors. Since then, we’ve seen the Sith warrior, Jedi knight, and Imperial agent. At a recent EA showcase in London, BioWare revealed the remaining two classes: the Jedi consular and the Sith inquisitor. We got the chance to play through an inquisitor quest during the event and talked to the development team.

Kotaku

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview: The Space Inquisition
I played through about 95% of a quest we’ll call “The Tomb of Tulac Horde” because I’m not sure what its official name is, but that just about sums it up. I was in the role of a Sith Inquisitor acolyte with a nice rack and red hair — and I was role playing her with an attitude problem that somehow didn’t get her Force-choked even once during the play through. The quest involves going into a tomb to collect three tablets and returning to your Sith master. Additionally, you could accept a quest to activate something in the tomb called the Red Machine for some other dude standing outside the tomb.

Darth Hater

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December 3rd Information Extravaganza
Today is the day! The Information Extravaganza has begun! Below you will find links to all of the articles posted on December 3rd pertaining to what we learned at LucasArts about Star Wars: The Old Republic. This includes information regarding the Jedi Consular, Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler class trees, second part of our interview with Jake Neri, other general information learned during the hands-on demo, and our take on the four force users debate.

GameSpot UK

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Hands-On – The Sith Inquisitor
Our hands-on with the game featured a combat-heavy side quest on the Sith homeworld of Korriban–which was also featured in Knights of the Old Republic II. The area that we saw was certainly a desolate place, featuring red dirt and rock formations and some dangerous alien life-forms. Our character, a level eight Sith inquisitor, had come to Korriban to study the lost laws of the Sith and to be trained in their ways. After talking to a shady quest giver called Ephram Zell, we needed to enter a Sith tomb and acquire an artefact known as the Red Engine. This mission also served as a test for would-be dark lords like us, as we needed to kill the monsters that lurked within the tomb before collecting the device and returning to Zell.

Joystiq

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Hands-on: Star Wars: The Old Republic
While navigating the corridors of the planet’s sprawling, temple-like fortifications on our way to the dig site, we were approached by another Sith. She informed us that some Jedi had been captured and were being held prisoner on Korriban, and wanted us to interrogate them. Knowing our time was short, we left this for later, having seen what will likely be only the beginning of multiple, intertwining quests for each class.

Eurogamer

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Star Wars: The Old Republic
You can’t fault BioWare and LucasArts’ showmanship, but when you’re working with what they’re working with, it’s almost too easy. At a recent EA press event, we were shown and allowed to play their Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, behind closed doors. We suspect this was only so they could have a hydraulic octagonal door to put the game behind, with a Stormtrooper guarding it, quacking officiously at loitering journos. Cheesy? Perhaps, but it’s impossible to stop a little genuine excitement slipping into your cynical smile.

VideoGamer.com

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview
VideoGamer.com: Can the companion characters replace human-controlled characters in a raid of an instance?

Blaine Christine: They’re not meant as replacements. If you’re in a group, each one of the group members could still have a companion character. It’s an augmentation, but that works with the solo game as well. So really they’re there for you to be used when and how you see fit. Similar to other BioWare games, we don’t necessarily force companion characters on you. It’s a way to augment your play style.

IncGamers

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Interview
IncGamers: I’ve had the chance to play and get my hands on The Old Republic today, and I have to say it does feel quite different to other MMOs. How did you actually approach developing it and designing it and making it different?

James Ohlen: Well, there’s two major differentiators for our game, we feel. One is story, and the other is combat. Well, I guess there’s a third if you count Star Wars, because Star Wars allows us to kinda be fantasy without being fantasy – you know, you have to differentiate yourself and so many people are just in the fantasy genre, so Star Wars is big.

NOWGamer

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Star Wars: The Old Republic
The most in-depth look at The Old Republic anywhere on the internet?

It sounds like a recipe for guaranteed success: the most renowned RPG developer in the industry with a license for the biggest IP in the history of the world, takes on what has proven to be one of the most profitable mediums in gaming… potentially, at least. As much as we hate to trivialise Star Wars: The Old Republic, we still feel obliged to put the question of whether The Old Republic will just be a standard MMORPG in a Star Wars skin to the man in charge of the project.

Ten Ton Hammer

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Not SO Far Far Away – A Preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic
I have been fortunate enough, in my short career in the gaming field, to be able to meet some great people and travel to some interesting events, but none of them ever instilled in me that pit-of-the-stomach anxiousness, which borders just this side of uncomfortable, until I was invited to LucasArts HQ in San Francisco to gets some hands-on time with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The only thing that I will put here is IGTV’s interview video as it is the longest:

There will probably be more articles over the coming day(s). And it wouldn’t surprise me to see Holonet pages for the new classes tomorrow, but we’ll see.