A miracle of modern medical technology, the bacta tank is a mainstay in both Imperial and Republic medical wards. The containment cylinder fills with rejuvenating bacta fluid that is capable of healing even the most grievous wounds. The translucent red fluid nurtures the growth of a bacterial medium that seeks out traumatized tissue and promotes regeneration and growth to rapidly heal wounds with minimal or no scarring. Medical droids closely monitor the patient, who is suspended in the fluid. Bacta could be administered through disposable bacta patches, injection, or by submersion in a bacta tank. Bacta was also used in portable lotion form. The method of administration depended on the severity of the wounds. Bacta must be applied in a solution of clear synthetic fluid which mimics the body’s own vital fluids. Bacta had a smell that was described as ‘sickly-sweet’; immersion in a bacta tank could leave one with the…
Author: Soeren Kamper
New Trooper Gameplay Compilation Video
The guys over at RedRancor has put together an awesome Trooper gameplay compilation video. All material has been around in the Star Wars: The old republic community for a while but it’s always nice to watch some trooper action. I finally have the Fourth installation of the Gameplay Compilation series completed. This time, I’ve chosen to display the Trooper in action, with selected gameplay footage from all officially released video thus far in pre-beta. So Without any further ado:
Know your lore: Tulak Hord
Tulak Hord was a Dark Lord of the Sith that ruled sometime during the early Sith Empire, after the use of lightsabers became prevalent. Hord wore a claustrophobic black mask, making him a fear-inspiring sight. There is some disagreement as to when precisely Tulak Hord lived. Kreia seems to imply he was an ancient Dark Lord from the first Sith Empire, yet she also calls him a lightsaber master, and it is widely believed by fans that the Sith did not use such weapons until they re-established contact with the Jedi and the Republic after the Great Hyperspace War. It is unknown how Hord died, but his power was so considerable that a burial chamber was built in his honor in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. In later years, both Revan and the Jedi Exile visited his tomb, though the entrance was blocked and the tomb looted…
Funcom and EA to Co-Publish ‘The Secret World’ MMO
Even though Funcom Games Inc. has produced many award-winning video games, top-level executive Miguel Caron said the company has had trouble translating those accolades into dollars. “We’re really known for the quality of our games,” said Caron, the CEO of Funcom Canada, from the company’s studio on Ste. Catherine St. W., at the corner of Bishop St. “Commercially, we haven’t seen the correlation of that quality.” Caron said while its 2008 massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures received many accolades, including a Grammy Award for its music, the company was disappointed with how it performed compared with the leader in the world of MMO. “”We thought it could have taken a chunk out of World of Warcraft,” Caron said. World of Warcraft has grossed nearly $2 billion in revenue, compared with Conan, which has brought in less than one-10th that number. That’s why Funcom Games Canada Inc….
While we wait: Ryan vs. Brandon 2
The Complete, official version of Ryan vs. Brandon 2 is done. I must say it’s entertaining. This was an awesome way to spend a few minutes before seeing the clone wars tonight. The video has great production value; the swordplay was very creative and the FXs seemed professional to my untrained eyes. The actors/fighters were pretty good and their performance was, IMO superior to many fights we’ve seen in the prequels notably. Only downside I can notice is that, like with the SW sextology, most of the strikes do not target the opponent but are simply made so that they can be acrobatically parried. There’s not efficiency to it. It’s one of the most annoying things about the prequels (that Anakin vs. Obiwan swinging contest gif that was on reddit a couple of weeks ago illustrates this perfectly). If the prequels were to be remade I wish the swordplay would…
TORWars Chats with SWTOR’s David Bass
The crazy guys over at Torwars had a chat with BioWare’s Senior Community Coordinator for Star Wars: The old republic, David Bass. The interview has been broken up into two Q&A Sessions were Mr. Bass answers questions about him self and the community in the first part, and answers more concrete gaming related questions in part two. Here is a snip: TORWars: Will we see content rolled out in regular patches as well as in boxed expansions? David Bass: We will absolutely roll out patches on a regular basis post-launch. It’s extremely important that we get feedback from players from the first moment they get their hands on the game, as that will help drive future patches once we release.
News about SWTOR Flashpoints + new video
BioWare has never been shy about adding elaborate stories to their games and Star Wars: The Old Republic may be their most ambitious attempt to date. GameSpot recently got the chance to speak with World Designer Jesse Sky about the game’s Flashpoint gameplay. The interview features a look at the fortress mission on Taral V, which a full group of four players can play through in about 90 minutes. Along the way, players can discover things that may change the way that their adventure plays out. In the below video we’re introduced to the flashpoint Taral V, a Republic-based adventure in which you will be infiltrating an Empire facility to steal a specialized computer: Jesse summarize the contents of Taral V like this: The emperor is holding a powerful Jedi captive in his personal prison–a massive space station at the heart of the Maelstrom Nebula. Only a Gree computer is…
The Empire Farts Back
Our friend OneMinuteGalactica is at it again. This time he has gone and farted up Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. If you enjoy this you are juvenile and immature. If you hate this you are pompous and need to loosen up a little bit. As rude and as crude as fart videos are…. who doesnt love the superb matching of the faces with the sounds of disgusting bubble farts?
Damion Schubert On The Death Penalty
The death penalty of various MMORPGs is a topic of interest to many people – I’ve seen a number of thought provoking posts, and what is a more cheerful topic than death of your virtual avatar. Yesterday Damien Schubert made a great post about this issue on the official Star Wars: the old republic forums. In summary, the death penalty of a game is a powerful tool which strongly influences how much risk the players are willing to take. Theoretically you could make a game with permadeath, where when your character dies, you need to roll a new one. Obviously in such a game you would see people not even daring to attack to bunny without a group. Given how many fights you do in a MMORPG, even a 1 in 1000 chance to die would be far too dangerous. In games with corpse runs and lots of xp loss,…
The Old Republic To Be Released This Fall?
According to mcvuk.com, the long awaited release of Star Wars: The Old Republic is now schedule for September 2011, not Spring 2011. This is not confirmed by Bioware yet though, but looking at the current state of beta, I’m not surprised if it’a true. Still I have to say that I am very sad that I can’t get it now; well this does give me a bit more time to buy a new gaming computer for all the new specs my computer now can barely dish out. Still, I am very sad. I am going to play the heck out of this game unlike WoW I will have hundreds of really powerful characters by the time BioWare releases something new and with that I won’t have a life anymore, lol. This game is predicted that it will last as long as the rest of the decade. I’m happy for all of us, Yay!
May the schwartz be with you: A Honky Tonk in Cloud City
Kick ass mashup of the Coasters song, “Down in Mexico”, set to The Empire Strikes Back. Dripping with coolness! The rhythm and timing to the imagery is awesome!
SWTOR – The risky investment by EA
World of Warcraft is, without reason of doubt, one of the best successes on the market that, even though it has aged and should have been dead already (in theory only – because game rarely “live” more that 2 years). But WoW is still the leader, the moneymaker, the game that drives so many people crazy – destroys marriages, makes people rich and so on. And it keeps going. A hit MMO like that can be an huge thing for the investors on Wall Street. If a MMORPG has success, it can offer a certain degree of predictable revenue. For example, there’s a certain degree to which World of Warcraft subscription revenues are a sure thing each quarter for Activision Blizzard. Electronic Arts and BioWare are well aware of the stats, and they’re making sure their entrant in the genre is well prepared: EA is spending more money on the…
RIFT review – RIFT Better then SWTOR?
Last week I wrote about the upcoming MMORPG – RIFT created by Trion Worlds. Back then I mentioned that I might be picking up a copy for their hard earned effort. Right now I have changed my mind though. Watching the Yogcast 1 hour review of RIFT on Youtube I have to admit I lost all interest in the game. First of all the game looks too much like WoW. Not that there is anything wrong with World of Warcraft, but as Aion, Warhammer online, Age of Conan and other WoW clones found out – it just doesn’t work. The guys in the Vcast liked how the game looks, but fancy graphics just doesn’t cut it anymore. Actually Remove the graphics and give me a good old fashion MUD if the game play is good. The second reason I won’t be playing Rift is the fantasy genre. I am just fed up with it. One more dragon and I’ll puke! Apparently I stand alone with this…
Know your Lore: King Adas
Adas was an ancient Sith warlord who lived circa 28,000 BBY, long before the exiled Dark Jedi of the Hundred Year Darkness conquered his species. He used his knowledge of the dark side of the Force to conquer and subjugate his homeworld, which he ruled as king.Adas, in holocron form, first appeared in a brief vignette featured in the 1996 sourcebook, Tales of the Jedi Companion, written by George R. Strayton. His role and biography was later expanded in 2006’s Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties, written by Abel G. Peña. In that article Adas is identified to have been a member of the Sith species, and to have had interactions with the Rakata introduced in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Adas’s character would later further be used and expounded upon in 2007’s Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force by Ryder Windham. Korriban, Adas’s world….
More Space Combat footage in Jace Hall Show Episode 11
The Jace Hall Show Episode 11 has just lounched! (watch the movie below) This time it showcases more of the Space Combat that the last episode teased us with . Two new pieces of information is revealed in this video: 1) You can make your ship do a barrel roll by pressing the space bar. 2) It looks like space combat has a soft auto targeting feature. I guess this makes it more user friendly but whether that’s good or bad you have to decide. I also like how Jace Hall showed a flash of Star Trek online box art when they were explaining what NOT to do in a MMORPG. Timestamps for the Bioware scenes in the below movie are as follows: 1:35-2:32 3:29-4:01 5:57-6:37
How to create your own SWTOR Podcast
Ever wanted to create your own SWTOR Podcast. It seems to be the hot thing these days. Personally I have a hard time going through some of the 75 min long monstrosities that seems to be really popular within the SWTOR community. That’s also the main reasons we don’t have our own podcast here at swtorstrategies. we do however post our favorite podcast – created by torwars – on our facebook page when they come out. However… If you want to create your own podcast, the guys over at Mos Eisley Radio ( these guys also run a cool podcast that I recommend) has put together a video overview that covers the basics of creating a podcast. A must see if you a new at creating podcast, or you are thinking about making one. Easily the most common question we have received since posting the first episode of Mos Eisley Radio is “How do you make the podcast?” From deciding…
Friday Update: New Planet – Quesh
This Friday BioWare awaits us with a new poisoned planet called Quesh. The planet looks and sounds like a Hutt holiday resort, and from the description that’s not entirely wrong. Well, except that none of the Hutts involved are really happy with the whole thing, but that’s probably just a Hutt thing. In a distant corner of Hutt Space, the poisonous planet Quesh orbited untouched for centuries, until the surprising discovery of rare adrenal chemicals drew the Galactic Republic to further explore this dangerous world. Unable to process the chemicals into adrenals, however, the Republic was forced to turn to the Hutts for help. Recently, the Sith Empire learned of this secret and lucrative operation, and swiftly came to steal the prize. The battle over this toxic treasure may be one of the most brutal ground conflicts the galaxy has ever seen, but the winner will gain access to powerful…
Daniel Erickson: The “Treaty” of Coruscant
Daniel Erickson has given us more story with what is going on in the worlds we have yet to explore. With the conquered world of Coruscant in the hands of the Empire, The Emperor has issued a treaty to The Republic. This treaty is give peace to both sides but the Empire has clear advantage of power over the Republic they could win with enough time in my opinion, but I guess even evil needs to take a holiday. It couldn’t be that peace is the only agenda that this treaty has to offer in my opinion. Daniel Erickson also says that the attack on Coruscant took years to plan making me believe that this treaty is foot hold in Republic space without taking a step back. The empire can play dirty without causing to much suspicion, but I’m not so sure that the Republic can do that and especially…
EA crowned top publisher of 2010
Electronic Arts has been named the leading games publisher for the second year in a row. The firm took the biggest share of the UK games market in 2010 in terms of revenue generated from games and units sold – as it did in 2009. Data from GfK Chart-Track revealed that Activision Blizzard and Nintendo took the second and third biggest share of the market in terms of value, while Ubisoft and Nintendo were the No.2 and No.3 publishers in terms of games sold. 2010 was also a bumper year for Microsoft as Xbox 360 took the biggest console market share. It took 35.2 per cent of the market in terms of value and 28.9 per cent of total retail game sales. To see the full charts and analysis, read the top publishers of 2010 list.
TOR Is In Sight
On our three year trip to a galaxy far, far away I need this. With Stephen Reid revealing another healer but has kept his lip tight on which advance class it actually is. I believe they haven’t gotten that far yet, which class do you think that would make a great healing class? Whichever it is I can dig it. Stephen likes to take the philosophy of not talking too much giving the excitement of game without revealing it all. Read more of Star Wars: The Old Republic: Speaking Up by Michael Bitton.
Unknowing Compition For SWTOR?
I have recently read an article that has stated an older game called RIFT created by Trion Worlds that is at least two years old has flopped in their previous trails to envelope the MMO community. But in these recent times Trion Worlds has seemed to be working on their game really well that ones that can beta test this game have really nice things to say, but can it compete with the release of the MMO that everyone and thier pets are waiting for SWTOR. RIFT is in the genre of D&D style, a truly fantasy like world, but can we accept a game like this with so many other games in the same world, Vanguard, LOTR, and DDO. I don’t know, maybe. I can say that I am intrigued in a game that rereleased itself so it can have fighting chance in our Massive Multiplayed World. I’m picking a copy, are You? Read more by Brian Rowe on RIFT vs Star Wars: The…
Amazing Star Wars art by Randy Gentile
Randy Gentile started his careerer as an intern in the famous Marvel Bullpen and was able to turn that into a full-time gig in the now defunct Marvel in-house lettering department. He later transitioned to Chris Eliopoulos’ Virtual Calligraphy lettering studio. With VC he lettered damn near every Marvel book at one time or another including Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men, Punisher, and Daredevil. After 7 years Randy decided to make a go of it on his own without the aid of “Obi-Wan” Eliopoulos. Since then he’s begun lettering for DC Comics where his work can be seen in funny books like Batman, Detective Comics, Gotham Underground, Teen Titans and Booster Gold. Outside of his lettering work he self-publishes an autobiographical comic called NYComix, which has been featured numerous times on the popular comic book podcasts Fanboy Radio and Comic Geek Speak. In 2010 he…
Coruscant? Republic Only!
For all the guys (and girls) who will be fighting for the Empire and who wanted to visit Coruscant – we have bad news for you. Stephen Reid just said: Coruscant will be for Republic only. So will be Dromund for the Empire. Georg Zoeller confirmed that you will be able to respecc within your advanced class. If you can change your AC is not sure yet. It isn’t going to be able to change your class at all.
The Jace Hall Show visits BioWare
The Jace Hall Show is a video game show hosted by Jace Hall consisting of interviews with celebrities and those involved in the video game industry. The Jace Hall Show is a production of HDFILMS and is distributed by IGN Entertainment. In this episode Jace Hall took a trip down to Austine to visit Bioware. Out of that came some strange stuff, along with some new space footage at end. Enjoy:
