The Star Wars franchise is an undeniable cultural force, having captivated the imaginations of generations since the original film’s debut in 1977. Central to the series’ appeal are its epic lightsaber battles, which have been meticulously recreated and expanded upon in numerous Star Wars games by artificial intelligence (AI). This article will examine the different approaches to lightsaber combat in various Star Wars games, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each system and their impact on player experiences. Section 1: Early Beginnings and the Evolution of Lightsaber Combat Mechanics 1.1 Star Wars (1983) and The Empire Strikes Back (1985) In the early days of Star Wars games, lightsaber combat was a simple affair. In the Atari 2600’s Star Wars (1983) and The Empire Strikes Back (1985), players controlled Luke Skywalker, who could only swing his lightsaber left and right to deflect blaster fire from enemies. These rudimentary mechanics were the…
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TOR TV: The Inquisitor Takes You Through Athiss
Greetings good Sithizens and other lowly Jedi. Normally we make our Sith Inquisition posts here on Thursdays, but we just finished production on a very impressive video yesterday and we wanted to share it with all of you. This is a full playthrough of the Planet Athiss flashpoint from the perspective of the Inquisition’s Lord himself. We go through all three major bosses and get a basic grasp of the mechanics, as well as the trash and mechanics of the flashpoint overall. It’s just under an hour long, and brought to you in full 1080p eye bleeding quality. Feel free to ignore the chatter throughout the video, we were discussing the flashpoint, some basic mechanics, and other happening during the last day of beta, but I turned it down specifically so the audio of the flashpoint could be heard. You can find more great videos of The Old Republic Here!
Choreographed Combat…sometimes
SWTOR will have choreographed combat… at least sometimes. But just what exactly this entails has many gamers confused. Can attacks be parried by moving out of the way? Is the combat already sequenced with the viewing of the “scene” shown once a character is already determined dead? Georg Zoeller attempts to clear up some confusion about this on the forums: “Ability. These kinds of abilities have multiple segments, each of which can hit or miss (which may give the target a window to escape…). That said, some of these abilities can be upgraded to root or stun, or the player can use other abilities before hand to set up the kill and make sure the target is not going anywhere. The whole system is rather complex and we’ve spend significant amounts of resources and time to balance visuals and gameplay – we don’t want to lock the player in place…
Gear swapping in mid-combat? – No Says Georg Zoeller
While many MMOs have gear-swapping or weapon-swapping in combat, Georg Zoeller says that SWTOR will not. This has some fans unhappy but Zoeller explains the reasoning behind it: “Switching weapons to maximize stats is not the kind of gameplay we want to encourage. It’s tedious and not fun for the overwhelming majority of players, and since some players would feel compelled to engage in the behavior if it offered a benefit, regardless how tedious and unfun it was, we just disallow it, period.” Some are worried about what would happen if say, you were caught in combat without a weapon. Zoeller answers this as well: “It’s pretty much impossible to not have a weapon equipped. You’d have to work for that. Sure, you can unequip a weapon and not equip a new one, but there’s no compelling reason to do so .. even less outside in the wilderness…
Georg Zoeller Clears Up SWTOR Combat Confusions
With everyone talking about SWTOR and few of us actually able to try out the game for ourselves, there have been some questions, confusions and misconceptions about certain aspects of combat. Principal Lead Combat Designer, Greg Zoeller addresses some of these on the official SWTOR forums. One issue was enemy behavior. Are those mobs just going to stand around waiting for us to kill them? Actually, they’re not! Zoeller says, “Enemies will definitely not just stand around waiting to be attacked, even though, in the end, that’s kind of their purpose in an MMO (they are enemies, after all).” He goes on to give some specific examples of what we can expect from enemy behavior: · They engage in a variety of activities when not in combat, which include patrols and overwatch over areas where that makes sense. · When traversing through hostile territory, it is usually a good idea…
Friday Update: Space Combat again
Another friday, another dev post from the team over at BioWare! This week, BioWare decided to focus (yet again)on their interesting addition of Space Combat to their highly anticipated Star Wars MMO: Star Wars: The Old Republic. You can follow the link to their uploaded video, which showcases some impressive cinematics and game play of ships blowing up other ships, although for fans who are craving some free-wheeling exploration, it does seem like these are more “guided” missions than just blasting out into the middle of space (and really, that’s a lot of work to do!). In the dev post, the team notes that there will be faction-based missions involving “epic space battles,” with the core focus on space combat. Those flight scenarios look pretty darn nice! Blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, and a variety of other obstacles as you encounter fast-paced Space Combat missions in Star…
Sith Warrior Gameplay Compilation
The guys ( or is it one guy?) over at Redrancore made an awesome gameplay compilation of all the sith warrior gameplay showed so far. It’s deffently worth a watch. In my next addition to a developing series of gameplay compilations, I’ve created a mash-up of the skills and acrobatics of the Sith Warrior class. As with my previous Jedi Knight Compilation, not all of the titles for the abilities are necessarily accurate. Any constructive criticism is, as always, welcomed! Feel free to leave questions or comments, and you may view the video below:
Star Wars: The old republic GAMESCOM Day 2
The German gaming site – gamestar.de managed to film some decent footage of The Old Republic. Below is a Google translated snip from the article plus the movie: In Cologne on the gamescom there is Bioware’s highly anticipated online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic to Preview. Michael Graf has looked at the demo, and played in the video with a Trooper – even if he had to create for themselves a real Storm Trooper. Michael’s impressions and the video with the scenes, see below or in our gamescom area..
Space Combat trailer!
If you are curious about Star Wars: The Old Republic’s space combat (let’s face it, who isn’t?), BioWare has posted a space combat trailer that will feed your need! Just as expected from the information that has been floating around the net, space combat does appear to be fast paced mission scenarios meant to give players a taste of something a little different than typical ground combat. While SWTOR won’t be releasing with the option to explore space in any sort of open format, BioWare has stated some possibility of future space gameplay. Check out the SWTOR space combat trailer and let us know what you think! Will you be hunting down these missions in game to get your chance to pew pew your way through space? Share your thoughts below.
Space Combat Details
It seems that the German magazine PC Action has been released with details on the space combat in The Old Republic. And to say that the official forums have exploded over it is probably an understatement. The gist of it is that it seems that space combat in The Old Republic isn’t the X-Wing, Tie Fighter or even the Jump to Lightspeed type gameplay that everyone was hoping for, but rather more of an on-rails shooter meant for the more casual gamer. SWTOR-Station has the (translated, you might have to click the English flag first) details both on Space Combat as well as some further class details (nothing shocking there though). Here are the space combat details from SWTOR-Station: Sprace Combat reminds of Rebel Assault We call this gameplay “tunnel shooter”. That means there are especially designed levels which make you follow a certain path. The player has a range…
BioWare Announces Space Combat for SWTOR
A big question among SWTOR fans has been, will the game feature in space combat? That question has been answered at this year’s San Diego Comic Con with a very big “YES!”” First, thank you to all of you who participated in our Comic-Con Reveal mission! While we didn’t quite make the numbers, we definitely saw how excited the community is about this and how everyone came together. After all of that, there’s no way we could hold back with our special reveal at Comic-Con! If you’ve been following the news coming out of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ panel at Comic-Con International, you’ve heard the announcement that we will indeed have Space Combat as part of the TOR experience! But what does that mean? Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to…
Star Wars: The old Republic – E3 Multiplayer Demo
This week’s Friday update brings us a Multiplayer Demo from E3. This demo is an edited versino of the Video G4 hosted a few weeks ago. In this first-glimpse video Dallas Dickinson, the Director of Production, examines the core roles for SWTOR group missions. Dickinson explains the possible functions each class can have: the Trooper can be a tank, the Jedi Knight as an off-tank, the Jedi Consular works primary healing, with the Smuggler covers the DPS and alternate healing. Commander Narlock readies his troops for an Imperial assault. As he does, all four Republic classes; a Jedi Consular, Jedi Knight, Smuggler, and Trooper join together to assist in fighting off the attack. Watch as each player does his or her part to take on the enemies, and beat the Imperial Troopers and Imperial Breach Droids. Is it just me, or is anyone else concerned about the “class = role”…
Dev Diary: Combat in STAR WARS: The Old Republic
We usually get our dose of Star Wars: The Old Republic news on Friday, but GameTrailers recently managed to get their hands on an exclusive developer diary featuring BioWare and LucasArt developers detailing combat in the game. What’s even better, there’s more in-game combat video. Ever wonder why anyone would want to play anything but a Sith or Jedi? Find out from the team creating the classes themselves. [UPDATE] And the official news is live: Whether you dream of beating the odds with just your luck and a blaster, or imagine restoring order to the galaxy with Force powers and a Lightsaber, you’ll have your chance in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. We’ve talked a lot about how The Old Republic is innovating on storytelling in MMOs, and now we want to share with you how combat in The Old Republic will deliver a new level of excitement for fans….
GDC 2010 Wrap up
With GDC last week, even though Star Wars: The Old Republic had no specific presence, there were a number of interviews and details popping up all over the web. In particular from the off-site event that LucasArts held where the press got some hands-on time with a Trooper. Over on the official forums Sean Dahlberg made a post listing a lot of them (some of which I already reported on before): While there were no panels this year specifically related to The Old Republic during Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010, there are a few panels that consisted of BioWare developers. There was also an off-site event specifically for The Old Republic that various press and fan sites were invited to. None of this information will show up till early next week so keep your eyes peeled for that. We will be updating the list in this post as more articles…
SWTOR Hands On @ GDC
The Game Developers Conference was held last week and several sites had an opportunity to get a “hands on” with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Both 1UP and Eurogamer were afforded the opportunity to check out the game. Here a couple excerpts from their reactions: Story Driven Experience When playing a story mission in Star Trek Online, it’s all text delivered through a little dialog box. More times than not, it’s usually an alien race harassing a Federation colony, and you need to step in and blast them out of the stars. From the little that we’ve seen of The Old Republic so far, this much is certain: you will have many different story arcs available to your character available out of the box on day one. Recently we saw some of this in action as we got a taste of the Trooper’s story arc, and what it was like…
A Hard look at combat in SWTOR – Video
I don’t think combat has been talked up enough I think the combat advancements SWTOR is bringing to the MMO space are huge. After looking at some videos of the combat in other Triple “A” titles out there and comparing them to combat videos we have see for SWTOR you can start to see just how impressive some of the things we have been shown are. It’s difficult to picture until you see what we have seen in other MMO compared side by side with the combat in TOR. This video is put together so you can see what I’m talking about, in SWTOR Lightsabers clash and collide, effects are triggered (sparks and flashes) and blaster bolts are blocked. A cover system for the Agent and Smuggler classes could introduce a number of tactical PvE and PvP reboots as players learn how to take advantage of this system. The pace…
IGN Video Preview
IGN has a short (two-and-a-half minute) video that they’ve titled “Star Wars: The Old Republic PC Games Preview. There’s nothing new in it at all, it’s just IGN summing up in broad strokes what we already know over a composite of old footage (particularly the gameplay trailers). But it’s a nice overview and might be useful to explain to people roughly what Star Wars: The Old Republic is if they haven’t heard of it yet. I still can’t help but cringe at seeing some of the character models though. [link] to “video preview” at IGN.
Battles of the Star Wars Universe 3
This is a slideshow video of some of the many battles that take place throughout the expanded Star Wars universe and as well as battles that are seen in the Star Wars movies. I have used photos taken from comics, movies, novels, tv shows, and video games. The music used in this video includes: -Throne Room & End Title The battles featured in this video include: Galactic Civil War – 7 ABY – Battle of Tantive V Galactic Civil War – 7.5 ABY – Battle of Selaggis Galactic Civil War Thrawn Campaign – – 9 ABY – Battle of Obroa-skai Galactic Civil War Thrawn Campaign – 9 ABY – Battle of Sluis Van Galactic Civil War Thrawn Campaign – 9 ABY – Battle for the Katana fleet Galactic Civil War Thrawn Campaign – 9 ABY – Third Battle of Coruscant Galactic Civil War – 10 ABY – Fourth Battle of…
Battles of the Star Wars Universe 2
This is a slideshow video of some of the many battles that take place throughout the expanded Star Wars universe and as well as battles that are seen in the Star Wars movies. We have used photos taken from comics, movies, novels, tv shows, and video games. The music used in this video includes (in order): Battle of the Heroes The Imperial March The Force Theme Duel of the Fates Watch in higher quality The battles features in this video include (note: The name of the battles are set in the conflict, year, battle and/or sub conflict): Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Battle of Kashyyyk Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Battle of Coruscant Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Battle of Utapau Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Battle of Mygeeto Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Battle of Felucia Clone Wars – 19 BBY – Second Battle…
Battles of the Star Wars Universe 1
This is a slideshow video of some of the many battles that take place throughout the expanded Star Wars universe and as well as battles that are seen in the Star Wars movies. We have used photos taken from comics, movies, novels, tv shows, and video games. We used several Star Wars songs in this video which include (in order): Main Title & Rebel Blockade Runner The Asteroid Field The Emperor Arrives Battle of the Heroes The battles features in this video include (note: The name of the battles are set in the conflict, year, battle and/or sub conflict): Great Hyperspace War – 5000 BBY – Battle of Coruscant Great Hyperspace War – 5000 BBY – First Battle of Korriban Great Sith War – 3998 BBY – Naddist Uprising (aka Freedon Nadd Uprising) Great Sith War – Krath Holy Cursade – 3997 BBY – First Battle of Empress Teta Great…
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 Quote: 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…
SW:TOR in Total PC Gaming UK Magazine
I went to buy my Christmas cards today and as I walked past the magazine rack in the store I noticed that one magazine had “Exclusive Star Wars the Old Republic” in big, bold letters on the cover, on top of an image of a Jedi that I hadn’t seen before. Picking up the magazine (which turned out to be “Total PC Gaming”) found that it had a five-page preview (not counting the title page). And since it includes the last two classes it’s definitely new. So I bought the magazine. The magazine comes with a DVD containing screenshots and videos of the game (some 45minutes worth), but it’s nothing you haven’t already seen. All the screenshots can be found on the official website as well (a number of them fairly old in fact). The videos consist of the cinematic trailer from E3, the gameplay walkthrough from CamesCom and the…
The Old Republic PAX 2009 Live Presentation
The LucasArts/BioWare live presentation from PAX 2009 in its entirety. In this part we look at the bounty hunter and smugler. Different from other prensations we see a female BH. In this part we take a look at the Sith Warrior. In this part we take a look at the Sith Warrior and a Bounty hunter in action. In this presentation we make some other choices then in the previus videos on youtube. Intresting to see.
Star Wars The Old Republic: Ingame Walkthrough (Gamescom 09)
20 amazing minutes of Bioware’s latest Star Wars masterpiece. Facebook readers can watch the movies here