BioWare announced via their facebook page this morning, that they are going on a road trip called Community Cantina Tour. The first meet and greet event will happen on Thursday, October 11th, 2012 in New York City. Check out the whole annoncement below Today we’re very excited to announce the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Community Cantina Tour! Starting with New York Comic Con, we’re going to embark on a series of Star Wars: The Old Republic Community meet & greets so that fans will get the opportunity to interact with our community team and developers! Before each meet & greet, we’ll be sure to publish a blog with detailed information so that you don’t miss out on complimentary drinks & food, a highly coveted code for an in-game Tauntaun Fawn, giveaways, and more!* After each event, we’ll be publishing a meet & greet summary blog so that those of you that aren’t able to attend will…
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars returns on Cartoon Network this coming fall
Clone Wars is back on the Cartoon Network for the 5th season, starting this fall. If you were a fan, get ready for all new episodes and if you’ve never watched it before, there is no better time than now to check it out. New SWTOR super servers won’t be big enough when the new season of Clone Wars hit television because I am expecting to see a huge increase in the promotion of Star Wars: The old republic once the new season begins. I mean what better way is there to bring in players than by capturing the attention of Star Wars fans? The season 5 trailer brings you Darth Maul and the Death Watch battling for galactic supremacy. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it will make you feel like you are 12 again. Check out this clip and the full trailer for Season 5. TCW: Season 5 Mandalore Preview Clip from SDCC 2012
SWTOR Course of the Force Machinima Made by Bioware
Remember when we told you about Course of the Force the other day? “Course of the Force concludes at The Balboa Theatre in San Diego as Chris Hardwick, Ashley Eckstein, Alison Haislip and Alex Albrecht live stream the lightsaber making its way to it’s final resting spot.” BioWare has a great fun lightsaber relay race where they have taken characters in the game of SWTOR and programmed them to run the relay. We see Satele Shan a shifty Smuggler, Darth Malgus and more. But that’s not all… the video also checks in with Matt and Johan from the Nerdist podcast. Ever wonder what they’d be up to in game Then Alison Haislip and Alex Albrecht talk about the Jawa Pleasurebarge, the King of Fast, and more. And of course, there is a highlight reel for those of you who were not there who want to catch up on everything that happened at Course…
The Old Republic is Coming to Comic-Con!
Yesterday Lisa wrote about Course of the Force, an Olympic torch style relay run with lightsabers, where participants will make a journey from Santa Monica to San Diego while benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The vent is leading up to San Diego Comic Con that starts later this week. BioWare is co sponsors of this event,. and will also be at Comic-Con, having a few events. Check out the press release below: ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- San Diego Comic-Con, the single largest pop culture event in North America, is only a week away! With hundreds of thousands of passionate comic book, movie, and video game fans converging on the San Diego Convention Center, BioWare and LucasArts will be there to represent Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ in a big way! Throughout the four-day show, attendees will be able to come by the Star Wars: The Old Republic booth located inside the Star Wars™ Pavilion (booth #2913). Throughout…
Course of the Force with Video ‘Nerdist’s Journey’
Lucasfilm Ltd., Nerdist Industries and Octagon have teamed up to present Course of the Force, an Olympic torch style relay run with lightsabers, where participants will make a journey from Santa Monica to San Diego while benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Here’s a fun event for a very good cause. In the days leading up to San Diego Comic Con, the official Course of the Force will take place. On July 7, Course of the Force will kick off with an event at the Santa Monica Pier at 10:00 a.m. The relay will start later in the day and end at Redondo Beach. As the Course makes its stops along the iconic California coast, Star Wars™-themed parties, contests and live Nerdist shows will cap off each day for fans to enjoy. There will also be ways for fans to take part in this history relay event with special sponsor promotions. July 7, 8 and…
The Rakghoul Outbreak is Here
We told you about the in-game event going on in SWTOR right now. If you have yet to try it out yourself, it’s a lot of fun. And there is an additional bonus- you get an in-game pet. There is a mission to earn a Rakghoul pet on completion. This is fantastic for anyone who loves collecting non-combat pets (like myself). There is also a fun video to go along with it. This from SWTOR news today: “Visit the in-game News Terminal, located on Carrick Station or Vaiken Spacedock, to discover the mystery behind the spreading plague and begin the mission to earn a Rakghoul Pet!”
Guild Summit Update and Your Chance to Ask Questions!
Attention SWTOR guild leaders: Did you get an email about your application to the Austin guild summit? All emails have now been sent out so if you applied and were chosen, you would have gotten the notice and the window has now passed to accept the invitation. For those guilds who did not reply in the 48 hour window, or those who were unable to go, BioWare will now turn to the backup guilds that were on the waitlist. So your chance to get in is still there. David Bass updates on the forums: All emails have now been sent out. Please check your inboxes if you applied for the Guild Summit, and email guilds@swtor.com if you do not receive an email within the next hour or so. For those who have been put on the waitlist, we’ll contact you sometime within the next week if a space opens up…
Guild Summit Update
For those of you awaiting news about the upcoming Guild Summit in Austin and whether or not your guild was invited, BioWare has given us an update on the official SWTOR blog. They have received the applications and should have responses coming out to everyone soon: Thank you to all of the guild leaders who submitted applications to attend the first Guild Summit in Austin. We are currently reviewing guild applications and will be responding back to everyone who applied in the next few days. For those who are unable to attend the Guild Summit for one reason or another, we’re very happy to announce that we will be providing a livestream of select events during the Guild Summit, including developer presentations and feedback discussions. These livestreams will allow players from around the world to observe and participate in some of the event discussions as well. As a reminder, the…
Pictures from SWTOR Paris Launch Party
If you were not in Paris for the SWTOR launch party, you can at least feel a little bit like you were by checking out these awesome photos from the launch party. There were droids and storm troopers and guest speakers and more! Details of the Paris Launch Party: Virgin Megastore Champs-Élysées 52 avenue Champs Elysées, 75008 Paris With Emmanuel Lusinchi, Technical Design Director. See all of the photos here. Other launch events: Austin, TX- UPCOMING Monday, Dec. 19th at 10pm CST – Tuesday, Dec. 20th at 1am CST Best Buy – South Austin 4970 Us Hwy. 290 W South Town Square Austin, TX 78735 With Studio Creative Director James Ohlen and Executive Producer Rich Vogel, as well as other members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team. London Wednesday 14th December 9pm – Thursday 15th December 100 Oxford Street, London, W1D 1LL With Alex Freed – Senior Writer…
SWTOR Launch Events Incoming
There are some exciting events coming soon to SWTOR. You can be a special part of the launch experience on December 20th with the community events announced here on the SWTOR news page. There will be events in both North America and Europe to help you celebrate the launch of the game along with BioWare and LucasArts. For example: In the US, we have partnered with Best Buy to host launch night events at the Best Buy Union Square in New York City and the Best Buy South Austin in Austin, Texas. Members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic development team will be on hand at each location, including BioWare Co-Founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk in New York, as well as James Ohlen and Rich Vogel in Austin! Fans attending these events may be able to get their hands on swag, take part in Q&As with…
Fan Site Summit 2: Roundup
We know how anxious you are to stop reading about this game and finally get to play. We’re with you on that one and as we grow closer to the SWTOR launch date, we’re trying to keep you occupied with any cool info and tidbits we can find on the game. This means updating you on the fansite summit and other good happenings, even if we’re not able to attend them all ourselves. Here’s some more great stuff from the Fan Site Summit (part 2). TORWars is especially chatty about the Fan Site Summit and have a lot to say about their experiences, including some great photos and some audios from the event. It’s their exclusive content so you’ll have to head over there to check it out. Be sure to tell us what you think! Photo Gallery: Deep Inside BioWare Austin – Part One Photo Gallery: Deep Inside BioWare…
SWTOR Nordic Immersion Day Event
Excitement for SWTOR is going wordwide! Immersion Day has arrived! swtor.dk visited the Nordic Immersion Day Event, which was also under the Star Wars: The Old Republic embargo lifted this week. There were guilds and fan sites who attended on October 15th and now they are able to share their experiences. The event was held at Inferno online, in their e-sport arena in Stockholm, a closed area of the gaming center. The event featured SWTOR fans from Scandinavian guilds who were all super excited to try out the game and learn more about it. The event began with senior writer Hall Hood showing some fun trailers, introducing the classes and the features of the game and building enthusiasm from the crowds. Scandinavian fan sites: Star Wars Sverige, Star Wars Norge and Star Wars DK have videos up of the event. Ruthless Guild Q&A Videos: And for more, check out the…
Friday Update: Signs of War Trailer & Operations Systems Page
It’s a good day for fans of The Old Republic. Not only did we get some juicy new info out of the NYCC Panel but we also get to feast our eyes on a new Trailer and Operations Systems Page. It looks like BioWare decided to let the floodgates open today with a collection of five announcements! Here’s the list: They debuted the new “Signs of War” trailer at New York Comic Con. You can watch it below. The game will now launch simultaneously in North America and Europea on December 20. Learn about high-level Operations on the new Game Systems page. Drew Karpyshyn, author of the upcoming Revan novel, will be signing books and participating in panels all weekend at New York Comic Con. SWTOR will be featured at Paris Games Week from October 21-25. The trailer titled “Signs of War” is narrated by Satele Shan and features the trooper from…
GDC Online: Collaboration Key to Effective Storytelling
Gamasutra gave us another update from GDC Online in Austin Tuesday morning and this one contained the writers at Star Wars: The Old Republic who stressed the importance of collaboration with other non-writing disciplines when it comes to SWTOR and even just to games in general. “”BioWare writers are very different from other writers in the games industry,” said Hall Hood, senior writer at the studio. “”BioWare writers come on very early in development.”” As a writer (and as someone who has met BioWare writers), I cannot agree more. In the video game industry, we writers often get contracted on to close up some dialogue after the game is deep in development, as Gamasutra explains in their post. However, with SWTOR, this was not the case. When this happens, the main story hooks are already set in stone. Writers are often used to working alone (don’t I know this one)…
Immersion Days – Stockholm
New York Comic Con isn’t the only event going on this weekend. Across the pond, Senior Writer Hall Hood, and EU Community Manage Chris Collins, will be attending inferno Online – at the worlds biggest eSports erena in Stockholm Sweden. SWTOR will be playable at this event, and the BioWare devs will have a Q&A. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish SWTOR fan sites will be at the event, so if you speak a Scandinavian language, remember to visit there sites, or ells stay tuned here, as we will do do our best to keep you updates on any news coming out from the event.
GDC Online: Taking Your Game Everywhere
GDC Online officially kicked of yesterday in Austin but today was the first day at the industry conference where Bioware developers were scheduled for sessions. One session that was especially interesting was “Taking Your Game Everywhere”. This panel featured BioWare’s Erik Olsen, Curse’s Donovan Duncan, ZAM’s Cody Bye and Red 5′s Mark Kern and was led by former BioWare Austin Co-Studio Manager and current Playdom exec Gordon Walton. This session addressed the idea that gamers want to be able to take their online games with them, outside of the game itself. Make sense, right? I mean it’s like a handheld but where you can still check in to your online game. It combines the appeal of games and apps for our smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices. This popular trend is something that game studios will want to get in on. Gamasutra has a summary of the panel which gives…
Try out SWTOR at New York Comic Con
We previously wrote about all the Star Wars events and guest attending to this years New York Comic Con, but yesterday BioWare posted an official update regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic presence there. Players who come by the booth will have the opportunity to try out both the Alderaan and Huttball Warzones. New York Comic-Con attendees will also have the chance to play through some of the Origin Worlds content on the showfloor. In addition, three separate panels will be held to give fans and medium more detailed information. Those who come by the booth will have the opportunity to experience both the Alderaan and Huttball Warzones. New York Comic-Con attendees will also have the chance to play through some of our Origin Worlds content on the showfloor. If your not able to attend the the official avent, BioWare will be holding a Meet and greed on Wednesday, October 12th 2011: The BioWare team…
NY Comic Con: Star Wars Guests & Events
A few weeks ago we reported that BioWare will have two Panels At NYCC’11. Now – Thanks to theforce.net the full program of this years big event in the big apple has been revealed. Star Wars Guests Mark Hamill – do you really need an explanation? Ashley Eckstein – Ashoka Tano voice on TCW Peter Mayhew – OT and PT Chewbacca Katie Cook – SW artist Spencer Brinkerhoff – SW artist More artist, comic and entertainment guests can be viewed here and many are also noted in the event schedule below. Star Wars Events and Panels Star Wars: The Blueprints by J.W. Rinzler Date: Friday, October 14 10:45 am – 11:45 am Location: 1A03 Description: New York Times best-selling author and Lucasfilm Executive Editor J.W. Rinzler (author of The Making of Star Wars) discusses his latest book–about the unsung heroes of the Star Wars movies: the production designers, set dressers,…
Video: Totalbiscuit – Level 14 Jedi Sentinel PVP – Huttball
At the Eurogamer Expo 2011, TotalBiscuit was able to play a game of Huttball using the Jedi Sentinel class, a heavy melee damage dealer. As always “The Angry Brit” has some awesome commentary good for a laugh. The video is filmed at 25fps, 1080i resolution, so it’s really decent footage. TotalBiscuit has commented a few times about the game, here is one of the most interesting points: There is a scaling issue, far as I can tell, due to how PvP works. At lower levels, you have too much health and not enough damage. Bioware is aware of it and they’re tweaking it, but it’s particularly frustrating with melee classes. If I’m chopping you up with a lightsabre, you should probably die. With the Trooper I can stand at range mowing fools down with area of effect sprays, grenades and such, plus I can take a beating up close and do massive…
Eurogamer Expo Gains Attention thanks to SWTOR
Eurogamer Expo’s time has come, says Patrick Garratt and it is in part due to BioWare’s The Old Republic announcement yesterday. VG247 is a media partner of Eurogamer Expo, and is partially owned by Eurogamer Network. They had an interesting write-up on the Erogamer Expo and what SWTOR has done for it in recent days. Sometimes all it takes is one popular topic to put an event on the map. This is especially true when it comes to entertainment and media. In the video game world, people, including media, are often drawn to what they know. They won’t always go out of their way to visit or report on expos, conventions or events until they are made “big business”. Sometimes an event just needs that one thing to come along to put them on the map. And that’s exactly what SWTOR did for the Eurogamer Expo. As Patrick explains in…
SWTOR will Have Two Panels At NYCC’11
Star Wars: The Old Republic is big news. Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan, a Bioware fan or anyone looking forward to the game’s release, chances are high that you have at least heard about it. If you want to learn more about SWTOR, the upcoming New York Comic Con might be the place to do it. SWTOR is popular enough that there will be two separate panels devoted to it at NYCC 2011. One is a main panel which can be seen here and the other is a Q&A panel with MMORPG.com which can be seen here but there is not currently a lot of info on what will be at these panels. Both will happen on Friday- main pane at 2:30pm and Q&A at 6:30pm. That’s about all the info we have so far but we will keep our eyes and ears open for any new…
Friday Update: Studio Insider – Combat Animation
Today’s Friday updates features a Studio Insider on combat animation and details too Bioware’s plans for the Eurogamer Expo next week. In the Studio Inside, Principal Lead Animator Mark How, goes through the process of creating combat animations, from the idea stage to a finished product. The Studio insider also features Q and A were a number of community questions is being answered. The most interesting news we get here is that Dual Speccing is something BioWare wan’t to add soon after the launch of the game. Q: Since it has been clearly stated that there will not be dual specs for characters in the game, can you explain your philosophy behind the skill trees and how you are taking into account players that want to be able to play PvP and PvE content on the same character? – illumineart A: Dual Speccing is something we want to add soon after…
Good News for European Fans: SWTOR to attend GameFest
Chris Collins, European Community Manager had some good news for European SWTOR fans on the official forums today: “This year, Game will be holding their first public GAMEFest event at the Birmingham NEC on the 16th to 18th September. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be there, allowing players the chance to get their hands on the game, from Origin Worlds, to PvP events, there’s plenty of reasons to swing by the booth and check out what we have in store. Entry to the event itself requires a ‘GAME Reward Card’ prior to ordering tickets and currently only Friday tickets are left. So if you haven’t got yours yet, you might want to order them soon. Full details of the event itself can be found here: http://events.game.co.uk/ As ever, members of the BioWare team will be on hand to talk with players, so why not head on over to the…
SWTOR Fan Friday and Gamescom Plans
It’s Friday witch means it’s the last work day of the week ( for most of us) and time for BioWare to update us on Star Wars: the old republic. Ihave to admit that this Friday is a kind of slow one, as one of today’s updates is simply an announcement outlining the team’s Gamescom plans. Attendees will get hands-on play time on each of the Origin Worlds, and lucky players will get to try out the Alderaan player-vs-player Warzone as we wrote about ealier today. The festivities taking place include an EA press conference on Tuesday, August 16 at 10am EDT. As an added bonus to those members of the The Old Republic community, we will be housing a special area within the stand where you can play Warzone PvP. This area is designed to allow members of the community to play Warzone matches in a slightly more relaxed…