I can’t wait anymore! So close and it driving me crazy, I really love reading everyone’s opinion or predictions of what might happen but it’s 2011, YAY! Two years of being in aggravating pain in anticipation for the ultimate game of the next decade or this decade now. If SWTOR doesn’t release soon I’ll harakiri myself with bothan stunner. OK, that’s off my chest, I’m ready for my review now 🙂 Will Star Wars: The Old Republic it be the greatest game everyone is waiting for? Yes! I want it to. No surprise there, but if it doesn’t go well all hell will break loose and I mean that literally I will grab my plastic lightsaber and start seeing everyone else Bantha Fodder. But of coarse if it does go well you won’t see any mmo lovers or Star Wars enthusiast (which are almost the same category with a few…
News
Buy Cheap Star Wars: The Old Republic Credits… WTF?
Here is something strange. There is still a few month until Star Wars: The old republic will be released, but already the gold-sellers are setting up there shops ( and spamming my inbox). This morning I got a mail about Swtorcreditsale.com selling 1000 credits for only 10$ – what a bargain! They also have a professional Star Wars The Old Republic items Online store, that provide us with a wide range of SWTOR items. I’m sure there will be plenty of gamers willing bankroll their way to a uber character, but do we know anything about the games currency system yet? Do we have imperial and republic credits? Will Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa have it’s own money? Who knows One thing is for sure, gold sellers starting up early means that they have high expectations of the game to. Is this a good or a bad thing? PS. This is not a…
SWTOR voted Most Anticipated MMORPG for 2011/2012 by Massively’s readers
Massively have released the Player’s Choice poll results for both 2010 and the entire last decade in MMOs. Not surprisingly the most anticipated mmorpg for 2011/2012 is Star Wars: The old republic in a close race with Guild wars 2. Source More surprisingly we see Star Trek online voted the best launch, best crafting, best pvp, best capacity for Role playing in a 2010 MMO and best overall new mmo of 2010. Source I’m not usually critical, but I have a REALLY hard time believing that STO is deserving of such positions in poll results. PvP and “Surprise Hit”? The best crafting in a 2010 MMO is handing mats to an NPC to buy the crafted item? It was also really surprising that Blizzard was voted both the best and almost the worst MMO studio of the decade: Source Source Blizzard may be many things, but they’re not the worst MMO Studio of the Decade. The results ended up like this:…
Friday update: Dev Blog Discusses Cinematic Design
For its final Friday update of the year, BioWare has posted a blog entry by Lead Cinematic Designer Paul Marino that explains how a scene is designed and directed in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here’s his explanation of what his team does for the game: “To put it simply, Cinematic Design is using cinematic presentation to facilitate narrative and gameplay, and heighten emotional involvement. By the use of a directed camera, we’re able to make the story real to the player, allowing them to get involved with the characters and make meaningful choices.” Marino’s job as cinematic designer is to direct the game’s cutscenes, allowing the game’s writing and characters to shine. To see how well the developers have injected some humor and atmosphere into run-of-the-mill quests, have a look at these two videos, recently released on The Old Republic‘s blog:
Friday update: Trooper’s Unstoppable Force
This friday sends love to the Trooper. Ready as always the Troopers are willing to put the Sith on their @$$. The Trooper’s Advance Classes will allow you to cause massive damage as Vanguard or Commando. Play as the Defensive Vanguard, nothing will move these soldiers back, they will throw everything on the line to keep their position from the enemy. Or as the Crazy Commando, The Sith will run from the very sight as this Tank will mow down their defenses. Either way you can’t go wrong. See more details about the Explosive Ex-Military Tanno Vik, how Zabraks are known for their loyalty to the Republic, and how each Trooper are given a high-powered Rendili Hyperworks BT-7 Thunderclap, a heavily-armored starship powerhouse upgraded with state-of-the-art tech requisitioned by Republic Special Forces. If you don’t believe me, watch the Trooper video again. You can now read all about the…
Holiday Sale on KOTOR
Hey Star Wars Fans, do I got great news for you. http://Store.steampowered.com/app/32370/ is selling Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for 4.99 that’s 50% off. That is a great deal for all of you that spent 20 to 30 dollars on the X-Box version recently or if you had to spend 40 bucks on the Star Wars Pak. Except for the pak there is no hard copy of KOTOR for the PC anymore but I’m assuming it’s a holiday special price. ( It’s on Amazon though) I never really played the PC Version but I hear with the DC you get to were your old robes, probably not the best fighting wear but it is still awesome to run around the Jedi Academy looking like Darth Revan. I love the KOTOR games always making difficult decisions on what to slay next, well unless you liked being on the light…
BioWare Doctors To Become AIAS Hall Of Famers
The Founders of Bio Ware, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, are to be included in the AIAS Hall of Fame (The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) which sounds like an awesome way to be praised. The two are worthy of this awesome achievement, for they accomplished so much in the past 14 years. BioWare has shot out impressive game titles the equal the level of baddest @$$ RPG’s. They will be presented the award on the 10th of February, 2010 in one of the brightest city in the world or possibly the Brightest, Las Vegas. This will be held at the D.I.C.E. Summit (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) which basically translates to a gathering of gamers, a Convention, or An Emmy for the truly gifted. While a gamer is earning Achievements on his or her Xbox 360 while Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk and others like…
New Bioware community team member: David Bass
Biowares Community manager Stephen Reid announced on his twitter that David Bass is the new Senior Community Coordinator for the SW:TOR team: Today’s been busy, partly because I’ve been getting a new employee up to speed on a few things… If you run a #SWTOR fansite or head up a guild (of a reasonable size!) then you should totally follow this guy as he’s working for you! Without further ado welcome aboard to the #SWTOR crew to @doctordake – follow him, guilds and fansites! 🙂 Welcome to the community David!
EA: Old Republic will have ten-year lifespan
Speaking at the UBS Annual Media and Communications Conference in New York, EA CFO Eric Brown confirmed that SWTOR will use the monthly subscription business model. He also predicted a ten-year lifespan for the game: “Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven-digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels… The key thing here is to really perfect the product. We’re shooting for an extremely high quality game experience. We view this as a ten-year opportunity.” It was also mentioned that SWTOR “…will generate revenue through monthly subscriptions” With such a highly anticipated title on their hands, it is very surprising to hear EA more or less undercut their projections. Obviously not wanting to fail under the feet of the World of Warcraft juggernaut, the publisher thought it better to keep their sales projections reasonable and instead hope the…
Friday Update: Goodbye old Wizard… Hello Sage
The Jedi Wizard has officially been renamed. Here’s the official news: A few weeks ago, we asked the community to help us rename the Jedi Wizard advanced class. Thousands of votes and many posts full of lively debate later, the polls have closed, and we have a clear winner! Without further ado: The new name for the Jedi Wizard is… Jedi Sage! Thanks to everyone who participated in the voting process. Your feedback is always important to us, so please join us on the forums and let us know what you think about the game. – The Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ team For anyone who’s been following the official poll(s) (even if just looking at them once since they were posted) it shouldn’t come as a surprise that “Jedi Sage” came out the winner. Even so I’m glad that we’re rid of the “Wizard” name and will enjoy playing…
GameStar Magazine – skeptical about SWTOR – Stephen Reid Addresses
German Fansite We Don’t Serve Droids Took the time to do a translation of German GameStar Magazine Latest Star Wars the old republic article (GameStar XL (01/2011) and GameStar MMO Magazin (Dez 2010)) You can read the full transcript here The first article written by Petra Schmitz is the more skeptical one. They are actually two articles grouped in one big preview about SWTOR. In the first part she predicts that SWTOR will have big financial difficulties, because of the big money invested, and the needed number of players over certain time just to return the investment – the whole thing looks impossible to achieve. But I’m not worried about that part. The most important second part of the interview had some good and bad news about the game Quests According to them the story is great, the dialogs too due to the voice-over and the cinematic experience. Although they…
The Old Republic Release Date Update
Star Wars: The Old Republic won’t be arriving until sometime in EA’s 2012 fiscal year according to a recent report from Gamasutra. According to the report, EA CFO Eric Brown went on the record for the first time about the targeted release timeframe for SWTOR at the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference. The initial targeted release was set to be spring of 2011 according to a post made in January by former SWTOR CM Sean “Ashen Temper” Dahlberg. EA’s 2012 fiscal year starts in April of 2011: “While we have not announced a specific date, we can confirm that we are targeting a spring 2011 release for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.” Spring of 2011 does fall within EA‘s 2012 fiscal year, if at only the beginning of it. As always, we’ll keep you updated as we hear more.
Bioware sends out another wave of beta invites in the form of a survey
Several Users from the SWTOR Forums got the following Message via Mail Here is the official Statement from the swtor crew: Some of you may have received an email from Magid, regarding a survey concerning Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. As there has been some confusion, we wanted to let everyone know that it is indeed valid. We are partnered with a third-party agency, Magid, to conduct some focused playtests for TOR. These are part of our ongoing Game Testing Program. As part of that testing, a number of emails were sent to registered community members like you who’d opted in for game testing. What to do now? If you were sent an email and haven’t clicked through to the survey yet, well, go ahead and click. If you haven’t been emailed, don’t bother asking someone else to share; the surveys are individually linked to email addresses. If you are…
New SWTOR Community Manager: Stephen Reid
Back in September we reported that former community manager Sean “AshenTemper” Dahlberg departed Bioware to join UTV True Game’s Faxion. Until now duties have been filled by other community representatives like Joanne Laroche and Alyson Bridge. Yesterday we learned who would be taking the place after Mr. Dahlberg as Community Manager, and this is no other then Stephen “Rockjaw” Reid. Hi. My name’s Stephen Reid, and I’m your new Community Manager. Like probably all of you, I’ve been a Star Wars™ fan for almost my entire life – starting with the original Star Wars in 1977. When that Star Destroyer came thundering into frame, the unforgettable John Williams’ score blasting out in futuristic Dolby Stereo… well my 5-year-old mind was well and truly blown. Fast forward to 1999, and I made a pilgrimage to Portland, Oregon (of all places) to see The Phantom Menace on opening night – midnight showing, natch. When Darth…
EA and LucasArts Enter Into New Global Publishing Agreement for Star Wars: The Old Republic
In what amounts to a bit of publisher houscleaning, Electronic Arts has announced that it has entered into a new agreement with LucasArts that basically has EA taking over most of the publishing and marketing duties for the upcoming MMO Star Wars The Old Republic. Under the new agreement, LucasArts will continue to collaborate with EA and the game’s developer BioWare on the “design and marketing” for the game in addition to LucasArts’ basic role as the licensor of the Star Wars property itself. Financial terms of this new deal were not disclosed. BioWare and LucasArts first entered into an agreement to collaborate on Star Wars The Old Republic back in 2007 before the game itself was announced and just before BioWare was acquired by EA. The game itself was announced in October 2008. EA and Lucasfilm Ltd, announced today an updated global publishing agreement for the highly anticipated massively multiplayer…
EA Winter Showcase Update: Crafting Revealed
Gamespot is present at this years EA Winter Showcase in England. Earlier this morning they published an interview with Blaine Christine and Gabe Amatangelo from Bioware about crafting, collecting and PVP. Here is a snip of the crafting part: The crafting and collecting, for starters, is designed to fit the player’s experience in a way that is credible in relation to fiction. As Christine puts it, more or less, it does not make sense for a badass Darth Vader-like Sith skin WOMP rats in a new pair of boots in between conquering worlds. And yes, the coherent fictional basis for the low, the crew skills system. “You are the hero,” says Christine. “You make your crew work for you.” The crew consists of companion characters work as you play with your spaceship as their base of operations. From the ship, your comrades sent to collect materials and commanded to crafts while you go…
EA Winter Showcase: Big Update Tomorrow?
Electronic Arts and Bioware are back in Europe again with the yearly EA Winter Showcase. The last time we saw the Star Wars: The Old Republic team on this site of the Atlantic, was way back in May this year. Last night, BioWare’s community team took to the social networks to tease fans about “juicy” new information: We’re in Europe where we’ll be announcing new details about The Old Republic™! Stay tuned to http://www.swtor.com/ this Friday for juicy details. Is this announcement directly linked to Europe? Will they announce European testing – wich we all over here desperately are waiting for? Maby.. Details on Crafting and for many, pvp are yet to be revealed also. What they got for us time will tell, but since we normally get updates each Friday, and they’re making a special callout for this one, we hope that it might be something special.
New EA Layoffs
Earlier this month an anonymous blogger referred to as EA Louse posted an inflammatory blog claiming that they were part of a planned layoff at EA scheduled to take place later this year. While many have speculated that there was no credibility to the bloggers words because there was no way to confirm whether or not EA indeed had layoffs planned. However, earlier today Shacknews reported something that could confirm at least some of what EA Louse posted. A source told Shacknews that as many as 100 people at EA may have been laid off just in time for the holidays. Joystick later confirmed the layoffs through EA corporate communication spokesperson Jeff Brown, who explained that the “seasonal roll-offs” (aka layoffs) are a common thing following game launches. Despite that, I will call it what it is, layoffs, and not that attempt to fluff the word with “seasonal roll-offs.” This…
James Ohlen reveals a few secrets in the new Star Wars Insider
In the Recent Star Wars Insider Magazine #121, James Ohlen revealed a lot about almost every aspect of Star Wars: The Old republic. For hard-core followers of the game, there isn’t much new information, but there is a few interesting statement, concerning casual content: “A lot of people are scared of massively multiplayer games because a lot of MMOs can become a grind… We’ve chosen to avoid that. We always give the player a story to drive the game forward. One of the more Interesting part of the Article is where Ohlen is speaking about the Sith Storyline. He explains about one of the first tasks that need to be done will be to kill your master. When that is done you need to locate a jedi and corrupt him. Furthermore he is outlining how the decisions you make affect the story you experience but also effect your character customization….
Mysterious Transmission From Faint Old Republic Signal
Few days ago I got a mail about a Incoming Transmission from a faint signal. I deleted it as I thought it was random spam, but apparently I was wrong. It seems like many people on the official forums plus some of the other Swtor fan sites also got the same mail The message reads as follows: Subject: ## Incoming Transmission from a faint signal… Message Body: ## Incoming Transmission from an old Republic signal… ## Initiating trace ## Signal cannot be located! ## Receiving transmission burst… “where it all began…in a Violent display, lIght meets dark…GrEat power still remaiNs hERE” YMESCJMFXZWTGYEUSGMUHLWTARYVIEMFKLSBGC ## End Transmission ## Signal lost! ## Attempting reconnect… ## Searching… ## Searching… ## Would you like to continue searching for the signal…?_ swtor-life wrote the following about it: There is a cipher that decodes the upper cryptic sequence of characters. To help you out right away, the…
BioWare hits high on Canada’s top 100 Employers list
BioWare has been named as one of the top employers in Canada. The studio was compared with over 75,000 employers to be recognized as one of the leading places to work at in Canada. The Canadian Top 100 Employers is a list compiled annually by Mediacrop Canada Inc. The winners are selected based on a number of criteria including outstanding human resource practices, exceptional training and development opportunity for employees. Via Digital Journal BioWare Corp. is honoured to announce that it has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. “This acknowledgment is a great honour, and we are thrilled to receive this award. It is important to BioWare because it reflects our core value of Quality in our Workplace, and it also demonstrates that BioWare is an employer of choice for prospective employees not only in Canada, but world-wide,” said Joint CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka. The future for…
SWTOR – The $ 300 million Failure?
fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering A soon to be former employee of EA Bioware/Mythic has written a very lengthy post on why he/she believes Warhammer Online has failed. I don’t really care much about the Warhammer stuff, as I left that game soon after it was released. But for us the most relevant bits are where the poster talks about Star Wars: The Old Republic. And, according to the poster, it isn’t pretty: And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that? And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have….
A Conversation with Damion Schubert
The guys over at Darth Hater had the opportunity to speak with Damion Schubert, the Principle Lead Systems Designer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, at this years GDC Online. The interview is an interesting read, were Schubert discusses topics that include character creation, animations, the design of planets, class stories, and the “Legacy System”. “””One of the questions we ask of our focus groups and in our player surveys when we give them is ‘Does this pace feel correct? Does this feel like a grind to you?’ I am actually incredibly gratified to find that most people give an answer of ‘this is about right’ with ‘little too fast’ and we get like a five-five which is actually good because players feel a little like they are cheating, and that is kind of where we want to be, and hopefully that feeling will extend throughout the experience of the…
GDC Online updates
As this October’s GDC Online — formerly called GDC Austin — prepares for first content announcements, the Texas-based show has added Playfish and Electric Bat execs to BioWare, Nexon, SOE, and Zenimax notables on its Advisory Board. As this is an industry conference for folks who make games, the focus is not actually on playing them, such as at PAX or GamesCom. As such, we don’t expect any SW:TOR related news to come out here. Still a few interesting news has hit the internet. ZAM.com snagged an interview with BioWare’s Gordon Walton and ZeniMax Online Studios’ Matt Firor while at GDC Online in Austin, TX. In this two-part interview Walton and Firor discuss online gaming trends. Read part one here and part two here. ZAM: Gordon, BioWare has so much coming out, but the major game on most players’ radars is Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Can you give us…