It’s april fools day, and Bioware has a great one for us – Sarlacc Enforcer, Devourer of Injustice Think you’ve seen all the playable classes in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™? Think again! We’ve saved the best for last! Now you can realize your fantasy of playing as a Sarlacc Enforcer in Star Wars: The Old Republic! For thousands of years, the brave souls who answer to the name Sarlacc have been the ultimate authority on final judgment in the galaxy. A perfect combination of ruthless efficiency and calculated precision, the Sarlacc Enforcers make sure the galaxy’s trash doesn’t have a chance to pile up. Access the latest HoloNet entry now to see a full profile of the deadly Sarlacc Enforcer, including combat footage of the Sarlaccs in action! From the holonet I can read that this is my type of class 😉 Patient, Calculating, & Elusive The galaxy is…
News
Smuggler’s Vanguard
The first update today is the release of a short story by Robert Chestney named “Smuggler’s Vanguard”, giving a closer look at one of the characters from the Timeline. Here’s the official news: Get a closer look at one of the most popular characters from the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Timeline series. Hylo Visz, the daring Mirialan pilot who broke the Mandalorian Blockade, is the protagonist in a new short story published on StarWars.com. Written by BioWare’s Robert Chestney, ‘Smuggler’s Vanguard’ tells a story from Hylo’s past, when she was contracting on a high profile job for the Hutt crime cartel. Caught between two of the Hutts’ most brutish goons and a suspicious Corellian corporation, Hylo is forced to rely on her instincts and her luck to squirm out of a difficult situation and find a way to profit against the odds. Check out ‘Smuggler’s Vanguard’ on StarWars.com now!
Launch site for SWTOR?
I read a story this morning and it looks like some members of the swtor forum have found a “launch site” for SWTOR! The link can be found below.. You have to login with your account information and when you login there will be a message in red that says “No game servers are currently available for play.” This is obviously going to be the site where the beta will be played 🙂 This is super exciting to all of us who have been waiting for the beta and for the launch of next year.. This site proves to us that they are making more and more progress with the game… They’re setting up the servers and getting everything ready for a nearing beta launch and we will possibly hear an official launch date very soon 🙂 So what do YOU think that this could mean? Leave your comments below!…
EA are looking to get 2 million subscribers for SW:TOR
IndustryGamers reports that, according to one analyst, EA are looking to get 2 million subscribers when Star Wars: The Old Republic releases next year: Between major successes like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, BioWare has quickly become one of the most important studios throughout all of Electronic Arts since the publisher acquired the RPG specialists. EA has already indicated that the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO is the “largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company,” and it’s quite clear that expectations for this title are huge. Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia recently came away from a meeting with EA and reported that although “earnings are somewhat depressed due to ongoing expenses of the Star Wars MMO, management has high hopes for this and believes 2M+ subs is possible.” He added that a little over 1 million subscribers is needed to reach the break-even…
New SWTOR Planet! Belsavis
Hey guys… Today they just announced a new planet that will appear in Star Wars: The Old republic! This planet is going to be awesome.. As you will read below, this planet is where many Sith Lords, Mandalorians, and creations of Sith alchemy were sent to be imprisoned during the Great War. The Imperial forces will give it their all to free them but the Republic is going to do THEIR best to keep the evil forces contained.. Read on! Republic knowledge of Belsavis predates the Great Hyperspace War, but for centuries, the planet warranted little attention. With the exception of some unusual volcanic activity, the planet was deemed, in all ways, unremarkable. Belsavis was added to the star charts then summarily dismissed as nothing more than another curiosity of the Outer Rim. Fifty years ago, while investigating the planet’s tropical rifts that seemed to defy the ice shelves in…
SWTOR is EA’s “largest ever” project
Though this should come as no surprise to anyone, Eurogamer is reporting that Star Wars: The Old Republic is EA’s largest ever project. Their text: BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is the most expensive game ever created at EA. The publisher’s chief banker Eric Brown described the MMO as the “largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company””. He said a packaged game usually costs around $30m to make at EA, but “any MMO costs significantly more than that”. When asked by a member of the Wedbush Morgan Securities audience in New York today how the cost compared to World of Warcraft, Brown said Blizzard spent “$100 million, perhaps more” to ship the game in 2004. “That’s lifetime [research and development] to actually ship it and obviously then there’s maintenance subsequent to ship and expansion packs,” Brown added. These days, WOW makes around $100m a month…
Returning to Taris
Once home to a sprawling planet-wide city, Taris was razed long ago by the Sith Lord Darth Malak while seeking to eliminate the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan. Now, a post-apocalyptic Taris is being realized in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. After 300 years, Republic and Jedi leaders are moving forward with the efforts at colonization. Watch insights from James Ohlen, Drew Karpyshyn, Scott Carpenter, and Mark How about the new environments – and adventures – awaiting players in Biowares latest Developer Dispatch: Returning to Taris:
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…
Threat of Peace, Issue #19
The nineteenth issue of Threat of Peace™ marks the start of the third chapter in the story, beginning with the Bounty Hunter Braden returning from his visit to Coruscant. Reporting in, Braden gets further orders from Nok Drayen, and an insightful question. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Tavus meets Jedi Knight Fortris Gall in the ruins of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. The truth about the recent attacks begins to unfold. Fans of the series will be pleased to know that the Star Wars: The Old Republic: Threat of Peace webcomic will be published as a graphic novel by Dark Horse Comics in Spring of 2010. The book will comprise all issues of Threat of Peace as well as all new, previously unreleased content. Additional materials will include all-new cover art and previously unseen sketches from the comic as well as concept art from the Star Wars: The Old Republic video game. Liner…
The battle for Balmorra!
BioWare has released details on a new playable world for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Balmorra is a wore-torn world caught in the conflict between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic. With forces decimated on both sides, the two factions use the world as a recruiting ground to enlist more help for the war. Balmorra is a world specializing in the building of droids. Its location puts it right in the middle of the conflict between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic: Add to Favorites Myspace Digg.com Facebook Del.icio.us Google Bookmarks Due to escalating tensions on the devastated, war-torn world of Balmorra, both the Sith Empire, and the Galactic Republic are looking for new recruits to ship out! Be sure to get caught up on the newest playable planet in the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ universe! Find out more about the story and struggle of this…
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™ E3 Highlights
Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) kicked off at E3 with the help of the local 501st Legion. Championed by costumed Jedi and Sith from the Old Republic era, Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder and General Manager/CEO of BioWare and General Manager/Vice President of Electronic Arts Inc., and Darrell Rodriguez, President of LucasArts, revealed the first TOR cinematic trailer, “Deceived”, at the 2009 EA Press conference. At the TOR booth, the team took E3ers through the first live demo featuring a closer look at the game’s newly revealed class, the Smuggler, as well as the combat, flashpoint, cover, and multiplayer dialogue systems. Highlighted features from the demo: TOR will be the first fully voiced MMO – Every playable character (male and female) and every non-playable character in the game will be brought to life by voice actors – resulting in several thousand speaking roles and hundreds of thousands of recorded lines…
Star Wars The Old Republic Ingame Gameplay Footage + what we know so far
Info General: * Only being released for PC, no consoles * Seems that the Game has PvE Mode and a PvP Mode – SifiWire * Graphics are great and smooth – Mentioned in Multiple Reviews * The interface seems standardised. Hot keys on a UI Bar. – 1UP * The Majority of the Game can be done without Any help from anyone else – StarWarsMMO Demo * Space Experience will be in game, its still being worked on – Machinima * Subtitles for alien speech. – EuroGamer * BioWare is currently indicating that it will be unwilling to let players skip or read dialogue scenes- EuroGamer * The UI Can be customised!- StarWarsMMO * Naming Filters include not being able to have numbers, special characters or Star Wars names – StarWarsMMO Demo * Full Voice overs for all NPC, Companions and some extent our characters (There is a mention in…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Focuses on the Player, Says BioWare
The MMORPG genre is a pretty big one, but one of the most popular themes that appear on this market is the space one. Although EVE Online is currently the most popular space-themed game, a lot of other titles are beginning to show promise and will certainly make this genre very popular. One of the most ambitious projects is the Star Wars: The Old Republic title, which is currently being developed by Electronic Arts’ BioWare studio, makers of the original RPG series Knights of the Old Republic, and LucasArts, the owners of the Star Wars IP (Intellectual Property). Even though fans are eagerly anticipating any tidbit of information, the developers haven’t really made any big statements, only saying that it will dominate the space-themed MMORPG genre, and that it will make a big dent in the World of Warcraft user base. However, Greg Zeschuk, one of the co-founders of the…
Design Q&A – Lightsabers, The Force, and Space Combat
Exclusive SWTOR Design Q&A – Lightsabers, The Force, and Space Combat What kind of level cap do you have in mind? James Ohlen: We are going to have a level based system, and we are going to have a level cap, When we know what that is we’ll share it with you. Gordon Walton: There are a lot of thing that we aren’t going to be able to share with you simply because they’re still in development. BioWare games go through a lot of iteration before we ever settle on something. We’d rather give you real information than blow smoke up your….whatever. When we share something with the community, we’ve played through that part of the game enough that we’re confident that it’s going to be in the final game. We’re really, really committed to no overhyping the game. Rich Vogel: It’s BioWare and it’s Star Wars. Overhyping the game…
Video Interview with Ray and Greg
After years of secrecy, LucasArts opens the book on its ambitious second MMORPG; BioWare’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk explain why it’s a bigger project than all their previous projects combined.
BioWare Blog and Dragon Age Updates!
BioWare has opened a new section on the official website called the BioWare Blog. The theme of the blog will be story-based gaming of all varieties. Make sure to check it out! In addition, the Dragon Age: Origins website has been updated with new content. See a new video showcasing how your choice of Origin Story can affect the game. New Dragon Age: Origins posters are also now available for download, and check out the Fanged Skeleton and Wynne updates, all on the official site.
A Q&A with Daniel Erickson [Ten Ton Hammer]
SWTOR Writing – An Exclusive Q&A with Daniel Erickson Are you looking at putting some of the expanded universe characters into the game that weren’t really mentioned in KOTOR I and II? Individuals like Exar Qun, Nomi Sunrider, and Ulic Qel-Droma? Daniel: Absolutely! It’s really one of the areas that’s important to us. Outside of the guy at Lucasfilm that keeps track of the Holocron – the repository of knowledge that is “true” in Star Wars – we probably have the largest group of experts on the Star Wars history. We never want you to have quest where you listen to a librarian for two hours, but we know that it’s very important to the people that are familiar with the IP. Even the things that contradict other things in the expanded universe, we’ve tried to iron out. One of the things you may have noticed in KOTOR is that…