Players have been asking a lot of questions about SWTOR companions, including how many we will be allowed to have per character. Recently Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for SWTOR, shed some light on this situation on the official forums. Erickson says, “There will be, at launch, five unique companion characters per class. Plus your resident butler/crafting/welcome home droid on the ship which is different per faction.” In his post, Erickson goes on to explain how since you will get five unique companion characters per class, plus a resident butler droid on the ship, you will have over forty companions within the game that can have more than a dozen romances, intricate plotlines and hundreds of hours of development. The possibilities are endless to what your companions can do. The storyline of SWTOR is really what makes or breaks the game so all of the staff…
Awesome Star Wars/Batman Mash-Ups From Draw2D2
Ah, the mash-up – that gloriously geeky medium that allows creative fans to show new levels of appreciation for multiple projects by marrying them together in genius combinations to create something all together more beautiful than the sum of its parts. The new kings of this world are undoubtedly Draw2D2, a collective of artists who post a series of mash-ups every two weeks devoted to two “Geeky References”, and who definitely deserve more attention for their exploits. So far the artists have mashed our beloved Star Wars up with Pirates of the Caribbean, and more recently Batman (a geek marriage made in Heaven), and the results have been uniformly exceptional. For me, the pick of the bunch, in terms of the Star Wars material is this retro-flavoured poster of R2D2 and C3PO as Batman and Robin swinging through the night sky, byAdam Carlson. The word genius is bandied around a…
Facebook Image of The Week #16
We diden’t get a Facebook image last week from the BioWare crew, but they are more then excused due to all the nice E3 Updates. But now the world is back to normal for a while and BioWare is teasing us with a new screenshot from SWTOR. This time we get a new image of the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas. The courtyard of the Dark Temple is frightening enough to keep away even those few willing to challenge the Emperor’s decrees.
MSNBC awards SWTOR “Best Multiplayer”, “Best Sound Design” and “Best Trailer” from E3 2011
E3 Might be over, but news and tidbits are still rolling in. Here is the first E3 award for SWTOR I have seen. MSNBC awards SWTOR “Best Multiplayer”, “Best Sound Design” and “Best Trailer” from E3 2011. Check out the short video below:
Top 10 reasons to play SWTOR
Domslife did a YouTube Movie showing the Top Ten reasons I want to play Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not that many of you need convincing off course, But it is a well made video that was worth sharing. I thought I’ve seen every video, every little thing put out for this game but there were some things in the background I don’t recall seeing, namely the Darth Malgus scene actually in-game. Great video and some good info tucked in behind the reasons.
Is The Old Republic a “WoW Clone”?
According to Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz, SWTOR is just another “WoW clone”. After the hands-on at E3, Cowen slammed the game, calling it “highly derivative” of World of Warcraft. Despite promises from EA/Bioware that the title represents a major step forward in MMO design, what we saw was essentially a World of Warcraft clone with Star Wars character skins and the BioWare RPG nice/nasty dialogue tree mechanism bolted on for non-player character conversations,” he said. BioWare responds to the criticism and Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk insisted the game is shaping up nicely, and its E3 hands-on showing sparked positive feedback. In an interview with EuroGamer, they counter the accusations that TOR is just another WoW clone and describe how their game is unique, again with a focus on the content. Actually, Eurogamer says they counter it but I don’t actually see any reference at…
Brilliant Animated Star Wars Neon Signs
In this modern age of infinitely available culture, Twitter and Tumblr have formed important arenas for artists and general creative heads to post their work for wider consumption, and thank God for that. Not only has the advent of social media opened the world to the collected rantings of too many unstable people to mention, it has also served a hugely valuable service for geniuses like Mr Whaite a pop artist who occasionally produces Neon Sign style works. And even better than that, Mr Whaite usually turns his attention to geeky films when looking for reference points, leading to the three awesome pieces below. Each is dedicated to one of the three original films and prove the perfect balance between simplicity, beauty and a major geeky punch. Make sure you check them out on his site, as they are animated, and it adds a whole new level of awesome. You…
More E3 SWTOR Previews/Impressions
As E3 information continued into a new week, more preview and impressions were out for us to digest. There is just so much info out there that one could spend many hours dissecting it all and determining what is really useful and what is the same old thing we’ve already heard before. Lucky for you, I did the dirty work and reviewed them all for you. Here is a recap of what you can expect from each set of impressions: Tecca Hands-on- Too much WoW-referencing in this preview for my taste. It’s a really dumbed-down write-up that reads like it was written for people who have never played an MMORPG before. (It has a section titled “an introduction to online role playing games). It doesn’t say a lot about the game itself but keeps making references to WoW and how popular it is and the Star Wars franchise and…
Scary stuff right here
I’m a firm believer that BioWare can pull the weight of this game. Electronic Arts is “just” the publisher, The quality of SWTOR comes down to BioWare assuming EA let’s them have enough time to finish it up, however the quality of the on-going service with the servers is EA, content patches BioWare again. It really comes down to hopefully enough people buy it that they won’t have an excuse of not having enough money or something for decent server/bandwith. The point of the image is to illustrate that EA has a track record of being incapable of building, maintaining and supporting their MMORPG projects and every time close them down or throw them into stasis within a year or two.
Self-Rez in SWTOR: The Great Debate
Ever since the topic of self-rez was introduced for SWTOR, there has been debate over how it will impact the game. Georg Zoeller popped into several posts on the official forums to talk about the concept, answer questions and clear up confusions. He says: “Let’s give you some details, since it’s E3 and we’re being generous The reason we added this system is that the worlds in The Old Republic are huge and a travel death penalty turned out to be much more punishing than initially planned. Our testers were quite vocal about that. Our testers also commented that they liked the more challenging content compared to other MMOs (no, Daniel’s demo wasn’t showing that, since running harder content and talking and answering interview questions is a bit much to ask of a writer).” He goes on to describe that the system was added to…
SWTOR in Australia and NZ: Delay Rumors
While it’s been discussed before, there are new facts in the equation regarding a possible launch delay for SWTOR in Australia and New Zealand. The original source of the most recent rumor? Hex from Good Game. She tweeted: “Unfortunately we missed out on Star Wars: The Old Republic- but the game’s been delayed for Australia- probs another E3 before release.” This one simple tweet would cause quite an uproar as fans wanted to know where the information was obtained from and what it meant. Hex later said the info was via their Australian PR agent when her team was trying to get a dev interview. She adds, “Only US and Europe this year I was told” TOROZ contacted David Bass at Bioware to get some clarification on this rumor nad were told the expected- Bioware doesn’t comment on rumors and “launch regions” have not been announced yet. So with that,…
New Shots From Star Wars XXX: A Porn Parody
Thanks to Bleeding Cool, we now have eight new, frankly brilliant-looking stills from hotly-anticipated (come on, admit it!) rudey reimagining Star Wars XXX: A Porn Parody. And I have to say, I am astonished at the quality. I already knew director Axel Braun was committed to making better-than-usual porn parodies, thanks to his already released work, but this is next-level work personified. Look on, Star Wars fans and be blown away… And not a penis-shaped light-saber in sight! In addition to these excellent stills, Head of Production Design on the sci-fi skin-flick Kylie Ireland – who by the way is hot enough to melt all of Hoth herself – has posted the following slideshow of images, charting the whole production of the film, on her blog: (Warning – there is a few NSFW pics near the ending of the slide) Miss Ireland goes on to offer an insight into the…
Know your Lore: Yuthura Ban
Yuthura Ban was the Twi’lek apprentice of the Sith Master Uthar Wynn, the head of the Sith Academy on Korriban during the Jedi Civil War. Even though she herself was an apprentice, Yuthura was also a lead instructor and mentor at the Sith Academy. She respected initiative and cunning in her students and was not short of either herself. Like most of the Force-sensitives at the academy, she wore the uniform of a Sith officer as opposed to robes. Originally from Sleheyron, Yuthura was a slave to Omeesh the Hutt, a cruel Master who tortured his slaves regularly. Craving vengeance and determined not to simply be “nothing,” Yuthura maneuvered herself into a position to strike out at her master, slitting “the drunken worm”‘s throat while in his bedchamber. As she fled Sleheyron by stowing aboard a cargo ship, it was inevitable that she would be discovered by the crew. They…
Daniel Erickson SWTOR Interview Confirms No Open Beta
For all of you who have been hoping for an open beta release date at E3, it’s not going to happen. In fact, what we did get from E3 is the news that there will be no open beta. Honestly, I’m not that surprised. With so many people excited to play this game and so many beta testers signed up already, there’s no need to go to an open beta to test the game. Another reason for skipping the open beta option is that BioWare wants to preserve their storyline as much as possible. The story is really what separates this from any other MMO we’ve all seen before. The story is key to the success of the game and keeping as much info about it hidden until release will benefit BioWare. In this interview with BioWare’s Daniel Erickson, he states that an open beta is not…
E3 SWTOR Previews/Impressions
As E3 continues and more hands-on demos and reports go around, we find out more and more about the game we are all so eager to play for ourselves. Here are three very different impressions from the E3 hands-on experience worth checking out: PC Gamer Tim Edwards from PC Gamer jumps in with his own first impressions of the game. I love the PC Gamer guys. I have them on my Steam account and play on their servers when they have fun events. I was curious what they would have to say about SW:TOR. This preview begins: “The E3 presentation for Star Wars: The Old Republic is about two things: showing raids for the first time, and pulling together all the disparate threads from a PR campaign that’s lasted nearly three years.” Thank you PC Gamer, tell us more! They go on to give us info about raids in TOR…
Star Tours is Awesome – Just Ask LAWeekly
One thing that perpetually annoys me about living in the UK is that we don’t have a Disney theme park here. Perhaps it is because the typically grey skies, liberally dotted with even greyer clouds, pregnant with rain showers wouldn’t exactly provide the best backdrop to the magical kingdom? Who knows. But what I do know is that my geographical distance from the true home of the Disney theme park (and not that Euro-lite version in Paris), means it is unlikely I will get to see the revamped Star Tours attraction any time soon. Doesn’t help that I’m petrified of flying… Anyway, because of such circumstances, and also because I’m obviously a fully paid-up Star Wars fanatic I have been feverishly reading up on the attraction, as well as losing myself in some of the awesome videos and pictures circling around the web. What luck for me then, that we…
E3: Interview extravaganza
Another day of E3 has gone, and another round of interviews has hit the internet. Yesterday we posted 5 interviews with Daniel Erickson as it seemed like he was the only BioWare employee who was allowed to talk to the camera. I mean no disrespect to the good Mr. Erickson, but it becomes quite annoying here him answer the same questions over and over again. So it was nice to finally see an interview with some of the other top dogs at BioWare Here is a rundown of all the interviews we haven’t covered in other post’s today: CVG – Dr. Greg Zeschuk interview Bioware Greg Zeschuk Interview “Making a different game” GamerLiveTV – Daniel Erickson interview Newsarama – James Ohlen interview James Ohlen thinks you may not ever go back to any other MMORRPG once you play SW Old Republic. It’s epic combat wherein you can play both light…
E3: More gameplay footage
E3 is almost over, but we still see tons of interviews, previews and gameplay videos coming in. Here is a list of today’s gameplay videos. jedivenn – Tatooine Gameplay (no audio) thekioskzone – Tatooine Gameplay MLG – Tatooine Gameplay [ Sith Warrior (Marauder)] TORWars – Tatooine Gameplay [ Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)]
E3: Tatooine Developer Walkthrough
So far E3 has been an explosion of new information where SWTOR is concerned, and it just doesn’t stop, thanks to this excellent walk-through video from SWTOR Director of Production Dallas Dickinson. The video takes us through the “blazing deserts of Tatooine“”, following a group of archeologists as they look for a lost research facility – and features gameplay from the level 25 point of the game. It’s exciting enough to get a glimpse of some of the story-arc, but even more so to see an early look at in-game footage of the Sith Sorceror character, as well as gameplay opportunities like personal vehicle use and the dynamics of the map. Additionally the video shows how in-mission co-op play will work in practice, as well as several of the ranged attacks available to the Sorceror and the awesome-looking ability to seeth and replenisg lost health from the Dark Side. All…
E3: James Ohlen Companions Walkthrough
Here is another little gem by Gametrailers. James Ohlen does a short Walkthrough on Tatooine, while talking about Companion, GUI and combat mechanics. Great watch with a few more answers we didn’t get in Daniel Erickson‘s walk through a few days back. Check it out below:
Fan Films: Ed Johnson Presents: THE CLONE CHRONICLES
Thanks to another creatively minded Star Wars fan with a compulsion to tell his own story from within the universe, it is our pleasure to bring a group of motion comics to your discerning attentions. The online serials – now numbering seven episodes – were created by Ed Johnson, and use Hasbro Star Wars figures to tell the story of a group of Clone troopers who learn of a secret weapon on-board the crashed ship from the Alien movies, and discover that Emperor Dooku is seeking to acquire the weapon for his own and the Separatists’ ends. The troopers, lead by Commander Cody and Captain Rex must head to the downed ship and beat Dooku to the weapon. We spoke to the comics’ creator to find out a bit more about his motivations, and why he chose to go with the action figure approach: I was inspired by both the…
First Look at Razer SWTOR Peripherals
We wrote yesterday about the announcement from Razer that they will have a full line of Star Wars: The Old Republic accessories to be released when the game is released. Lucky visitors to E3 were given the chance to see these peripherals up close, although they were not allowed to physically handle them at this time. One glaring difference between these and the photos that were released before is that they now look more white in color as opposed to silver when we first saw them. We have no real clarification at this time which color they will come in or if there is a choice. DarthHater released a video of the presentation the product managers gave on the Razer SWTOR items. Here’s an overview of the highlights of each piece: Keyboard- Has LCD buttons that are programmable for certain in-game functions. Can assign each key with an image and…
E3 2011 – EA Analyst Event
Today during E3, EA had an analyst event at Los Angeles. This event covered a large range of questions related to EA’s profile but as is no surprise, SWTOR had a large portion of the revenue stream for the company going forward. A lot of people have a lot of interest in the popularity and success of SWTOR, aside from just those of us who want to play. While there wasn’t really any new information released here that we don’t already know, it’s always great to know the plan is the same, and that they are on track for releasing SWTOR before the end of this year, as projected. In the analyst call, EA’s CFO, Eric Brown talked about how the financial performance of the company is expected to be higher at the end of 2012 when TOR has had a chance to peak in performance. He also confirmed that…
E3: Interview with Daniel Erickson x 5
Both Gametrailers and Derek Green from swtor-life have interview up with Daniel Erickson. Off all the 3 interviews, Swtor-life get the best answers, as Daniel Erickson gives us more inside on the size of raid (operation) sizes. So far it’s possible to do 8 man raids, but it’s not decided how many people will be able to do “big” raids together yet. Also we are starting to get the feeling that Daniel Erickson only got one shirt? Check them out below starting with the Swtor-life interview: Gametrailer interview from yesterday: Here is one more interview – this time from GamerLiveTV.: Machinima Extended Coverage Interview with Daniel Erickson: