It’s been asked before, back when we were discussing the SWTOR UI and now it’s been officially stated by BioWare, there will be no addons for SWTOR at launch. Georg Zoeller popped into the forums to clear up confusion on the matter, stating: “What we’ve said is, regarding the question ‘Will there be addons at launch’ is “no, not at launch”. This statement indicates nothing more than that there will not be addons at launch. Nothing more, nothing less.” So there you have it, the official word on addons at launch. So as a gamer, this brings up some interesting questions for me. I wonder what features that could be potential addons will make it into the initial launch of the game. As a long time WoW player (since beta), I saw many addons eventually become implemented into the UI itself. Scrolling combat text was an early one and quest…
Electronic Arts Q4 Earnings Live Blog
Electronic Arts Q4 Earnings Live Blog. At 2:00PM PDT (5:00PM EDT) today, Electronics Arts gave their quarterly call for investors to report results. I joined the call as a member of the media and got the inside scoop on what’s happening with EA. There was a lot of great info in this call so I’m bringing you the highlights right here. First, they reaffirmed that Star Wars: The Old Republic will ship in CY 2011. Additionally: Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launched as a Digital Service. Subscription revenue expected to rise with the launch of SWTOR. SWTOR was mentioned as a Subscription based MMO Over 1 million testers (signed up) Server infrastructure for Star Wars: The Old Republic is a significant FY12 cost investment. There was also an interesting Q&A involving SWTOR: Question: On the beta test for SWTOR, how long can a test like that last before…
Facebook Image Of The Week #11
BioWare released a new screenshot on their Facebook page for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This time it reads: After a catastrophic systems failure on Tatooine, these Imperial troops must find another way to transport their prisoners securely off-world. May the Fourth be with you!
Snark Wars: The Most Sarcastic Star Wars Animation Ever
This being May the Fourth, it was always going to be a big day for Star Wars, and as well as that great big announcement that threatened to break the entire internet earlier on today, some new stuff did indeed appear. One of my favourites, which I literally stumbled across on YouTube, is this sarcasm heavy, snarky MS Paint animation that offers a heavily abridged, but actually very funny version of Star Wars VI: A New Hope. Watch below, I think you’ll agree that the sarcasm is strong in this one. Congratulations MechOrangeStudios, you’ve just passed Sarcasm 101.
Star Wars Republic Commando Sequel?
SWTOR is quite possibly the most anticipated MMO ever, but what about those gamers who don’t really dig the MMORPG scene? Could there be something else in the works for Star Wars fans? If you remember, we recently wrote about Lucas Arts getting the license for Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games but no one has any idea why, right? Well could it possibly be for a Star Wars Republic Commando Sequel? It’s been on our wish list for years but recent news developments say it just might be true. I’m a big fan of first-person-shooters: a long time admin of some of the biggest TF2 servers and a Counter-Strike girl since before the hackers took over. :p I played Battlefront and while I enjoyed it, the game just didn’t quite hit the standards set by other shooters. But Republic Commando, now that was…
Drew Karpyshyn Q&A about New Book Revan
“This is it. No more delays. No more mystery. The novel I’ve been working on has been officially announced. The title pretty much says it all: Revan.” – Drew Karpyshyn on his blog, about his new book. Drew Karpyshyn has a brief Q&A on his site about the upcoming book Revan, which we wrote about before. Karpyshyn himself realized the extreme scrutiny he would be under by some hardcore fans. He says in his blog, “I realize in taking on this task that I’m opening myself up for a lot of potential criticism from the KOTOR and Revan fans.” Boy do we understand that Drew! So he decided to address these concerns in a Q&A on his blog. Some issues addressed include: Hey – you said in your FAQ that you didn’t want to write a novel about Revan because books on video games don’t work. Remember all that stuff…
Michael Myers’ Star Wars Pixel Posters
It’s all about posters for this column recently, and today I have some more for you, thanks to Michael Myers, who has clearly taken a break from slaying teenagers and babysitters in a grubby Captain Kirk mask to turn his hand to some pixellated goodness in the name of Star Wars. The success of any pixel art project is capturing the character (and their spirit somehow) in but a few colourful blocks, and Myers has achieved it without question. Myers, who operates under the artistic name Drawsgood Illustrative Design (and is on Twitter as @drawsgood) was already on my radar thanks to his awesome comic book related art – and chiefly his Avengers Headshots project – and he has once again put a massive smile on my face with the Star Wars posters below. So go on, follow him on Twitter, and show him some love, or even better head…
The Guild Sphere: The Dark
This week I sat down with the largest guild in all of ToR, The Dark, a great bunch of Sith PvE’ers, that even though they are so big, is still closely knit. Where did your guilds name come from? We wanted to keep it simple and after many ideas we realized most of them included “dark” so we just stuck with that. Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentance description of your guild? Were a Sith guild that basically just wants to have fun and enjoy the games story. Were PVE and endgame Raiding focuesed but were also very diverse. How did your guild come about? Our leader started the guild with him and one of his friends started the guild by themselves and within 1 day had 60 people with no recruiting! After a week the guild had 200 members, so basically by freak occurrence. What kind of…
SWTOUR Roundup part 1 –
Now that the embargo is lifted on the Austin Fan Site Summit, people are talking and fans are anxiously awaiting all of the exciting news to come of the event. There is so much information out already that it can be difficult to make sense of it all. Unless you have hours to pour over it all (like me) then here are some recaps of the top, must-see info in our very own SWTOUR Roundup: Audio: Blaine Christine and Daniel Erickson via youtube, via darthhater.com Right from the start, this audio covers one question we all have which is what they are doing to prepare for the expected huge launch of the game and to prevent servers from crashing/experiencing downtime during this much-anticipated launch. Next they speak about Datachrons and the reward involved as well as other concepts of the Datahrons and the mini games and space content that will…
SWTOR Art by Diana Mezzina
In this weeks fan art spotlight we take a look at French artist Daennika or Diana Mezzina wich is her real name. Daennika art style is much more cheerful then last weeks art by StandAlone-Complex and has been quite popular on the official forums, were she has been drawing members ideas to female characters. Daennika also does Sci-fi writing and have so far done 5 short stories over at fanfiction.net. You cen check out ms. Mezzinas website here, and her deviantart profile here. And if you wanner check out her writing, do so here Sith Inquisitor Mirialan engineer/Bounty Hunter. Let the Sith win Young Zabrak Jedi Dar Kyram Tara-Willow’s Seren No Escape
Pitchblack Games seeking testers for new HeroEngine MMO
I love to beta games. It’s been a hobby of mine since I was a young girl. As soon as I had my own gaming PC, I signed up for each and every beta I could get and I have found myself accepted to a great number of them. So when I heard that Pitchblack Games was seeking testers for a new HeroEngine MMO, I was intrigued. There’s really not a lot of information about the game yet, which as of now, has no title, but it seems like it’s really in the alpha-alpha stages of development and far from what you would call a beta test. Other than the potential Sci-Fi theme, it could be anything. They’re calling it an MMORPG and not an MMOFPS but that’s about all the hint we get as this stage in the game. So if you’re looking to get in on the ground…
The Best Alternative Star Wars Movie Posters
Last week or so, I mentioned in a post on Strong Stuff’s new retro Star Wars poster that the culture of fan-made alternate movie posters is one of my favourite developments of the internet era, and the article got me thinking. A while back, over at ObsessedWithFilm (where you can find my movie related ramblings) I compiled a list of the best alternative Pixar posters, and was surprised at the sheer number to be found online. That surprise was nothing compared with what I felt when I started getting down to the serious business of researching this column, as I uncovered and rediscovered hundreds (probably more like thousands in fact) of fan- and artist-made alternative Star Wars movie posters. This then, is the first fruit of that “research”. I plan this to be a regular column looking at the best in alternative Star Wars posters, some infamous, some we’ve seen…
Fan Site Summit screenshot collection.
At last weeks fan´site summit, all the attending websites was given there own unique screenshot to show on their website. Since it has been out for about a week I thought it was OK for us to post them here also. So for your viewing pleasure, I give you the complete collection of Fan site screens: ToR-Talks screenshot: Nikto on Nar Shaddaa SWTOR-UK got a screenshot of Coruscant TORWars shows off Balmorra SWTOR-Life shows of Nal Hutta? SWTOR-FR got a screenshot of Nar Shaddaa Torcast shows some Jedi vs. Sith combat SWTOR.eu got another screenshot of the same combat … And so did Darth Hater Old Rep.de got a nice screenshot of Nar Shaddaa … And so did Corellian Run Radio TORSyndicate got Trooper and Smuggler action … And so did Ask a Jedi And I think that’s it Via TorWars
Know your Lore: Queen Amanoa
Amanoa was the Queen of Onderon from 4,018 BBY until her death at the end of the Beast Wars between the rulers of Iziz and the Beast Riders from the planet’s wilderness. The wife of King Ommin and the mother of Galia, Amanoa’s reign saw drastic changes for Onderon’s role in the Galaxy. Together with her husband, Amanoa was beguiled by the specter of the long-dead Dark Lord Freedon Nadd, and became an apprentice of him in her final years. However, when she requested help from the Jedi Order in bringing the conflict on her planet to an end, Amanoa’s clandestine activities under Nadd’s tutelage came to light. Jedi Master Arca Jeth and his apprentices ultimately triumphed over the Dark Lord’s influence and helped to negotiate peace between the factions of the Beast Wars. The once-proud Queen of Onderon joined her Sith master in death and exile in a burial…
Countdown Begins For Star Wars Blu-ray Details
Proving that there’s somebody out there that can generate worse puns than me, Lucasfilm sent an e-mail message out over the weekend hinting that all the details of the Star Wars saga Blu-ray sets will be revealed on May fourth. The e-mail points to the “May the 4th Be With You – Star Wars Countdown page” on StarWars.com. Underneath the timer is the simple phrase “All Will Be Revealed.” To spare you the math, the exact day and time for the reveal is Wednesday, May 4 at 9am EST/6am PST. Thus far all we know about the Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray is all six films will be available in a single box set as well as the prequel and original trilogies in their own box sets. LucasFilm has also confirmed that all-new deleted scenes will be included and previewed one featuring Luke at the beginning of Return…
SWTOR Gets a Negative Preview from Bit-Tech
What’s that? A negative review for SWTOR? That’s right; you read it correctly. Who would dare such a thing? Bit-Tech has something to say about our beloved SWTOR. We’re all anxiously awaiting the game that promises to “keep players engaged” for hours on end. However, according to Bit-Tech, this may not be the case. In fact, they give SWTOR a negative preview and express disappointment in the game after forty-eight hours of solid play. You have to take notice with comments like “It’s plain and staid and deathly dull” and “it’s one of the most boring titles we’ve ever had to endure”. This is just two of the negative things that Bit-Tech had to say about Bioware’s new brainchild. It seems that one of the things that Bit-Tech believes makes it so bad is the fact that Bioware makes so many promises about how they have “infused a series of…
The User Interface of The Old Republic Explained
A few days ago we wrote a small post about what we know so far about the User interface of Star Wars: The old republic. Little did we know that BioWare will post a major update to the official blog of SWTOR, with new details on how the interface of the upcoming MMO has evolved during development. This new essay, penned by lead UI artist Michael Voigt, delves into how the dream-weavers at BioWare Austin strived to keep screen clutter to a minimum. We used the analogy of the cockpit of a steam locomotive compared to a modern sports car. The locomotive had indicators and dials jumbled in all corners of the cockpit and the sports car had a sleek driver dash containing all the necessary indicators in an organized layout… Our game features beautiful scenic vistas and we wanted the user interface to complement those and not take away…
Group Q&A Sessions with Developers Recaps
The embargo has been lifted from the Austin Fan Site Summit and people are talking! The Q&A session with developers is one of the most interesting pieces of revealed content so far. If you wanted to know more about SWTOR, then this is a don’t miss. The question and answer sessions covered a range of topics relevant to the developer answering questions at the time. Blaine Christine & Daniel Erickson are always fun to listen to and get you really excited about the game. Damion Schubert answers some other important questions but brings possible disappointment regarding some guild features. As part of a guild that is registered for SW:TOR I agree with others who were a little bummed that a guild leveling system (a-la WoW and LOTRO) doesn’t seem to be a top priority and instead is on the “board of cool things we’d like to…
SWTOR Sith Warrior Progression Trailer
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. These are the emotions the Sith Warrior channels to purge weakness from his body and become a cold-blooded, Force-wielding wrecking machine. Check out the class progression overview for Sith Warriors below:
Existential Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope(Lessness)
A couple of days ago we received an email from YouTuber OneMinuteGalactica which was both unassuming and incredibly intriguing at the same time. Here, judge it yourself: Hi. I was just wondering if you’d be interested in linking to a new Star Wars video I posted. It’s sort of what Star Wars would be like if the dialogue had been written by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Star Wars and Existentialism? I still can’t quite work out whether OMG is a genius or a wierdo, but his video certainly works, adding a typically Satrian darkness and bleakness to proceedings that fits quite well with the Dark Side’s overall ethos. OMG has re-dubbed a section of Episode IV: A New Hope in French, with Sartre’s philosophical musings appearing in English subtitles to accompany it. And the result is surprisingly fun for someone who mourns the pointless nature of existence. Obviously didn’t have…
The Guild Sphere: Jen’Jidai
This week I sat down with some of the members and leadership of Jen’Jidai” a hardcore RP guild covering PvP and PvE Where did your guilds name come from? Jen’jidai is Sithanese for “Dark Jedi” Can you give me a quick 2-3 sentence description of your guild? Jen’Jidai (Meaning Dark Jedi in ancient Sithanese) is a Sith based RP/PvP-PvE guild for the MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. This guild is a chapter of the multi-gaming network; Legend-Gaming. How did your guild come about? Due to the lack in choice of great MMORPG’s around the time of the MMO Darkfall’s inception, we were looking for the next big game. We then soon stumbled onto SW:ToR. What kind of play style do you focus on? PvE, PvP, RP? All three. What is your guild set up? How do you run your guild? Jen’jidai is a community first and foremost. With that…
BioWare Announces Jeff Hickman to be Executive Producer, Live Services
For those of you who have been wondering who will fill BioWare Austin’s Co-Studio General Manager Gordon Walton’s shoes, we now have an official answer. BioWare announced that Jeff Hickman will be Executive Producer of Live Services for SWTOR. During the Fan Site Summit event, Stephen Reid explained that Jeff Hickman joined BioWare to take on the role left open by Gordon Walton’s departure. Hickman is known for his roles in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and Dark Age of Camelot. However, some fans are concerned about his role in SWTOR after the somewhat flop of WAR and the early launch problems the game had. But maybe the skeptics are being just a little too tough on Hickman. I mean, WAR struggled for many more reasons than just that and Hickman was not solely responsible for the issues that happened anyway. He was just following orders on what he was…
First Embargo on the SWTOR Fan Site Summit Drops
This week could mean big news for SWTOR fans all over the globe as the first embargo on the SWTOR fan site summit drops this week. This means those site representatives who attended will be able to start posting information about what they experienced at the summit. Since there was a wide variety of people who attended, it should make for a good variety of opinions and viewpoints on the content from the summit and help all of us gain better insight into what we expect from the game. As we all anxiously await the release of SWTOR, any news is good news at this point and fans will scramble for even the tiniest bit of new information about the game. So what can we expect from the first embargo dropping? It sounds like we will see information on the content that was played at the event, which will include…
LucasArts licenses Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games
In a press release by GamaSutra, it was announces that LucasArts signs a multi-year, studio-wide Unreal Engine 3 Licensing Agreement from Epic Games. The press release states: LucasArts and Epic Games, Inc. announce a long-term, studio-wide agreement for LucasArts to develop multiple projects using Epic Games’ award-winning Unreal Engine 3 for the engine’s supported platforms. “”Unreal Engine 3 is a forward-looking solution that shortens the path between inspiration and execution on a wide variety of gaming platforms,” said Zak Phelps, director of technology at LucasArts. “We are thrilled to add another exceptional tool to our technology mix.” “”LucasArts is now primed to capitalize on Unreal Engine 3’s ability to scale across platforms, from mobile, through PC and console all the way up to the next generation of games,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “”We can’t wait to see what happens when LucasArts combines their talented workforce and…