Every year robot builders, inventors, MythBusters and craftsters gather for a giant celebration of science geekery called Maker Faire. And you can’t have a robot gathering without our friends the Bay Area R2 Builders Group showing up to inspire Star Wars fans of all ages to make their own astromech sidekick. The astromechs were out in full force spinning, whirring and beeping at the crowd that constantly followed the R2 units or came to visit them in the robot area of the fair. Even amongst the other iconic robots from Lost in Space and The Forbidden Planet, and the impressive Tesla Coils, the R2 Builders were the real stars of the fair. Every time I follow around R2 and his makers around Comic-Con, WonderCon, Celebration, and Maker Faire, I love to see kids pose with, hug, kiss, pet and even have full conversations with R2-D2. He might just be the…
Companions and Sith Advanced Class Details Revealed for SWTOR
It’s Friday again and that means its time for another BioWare update for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Most of what this Friday update brings has already been revealed over the last day by other sites (particularly IGN and GameSpot), but it’s nice the see on the official site regardless. And with a few new snippets here and there (such as a new biography page). This week’s update is all about those lovable little companions players will get symbolic of the Han and Chewie relationship. If you want to know how these companions will help your character develop there is a whole wealth of information now available on the Companions page. Every Star Wars™ hero needs a companion. Han has Chewie, Luke has R2-D2 — even Jabba has the cackling monkey lizard Salacious B. Crumb. These characters will complement your strengths or weaknesses, and provide company for the epic journey…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Sith Warrior Video
Bioware have leaked a recruitment video for the Sith Warrior. So far it has only been available in low quality at gamespot, but I manage to snitch a high quality version and uploaded it to youtube: As nail-biting as the trailer is, that is not all. Notice at 1:15 of this exciting video trailer, the Sith Warrior is driving a speeder bike. What does this mean? Are players going to have vehicles in SWTOR? We do not have the answer, but given the footage in this trailer, the answer looks positive.
IGN Interviews BioWare on Companions
IGN has an intresting interview with James Ohlen about the companions in Star Wars: The Old Republic: IGNPC: Companions have been part of BioWare games from Mincs to Liara. How has the role or design of companions evolved over the years? How will The Old Republic improve on the existing companion systems? What have you learned about players’ expectations for the companions? James Ohlen: Companions have evolved a lot since the days of Minsc and Baldur’s Gate. In Baldur’s Gate the companion characters we created were limited to voice over barks and a little bit of story. In Baldur’s Gate 2 we expanded that significantly, adding the ability for players to get to know his companion through intricate conversation trees, companion centered quest lines and romances. Occasionally we wouldn’t have companions as part of our initial design (Neverwinter Nights and Jade Empire were examples of that), but we’d always add…
KOTOR the Movie part II : Veil of the Dark Side by Kaydon Sentry
Kaydon Sentry’s adaptation of the video game “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” continues in this second installment of the film franchise. The crew of the Ebon Hawk travel to Manaan and Tatooine in search of the next Star Maps – artifacts that will lead them to the Star Forge, the Sith Empire’s center of power. As Logan and Bastila trace the paths of Revan and Malak, they discover more about each other, and the bond that connects them… Director(s): Kaydon Sentry Writer(s): Kaydon Sentry and Vadakin Genre: Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Sci-Fi | Drama Runtime: 2h, 18min and 13 seconds Country, language: USA, English Website Veil of the Dark side follows where the prequel left off. Malak’s Sith forces continues to wage war against the peaceful, and fragile Republic. The crew of the Ebon Hawk are still on the hunt for the missing Star Maps on…
Planets of Star Wars: Hoth
Hoth was the sixth planet of the remote Hoth system. A desolate world covered with ice and snow, located in the Anoat sector, a rarely-traveled portion of the Outer Rim Territories, it became famous as the one-time location of the Alliance to Restore the Republic’s Echo Base during the Galactic Civil War. It was discovered in 3 ABY by the Empire, causing the Battle of Hoth, a major engagement that destroyed the Rebels’ base and gave them heavy casualties. Description Located on the fringe of the Ivax Nebula in the Anoat Sector of the Greater Javin along the Ison Corridor, Hoth orbited the blue-white star Hoth on a wide elliptical orbit. Beyond Hoth was a large asteroid belt, known as the Hoth Asteroid Field, from which small asteroids regularly broke off, crashing onto Hoth’s surface as meteorites. The planet consisted of a molten metallic core with dichotomous crust. Its surface…
Preventing knee-jerk ragequitting through marketing machinations? Sean “Dragons” Stalzer explains.
In D-Mail #1, The Syndicate Guildmaster and CEO Sean “Dragons” Stalzer explained his passion for building strong online communities and reasoned that these communities and the “business brains” behind online games have many of the same interests at heart. This week, in D-Mail #2: Knee Jerk Reactions, Sean looks at how game developers can slow down ragequit-prone guildmates before they do something rash, and do it through, of all things, clever marketing gimmicks? Sean explains: In the real world we weigh the pros and cons of a decision more carefully than many players do in the virtual world. So we can often see examples of ill-conceived decisions or solutions to a perceived issue that were not well thought-out. It is in those moments that communities can tear themselves apart and, once destroyed, the developer and the player suffers the results. So when I read the recent news from Bioware, it was…
Leveling is, let’s face it, ridiculous… ?!?
There has been an ongoing thread on the official forums this past week entitled “Leveling is, let’s face it, ridiculous” that has garnered quite a bit of attention. It became so popular in fact that the Lead Combat Designer Damion Schubert decided to drop in and leave a line. In his post he discusses a lot of interesting faults with skill based leveling systems. Quote From: Damion Schubert Not to go into the details of what advancement systems we will have or not have inside the game but… this doesn’t always work out this rosily, without great designer care. I worked on Meridian 59, which was a wholly skill-based game, and learned a lot about the strengths and pitfalls of systems like it. One of my great pet peeves of pure skill-based systems is that they claim that they are more realistic, but they in fact can create extremely unrealistic situations…
Know your lore: Ebon Hawk
The Ebon Hawk was a Dynamic-class freighter and a smuggler ship that rose to fame due to its use around the time of the Jedi Civil War. It was well-known throughout the galaxy as a ship associated with the Exchange, and it passed through many hands before coming into the ownership of the amnesiac Jedi Revan. The ship then became instrumental in Revan’s search for the Star Forge. After Revan left known space, the ship eventually fell into the hands of the Jedi Exile, who used it on her quest to stop the Sith Triumvirate. The ship was heavily modified over the course of its life, to the point that it was difficult to determine its origins. With its extremely powerful hyperdrive, the ship was believed to be the fastest in the galaxy during its time. Description The interior of the ship was designed to accommodate a small crew, a…
AT-AT Wedding Cake!
Just when you thought that infamous Dead Tauntaun Cake was the best bit of Star Wars fandom to ever invade a wedding, here comes the toppled AT-AT wedding cake with Ewok cupcakes! This toppled AT-AT is one of my favorite cakes to date. I love the mini Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma but I think maybe the topper are the Ewok cupcakes that accompany this masterpiece. The bride, Rebecca Dudeiros, says that this cake wasn’t even made in a bakery. She had her buddy (a pastry chef herself though) Teresa Ulrich do it custom for her. Read more about this awesome cake here: Awesome Star Wars Wedding Cake (via BridePop.com)
GameSpot interview with Daniel Erickson
GameSpot has a intresting video interview with Daniel Erickson, taken during EA’s London Showcase: We speak to lead writer Daniel Erickson about the bounty hunter class and combat in this long-awaited massively multiplayer online game. Bioware has always been people of their word. When they say “not a shred of repeated content…” I get all wet inside. This is what i look forward to for an RPG. Not to excited about the rattataki. Not a race i took interest in. Hopefully, the Great Hunt of the Terentateks returns to Star Wars: The old republic. This would be an amazing storyline to follow through with.
R2D2 Be Mixin’ Dem Phat Beatz
Robots are built to beep, but who knew they could be remixed into one heck of a dance song? Thanks to the mixing Jedi known as Eclectic Method, we’ll never look at R2-D2 again without wishing he’d DJ our next party.
SWTOR Reveals Hoth and Blood of the Empire Issue 3
Precisely as we speculated yesterday, today on The Empire Strikes Back’s 30th birthday BioWare BioWare’s latest announcement reveals the icy planet as the latest addition to the game and it comes with new HoloNet details and a short video preview. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Thirty years ago to the day, Star Wars™: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back™ opened in movie theaters, forever changing the cinematic landscape. Bursting with action-packed battles, fast paced dialogue, and characters faced with complex choices, the echoes of this landmark film are still felt today. From toys, to fashion, to punk rock, its influence is everywhere. The Empire Strikes Back has not only changed how we relate to our favorite movies, but has made a lasting contribution to our very culture. To commemorate this monumental continuation of the Star Wars™ story, we are proud to reveal the ice world…
Friday Update Preview: Hoth
VideoGamer.com comes with an exclusive expose of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s next planet: Hoth. Including a brief explanation of the state of the planet throughout the time period of the game (like what players might get to fight on the typically lonely planet) in addition to concept art and screenshots. Here is an excerpt: VideoGamer.com can exclusively reveal brand new Star Wars: The Old Republic details and lovely-looking screens. Star Wars: The Old Republic, due out exclusively for the PC in spring 2011, is an MMORPG set over 3000 years before the events of the films and 300 years after developer BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic series. It’s got eight classes, two rival factions (the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire), an unannounced number of humanoid playable races and single-player RPG style moral decision making. Here we’ve got the first details on Hoth, one of the most remote and…
The Empire Strikes Back: 1950
Let’s turn back the clock, shall we? Back to a distant time in an alternate universe far, far away… The 50s! It was a simpler age of 3-D movies, and robots named Robby, Gort, and Tobor. A hidden gem of this period in cinema is a little film called “The Empire Strikes Back”, the second chapter in a planned three-part epic science fiction trilogy. While the preceding and succeeding episodes were never actually produced due to budgetary constraints, “Empire” shines as an example of 1950s 3-D space opera. The re-release of this trailer coincides with the 60th anniversary of this amazing film.
Dead Tauntaun Wedding Cake!
(501st Great Lakes Garrison troopers – Jon Leopold and Craig Provine guard the Tauntaun cake!) Look at that detail! This is so gross, yet so damn cool. If I ever get married again, I would only do it to get a frikkin’ freakierer cake than this. Like, instead of a tauntaun, it would be a giant hairless albino monkey with Ringo Starr’s face, and… and his guts would be snakes with the faces of Yoko Ono and Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin and Madonna, and instead of Luke it would be David Bowie wearing Princess Leia’s metal bikini. Julie and I had Courtney Clark from Cake Nouveau of Food Network Challenge (and TLC Ultimate Cake-Off) fame do our wedding cakes including a special cake request from me — Luke Skywalker stuffed inside a dead Tauntaun! It was certainly one of the talks of the wedding evening. Older relatives were a…
Star Wars Afghanistan Stability Chart
The military encapsulates the solution to all of our problems in Afghanistan with one simple PowerPoint slide. So leave it to Jon Stewart to explain the highly confusing Afghanistan Stability Chart by dropping in a few Star Wars references. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Afghanistan Stability Chart www.thedailyshow.com
May the schwartz be with you: Baroque Star Wars
Sweden-based artist Mattias Adolfsson creates Baroque–style portraits (think wigs and Steampunk gears with a cartoony twist) of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Luke Sylkwalker, C-3PO and R2-D2, a stormtrooper, and even the Death Star and the AT-AT! The Death Star Also known as the deadly croissant Han Solo being harassed by the puritan police Darth Vader A timeless fashion statement (you just can’t go wrong with black) Stormtrooper Fighting in style Imperial walker Bobba Fett Chewbacca Contrary to beliefs Chewbacca uses his own hair not a wig Princess Leia C-3PO and R2 D2 R2 D2 is not as sophisticated as to warrant a wig the Emperor Jabba the powdered Yoda and Introducing as Luke Skywalker: Linnaeus the botanist supreme
May the schwartz be with you: The Cute Side of the Force
Lucyravenscar managed to create a crochet pattern to sell on Etsy, the Star Wars amigurumi, a by-all-rights useless crocheted figurine with enough adorableness to destroy an entire franchise. You can find her shop here Via bizarrebytes.com
Know your lore: Jedi Exile
The Jedi Exile was created by Obsidian Entertainment as the primary protagonist in the 2005 PC and Xbox video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords . As of this time, the character called the Jedi Exile has no name, because the player is prompted to create one, or select a randomly generated identity at the start of the game. Because of this, in game characters only refer to her as “the exile.”Although the character’s canon allegiance has not been stated precisely, she is called a “heroine” in The New Essential Guide to Droids. This is backed up by the fact that, as of the release of The Sith Lords, every canon game ending has been the light side version. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide has confirmed that the light-side ending is indeed the canonical one. The Exile’s Jedi class is as…