The official first testing phase for SWTOR begins

The long awaited testing phase of Star Wars: The Old Republic has officially begun. The announcement was made today in the game’s Friday release and testers that have been selected will gain access to the new Star Wars universe. From LucasArts: “Game Testing for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is underway! Those selected to test will gain access to the game and be able to provide valuable feedback to help tune particular areas of gameplay and begin the process of balancing and tweaking content. Game Testing is an on-going process being rolled out in several phases. These phases began with smaller, more focused tests with community members from North America, and later will expand to other territories. Users selected for the test program will be notified via email with more information on accessing the Game Testing Portal. Those not chosen yet may be selected in the next wave! For those…

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Corellian Run Potcast #1

The girls over at Corellian Run Radio had their first podcast up yesterday. It’s a pretty interesting listen that I recommender you all to check out. Our first podcast is done and submitted for your perusal! It’s been a long haul from the first glorious days of let’s-do-a-show innocence to the in-the-trenches reality of forgetting to push the button when you record. It was great fun putting it together – we hope you enjoy it too. Check it out here

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The Old Republic #1 “Threat of Peace” printed edition on sale this week

This week marks the release of the printed edition of Star Wars: The Old Republic #1 “Threat of Peace.” This series was originally printed online at the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website last year. Writer Rob Chestney and artist Alex Sanchez help set the stage for the new MMO video game world set 3,650 years before A New Hope. Look for two distinct covers on this issue. Benjamin Carré has the jaunty Jedi version, while Attik Studios produces a Sith styled one. This is the first of three issues.

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Rob Chestney Signing in Austin, TX

theforce.net is reporting that Rob Chestney will be signing in Austin, TX. this Thursday at 5-7 pm Rob Chestney is an employee of Bioware and one of the game developers of the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online game. He also is the writer of the Star Wars: The Old Republic – Threat of Peace webcomic, which will tie into the videogame. He also wrote The Old Republic: Smuggler’s Vanguard, a short story published exclusively on StarWars.com which tells a story about an adventure of the Mirialan smuggler, Hylo Visz. Star Wars: The Old Republic Rob Chestney Signing Thursday 5 – 7pm Austin Books & Comics is thrilled to be joined by writer Rob Chestney for the debut of Star Wars: The Old Republic #1! This new series sets the stage for the hotly-anticipated massive multiplayer online game, and publisher Dark Horse went to the game’s developer…

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BioWare Has Plan For Star Wars End Game

BioWare has told IncGamers that gamers who are worried about the ‘elder’ game – once you’ve completed levelling up your character – in Star Wars: The Old Republic, shouldn’t be worried. Speaking to IGTV, Ohlen said that a game of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s scope “has so many features” that it’s hard to talk about them all. He confirmed the team were aware of the frustrations gamers feel when they level up to the max and complete all the quests, and said that SWTOR will not be like other MMOs out there. “I know some people are worried, for example, about the elder game [and are asking] ”what happens in the elder game, what happens when you get to the highest level?’ We do have a plan for that and we will be revealing it the future.” Ohlen says that because the team are all MMO gamers, their concerns…

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Star Wars: The Old Republic wins the Best Role Playing Game from the Game Critics Awards – Best of E3

In other news. Sean Dahlberg informs the SW:TOR community that Star Wars: The Old Republic won the Best RPG category on the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 list: Quote: Game Critics Awards – Best of E3 2010 The 31 voting publications for the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 are proud to announce the following winners for 2010: And if you look down to Best Role Playing Game you will see Star Wars: The Old Republic! This is definitely an honor and a privilege for us to be on the list and to win the award for Best Role Playing Game is amazing! You can view the full list of winners at:  http://www.gamecriticsawards.com/winners.html Congratulations to BioWare and LucasArts for a shiny new award to put up on the shelves

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How Stuff works: Bounty hunters

Bounty hunters were mercenaries for hire who tracked down and captured or killed anyone with a price on their head, although they were also known for doing nearly anything for the right price including the protection of clients. The best bounty hunters were very well armed and had very effective weapons, making them even more dangerous. There were, however, plenty of incompetent specimens throughout the galaxy, lacking any real skill but wishing to get rich quickly or simply seeking adventure. Bounty hunters usually worked alone, although they sometimes did form partnerships. Partnering with a bounty hunter could be very dangerous business, though, as they typically valued their personal gain—and survival—above that of their companions. Despite their fierce independence, their reputation as “Jedi-killers” made them valuable tools of the Galactic Empire. There were strong rivalries between bounty hunters and smugglers, most obviously seen between Boba Fett and Han Solo, respectively. Organization…

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The guild – New column

Hi. This is Peter writing to you. I’ll be overseeing and writing a new weekly column here om swtorstrategies.com called “The Guild” where YOU can share your thoughts on the coming Star Wars: The old republic. Do you know something about the game we don’t? Do you have any special plans or thoughts about the guild system, the combat system or even the payment system? Send me an email, and I might contact you for further information and bring an exclusive interview with you here on this column! No thoughts are too small or too big to be important on this column! Now – a little about myself. My name is Peter (As I already mentioned) and I’ve played mmorpgs since DAoC, and before that, I did a few years of mud’ing. I went on to play SW:G where I led a really large flora empire with a friend of…

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Playable Species of SW:TOR – Chiss

The Chiss were a tall, blue-skinned Near-Human civilization from the Unknown Regions, best known as the people to which Grand Admiral Thrawn belonged. Due to the remote position of their home territory in the Chiss Ascendancy they remained largely an enigma to the rest of the galaxy, and contact with outsiders was limited even in the days of the Galactic Alliance. Overview The Chiss were marked out from the majority of mainstream galactic civilization by their height, pure blue skin, gleaming black hair, and glowing red eyes. Physically striking and instantly recognizable, and armed with a typically cool and disciplined manner, the mystique of the Chiss was further increased by the remote location of their territory in the Unknown Regions beyond the Outer Rim. However, this remoteness also meant that they were largely disconnected from the galaxy-spanning nexus of hyperspace travel and subspace communications that bound together the Old Republic,…

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Star Wars: The Old Republic at Celebration V and Comic-Con

A few days ago, we asked Sean Dahlberg if Bioware will show up at Celebration V convention next month in Orlando. This was confirmed, but he couldn’t share any more details about what there plans at the convent was:  Sean Dahlberg said: Actually, we will be there! We’re not quite ready to share what exactly TOR will be doing at Star Wars Celebration V but we will soon. Star Wars Celebration V takes place Aug. 12-15, 2010 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. You can find ticket and event information at the official Star Wars Celebration Website. Yesterday Sean posted an official announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic will have a presence at this month’s Comic-Con International in San Diego! Comic-Con International is coming to San Diego, California! Meet up with The Old Republic team at the panel entitled Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story in Star Wars™: The…

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Star Wars: The old Republic – E3 Multiplayer Demo

This week’s Friday update brings us a Multiplayer Demo from E3. This demo is an edited versino of the Video G4 hosted a few weeks ago. In this first-glimpse video Dallas Dickinson, the Director of Production, examines the core roles for SWTOR group missions. Dickinson explains the possible functions each class can have: the Trooper can be a tank, the Jedi Knight as an off-tank, the Jedi Consular works primary healing, with the Smuggler covers the DPS and alternate healing. Commander Narlock readies his troops for an Imperial assault. As he does, all four Republic classes; a Jedi Consular, Jedi Knight, Smuggler, and Trooper join together to assist in fighting off the attack. Watch as each player does his or her part to take on the enemies, and beat the Imperial Troopers and Imperial Breach Droids. Is it just me, or is anyone else concerned about the “class = role”…

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No Star Wars: The old republic for consoles

Daniel Erickson, lead designer and story writer on Star Wars: The Old Republic, told CVG in an interview today, that no one at Bioware is working on a console version of the game. “We all know the drawbacks of PC. We all scream at our boxes and try to make stuff work. But at the same time, the interface is made for games,” he said. “The mouse/keyboard interface allows so much less restriction [than console]. “”There was not a question when we started Old Republic – or any of our games, for that matter – [what the lead format would be]. There’s a reason the lead SKU for Dragon age was PC as well. When we’re developing an RPG, it’s a natural place to be.” Source: CVG Update: There have been many questions about Mac support. Sean Dahlberg Tweeted a response about this yesterday: @swtorstrategies Currently we are only working for Windows…

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BioWare, LucasArts Choose Monolith Monitoring For Star Wars: The old republic

Yesterday Gamasutra reported  that BioWare and LucasArts will be utilizing Monolith Software for their IT management of Star Wars: The Old Republic BioWare chose Monolith’s solution for its ability to manage the real-time monitoring of thousands of devices at several data centers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa “We are building a large game that will be supported by an expansive, complicated IT environment,” says BioWare’s director of infrastructure and services Ruben Cortez. “When you have this complex of an environment for a business reliant on continuous connectivity, you need a monitoring solution that can manage that in real time.” He continues, “We needed a solution that would not require a large footprint so we can identify and respond at Internet speed. Monolith won us over for its robust feature set, real time dashboards, reduced total cost of ownership and commitment to us as customers.”

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Preview the Audio Version for Fatal Alliance

Fans wondering what they can expect in Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, the first tie-in novel to the upcoming game, can get a sense of the novel by listening to an audio excerpt here. The novel is written by now veteran Star Wars scribe Sean Williams and will help to set up the galaxy as fans will see it during The Old Republic game. Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance hits stores as a hardcover in July 22 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com. ABOUT THIS BOOK BioWare and LucasArts—creators of the hugely popular Star Wars:® Knights of the Old Republic® video game—have combined their storytelling talents and cutting-edge technology for an innovative new massively multiplayer online role-playing game that allows players to create their own personal Star Wars adventure 3,500 years before the rise of Darth Vader. Now #1 New York Times bestselling author Sean Williams brings…

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BioWare team totally rebuilt conversation system after seeing Mass Effect

In an interview with CVG  lead designer and storywriter Daniel Erickson revealed that BioWare had to re-think the Conversation System in Star Wars: The old republic after seeing Mass Effect. Originally the game was built far more like Dragon Age as far as Conversation System went,” he said. “”Our player characters were not going to be voiced because it’s a massively insane expenditure and hugely complicated to do. You have to cast 16 of the best actors ever and then hold them for eternity. He goes on to illustrate how the original Mass Effect caused the TOR team to adjust their thinking, as it debuted very early in the latter’s development cycle. You can read the full article at CVG.

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Blood of the Empire: Act 2 Issue 3

The guys over at SWTOR-Station came across a great find today. They found the next version of Blood of the Empire, published in german at mycomics.de. Since SWTOR-Station is a German site, they also took the liberty to translate the story into english for us. If you can’t wait to read more of Blood of the Empire, you don’t have time. This time we did not have to wait our usual two weeks for a new update, but the new issue appeared a lot faster. Still, the seventh issue of the webcomic appeared on a German comic page named mycomic.de and not on the official website. We’ve transferred the text into English for you, so simply click the source down below and read the translation here. Check out the comic at mycomics.de, and read the translation at SWTOR-Strategies

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Friday Update: Blood of the Empire Act 2 Issue 2

BioWare was a little late getting out this Friday’s update for Star Wars: The Old Republic. With rampant speculation that one of the game’s testing phases would begin this weekend, this only helped fuel the fire. I hate to deliver bad news, but the update was recently posted and revealed the latest issue of Blood of the Empire. Although the webcomic is supposed to be released twice a month, this is the second installment in just as many weeks! On a positive note, we can all find out if Teneb Kel can escape alive. In the sixth issue of Blood of the Empire™, Teneb Kel fights for his life as Lenico Colony Blue collapses around him. The Emperor’s apprentice has proven vastly more powerful than anyone realized–it will take all Teneb’s skills and resources to survive, let alone complete his mission. But can he rely on his closest ally in his…

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Blur Studio to Create Cinematic Scenes in Star Wars: The old republic

Alessandro Baldasseroni, character modeler and texture/shader artist for Blur Studio, revealed some interesting information regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic, during an interview with EUCast. While Baldasseroni could not confirm if the previous cinematic trailers would be included in the game, he did say “but for sure we are going to do more like, in game cinematics of this kind, with this kind of style for the game itself.” Scenes in The Old Republic that are similar to the cinematic trailers are definitely something to look forward to. Baldasseroni worked on designs for characters like Darth Malgus, the Sith Lord that appears in both trailers. Baldasseroni also hinted at more trailers or other work by Blur Studios for TOR, but could not go into further detail. The entire interview will be released in Monday’s episode of EUCast.

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